photos!

ok i found some pictures i forgot to share. i am the WORST WORST about actually pulling my camera out to USE it. new years resolution RIGHT THERE.

i forgot about all these cute papers i made for the shower. yes i’m tooting my own horn, and YES there is pink involved. menus, little instruction cards, note cards, and those numbers were for a game we played….i also ended up changing them to squares because it was a lot faster to cut out.

but its something i’m good at, and i’m glad i could make it classy without abounding pastels.

and also, i took another cake picture. before stacking.

ok thats it, the end.

drywall man? where you be?

the drywall guy is coming this morning so i’m sitting here listening to the radio and killing some time. last time he never showed, and we found out later he forgot he had his grandmothers funeral the same day. who forgets their GRANDmothers funeral??

obvs if you have read anything before this, you know that work has been 100% bonkers for me for weeks now. dont you hate it when not everyone in your office is nuts at the same time? some people are just milling around, nothing to do…. and you’re the one acting like a nut job? and they cant do your job so you’re just up a creek? or crick? or however you say it.

i started having dreams about work. you know THATS a great indicator of how you’re really holding up. the holidays always throw me off because we have to have certain items completed ahead of time, and i end up making 2 weeks into ONE giant week and it gets all sorts of confusing in my head. first i dreamt it was a toasty 91 degrees outside in the middle of november. i also dreamt that i had to redo 2 projects and something was up on our website waaaay too long… i cannot keep track of what day it is.

drywall dude is 3 mins late already. i bet he forgets some other life altering event today.

well now i can really discuss the cake from 1 post ago. (get ready for boring stuff if you have no interest in kitcheny, domesticy things) if my calculations are oh-so-correct, the entire job took me about 10 hours. (i’m trying to keep a relative count of expense + time to form an estimate for future clients) 3 days involvement – i started thursday night. made the layers and started messing with the gumpaste stuff for that nest. its weird stuff, like play-doh plus modeling clay… odd. and edible, but reeeeeallly not so much meant to be eaten. cause, bleh. well its just sugar plus water plus a few adhesive ingredients i imagine.

anyways, i didnt get as far as i thought, which GOOD FOR ME starting early. friday was making icing and doing that pre-icing crumb thing. i had all layers combined with their respective pairs and managed to find enough room in the fridge. saturday i had plans for sleeping in but i was too anxious about a disaster happening that i was inevitably up at 7. i seriously was having some anxiety issues with this project. all week i couldnt wait to get started. like i just wanted to get it done. out of the way, make sure it was gonna work and all that biz. cause, i mean, its sorta a 1-shot deal when you only plan on making 1 of these things. i made myself wait til 8 to go to the grocery store (needed WAY more powdered sugar than i thought), and proceeded with more icing.

Because i was transporting this, and i didnt think i’d have time to do it all at the location, i went ahead and did all the decorations on each layer. MISTAKE! i also thought i’d be snazzy and do a ‘fondant-look” with the buttercream, which was fine, except completely unforgiving when it comes to fixing a mistake near the end. in the car i had one layer at my feet and the other one in my hands, not able to rest my feet or my arms because any touch to my icing would cause IMMINENT DAMAGE. true story.

luckily, the shower house was a mere 5 miles down the road. maybe less. with the fabulous help of J, we managed all of this mess inside. i brought reinforcements of all the “cake crap” as he likes to call it, so i felt like we were set. until we basically ran out of time. we are not rocket scientists, and the layering of the 2 layers together was quite the science project we felt highly unqualified for. i guess its just something you get good at with time. but man, ANXIETY! cake suffered a few finger marks from literally having to DROP the top layer on the lower. i do not know how the pros do it.

anyways, this is boring to talk about even for ME. it was yummy, it was great, the guests of honor were thrilled and maybe even a little impressed! i had several people ask me if i did this for a living (!!!!!!!!!) which made me kick myself for not making up some little business cards. AND for not taking any pictures. dang. that ONE from previous post is what J took for his momma, and its the iphone. i cant work with that.

thanks everyone for your cooking tips and encouragement. i’m feeling good about this, especially since this cake stayed in all its separate elements.

yall, drywall dude is 28 mins late. i gotta go call someone.

 

“whitney houston made me want to become an aerobics instructor”

Today is my favorite kind of day in the office. Everyone is a little over-stressed, to the point that the parts of our day that are usually just irritating have become hilariously side splitting.

Our resident Mix-Tape Girl made a little workout remix for all of us, and upon listening to said mix, all ladies have broken into song of “Defying Gravity” for almost 2 hours now, to the unfortunate disdain of our Male Boss. Needless to say, he is a good sport and has tolerated this hen house for years, not complaining even once.

I had to share Mix-Tape Girl’s quote of the day. In the name of inspirational songs, our dear Miss Whitney DID in fact inspire her fitness career.

—-

ok so quick cause i have a crap-ton of stuff to do, here is the great cake reveal:

eek with the pink right? i had a hard time with the color. but, aside from that, this really turned out ok. i’ve got to do more research about stacking these layers. everything was perfection until that moment. really i guess you are supposed to decorate post-stackage. that would have prevented many a problem.

also, now i know why they have entire VANS on tv to transport cakes. #1- HEAVY! #2- dont touch icing!

1 more practice cake and i think i’m in business.

 

Leaf Theif

uhhh ok has anyone else noticed how i just quit that however-long-days of thankfulness? no? me either. it just occurred to me.

cant win them all!

 

so i’d like to say that J and i are not obsessive about anything, totally normal, run of the mill people who dont stand outside in their gardens at night like SOME PEOPLE I USED TO KNOW. (and by some people, i mean our landlord of former duplex that lived in the other half of said duplex. really those flowers arent gonna do anything new while you’re sleeping, BUB)

but i would be lying.

we DO stand in our gardens at night!!! what the heck!?

all in the name of getting a job done, is what i say. ps- we dont just stand there LOOKING.

that makes everything normal.

ok, so with the obsessive green thumbing, now it is fall and i keep looking for what trees are turning radiant colors. cause on the hills of TN you can tell – even in the lamest of autums – that there ARE some trees who just look better than others. no offense, evergreens. i love you at christmas time.

ive decided my favorite is yellow. followed closely by orange.

in my quest, i happened upon some brightly colored trees that were within my reach. naturally, i snatched some leafage to investigate in my gardening encyclopedia. complete with pictures. nerd!

This leaf is from the Ginko tree, that is very suitable to the TN climate zone. happy me! duh i will be buying one. look how it glows in the sun! the trees were so bright, they were almost WHITE. amazing. annnnd my nature adventure has left me with dirty fingernails. ew.

Gold leaf here has yet to be identified. by me that is. i’m sure the Discovery Channel and my garden encyclopedia know exactly what it is. not a new species. Anyway, i think these must be like the ones i see up on the hills and stuff. very glowy as well and probably cheaper than a dang Ginko tree.

this little gem i may/may not have commandeered from my very own office parking lot (be the detective and notice trees in the background.) fabulous color. this we determined is a Red Maple leaf, but the variety is unsure. it could be autumn flame, indian summer, october glory…. maybe another. hard to determine. HA and you can see the photographers reflection there on the right. thats the sign of a BAD photographer. just so yall keep your expectations low here.

obvs, im in the market for trees. if you’ve ever been to our house, you may be wondering to yourself… “where the heck could you possibly plant something ELSE?!”…. because, obsessed. and i dont know what to tell you. i just know i NEED THESE.

—–

part b-

so remember the giant cake i’m making? yes well i started last nite. i got the layers cooked. and thats about all i managed. oh! and we also made the little cake topper. which i didnt take pics of yet cause i dont want to ruin the fun-ness for a certain pregnant gal who i’m not sure reads this or not.

but, we can talk about this:

ok first, let me back up and tell this story, and it will explain my neuroticness here in one sec. i lost a bet with a few people in my office and our penalty was food-related. i, naturally, was like heck yes i will make a cake. good practice, right? well, the thing is, i ran out of time, halloween party, plus it was our turn for dessert at small group, yadda yadda,… LOTS OF BAKING GOINGS ON. so i just threw a second batch of cake into a totally boring 9×13 pan, slapped some leftover halloween icing on top (read: green icing) and i was done .

not exactly sure what chemistry project it turned into, right now i am blaming MARGARINE, but the winner of said bet was convinced i was playing a joke on him because the cake totally sucked. icing was absorbed by cake and it managed to flatten itself out at the same time, essentially turning to the consistency of brownies and/or A BRICK.

i think this was wednesday when i got this news, and HELLO i am about to make HUGE cake with exact same recipe.

freaking out minorly.

so i find a new one, on a trusted cake products website, and proceed, praying to the cake gods that all will remain its own ingredient and not MELD together in one unified thwart against me. what did i ever do to you, cake? are you mad that you werent made in pretty layers and crafted so carefully, preserved in the fridge for 2 days? what??

this recipe is telling me to line my cake pans with wax paper. which ive never heard of before, but i am like OK! trusted cake products, surely you know what you are doing! and i’m a little worried cause mashing the wax paper doesnt exactly = smoothness.

uhh BLUR. you get the idea. i did have some wrinkles as suspected, nothing i cant fix via icing, but sortof annoying. PLUS the paper in the oven is a stink. literally. and a bit smoky. so, thats not happening again, however…..

look how it prevented any sort of crusting! (see wrinkles on the sides?) so that part is cool. i suppose if i really had the time i could cut strips and make it all nice in there. eh. 4 layers and 3 batches of cake already took me 4 hours, so i’m over it really. flour works just as well.

So there you have it. more photos after the actual party this weekend cause everything else will just ruin a very cute surprise.

 

 

 

bebehs-running-bebehs

hmm i felt like after re-reading that last post i am a little complainy- complainerson. there’s nothing worse than a negative blobber. poo.

has anyone ever watched that show “I Didnt Know I Was Pregnant” ?? ok, technically i never do either… i swear!! but i was killing time, waiting for J to do something before we watched us a movie and it was on and i got curious. i wonder if all the stories are similar, cause this one actually made sorta some sense…. SORTA. (boys reading, i am about to talk about girl things so proceed with caution or just skip to the break lines down there)

this woman, who is a rather large woman, was talking about how she never felt weird, never had any symptoms (no mentioning of NOT having a period, by the way- that is where i’m like ??REALLY???) ….. had a child previously so she was familiar with what being pregnant is like. i guess it was over the holidays or something….. and she DID notice that she’d put on like 20 lbs, but attributed that to the time of year. which, side note? how can you gain that much in a couple months? well, you dont. thats the thing. anyways, she started having cramps after one night at dinner, thought it was food poisoning, so eventually went to the hospital…. WHERE SHE WAS IN LABOR AND HAD A BABY.

i SORTOF can get this because if you are already large in size, you might not notice a baby-shaped bump. i will give her that. and i will maaaaybe give her the “holiday weight gain”. and not having symptoms…well thats not your fault… you have them or you dont. i dont understand how you might miss lack of menstruation. i know this can happen if you are underweight…. your body just stops because it doesnt have enough to sustain itself (or something more medically sound).  does it happen if you are overweight? OR maybe she is one of those lucky girls out there who dont have periods very often….. like 4 times a YEAR or something totally awesome like that!

these are the things i ponder.

and now i am curious about other stories of a surprise baby. arent you??

——————

update on my fitness program. cause i KNOW yall are keeping track. how much has she been going? whats she eating? i hope shes sticking to it! I made it past my 1/4 mile increments and was onto 1/4-1/2-1/4-1/2 (can you even decipher that? have i told you this already? i have alzheimers) level of greatness, when my knees got mad. i made it 1 day and then day 2 they were like NO!! NOO!!!!!!! so we’ll be going a lot slower with this than i was hoping. But thats ok, i’m more about being smaller in size than running in distance. and THAT my fine friends IS happening. my jeans fit better this week. joy. joy. JOY.

On that note, who thought it was a good idea to set a goal for a HALF MARATHON IN APRIL???? not this half of my house, i assure you.

——————

i’m digging these little perforated dividers. a little variety from the numbers, yes?

It’s less than 1 week away from the moment of truth. the moment where i make the big cake for the baby shower. i’ve gotten kinks out of a few recipes. learned from some mistakes. and made a giant list of i-still-need-this-stuff! i think i’ll be ok. but i’m starting early this week juuuuust to be safe. here’s our inspiration— which i love that the other girls loved it cause i can feel somewhat responsible for the theme. look at me getting excited about a BABY shower. something weird in the air. or just maturely designed decoration ideas! lets go with that.

i dig this stump idea for the cake pedestal. not sure where to find a random stump, and also i need a chainsaw. substitute everything you see here in BLUE with PINK. eek! lots of pink. i will deal.

fun right? with the feathers and the branches. we are actually planning on this game with the guessing of everyone’s baby photos. its not the typical bottles/strollers/diapers thing. pastels, yes, but this is done so well. i’m secretly saying this to all of you when i am prego. this idea? YES!….. bottles/ducks/froo-froo/etc? please refrain. you’re better than that!! this is proof.