Rain's In Again

It wasn't raining when I got up this morning. It was just damp and gray. I took the bike to work and thought nothing of it, hoping it meant the rain was done. It had rained hard after I got in from work last night, but hadn't since then.

Work was on-and-off busy, not as crazy as yesterday but steady enough that time went by fairly quickly. There were no major problems, other than my relief took his sweet time getting in. I picked up a few things (spaghetti sauce, canned diced tomatoes, cider vinegar, plastic Easter eggs to put in my baskets, Smart Balance 50/50 sticks on sale), and headed out.

There were no problems...until I went outside. Yep, it was raining again. Hard. I waited a few minutes until the rain let up a little. I got wet going home, but not quite as dripping as the other night when I walked.

There were some surprises waiting for me in the mailbox. I've ordered some outfits off eBay for my four American Girls. The first of those outfits arrived today. The Felicity doll I got from my sister Jessa when she went to college last year is from the late 90s. At that point, Felicity was packaged in a gorgeous dress with orange-and-red roses on an ecru background and long ruffled sleeves. Sometime in the early 2000s, American Girl switched to a simpler lavender and white striped taffeta gown with embroidered flowers and short sleeves. It's not as pretty as the Rose Garden Dress, but but with the short sleeves and light fabric, I thought it would make a nice substitute for Felicity's now retired and rare summer outfit. It looks much nicer on the doll than it does online or in the catalog, very cute.

Since Felicity now wore her spring outfit, I decided to change three of the other girls to their spring costumes. Molly now wears her ruffled birthday pinafore over her white school blouse - it's still too chilly to run around in sleeveless dresses. Little Jess kept her corduroy pants, but replaced her yellow felt jacket and white and green Girl Scout turtleneck with a rainbow-striped short-sleeved turtleneck. I have a spring-y outfit coming for Samantha (hopefully) later this week or next week. I'll change her outfit then.

Next on the queue was doing the Census, which had also come today. That took all of one minute. I live alone, rent my apartment, and have no dependents. I don't have a whole lot to tell Uncle Sam. I'll send it out tomorrow.

I've been wanting to make tea bread or muffins for ages now, ever since the Banana-Coconut Muffins ran out, but I haven't had the time. I decided to try one of the Alton Brown recipes from I'm Just Here For More Food, Cranberry-Orange Muffins. I cut the sugar down to 2/3 cup instead of a full cup and replaced the orange extract (which I don't have) with a small squirt of honey. It's still too sweet, but otherwise quite tasty.

Spent the rest of a cozy, chilly evening trying crocheting again while watching the Disney Alice In Wonderland. (BTW, I know Disney just re-released this. My rule for Disney and their constant re-releases is...unless there's significant differences in the sets, what I have is just fine.)