Strawberry Derby Cake and UN Members

All the things I wanted to post about this week, and here comes another weekend and I have not posted anything.


Last weekend was a bit crazy! DH went to the Kentucky Derby with some people he works with. I was invited, but not interested. So, it was just me and the dogs. Friday night I had a girls night, we forced a poor soul to watch The Princess Bride. Saturday I spent the morning baking and then headed to Cleveland for a family BBQ. On the way up my car decided to have its exhaust start dragging. Luckily, my Uncles and BIL kidnapped it and wired it back together before I had to drive home. There was a lot of good food and good company. I made up another cake recipe that turned out very well, here is the recipe.

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Strawberry Derby Cake

The Cake:
One box of white cake mix
Eggs, Oil per Boxes instructions
1 1/4 cup pureed strawberries

Mix ingredients together until they are thoroughly blended, bake slightly shorter than instructions on box, until the cake is cooked through.

The Topping:
1 container cool whip
2 8oz pkgs softened cream cheese
vanilla
powedered sugar
sweet & condensed milk (1 tbsp)**
2-3 cups chopped strawberries


Using a mixer, blend cool whip, cream cheese together, add vanilla and powdered sugar to taste, if it seems thick you can add 1 - 2 tbsp sweet and condensed milk (or just put in less cream cheese to begin with!!). Stir in strawberries. Try to make this at least an hr or two in advance so it has a chance to blend in the strawberry flavor.


When the cake is cool (still in pan), spread on topping, let sit for 1-2 hrs (again, to meld flavor), enjoy!!


Also, this recipe I ended up with 1-2 cups extra of the topping, so you might want to experiment with the consistency to cut down on leftovers.


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Sunday was a nice and quiet day. We went and poked around CarMax once DH was back in town. DH and I are car shopping - always the debate, to go for value or follow heart's desires? We will see. Dh is hankering for a Chrysler 300C, but its a bit extra over other things we are looking at. Maybe we will just buy me a new car first and wait to see if he still has the urge in a year or two when its time to replace our other beater.

Monday night we went to our first obedience training, puppy left at home. We have been trying some exercises with puppy all week to start easing into clicker training. They are not going so hot. River is just not interested and has a tendency to lay down instead of trying to figure out how to earn the treat like she is supposed to.

Tuesday I went to J's house to bead, lots of fun, good company, good artwork. I am getting quite the jewelry collection. Maybe sometime I will take pictures on here and show you all the stuff I have made.


Wednesday we went to Trivia, where I was pretty much useless, but it was still fun.

Thursday morning I started training for a new computer program at work called E-Cat. It is the first step in homogenizing the disability process between states. I think it will work well. As usual I found training pretty boring, so I spent a lot of it memorizing the countries of the UN in alphabetical order. Like this (believe it or not, this is written by memory):

Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Antigua & Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangledash, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei Darsallum, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia, Comoros, Croatia, Costa Rica, Cote D'Ivoire, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Democratic People's Republic of South Korea, Democratic Republic of Congo, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equitorial Guinea, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakstan, Kenya, Kiribati, Kuwait, Kyrgestan, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Micronesia, Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morroco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Omen, Pakistan, Palau, Panama, Papau New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Phillipines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar....

I did not do R-Z yet. It might get done today though because I have no work to do. I got my 8 month review and it went very well, as expected. I closed 45 cases in the past month, which is a lot. I received 58. Therefore, my caseload is still rising, but much slower than other peoples' who are closing less cases. My pending caseload is 124 as of right now. I gained three cases this week. We also input requests for our cost savings days for July 2010 - July 2011 (this is ten days unpaid leave we are required to take). Once my days are approved I can start plotting for a trip to Duluth at Thanksgiving.

Anyways, that was my week! Hope everyone else had a good one.