Friday, April 27, 2007

Course 2 Final Pics!

The "overview"
A closeup of the basketweave... I do not like this picture because it shows the imperfections. In my defense, it is REALLY HARD on your hand, it took probably 30 - 35 minutes to do that basketweave technique and your hand just gets tired! Also, the birds look funny because it was raining the night I made them so rain got on them. The whole class had that problem.
A closer view of the top and the flowers.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Back

Sorry for running away so quickly yesterday, I had to go to a meeting. Anyway, last night we had dutch cheese fondue from The Fondue Cookbook (purchased at Crate & Barrel for only $11.99, they are discontinuing it so they had to order it special but it was way cheaper!), it was great! Geoff has much more patience to make such a thing than I do (I tried it once and made a big blobby burned cheese mess... although in my defense I didn't have the right recipe and it was New Years Day so I couldn't get all of the ingredients, etc. Addy and I had an interesting day and it's still a great story). Addy ended up coming over and a fabulous time was had by all. Our house was so full last night, Eric had a lady-friend over last night, and Kyle's girlfriend Jenny was there, and it was great! It is so fun to be in such a lively house.

Side note: I'm starving.

The organics bin was GREAT - it actually comes in box though, not a bin! Here's what we got:
  • 3 Fuji Apples - *Local*
  • 2 Red Bartlett Pears
  • 2 Ataulfo Mango
  • 4 Bananas
  • 8oz. Strawberries
  • 2 Leeks - *Local, farm direct*(Gee Cr.)
  • 1/2 Snap/Snow Peas
  • 1 Celery
  • 6oz. Crimini Mushrooms - *Local, farm direct*(Hood river)
  • 1 lg. Yellow Onion - *Local*
  • 1 bunch Carrots
  • 1 Lettuce
  • 1 bunch Spinach
  • 1 bunch French Breakfast Radish - *Local*(Groundworks)
  • 1/2-3/4lb. Aparagus - *Local*(Inaba)

We had some carrots and apples as part of the fondue last night, and I had the strawberries for breakfast this morning. Yum!!! I need to find some more recipes for some of these other things. Very exciting. I was a little surprised because there was no bags for most of the stuff (except the strawberries and mushrooms), so I had to bag stuff up and root around looking for all of the little peas. But a lot of it was pretty contained. And now I know to be prepared. I can't wait for the next box!!

I think Geoff and I might go to the driving range during lunch, for $8 you can get 60 balls and lunch! It's super fun! He's busy today though and he's going golfing this afternoon with Eric, so not sure if he will have time or not. If not, I might just eat the pasta I have made or go to lunch at New Seasons with Cindy and Jill. So many great choices! Yum.

Tonight is class at the gym and then my last class of course 2!! So exciting. Tomorrow we're going to The Way with Addy and then not sure for the weekend. I'm kinda hoping I might be able to work a day or two at Hallmark if they call and hire me, but I'm not sure if they'd want me to start so soon. We'll have to see. I also have some chores I need to get done and at some point (like within the next year) I want to paint my bedroom light blue with brown trim. I don't love blue in general but I ADORE that color combo! :)

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Slow

Not a lot going on lately... I have been cooking more and of course lots of cake stuff. Oh! And I got a call back from Hallmark - I had an interview yesterday and she's going to get back to me by the end of the week. The interview made me really excited about working there, so I hope it works out. It would be really great. I have my final class of course 2 tomorrow... these classes go by so quickly! So Geoff made me a cake this morning (he has the day off) and then I need to ice it when I get home tonight. Then I have all of my flowers ready to go and I will be doing buttercream on it as well (a basketweave technique). More later...

Pictures!

Trevor, Geoff, and Kyle next to the buttercream roses I taught them to make!! Hehe.

Lee and Shannon dancing with Shannon's parents at their wedding.

Us at Lee and Shannon's wedding - why does Geoff look so giant?!?! He's not *that* big!

My first fondant cake!! So fun. But it was soooo dry in the classroom so the drape is pretty cracked up, boo!!

Just a different view. I'm officially in love with fondant!

Monday, April 16, 2007

Organics and fondant

Highlight of the day: I ordered a bi-weekly delivery of a small organic fruits and veggies bin from Organics to You. I can't wait! My co-worker who referred me will get a free small fruits and veggies bin if I get two orders, which is awesome. I didn't even know that, I just put her name down as the referral source and then saw that, so it's a nice little bonus!

I also started my Fondant and Gum Paste class yesterday. Soooo fun! I'm really enjoying fondant. So this week for cake stuff I need to make another batch of royal icing (one of my batches didn't turn out very well... it can happen due to humidity, etc... as my instructor says icing consistency can vary depending on "if there was a bluebird out in Holland that day"). Then I have the third class of course 2 on Thursday. For next Sunday, I need to prepare a cake, leveled and iced for my second class of the Fondant course. Then next Thursday is my final class of course 2 and I need to bring a cake to that one too. Lots of cake stuff coming up in the next 2 weeks! I love it. And the guys love it too... they are always asking me to teach them stuff, it's very cute and funny. Darn, I left my camera at home, otherwise I would post a picture of three of them next to the roses they made last Thursday!

Friday Geoff and I went to The Way - it was disappointing... partially because I wasn't very engaged for whatever reason. I had prayed that day that I wasn't using The Way as something I was relying on to make me happy or anything, and I think God intentionally made it sort of "mneh" for me that night . I'm not explaining this well at all, but long story short it ended up being a good thing overall. Saturday we went to a wedding at the Grand Lodge - it was fun! We didn't stay very long but we had a good time. Saturday night seems to be a blur, I don't remember doing much. We did get a lot of chores done around the house. Sunday morning we went to church at Solid Rock, which is where The Way is held. This time it was Geoff's turn to not feel very engaged! He liked it though and I think we will choose it as our church - #1 reason is they have weekly communion, which is important to both of us (more critical to him, but I have always really appreciated churches that have it). Westport is a great church and they're doing wonderful things, but it just doesn't work quite as well for Geoff. I like Solid Rock better too because it's a little bigger and I love bigger churches. I am SO excited about The Way and Solid Rock. They have been fabulous in our lives and our relationship. Sunday we had BLTs for lunch, tacos for dinner, and strawberries for dessert. YAY for cooking at home. We're trying to get back into that again, one of the reasons for the organics box.

Today Geoff and I are meeting at home and then going to the gym. He's going to play racquetball with his friend Scott and I'm going to go to Body Works with my friend Cindy. Should be most excellent.

Monday, April 09, 2007

April

Okay. Last week was SO busy at work. Thursday I had class one of course 2 in my cake decorating series! I have the same instructor, her name is Pam and she is great. There are only 4 students in this class - they were all in my course 1 class too. The Way was cancelled on Friday night because there was a retreat - Thursday through Saturday, which are odd days but I suppose Easter put a kink in things. I did not go because of the date choices, which I suspect was an issue for others as well. Geoff has been *EXHAUSTED* because he has an inventory at work tomorrow so he hasn't wanted to do much after work. Needless to say, I definitely had a little cabin fever this weekend. Friday we stayed in and watched a couple of movies. Oddly, they both kept me interested for the entire time. I have no idea why, because that NEVER happens. Saturday I got up in the morning and cleaned the downstairs bathroom, the kitchen, etc. Then I started work - I've had two big projects at work lately so I've been working on them and got behind on normal day to day emails, tasks, etc. So I spent all day Saturday getting caught up on work-related issues. I got my email box down from about 250 to 13 emails! YEAH! That's always a good feeling. Saturday night (at about 8 - I had no idea I was working so late) I went to Olive Garden with Addy... yum! We had a great conversation and then went back and hung out at my house for a while. Sunday morning I got up and went to church for Easter... I tried a new church which I shall not mention because I was not a huge fan. I can't even pinpoint what I didn't like about it, and I know sometimes holiday/"special" services are harder to "evaluate", but it just didn't really work for me. I most likely won't try that church again. I brought Geoff Starbucks because he got Starbucks for me last year at Easter, and then I went home and read Nelson DeMille's new book Wild Fire. I love Nelson DeMille. He is my favorite author! If you haven't read his stuff and want to start, start with Plum Island. It's the first one I started with, my sophomore year in high school, and it's great. It's also the first one with recurring character John Corey. Corey appears in 4 of his books, including Wild Fire. So good!

Didn't really do much else yesterday, and by last night I was pretty crabby and wanted to get out and do stuff. Luckily I have a full agenda for today - I am going to stop by the bank, go apply for a part-time job at Hallmark (I LOVE working retail and I miss it and I've been waiting for them to be hiring for a while and now they are!), then go to Costco (I have a big list - 4 things I need pretty soon here and another few things that I will need in the next few months that there are coupons for in the April coupon book so I'm going to go ahead and buy them now), then go to the first neighborhood watch meeting! I'm really excited about that, I want to get to know more of my neighbors and also get the streets cleaned up a little (there are a lot of cars parked on the street all the time, and it looks junky and is super dangerous cause there are so many kids). After that I will go home and do some laundry and update Quicken. Ohhh how I love being busy. Just another great benefit of a part time job! I really hope that it's a good fit and that I get the job. So, that's my plan!

Monday, April 02, 2007

Cake Pics!

My second to last course cake - clowns. The technique is called "figure piping"

A clown up close. Sorry for the blurriness! None of my clown close up shots came out very well.

Geoff making icing. :) Hehe.

My course 1 final cake! This one was for my friend Kristie's birthday.

Close up of rose and leaf detail

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Answering to demands

Okay, I'm alive and I have not abandoned my blog. Here's what happened - I had taken the pictures from my last cake class and wanted to put them up on my blog, only I hadn't downloaded them for like a week. About a week ago I finally put them on my computer, but then it had been so long since I blogged that the task just seemed daunting. So, I just shyed away. Then yesterday I decided (and Patrick confirmed) that I could and should just jump back in. I know you are all tortured by the fact that you will not know what happened for the last two weeks of my life, but that's okay.

Side note: one of my roommates is cooking steak and it smells SO GOOD right now. I think they must have dumped like the entire bottle of garlic powder on there. YUM.

So, cake decorating class is over, it was great - the next one starts this week! I can't wait! It really is a blast. I've been running more and Addy and I have been trying to run together at least once a weekend. Today's run was BRUTAL, I just was not feeling it.

Geoff has gone with me to The Way three times now - WOW. It has been so great for our relationship! The first time he went and was like "first of all I found the speaker to be really full of himself and then I felt like I wasn't a good Christian because I wasn't worshiping with my arms up" (he comes from a Lutheran background and hasn't had a whole ton of experience with more contemporary churches). So I pointed out that we ALL have areas of weakness and because of that particular speaker's background, it's logical that he would be more likely to sound full of himself. And I said that one of the things I love about The Way is that you are free to worship in the way that connects you with God best! If that's sitting or standing or kneeling or arms up or down or whatever, it's all about you and God. He said he wanted to try it again and LOVED IT the next time. He said what'd I'd said (especially about worshipping freely) made a lot of sense to him and he felt much more comfortable. YAY. Plus the speaker that night was excellent. We had another great conversation after that evening which was cool. Then we went again this past Friday night and had without a doubt what was one of the most important conversations of our entire relationship. It was fabulous and I'm still excited about it. God has REALLY blessed us through that ministry.

We're going to Arizona again in another month for Hart and Becky's wedding - that's VERY exciting, I can't wait for that! That's about it for excitement right now in our lives. I'll be back tomorrow. :)