The cheesecake disaster

Tonight I am hosting Bunco. Which means I have tons to do. The problem is, I have tons to do at home and I am currently waiting on 25 students to take an exam. At least I don't have to grade them.

So - seeing that Valentine's Day is in 2 days, our theme for Bunco this month is Valentine's. I wanted to have a great dessert for this (well - let's be honest, I want all the food to be great but only the dessert fits into the theme). Anyone that knows me very well knows that I am the queen of holiday bakeware. For Valentine's I have a heart tartlet pan as well as a heart-shaped mini cheesecake pan both of which I got from Williams-Sonoma (as previously stated, one of my most favorite stores).

I have used both in the past and while they are super cute, they make cooking a bit tedious. But of course - I must try to awe everyone when they show up tonight so I decided to whip up some cheesecake and make some in the tartlet pan and some in the mini cheesecake pan. If you have made tartlets before, you know that the pan itself is fluted, so instead of a graham cracker crust you need to make a pastry shell that lines each heart-shaped cavity of the pan (that means I needed at least 12 pastry shells since the pan cooks 12 at a time).

It has been a few years since I have used this pan and forgot how much I hate it. Not the pan itself, which I love and think is beautiful - I just hate using the pan. The pastry is so difficult to roll out in order to fit into the little hearts. And to make matters worse, I was a bit further behind schedule last night because the girl I tutor once in a blue moon wanted me to tutor her either Monday or Tuesday (since Bunco is Tuesday, that was completely out of the question). So I finally get the tartlet pan in the oven around 10 last night and I am thinking - I think I can still go to bed in 2 hours.

Wishful thinking on my part.


As the little cheesecakes in the tartlet pan are cooking, I am making graham cracker crust for mini cheesecake pan (heartshaped, of course) and getting those all ready to go in the oven. At 10:30, the cheesecake tartlets come out and the other mini cheesecakes go in. At 10:45 I realize I have a serious problem. The pastry shells are not coming out of the pan. I did not have this problem last time I made these. By 11pm, I have gotten all the tartlets out of the pan. Some are heaps of warm gooey cheesecake mess. Some are just extremely lop-sided because they have only half of their shell (since the other half is still in the pan). Out of the 12 - only two came out well.

Uh-oh.

I only have enough cheesecake stuff to make maybe 6 more mini cheesecakes. With 16 ladies (counting me) to be at Bunco, how can I tell everyone - "I'm sorry you can only have one little tiny heart cheesecake. I know it is only a couple bites, I'm sorry."

So at 11pm I was in my car, headed to the store. I needed to get more cream cheese so that I could mix up more cheesecake stuff and get this finished. When all was said and done. I got to bed by 2am, and then I woke up at 6. Urgh!

At least my little cheesecakes look beautiful and I have 32 of them. If I have time before Bunco starts, I will take a picture of them to post.

I have estimated that if I had never tried to use the tartlet pan last night, and only used the mini cheesecake pan instead, I would have been in bed no later than 11.

Lesson learned.

TAGGED

OK, OK, I will play. KimberLeigh tagged me a couple weeks ago and I am finally getting around to playing. But, I am a party-pooper and will not tag anyone else.

10 years ago: Believe it or not, I was in my junior year at BYU. I was trying to decide if I should take classes over the summer or get an internship. It was actually decided for me when I couldn't find an internship. :(

5 things on my to-do list today: 1) Enter the grades into my spreadsheet for the calculus exam I gave yesterday, 2) Grade the algebra exams I gave today, 3) Write a statistics exam to give next week (are you seeing a pattern?), 4) make dinner, 5) I should do laundry or something like that but this list is no fun!

Things I would do if I were suddenly made a billionaire: Well, I would do a complete remodel of my kitchen because I am dying to have 2 ovens! Justin and I would travel way more than we do - since we haven't traveled hardly at all since I quit working full-time. And then I would just be a lazy bum!

3 of my bad habits: 1) I am lazy and a procrastinator (I think those go hand in hand) - if I have something that doesn't have to be done, I won't do it. I could veg in front of the TV, or on the computer for hours. 2) I hate to clean. It is true. I want my house to be nice and clean, but I wish it would just magically happen. 3) I complain a lot. Ask Justin.

5 places I have lived: Why stop at just 5? I have moved a lot!!! I will only list the places I have lived since I was 18. 1) Euless, TX, 2) Provo, UT, 3) Fairbanks, AK, 4) Houston, TX, 5) Tallahassee, FL, 6) Kansas City, MO, 7) Tampa, FL and last but not least 8) Katy, TX

5 jobs I have had: 1) Math TA and then Stats TA at BYU, 2) Actuary at American General Life (now AIG), 3) TA and Student Instructor at FSU, 4) Biostatistician at USF, 5) Adjunct Instructor at CyFair College

Things most people don't know about me: This one was a hard one for me. I think most people do not know that we are currently going through infertility problems (not being able to conceive for 2.5 years is a problem, right?), but I don't think that people know how hard it is for me to hear about everyone else that is pregnant. I mean - come on! People get to have their 4th and 5th kid before I even get one? What is that about? And it always comes in waves. For example, I got a call last Thursday from one friend that she is pregnant, a call from another friend on Sunday and an email from another on Monday. But then again, I want to know - don't keep it from me because that hurts even more. But I hate it when people say "Oh, I know how you feel". Actually chances are (since only about 10-15% of couples experience infertility), you don't know. I have about 5 friends who really know how I feel - the rest have no idea. And I feel completely different about it now than I did even a year ago, much less when we hit the one year mark where they actually label you as having fertility problems. Anyway - now that I have complained (see, I said I was a complainer) I'll tell another thing that people probably don't know about me: I used to work out all the time. In fact 6 years ago I ran in a half-marathon. Now I'm not sure if I could run a half mile. :( I need to get to work on that!

poor little dog

As I mentioned in the last post - we picked up a stray dog yesterday on our way home from church. She was with another dog who had been hit and killed and was in the middle of the street. :( No one else was stopping to help the dog, only slowing so they wouldn't hit the one that was still alive. So we picked her up, brought her home and then learned that we couldn't take her to a shelter until today. And we have since learned that the shelter doesn't open until 10 and we think that we only report to them that we have the dog, but we hold her.

She doesn't like Colby getting too close to her and Colby is a very curious dog. So we are hoping we can take her somewhere soon. She is very mellow and seems very friendly with people - she just doesn't like to be friendly with Colby which is kind of a requirement to stay here.

BAD COLBY!!!!

We had an interesting evening yesterday. On our way home from church we picked up a stray dog - more on that later. When we got home, we realized that the house was uncomfortably warm. In fact, upstairs it was 83 degrees even though we had the thermostat set at 77.

Before calling into our home warranty with a claim on the air conditioner, I decided to go outside and investigate. Take a look at what I found.



That's right - Colby has chewed through the wires that connect the unit to the house. We are currently waiting for a repair person to come out and hoping that it doesn't cost too much to repair. We will also be heading to Home Depot tonight so we can buy supplies to build a new fence that separates the air conditioning unit from the rest of the backyard so this doesn't happen again.

All marshmallows are not created equal

Many people know that Williams-Sonoma is one of my favorite stores at the mall. And since we were at the mall this past Saturday I told Justin that I had to go in and see what they had. I actually wasn't so impressed - usually they have cute holiday things, but I saw nothing in the store geared toward Valentine's or Easter. However as we walked toward the back, they had Christmas-shaped marshmallows on clearance. I have wanted to try their homemade marshmallows, but have not been willing to pay $12 for a bag of marshmallows, so this was the perfect time to give them a try.

Now I think I can never go back to grocery store marshmallows. Are they worth $12 a bag? Probably not (so I'm glad we got a bag for $2), but I have now tasted what heaven is like. If you can't find any Christmas ones on clearance, they have come out with their Valentine and Easter ones. Yum.

our unexpected Saturday

When we woke up yesterday we had no idea that before we went to bed we would be watching a movie on this

in our family room!

After we had eaten breakfast, Justin asked me what I thought we would do that day. I answered that we needed to do a little cleaning, but then I wanted to read my book (I started the Stephanie Meyer book, Twilight, and LOVE it), and then try to work on some cards and perhaps start my curtains. However, after a little cleaning, I convinced him to go for a walk with me. :)

After our walk, I was checking my email and noticed that I had an email from Sears talking about the special they were having on TVs. Of course, just about everyone has specials on TV around this time of year because so many people want a bigger, better TV for Super Bowl watching. We (on the other hand) have no idea who is in the play-offs and may be playing in The Big Game. Our reasoning for wanting a new TV is because the TV in our family room has been slowly dying.

We noticed it months ago - if you pause something (either a DVD or on the DVR) these spots start appearing. One spot is purple and the other is green. The longer something is paused, the darker they get. Once you un-pause, they start fading away but it is getting to the point were they don't completely fade. So sometimes you are watching and if someone's face is right where one of the spots are - green or purple face. Another problem the TV has is that on occasion, the picture goes out while watching. If you turn the TV off and then back on, the picture would come back, but would go out again unless you leave the TV off for a while. Luckily, that only happened about 3 times over the last 6 months.

It looks like it could be any size from the picture, but we got a 32" Sony Bravia because we didn't want to spend too much and we wanted it to fit in the armoire that we have in the family room. But we did want something bigger than the 27" that this TV is replacing.

Getting a new TV was the next thing on our wishlist, but we had kind of been thinking that it would wait until we got our tax return. This is what I love of financing. We bought the TV with no interest and no payments for 18 months. So when we get our tax return, we get to earn interest on it for over a year before we actually pay for the TV. This is how we have made all of our big purchases since we moved into the house - refrigerator, family room furniture and bedroom furniture, queen size bed for the guestroom and our grill. All financed with no interest (most with no payments), all paid in full so we never paid any interest charges - and we have extra $$ from the interest we earned from each of these things.

why I don't sew

Some people may remember this post from almost a year ago talking about how I bought a lot of fabric to make curtains. Well - I decided it was time to really get started on it. Since my sister (Sherry) took a sewing class she is strides ahead of me when it comes to sewing so lucky for me she was here last weekend to help me get started. We cut out the pattern and after reading through the not-well-written directions a few times (this was not a sewing pattern for dummies like it said it was - if you were really a dummy about sewing like I am, the directions made no sense at all) we decided that I knew what I needed to do to make the valance. After that I was all on my own.

The first problems occurred when I needed to attach the contrasting band on the bottom to the actual valance. Here I ran into 2 problems, however only one is easy to explain. That is that the pattern for the band and the pattern for the valance didn't really match each other the way they were supposed to - in fact now that I line the patterns up together it is off by 1/4", but since the fabric is folded it causes a 1/2" problem. If I had taken the time to figure out then I could have just cut out a new band and fix it, but it wasn't until later that I realized it was a problem. By then I thought I could correct it while sewing - after all, isn't that what seam allowances are for? Well - if you can tell from the pics below, the problem just became exacerbated when I was sewing. Since I sew from right to left, the right side of the valance looks fine, but you can tell on the left side that the band on the bottom is super narrow. :(



I thought that everything else went fine until the last step. That was to fold the back over to create the casing for the curtain rod to go through. I guess I had made another mistake when I attached the lining for the back to the valance, but didn't notice it. But you can probably tell from the picture that at the top you can see something sticking out on the left side. Yep - that would be the part that I folded over to create the casing. I think if you just glance at it you wouldn't notice, but if you look at it for a few seconds (even if I hadn't told you) you would see it.

I am hoping that the actual curtains are easier to make than the valance - I really think they will be because it is all straight lines. Once I get the curtains made for the window right next to this one, I will see if I have enough fabric to make a new valance for this window.

A new semester

Last week was back to business as usual for Justin (meaning back to Houma for work), but I spent my week last week cleaning and getting ready for the new semester. This week I have been busy working.

I am teaching the same two classes that I taught last semester (business calculus and statistics) both on MWF but then after that on MW I have an hour break and teach another class that lasts for 2 hours. The biggest advantage that this is to me is that I get a 66% raise this semester for teaching 10 credits instead of just 6. However the schedule itself leaves much to be desired. It is just after lunchtime when I take my break so I either need to take something to eat for lunch or pick something up on my break. Since I don't have an office, when I take my lunch I am just lugging it around with me. I would much rather just teach my 4 hours a day on MW from 8 - noon and be done with it.

So I am already busier this semester than last, but I have more to add onto that. Starting next Thursday through Feb. 12, I am subbing for someone on another campus who is having surgery. I am definitely subbing one of her classes on TTH, and it looks like I will probably be subbing another as well.

Here's to a busy semester!

On my wishlist...

Justin and I have a wishlist of things that we want. When we got the dishwasher from his dad, we were able to cross that off the list, but we headed to Home Depot to get a hose to get the water into the dishwasher. While we were there, I added something else to the list. :)




This would look perfect in our half-bath downstairs!

A New Year

First - an update on the water heater. After a few hours of not working last Monday (the same day it was "fixed"), that evening we were able to re-light the pilot light and it has worked ever since since. We don't know why it went out so soon after being fixed and honestly, as long as it keeps working, we don't really care. We LOVE being able to take hot showers at home as well as wash dishes without having to heat water on the stove.

January 1st we rented a minivan and drove up to Justin's dad's to pick up a brand new dishwasher. Nothing was wrong with the one we had except that it was pretty loud when it ran. We were very lucky that when Justin's dad's old dishwasher (the one he was going to give us) had some problems it was under warranty and they replaced it with this brand new one. Since they had already purchased the one that they wanted, we got this one. Justin installed it (I was the wonderful helper) and we have done one load so far. It is fabulous and we are very appreciative of the trouble Justin's dad went through to get us such a great replacement!!!

One of the next things on our wishlist has been a new computer. Justin's current one is about 7 years old which as you well know in the world of computers makes it ancient. My computer is newer than his (about 5 years old) but it is also having serious problems. So Thursday evening, we ordered a new one that we are expecting some time this week. We love having our own computers but buying two new ones was really not an option. Justin has heard of boxes that you can connect to your computer that will allow you to hook up two separate monitors, keyboards and mice so we can each work off of one computer. We made sure it has a lot of memory and storage space to accommodate both of us.

This next week is almost back to business as usual. Justin is going back to work (and sadly he will be working out of town for the next 3 weeks) and I have one week to get ready for the spring semester. Luckily I am teaching the same two classes that I taught last semester (although I am going to make some changes to the calculus class) but I am also teaching an intermediate algebra class as well. I have syllabi to write and my first week of lectures to prepare. We also are having house guests this Friday so I have some cleaning to do as well as some other errands to run.

After 3 weeks Justin will be on another local client - we have been spoiled the last 3 months of him working in town so we hope that after this 3 weeks in Houma he will be on local clients for another few months.