All In the Golden Afternoon

The weather continued to be perfect today. It was a mere 70 degrees in my apartment when I got up this morning, and probably a lot cooler outside. I celebrated fabulous fall weather with breakfast and one of my favorite episodes of Fairy Tale Theatre, "The Dancing Princesses." Six princesses who are locked into their room by their overprotective father every night somehow manage to wear out their dancing slippers by the next morning. Fed up with paying the shoe bills, the King puts out an announcement that any prince who discovers how the girls keep wearing out shoes can have one of his daughters for his wife and inherit the kingdom. A soldier down on his luck gets help from an old lady who gives him an invisible cloak in order to tail the princesses and discover just how they manage to go out dancing every night.

I spent most of the afternoon at work. It was steady, not quite as bad as last week, but not crazy, either. It did pick up later as we got closer to the usual rush hour. Giving away the stickers for the Rachel Ray Dinnerware went fine, too. They come in books instead of rolls - they look a bit like the tickets they used to use for the Wildwood Boardwalk amusement parks. That makes it a lot easier to count them and give them out. There's only four pieces, so it'll take a lot less time to collect a full set. They look a bit like Fiestaware - I might end up saving for some myself. I even managed to sell four bottles of 5 cent Sierra Mist soda to a couple who didn't want to buy five sodas to get the Coke bottle dollar sale. (We were overloaded with bottles of Sierra Mist with a 75 cent coupon that makes them 5 cents a few weeks ago, and have been trying to sell them ever since.)

My relief, one of the college girls, was right on time, which gave me plenty of time to do my own shopping. Once again, there wasn't much. I mainly needed to restock baking items - chocolate chips, whole wheat flour, cake flour. Bought three of those single fish fillet packs for a dollar each. I used the last of the white cooking wine on my chicken dinner yesterday, so that needed to be replaced. Bought yogurt, too. Found mini-cupcake tins on clearance and thought they'd be perfect for a baking project.

It was too nice to eat outside. I treated myself to dinner at Sonic after I finished my shopping. I'm surprised there weren't more people on the patio. I was there around 5:30, so I guess people would come around later. I enjoyed tater tots, a grilled chicken sandwich, and my favorite cherry limeade while admiring the view of the Black Horse Pike and the wide, rich blue sky.

When I got home, I changed into regular clothes and worked on that baking project I mentioned. The Acme is having a big Football Kickoff/Beginning of Fall party tomorrow in the break room. I wanted to bring something that would be easy for me to carry....hense the aluminum mini-muffin pans with the plastic top. I made a simple yellow cake recipe. I forgot vanilla, so I added lime juice. (It wasn't quite as lime-y after I baked them, thankfully.) I'll frost them with Whipped Cream Frosting later tonight.

I watched the Disney Alice In Wonderland while I baked. This is an old favorite of mine. I know a lot of people don't consider this version of the story to be one of Disney's better films, but it think it's really fun. I love the colorful animation and one of Disney's first celebrity voice casts (Ed Wynn and Jerry Colonna were a great Hatter and March Hare, and Verna Felton had so much fun as the Queen of Hearts, I wish she voiced more out-and-out villains in Disney movies).