Look Ma! No Walls!

It's been an exciting weekend here at the Falling Down House. Mark has been tearing the third side off the old part of the house, re-sheathing it and installing the new windows for what will be the bathroom and office/library. I spent yesterday taking care of some things, like getting Amelie's stitches from her spay surgery taken out, visiting my parents, taking the dogs to Callahan for a few hours, grocery shopping, and baking off cakes for Miss E and GGS.

Miss E's cake came out beautifully, if I do say so myself. I used the white cake recipe from the Better Homes & Garden's cookbook (an oldy, but a goody), Rose Levy Berenbaum's Stabilized Whipped Cream along with some crushed Oreos for a mousse-y filling, and Kaye Hanson's Buttercream, which is an adaptation on classic Italian Mousseline Buttercream - yum!

Today, I spent up to my ears in buttercream, making the 2 dozen hibiscus flowers for the top border, and icing the "grass skirt" onto the sides. It went fairly smoothly, except for a small hiccup over the green icing...

Amelie has been wearing the gentle leader for two full days now, and the difference in her behavior is amazing. Her jumping is almost gone, and she doesn't pull on her leash anymore. She's not psyched about wearing it, but we're all so much happier with her, that I hope she feels the difference... Of course, Friday night she at two corners off our coffee table in the twenty minutes it took Mark to shower. Bad dog! If only we'd started her training before yesterday...

My old iPod finally came back, and oddly enough, while it won't interface with my computer, Mark reformatted it to his PC, and it's working fine, though ipodmechanic.com had one thing right, the screen doesn't work anymore. In fact, it's cracked, and the lcd stain has spread, but Mark figures he'll use it as an oversized Shuffle for his truck.

Among the things I haven't done this weekend: laundry, housekeeping, or staying off my ridiculously swollen feet. Oh, well...