Movies/TV

Luke’s 23rd Birthday

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Life has been weird again and I don’t know how ready I am to talk about it all, so I’m going to talk about last weekend instead.

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Friday, September 22, 2017 was Luke’s 23rd birthday. Thankfully, Ulta did not have me working that night so when I got home from my temp job, I was able to make dinner and a cake for him. You’re probably looking at this cake and wondering what in the heck happened to it. 1) The candles melted more than anticipated because he took longer than expected to blow them out, 2) it’s not a normal cake!

Luke isn’t a huge fan of cake. He likes brownies, cookies, pie, ice cream, and basically any other dessert over cake. Funfetti however, is a cake that he likes and will eat happily. Because of this, the Monday before his birthday, I went to H-E-B after I got out of the office (the only other day Ulta didn’t have me), and stood in the baking aisle much longer than I thought I would, trying to pick out what to buy. The idea I had going in was to buy Funfetti cake mix, a tub of frosting- which I would choose quickly when I got there, and then go back home to relax the rest of the night. Instead, I stood there grabbing different boxes, debating how he would feel about them, and then putting them back.

Green is his favorite color so I thought green cake would be fun. It used only egg whites. I put it back.

He likes brownies better so maybe brownies. You don’t typically frost brownies so that fun gets missed out on. I put it back.

He really likes cookies and they’re easier to eat than cake. He would be upset with me if I made cookies without him. I put it back.

I stood there for a good 15 minutes talking to myself about what birthday treat he would like the best, just to pick out the regular Funfetti cake and white marshmallow fluff Funfetti frosting. The rest of the week I thought about how I would bake the cake. We have a few different Pyrex baking wares thanks to both of our mothers, but none of them are the fun round cake shapes. I could have made a rectangular cake in the 9×13 pan, but that didn’t seem good enough and I could have just made brownies if I was going to use that.

I had the rest of the week to figure it out but eventually ended up settling for the 9×13 and a whole lot of frosting. That is, however, until I saw a video on Facebook.

This video was from Tasty? Tastemade? Delish? One of the food accounts. They put cake batter into a waffle iron. I’d seen this before but never had the inspiration to do it before this. Luke LOVES waffles. So that is what is pictured above, a Funfetti waffle cake with white marshmallow fluff Funfetti frosting and almost totally melted candles. It came out really well and then we had leftover cake waffles for a few days because there was much more batter than just for four waffles.

He was surprised by the idea and was thankful, yet again, that I was the spontaneous (read: actually meticulous planner) and cute one because he just hasn’t learned how to be that yet.

For dinner, before we ate the waffle cake, we had boneless beef ribs that I tried to cook like steak- sear then bake- and came out almost perfectly but that I thought I’d messed up royally, rice, and broccoli.

The next night we went to Red Lobster and I got them to bring Luke a birthday sundae and sing to him. Then after that we walked around a mall before going to the 10pm IMAX screening of Kingsman: The Golden Circle, getting interrupted and evacuated from the theater about 15 minutes before the movie was supposed to start for the fire alarm, and eventually getting home around 1 am. The movie wasn’t super, but it was about as much fun as the first one with a few scenes that I could have very much done without.

The next morning I worked and we hung out around the house. It was a good weekend. I was content.

#PositiveOutcomesOnly

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From 2010 to 2011, a show called Hellcats aired on The CW. It was a show about cheerleaders starring Ashley Tisdale and Aly Michalka. As a Disney fan (they played in The Suite Life of Zack and Cody and Phil of the Future respectively) and a former cheerleader*, I was interested in the show before it premiered and then fell in love with it.

At this point in time, I don’t remember much more about it except that Aly Michalka’s character didn’t want to be on the squad but ended up joining anyway and Ashley Tisdale’s character didn’t like her at first but they grew to beome friends, typical.

The thing that I took away from the show however, is the phrase “positive outcomes only.” It was Tisdale’s character’s personal mantra and she said it anytime something started to go wrong. She also wrote it on Michalka’s arm at one point with a sharpie. Since she first uttered the phrase on my TV, “positive outcomes only” has stuck with me.

Many people use the phrase “good vibes only” as a positive life motto but it never seemed enough to me. Sending people good vibes may be enough to keep them in a state of calm, but I have never been able to work well when calm. I’ve needed the stress and the pressure to get me through the day to ensure that I end up with a desirable result or, positive outcome. I need to work towards a goal.

This is why, since the first time I heard it, “positive outcomes only” has been my motto. I don’t just want to stay positive all the time- I know I’m not going to be positive all the time because that’s not who I am or how I work. I have bad days. I’ve broken down. I’ve wondered what I’m working towards and why I’m killing myself working towards it. To ask myself to be positive all the time would be setting myself up for failure. What I can ask of myself though, is to take all of that negativity- the tears, the screaming, the frustration, and nights that I’ve wanted to give up on it all- and channel it into something great so that it wasn’t all in vain. Since then, I’ve always kept a goal in mind and tried to work towards it repeating “positive outcomes only” to myself at every step of the way.

Most recently, this has gotten me through graduation from The University of Tampa and I’m not ready for it to stop me there.

 

 

 

*Yes, I was a cheerleader when I was younger. I did it for a year when I was 8 and was not a big fan. I still can’t do a cartwheel.

Doctor What?

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Recently, Luke and I have been watching Doctor Who again. I don’t say “again” as if we’d stopped watching it all together, I say “again” as in we’ve never watched the show together so let’s start over from the beginning. We’re currently in the middle of “New Who” Series 3, or The Tenth Doctor’s second season. This means we just recently finished Series 2.

If you know me and my relationship with the show at all, you know that Ten and Rose are my favorite and while I have accepted Eleven and River, they are not the pairing that is near and dear to my heart. And if you know the show at all, then you know what happens at the end of Series 2 and can probably guess where I am going with this.

I. Was. Bawling.

I don’t know why I put myself through watching that ending again. I really don’t. It wasn’t even when they’re both on the different sides of the walls that got me, it was when they’re on the beach. When Rose says “I love you” and The Doctor doesn’t get to say it back I thought my heart was going to fall out. That episode premiered in 2006. I first watched it in (probably) 2010. It is 2017. I feel like Snape, #Always (#ImActuallyNotAFanOfThatAndDontThinkItsAsRomanticAsItsSupposedToBe).

And I know that it’s sort of a happy ending for the two of them at the end of Series 4, but it’s really not. Once again, The Doctor is left alone while his companions are left happily galavanting about with their other mortal counterparts. It’s not fair to him but that is the life he chose, sort of.

After all of my crying and Luke stopping to play Pokemon Stadium so that I could get a break, we talked about the show and how we wish they’d show the Time War. I stated that the only storyline in Doctor Who that could even be more heartbreaking than Doomsday would be watching him have to leave his family and blow up Gallifrey and, though I just asked myself why I wanted to put myself through Doomsday again, I would totally watch him blow his family up.

To the new execs, because Moffat is no longer head writer: do this. People would watch it. We get it, he’s all broken up about it and it’s tragic, but give it to us instead of just making John Hurt yet another Doctor in the timeline, making it more regenerations than he’s supposed to have, and for the love of God, don’t credit Billie Piper as Rose when she’s the BadWolf, not Rose.

Looking forward on another note, while I am sad that Peter Capaldi is leaving, I am so excited to have a female Doctor coming in. I think it is going to be a wonderfully refreshing change. That’s really all I can say about that matter right now because I don’t know enough about Jodie Whittaker, but I am optimistic. Hopefully she does well and we can get more strong and awesome ladies on the show again instead of mysteries that need to be solved. I’m looking at you, Moffat…