There's no trick to it. It firms up on its own as it cools. I've had success by nuking frosting at 50% in 5 second increments until it's just barely just liquified. I test by stirring. It only needs to be warm enough to be dip-able. In my mind, (your mileage may vary) warming the frosting in a shallow, flat-bottomed container, barely bigger than your cubes, would be less messy than pouring... you could dip one side at a time, and if you worked quickly, your finger marks in the frozen cake would fall out as it cooled. I learned this trick from an awesome book I bought my niece and nephew for Christmas. They describe the technique on pages 18 & 19, which you can see by clicking on the "search inside this book" link, entering the work "microwave" in the search pane, selecting the second search result, and turning to page 19 with the right hand arrow. (For the record, the book is way fun!) I tried this dipping technique with cupcake frosting and the results were so flawless that the ladies I served them to assumed I'd done something very difficult and fancy. The punchline was that it took less time to dip (from scratch) cupcakes into warmed white Duncan Heinz frosting (with a bit of yellow food coloring and lemon extract added) than it would have taken to frost by the traditional method. The frosting firmed up a bit and they looked beautiful. This book also demonstrates a stupid-simple technique of drawing a design on a paper template, slipping the template on wax paper, melting some colored wafers, spooning them into a ziploc, cutting a tiny hole in the corner, and drawing on the wax paper. To see an example, enter the word "monarch" in the search pane and see pages 77-79. Or just buy the book. It's a fun jumping-off point for the imagination.

This made me crave buttercream so I had my grandsons age 8&9 frost a Hersheys chocolate cake today..no deco, just covered with buttercream...LOL. I had the 9 yo get out and measure the vanilla he of course grabbed the dark vanilla instead of the clear...I'm sure it will taste great though.

Well, the party's over and the cupcakes turned out pretty cute - but very different than my plan. I made and frosted the cupcakes on Friday and intended to decorate them with the sprinkles on Sat a.m. for the 3 pm party. Who knew that buttercream crusts over after sitting for a few hours (even in a tupperware container) so the sprinkles wouldn't stick! Not me, so I had hairless/spineless hedgehogs. The fancy sprinkles were more delicate and I worried about them melting into a too moist frosting which is why I didn't put them on when the frosting was soft- also no time to run to Michaels for a bunch of the regular sprinkles. So I ended up adding cocoa to the last batch of frosting I had and then forced the frosting through the fine strainer on my foodmill to make little clumps of fur-like frosting - then place them on the cupcakes with a toothpick. OMG it was so labor intensive and the choc frosting was not easy to get to stick to the dry buttercream either, but I just kind of crammed it on. I made a few mini cupcakes for the wee ones at the party and about 1/2 way into this decorating nightmare, I was wishing I'd made all of them mini. The cupcakes had WAY too much frosting and I figured the kids would just leave it on their plates, but they seemed to eat every bit. I hope they eventually went to sleep, lol.

I think assessments are based on a 1/3 retail value but our last batch was ten years ago. Reassessments are this year and it should increase a bit but it is still over priced, should be 20,000,000 most likely. from our boat as a child I do not remember the roof so orange. When we sail the area now it has been that color though for years. My friends have an island house that was built in the 20s in the same cluster. Their wood work is still stained. I think this was more of a sea captain manse style originally. I always think of the ghost and Mrs Meir when I image the interior of old island houses. I think that this is why when people consider light, airy blue and white interiors as coastal I cringe. I have grown up with an image of water homes being dark and dreamy not light and airy.