STOP the Madness

........ I don't understand March Madness. Ok no, I KNOW what it is, I just don't understand what all the fuss is about. I know the people at Pro Pac (my former workplace in Dallas) are a little fanatic about it both with their clients doing MM events and with all the brackets going on .... and I thought with my move to Houston, I had escaped the Madness .... until I finished a book last night, walked through the kitchen and saw Conrad filling out a Bracket Page. OH NO! I hope this doesn't mean two weeks of basketball like Bowl Game time means three weeks of football. I usually search through the memory pages of my mind and come up with Syracuse and Duke - it seems over my 32 years on this planet, I hear their names a lot in connection with basketball. So I vote for them!

Gracious sakes alive! The wedding is a mere 38 days away and my Houston bridal shower is less than three weeks away. I have GOT to get myself together and find some gifts for the people helping me out. My boss is hosting and cooking, a girl I work with here did the favors and invites, then the VP's wife is decorating, two co-workers are supplying the liquor (Yes, I have a bad feeling about this one), one coworker is supplying the less powerful drinks (i.e. water, Coke), one coworker that bought plates, etc... and one coworker is bringing the cake. So *sigh* I have several gifts to pick up in varying states ... I mean, you HAVE to get the boss who is cooking/hosting and the coworker who spent ALL that money on favors and invites something a little more high-faluting than the others. Not that anyone has contributed LESS, but these other two just went way above and beyond .... so of course, I am stuck with ideas. So many running around in my head. I am hoping this long weekend perhaps presents some opportunities to get this cleared up. It's more stressful than Christmas!

Conrad and I are still muching on that fab cheesecake I made this weekend!

Here's what I did:

1 can of apple pie filling - 3/4 of can in the bottom of a graham cracker pie crust and 1/4 of it in a pot on the stove. Add about 1/4 caramel ice cream topping to the apple in the pot and let that simmer on low while you put the rest of the cheesecake together.

Then in a bowl do: two cream cheese blocks, at room temp, 1/2 cup of sugar, two eggs and about 1/2 tspn of vanilla. Cream that all together and pour over the apples in the pie shell. Bake for about 35 minutes on 350.

Add the stuff in the pot, on the top, sprinkle with chopped pecans or nothing, if you so choose. Refrigerate for a few hours so it sets up. HEAVEN! Don't be like us- in such a rush to eat it, you don't let it set up and have runny, yet delicious!, cheesecake all in your plates. Now that's sat for a few days it's WONDERFUL. My first cheesecake ever! I am too good to that boy. :)

Karyn