No Good Very Bad Day Cupcakes

Have you ever had one of those days?  You know, where you get out of bed and put on your favorite grey sweater.  You are all warm, looking cute, and ready to conquer the day.  Ten minutes later you realize your favorite sweater has purple stains…probably from your second favorite sweater.

Whatever.  You can handle this.

You then put on another sweater that has a new giant hole.  Gee.  This is stinky.  You finally find a sweater that will work (but isn’t nearly as cute as you’d like).  Bring it.

You go to work and are immediately bombarded with a million and twelve different annoying things.  This isn’t any different than normal but on this particular day you just can’t handle it.  So you sob at work in the storage room for 10 minutes. And then you sob some more because you are mad at yourself for sobbing in the storage room.

The day continues in the manner.  It is a full moon.  You have a headache from fighting back tears.  You decide after lunch that once 5:00 PM hits the world will become a better place….because you will make cupcakes. 

Not just any cupcakes.   Death by Oreo Cupcakes.  Seems like a good way to go.

Recipe adapted from Instructables…

Death by Oreo Cupcakes

Ingredients

• 1 package Oreo Cookies, regular size
• 1 package chocolate cake mix (mix according to directions on box)
  • I used Betty Crocker’s Super Moist Triple Chocolate.  I don’t mess around.
• 8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
  • I’d probably use less cream cheese next time.  Only because I don’t love cream cheese. It’s growing on me.  Slowly.
• 1/2 cup butter (1 stick), room temperature
• 3 3/4 cups powdered sugar
  • I used 4 cups…to cover up some of that cream cheese.
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix packaged cake mix according to directions (do not bake).

Line cupcake tins with liner, place a regular size Oreo cookie in the bottom of each liner. (Yes, you read that right.  The Oreo at the bottom is a fun little surprise.)

Take 1/2 of remaining cookies and chop coarsely and add to cake mix. Fill the cupcake tins.

Bake for according to box directions.

Frosting: Cream together butter and cream cheese. Add vanilla, then add powdered sugar slowly until blended well. Chop remaining regular-sized Oreos very fine (The original recipe said food processor.  I placed them in a Ziploc bag and rolling pinned the heck out of them.  Worked like a charm.) Add to frosting.

After cupcakes have cooled, frost.

Eat them.  A lot of them.  The world suddenly becomes an amazing place again.

Going to bed at 9:00PM doesn’t hurt either.

***Disclaimer.  As a medical professional, I don’t recommend feeding your emotions on a regular basis.  But sometimes a girl has to do what a girl has to do.***

What’s your go-to bad day vice?  Cupcakes?  Cookies?  Wine?  Apples?  Today is going to be much better.  I can feel it!

My Image Inspiration

Do you all remember when I introduced you to My Colortopia?  (If not, you can refresh your memory here!)



My Colortopia has this fun tool called My Image Inspiration.  You upload a photo of something that inspires you and the tool generates a selection of color palettes to browse through, print, share and paint!

Head on over to my ad free blog and check out what I’m doing with this…mmmm, houndstooth...

image via Rugs USA

Let me know what you think of the results!  I’d also love to see a screenshot of your upload.  Add it our newly created Flickr group! (I'm getting all fancy with this blog stuff.)

Ice Pack + Dog = Bad Idea

Today I would like to share with you how we spent part of our Super Bowl Sunday.

Did we attend a super rowdy party? Nope.

Am I going to share with you the amazing recipe we used to make mini-corn dogs?  Nope. (But you can find it here.)

I am going to tell you a story about how this cute face attacked an ice pack.

I get annoyed when people are like “Yeah, my dog ate “X”.”  Seriously people, pick up your crap so your dog can’t eat it. 

Karma gets me once again.

I iced my old lady hip, threw the ice pack on the floor, and started to write a blog post.  All of which I had been doing almost nightly for the past two weeks.

On this particular Super Bowl night, Ike decided to shred the ice pack.  Why? Because he was bored.  He’s not a football fan.  (And don’t send me hate mail.  We had taken him for a 1 hour walk earlier in the afternoon.  He gets plenty of exercise.)  I caught him after I heard a giant rip.  I thought it was his toy rabbit.  It wasn’t.  I immediately jumped up and grabbed the pack. It was ripped open but the majority of the contents were still in the bag. He generally doesn’t eat things.  Just shreds…but you never know.

I panic.  Are ice packs bad for dogs?  I’m sure they are.  Why didn’t I think of this 5 minutes ago when I tossed in on the ground?  I start Googling “dog eats ice pack”.  Because Google always has the answers.  Answers that include “My dog dies.”  “Dog dies.”  “Dog must got to emergency room within 1 hour to avoid kidney failure.”  I break into hysterics.  Nate is trying to be calm but I could tell he was extremely worried.  I make him call the vet because there is no way they would be able to under my hysterics.  “Dog. *sob* Ice pack. *sob* Dying.”

The vet takes almost 45 minutes to call back.  Usually they are very good but I guess they had trouble locating a vet that particular evening.  She recommends contacting Animal Poison Control.  She tells us that Animal Poison Control has the ingredients of most ice packs (which we could not find anywhere on the package or on-line). 

We call Animal Poison Control.  I didn’t know such a place existed.  They inform us of the $65 fee.  I DON’T CARE.  GIVE ME ANSWERS. (The fee ended up being waved because we have Ike micro-chipped through Home Again.)  They looked up the ingredients in the ice pack.  Luckily this brand contained only a small amount of propylene glycol which in small doses is not toxic to dogs (versus older packs that may contain ethylene glycol which is very toxic).  They recommend giving Ike a half slice of bread to soak up any of the propylene glycol in the case that he did ingest some. (They would have been more concerned if he ingested most of the contents.) We were to watch for any signs of vomiting or “drunkenness.”  Luckily he did not experience anything that we could tell. 

He was humping my leg while Nate was on the phone with poison control.  I fed him bread (which he loved because he very rarely gets human food).  Played with him.  Babied him.  Let him sleep in bed and kick me throughout the night. I also vowed never to leave an ice pack out…and spread the word so no one else does a dumb, dumb thing like I did.

What’s the worse thing your dog has eaten?