Say Say, Samkin and Lilypop: September 2013

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Just A Little Sumpin-Sumpin We Picked Up

More Houzz Gardens

Modern Landscape by San Anselmo Landscape Architects & Designers Blasen Landscape Architecture

Asian Landscape by Boulder Landscape Architects & Designers MARPA DESIGN STUDIO

Traditional Landscape by Pipersville Landscape Architects & Designers Dear Garden Associates, Inc.

Rustic Landscape by Winchester Landscape Architects & Designers Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design LLC

Traditional Landscape by Waterdown Interior Designers & Decorators ROOMS & BLOOMS

Saturday, September 21, 2013

The House-When Clean-is a Pleasant Place To Be

Sadly, with five dogs, two children, a mom who works full time, it ain't clean that often. So I thought I better record it for posterity while I could.

My mother doesn't like my naked woman picture. She insisted I "put something on her." So I put some broken sunglasses I had on her. I think it's an improvement. Mom wasn't that impressed.

Thank you Big Lots for all the cheap pictures and the clock. Thank you, Good Will for the lamp and thank you, yard sale for the dresser cloth.

It's impossible to take a picture in this house without a dog or two or three in it.

Friday, September 20, 2013

Celestial Chocolate Birthday Cake--A Sequence

This is some serious chocolate cake. SaySay picked it out of a cookbook called

Southern Cakes by Nancie McDermott. I tried to get her to let me make the Caramel Cake, but she insisted on the Helen Hudson Whiting's Celestial Chocolate Cake. Three layers with whipped cream filling and heavy duty chocolate icing. The whole thing has 4 sticks of butter, 1 1/2 cups heavy cream and an ungodly amount of chocolate cocoa and sugar. Of course, we had to taste it every few minutes.

This is the first time they've helped make a cake from scratch. I finally got to use my Kitchenaid Mixer again. I've had it for 20 years and probably only used it 5 or 6 times.

We're not cutting it until tomorrow when Momma and Daddy come over so it sits in the refrigerator for now. It is so warm here, I was scared it would go bad if we left it out on the counter overnight. Not to mention the unmentionable ant problem! Anything left on the counter is carted off in the middle of the night to the ant hill.

It's pretty tall.

We'll take pictures tomorrow when it has candles on it!

So we get it out the fridge in the am and it had a crack in the top center that we quickly filled with icing. I think what happened was the sides sagged a little because the center had baked higher on each layer and I had propped it up by using the white filling. The white filling settled, the sides pressed down and the top center split. But, hey, the more icing, the better.

Saturday, September 7, 2013

I've Got A Thing for Australian Houses Right Now

For some reason Australian houses are so appealing to me right now. I was in love with Swedish style houses, but Australian houses are now so appealing to me. (okay some California gardens snuck in, but mostly Australian.)