Clew's Annual Cat Litter Cake Posting

Yes, kids, it's that time again ... Time for sharing the Infamous CAT LITTER CAKE for your next Halloween soiree!

There are many versions of this gruesome recipe. This is a new one I found this year that sounds FABULOUS! (especially if you like brownies - yum!)



CAT LITTER CAKE

Ingredients

1 brownie mix
1 can whipped sour cream frosting
tootsie rolls - small bag
1 bag animal crackers or Keebler Sandies shortbread cookies
a few drops of green food coloring
1 small cat litter pan (never been used - very important)
1 cat litter scoop (also never been used - also very important)
parchment cooking paper (or wax paper) to line the litter box

Make brownies according to instructions on the package. Line the litter box with parchment cooking paper, wax paper, or other lining material. After brownies are cooled, break into large chunks and place into cat litter pan. Spread frosting onto the brownies, making sure none of the brownies are exposed. Put some animal crackers or shortbread cookies in a baggie and smash into tiny bits with a meat tenderizer or rolling pin. Don't crush them into a fine sand, but into smaller sized crumbs. Take a small amount of crushed cookies and set aside in a baggie. Make sure you have enough crushed cookies to cover the frosting. Spread the cookies on the frosting. Take the amount of cookies that you set aside and drip a few drops of green food coloring into the baggie. Seal and shake up. Try to color all the chunks in this baggie. Keep adding more food coloring until most of the chunks have some kind of green on them. Spread the green colored cookie crumbs evenly around atop the other crumbs. Get a small saucer or microwave safe plate. Unwrap about a dozen (12) tootsie rolls. You will need more if you are using the miniature tootsie rolls. Place the unwrapped rolls on the plate and microwave for about 30 seconds on 50% power. Test the tootsie roll to see if it is soft enough to change the shape. If not, repeat above. Now pinch, twist, and bend your, um...., cat droppings (poopies) into the desired shapes. Place your newly shaped "poopies" onto the crushed cookies (litter). Make sure you have the infamous "poopie" caught on the side or hanging over the edge. Tuck the scoop into the cat litter cake and you're ready to roll!

This cake will get a lot of attention and surely win the grossout factor award. But if you can get people to actually eat it, they'll love it. A guaranteed hit, especially with kids!



Enjoy ~

Top 5 Things Learned at Blogarita 4

5.) How creamed corn is made.

4.) That some spiders are the color "clear".

3.) Using rum to make coconut pudding is very, very good.

2.) That running and screaming at the same time will probably make you pee a little.

1.) Watching your best friend run for her life through a cornfield from a guy with a chainsaw, and then subsequently nosedive into the dirt, is the funniest thing you'll ever see in your life.

Scenes from a Car

After many lovely sunny autumn days, today brought a tranquilizing pattering rain. Incrediboy and I were on our usual morning commute to preschool and work, and I was thinking quietly to myself how unusually drawn out the journey seemed this particular morning.

Incrediboy must have been thinking the same thing.

"Momma?"
"Yes?"
"It sure is taking a long time to do our drive today."
"Yeah, I was noticing that too."

He was quiet for a brief moment, and then concluded matter-of-factly,
"They must have built more road last night."

I love his little mind. :)

Blogarita 4 !!!

So Blogarita 4 is coming up THIS COMING WEEKEND!!! For those who are new around my blog, "Blogarita" started up a few years back, when 4 blogging buddies (Naive-no-More, Chesneygirl, Curly-Que and me) decided to get together for a weekend of nonspecific shenannigans involving margaritas. Most of us had met at least one of the other of us before but none of us had been in the same place at the same time, so it was pretty exciting.

I don't think any of us really expected it to become the huge part of our lives it's grown to be, though.

While we all continue to get together in various combinations whenever we can (going to concerts together, quick lunches or dinners, drive-by howdys, etc.), it's become tradition to hold a Blogarita on a semi-annual basis, sometime every spring and every fall. Priceless memories have involved but have not been limited to:

• Mass consumption of cocktails and food
• Scrapbooking and scrapbook store shopping
• Riotous games of Balderdash and Euchre
• Saran wrapping people's mailboxes and garage doors shut
• Self mutilation (ear cartilege piercing)
• Scarecrows with rude last names
• A variety of body noises
• Crime scene photography techniques
• Panther stealing
• Dining at restaurants that close soon after
• Buttcrack cake
• Spiders in the car
• Munchos and Bugles
• Taking photos in pitch blackness
• Cow tipping

I love you girls! Our memories are some of my favoritest of my whole life, and I can't wait to see what this gathering's got in store.

Click here for visual aids from Blogarita 1 - the start of it all. You know you wish you were us.

Stinky Dog

Most Beautiful Dog was out on the back 40 for his evening patrol when we noticed he was barking and carrying on. This happens on occasion, but what really got our attention was the pungent smell of either old burning tires ... or a skunk.

I went out with a flashlight to investigate and sure enough, MBDog was circling our flatbed trailer, giving a darling young skunk underneath what-for.

As my longtime blogging friends will recall, MBDog has been skunked twice before - and I always make sure I have the proper ingredients on hand to make a batch of deskunking shampoo. I went in the house to draw a bath and mix the potion.

By the time I came back out, MBDog was carrying the poor lifeless thing around in his mouth in a victory parade. :( Ugh. I was really hoping he'd just bark at it and not figure out how to get it.

I recruited Hub to help me get the critter away from MBDog and dispose of it while I hauled him in for a scrubdown. Along with the revolting stench, he was smattered with blood smears. Yuck. I got him cleaned up and tended to his wounds. The baby skunk's fighting demise made me sad, but MBDog was just doing what a hunting dog does.

MBDog is now fresh as a daisy and snoozing on the couch. I, on the other hand, smell vaguely of old burning tires, and decided this was a good time to remind my dear friends of my beloved lifesaving Deskunking Shampoo recipe, should it ever be needed.

• 1 qt. of 3% hydrogen peroxide (the common drug store variety)


• 1/4 cup of baking soda


• 1 teaspoon of dishwasing liquid

(MBDog is a shorthaired dog weighing about 75 pounds, and this quantity is just about right for him. Adjust your quantities accordingly if you have a larger or furrier dog)

Mix all ingredients and use immediately. Wet dog's fur and lather in the shampoo mixture thoroughly and generously, taking great care around the face not to get it in the mouth, nose or eyes. Let mixture sit for 3-4 minutes, rinse. Repeat if needed. If desired, follow up with a bath of baby shampoo or other gentle cleansing soap - this will prevent skin irritation.

Hope you never need it!

Never Forget.

Could Michael Moore be a bigger jackass?

Hurricane Gustav hitting New Orleans at the beginning of the RNC is "proof that there is a God in Heaven"???

According to Michael Moore it is - and is said so by him with a snicker.

Why - I repeat, WHY - is he not getting strung up for this ridiculously heartless statement? What a worthless, self-righteous, oxygen-wasting, arrogant piece of sh!t. I can't even think of any expressions vile enough to describe him, or anyone who would say such a thing. ANYONE of ANY party should be disgusted. I can not BELIEVE he isn't getting so completely ripped for this that he disappears into perpetual seclusion!!!

This isn't a joke, you jackass. This isn't an unmanned probe crashing, or lightning hitting an endangered tree. This is people's lives. LOTS of people. People who've lost everything not once but twice in recent years. Yep, that's hilarious. God would surely orchestrate such a thing just to appease or discourage a political party. Michael Moore makes me sick.

THIS? Is considered a brilliant mind? Spare me. I just threw up in my purse.

What. A. Piece. Of. SH!T.

Apples

We have an apple tree on our property. Our apple tree drops a fair share of fruit onto the ground, as apple trees tend to do. And Most Beautiful Dog discovered in short time that he really loves apples. For the past several summers, he will go out and binge on apples until his belly is distended, and then he'll lay around and fart all night.

The tree had suffered its fair share of neglect before we moved here, and since our assumption of our country castle we've been pruning it and trying to encourage it to produce a decent crop of apples. We're finally getting there. The firm, tart apples are larger and better proportioned this year than ever before. The other night, Hub and Incrediboy went out and picked some for me to make into apple cobbler. A bit premature on the ripeness, but for cooking we figured they'd do fine.

MBDog was stuck to me like glue, gazing up at me with his amber saucer-eyes the entire prep time. I think he took the raid of his precious personal apple stash kind of personally.

The cobbler turned out well. We enjoyed some as a late night snack and I wrapped the dish with the remaining dessert in foil, leaving it on the counter before we went to bed.

When I got up this morning and shuffled into the kitchen, I noticed the foil was neatly folded back and other than a few bits and crumbs, the dish was empty. Hub has a way of getting up in the night and tooling around a bit before returning to sleep, and I figured he must have put the cobbler in another container and placed it in the fridge. I looked in there, but there was no cobbler. Then I thought he might have had a midnight binge while watching a little TV. I smiled to myself. But took note there was no spoon or fork in the sink. Then it hit me. I picked up the dish and studied it under the kitchen light. And there they were. Large, sweeping tongue marks.

MBDog had tippy-toed out to the kitchen overnight, got up on the counter, neatly nosed the foil back, and ate my cobbler - what I'm sure he considered his rightful property in the first place.

I was peeved for a moment. I walked back into the bedroom and glared at him sleeping soundly, as one tends to do with a belly full of rich sweet dessert. And I couldn't help but chuckle. It *was* kind of funny. The little sneak.

I made another batch of apple cobbler tonight. This batch is being stored in the oven. If he figures out how to open the oven, I imagine he deserves to get that cobbler.

Deep in the Grickle Grass

The world's people can be divided into two different categories: Those who love Dr. Seuss and those who don't.

Neither is good nor bad over the other - it's just a simple state of being. My mother loves the vibrant and colorful made-up people, places and things in the world of Dr. Seuss. Her mother waved it off as a waste of time to fill children's heads with such nonsense.

Like my mother, I believe a little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.

A while back, I bought Incrediboy an anthology of ten or so Dr. Seuss stories for bedtime. To my delight, he takes after Mom and me. To my greater delight, his favorite story is also mine ... The Lorax. I made my Mom read The Lorax a scrillion times, and lucky for me she loved me more than she was sick of The Lorax ... Most of the time she indulged me. One of countless reasons my Mom rules.

Upon getting this new copy of my favorite Seuss book, I fell in love with it all over again. Not only is it a great story about responsibility and repercussions, but the descriptions are priceless. Words and beings not existing before the publication of this book seem so natural, so real. So perfect. As if they had always been.

Do you not get an immediate mental image of the look and feel of Grickle Grass? Can't you just imagine what the soothing song of the Swomee Swans must sound like? And the heavenly sound of the Humming Fish's hum? And what I wouldn't give to watch brown Bar-ba-loots playing. Cute. But most of all, I can smell the trees, which as any Lorax fan knows, have the sweet smell of fresh butterfly milk.

*breathing deeply*

Now I ask you - What's better than that?

The fact that I couldn't begin to tell you exactly what miff muffered moof is, is inconsequential really. It all makes perfect sense to me, and apparently to Incrediboy as well - as he has never asked me exactly what miff muffered moof is (thank God). Even after the scrillionth time of reading it, I don't even have to look at the words anymore - I know the whole story ver batum, and that's fine with me.

It's an awesome world, the world of nonsense.

A Fool's Paradise

Hello friends! Yes, I've been slacking largely with the posting again. It's summer, though - you know how it is. So many things going on, no time to settle down and write.

Summer isn't what it used to be - I seem to be much more sensitive to heat than I was in younger years, and if I'm not on the boat and/or near a source of water where I can plunk in at will and cool off when temperatures exceed 90, my body tends to react with anything from dizziness and nausea to a brain-bleeding migraine. That kind of sucks. Luckily, I'm fortunate enough to usually be near water when I'm actually out in the heat.

Much to my chagrin, I fear that I'm beginning to develop allergies. The last couple years I've had very itchy eyes come late July and well into fall - Enough that I quit wearing eye makeup altogether (not that I wear a lot, but it used to be that I didn't leave the house without eyeliner on. I've gotten over that now.) I also had an irritating cough all summer long last year for no apparent reason. This year has also seen the return of the cough (though not as bad) accompanied by an annoying tickle in my nose, sneezing, and a bizarre wheeze when I take a deep breath. I really don't want allergies and I've been insistent that I have never had them before so why start now ... but it doesn't seem to be doing any good.

Maybe it'll go away.

These things aside, I'm feeling pretty chipper these days. The Hub and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary yesterday - and Incrediboy is at such a truly enjoyable age, we've really been having fun with him. We all went to a local fair this past weekend and Incrediboy begged and bugged to go on the ferris wheel. Well I am OUT on that, being completely terrified of heights, but the Hub took him on it. I wondered how he'd do - half expecting to see him clinging to Daddy for dear life with terror on his little face as they made their first round - but he was delighted. Absolutely loved it. Thank goodness the Hub agreed to take him on the ride, because I am quite sure I would have suffered heart failure before I was halfway up. My son is my hero.

I've been spending much of my other moments submersing myself in my scrapping hobby. I haven't done much ACTUAL scrapping, but I've been looking at layout books and magazines and bidding on cool supplies (mainly discontinued Creative Memories paper) on ebay. I'm chock full of nifty ideas ... now if only I can translate some of them into my own books before they escape me.

God bless my Hub. That's all I've got to say. Between you and me, I'm not the best homemaker. I will neglect the dishes and ignore the dust bunnies in lieu of indulging in creative hobbies. A fulltime career woman and full time mother deserves as much unwind time as any businessman with his sports page or golf clubs or Moose lodge, but so often it's only accepted after the third fulltime job of housekeeper has been tended to. My Hub gets bugged by my selfishness from time to time, but for the most part he is graciously tolerant. I love him for that.

Life is good.




BTW, today is my best friend Chesneygirl's birthday. If you haven't done so, pop on over and wish her a good one - even if you don't have a chance to until after her day. She's an irreplaceable cornerstone in my sisterhood square, she's awesome and deserves to be celebrated. :) Have a great year, sis!!!

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Clew (west), Chesneygirl (north), Naive-No-More (east), and Nelly (south) - BFFs