#giftyou

[pantstomatch]

Thank you for writing were!bunny Stiles - still one of my very most favorite reads because everyone is perfectly in character and there's even a dash of excitement and adventure (and happy ending) <3

aww, thank you!!! I”m so happy you liked it :)

[coffeebuddha]

@giftyou​ replied to your text post

For some reason I thought you were brunette, maybe your icon

nah, you’re remembering correctly! i’m naturally a brunette, but i like changing up my hair color pretty often. the strawberry blonde has actually stuck around a surprisingly long time, though :)

@absentlyabbie​ replied to your text post

STOP ATTACKING ME WITH YOUR PRETTY

SHAN’T! 

[coffeebuddha]

@giftyou replied to your text post

I miss the librarian! She's the best

Me too! I’ve been using that icon for at least a decade! I’m honestly having a bit of an identity crisis without her :(

[coffeebuddha]

giftyou replied to your post “just found out that when i bought my house three years ago i should...”

Adults never told us this stuff, but by God mitochondria is the powerhouse of the

YEP, IT SURE IS :|

In fairness, according to my realtor, who I used when I bought my house and is the one who’s going to be selling it and was nice enough to help me untangle all this before noon on a Sunday, I would normally have been sent a reminder about needing to file by the attorney’s office he goes through, BUT I bought my house as a foreclosure, so we had to go through another agency, which doesn’t send out reminders like that. So I genuinely SHOULD have been told at the time it happened, but it just slipped through the cracks. Which sucks, but happens. I’m bummed, because my mortgage going up as drastically as it did every single year that I owned the house has been really stressful and confusing, and also because I really could have used that extra money, but it’s not worth getting angry about. I’m going to look at the silver lining that I can use it as a selling point when we put the house on the market. *shrug emoji*

[coffeebuddha]

Do you have a favorite cream cheese frosting recipe? I try to make my own and it's always off

I don’t have an actual recipe that I follow, but I can tell you my process.

Always start with an equal amount of cream cheese and butter. Using only cream cheese is going to make the frosting soupy, so yes, even though it’s cream cheese frosting, you still need the butter. The flavor of the cream cheese will overpower the butter, it’s all good, it’s a Structural Thing.

You want both to be room temp. I leave mine out on the counter overnight, which horrifies some people I know because BACTERIA, but again, it’s fine. You’re fine. The butter is fine. The cream cheese is fine. All is fine.

Cream your cream cheese first. Don’t do them at the same time, because butter has a much lower melting point than cream cheese does and the friction from beating them will make it smooth out a lot faster than your creamed cheese, and once that happens your mixture will be soft enough that you’ll have a much harder time smoothing out any remaining lumps in your cream cheese. And you want that shit smooth. I have a stand mixer with a metal bowl, so I tend to hit mine with my blow torch to get the lumps out. Only do this for a few seconds at a time, being careful not to burn the cream cheese or heat it too much so that it liquefies. 

Toss in your butter and keep creaming. DON’T use the blow torch this time, because the butter will melt, oh god, it’ll be like Frosty the Snowman at the end of the song, you don’t want that.

Add a little vanilla if that’s how you roll. DON’T add milk or water or any other kind of liquid, because cream cheese frosting has an unquenchable desire to be a liquid and will take any opportunity to achieve that goal.

Sift your powdered sugar. For every, oh, let’s say 4? 4 sounds right? For every 4 cups of powdered sugar, sift in a quarter cup of corn starch. The corn starch will help stiffen up the frosting without adding additional sweetness, but DON’T USE TOO MUCH or you WILL be able to taste it, both flavorwise and in that way where you’ll keep smacking your tongue against the roof of your mouth and muttering ‘what is this DISGUSTING FILM coating my mouth???’

Make an offering to Hestia and hope that she is feeling generous.

Mix in your powdered sugar/corn starch a little at a time until you’ve reached the desired consistency and then beat until light and fluffy, but not so long that it overheats and turns the entire thing into a broken beige sludge.

Enjoy!

[coffeebuddha]

Do any of your dogs get along well with your cat(s)? Any buddies?

Frank Sinpawtra and Boo Radley mostly live in a state of blissful disinterest when it comes to the cats, who are blissfully disinterested in return, except for the rare occasions when Wicket decides it’d be fun to play with Frankie’s tail. Frankie is Not A Fan of those moments, but he’s never done more to discourage it than to grumble at Wicket without even trying to get away.

SMUDGE on the other hand! Wicket and Carmilla HATE Smudge, because Smudge wants them to be her Very Best Friends! And she shows that enthusiasm by barking, jumping at them, and enthusiastically shoving her snoot against them. Cari won’t even come out of the designated cat room if Smudge is in the house, though she has zero problems with the other two. Wicket, on the other hand, refuses to be cowed and has mostly worn her down with repeated hisses, thwaps, and angry meows so that she generally leaves him alone.

[coffeebuddha]

giftyou replied to your post “giftyou replied to your post: so i’m not making up...”

Oh wow, yes very pretty. I'll have to look into those

They’re pretty cool! And the model I like is over 1800sqft and only ~$115k! Just be aware going in that there can be some steep ‘hidden’ costs. Land in the area I’m moving to is probably going to be at least $10k. Then there’s the cost of clearing the land, if necessary, and utility hook ups. If there’s already lines laid down on the property, you’re looking at about $1500 to get everything hooked up. If there aren’t utilities already in place, it can cost between $10-20k, which is...a lot more. The agent I spoke with said the best case scenario is finding a property with an existing house/building that’s unlivable, so that you can get it for a low cost, then tear down the building and place the new house in the same spot.

Additional plus/minuses include that utility bills tend to be lower for these homes, so lower monthly cost on that, but the financing--at least with the company I’m looking at--is structured over 23 years, instead of the usual 30 year mortgage most people get, so you have a higher monthly payment there.

Still, if I can get the land for $10k and have to pay about $15k to put in utilities, that’s still only $140k, which is within my current estimated budget and would still give me a nicer, bigger house than I’d be able to afford if I went for a stick built one.

[coffeebuddha]

Coffee/bakery store owners meet!cute over dogs a la 101 Dalmatians

haha, someday i’m going to own a pet friendly bakery! :D