Birthday Tradition

So at Teck there's a tradition in which when it is your birthday, you bring donuts for everyone (or something donut-like). As kids were were spoiled with homemade goodies and birthday cakes, so I've gotten used to always wanting to make things from scratch. People almost always notice and appreciate homemade treats, and that makes the effort worth it. So today is my birthday and I am working night shift, so I decided to ditch the donut idea and make some homemade cupcakes for the guys. Chocolate zucchini cupcakes (with a hint of orange) to be exact.

I loved the idea of making these for the guys. Not only are is it a delicious recipe but I get to add in the humour of there being a source of vegetable (very small source) in the cupcakes. They always joke about my abundance of veggies in my lunches so this was a good way to throw that factor in. In the long run though, all this lead to was me running around like mad person trying to bake and decorate these cupcakes before getting to work today. Yeah I could have just went to Tim Hortons and bought some donuts, but no...that would have been too easy. It's reasons like making homemade birthday cupcakes that makes it so that I never have any extra time and am living my day to day life feeling rushed and unprepared. Yeah I made some yummy treats for the guys, but what do I get in return? Well, I leave for a trip to Seattle in about 12 hours (I write this blog from work on my break) and I have a page long list of things I need to do before we take off, one of them being packing! Also in the past four days, no exaggeration required, I've only seen Chris for a handful of hours in total. It seems that it's been just a quick kiss as he's leaving the house while I'm coming in...and vice versa.

The original plan for the trip was to come home from night shift at 6:30am, sleep until noonish then drive to Seattle and arrive around 9pm. But as always, life gets in the way and causes a slight detour in the plans. Pam is in the process of trying to sell her house (the house we are staying in this summer) and a realtor is dropping by tomorrow to take some pictures of the inside and outside of the house. This means that all of the cleaning and grass cutting and yard work that I was planning to do when we got back from the trip now has to be done before we go. Of course I get the news about this the day before we plan to head out. Great. So the new plan is to do all of the work at the house, leave later on in the afternoon and drive the 2.5 hours to Spokane where we will spend the night. From there we can get up early and do the rest of the drive to Seattle. I figured this was a much better idea then just doing the full drive all at once. Trying to find a house in the dark at around 2am (3am if I get lost) in an area that I have never been to before is just not my idea of fun. Especially only on a few hours worth of sleep.

Tip of the Day: Battery powered forklifts are indeed quiet enough to sneak up behind someone and scare them with the blast of the horn.