Cake!

Ever since I got pregnant with my daughter, who is now almost 10 months old, I have had a 'thing' for cake. Ok, maybe it's more than a 'thing' than I'd like to admit. Perhaps something more like an infatuation. I love baking it. Seeing something go from a gooey mess to a beautiful, spongy treat is quite simply an amazing chemical reaction. I'm no science geek but baking never ceases to amuse me. The obvious other reason to love cake, it's freakin' delicious! When I was pregnant, I just HAD to eat cake. I craved it so badly all the time. I ate so much cake during those 9 months. My body thought it would be funny to give me a muffin top. After all, you are what you eat, right?!? Small price to pay to have such a delicious morsel in my mouth.

Anyways, I love watching Ace of Cakes and all the cake making contests on FoodTV. It looks like so much fun. Spend all day being creative and creating masterpieces for people to OoOoOo and Ahhhh over.

After years of watching, I finally decided to give fondant a whirl. I used a recipe I found online for Marshmallow Fondant.
4 cups mini-marshmallows
4 cups icing sugar
1 tbsp water.

Throw the marshmallows & water in the microwave for 30 second intervals until smooth. Add icing sugar. Knead until smooth. Done.

Sooo easy. My first batch I added too much icing sugar and it was super hard. Apparently we don't have the humidity here that everyone complained about in the recipe's comments.

I baked off four round cakes. Carrot cake. Set them aside to cool. Next I decided to work on some pretty little roses. I found a great how-to video on youTube. The roses were really easy to make but tedious. They took a few hours.

I'm sure it could have been quicker had I not had three children under foot but I got them done and even managed to have dinner ready on time.

After dinner I iced my cake with a thin layer of cream cheese icing. I then rolled out my fondant and covered my cake the best I could. I ended up with quite a few wrinkles and lumps in the fondant due to my inexperience but it turned out all right. I topped it off with my roses and it looked pretty darn good for a first attempt.

I am not naturally creative by any means. I find I really have to "learn" how to do things. This is definitely something I will be spending more time with. I just need to find some friends who love to eat cake as much as I do....

Top 10 Things on Amy's Mind Today:

1. My Children. At home with Daddy on Easter while I work.
2. It's beautiful outside and I'm stuck in my office.
3. I'm excited to go sign our mortgage papers on Tuesday.
4. Trying to think of new topics to blog about.
5. Who's going to win the election? Will my vote really count?
6. I need to find a new book to read. Something Chick Lit. Something funny.
7. Need to think of more meals for this week's meal plan. Need new recipes.
8. Wish I had more to do at work today so I don't feel so guilty.
9. I'm tired. I could use a nap.
10. I think I need a new lens for my camera. I'm just not getting the photos I envisioned being able to take. Although perhaps it's only my inexperience?

Planning for the Future

I have always been an avid reader. I read everything and anything that happens to be in front of me. As a teen, I read teen magazines such as "Seventeen". Through my early twenty's I read "Cosmo". I've always been a big fan of romance novels. Not trashy, Harlequin romance but fantastic love stories with substantial, humorous story lines woven between the romance. It didn't matter what I read, I will always remember one specific point that came up several times through the years:

"A man who loves you will plan for the future with you."

I've always kept that simple sentence in my mind over the years. I haven't thought about it for a long time. Until today. I was reading (Surprise!) a novel called, Odd Mom Out by Jane Porter on my dinner break at work tonight. The main character, Marta, begins to fall in love with Luke. I start to notice that they're making plans for dates for the next day, then the same day. Later on in the story they begin making plans for the future.

That's when it hit me. I am finally with a man who is not afraid to make plans for the future with me. Even better, *I* am not afraid to make plans for the future with HIM. I have been so afraid of committing in my life. I ran at the first thought of commitment. I don't really know why exactly that I couldn't commit but I would like to believe that destiny has drawn out a path for me and I'm being led to that path with my decisions while I realize them or not. Somehow I just knew those boyfriends weren't meant for me. My decisions in life were only leading me to my soul mate.

I was thinking deeply about our relationship together while reading my book this evening. (I'm a woman. I can multi-task, obviously) I couldn't have dreamed of a more perfect relationship. (Yeah. I know, *gag*.) It's so perfect it's sickening, really! Anything I lack, he makes up for and vice-versa. He stands up for me no matter what the situation. My most favorite part about him, he's REAL. There's no flakey,

fake shit about him. There's no drama. There's no pretending. He is who he is and that's just that.

So here we are, buying a house together. That's a BIG future plan of mortgage payments for the next 30 years. He's not running away. I'm not running away. It's one big, solid, future plan together. We continue to make smaller future plans along the way too. I have found my soul mate and it feels as good as I always dreamed it would.

Dreams Becoming Reality

We did it! We got the house!

I was trying to think of some catchy opening sentence but nothing was flowing just right. I had already typed out this blog post earlier today on my break at work but it just wasn't flowing. What's with that? I thought every great writer was supposed to be able to write amazing stuff each and every time. I found my last post uber choppy and it just didn't flow at all. Ah well, I'll try it again now that I'm a little more relaxed at home.

Back to the house stuff. We won the bidding war! It was so exciting to get the call announcing our win. Wow. What an incredible feeling! We went that very same night to sign the Purchase Agreement Contract. We sat in OUR new home and signed the papers. We sat for an hour talking about the home and the things the current owners had updated and some of the funny stories that went along with those repairs. We learned about the neighbors. They all sound quite pleasant.

I would have to say, if I were ever to buy another home, or even sell my home for that matter, I would do it through PropertyGuys.com. No, I am not being paid to say that. I had a very positive experience purchasing a home through dealing with this website. The pictures were amazing. Much to be said compared to the MLS photographs I saw of toilets, instead of bathrooms and crumbled, unmade beds instead of bedrooms. Speaking of real estate photographs, I have another blog that comes to mind that you should READ HERE!!! I adore this photography website and could only dream that one day I am able to take such amazing photos and write as well as they do! Such amazing talent that begs to be shared with the world.

Eye of the Storm

Coming to you live from the center of a bidding war on the house of our dreams. Holy shit. I have never been so nervous in my life. Our bid is currently sitting at the top of our budget. Maxed right the fuck out. Conditions have all been dropped with exception of financing...which we've already been approved. I feel like I'm going to be sick. I'm usually a very patient person. In this case, not so much. This experience is bringing on so many feelings at once that I never though possible to feel at any one time. I just found myself Googling for The Law of Attraction. Trying to vibe and think positive like I've never vibed and thought so positive before. This feeling that my family's future is lying in someone else's hands is making me want to plead with the sellers to sell us their home. I've even gone as far as to email our mortgage broker asking if there's any way we can just get a little more money. The amount we got was based on higher property taxes so I think there's a possibility.

We've looked at 6 other houses in town. They were all crap. Run-down, over-priced. Disgusting really. I don't WANT to wait for another house to come on the market. I want THIS house. Yes, I probably sound like a spoiled brat but whatever!

I need to try and take my mind off this for a while. I'm never going to sleep tonight. I guess as the saying goes, "What's meant to be, will be".

I'll keep you posted...

I knew it!

It was just beginning to feel like spring. The snow was melting rapidly over the past two days. The birds were beginning to sing in the mornings. Kids were getting out on their bikes, scooters and skate boards. Even *I* was getting anxious to pull my bike out and go for a spin around the block. I had my boyfriend buy a wee helmet for our daughter before he came home from work yesterday since I had promised my oldest son that today we would go for a bike ride together. Old Man Winter, you selfish bastard! You broke my 8-year old's heart with the foot of snow you puked all over town. It was all because of that dead robin I saw on the road earlier in the week... it was a sign that spring will never come to Sparwood again.

So instead, I'm sitting here writing in my blog and trying to decide how to make it up to my son and trying to avoid the housework that is calling my name...

I did some shopping for ME yesterday. This is not something that happens often. In fact, I HATE going shopping for me. I have no sense of "style" to say the least. Not big into dressing up and such. I don't feel like I can "pull off" any sort of fashion so I stick to what I know. Jeans, t-shirts, and hoodies. How boring, right? So, for my birthday this year, I was given two gift certificates. One for Mark's Workwear World and one for a little fashion shop called Freya's.

I went to Mark's first. Easy. Zip-up hoodie and two tank-tops with built in push-up bras. (Proud member of the Itty-Bitty Titty Committee right here!) I got to Freya's with my nine-month old daughter in tow. As soon as I walked in, I thought, Ohhhh great, I'm never going to find something I like in here. I'm going to have to pick something that I can wear a few times to show-off (and feel awkward in) what I bought to the gift-card giver. It would then be forever forgotten in the bottom of my dresser drawer until I got brave enough to give it away to goodwill.

I started looking at some tops. $39 for a t-shirt? Are you kidding me??? I had $50 to spend. I made my way around the store and got to the clearance rack and saw a nice pair of dress pants. They looked about my size. I grabbed them off the rack and within seconds the woman who worked there, who was obviously keeping a real good eye on me, came over and said, "Those will NEVER fit you, they are way too large." I was sort of embarrassed at first. Right away she filled the silence with words that brought a smile to my face, "Let me help you."

In a matter of seconds, she was pulling jeans off shelves that I hadn't even seen until now. Where did THOSE come from? She took me over to a dressing room and hung up 4 pairs of jeans, all in the same size. 29. Oh dear woman, you are sorely mistaken. There's NO way I'm a 29!!! She could read the look on my face and said, "I can hold your daughter if you'd like and you can just try them and we can go from there." Obviously she was a mom too and she understood that it's not always easy to try on clothes when you have a baby with you. I handed over my daughter to a complete stranger and tried on the first pair. Not too bad. They fit pretty well. I tried on the next pair. Ok, seriously! It was obvious this woman had a gift. They fit perfectly. Dare I look at the price tag? I held my breath and reached for the tag. I flipped it over and there it was. A SALE tag! Regular $200, marked down to $99. I could hear the angels singing, HALLELUJAH. Oh wait, that was me singing hallelujah in my head! $99 minus my $50 gift card. Yes!

I will definitely go back to Freya's again. Friendly, helpful and knowledgeable staff like that are few and far between these days. This store is a true gem.