the last two cupcakes.... Glad we saved them from the horde.

Chocolate cupcake recipe from the 1989 edition of the Good Housekeeping cookbook, which has great instructional sections for beginning cooks. I made two kinds of icing: fireball whisky cream cheese, and traditional butter cream.

had a wonderful time last night, thanks, guys. Happy New Year!

I have defeated the ice machine! I made ice last for 24 hours!! The trick is to freeze fairly big blocks of ice - I used some ~20oz plastic food containers. The ice slips out with just a quick run under water. Then I filled the rest of the machine with some smaller blocks made from little soda cans and regular ice cubes. I don't recommend the little soda cans - the edges were too sharp after I cut off the top. The bottoms of half gallon milk jugs would probably work well but I like being able to close and stack the tupperwares.

(e:Dianne) is recovering well from surgery for the most part. She's able to make her own coffee already!

I am so grateful to Tanya, (e:bluevelvetjack), Mykal, (e:Terry) and (e:Yesthatcasey) for their visits and hostess gifts of ice, beer and mayonnaise.

Pho Dollar, 322 W. Ferry at Grant is really yum. They have a vegetarian menu but you have to ask for it. I had the tofu with ginger and veggie spring rolls. It's currently cash-only. Pho Dollar - a real upgrade from Pho 99 on Bailey?

(Buffalo Rising article )

I got a better night's sleep last night and I'm not so whiny. D's in a LOT of pain - she just weeps from it. She did one set of exercises yesterday, but she overdid it and tried to achieve what she's supposed to do by next Friday. Today, I wouldn't let her time the exercises, I made her listen to her body to determine what is "too much". She did two sets today. (e:bluevelvetjack) hung out with her today while I went to the office for a while.

(e:Dianne)'s surgery went well yesterday. There wasn't a partial rotator cuff tear, so it was a lot of clean up. They used words in this article to describe it to me: and said these words too but the recovery listed in the second article seems incompatible with what the nurses and doctor said after the surgery. So confusing. The staff at the surgical center were super nice and remembered us from the last surgery in July.

Tanya brought two huge bags of ice and sat with D for nearly three hours while I attempted to acquire the critical pain and anti-inflammation meds. I only partially succeeded and I'm very frustrated by that. (e:Terry) visited so we could talk about work - we've seen each other in the office two days in the past three weeks. (Really, three weeks??) Our associate (e:ejtower) had a new exciting job fall into his lap and is leaving Monday. We hired a replacement for him and they're hanging in the office transferring knowledge and skills. We're adding a part-time tax person and trying out a part-time admin/data entry person. Crazy growth this year!!

Keeping D's ice machine filled with ice is one of my biggest challenges in this process. The machine has no insulation, which is just idiotic. Very similar to this It needs refilled about every five hours, which means getting up in the middle of the night to fill it with ice and water. (Ones with insulation like a cooler exist, I don't know why we have this one.) I'm glad there's a bit of snow left because the freezer is full of food, so one of the big bags stayed out in a snowbank last night. Luckily this part only lasts three-four days, although she will need ice as she does her physical therapy exercises for the next several weeks.

My brain is fuzzy from worry, anxiety and lack of sleep and my eyes hurt from crying.