Fat Tuesday, or Mardi Gras, is fast approaching, which means it’s time to enjoy King cakes while you can. King cakes are like big cinnamom rolls but with icing on them in colors purple, green, and yellow. Inside each king cake is a small, plastic baby. If you find the baby, then you are obligated to buy the king cake next year. Can’t find a king cake near you or just wanting to make your own? Then here is a recipe. Enjoy!

King Cake
For cake and filling:
1 box (16 ounces) Pillsbury Hot Roll Mix, prepared according to directions on box
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/3 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
For icing:
2 cups confectioner’s sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons water
1 cup granulated sugar (large crystals)
3 or 4 drops of purple, green or yellow food coloring.
Preheat oven to 375F.
Cream the butter, sugar and cinnamon together until soft enough to spread easily.
To make the dough, follow directions on the Pillsbury Hot Roll Mix package. Instead of forming rolls, turn half the dough onto a floured surface, and roll into a 2-foot-by-1- foot rectangle. Spread half the butter and filling mixture on top of dough.
Beginning at the wide edge, roll the dough toward you into a long cigar shape approximately 2 inches in diameter. Do the same with the second half of the dough. Place dough roll seam-side down on a well-greased baking sheet. Curve each roll, pinching the ends together to make an oval ring. Cover and let rise in a warm place for 20 minutes or until doubled in size.
Bake at 375F for 15 to 20 minutes or until a straw inserted into the dough comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool.
To prepare the glaze, combine sugar, lemon juice and water, mixing until smooth. Slowly add more water by the teaspoon until it spreads as easily as a thin icing.
Place 1/3 cup sugar in each of three small jars with lids. Add three drops of food coloring to each. Cover with lid and shake until color is evenly distributed throughout the large sugar crystals. Add food coloring, drop by drop until desired shade is achieved.
Coat the cake top with glaze. Sprinkle colored sugars in 2- to 3-inch alternating rows of purple, green and yellow. Cut and serve.

I live in a state of chaos. The older I get, the more it bothers me. So it’s getting to the point that if I don’t do something about the clutter, then I could lose all sanity.

To tackle the problem all at once would be a daunting task. In fact trying to do it all at once will literally drive me insane. Today I’ve decided to list everything that needs to be organized and then prioritize the list.

One of our problem areas is our board games and card games. My husband has a tone of Magic the Gathering cards which he is willing to sell a lot of them but will probably keep at least 25%-50% of his collection. I’m thinking that our games and cards will be the area I focus on this weekend. My solution involves buying a storage cabinet. I had thought a bookshelf would serve our needs well but like the idea of a cabinet better. That way I can just close it up, not looking at the clutter inside should it get messy. When a bookshelf is cluttered, it is on display. At least a cabinet can be closed, hiding the mess inside.

We’ll see how it goes. I might change my mind altogether once I see what cabinets are available locally.

I’m a huge fan of Swiffer. It just makes my daily cleaning(when it happens!) so much easier. When I learned about the Swiffer Break-up Music Video Contest, I was very excited. I love Swiffer and love to edit video. And I was even holding off talking about the contest until my video was finished.

Well, I still haven’t completed my entry. Snow and cold weather has pushed me behind. The deadline for submissions is January 31st, so I better hurry and share the contest with you.

First visit the Swiffer Break-up Music Video Contest You Tube page to download your editor tool kit. Use one of the “break up” songs t create your video. Make a short one minute video showing how you’ve “broken up” with your other cleaning products. The best entries Swiffer will put up on You Tube so people can vote for their favorite one. Top prize is $15,000.

Tomorrow I plan to shoot it and then edit it Wednesday, coming in right under the deadline. Eh, I work better under pressure anyway.

This month is almost over. At the beginning of the month I began a new diet. I have been preparing recipes from the Biggest Loser cookbook and hope to add exercise to my regime soon.

So far I’ve lost about 8 pounds. That’s just been from cutting back calories. I’ve haven’t taken any weight loss pills or drank into meal replacement shakes. So far I’ve been trying to eat between 1200 and 1700 calories a day. I try to eat around 300 calories for breakfast, 400 for lunch, and 300 for dinner. I eat two 100 calorie snacks a day.

Here are some ways that I’ve cut back on calories. I’ve switched to either ground turkey, chicken, or lean ground beef. Read that labels as it is amazing the difference in just lean ground beef and regular ground beef. I’ve also switched to whole wheat tortillas instead of flour tortillas since we enjoy eating wraps. Whole wheat is higher in fiber, so it will keep you satisfied longer.

I already drank diet drinks but cutting out regular sodas can really trim the daily caloric intake. Even if you just drink one 12 ounce can a day, since a serving is 8 ounces, that’s 1 and 1/2 servings. If a serving has 180 calories then add 90 to it to get the total for just one can of soda.

Just doing small things to your diet can help cut those calories.

There are several ways to cut back and go green around the house. It feels good to be doing something to help preserve the environment.

Look for green products that can replace products in your home. Or how about buying reusable grocery bags? I noticed at our local grocery store that you can pick up these bags for 88 cents a piece. There are also several solar gadgets, so you can harness the power of the sun without spending tens of thousands of dollars.

Recycle your aluminum cans and newspapers. We crush our cans and then place them in a large garbage can that is only used for cans. Then when it’s full, we can bag them up and when we get a few bags we take them to a recycling center. Some areas of the country will pick up your newspapers if they are separated from the rest of your trash. If not, then check with your local newspaper as they probably have a recycling bin located near them.

Turn off lights when you leave a room. Also turn off the television if it’s just on for background noise. After working in television for years, I can’t stand to have the TV on just to have noise. There is plenty of white noise that will take its place. Or you might be surprised at just how much you enjoy the peace and quiet.

Those are just a few tips for going green. I’m sure there are plenty of other ways to cut back on what we consume.

Our home office is located in our living room and bedroom. My husband’s desk is in the living room while mine is in the bedroom. It’s not an ideal situation and would like to have it all in one place.

I’m thinking new furniture is in order. Maybe a nice, wide, executive office furniture would do the trick. Hopefully we can find something that will meet both of our needs.

Right now my husband’s desk has the printer, scanner, router, stylus, and modem on it along with his work stuff. Mine is sort of bare in comparison. So, having both desks in the same room could free up him some working space while not taking too much of mine away.

The biggest challenge with our home office is finding furniture that will work, that fits into our space, and has a lot of function. It’s a tall order that I’m not sure how we can fill.

I know I’m not the only person who will go to the store for a gallon of milk and spend $50. Today I figured out my problem and maybe a way I can trim my spending.

When I need one or two items, I shouldn’t go to my normal store since I’m more likely to pick up more items since I know where everything is. I should go to stores I’m unfamiliar with and go when I’m in a hurry. That way I will be more likely to grab what I need and leave. We’ll see if it works.

One good thing about the cold weather is that it makes getting ice cold Coke really easy. We are still using a dorm-sized refrigerator, so space is very limited. Having cold weather has been great to keep Cokes cold and our fridge less cluttered.

For the past few weeks we cannot get our Wii to do a system update. It seems to connect to the Internet fine and proceeds to download but then stalls a few minutes into the process.

The Wii uses a WIFI connection but also has the capability of using a wired one. So I dragged out my LAN USB adapter and some extra Cat 5 cable to see if it was something to do with the wireless connection. Well, apparently I need a Wii LAN adapter to make this work. Guess it’s back to the drawing board.

Of course, my husband’s idea is to take it to a friend’s house and use their WIFI to see if it will update that way. Since we have satellite Internet we are wondering if that is the problem. I guess I need to do some further investigating. It’s very frustrating since I received Wii points for Christmas but can’t use them until the Wii does a system update.

I saw a new dentist last week, which overall was a pleasant experience. His bedside manner struck me a little odd, though. I hadn’t been to the dentist in a while, so I expected I would have to have some work done. I took the news without complaint or anything. So his comments to his own comments were a little out of place.

He said that it is better to get bad news from your dentist than your cardiologist. I get what he was saying. That my dental work is easily repaired unlike if I had a heart condition or even something worse like mesothelioma. I just found it odd that he would say something like that when I wasn’t complaining about anything.

He is a young doctor, so maybe he is still finding what works for him when it comes to what to say to patients.