A lovely Monday morning

Hi everyone!

I usually don't put "lovely Monday morning" in a sentence but this morning's actually pretty good. I woke up early enough to have breakfast, the weather was warm enough to go without a jacket - just a sweater and when I got to work, there were Christmas decorations!

This weekend was very productive. I must tell you about my spa adventure.

I got to the spa early so I had some time to kill. Someone took my coat for me and I was given the opportunity to enjoy two different saunas - one humid, one dry. I rather enjoyed both. I then re-hydreated with some orange water (water with slices of orange in it) and had my body wrap. The room itself had a raised platform that looked a bit like a bed. It had a gutter around the raised cushion area for water drainage. It was covered in what looked like a huge piece of Saran Wrap. The girl had me lay down and she first exfoliated me and then applied a thin layer of mud - much like you would a face mask. She then wrapped me up in the Saran wrap to let it set. Then, my hair was washed/scalp massage and instead of using a shower head, she used a pitcher of water. Very relaxing. The plastic was then removed and a set of shower heads (I think 6) rinsed off the mud/massaged me. I found I didn't like the final rinse as much - it got too steamy as it lasted about 10 minutes. After the body wrap, I had my make-up "reapplied" for "free". This girl was very nice and explained a lot about what to look for in a moisturizer and how to create a great home-made face exfoliant. (Take some baking soda and make a paste. Apply to your face. Remove very gently. Moisturize well. Do once a week.) I ended up buying some lipstick (lovely natural-looking shade) and left there feeling absolutely wonderful. Stopped for pizza and mellowed all night.

On Saturday I made hamburger soup. It was really easy and once you add all the ingredients, you put it on the stove and forget about it! I had problems cutting up the onion though. It was a yellow onion and I was crying just taking off the outside layer. Does anyone have any suggestions about cutting onions? The soup turned out really well and it was a big hit at the Harvest Lunch at church on Sunday. Some members of the Friendship Group made the soup from the same recipe so it could be intermixed with no problems. I bought an Amaryllis bulb (Huntington Society) and a ticket for the Christmas dinner at the beginning of December. I'm going to plant the bulb tonight - it came with instructions and it doesn't look too difficult to grow.

Sunday afternoon was Zuccotto time. The cakes turned out well - I used alluminium foil round pans and they came out with no problems. It was easy to shape the cake into the bowl - no breakage/crumbling. The alcohol smell was rather strong - I guess I'm not use to it anymore. There was a lot of filling so I filled both the dome and then created a layer on top. The other cake fit perfectly on top and then into the freezer for it to set. Four hours later I made the chocolate glaze (chocolate & whipping cream). In the future, I think I'll need to leave it on the stove for a bit longer - I noticed it was a bit lumpy when pouring it on the cake. Perhaps if I left it on the stove longer for it to blend and then waited for a longer time for it to thicken before pouring it on the cake. Anyways, the cake look good and we'll be trying it today. I'll let you know how it tastes.

Have a great day!