This cooking thing has to stop.

Too tired to write much today. Spent the day elbow-deep in one kind of batter or another and learned a couple of key things about baking.

1. Vegan baking is for weenies. Tony tried to bake me a dairy-free cake for my birthday because he's allergic to dairy. It never set up and tasted like crap. We threw the whole thing out and I baked brownies that used a whole stick of butter and two eggs. Take that, vegan weenies!

2. It never ends. I started at 8 this morning and just took my last batch of lemon muffins out of the oven 32 seconds ago, at 6:45 p.m. What was I thinking?!?!

3. I always forget that my brownie pan has some sort of thermonuclear core that makes it bake everything twice as fast as the recipe calls for. I always have to lower the oven temperature 25 degrees and shorten the bake time by 10%. I now have brownie hockey pucks. Brownie jerky. Brownie buffalo chips. It's amazing how fast "chewy" can become "tooth-shattering."

4. My dogs love to eat anything that falls on the floor. That's not necessarily just while baking, but it is important to remember when you are splattering your whole kitchen with a variety of foods, ranging from meatballs to strawberry ice cream base. Sarge drank close to a quarter cup of coconut milk today when Tony loaded the dishwasher. And because Beau can now reach his head onto the counters, food doesn't even have to reach the floor to be in danger. The minute I see him wander off with a full pan of brownie pucks is the moment he starts sleeping outside.

5. It is exhausting. There is something about baking that puts too much pressure on a woman. You feel like your brownies have to be moist, your muffins delicately strueseled, your cake frosted to glossy perfection. Frankly, it's enough to make me start drinking.

6. Once you start drinking, everything gets much more approximate, so make your most complex items first and then end with something simple, like toast. Or scrambled eggs. Don't save the 42-step jumbo muffins that constitute your entire breakfast tomorrow for last, like I did. You'll be in the weeds, tipsy and unable to pour lemon glaze in the tiny holes you just poked in hot muffins. Your kitchen will end up looking like a lemon murder scene. I've strung up some of that (appropriately yellow) crime-scene tape in mine just so I don't have to clean the counter off again. I figure tomorrow I can come back with a putty knife and scrape up the rest of the lemon detritus.

Well, now that I've blogged, it's back to the kitchen for my second glass (bottle) of wine and dinner. Oh, I didn't mention that? Yes, I still have to cook dinner. What on earth is wrong with me?