If you’re a long-time reader, you may recall that I don’t make very pretty desserts. I may put my heart and soul into baking you a cake, but they look like they contain my blood, sweat, and tears.

Recently, we were asked to bring a patriotic dessert to a pot-luck so I turned to Pinterest for some inspiration. Part of my job is to pin items to the BlogHer Loves Holidays board and I knew there were some great ideas involving red, white and blue goodies. In particular, I wanted to make these rice cereal treats.

They didn’t turn out as pretty as the picture, but it’s me; this wasn’t a surprise. It wasn’t until we got to the pot-luck where I saw these adorably sprinkled cupcakes…

 …and this flag-waving dessert…

 …that I realized I had gone overboard on the dye and created the ugliest dish on the table. They weren’t even blue. They were green and very holiday-buffet looking. This is now my M.O. as I once created, what my friends refer to as, “Holiday S’mores” on a camping trip when I accidentally packed cinnamon graham crackers.

I used a 3-section foam plate as a tray, so as not to intimidate anyone.

At this most recent event, people were nudging me as I took these pictures to point out how bad the treats looked. In their defense, they didn’t know they were talking to the chef.

Next up: I put a Christmas spin on strawberry shortcake.

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I don’t text and drive, not because it’s illegal, but because it’s really dumb. I occasionally read texts at stoplights, but that’s only because I am frequently parked at one particular light which lasts two full minutes.

That doesn’t seem very long, until you’re actually sitting there. It’s long. Last week, I applied all of my makeup while sitting at that light. I even curled my eyelashes. Don’t judge me.

If a text is urgent I will reply using Siri (yes Mom, texts can be urgent when you work on Twitter and you have a tweet about quilting about to go up in the middle of a national disaster…and, this is not to say that quilting isn’t important, because it is…to quilters).

Sometimes, though, Siri doesn’t cooperate. In fact, she’s taken to insulting me.

So I told my daughter to snap a picture of the screen so I could tattle on my iPhone like any adult would do, then I tried again.

Rude.

Clearly, Siri has selective hearing which makes her a lot like my children. And, my dog. I may as well ask her to clean her room, or unload the dishwasher, or stop rolling in dead animals.

But I will not cave. I will not text while driving even though I kind of want to just to show Siri that I CAN LIVE WITHOUT HER and her lack of help.

At least the quilters are happy.

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So, you know how your friend’s husband dies while doing yardwork at the age of 42, then four days later the uncle whom everyone, and I mean everyone, adores passes away, and you’re mentally exhausted and you think you’ll sleep until next week, but instead you wake up at 2:25am and start asking yourself pressing questions like, “I wonder if Canadians watch reality TV?” and then you clean out your inbox, finish all your levels of Candy Crush, catch up on Words with Friends, send a Facebook update, tweet, pray, and briefly consider getting sucked back in to Draw Something before you get out of bed at 4:15 and turn on a boring documentary because you hope it will lull you to sleep, but instead it’s interesting and there are subtitles so you have to actually sit up and put your glasses on, then you finally fall asleep at 6:40 and your alarm goes off at 6:55, then 90 minutes after you drop your kids off at school your son’s teacher calls and says to come pick him up AGAIN because this time he tried to climb over a pew during mass, and that afternoon you have to drive your daughter to a softball game on the other side of the earth, then you go to a memorial dinner for your cousin who died last fall and you burst into tears during the Irish Blessing, and ohmygoodness why won’t people stop dying, then you get home and are REALLY emotionally exhausted and can only think about one thing, which is collapsing into your wonderful bed, and then your son walks up and says, “Mom, I think I have strep again”?

Yeah, me too.

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I often talk to my kids about addiction and how important it is to make the right decision the first time they are given the opportunity to try something. I also tell them it’s not a matter of if they will be offered something to try, but when.

This lecture usually includes my opinion that if you don’t say no the first time, your brain may not be able to say no the second time; addiction takes over and makes the decision for you.

I tell them that when someone approaches them and says, “It’s great! You’re going to love it! Come on, everyone is doing it!” to politely decline and walk away from the situation. Don’t start, because you don’t know if you can stop.

I wish I had taken my own advice.

Damn you, Candy Crush! Damn you!

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