Jillian, Cake, Burials… In that Order

Life has been blazing by me lately. My days are so blessedly packed full that I’ve hardly had time to sit and write. I finally MADE some time this morning by waking up at 4:45 in the AM.
Yeah, I thought I was crazy too.

A group of friends invited me to train with them for a 5K coming up in March. They warned me I’d have to get up early. I told them I would. On Tuesdays.
I’m hardcore like that.
“Sure, I’ll be there for you. ONE day out of five, I’ll be THERE!”
True to my word, I was there. I was 15 minutes late, but I was there.

Before charging forward, I must say (and it pains me to; watch me as I choke on my own words), “Thank you, Jillian Michaels for being SUCH a FRIGGIN’ Nazi.” Did you know I jogged 1.5 miles today? Never mind about how fast I jogged it because, honestly, I haven’t the faintest. But did you hear me? I jogged one mile! And then a little more!  I haven’t done that since that one time I took freshman PE as a sophmore! I did have to break after jogging the full mile because my jacket came unzipped, my shoe came untied and my music stopped playing all at once, BUT once I fixed everything I picked myself back up and jogged the rest out. When I got up this morning, I told myself I was an idjjit.
Oh, and by the way, while I haven’t been blogging I HAVE been watching a couple of movies that involve Irish accents. Ever since, I’ve been pronouncing “idiot” as if there’s j’s involved.
I started my car and hated it.
I slovenly dressed myself in approximately 22 layers and hated it.
I drove to the secret meeting place and hated it.
And then I warm-up walked.
And then I jogged, fully aware that I was going to make it MAYBE, if I was terribly lucky, one lap. I did make it one lap. And I kept going. and going. and going.
My pace was something of a solid mix between a train (steady on, chug, chug, chug) and a snail.
But I DID it. What’s more? I’m 100% convinced that I’m not an idjjit! Getting up to run under the stars was heavenly. So Jillian, while I hate you and take nothing but absolute GLEE in muting your voice while I do your unrelenting, heinous workouts… thank you. I jogged a mile and a half this morning, and the thanks goes to you.
Now please excuse me while I warsh my mouth out with soap. I can’t believe I just DID that. I’ve sworn on the grave of my first parakeet to loathe that woman throughout all eternity.

Now.
Onto something radically different.
CAKE.

For those of you who are rendered uncomfy by overshare, please navigate away from storyladyblog.com. For everyone else: I get the worst PMS ever. I mean, as if the crankiness and crying isn’t enough… I get sick. I get SICK! I lie on the couch with a heating pad (for added comfort), tissues nearby, peppermint water nearby, chick flicks nearby… and I sit there on the tip top of mount couchette, hating the blues.
While perched thus, I perused Pinterest (ahhhhh, alliteration!) and someone I follow (Lizzie, dahhhling) pinned a cake.
I’m not huge on cake.
Cookies? Brownies? Sign me up. Cake? Eh. I’ll eat it.

But THIS cake?

Chocolate Sour Cream Cake
Any woman with a hormonally induced bloated abdomen who had this picture PLOPPED in front of her would be brought to her water-retaining KNEES. As I was. It was a recipe from Better Homes and Gardens. It is titled “Chocolate Sour Cream Cake.”
I read through the ingredients, and while there was a nagging sort of voice telling me that I probably didn’t have enough sour cream to make it… I forged my way to the kitchen in spite of it. I began tearing at my fridge, and you know what I found? Well, you might call it 24 ounces of sealed sour cream but I call it PROVIDENCE.

And so: despite my good sense telling me that I had JUST been to the doctor the month before and had my weight taken and came to the knowledge that if I were but one teeny tiny inch shorter I would be, in very fact, overweight. And despite the fact that I’ve been busting meeee britches! to remedy that situation, and despite the fact that I knew my PMS would radically improve if I would drop the sugar business all together… my hands moved methodically.
They tied my apron on.
They stirred, they melted, they molded…
As the scent of made-from-scratch chocolate cake wafted through my house that was rapidly falling apart around my swollen knees, I stared at my computer screen and wondered if I was so ridiculous as to even CONSIDER making the frosting it called for:

Do you see that there is 555 PER SERVING?
I did. I even stared at it for about 10 full minutes, willing it to decrease. I began a destructive cycle, common among premenstrual females.
I told myself I could have the frosting.
I should have the frosting.
Just a few slices of cake spread out over a few days…
And I’d work out.
But think where’d I’d be if I went with a less fattening frosting and STILL worked out.
I deserve NOT to make that frosting!
I deserve to be healthy!
But I WANT the frosting.
You shouldn’t want the frosting.
Then I’m a horrible person.
You ARE a horrible person.
I FEEL like a horrible person.
I should have the frosting…

And so it went until I finally made an executive decision.

And oh sweet poison, if it wasn’t the BEST mistake I’ve ever made. The frosting tasted like softened fudge, and I absolutely slathered the cake in it. My children, enticed by the aroma, wandered into the kitchen and found me hovered over my double-layer cake, Quasi-style.
“Is that for me?” my daughter asked.
“No…” I said.
“Is for ME?” My son asked.
“This one is for Mom,” I said, “It’s my PMS cake.”
“Oh,” they pretended to understand.
“Can I have some of that PMS?” My daughter asked.
“Yes, and someday when you REALLY have some PMS I will make you your own big, fat chocolate cake.”
“Okay!” She cried out, ecstatic at the notion of growing up and having cake.

Word to the wise: this cake can not HAVE any other frosting. The cake itself is not overly sweet. The sweetness factor between the frosting and cake is absolute perfection. There can not be one without the other.

I stuck a fork in that slice, planted myself back on the tip top of mount couchette, streamed The Seven Year Itch and laughed by brains out. I realize not everyone gets up in hysterical goo over old movies like I do, but if you DO please watch that movie! I busted a gut just TELLING my husband about it who, when I was done, said something amazing like “Steve Sarver has totally ruined the Suns.”
Ours is a love like no other.

Thanks to my vooonderful PMS, I missed two days of work out (and took Sunday off as I normally do), and in addition to it all, I gobbled three slices of that cake over the course of three days. If you’re acquainted at all with my sweet tooth, you know that three slices in three days is the very picture of restraint for me. What’s more: I shoved the cake at anyone who happened to pass by. Coming by for piano lesson? Better eat cake.
And finally, to add glisten to my medal of honor, I phoned in a favor to a friend and had them come and TAKE the remainder of the cake.
Then, and ONLY then, did I finally “repin” the cake recipe.
I changed the title though. What was once Chocolate Sour Cream Cake is now PMS cake. How blissful was I when I saw a friend repin in (and not from me) as the PMS cake. I pray the name continues to stick as it is fully deserving.

In other news of “What in the World have I been doing while not blogging,” my husband got a hankering for whimsy and set up our gigantic camping tent in the living room so we could all have a slumber party. As he was setting up the tent, I was helping the girl with her nightgown.
“Are we going to sleep in the tent?” She asked.
“Yep.”
“The FOUR of us? Me and you and Daddy and Trent?” She asked.
“Yep.”
“Why don’t we have another baby?” She asked, all curiousness.
“Maybe we do,” I shrugged, “There’s always a chance there’s one in my belly! Do you think there’s one in there right now?” I asked, thinking fondly of friends who have told me that their older children have known about their pregnancies before they did. She gasped in glee, clutched my shirt, lifted it clean up, and examined me.
“Maybe!” She looked up at me, her eyes shining, “It’s kinda fat!”

Ohhhhh, deflate. At that moment, I regretted ever parting with the cake. But, remembering the 555 calories, I quickly recovered.

In other other news, the children broke the camera. It’s miracle it survived the 5 years that it did with my two children. I bear no ill will toward Sony, but I DO feel a sort of something that tells me my printer is about to die. And something else expensive.
Probably two expensive things.

And now that I’ve been up for just over three hours and gotten positively nothing done but 1.5 miles and a chapter of scripture read, I’m getting with it because I’ve got a house to clean today. I spent all of yesterday (cleaning day) in the city, and ended it by cooking up a ready made chicken alfredo dinner, courtesy of Sam’s Club. As I pulled it out of the oven and dished some up for my kiddies I dabbed a small bit of blood from the corner of my son’s nose where I had accidentally scratched him while trying to corral him into the house for dinner.
“Well, you’re dying,” I sighed.
“NO!” The girl cried, “He can’t DIE! That would be so sad and TRENT!” She turned to him, “That would be so sad and we would have to BURY you.”
“Not really,” I explained gently to her, “We just bury his body, that’s all.”
“Oh,” she nodded, “What do we do with his head?”

I was laughing so hard I couldn’t finish up what SHOULD have been a touching teaching moment. Maybe, just maybe, we watch a few too many crime television shows around here…

Comments

  1. Ashley Madsen says:

    I nodded in agreement and laughed through this post. Congrats on the 1.5 miles. Woohoo! No excuse me while I go pin a yummy looking cake.

    • Pin that cake!! It is SO worth pinning! Haha, and I’m so sore this morning from running :) Hopefully I can stretch it all out today.

  2. Alicia, You are awesome! PMS cake is a much better name! I must make this immediately, eat one HUGE slice and then promptly give away the rest! :D

    • Haha, do it! Then you can love/hate yourself like I do! But I must warn you: after giving it away, you’ll CRAVE it like mad. But after a few days of treachery, it passes.

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