Cupcake Snafu = Ruined Surprise

Last night, Caroline and I set out to make the cupcakes for her basketball team's last game celebration.  From the beginning we encountered a few bumps in the cupcake baking process, to include an egg with all sorts of spots on the yolk.  I'm not quite clear if it's safe to eat those, but spotty yolks freak me out, so I don't.  Anyway, as we began mixing the cupcake batter, I saw this really red streak in the batter, which threw me off guard (aka, made me gasp out loud in quite the dramatic fashion).   It was unclear if the red streak I saw was from one of the Funfetti sprinkles in the cake mix or from a yucky egg.  I already had yucky eggs on the brain, so you can guess which direction I was leaning.

In my (usually)composed, pragmatic, level headed mind, I KNEW the red streak was from a sprinkle, but my neurotic tendencies always over ride any sort of common sense and practical thinking abilities.  Therefore, at 7:04 pm on a Friday night, I chucked the cupcake batter, because...what if????.....and drove to the nearest grocery store for a new box of Funfetti cake mix.  In that one event I learned two lessons:  1) I should bake cupcakes from scratch, like I do everything else (except for brownies!) and 2) if I'm not going to bake cupcakes from scratch, I should keep a few extra boxes of cake mix on hand in the event I freak out about a streak of red sprinkle/potential rotten eggs.

Sometimes I really don't know what to do with myself.

However, it appears that my hyper-sensitivity to food safety practices is rubbing off on Caroline, so she did not judge me for wanting to get a new cake mix.  I knew I liked that girl for a reason.  If had more than one kid, I think I would have easily labeled her my favorite child last night.  ;)

As we were in the check out line, Craig called my cell phone.  I waited until we got out into the parking lot, dodging the expert cookie selling practices of the cutest little Girl Scout, and called him back.  He had called our house phone and was wondering why we weren't home on a Friday night at 7:30 pm.   Reasonable question, no? 

So we drove home in the dark night, ready to conquer cupcake baking 2.0.

We arrived home, parked in the garage and were greeted to a very big surprise:  Craig!

Poor guy arrived home, ready to surprise us and WE WEREN'T HOME!  Caroline and I are surprise squashers.

Yep, Craig's back.  He quit.  He's done.  He said to heck with 19 years of service in the US Army, threw away his uniforms, burned his badge and came home.

Oh, I kid.

Actually, we've known for some time that he'd be back to take a week long class in Maryland.  At first we thought he'd stay in Maryland and squeeze in a visit or two, but then it became possible for him to stay here and commute to the class.  The commute is only about 45 minutes, which isn't a big deal.  The last I heard, he would be arriving on Sunday.

Instead, he opted to forgo the airplane flight to drive his car back to Virginia, so it wouldn't have to sit in storage in Texas for a year.  Since Craig is on to Georgia for seven weeks following his stop here, this seemed like the best time to do it.

I feel bad that we ruined his grand plans to surprise us. I mean, really?  How in the world is it that our cupcake snafu happened to coincide with Craig's surprise arrival?  We never go anywhere, especially on a Friday night, but this ONE TIME we did and we completely ruined the surprise.

What can you do, right?

Craig and Caroline are at the movies.  In fact, they have three movies they plan to see before he leaves again next Sunday.  Basketball is over as of today and soccer hasn't started quite yet, so we have a lull in our youth sports-centered lives.  Which, is the perfect time to catch up on movies.

And the perfect time for me to enjoy some quiet laundry/vacuuming time.

Tomorrow I shall tell you about my cupcakes. :)