random thoughts – Day 2,155 (Monday) – snow and cupcakes

Snow cloud and clods.

Friday night there was a leak in the cabinet over the stove where the vent pipe is. Sometime on Saturday the leak stopped and the thin wood material dried. It remained dry through Sunday. A roofing team arrived this morning to check it out and cleared the roof on the back half of the house. There was concern about the carport, which was bowing due to holding a lot of snow (nearly four feet of it against the peak of the house). The carport snow wasn’t light and fluffy like the rest of the snow. Clearing the carport was added to the scope of the job.  

For 1.5 hours, snow flew by the windows in clods and clouds, and the sound of dammed ice being chopped off the roof rattled the house. At the end of it, I had half a cleared roof, a massive pile of snow next to the driveway, and a bank account that was lighter by half a grand. I also have an estimate for a new roof which seemed reasonable until I saw the cost for new skylights and the total-total. Holy hell. Two skylights equal half the cost of the roof materials and replacement. The forecast is for more snow Tuesday. 

Canned frosting
obsession.

After supper, I decided to make mini cupcakes to take to my sister’s house tomorrow. I’ve stepped away from baking for the most part, and with it, the desire to make everything from scratch so it was a Funfetti box mix and a can of frosting for the win. And let me tell you, the Pillsbury “Creamy Supreme” Coffee frosting is danged good. Which means I’ll probably never find it in a store again.    

Even cupcake baking from a mix had issues. I wanted to do mini cupcakes using the three pans I have. I wanted to use the colorful mini cupcake liners to make pal cleanup easier. The cupcake liners, however, where a smidge larger than the holes in the pans, so the papers wouldn’t sit flat, and worse, the cupcake bottoms didn’t come out flat. Errrr. The high point was eating the four or five mini-cupcakes with coffee frosting that didn’t fit into the container to take to my sister’s.