Saturday, March 24

Today was a nice, normal Saturday, which I welcomed gratefully. After morning coffee and reading blogs, I dressed for the day and grabbed the vacuum cleaner. We live in an old double brick house and now that the weather is warming up (??) and the sun is shining with a bit more regularity we are entering the fly season. By this I mean that flies are waking up, well actually I don't know if they are waking up, but they appear, spin around for a while, and then die. They die all over the place: floors, window sills, counter tops, in the cats' water bowl. So, I have a vacuum that has a detachable feature where I can just carry around the canister and the hose without the rest of it, which makes it lighter to lift. I go around looking for flies to suck up in the vacuum. Sometimes they camouflage themselves with my granite countertop. It is an ongoing quest. Do any of you have old house / fly problems at this time of year?

I've been thinking about coconut recently, kind of a "craving" in a way. I was determined to make a coconut cake. I do not have a favourite recipe because my daughter really dislikes coconut. I don't make desserts or meals with coconut in them for that reason. However, she is not home now and I knew she wouldn't be coming home this weekend, so I had a good look for coconut cake recipes on Pinterest and came up with one which didn't look too terribly difficult.

This recipe called for a simple white cake (i.e. cake mix from a box) with coconut extract added to it in which you poke a bunch of holes.

I was supposed to use instant coconut pudding and pour it all over the cake so that it would seep into the holes. I couldn't purchase instant, so I had to make the pudding that you cook on the stove.

It turned out fine and made enough to form a layer on top of the cake as well.

I've never bought coconut extract before.

After the cake with the pudding sits in the fridge for a while to set up, you whip cream and a bit of icing sugar until it has nice peaks, then spread it on top and sprinkle with a bit of shredded coconut.
Supper was leftovers, but it was a nice treat to have cake for dessert.

Now that I am feeling better and have more energy, it was time to put my house a bit more in order, so along with seeking out flies, I dusted, and washed the kitchen floor. It felt good to have a more tidy house.

The sun was shining today, but it is still quite cold. There are still some remnants of snow here and there, but I don't see it lasting too much longer, especially if the weather warms up a little. I do feel for many of the bloggers out there who have been hit hard with ongoing snowfall. We've had those kinds of late winter / early springs where it seemed like we were never going to get out from under all that snow.

I've just been watching the movie, "Unbroken" on tv with my husband. It was really difficult to watch in some spots and I had to leave the room, or focus on my laptop instead. Have you seen it? It tells the story of prisoners of war in Japan, one being an Olympic runner who survived. Holy, that was exhausting, but then I cried at the end. I'm looking forward to a relaxing Sunday. Have a wonderful weekend everyone.