Wordless Wednesday

Deployment: 0, Us: 2

I know I don't typically post much personal stuff on here. I'm a fairly private person. I am very active on Facebook & Twitter, but those accounts are protected. I've had a Live Journal since 2003, which has been the recorder for some of my very private thoughts, but it's protected. This blog is public, so I typically don't give too much of myself.

As you can tell from my header, I am an Air Force Wife. But only because my husband is in the military. I honestly have very little to do with the military, and other than my insane love for the commissary, I don't like very much about being an "Air Force Wife". I have a whole list of things that irritate me about the base here, and their policies, procedures and complete lack of awareness for spouses that actually have jobs, but this post is positive, and public, so I won't go there. I'm an Air Force Wife, but I don't adhere to the school of thought that my life is difficult, special, or that I deserve special treatment because of it. Graham CHOSE this job. He CHOSE this lifestyle. And I CHOSE him. Living this life, deployments and all, was my choice. It's not any harder that being a firefighters wife, or a police officers wife. We get acknowledged and referred to as a special breed because we deal with deployments. I had a friend in college who was engaged to a guy who lived in England. She once went a year and three months without seeing him. That's longer than both of the deployments that Graham and I have been through put together. When you love someone, you do what you have to do.

Anyways. Back to the point. Last night, after 6.33 months/27.57 weeks/193 days, my husband returned from a six month deployment in Kuwait.

We had been through a deployment before ( we actually got engaged after he returned home from the last one), but this one was different. Last year, we were already in a long distance relationship. We were used to going a month (or sometimes longer) at a time without seeing each other. But this time we were married. I moved to Arkansas to be with him in January. We got married on April 23. He deployed May 7. We had a little over four months of total togetherness, and we both got SO spoiled having that time together. We're not the most exciting couple. Most of our nights consisted of curling up on the couch together and eating really good food. And I missed that so much.

Making it even harder was the lack of a support system here. I haven't made any friends here. It's hard for me to make friends. I'm lucky enough to have a job I really like, and to work with people that are great, but it's not the same as the awesome friends I have back home. So I was lonely. A lot. I know everyone thinks I'm turning into the crazy cat lady, but this cat made my life so much easier while he was gone. I love animals, but this one is special. We adopted him from a shelter on January 14, and I don't know if I would have made it without him. People say cats are mean, anti-social... that's a load of crap. At least when it comes to Buddy. He was company for me. He needed me. He's so loving. And having another living being in this house just made me feel so much less lonely. He really has made our little family complete.

I have so much in my head right now, but above all else, I'm just so happy. I've been so full of anxiety all week. I've been anxious over BIG things (thinking his plane would crash) to silly things (worrying the cat wouldn't remember him) and when that plane touched down, all of that went away. It seemed to take forever for them to disembark, but when they did, and I saw him... It's a moment I'll never forget. I feel silly that if effected me so much, when I've been through a deployment & homecoming before, but it was just different this time. And when I flung myself at him, and felt his arms wrap around me, I just felt this overwhelming sense of pure and total joy. While I don't wish for anyone to have to be separated from someone they love for six months, I do wish more people could experience that feeling. I think less people would ever settle if they could feel that.

Raspberries and cheap wine =)

I'm currently working at two offices in our company, and both offices had their Thanksgiving luncheons today. I of course made desserts for both. Neither was a traditional fall dessert, because I am honestly already sick of pumpkin & apple.

Anyways, my initial plan was to make
1) Lemon cupcakes, filled with strawberries and topped with a cream cheese frosting
2) Vanilla cupcakes with lemon curd, raspberry jam and topped with buttercream
3) Chocolate cupcakes with raspberry frosting.

Only #3 worked out.

I used the same recipe for the first two cakes, and it was AWFUL. I made the lemon ones first, and I shouldn't have made the plain ones next, but I was concerned I had made an error, so I made it again. Both were really, really bad. They looked like little white hockey pucks, were not at all moist or fluffy and were just really disappointing. I should have known, because all of the reviews I've read for this recipe say that it's really sturdy and gives off little crumbs (which is true), and handy when making a layered cake. But this really does not translate well into cupcakes. I just really wish I had read more reviews for the recipe before baking four dozen of them. Oh well. You win some, you lose some,

I definitely won with the chocolate ones though! They were so, SO good. And the frosting was INSANE. Sweet, a little tart, SO creamy and the color is SO pretty!

The cupcakes were my favorite Martha recipe and the frosting was adapted from Jamie over at My Baking Addiction.

Raspberry Buttercream
(Adapted from My Baking Addiction)

Ingredients

• 1/3 of a cup of raspberry puree
• 2 sticks of unsalted butter; room temperatue
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 6 cups of powered sugar4 tablespoons of milk

Directions 

1. Cream the butter and shortening in the bowl of an electric or stand mixer until fluffy.
2. Mix in the raspberry puree.
3. Slowly incorporate the sugar. Do not put in to much at once unless you want your new knives covered in sugar dust... grrrr.  
4. Once all of the sugar is combined, add enough milk to get to your desired consistency (I just used two).

For the other office, I used some of the leftover raspberry puree and made an insanely good raspberry swirl cheesecake. OH. MY. GOD. So effing delicious! I actually messed up with the eggs. All of my cupcakes called for four eggs, and I guess I was on a four egg kick. The recipe only called for three, but I didn't realize that until the stand mixer was mixing in the fourth egg. *sigh* At that point I just went along and hoped for the best.

The cheesecake was the PERFECT consistency. I don't like super creamy cheesecakes, I like them to be firmer. I guess the extra egg did that? Anyways. It was really, really delicious. I managed to salvage a good sized chunk of it to bring home... (I'm supposed to welcome someone home tomorrow who LOVES my cheesecake =) =) =)) and I may have had a slice for dinner tonight.

Raspberry Swirl Cheesecake
  
Graham Cracker Crust
Ingredients

• 2 cups of Graham Cracker crumbs
• 2 tablespoons of sugar
• 1/2 cup of melted butter

Directions

1. In small bowl toss together graham crumbs, margarine or butter and 2 tablespoons sugar. 
2. Press remaining crumb mixture onto bottom and 2 inches up sides of 9-inch springform pan. 
3. Wrap pan tightly in aluminum foil.
4. Chill in freezer while preparing filling.

Cheesecake Filling

Ingredients

• 4 8 ounce packages of softened cream cheese
• 1 1/3 cups sugar
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon of lemon extract
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup sour cream
• Raspberry puree

Directions

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat cream cheese on medium speed until fluffy. Add 1 1/3 cups sugar, cornstarch, lemon zest and vanilla. Beat until combined. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until just combined after each addition. Stir in sour cream. 
2. Take spoonfuls of the puree and drop onto the cheesecake. With a toothpick (or a skewer, which is all I ever have) swirl the puree around. I did about 5 dollops of the raspberries.
3. Pour hot water in a large roasting pan. Once the cheesecake is in the water bath, the water should come up about one inch up the side. Bake the cheesecake at 325 degrees for 1 hour & 10 minutes. Once done open up the oven door a few inches and let cool in the oven for about 25 minutes. Take out of the oven and cool on a wire rack for 45 minutes and then transfer to the refrigerator. 
4.  The cheesecake needs to refrigerate for at least 4 hours, but over night is preferable.

And as a fairly decent end to the night, I stopped by the store on the way home and picked up a cheap bottle of wine to help me relax. The Flip Flop Wines are pretty good for their crazy low price tag. AND they donate a pair of shoes to someone in need for every bottle sold (up to 100,000 pairs). And at $7.00 a bottle? Yes, please. I bought the Riesling last time, and it was good. It was crisp, but not as sweet as I like. I like the Moscato better a little better. It's sweet, but doesn't have the crispness. Still good though!