Damages

Monday's are tough, schedule-wise, in our household. I work at least from 8:30am to 5:30pm and David is at work and in class from 8:30am to 9:55pm. This isn't the best for a little puppy who needs to go to the bathroom.

On any normal Monday, I could probably get away from work at lunch to head home, let Bailey out, play with her for a little bit while eating lunch, before putting her back in her kennel and heading back to work.

Unfortunately, this past Monday was not a normal Monday. I had a new cast coming in that was going to be taking up most of my day, so I wasn't going to get away very easily. So I enlisted Robyn to come and let her out, etc.

Everything seemed to be going fine. Bailey was let out, went to the bathroom, played with Robyn before being put back in her kennel. Robyn told me everything was fine when she left, so all was good.

I got home around 7pm and I walked in to this...


At first I thought Robyn and Bailey played, but for some reason she didn't pick up the mess. Odd for Robyn, since she cleans all the time. I could hear Bailey in the bedroom, where her kennel was...but then she came out to greet me!

She had Houdini-d out of her kennel and destroyed the place! I went into the bedroom to see what else had occurred. This is what I found...

Needless to say, after a quick chat with Robyn, we think the bottom latch hadn't been completely closed...thus Bailey being able to sneak through.

Overall, everything could be cleaned up. A few pairs of my shoes seemed to get the brunt of the damage.

Bailey is going to doggy daycare on Monday's from now on! :-)

It's A Zebra

My coworker, Emily, found a cake on Pintrest that I needed to try to make. It looked fairly simple and difficult all at the same time, so I did some research and made it happen. Here's the making of the Zebra cake:

I made two batters. Yes, I could have made only one and split it, adding some cocoa powder to the vanilla cake, but I really wanted the colors and flavors to be there. Plus, it allowed me to make a whole second cake to keep at home. :-)



Then very slowly, and carefully, I began pouring the batter into each of the pans to create the layers, aka stripes.

This is the final product of one of the pans....looks like a target!

I proceeded to bake the two cakes, turning them 180 degrees in the oven about half way through baking...I would do this anyway, but I really have to do it because my kitchen is kind of slanted...no joke!

Then it was frosting time! I did both a whipped frosting and butter cream, for the color and flavor. Then, of course...it's a zebra, so it needs stripes. With a chocolate ganache that is also known as Duke's Frosting (from my dad's mom), I made the stripes (and frosted the second cake).

It needed a face...

...and a tail...of course.

I took the cake to work...everyone was asking who's birthday it was...or what the occasion was...which I replied "just 'cause"! The cake looked great on the inside and tasted delicious as well!

Overall, I thought it came out great and I'm already contemplating not only how to make it better but how to change the animal! ;-) Tiger or giraffe cake anyone?!