spryng | Saturday July 28, 2012 DITL

It's morning which means: time for coffee!

Lady is up and dressed before I can even pour the coffee.

And Darj' - I don't even know what she's doing. Spotted some bug by the door but is too skittish to attack, most like.

Coffee is done. Coffee is poured.

We leave with our coffees to walk as the sun rises.

We were just discussing how it must have rained last night for the asphalt was still wet when we spotted the microbursts off in the west.

Birds (and Palm Tree) on a Telephone Wire

We reach the pinnacle of our walk: the meat lab cows!

The baby cows are growing up so fast!

Lady carries my empty mug for me, since I'm so busy taking photos of every little thing.

We arrive back and: time check!

I'm pretty hungry at this point, so: mangoes! These are very addicting.

Breakfast for me...

Breakfast for the kitties.

And no weekend DITL is complete without a to-do list!

I print out the last two chapters of my work-in-progress to mark up because I've been having a lot of trouble with them. Lady insists I let her mark them up first, though.

We decide to go out for scones and coffee, so I dress up properly.

My imp for the day: smells like leather and dust. It's appropriate, or at least it is to the writing.

Then we go!

Time check.

I <3 this cafe. They have a little outdoor area that's sheltered from the sun by two huge orange trees. They smell fantastic in the spring.

Lady edits my chapters while I write and enjoy a blueberry muffin. I can already tell this is going to be a sugar-laden day.

When it gets too loud on the porch and the muffins/scones are consumed, we head to Target.

First, the electronics section to buy a new iShuffle. My last one went mysteriously missing - presumably stolen by cats - and after four weeks of looking behind furniture and under fridges, I've officially given it up for lost. I resign myself to buying a new one, with the faint hope that the old one will resurface almost immediately thereafter and I can return said new one pronto.

Then we pick up things in the rest of the store. Very exciting things, like toothpaste. I might have spent an inordinate amount of time staring at the overwhelming selection.

After procuring all sorts of random, but somehow necessary, things, we go home and have tea.

I've been putting off making more deo for several weeks, but now that I'm well past scrapping the dregs at the bottoms, it's time to look up the recipe and make some more.

Ingredients assembled.

Heating up the mixture on the stove to help combine the dry ingredients.

And it's just enough to fill my little container. It'll last about two-three months.

Check the mail on our way out again - there was some sort of spider dangling from Lady's hand.

Then to the REI garage sale. There's a never-ending line of people entering the building and the place is packed. We spent about five minutes confirming that they didn't have one of the three things we had gone there for before throwing up our hands and retreating. Too many people!

Sushi for lunch - picked up on the way home because we were both hungry and grumpy from the REI experience.

Kona was more interested in something outside than our fish, which was a rarity.

Then nap-time; too much sugar turns into a crash.

Call mum upon waking up, which is what I usually do first thing in the morning, not in the afternoon. ;)

She doesn't have much to say - she's busy watching olympic volleyball, which in turn inspires me to try and find the opening ceremonies again. I tried Friday night, only to be rebuffed by NBC for not paying for cable. Thankfully by Saturday afternoon someone had uploaded the whole thing. Imagine this four hour thing playing in the background all afternoon while I...

...clean the kitchen...

...break in my new iShuffle (I named him Eller)...

...and bake cupcakes.

Unfortunately, the gluten-free vanilla collapsed quite a bit after I took them out. I'm still struggling with finding a good mix of flours - I really like the texture of this one, with blanched almond flour, tapioca starch, and coconut flour, but something is still missing. Hmm.

the_verb and her beau arrived while I was concocting the first batch of cupcakes and they stayed to watch the ceremony and enjoy deliciousness with me for a bit.

The gf cupcakes look much better when their sunken craters are filled with buttercream. :)

Doug pops in and delights in one of the gf cupcakes.

Make her a gin & tonic w/o the gin. Because that's how I roll (at least, when we don't have tonic water).

My own enjoyment for the evening, and possibly my favorite wine at the moment.

Then it's time to concoct the filling for the other batch of cupcakes.

The finish product: cranberry lime cupcake. If it seems a little aseasonal, it's because we're testing them out in advance for fall and our wedding. It appears they have passed the taste test and will be included in the batch of flavors.

I steal a moment to copy the audiobook I got from the library onto my iShuffle. It's Asimov and Sanderson this week, a nice break from all the Stephen King I've been listening to the last few weeks.