A rainy Jauary.

It's been unseasonably warm the past few weeks. Dave has yet to use his season's pass at Blue Mountain since they've been closed more than open so far this year. Yesterday was grey and wet and miserable. Not having anything else to do I made a half batch of cupcakes for Dave and I.
I didn't even eat one until well after dinner, by which time it was well deserved as I'd had severe muscle spasms in my neck, and it was locked in place. (It was like throwing out my back, but in my neck.) Two crying fits, some Robax Platinum and a pack of wine gums later I could move enough to reach the cupcakes up on the bookshelf. Dave had to put them there since the dinner dishes took up the counter and we eat from a bar not a dinner table which was also covered in stuff.
The cupcakes were plain dark chocolate, with chocolate frosting. I am still hoping to get a cake decorating set so my cupcakes are frosted fancier... we'll see. I did get a chance to use my mom's set for Brett's Birthday cupcakes and they looked great-Chocolate with pale purple frosting and chocolate sprinkles, and Vanilla with pale pale pale aqua amaretto flavoured frosting with rainbow non pareils. I forgot to take pictures.



random fact: I spent a summer working for a major spice manufacturer, one of my jobs was to package the 5 vial boxes of "decors". It was one of the most fun jobs I've ever had. We filled trays of 300 vials each of sprinkles (chocolate & party mix), coloured sugar (red & green) and non pareils (rainbow), then we used small hammers to put lids in each vial. The next step was filling bins with all 5 varieties, building the small boxes (& dating them), then packing flats of 12, 6 flats to a case. we would spend about 3 days at a time working on decors, and it was a welcome repos from bay leaves and cinnamon sticks. The only hand pack more fun was the day I got to pack saffron. The saffron is shipped in fancy tins worth a thousand dollars each, we repackaged the saffron threads into 1L PET bottles intended for commercial kitchens. Me and one other woman transfered 16 tins into zippered bags, then into the bottles which were cased and sent to be sealed on a line. I even got to keep an empty tin, now home to my favourite notecards.