Now You Don't

 

Now You Don't. 

As in "now you see me, now you don't." Also known as the disappearing act that cost me 24 hours of my life. Hours I'll never get back again. Hours I'd never want to repeat. And yet, this was not the first time . . . So you could also call my recent predicament "fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, learn your lesson, fool.

Let me just say here that I'm kinda used to things disappearing. You may be aware of the fact that I bake. A lot. If you didn't know that, you don't read this blog enough. 

 

But I do bake a lot. As I've said, it started when the boys were little. I'd bake snacks for them and whatever friends were coming home from school with them. It got to the point where an awful lot of kids were coming home from school with them, and even more in the neighborhood would find themselves here too. Coincidentally, right around snack time. I used to joke that when something chocolate was baking, I'd get overpowered somewhere between taking it out of the oven and attempting to get it onto the counter. Let baked goods cool? Who needs chocolate to be cool? 

 

I considered myself lucky if I got a picture for the blog and a taste to see if the recipe was a success. Or if I agreed that the recipe was a success. Turns out kids will eat anything baked. There were times when I wondered what they'd do if I put crickets in the batter. Or if they'd even know.

 

Friends would see the pictures of some of those baked treats and (jokingly) ask me to deliver. My answer was always that they were welcome to stop by the house when I was baking, but I also always suggested they wear a helmet.

 

Truth is, the safest way for me to even get a taste of a new dessert attempt, I'd learned, was to make something cold. Yes, they love the no bake treats, but I'd have a chance to at least get a taste while they were looking in the empty oven.

 

 

Layered Tropical Jello

Now a blog post, for me, is very labor intensive. I write the post itself and I always design my own graphic to go with it. I develop a new recipe, try it out (sometimes more than once if it needs tweaking), take about 30 pictures, choose the best two, edit them, add the wording . . . it's a lengthy process. So there's a big difference between the food, once photographed, disappearing into mouths, and those pictures of the food disappearing.

 

Years ago, I looked at my Google pictures account and saw thousands of pics. For some reason, they were storing about 10 versions of each blog food pic, all of the graphics, as well as my personal pictures. I didn't need to keep anything but the personal pics, all the rest were already on my blog and I also keep a copy in a Word Picture file.

 

So I deleted many of them. And they deleted off of my blog. All over many of my blog posts were big white squares with a grey oval inside with a line through it in place of my pictures. I was freaked out, heartbroken, furious, and frustrated. I had to upload hundreds of pics back into my blog posts.

 

You'd think the trauma would stop me from ever deleting a picture from my Google account again. If only it had.

 

Google had stopped, back in 2019 when they closed down their Google + platform, storing all of my blog pictures in my Google photos account. So when Google announced that at the beginning of this month they would start charging for storage of photos over a certain amount, I went back into my Google photos. Nothing new was in there that I hadn't taken with my cell phone. But there were still thousands and thousands of old blog pics. Surely I could get rid of them now, Google doesn't seem to be backing up blog pics in this way anymore. Right? 

So I did. Delete them. I did a few, checked my blog, all looked well, so I went on, deleted tens of thousands of them before I got tired of doing it.

Guess what I saw when I went to my old blog posts the next day. Bet you know.

 

 

Act two of the great blog picture disappearing show. Now you see me, now you don't.

It took me 24 hours over 3 days to get all of the pictures back into my blog posts. Ten hours the first day, 9 hours the second day and 5 hours the third. That's about 23,040 breaths worth of time. It was grueling, frustrating, mind numbing work. And my ass is sore. Probably for life.

And I will never, I mean NEVER delete another picture from my Google photo account again. In fact, I'm having it put in my will, no one gets a penny unless they agree to leave my Google pics alone. 

 

In perpetuity.

 

 

Layered Tropical Jello

                                                         ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
1 can (15 oz) mandarin oranges

1 can (8 oz) pineapple tidbits

1 box (about 3 oz) pineapple flavored gelatin

1 envelope unflavored gelatin

1 cup milk

6 TBSP sugar

1 cup sour cream

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup mini fruit flavored marshmallows

1 box (about 3 oz) tropical fruit flavored gelatin 

 

Directions:
*Drain the mandarin oranges, pat dry. Refrigerate 9 of them for garnish and chop the rest. Drain the pineapple 

tidbits. 

*Mix the unflavored gelatin into 1/4 cup of cold water and set aside to thicken.

*Boil 1 cup of water. Add the pineapple gelatin and stir until the gelatin dissolves. Add the cold water and mix well, then add the chopped mandarin oranges. Pour into a 8 inch square dish and refrigerate for 60 to 90 minutes, until set.

*While the first layer is in the refrigerator, place the milk in a pan on the stove at medium heat. Once it is hot (do not boil), reduce heat and add the sugar. Stir until the sugar dissolves. Remove from heat, whisk in the unflavored gelatin and allow to sit for 10 minutes.

*Once the milk mixture has sat for 10 minutes, whisk in the sour cream and vanilla. Set aside.

*When the pineapple jello layer is set, mix the mini marshmallows into the saucepan with the milk mixture and gently spoon over the pineapple jello in the pan. Refrigerate for about an hour, until set.

*Boil 1 cup of water. Add the tropical fruit flavored gelatin and stir until the gelatin dissolves. Add the cold water and mix well, then add the pineapple tidbits. Once the milk layer is set, gently spoon the tropical fruit layer onto the milk layer and refrigerate for 60 to 90 minutes, until set. 

*To serve, slice and garnish with the reserved oranges. Cover any leftovers with plastic wrap and keep refrigerated.

 

 

The Hour Long Minute

I've been feeling the ravages of time lately. No, not my age, although I could write (and have written) a post or two about that as well. This time-suck is the dreaded minute. You know the one I'm talking about, the 60 seconds that invariably manage to drag by in about an hour. Those times when you feel compelled to grab onto that second hand and physically drag it around the clock.

Although it happens to us all now and then, this has been going on for me with frustrating regularity for over a month. It started, as far as I can remember, at PurDude's graduation. We were in line outside the hall, standing in 90 degree weather and I was, of course, wearing 3 inch wedges. Mine were black leather with gold accents, open toe, with a pretty woven wedge. You know, the kind that look great on so you have to wear them with that graduation outfit even though you'll still have remnants of the blisters 2 months later.

That's OK, I can make it, gotta suffer for fashion, right? And they're going to open the door in one minute. 

One minute that although literally lasting right around 60 seconds, felt like a melting, excruciating hour. Or two. And I had the frizzy hair and blistered feet to prove it.

More time-bending "in a minute" fun torture:

PurDude was streaming the Red Sox game to the TV. Boston was winning 1 - 0 when it froze. PurDude said he'd be back in a minute and went upstairs to check the laptop we were streaming through. Apparently Windows decided to update at that moment. He switched the streaming to his other computer and the game came back up. It was only a minute, felt like an hour, and we were losing 2 - 1 when we got the game back. Wait. What? What happened? (As a funny aside, PurDude has a friend from college who works for Microsoft. He texted his friend and told Riley he better fix Windows 'cause it ruined our game).

I'm almost home, just a minute away. But if I don't get out of this bra now, I swear it's going to dig into my skin so deep I'll need to have it surgically removed. If you, dear reader, are a woman, I've said enough, you know exactly how long that minute can last. Forget hours, years.

When you bake anything chocolate the house smells divine. As the time winds down and it's almost ready, mouths water. On Saturday we were at that point. All inhabitants of this house converged on me in the kitchen wanting to know when the cookies would be done. I looked at the clock and informed them all it would be just a minute. And then I stood there being stared down by 3 men for what seemed like an hour. And PS: good thing you can eat cookies hot because if that had been a cake this would not have ended pretty.


Nothing in my house freaks me out as much as spiders. Not even my kids, though there were times they sure seemed to make a full time job of trying. I was walking up the stairs the other day and hanging there by the window was a spider. I screamed out "quick, quick, come here and bring a tissue" to which College Boy answered "be there in a minute". I swear that minute lasted long enough for that spider to have gotten married, bought a house (in my hallway) and had twins.

I've had enough of this minute lasting an hour thing. I SO need a Chata Iced Coffee. Can you make me one? And don't you dare say "It'll be ready in a minute . . ."

Chata Iced Coffee

Chata Iced Coffee         
                                    ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients (per drink):
3 oz brewed coffee
1 oz french vanilla creamer
3 oz Rum Chata
1 oz cinnamon liqueur

OPT: scoop of french vanilla ice cream

Directions:
*Mix the hot coffee and the creamer. Refrigerate until cold.
*Remove from the refrigerator and mix in the Rum Chata and cinnamon liqueur.
*Serve over ice or with a scoop of ice cream.