Meringue Powder-less No More

I'm sure you're all thrilled to know that I bought meringue powder at Michael's today.

I also bought gel food coloring for my upcoming cookie icing adventure.

Too bad I didn't check my baking stash before hand.  For if I had, I would have realized that I already had red food coloring and didn't need to buy more.

I must have bought it in January when we made Caroline's Lego cake.

It's really quite the bummer because I wanted a different color green (leaf green), but went with 'kelly green' in the pack because it was a better deal.  Except now, I have 1.5 oz of red food coloring gel and .5 oz of a green color I didn't want in the first place.

Oh well.

Gel food coloring disappointment aside, I've been somewhat productive today.  Productivity is good.  Although, in my case, productivity is expensive.

It all started with my weekly trip to Caroline's school to stuff the Thursday folders.  Once I finished, I went to Ross to look for another brown pillow to match the one I bought on Sunday.  They had one, but when I got to the checkout, I was sad to find out that it had a big stain on it.  Pillow fail.  I did buy Caroline a fleece blanket for Christmas, though.  She has 54 blankets already, but when we were at Ross on Sunday, she was admiring it.  Hey, for $7, she can have another fleece blanket to add to her collection. 

We need them, anyway.  Our house is a frigid ice box.

After my sad pillow failure at Ross, I went to Starbucks to get gift cards for Caroline's teachers.  She has two teachers plus a full time assistant.  I also bought gift cards for the two teachers who coached Girls on the Run, as a thank you gift.  Um, yeah, it was pricey, but Starbucks gift cards are easy gifts that are usually well received.  Even if you don't like coffee, there is something for everyone at Starbucks.

After Starbucks, I went to Michael's to buy the aforementioned meringue powder and food coloring gel. And then I went to the local running store to get toe caps for my poor blistered pinky toes.  You know, I'm pretty forthcoming on this blog and, I admit that I do tend to over share, but there are a few things I refrain from mentioning, for the sake of not losing any of my 8 readers.  For instance, I haven't mentioned the ginormous, gnarly blisters I have on my pinky toes.  Well, up until now, I haven't.  They're not pretty.  In fact, they're really quite disgusting.  Hence, my silence on the subject.

We have a 16 mile run planned for tomorrow and I was really quite fearful that my toes couldn't handle the mileage in their current state.  Enter toe caps.  I'm hoping they change my life.  Or, at least help my toes heal.
We're in the last quarter of marathon training; my feet have to hold up for five more weeks.  On January 10th, I'll rest.  Actually, on January 10th we'll be going to Disney World; on January 11th, I'll rest.  Marathon finishers get a free admission ticket to any of the parks the day after the race.  We initially planned to fly home on Monday, but it's kind of hard to pass up that great of a deal.  I hope they provide wheel chairs.

And lastly, on my morning of many errands, I stopped at Trader Joe's.  I always buy such an odd assortment of things at Trader Joe's.  Pistachios, sugar snap peas, light egg nog, liquid egg whites, celery, shredded carrots and tea bags.  I also bought some of beloved pumpkin butter, but when I took it out of the bag at home, I realized that 1) it was all sticky and 2) the safety button was popped, rendering it inedible.  Boo.  I'm quite surprised that I didn't notice this at the store.  Generally I'm tuned in to such things.

And so this concludes the latest installment of 'What did Alison do today?'  

:)