Trekified cake

So, while we didn't have a party for Jeff's birthday, we did go bowling with his family. It was fun - I brought some of the cake and we ate it there. Jeff received the Star Trek Scene It game, a PC game that I don't remember the name of, and his sister got him an Elvis Mug Shot coffee mug! I think the mug was his favorite gift! He also got a pair of converse, two tshirts, the Star Trek Animated Series DVDs and Blu Ray copies of Band of Brothers and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

I was happy, for the most part, with Jeff's cake. I had all the star trek lettering perfect, and I was so happy with it, until I put them on the cake. Two of my letters broke (the A and N) So, I had to pipe those in by hand, and my lettering sucks bigtime. So, they look screwy and obvious, but oh well... My favorite part was how well the logo turned out. Its painted in a metallic gold, so it looked pretty cool in person. I'm also happy with my Class M planet on the lower left hand side. The cake itself was yummy! the butter pecan mousse was def a keeper, i'll be doing that again for sure!

So, my birthday is around the corner - my 40th, actually.
I'll be making my own cake ( I think the last cake someone made for me was my 5th birthday or something, i have pictures) So, its unlikey I'll receive one. That's ok, I've had an idea for a cake I wanted to try anyway... I'll be making myself a Sailor Jerry style cake. I've picked out my designs which I'll be doing a FBCT. I just need to run out today and get a piece of plexiglass that will fit in the freezer.
As for flavors, I'm thinking Lemon Poppyseed cake with a lemon curd filling? maybe? I've got plenty of time to think about it.

As for knitting... I havne't really been doing too much. All of my projects right now are irritating me. I need to just finish SOMETHING!

baking goodness

We had a going away party for a co-worker on Friday, and I volunteered to make cupcakes. I figured its about time I start practicing a bit more...

These are chocolate cupcakes - half covered in chocolate buttercream, the other half in vanilla buttercream.
they were pretty yummy and looked really cute in person.

A year already...

My beautiful niece and nephew celebrated their 1st birthday on July 11th. I can't believe its been a year already! Which also means, its been a year since I've seen my mom - she was here the day Layla and Luke were born.
I have yet to meet the babies - isn't that sad?? Airfare is so damned expensive from Winnipeg. Its ridiculous. I would drive down, but my car isn't running well either, it hasn't been for awhile. Again, $$$ to fix.
I'm frustrated about money right now. I want to quit and get a different job so I can go to school, but money is always a factor. I hate how much we pay in rent each month, but love where we live.
grrr
I miss my family, some days are harder than others.

On the other hand, excitement about Jeff's birthday coming up! I'm doing a Super Secret cake for him that I hope he loves! It will be chocolate cake w/ chocolate buttercream frosting. It will also have filling - 1/2 butter pecan mousse and the other half Chocolate Fudge w/strawberries.

Im keeping the cake design a secret tho until his birthday. ;)

But, i've started prepping already. I've got 3/4 of the fondant done - its wrapped and ready to be coloured. The lettering for the cake is setting up - I did them in royal icing, they turned out ok. Just going to wait for them to dry then paint them with lustre dust.

I'm hoping to bake, fill and frost the cake on the wed before his birthday, then Ill be taking off work on Thursday to do the decorating. Then to keep it hidden until Saturday! Hopefully all goes well - so far so good, my homemade fondant and icing letters turned out much better than I had hoped after doing both for the first time ever. (usually i buy fondant and pipe letters w/buttercream)
My lettering is usually atrocious when i pipe w/buttercream, so I figured this would be a better way to go.

Anyway, photos will come after Aug 1st.
Thats about it right now. I'm hoping my brother can send me all of my cake decorating supplies that are stored in his shed. I have quite a bit of money already invested - I've been hesitating buying anything until I can get my stuff up here. I had sold some of it before i moved - but don't remember all of what I still have. Hopefully he can get this stuff up to me soon - and maybe I can get a business started. Jeff designed my business card, almost exactly to my specs. I love it! I'll post it soon.

Oh, since this is also a knitting blog - I should update that as well...
I'm working on a few things right now - I've joined a KAL for the lace leaf top in the last issue of knit.1. I'm also working on a top for Layla (which after seeing her 1 yr pics, i think it will be too small! FROG!) I'm about to start on a cabled vest for Luke. Also, mom has been working on baby blankets for the twins. She just about finished the first one, but needed some help on the border. So, I received a box in the mail the other day. it included jewelry and a couple buttons from Alaska, and a 98% completed baby blanket! I've finished the border on the third side and picked up stitches last night for the last side of the border. It should go quickly, its just seed stitch for 10 rows. Then wash and block and send it off! i'm sure mom will be glad when blanket number one is finally finished! She's started blanket two, I think, while she was working at the B&B for the last week.

What? a new career path, you say?

I've been not blogging on purpose lately. Alot of things going on for me haven't been positive, and I don't want to have a blog where I bitch all the time ;)

But I've been doing alot of thinking about what I want to do with myself for the next 35-odd years. Maybe its because I'm turning 40 this year, and realizing I haven't done much of what I really want to do with my life.

to be honest, it started with a stupid Facebook app. I don't even remember what it is called. Its basically a comparison of your friends. When you start it gives you two friends' photos, and asks to you pick one based on different criteria. Some are silly, as in which of these friends would you rather date, or which friend is the hottest, etc. But there are some others as well, like who is more trustworthy, reliable, better friend, etc etc... Anyway, after your friends have compared you to their other friends, you can look at a rating. My ratings were good in alot of positive aspects, which I was really happy to see.
However, there's a question that really bothered me, it was "which friend is most likely to succeed?" Where did I rate? At the bottom :( I was in last place. I was devestated. I never really thought about success. I mean, I've been doing my line of work for 18 yrs or so... I'm good at it... But, have I been successful? I guess there's not much that I've done that has left a mark - only helping companies figure out if they are making money and how to cut costs to make more.

Now, this change isn't because of a stupid app on Facebook, I realize thats silly - but I've been doing alot of thinking lately about this career I have now, and wondering if its really what I want to do for the rest of my life, and I've decided its not. I'm going to make a change.
Now that I've typed that out, it means I'll have to do it now! lol (not that anyone reads my blog anyway)

So, what is it I want to do? I thought about many things I enjoy, and dreams I've had, and there's one that just won't go away. I've thought about having a farm, running a B&B, owning a yarn store, working in the travel industry... but there's one thing I've wanted to do for a long time that just won't get out of my head. I want to be a chef... well, a Pastry Chef to be concise. Whether that means working in a bakery, catering, or eventually having a business of my own - thats still in the air.
Cooking and baking is something I'm good at, something I enjoy doing, and I believe its something I can be successful doing.

Luckily, there are classes I can take at Louis Riel here in Winnipeg. If all goes well, I think I would like to start either next February or September. Still a bit of time away, but I need to make arrangements. I would need to change jobs, for one. I would need to be able to work off shifts so I can go to classes during the day. (Mandy may be helping me with this, I'm interested in a job with a travel agency - but, its commissions only, so that makes me a little nervous)

Anyway, hopefully this isn't all a pie in the sky dream (pun intended)
I want to make this work - and not have to come back in 6 months saying... nah, i'm not going to do what I love for work, i'm going to play it safe and stay where I am.
I like to play it safe, for the most part. But then again, If I had not been adventurous 3 1/2 years ago, I would have never moved to a different country, met and married the love of my life. So, I guess I need to make sure I take a chance when I can!!

Wish me luck and I'm always up for suggestions!!

Sweeeeeeeet!

So, I came across this blog, my sweet and saucy and it has inspired me. I always loved cake decorating, and there's a tutorial posted on how to make a topsy turvy cake! I've always wanted to know how to do it, and this gives step by step directions. Here's the picture of her awesome cake!

This women does fantastic work! Too bad all of my cake decorating equipment is sitting in a tool shed in my brother's backyard...bummer. Speaking of, I sure do miss living close to Wilton - their tent sales are the best!

and again...

Well, as it turns out, my wisteria cast on WAS a mobius. So, I had to frog it and start over anyway. I'm on row 5 again, and things are going much smoother this time around.

Also, picked up some gorgeous Malabrigo sock yarn in Archangel. The LYS was kind enough to let me use the swift and ball winder in the back so I wouldn't have to wind by hand. yay!
So, i started thinking of doing the Rivendell socks. I purchased the pattern and c/o. I was using DPN's instead of magic loop and the pattern caught me off guard with the wraps in R3. And its looked like i was way under gauge. As I looked at more of the pattern and read up on issues that previous knitters have had, I decided this isn't the pattern for me, right now anyway. Im still so new to sock knitting - I need a pattern thats easy to follow with great results. So, I decided on the Monkey pattern. i had no idea Monkey was in Clapotis or CPH catagory with all the people knitting it! So, hopefully this will go quickly and with few errors. I would like to have them done and in the mail by March 20th.

In other news: COLD today! I was hoping we were done with this frigid arctic wind, but alas, -38 wind chill today. I was not up for taking the bus today and trudging to work with that wind. yesterday it was enough having to walk through the snow since there's no room to walk on the road. Five weeks until scooter weather!!!

wisteria hysteria

So, I've been trying to work on my Wisteria. I've been working on it since yesterday, and i'm only on row 5. It would have helped had I read the pattern correctly for the first few rows. I had to tink and reknit. (I hate frogging on circulars, it would mean I would have to do a join again, which i didn't want to do, since I did it mobious free)

The color is gorgeous. Paris Nights. Deep dark midnight blue. I was actually expecting a little more in the way of color variation, but apparently the lot I ordered doesn't have much. Which is fine, i didn't want the color variations to detract from the lovely cables on this sweater.
Not only did I swatch, I also washed and blocked my swatch too! I'm glad because the malabrigo really grows after a soak. Had to go down to US7 and repeat the process. Perfect results this time.

Here's a pic of the yarn when i was swatching. Oh, on top of my awesome giftie from Jeff, a new mac book! yay!