Waging war against breast cancer

This one's for my best friend who has stage 4 breast cancer.

The last time I visited her was sometime in June, and she looked great -- nice skin color, pink lips, healthy-looking hair -- she even had the energy to make little jokes. Her mom told me that they were about to start radiation and chemo therapy and I'd had such high hopes that she'd be able to pull through.

I hadn't been able to visit her until today and I was shocked at the change during that one month that I hadn't seen her. She looked shrunken and tired, and her beautiful, shiny long hair was gone. She had on a breathing apparatus and she couldn't talk but she would nod or speak with her eyes when she responded. I had to stop myself from crying when I approached her, and now that I'm writing about it I have to stop the tears again.

There are moments during certain days when I remember her and I feel like giving in and bursting into tears. I'm having such a hard time dealing with it, accepting it. It doesn't seem real. It doesn't seem possible that someone as young as her could suffer from something so horrible. She just got married barely two years ago and they were trying to have a baby. It's unfair. She's such a good person - one of the best people I know.

Despite everything though, her spirit remains intact. There's been an outpouring of prayers, love and support for her and her family. That won't stop until she gets stronger and better. I'm hopeful. God is faithful and nothing is impossible with Him.

Source

The family board

My mother is a big fan of organizing stuff and coordinating family members' schedules, and since there are now a little less than 20 people coming and going in the house it's become imperative to make sure people are aware of other people's schedules.

Hence, this:

May I introduce our family bulletin board, where you need to write your weekly appointments, dates, and what-have-yous lest you incur the wrath of mother dearest -- which my father suffers on a fairly regular basis.

I hate to admit it but it's a big help. Because of our different schedules we don't get a chance to see one another during the week and sometimes this is the only we we communicate. This is where we post our greetings, wish lists, and menu suggestions. Without it we would all be lost, so cheers to Nanay!

It worked

I'd been wanting to try my mother's carrot cake recipe and bake them in muffin pans ever since I'd discovered cupcake making. Well, I got my chance yesterday.

Right out of the oven

This is a recipe she got from a professor visiting from the US, and she's had it since the late 70s. I followed the directions to the letter, except for the frosting, which I'd adjusted to suit my taste.

On the rack, with and without frosting 

The cake itself is good enough, and in fact my mother bakes loaves of these to give as gifts at Christmas, but the cream cheese frosting makes it "to die for," as my sister said (and our father agrees).

Best I've ever made, according to my father and sister

And so... another cupcake experiment stamped with the family seal of approval. :)

What I've been up to

My family has gotten so used to me baking every weekend that they've started expecting me to produce something by the time Saturday rolls around. My niece is my Number 1 taste tester, and she's even coined my goodies Weekend Cupcakes. :-) It was her birthday last June 12th and she requested chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting. Here she is with her mom:

Great looking cake from Shoppersville

The following Sunday was Father's Day and I thought of trying a butter cupcake recipe I found and then dipping them in chocolate glaze. The cupcakes tasted good but unfortunately I had absentmindedly opened the oven door 10 minutes after I put the muffin pans in (I put the excess batter in a loaf pan and wanted to bake them all together). This caused the cupcakes to collapse. And then the chocolate glaze I used was too thin and ended up running over and being soaked by the cupcakes.

Chocolate glaze running all over the place

And then this afternoon I made chocolate chip banana muffins. I loved the taste of bananas and chocolates together, and they reminded me of a favorite chocolate chip banana cookies recipe I also love.  The muffins were very easy to make and ended up quite as moist as banana cake. I must make more than one recipe next time.

Not the healthiest muffins on the block

And in between all that, I've also been obsessing over getting my OS X upgraded to Snow Leopard. Yes, I'd waited all this time to upgrade, and I hadn't really planned on doing it because I thought I'd wait for the next big OS X upgrade. But then when news of the Lion release came out, I found out that I wouldn't be able to "skip" Snow Leopard because I'd need Mac App Store to purchase a Lion upgrade.

Image from Apple.com

Anyway, my problem now is that none of the Apple resellers here have Snow Leopard stock. I'd already left my contact details with a reseller with instructions to contact me as soon as new stocks arrive. If worse comes to worst, I'll order from the local Apple online store. :-)

Muffin day

Yesterday was muffin day and today was supposed to be cupcake day. But I hadn't realized that I had used up my paper liners, so no cupcakes today... which is a darn shame because I was supposed to try making butter cupcakes too, using Lola Tentay's chocolate icing recipe as glaze.

I got my muffin recipe from this site and since I've missed muffins from French Baker I decided to make them. They weren't complicated to make, and in fact the directions are similar to making pancake batter. They came out cute -- like real muffins! :)

They were all gone in 3 hours, and my brother-in-law even set aside one for himself for the next day. I must make them again and this time triple the recipe!