Yeah, it was "coffee day" at work today. Makes perfect sense to us, but considering I drink the silky nectar of the gods every day, you may wonder how that's different than any other day.
Well, allow me to elaborate, because my brain is buzzing faster than my fingers can type. On Thursdays, our local coffee shop is open late. Usually, they close at two, but not Thursdays. Oh no, not the beautiful, shining, holy day of Thursday. So, Thursday afternoons, they start happy hour at 2:00, which means 50 cents off a large espresso drink and hell yes, every Thursday, we are calling an order in with glee. So, that usual 8-10 shots of espresso per day gets upped upped UP to an extra four.
COFFEE DAY!!!!
Imagine my delight when my son called asking if he could hang out with friends after he got off work. With the daughter at work until probably 9 tonight, that means mommy is ALOOOOOOONE (yes I howled that) in the house tonight!
COFFEE DAY!!! ALOOOOOOOONE tonight on a major caffeine buzz and it's Pinterest here I come! And it's not just perusing Pinterest time, but it's actual DOING Pinterest time!
I just baked pine cones.
Yes, I put pine cones in my oven.
Pinterest says it kills any potential bugs and what Pinterest says, I do.
My pine cones are cooling, and I felt like a giddy school girl ripping open my Amazon box that arrived yesterday. By the way, isn't Amazon Prime just the shiznit? I can order cheap little $7 items and they are shipped free and in my grubby little paws in TWO DAYS. Because it was merely THREE days ago that I looked at all my Pinterest projects for pine cones and realized I really need to do something with the hundreds of pine cones I picked up after the polar vortex hell.
Pine cone firestarters. Yup, I've got my muffin tins ready, lined with Christmas cupcake liners. I have no idea why I have Christmas cupcake liners, because I don't make cupcakes at Christmas, but there ya have it. Pine cones are baked (I had to get that little tip from another pin, but I've had so much espresso that clicking and opening another window was easy peasy). I've opened the Amazon box and popped all the air bubbles like it was Fourth of July, and did a little jig, dancing to the tune of whatever that loud popping noise was making. I unpacked my candle string and exclaimed a loud (because it's just me and the cat) "oooooooohhhhhhh". I AM FEELING CRAFTY.
I have this pretty little cabinet in my mud room. It's whitewashed with tin inlays on the door, and oh so pretty. Yes, there IS a point to this and it has nothing to do with all that espresso and it's not like my brain is going 85 miles an hour, I really WILL get to the point. Because this cabinet matches my oh so pretty iron and wood whitewashed bench, it has to sit in the mudroom. But there is no way in hell I'm going to put typical mudroom things in it. It is FAR too pretty for shoes, mittens, hats, and other "right inside the door" things. So, I decided when I got it that it would hold my candles.
I have a candle problem. It's slightly bigger than my shoe problem, which really means it's a HUGE problem. I love smellies. Yes, I call them smellies. The cabinet is FULL of smellies. Tea light smellies, votive smellies, wax melt smellies, pillar smellies. You name it, it's in there.
Pier One (yes I digress, but hello...COFFEE DAY) has this really annoying habit of getting you totally hooked on a scent and then discontinuing it. Kind of like Bath and Body Works and Victoria's Secret with their scents, however, I digress from my digression. So along with my already heinous smellies problem, imagine my joy and delight when college daughter said she was getting a part time job at Pier One. Angels were singing, light shone from above. AND imagine what it must have been like getting THAT phone call. The phone call that makes your stomach flip and a sweat break out. She informed me that Pier One was clearancing Spice Cake, and it may not be coming back.
Let me tell you, I broke light speed getting my ass the 40 miles to Pier One. And I was like a crazy couponer auditioning for a show on TLC. Hell yes, I cleared that shelf! I even made little grunting piggy noises while I filled my baskets.
So, the point to that particular transgression is the Pier One haul means that the smellies cabinet is overflowing. In my Spice Cake gluttony, I have ignored all the other smellies, and they're starting to feel like the last kid picked for a game of dodge ball.
Rounding out the longest digression in the history of blogging (hello....COFFEE DAY), I need wax for my pine cone project. Preferably scented wax, which SURPRISE, is no problem for me considering I have a SMELLIES CABINET.
So I selected some smellies wax melts I've been ignoring (yummo, Creme Brulee), and realized I need a glass jar to create a double boiler on the stove. I search cupboards, wondering where that glass jar went that I had out last week for cucumbers and then couldn't find the lid, mind racing, too much espresso. Then the light bulb goes on...DING! I threw it out.
Yes, I went there. I shamefully (maybe not, because there is NO shame when you're racing to the finish line on espresso) and I pulled the garbage bag out of the can under the sink. My thought process, which granted, is not the most clear when jacked up on java, was the bags are clear, so I will be able to see if the jar is in this particular bag. My hand slips and gets a handful of, go figure, espresso grounds, and just when I think all hope is lost and I'm about to waste a jar of food, just to have an empty, I see it. VOILA! Not the jar I threw away, but a pasta sauce jar. PRAISE CHEEZITS! So yes, even less shame, I dug into that garbage bag and grabbed that precious jar, washed it out without even gagging, and I've got my double boiler going with wax.
Seeing that this method of melting the wax down is going to take awhile, I start typing away at this blog and get carried away (shocker considering it's COFFEE DAY), and suddenly remember the wax melting in the kitchen unattended. No, this is not where I tell you about the glass jar that exploded wax all over my kitchen (though now that I've typed that, I need to go check it again). I realized, seeing the wax nearly melted and ready, that I need to get those candle wicks wrapped around the pine cones. NO PROBLEM! Here's where that espresso kicks in again and I whip through 18 of those babies in no time! I start pouring wax, realizing these are really big pine cones and they don't want to stand upright very well, but espresso also increases my patience factor (don't ask me how) and I realize if I just hold each one upright for a minute or two, they're fine.
However, I also realize that the pasta sauce wax jar only holds enough wax for about six pine cones. I stare at my pans realizing I've got 12 more to go and race back to my smellies cabinet for more wax. Still an overflowing cabinet, so that's really not a problem either, and I select smellies to sacrifice and start chopping them up when I realize these particular smellies are slightly larger than the mouth of the wax jar. Of course, in my espresso haze, I'm a bit rushed through the process, and now have wax smellies shreds all over my countertops, but by gosh, I got those suckers in the jars and am melting away again.
As I check on that second jar of wax for the sixth time (the chunks were bigger so this one is taking longer), I see that my first batch of pine cone smellies are setting up quite nicely.
PIN WIN.
Of course, I won't REALLY know if it's a pin win until I start a pine cone on fire. But right now, I don't think this espresso buzz and a lighter are a good match.
*snort* Match. Lighter. FIRE. get it?
At some point tonight, after the remaining 12 pine cones are properly ensconced in smellies, I'm going to have to work on coming down off this caffeine high, but right now, I'm in too much of a Pinterest euphoria to worry about it. For now, I shall get up, check my wax, and dance a little jig.
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