Today I sit, with my brand new, beautiful laptop on my lap, watching the amazing storm happening right outside my window. It's a wet, cold, blustery Valentine's Day here on Haida Gwaii. And it's kinda perfect.
I had big thoughts of going to play on the beach with my little fam-jam today, or something equally adventurous, but I have zero desire to do it in this kinda weather, so that's not happening. It's kind of perfect though actually. It's the kind of day that's dark enough that I can't see the dust lurking on, well, everything, or the smudges on my floor, or the sticky prints on my windows, so I sort of have the illusion that I can be lazy. Other then the 4 piles of laundry, laying beside me on the bed, that I probably should be dealing with. But I'm choosing to ignore that not so small detail.
Anywho, back to the new laptop. Just got this beauty last week, and I haven't had much of a chance to play with it yet. It's got Windows 10, which is brand new to me, and seeing as I am technologically challenged, I've been having fun figuring it out.
I'm having a love/hate kinda thing going on with it. See, two years ago, Growly Bear used our great big, beautiful, fairly new at the time, laptop as a footstool, and shattered the screen. It was mostly my fault. I left it in a stupid spot. She didn't know what she was doing. It was annoying, but not the end of the world. We were still able to plug it into the TV with and HDMI cable, and it still "worked" like that. Plus, I had our old one to use as well. The old one, although just that - old, was a pretty great laptop. So we used that for the past two years with no problems at all. Until last week. When I pulled it out from under the side of our bed, to discover that screen too, was now shattered. Still not sure what happened there. Only think I can think is that little toes, pretty sure Oopsies, made it under the side of the bed, and pushed off on it when she was climbing up? So regardless, it was time to bite the bullet and order a new one.
I'm loving having a new Cadillac. And Hating that I had to put the money out for a new one. But it is pretty and shiny and new and has all kinds of features that I don't even know what they do, and Netflix looks beautiful and crystal clear on it! (I've been binging on Grey's Anatomy, and am finally almost caught up for the first time since I became a mommy.) So it's not all bad.
I better put this thing away for now. We have friends coming for dinner tonight. And actually the friends are bringing the main-course, which is fabulous, because it just plays in to my lazy day mentality. I did however, muster up enough energy to make a yummy chocolate cake this morning, and I have included the recipe for you. Enjoy!
Love and Hugs
Delicious Chocolate Cake
Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 cup cocoa powder
1 tbs baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp salt
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
1 1/2 tbs white vinegar
1 1/2 cups strong black coffee
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 tbs good vanilla extract
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease three, 9 inch cake pans.
Stir flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in bowl of the mixer.
Combine milk, vinegar, coffee, oil, and vanilla extract in a medium bowl. Beat in the eggs.
Carefully combine the dry ingredients. Slowly add the wet ingredients while mixing on low speed. Mix until combined - The batter will be thin.
Divide the batter equally between the three prepared pans. Bake for 25-30 minutes.
Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack. Allow the cakes to cool completely before removing from pans and frosting.
Chocolate Frosting
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups butter, softened
5 cups confectioners' sugar
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 tbs good vanilla extract
1/2 cup milk
Directions
Sift confectioners' sugar, cocoa and salt together in a large bowl.
In the bowl of a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter on high until it is creamy.
Add the dry ingredients to the butter.
In a small bowl mix the milk and vanilla. Add the mixture to the mixer. Mix until a creamy and smooth.
Enjoy!