What a weekend

What a weekend, what a week!

I’d agreed to bake a cake for Taylor and her brother Jakob’s birthday party on Sunday. These years the kids like to decorate their own cakes and have definite ideas on what they want. So on Sat. I baked 2 round cakes, one for Taylor and one for Jakob and put a basic icing on. Taylor would decorate her own cake and Sunny decided to decorate Jakob’s.

On Sunday Nate and Bekki were coming for dinner so I thought that I’d better get some cookies and bars ready for them to taste test. I wanted to bake several variations on the cookie that I’d developed the other day and send out samples for taste testing so this would work out well.

Before I started baking on Sunday I remembered my grandmother’s chocolate chip cookie recipe and thought that I’d do a cookie based on her recipe. I then baked the one like I developed the other day and 3 variations on it. As I was baking the cookies the girls started decorating their cakes so I’d run between the kitchen with the cookies and the dining room with the girls and their cakes. We did finish up the cakes which were so great and lots of cookies.

On Monday I divided the cookies between the willing guinea pigs and mailed some out to of town people. We delivered the cookies to those close to us, even got a dinner out of Tom and Aletha as we there close to dinner time. Great jerk chicken.

Now I will need to sit down at the Health Department and ask the questions. There is a ton of work to do to get these to market.

My Own Incompetence

Here I carried on about idiocy and incompetence and then I go and do all of those things. After ranting about the idiocy I’d dealt with in getting my adjuster license then I went and sent the fingerprint membership card to the wrong place. I had spent over $27.00 just to overnight the card to Illinois for nothing.

This morning I had to get up early and call the place in Illinois and fortunately they found my package. They are sending it back.

Then I had to go to the sheriff’s office have new fingerprints made then get them to the post office. Now they are on the way to Texas hopefully to the right place.

I’m trying to help out with the incompetence here. Why just let everyone else be in on this.

Tired of Incompetence

In November I took an on-line course to get my non-resident Texas Adjuster’s License. I took the test and passed first time. I read all of the requirements needed to send with my application for the license which included sending info from a background check.

I had fingerprints taken and a couple of weeks later received a letter from the State of Calif stating that I was free of any criminal background. I sent all of this to the company hired by Texas Department of Insurance (TDI) which reviews the materials to make sure that everything is in order. They then pass everything on to TDI which issues the actual license.

In Feb, after returning from Seattle I finally had time to deal with my license which had not arrived. I called the company I’d sent everything to and was told that they had sent my info to TDI in Dec and everything was in order; I’d have my license very soon.

I hadn’t received anything yet this week so called TDI on a number that I finally found that was not automated. After being transferred all over I reached a real person who told me that they, the TDI, had never received my app and info and that I should have sent my info directly to them.

I called the company who I’d sent my info to. First call: I was told “no, that they sent everything to TDI” then got disconnected. Second call: I was adamant that I wanted answers now and after the woman investigated, found that my app was sitting in a cabinet. They needed more info. I faxed the info immediately then called back. A guy went and found the fax and told me he’d walk the app to the TDI the following day. They verified that non-resident applicants do not send info directly to the TDI.

Now today I got a notice from the TDI; I needed to send a fingerprint(s) or card, not the statement from the California Dept of Justice. Digital prints may be sent direct via computer. I went to the Kern County Sheriff who did my original prints digitally but they tell me that they can’t send the prints to Texas only to California DOJ. I have to have the prints on a card which goes to some company in Illinois, who will scan the card and send it to Texas.

If I did my job this way I’d never be called to work. As it is, due to the idiocy here I’ve missed out on work. I’m fed up with incompetence!

Another Exciting Day

This was to be a nice day, inspecting a claim in the local mountains. It was Dale’s day off from his county mental health job so he took some time off from his home health job to come along for a mini vacation.

The claim was close to a local ski resort where we recently took the grandkids. We thought that it would be a beautiful day because it rained yesterday so the air would be clear and clean.

We left a little late so although I’d brought the big camera along we didn’t have time to stop for photos along the way. We had some sketchy directions: take the 155 to the street into the development, turn left, look for the insured’s street, look up the hill and see the house. All of this in the forest.

As I just said we’d had a storm yesterday. It had rained and we had some wind, nothing that was anything to write home about. Last night Dale told me he had to put the snow chains into the truck in the event that we’d hit snow.

We left a little late forgetting the chains of course but went on our way. We got close to Alta Sierra and as we got into the area there was snow on the ground. As we got into Alta Sierra there was lots of snow. We didn’t panic because the roads were clear, and cars coming down the hill didn’t have chains so we were confident that all was well.

We turned onto the road into the developed area; yikes there was ice on the hill that we were going down. Dale drove carefully but we became concerned about returning up the hill that we were just sliding down. We got to the bottom of the hill and there was the insured’s house to the right with their street completely snowed in. Dale decided that he would continue up the hill, turn around to avoid the ice and then park in front of the insured’s street.

Dale started up the hill, hit some ice and the truck started sliding, sliding right into a ditch. I got out so that I could walk (slide on the ice) down the hill to the insured’s while Dale figured out the pickup’s situation. I walked down the hill then up the hill to the insured’s, everything completely snowed in from yesterday’s storm.

Someone in a 4x4 truck came by and Dale who was walking down the hill to join me asked if the guy would help us out of the ditch. The guy had a tow chain thank goodness. After much slipping and sliding our rescuer revved up his truck and hit the gas. Our poor truck was jerked hard but came out of the ditch it was in, whipped by some trees and onto some wet pavement. Our truck was free not only from the ditch but also from scratches as it was whipping around like a mad hatter ride!

Dale carefully turned around, came back down the hill and parked in front of the snowed in road to the insured’s.

By the time we left the sun had melted most of the ice; however we were on the edge of our seats when driving up the hill to get out of there. We were glad to get on down the road. Never did stop for photos with the good camera.

Finally a Almond Chocolate Chip Cookie

Tomorrow came and went but we didn’t try to experiment with the almond cookie. Instead we worked outside cleaning out the landscaping, removing weeds from the cracks in the sidewalk and cleaning in general.

Today Taylor asked if she could start with the cookie experiment so we started baking. Taylor did all of the baking while I suggested proportions. We baked some with less butter which were better, then more butter and more meal which were a horrible mess, then less butter and more egg, too runny. As I looked at this runny cookie dough I realized exactly what it needed, more meal. I added enough until it was the consistency that looked and felt right.

Taylor put the last recipe’s batch in the oven and when she took it out she was so excited. The cookies looked perfect. When they cooled we tasted them and they were so good; moist inside, browned outside. We hit on the perfect Almond Chocolate Chip Cookie.

Next weekend we will tweak the recipe once more then decide which we like the best. We will maybe make enough for Nate to start selling at the Farmers Markets, if Nate likes them that is. This could be a great little business for Taylor for the summer. We will ship the cookies next week to various people to see how they ship. This will give us a good idea whether we should try to sell them online too.

Also next weekend Sunny will start her experimenting with bars or a different type of cookie.

Sorry but we can’t post the final recipe. We will want to market the cookies so the recipe must go into a safe deposit box for now. We can only tempt you.