20 Weeks & Sick

(I meant to post this on the 4th!)

Well, I got the flu, the one I thought I would avoid, since I haven't been sick in over 2 years. I don't know how I've managed to avoid getting sick (minus some tonsillitis for a good few months last year, but I felt fine, I just couldn't swallow).

Last night I think I was hot with a fever, since I dreamed that I bought my sister Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle candles from a little favorite shop of mine, and I woke up very mad at myself for spending money on some stupid lame candles, when I could have got such other cool stuff. It took me a while to realize I may have been hallucinating somewhat. The dream was so vivid.

And, just in time for Physio, I got a splitting headache and runny nose. But I'm too freaked to miss physio. I'm scared of all the things still from last week, but a slight fear of my joint seizing up, and leaving me in this constant ski-boot stage is not a nice thought. I must have hyper-vigilance. Re-reading this sounds mental. I know I'll be fine...eventually...right?

But, after some hard core manipulation on my joint, I was able to move about 2cm away from the wall, and still touch it with my knee. Last week was hit or miss, keeping the flexibility I had obtained, so I think this week might be much the same. Jessie (my physio guy) noticed that I was a lot more swollen than usual, which I have also been noticing in the past 2 weeks. I am supposed to spend more time resting than I have, and elevate my foot again.


The swelling looks so yuk, and feels all squishy and liquidy. I don't like it one bit. I have one cankle now. My ankles used to be such a nice feature, second only to my nose (which has so far managed to stay cute and little). So now I have lost half of my second best feature. But, such is life, right? I'm not going to have nice ankles forever anyway. Anyhow, I have bigger fish to fry than a measly cankle, like, say the fact that rest of my body could stand to lose a bit of "swelling".

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Eeek

Sorry for the lack of posting. I have a few half written in the queue...I just need to upload and sort some photos first. Actually, I have a few from 2 weekends ago, when I made all the cupcakes...We went to some laser tag first, then a nice party after, at my sis-in-laws pad. She's moved out since, but I love those old Queenslanders. They have such nice detail, and are so airy. I hope we can move into something like this one day. I'd really love a nice fixer-uper. Anyhow, more posts on the way...

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More Cupcakes

This past weekend was a birthday party / going away party for my sis-in-law. I offered to make some cupcakes, and had lots of fun trying new flavours, and getting a bit more practice in with the new decorating tips. My only problem is not having the tupperware to transport these cupcakes (but I found this, and want one so bad!). The party was in Brisbane. The cupcakes were up on the Sunshine Coast. A few containers fell over while driving, but only one lot got noticably smushed. I didn't take photos of those :)

But I think they were a hit. I had lots of nice compliments. But I made WAY too many. WAY TOO MANY. I didn't know how many people were coming, and when I asked about making 36 cupcakes, it didn't seem like that was going to cut it. So I made 50 something. 36 would have been more than enough. My sister learned a similar lesson a few weeks ago too. She made a wedding cake and dessert for about 200 or so people. The kitchen staff was less than competent, and didn't serve the cakes until guests had already started to leave the reception. Less than half actually had cake, so all her hard work and hours went to waste. Pretty disappointing. No one likes that many left overs. You look like an idiot. I was practically begging people to take cupcakes home, and take as many as they wanted. I learned my lesson: Get a half decent estimate of guests who are coming, and divide...

Lemon Cream Cheese: yellow dyed lemon & cream cheese flavoured buttercream icing with a large crystal clear sanding sugar dusing. Round decorating tip.

Chocolate Chip Mint: green dyed, and mint flavoured buttercream icing with chocolate chips, or chocolate buttons on top. Closed star decorating tip.

Strawberry: pink dyed, and strawberry flavoured buttercream icing dusted with small red crystal sanding sugar with a strawberry candy on top. Closed star decorating tip.

Mocha: coffee flavoured buttercream icing on chocolate cake, dusted with cocoa, and a chocolate button topper. Round decorating tip.

If you noticed, I used my new chocolate molds and made some chocolate buttons as toppers. I didn't have enough time to make buttons for all the mint cupcakes, but they sure looked cute as toppers on the mocha cupcakes. And, I used the same recipe for the white cake & buttercream as I did last week, here. Chocolate cake recipe from here. Cream cheese icing recipe from here, but made in a smaller batch, and I added lemon flavouring.

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19 Weeks

The crutches are gone now. I returned them this week at physio. And it felt great! I am now pretty much doing all normal house-hold activities. My strategically placed chairs (in the bathroom, the kitchen, the shower, etc, placed for kneeling on) are all put back to their normal places. I can now put away laundry all by myself. I can now go get the meat out of the freezer to defrost for dinner. I can now put away the clean dishes at a normal pace, and not get hung up on the cupboard handles with the wheelchair. It feels so good to be independent again.

I am sewing again, and being creative again, and I love it. I didn't realize how much I missed everything, but now I remember why not having a tv has never left me bored. (Maybe you're confused, but we live above a garage, and all my sewing & craft related things are in the garage - so is the freezer!) Everything has been difficult to get to, and I was so sick of getting Adam to do everything for me, so I decided to wait until I could do things myself, ie, being able to carry things and walk downstairs to the garage to do my crafty thingies.

But despite all the goodness, and feelings of normal (I even had a dream this week where I went for a jog!) this week has been the slowest in recovery. I am so sore and achy, and was quite swollen this week. The nerve pain is still there, and hitting me in more random ways, not mainly at night anymore, but throughout the day. I don't think it's getting worse though, but it's definitely not getting better. I didn't go for walks everyday this week either, since I think standing, and doing chores was too much already. I'm finding it hard to just say to myself that I need a break, since it feels so good to be up and about.

I am having a hard time being patient. Being so close to the "finish line", but still being so far off at the same time is incredibly frustrating. I've been feeling a bit scared too, and had a rough day yesterday. I'm scared that this nerve pain will never go away (that can happen), and that I will always feel like I am wearing a ski boot, that I won't be able to go on a hike again, or go for a run on the beach. I'm just a bit scared.

There is still such a distance to go yet. Here is my progress photo. I touched the wall this week at physio, and my goal is to keep this level up for next week. I feel a little less ski-boot-ish, but it still feels as though I am flexing in a way that I shouldn't be allowed to. It's quite painful to push this position.

I cant wait for this to be over. I just want to be normal again.

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Cupcakes

Even though I have not been craving them, how could I go a weekend without trying out my new goodies? I got to try a new cake recipe, and perfect the buttercream icing, and try out some new icing tips, food dyes, flavours & decorations.


The cake recipe is from Bakerella, as is the buttercream recipe. I found the cake slightly dry, but if you follow all of her tips, you might be able to make up for it. I thought the cake tasted best a day later, already iced. I suppose some of the moisture of the icing rehydrated the cake overnight. Also, my oven makes me mad and cooks things weirdly, so I am always scared of underbaking. But this was definitly the best white/yellow cake I have ever made from scratch.


Anyhow, I decided to have some fun with everything, and created these monstrosities. I was actually told they look 'poisonous'! But I wanted to test the limits, live on the edge (ha). I was surprised to see that even with that much colour I couldn't taste the dye. And I purposely bought a red dye, since that is usually the one you taste. (But I actually like the taste of red dye...you know, those waxy red roses from the grocery store bakery? And those red mashmallow strawberries from 7-11? Yummm.). I will definitly be buying more from Bake It Pretty.


The flavours were great too! The marshmallow was subtle, but worked so well with the buttercream, just giving it an extra special boost. Coffee was really good too, but now that I think of it, I could have just added some really strong instant coffee. But that depends on how moist you want your icing. The coffee has a brown tint, so if you want a natural coffee / mocha cupcake, don't even colour the icing. Just sprinkle on some cocoa, and put a nice coffee bean ontop, and it would look so elegant. I, of course, was not going for elegant. I was kind of going for gross, keeping the blackish icing for the rouded tip, to emulate...well, you guess. I was told as much too.



I need some more practice with the tips yet - pretty messy and lopsided right now. The icing/cake ratio is pretty awesome though. I did a few mini cupcakes, and they ended up being way too top heavy with icing, and the ratio was even too much for me. Anyhow, I am really happy with my new tips, colours, flavours, sugars and cake recipe!

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Peanut Butter Cookies

One of my childhood favorites. I haven't had them in years until I made them a few weeks ago. I remember Mom's not being so dry, but this recipe was pretty good.

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Meatloaf

Ok, I know no one really wants to see photos of meatloaf, let alone get a recipe for it, but Hubby & I LOVE it. It's the meal he chooses when I offer to make him something special. I'm serious. We've had it for Valentine's Day and Christmas. The in-laws really seem to like this recipe too. Though it's not really much of a recipe, as I kind of make it up as I go. I got the basics from my mom, who's taught me well to not rely on recipes so much as taste, or texture. And I think her memory is much better than mine, thus recipes written on cards are not needed for a few of the favorites from back home.

So, thought I would share one of our favorite, special meals :)


Ingredients:
fresh ground beef
chopped onion(s)
minced garlic
salt
pepper
soggy bread
worsch. sauce
tomato soup, condensed

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 350˚F /180˚C
2. Chop onion(s) and garlic and put in large bowl
3. Get 2-3 (or 4, depending on how large your mixture is) pieces of bread, and moisten until soggy under water. Squeeze out excess, and work in your hands until there are no large lumps. Add to bowl.
4. Add ground beef & sprinkle with salt and pepper. Add 1 tbsp (or 2 or 3...) of Worsch. sauce.
5. Mix up ingredients until combined. I use my hands, so I can make sure there are no bread lumps (I have a fear of soggy things that aren't meant to be soggy), and it's easier to use your hands anyhow...
6. Add some tomato soup until the mixture is smooth (I guess at this too...maybe 1/2 can per 1/2 kg of meat? Who knows).
7. Bake for about 1 to 1.5 hours, possibly more, depending on the size of your recipe. I put the mixture into a Corningware casserole dish, and it's not so much a loaf, as a pile of flavoured meat. Yeah, real appetizing hey?

But with some mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli & fresh corn on the cob...maybe some garlic bread, or fresh buns, and you have a hearty meal!

Tips:
*I learned that onions can make the meat still look pink, long after it's been cooked. Supposedly celery can do this too. So, sometimes the meat can have a pinkish hue, though it's been cooked through.
*You can use ketchup too, instead of soup. I've also used condensed vegetable soup as a substitute, and it was LOVELY! I'd say you could add some grated carrot (or other veggies) to this recipe, and get a few more nutrients into the thing.
*When I make this up for us, I usually have 1/2 a can of left over soup, which I freeze for next time.

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