Associated with this move, we’re trying to paint a house and move into it by the end of the month. And scrub clean the place we’ve been living for the last four years. Will I miss our current place? Nope, but I will probably accidentally drive back here late some night next month after a busy evening at work and feel pretty silly. It’s been a good home, but we’re ready for an upgrade.

All this to say that my posting will be pretty hit-and-miss for the rest of the month.

Also, here’s a picture of two of the five vacuum cleaners I had in my house to choose from while vacuuming the other day. Well, the little one of the left probably wouldn’t have been very effective in removing dirt. It is, however, very effective in keeping my daughter entertained while I’m using one of the other four vacuum cleaners.

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A friend recently asked me for this recipe, and I was reminded that I hadn’t made it for a long time. It was also my birthday, so I went ahead and made myself a cake. I recognize that standard Twinkies® have yellow cake, but when I make cake for my birthday, I make chocolate cake.

I wanted to go take a second picture, but then there wasn’t any cake left.

Homemade Twinkie® Cake Filling

Make a cake. Use a cake mix or whatever. A 9×13 cake is good, cupcakes are good, too. The filling recipe here is enough to generously fill a 9×13 cake or about 30 cupcakes.

• 1 cup milk
  
• 5 tablespoons flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup shortening, slightly cooler than room temperature–butter tastes best, obviously, but 1/2 cup Crisco shortening and 1 stick of butter is the best combination of flavor and texture

The milk and flour after cooking.

Mix flour and milk in a saucepan. Stir constantly, boiling until it is thick. Let cool–cover with plastic wrap and place in refrigerator at least 30 minutes.

Beat sugar and shortening until fluffy (I used a paddle attachment on my KitchenAid for several minutes). Cool in refrigerator.

Flour mixture (left) and sugar mixture (right)

When ready to use filling, beat the flour/milk mixture until smooth (I use the whisk attachment on my KitchenAid). Beat in the sugar mixture (again, the whisk) until fluffy. Fill cupcakes, or place between layers of cake.

7 Things He’ll Never Tell You…But You Need to Know

The last time I spend much time reading marriage books or books about the differences between men and women was when I was engaged and newly married. That’s been a few years now, and our marriage has changed quite a bit. For example, one of the first topics the book covers is that many men need some time to unwind after work. Early in our marriage, my husband always got home from work before me, so I had no idea he needed this time. Since I’ve been staying home with our daughter and waiting for my husband to get home, this was a brand new concept to me. Sure, I get that he wants to sit for a few minutes when he gets home from work, but doesn’t he want to TALK during that time? No? Why not? Apparently, he doesn’t want to talk then because he’s a guy, and guys are like that. It’s not a particularly big deal, but this book gives more explanation for what’s going on than my husband can and reaffirms that it’s a guy thing, not some weird thing specific to my husband.

In fact, the seven things aren’t really things that a guy wouldn’t tell his wife, but more the type of things a guy wouldn’t even realize his wife needs to know. The book covers those strange differences between men and women that are below the surface enough that we frequently don’t even dig deep enough to see them.

The book can seem a bit stereotypical at times–men don’t talk very much, men think about sex all the time, men don’t care about home furnishings. Not all the generalizations apply to my husband (we’ve spent quite a bit of time the last couple weeks discussing paint colors and furniture), so a couple of sections weren’t as useful. Many generalizations do apply to my husband, or at least enough that I could learn from them.

Generalizations can be frustrating and occasionally get me riled up, so I tried to keep this question in mind as I read: How can I use this information to improve my marriage? For most of the book, I could think of concrete ways to improve my marriage, so the generalizations were functional.

Overall, this book was an easy read with a variety of suggestions on improving a marriage. It’s not a particularly deep book, but I didn’t read it to answer deep questions. Give it a read for some concrete ideas to improve your marriage.

No blades, no bows, leave your weapons here.

I have fond memories of watching this movie with my family in the weird ways that families do, resulting in some inside jokes. I can’t imagine having a VCR in the future to watch this, so it’s got to go. The good news is that I can pick up a replacement on DVD for cheap. It’s too bad replacing The Three Musketeers won’t be as cheap.

How’s your clutter-busting going?

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Today, I started packing boxes for our impending move. I got three boxes packed–I think it would go much faster if my daughter weren’t with me. I tried to get rid of stuff I won’t use, which mainly consisted of a bunch of mugs.

Today’s pile to give away.

This is just the pile of stuff to give away, there’s also some junk in the trash.

How’s your clutter-busting going?

• A cracked dustpan without a brush
• The little cup to add water to the iron we never use anyway. I didn’t throw away the iron, but maybe that’s just because I don’t know where it is.
• A container without a lid
• A lid without a container
• A clay pot I made the summer I worked at camp
• A cross bookmark that’s too thick to use in books
• A name badge holder from a conference. I was pregnant, and morning sickness totally got the best of me going through the gadgets I picked up at that conference. There’s more stuff in that box to be dumped later this month.

How’s your clutter-busting going?

Money Saving Mom, conveniently, has selected de-cluttering as her May challenge and is challenging us to get rid of 7 things every day. I’ve been working on getting rid of stuff lately, and have a lot of the obvious things dumped. I need to chat with my husband about some of the items I’d like to dump, but we haven’t actually seen each other much lately. Ugh.

Anyway, I’ll try to do a better job of posting my dumps than I have been lately, and I’m attempting to bump it up to seven things (instead of my recent goal of one). Here’s what I dumped today.

Some baskets, some jars, some mugs, and one of the belts that came with my husband’s new shorts.

By the way, if you live near me and want anything I have pictured on these dump photos, let me know immediately. I’m not going to save it long, but I don’t go to Goodwill every day to drop off the stuff that isn’t garbage (and the garbage gets removed on Mondays).

After a recent rough day in the lab, a conversation with my co-workers turned to organ donation. Some of the more enjoyable days in the lab are when we have extra work because somebody’s about to get a heart. Or a liver, or kidney, whatever. When certain lab techs have to show up on a Saturday afternoon to meet a patient in ER for the last round of tests before they receive an organ, we don’t mind the hassle. When a phlebotomist is counting up how many tubes of blood need to be drawn for someone to test if an organ is a match, we’re happy to count, even though there are a lot of tests that get done around an organ donation. When a tech says, “Find me as soon as you get the blood for this patient, he’s getting a heart,” we cheerfully make the trek around the lab to find that tech when we get the blood.

Seeing both sides of organ donation reminds us in the lab of the importance of being an organ donor. As we were discussing organ donation recently, there was a bit of confusion about what exactly it takes to become an organ donor. Specifically, telling the lady at the driver’s license station that you want to be an organ donor isn’t sufficient. It’s good, but your driver’s license is not the last word on organ donation. A major step that is often overlooked is discussing organ donation with your family. Typically, a patient’s family has the last word in what happens to the organs, and this can be a tough moment. In many cases of vital organ donations, the family has to choose about organ donation within hours of a traumatic accident. While the family is still adjusting to the fact that Junior left for school this morning but won’t be coming home tonight, they have to decide what to do with his heart. Nobody wants to make that decision, but it can be easier if they’ve thought about it before.

I know some people have legitimate reasons to not be organ donors (generally religious reasons), and I get that. However, a lot of people haven’t had this discussion with their loved ones because it’s an awkward conversation. Talking about death and dead bodies can be pretty uncomfortable–it’s a little uncomfortable just to write this sentence. It doesn’t have to be a long conversation, though, just enough that your loved ones know what you think if they ever have to make such a decision.

Who exactly are your loved ones here? Basically, anyone who might make medical decisions for you–depending on your age, this might be your parents, your spouse, your children, or your siblings. While you’re at it, check with the people whose medical decisions you might need to make.

If you can’t imagine anyone ever wanting your organs because of whatever health issues you have, still have this conversation. Not everything that can be donated is what you might consider an organ (skin and corneas are frequently donated), so let the doctors make that decision.

If you want more information, check the websites below.

• U.S Department of Health and Human Services
• Mayo Clinic
• The National Network of Organ Donors

*Disclaimer: I’m not saying I handled tests of the patients listed above, these are just some recent cases that have been in the news involving local hospitals. I only went back two days looking for articles.