Quick Update (With A Recipe)

After being out since August on medical leave, my boss came back to work today.
Yesterday I thought, "I should make her a cake."
Seeing as how I had to stop somewhere after work to get a birthday card for my niece Jenni (more on that in a bit), I decided to pick up what I needed and do just htat.
I went with what I'm sort of known for: a mint chocolate cake
The recipe is as follows:

White cake mix
Peppermint Extract
Chocolate syrup
Green food coloring
Cool Whip (8 oz should be sufficient)

Prepare the cake mix per the instructions on the box, but add about 1/4 tsp of the Peppermint Extract to the mix. Bake per the the instructions in a 9x13 pan.
Let the cake cool, then take a wooden spoon with a round handle and use the handle to poke a series of regularly-spaced holes in the cake (I usually go four or five holes across by however many can fit along the length of it). Fill the holes with chocolate syrup.
Next, add 1/4 tsp of the Peppermint Extract to the Cool Whip, along with a dash of the green food coloring (this is optional, and I don't give an exact measure because it's up to you how green you want to make it), stir it all together until you've got an even color, then spread it over the top of the cake.
Finally, drizzle some more chocolate syrup on top of the Cool Whip in whatever pattern you like.
It's best to keep the cake refrigerated, as the frosting can get kind of runny at room temperature.
In my experience, people will love it, and will assume that it was incredibly complicated to make.

The cake was enjoyed by everyone on my team, and greatly appreciated by my boss. Everyone was amazed by the fact that 1. I could bake at all 2. I could bake something so seemingly complicated 3. I was thoughtful enough to do something like that.
While I'd mostly intended it just for us, there were other people coming in and out of the break room, so we couldn't really say, "No! You can't have cake!" so several other people had some. One person, after finishing his piece, asked who made it. When everyone pointed to me, he came over and shook my hand. I guess he liked it.
As for the birthday card...last time I had to stop at a store to pick up a birthday card it was for my nephew Jacob. I was stymied by the fact that while they had plenty of cards for nieces (and daughters, and granddaughters, and sisters, and moms) they had virtually no cards for nephews (or males in general). I finally managed to find one card for a nephew.
This time around there were virtually no cards for females, and absolutely none for nieces.
Who knew that birthday cards based on gender were seasonal?
(Seriously, WTF?)
Finally I had to settle on a non-gender-specific card.
We didn't do Riff Trax night tonight, as two of the kids have confirmed cases of the flu and Scott woke up this morning exhibiting symptoms.
We were actually planning to postpone it until tomorrow anyway, as Scott was going to have to watch the kids tonight, but now we won't be having it at all this week. Oh well.
As for me, I've been dividing my time between not doing anything in particular and working on the picture I started on Sunday (I said it was complex and would take a while).
And that pretty much brings you up to date.