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Baby E’s Birthday Cake

On Friday night I finished the cake for baby E’s 1st birthday party.  The theme for the party was ‘primary colors,’ so I tried my best to present a cake that fit the theme.  I have never made a fondant covered cake with such bold colors before - so I learned a lot of lessons on Friday night that I will carry with me for my future cakes - learning is always a good thing!  But at the end of the night when I examined the cake for completeness, I must say that I was a little disappointed.  When I took a step back and looked at the cake, the only thought that came to mind was…

 Play-Doh.

This cake looks like it is covered in Play-Doh.  Play-Doh is salty.  Ergo, this cake looks salty.  I hope people will want to eat it.

Those thoughts were what ran through my mind, but I got over it quickly because I reminded myself that this was a kid’s party.  The cake looked like it was for a kid’s party, so the fact that it looks like Play-Doh can’t be all that bad.  After all, I know what Play-Doh tastes like because I was once a kid myself  :)  All kids want to do is eat…anything.

               

     

Baking is a Workout

I got a lot done last night and even successfully tried a new cake recipe!  This yellow cake is so freakin’ good that it might just become my main recipe for baking.  The recipe is from Toba Garrett, a professional cake and pastry chef.  She is so awesome - but way out of my league when it comes to baking and pastry decorating.  But at least she is realistic about the work - most cake books tell you how to do something and make it sound so easy and not at all time consuming, and eight hours later you feel like you are the worst baker in the world because you still aren’t finished.  But Toba admits how long it takes to accomplish certain tasks, and she tells you about how much time you will need to set aside for baking, especially if you are an amateur like myself.  Love her!

So what exactly did I get done last night?  I made the cake and fondant for a two layer birthday cake for this weekend, and wrapped them all up for storage in the refrigerator for a few days.  The fondant actually rolls and stretches much easier after it has been stored in the fridge for a couple days.  I can’t wait to taste the cake when it is all finished, lathered with vanilla buttercream icing and filled with cream cheese custard.  Yum.

      

The fondant, as always, was a workout for my arms.  Lots of stirring, kneading, and more kneading.  If you ever feel the need to work your triceps until you think they are going to snap, then just come on over when I am making fondant and you can be my helper.  I was seriously exhausted when I was all finished last night - after the mixing, kneading, baking, and cleaning, my energy level was depleted to zero.  Baking is a workout.  For reals yo!

Lose Weight - Gain iPod

  I did it!  I got up this morning at 5:30 and walked the dogs and jogged around the neighborhood.  I think that the concept of getting up early in the morning and getting things done comes easy for some people, and is a natural habit that is easily accomplished.  But it is not so easy for me - I don’t sleep in all day or anything, but I am usually horrified at the idea of waking up at a time that starts with a 4 or 5.  But I have decided that I need to hold myself accountable for getting up early every morning and getting some things done - specifically getting some exercise.  I find that after work I usually find too many other things I would rather do than exercise, and I have been filling up all my weeknights with appointments and tasks that I don’t even have time to think about exercising.  For instance, here are my upcoming weeknights, already planned out and filled to the max:

Monday: make a quick ‘new baby’ dinner (chicken pot pie) for Mike and Amy, followed up by dinner with Tim and Michelle.  I also would like to practice making some fondant colors for a birthday cake I am preparing for Saturday.  It is a small cake, but it has lots of colors.  I will also be listening to my new iPod while experimenting with icing colors. 

Tuesday: meet with our financial advisor to discuss our life insurance and organize our filing cabinets in the office, while listening to my iPod.

Wednesday: make the cakes and icings for the cake this weekend while listening to my iPod  - prepare them all for storage for a few days.

Thursday:  Annual American Funds shareholder meeting at Pappadeaux.  The food will be fantastic, and we will gladly accept the ‘free’ meal.  Technically we have already paid for the meal through commissions and fund fees, so we will eat as much food as they will put in front of our faces.  I don’t think I can use my iPod here, unfortunately.

Friday: split, fill, and ice the cake for Saturday.  This will take all night, so I will probably set up a TV in the kitchen so I can listen/watch episodes of Heroes and Bionic Woman while I decorate the cake.  I am slightly obsessed with superhero and superhuman forms of entertainment - I read way too many comics when I was a kid.  Speaking of superheroes, I only recently found out that the show Smallville is about Superman.  Seriously, where have I been?  Where are my priorities?  I don’t watch much television, but if had known this show was about Superman I would have worked it into my schedule somehow.

So, as you can see, the only time I have to exercise is in the mornings - and I really want to keep it up because I have lost about 30% of my desired weight loss goal!  My doctor said PCOS has made me gain some weight (I need to lose about 15 pounds to help out with fertility and to keep my disobedient ovaries in check).  She said that I will have to work really hard to shed the pounds because I am fighting an epic battle against not just a hearty appetite for all things chocolate, but wacky hormones as well.  I have lost five pounds so far - check it out - the pink marker is where I started, and the grey marker is where I want to be:

        

        

Yes, I have lost five pounds, but it has taken close to two months, so it will probably take a lot longer to lose the remaining ten.  Hopefully I can keep a tight grip on my goal even though the holiday season is coming up.  I openly admit that I have no self control when it comes to cookies and pies, and they will be present at the office/church/small group/family/holiday party season that is about to land in San Antonio very soon.

Call Me Crazy

I do not like spiders.  Not one bit.  But this spider absolutely amazed me when I almost walked into his web tonight… 

    

    

    

His web was ginormous - a couple feet across, and spun from the branch on a tree in our backyard all the way to the ground.  There is no way I could have missed this thing this evening when I let the dogs outside after work, so I think he spun his web quickly tonight.  Ian and I examined him for a long time, running a flash light up and down the web, and we contemplated killing him somehow - I just can’t stand the thought of running into this web and getting it all over my face.  Barf-o-rama.  But he was just so awesome that we couldn’t justify the murder - he was minding his own business and spinning the most beautiful silky web that I have ever seen. 

Our neighbor came over and made fun of me for a while because I was so freaked out by the size of this spider, and he tore down the web and let the not-so-little guy climb up the tree.  A part of me felt a little sad to see his web destroyed, but he will live to spin another day.  We couldn’t kill him.  He was just too cool.

Can of outdoor bug and critter killer - $5.00

Allowing a freaky spider to escape with it’s life on Halloween - Priceless

The Chair From The Depths of Hades

       

Seriously.  This chair should not be available for use in a hospital.  Yes, that is a portable potty behind the chair, and no, it was not used.  I know that the chair doesn’t look that bad - but looks can be deceiving.   I spent more time in this chair on Saturday night than I did on Thursday night, because Ian’s grandmother was doing much better.  The main reason she was doing much better was because her little veins were loaded with happy drugs for pain.  She was able to sleep through much of the night, slept through her plasmapheresis in the morning, and even slept through lunch.  I ate the banana pudding that came with the lunch that she did not touch. 

Yes, the person in the room that wasn’t able to sleep on Saturday night was me.  That blasted chair tortured me all night long.  I wanted to set it on fire, but somehow I was able to resist the urge.  I left the hospital around 2:00 pm on Sunday, stopped by Ryan and Kelly’s house to play with their adorable kids, and then went home and slept from 3:30 until around 9:00 pm.  Ian woke me up to go grocery shopping with him, because he knew I would want to go with him - to keep him from buying only bread, cheese, chips, and soda.  He would live off of toast and nachos if I didn’t cook for him.  He needs me for nourishment, and I need him to fix household items and the computer.  We were meant for each other.

We stopped by to see grandma for a few minutes tonight, and she is doing so much better.  Actually, she was asleep again when we saw her, but everyone else says she is doing much better.  She was transferred out of ICU today and into a private room for monitoring.  Her blood stats are improving, but she will be in the hospital for a while longer.  I am really encouraged to see her improvement, and there is a totally different guest chair in her new room!  Hopefully I won’t have to start a pyrotechnics show with this chair.  It seems to be a little more Kara-friendly.

When we got home tonight the dogs had a message for us on the living room floor.  We have been away from the house a lot lately, so I think the dogs are trying to tell us that we are not meeting their love language of ‘quality time.’ 

       

A Rough Weekend

That past few days have been a blur.  Thursday afternoon Ian and I were notified that his grandmother was in the ICU at Methodist Hospital.  The doctors weren’t exactly sure what was going on with her, but she was having stroke-like symptoms and feeling very weak.  We went to visit her on our lunch break from work, and she seemed to be doing alright, but we knew that the doctors still had more tests to run before they could determine what to do next.

 We returned to the ICU again on Thursday night to see how she was doing, and the doctors had determined what was causing her neurological issues and weakness.  They diagnosed her with Thrombotic Thrombocytopenic Purpura, or TTP.  Yeah, say that five times fast.  It basically means she has an antibody present in her blood that is destroying her platelets and red blood cells.  Her platelets are virtually non-existent, so her blood is not clotting.  She was very scared to hear the news, and was told that she will have to undergo multiple blood transfusions and multiple plasmapheresis treatments, daily for an undetermined amount of time - basically, until the TTP symptoms disappear. 

It was about 8:30 pm when we heard the news, and she was very scared and anxious.  She knows that her little 82 year old body will have a very hard time with all of this treatment, and she is feeling worse by the minute.  I went over to her and asked her if she wanted me to stay the night in the ICU with her.  Her eyes filled with tears and she didn’t say a word - just nodded her head.  So, I unexpectedly spent the night with her and went in to work late on Friday.

It was a rough night.  We sat and talked for about three hours, and she was doing great.  Very coherent, very upbeat to have someone there with her.  But then at about midnight, she called the nurses to help her get out of bed to use the bathroom (she has to have help getting up, because if she falls that could be fatal to her since her blood does not clot well).  When she got up out of bed she immediately felt nauseous and weak, and the nurses returned her to bed right away.  After that, things just weren’t the same.  Her speech was very slurred, she was confused, and in a lot of pain.  She would fall asleep for about a minute, then wake up disoriented and panicked, and try to get out of bed while hooked up to all her IVs and monitors.  So I pretty much spent the whole night standing by her bed - I was able to get maybe an hour of sleep.

It is just so sad to see someone in so much pain.  She has a long month ahead of her, and she may not leave the hospital for a long time.  Everyone’s prayers for her would be appreciated.  I will be staying with her again tonight - hopefully tonight will be better.

The Art of Sneezing

  I feel like a big pile of poop today.  Most everyone at my office has been sick with some sort of snotty stuffy cough syndrome, and it just might have finally found its way to me.  But even thought I woke feeling pretty crappy, I still forced myself to get out of bed quickly and get ready for the day.  I wanted to just stick my hair up in a ponytail and not think about it, but I forced myself to curl my hair and look decent for work.  I find that when I am sick, if I walk around not caring about how I look I usually end up feeling even worse - don’t ask me why, I think its just a mental thing.  

I started sneezing yesterday.  I am not a big fan of sneezing - there are some women that let out cute little high-pitched ‘achoos’ when they sneeze, and then there is me.  My body is an overachiever when it comes to sneezing.  I first make that funny ‘I am about to sneeze’ face - you know, the one where your eyes close a little and your whole face tenses up, accompanied by a large inhale.  That is the first sign that I had better find a tissue or napkin, because my nose does its best to fully expel whatever has made it so upset.  When I sneeze, I get the job done.  No cute noises or messing around - all business.

The worst thing about my sneezing yesterday was that it started while I was eating some popcorn.  I was sitting at my desk eating popcorn, minding my own business, when my nose decided that it was highly upset.  A large involuntary inhale sent legions of popcorn bits and kernels to the back of my throat, which resulted in a sneezing/coughing contest between my nose and trachea.  I would have stopped it, but I had no control.  My nose doesn’t mess around.

Life is Beautiful

I have been sitting here for a while now trying to think of what I should write about.  Nothing really comes to mind - I am sort of drawing a blank.  I suppose that many things in life seem so trivial when I think about Angela.  Right now as I type these words she has just received a new heart, beating life into her body.  She has been waiting for this new heart for so long, and today was the day.  I just cannot wrap my brain around the entire situation - that she gave a bunch of doctors permission to cut her heart out of her chest and stick a heart from someone else in it’s place. 

I am speechless. 

Oh yeah - this is the second time that she has given a bunch of doctors permission to cut her heart out of her chest and stick a heart from someone else in it’s place.  Her bravery is astounding - I have never had to face death and total uncertainty about life before, and she has now done it twice. 

Life is beautiful right now. 

I love my spontaneous husband

Saturday morning I slept-in until around 8:30, and it was wonderful!  I woke up with a list in my head of tasks that I wanted to accomplish for the day.  I always have a list, some kind of list.  But I never got to the list because when I got out of bed Ian told me to dress for a day outside and to throw all my plans out the window.  I did just that - and we had a great day at the zoo, driving around downtown SA, and walking around Central Market during the peak hour for free samples.  I haven’t been to the zoo in quite a while, but I always enjoy it.  Ian and I discussed donating some money to the zoo on a regular basis - because the bears didn’t look very happy.  :( 

My favorite part of the zoo is the walk-in aviary.  There are mainly a lot of lories, with a few eclectus parrots and other small parrots that anyone can hold and play with.  I spent a lot of time in there dreaming about getting my own parrot - maybe someday!  I also really liked the…uh…petting zoo.

Stop laughing at me.  I am short - so I blended in with all the children quite well, thank you very much.  I just could not pass up the chance to run around with baby goats, even if I was the only adult in there.  They are so flippin’ cute - someday when I have a parrot, I also hope to have a little ranch with lots of goats.  Just ask Ian - I have always wanted that.  :)  Major and Sable need something to herd, so it works out well for the entire family.