Recent Realizations

Here are a few recent (like within the past year) realizations about myself I've, well, only recently realized:

1. I'm obsessed with food I ate as a kid and wonder why I ever stopped eating it. Speaking of...do I have any Goldfish, Cherrios, or graham crackers in the pantry?? (rummaging around) Jackpot! Of course, I guess that's what you get when you buy your own groceries.

2. I am addicted to Popsicles. Really. Especially the tropical flavored ones. I can eat 5 of them one right after the other. Good thing they're sugar free and only 15 calories each.

3. I'm completely predictable. I'm the person that always orders the same thing off the restaurant menu, drinks water with every meal, has 17 blue-striped shirts, wears Crocs every day, and has 6 navy baseball caps.

4. I'm a non-drama person. I'd prefer to not even know much less be involved in the drama. Of course, when I am involved, it's 100%.

5. I've always liked to read, but lately it's getting a bit obsessive. I'd sometimes rather spend time with fictional characters than real people. Hummm...I wonder if that's why my friend Sarah and I get along so well... :)

6. I'm doing a lot better with my germ phobia. As long as I don't have to touch anything. Or look at anything. Or be in the presence of really germy things...like doorknobs.

7. I really do wear my expression on my face. Sometimes this can be good, but 95% of the time it's bad.

8. I don't think I talk a lot. Of course, maybe I should get my husband's opinion on this...

9. It seems as though the 98% of the time people don't listen to what I'm saying, I'm right. For the 2% that they do listen to me, I'm always wrong. Figures.

10. I think through every possible outcome of a decision before making it. This proves to be frustrating to some (love you, Brent!) when I'm trying to decide where to eat for dinner.

11. I'm stubborn. Really stubborn. So once my decision has been made, I stick to it. Good luck trying to change my mind. My mom always told me this growing up, and I'm finally starting to believe her. Maybe.

12. I have a super dry sense of humor. This is completely lost on some people.

That's a lot of realizations for one year, I know. Guess I'm just that self-transparent.

Tagged

My sweet friend, Shannon, tagged me in her blog. Here's the deal: I'm supposed to post the 10th picture in the 10th folder in my Pictures directory and tell you the story about it. So, without further ado, here's my picture:
That's my handsome Daddy fishing on a river in northeast GA with my uncle, who's an expert fisherman & ties and sells his own flies. What a life - getting paid to fish!! Really, not that I'm jealous or anything. :) I think the big blur spot at the bottom of the picture is a spot of water on the lens. Oops! But hey, at least the great catch is documented, so all's well! :) The first time I saw this picture I thought, "What a catch! Way to go, Dad!" My second thought was, "Hummm...my dad's face isn't usually so round..." :) I think he's holding his neck/head back so when the fish wiggles it doesn't splash water or hit him in the face. Hummm...for some odd reason I'm suddenly in the mood for broiled trout...

Twin Bakers

On our way out of town on Friday night, Brent & I stopped at the Target by our apartment to grab a few snacks. Right when we walk in Brent says, "Hey look! There's Baker! Well, there goes Baker down that aisle." But we didn't go looking for them as we were on our way out of town. So, we grab our stuff and head to check out. Walking down an aisle toward us is Baker and his wife Katie...or at least, who we thought were Baker & Katie. They looked so much alike I did the creepy stare for a full minute until I suddenly started busting out laughing! Katie's even a nurse and this girl was wearing scrubs. Baker's hair and facial hair look almost identical to this guy's! So Brent and I check out and the whole way to the car Brent & I can't stop talking about how much those two people looked like Baker & Katie. Brent was laughing as he said, "Too bad you don't have a camera...you totally need to show Baker & Katie their twins! OH WAIT! It's in the car..." Did I really go back into Target and follow those two people I've never met in my life around for 3 minutes to corner them to get their picture to show to Baker and Katie?? You bet your hat I did!!!!! Did Brent totally chicken out and stay in the car?? Yup.
The best part? When I went to ask them if I could take their picture, faux Baker goes, "I like the idea that I'm someone's evil twin!" Ha ha ha! That's exactly something my coworker Baker would say! And then when I apologized because I knew this had to be creeping them out, faux Katie said, "That's okay, it's not creepy. It's too random and weird to be creepy." Exactly what Katie would say! Ha ha ha! I wish I would've asked their names and contact info to give to Baker and Katie so the four of them could hang out together, but I thought that'd definitely be crossing the creepy line, so I didn't. Maybe we'll run into them again... For the next 2 hours straight, Brent and I laughed about this until our faces and bellies hurt!

Let them eat cake

So lately I think I'm over-caking my office. Meaning every cake I bring in is getting eaten, but I can tell the rate at which it's being eaten is slowing down. Too much cake at the office = more cake to take home or throw away. And, since I absolutely hate throwing away food and we don't need cake around our house, Brent & I were trying to decide what to do with the cakes I'm working on for my class. When I first started the class we thought we had it all figured out: Brent & I would switch off weeks and bring a cake into our respective offices every other week. However, Brent told me at the end of last week the Thursday lunch meeting at his office is no longer being held so to bring a cake into his office would still be fine, but it might not get completely eaten. Now, as stated above, I really do hate wasting food. So last weekend I'm baking the chocolate chip pound cake for last night's class. After it's baked and I'm working on assembling the cake, Brent wonders over to the counter. Here's how the conversation went down:

Me: "Deadgumit! This little piece of this cake layer just crumbled off. Do you want it?"
Brent: "No than - actually, what kind is it?"
Me: "It's a new recipe I'm trying - chocolate chip pound cake."
Brent: "Well, I'd better make sure it tastes okay...just to help you out."
Me: "You're so generous."
Brent: tries cake and his eyes pop open wide with surprise.
Me: "What?? Is it good?? Bad?? Speak to me!!"
Brent: "That...was...a-mazing!"
Me: finally exhales
Brent: breaks off another piece of cake and tries it with the chocolate mousse.
Me: "Hey! Stop crumbling my cake layer!!"
Brent: smiles deviously, then says "So can I take this cake into work with me?"
Me: "Ummm...you know this will be decorated as a baby shower cake, right?"
Brent: "That's okay."
Me: "It'll be in baby colors."
Brent: "That's okay."
Me: "I thought you said you didn't have any more use of cakes on Thursdays."
Brent: "Oh yeah...well, that's okay, too. Trust me - I don't think we'll have any problem getting this one eaten!"


On a side note, I only have two more classes before my cake decorating class is completed. I'm actually already getting really sad about it.

More Cakes

I know, I know. I should really rename this blog to something more appropriate...like "Cake & Motorcycles". The cake pictures are mostly for the request of my older sister Amy, who is one of my 3 loyal readers. Here you go, Sis!

Below are the two cakes I made and decorated this week. Let's go through them one by one.

Firstly, I made a cake for my office's July birthdays. Which, happens to include me. Here's the top view:
And from the side:
It was a four layered cake and it seems as though my coworkers liked it:

Tonight at my class we worked on baby shower cakes. I'm warning you now that this one didn't turn out well at all. I was working on it at like, 11:30pm last night so I rushed through the cake assembly, fondant, and royal icing assembly. Brent already asked last night if he could take it to work, so when I came in with it tonight he said, "Well, it doesn't really matter how it looks. With cake, you can pretty much guarantee that it's gonna taste good no matter what it looks like. But we should still make sure..." Hence the reason there's a missing piece (side note: sorry it's sideways...not sure how to fix that as of yet):
Here's a close-up of my tried decorations. There are bunnies, footprints, booties, ducks, and rattles. Can you pick them out?
Here's the real reason Brent wanted to eat some tonight before he brought it to work with him:
It's a 3 layer chocolate chip pound cake layered with chocolate mousse. I had a bite...yummy!!!

Another cake

So I know in my last post I said I was going to try to get away from "this is what I did", but with this cake, I just can't help it! I think it turned out pretty well (if I do say so myself!).

First off, here's a picture of me kneading the gum paste. I've always been proud that my aunt showed me how to knead dough when I was like, 3 (granted, it was biscuit dough and at 3 I was only allowed to cut out the biscuits), but as I got older I was able to help her out more and more with it until I was doing it on my own. Gum paste is more dense and a little harder than biscuit dough, but my great training kicked in and I was finished kneading in no time.

So this week at class we got an intro to gum paste, royal icing, and fondant. Here are my results:

From the top looking down:

From the front:
From the side. Yes, I meant for it to be tilted at the top. The flowers sticking up from the top are made from gum paste (supported on a wire) and the rest is covered and made with fondant.
I also filled two of the three layers with grape jam (the 3rd one was straight icing). It seemed as though my co-workers enjoyed it:

Back to Basics

My husband recently said that I'm getting away from my Inner Musings and more toward the "this is what I did today". So, in attempt to get back to where I started, welcome to this post.

When I first started this blog, Brent said something to the effect of "Wow, your blog's really funny. Why don't you say any of those things in person?"

Well, here's why I don't always say what I'm thinking:

On the way back from Hilton Head Island last weekend we had a bit of car trouble (more on that later...if my guest blogger comes through). So after getting our battery jumped twice, having the truck turn off on it's own at random times down the interstate, getting honked at as we pull off the interstate, waiting almost 2 hours on the side of I-95, we get towed to Pep Boys in Fayetteville, NC. Needless to say, we weren't in great moods. So we're in Pep Boys and there's an older (probably in his 60s), white-haired, balding gentleman behind the counter with his weight on his arms leaning against the counter. When we walk in he's speaking to another man behind the counter and you can tell he's not in a good mood. He was shaking his head and mumbling something about "stupid people who don't use their heads". When he finally greets us (without a smile, might I add), Brent says hello and follows it with the customary "How are you doing?" to which the guy replied, "Well, people are just not using their heads and it's making me want to pull my hair out." Now, without thinking, I say, "Well, you'd better be careful with that - you don't have that much left." Brent turns to look at me with this horrified, I-can't-in-a-million-years-believe-you-just-said-that look. The guy looks down at the floor and hides his face in his arm. I thought he was trying to control his anger. I think Brent thought he was plotting ways to kill us (or leave us on the side of the road 10 miles down the way). So after about one minute the guy lifts his head, finally smiles, and says, "Man, you're good."

Yesterday's Quotes of the Day

Me to Brent: "I wouldn't change one thing about you for the world, honey. Really, I wouldn't. When I'm angry or frustrated you calm me down, when I'm tired you help me keep going, when I'm sporadic you help me focus, and even when I really, really, even literally want to kill you, you teach me patience."

*Warning: this quote contains adult-natured material.*
Brent to me (while talking about our weekly meal menu): "I'm just not that big of a fan of asparagus. Asparagus once a week is just way too often. On the other hand, having sex with my wife once a week isn't often enough. Needless to say, you just can't compare sex with asparagus."