What I do for Fun

One of my favorite blogs to read is CakeWrecks. Jen is extremely funny, a bit snarky, and a not so closeted science-fiction geek. I'm not sure why I feel so connected to her sometimes ;-). She shares pictures of "professional" cakes that have gone horribly horribly wrong.

One of my goals in life, is to own my own bakery and be a "professional". I like doing wedding cakes, because that's where the money is in cake decorating, but I really LOVE to do little party cakes (birthdays, anniversaries, etc.). I can be a bit more creative with a party cake. One of my greatest fears, is that my cakes would somehow end up on Jen's blog (hoping not, though). I thought I would share some cakes that I've done. Keep in mind, that I do this out of my home, for friends, and that I work full time :).

I made this cake for my mom's retirement party a few months ago. Each layer was a different flavor and included butter cream frosting under the fondant (cuz fondant tastes icky, but is really pretty). Other than the 2 live Gerber daisies, I made the flower decorations.

I made this cake for a little girl's 5th birthday party. I was a little disappointed in the overall color (I wanted it to be more yellow than brown). I LOVE the leaves and ivy, but they seem to big for the dainty little flowers.

This cake was for the same little girl the previous year. This is all buttercream except for the fondant in some of the flowers, leaves, butterflies, etc. The birthday girl placed some of her cute little fairy dolls on this cake, and it's still one of my favorites.

This is one of the first cakes I ever did in all fondant. I thought it was really great when I did it, but I think I could do it better now :-). This was for my friend's daughter who was turning 16 on Saint Patrick's day. She wanted a St Patty's day cake that was whimsical and wasn't just a big shamrock. Her friends thought she was pretty cool!

I did this cake a few weeks ago for my son's 8th birthday. This is the Daytona International Speedway, as interpreted by me. I'm pretty sure that the Daytona 500 doesn't have a figure 8 or a cave in the middle of the track, but I still really liked it. The checkered flag and the road is fondant, and everything else is buttercream. It was yummy. Also, just for the record, my son added the ugly candles and cars. I tried convincing him he didn't want to mess up my piece of art with candles and Hot Wheels, but he felt differently.

I'm almost a little embarassed to show this one, but this is one of the very first cakes I ever did. It was for one of my co-workers baby showers. The big black smiley faces on he stars are a little over the top. I still love it, though!

Just wanted to share. I hope you enjoy! If you're ever in the Cincinnati area and need a cake, let me know :-)!

Love, Kelli

Life is Funny....How to Fix Your Marriage...

After Friday night's post, I feel like I need to post a "funny". Just for the record, I actually love my husband very very much and he's a good dear man. I just like to complain about his taste in interior design :).

I get a joke email delivered to my email inbox every morning. This morning, I nearly spit my fresh brewed extra caffeine 2 splenda iced tea at my computer screen. This is not mine, it's courtesy of joke-of-the-day.com (you should seriously sign up). I also thought I would share in Wendy's carnival, cuz it's funny! You can find the carnival "rules" on her blog weightwhat.blogspot.com.

How To Fix Your Marriage...
After just a few years of marriage filled with constant arguments, a young man and his wife decided the only way to save their marriage was to try counseling. They had been at each other's throats for some time and felt that this was their last straw.

When they arrived at the counselor's office, the counselor jumped right in and opened the floor for discussion. "What seems to be the problem?" Immediately, the husband held his long face down without anything to say.

In contrast, the wife began talking 90 miles an hour, describing all the wrongs within their marriage.After 15 minutes of listening to the wife, the counselor went over to her, picked her up by her shoulders, kissed her passionately and sat her back down.

Afterwards, the wife sat speechless.The marriage counselor looked over at the husband, who stared in disbelief. The counselor said to the husband, "Your wife NEEDS that at least twice a week!"The husband scratched his head and replied, "I can have her here on Tuesdays and Thursdays."

That's all for now!

Love, Kelli

Color Blind

I promised I would fill you on on the "drama" that happened last week while I was on vacation. Here is my lame attempt at explaining what happened.

First off, I didn't know that men really cared about colors. My husbands idea of how colors "go together" is whether this shade of brown is the same as this other shade of brown. I have been working on him for at least a year now that I wanted to add color to the kitchen. He got to paint his new bathroom downstairs a lovely shade of off-white with white trim. I get to choose the colors upstairs. right??? WRONG!!

So, I went to the orange Home Depot (not the blue Home Depot that my son prefers) and picked out several different shades that I wanted to paint the kitchen. There were some pretty orange-ish colors, some nice shades of green, and a gorgeous shade of bluish gray that I simply had to have!!! I managed to convince him that this beautiful shade, "Contemplation", was what we needed. (Doesn't the name even sound serene?) I know my husband quite well, by now. Of course I had him sign his initials to my "Contemplation" paint chip.

The next morning, the paint manager at the orange Home Depot gladly gave me 3 gallons of primer, 1 gallon of white ceiling paint, 2 gallons of "Parchment Paper" for my long hallway, and 2 gallons of my beloved "Contemplation". She did laugh at his scribbled initials, but she definitely understood and appreciated my logic. Heck, I had my bases covered!

My dad came over the next day and helped me prime and paint (2 coats) the kitchen, hallway, and ceiling. It was a long long day, but my kitchen was beautiful when I was done. Now, I held my breath until my husband walked in the door.

Long story short....he hated it!!! And, I apparently used the wrong kind of primer. I was so devastated I cried for 2 days. I'm sure my crying had nothing to do with the fact that I was completely exhausted, had spent $300 on paint and supplies, and that "Mother Nature" might have been visiting.

I had to listen to him complain non-stop about how the kitchen didn't "match" the hallway or the living room (which is the only finished room in my house, by the way)! And he kept complaining about the primer poisoning that he was suffering from. Granted, I purchased the prime that the lady told me to buy. How, was I supposed to know that oil-based primer shouldn't be used in doors!

So now, not only does he want to repaint the kitchen and hall, but he also wants to re-paint the ceiling and living room! And I know he's going to need to re-prime everything because it stinks so bad.

This all happened on Tuesday. On Friday, I finally went with him to the blue Home Depot (I'm sure they don't really like me calling them that) with my husband to pick out new colors. I told him I would be involved in choosing the color, but that I wouldn't help him paint. I had already been there, done that! Either way, he picked out a new color for the living room (which is actually quite nice and I will secretly like it I'm sure, but I'll never tell him that) and a new color for the kitchen.

So you ask...why am I complaining? I'll tell you why. First off, here is a swatch of my beloved "Contemplation" (the color doesn't exactly come across here, but it's a gorgeous shade of blue, green, and a bit of gray):

Now, here's why I'm complaining. Here's what he picked out to replace the "Contemplation" that he simply couldn't live with. I introduce you to "Limelight":

Yep - tell me about it! Hello People!?!?! It's like the same color!

OK - rant over. Do you know what I'm doing this Saturday? Yep, that's right! I'm going shopping, getting a manicure and pedicure, and having lunch with my sister and using his debit card. Guess what he's doing?

That's all for now!

Love, Kelli

An Important Warning!

With the swine flu pandemic continuing to gain steam across the globe, our administration and federal gov’t offices sent out an official warning to all US citizens to do a few things:
1. Restrict travel
2. Wash hands often
3. Refrain from large public gathers.

And above all – they cautioned us all not to do the following….

I'm working on a post to share the kitchen drama that I went through while I was on "vacation". Yes, I did mean to quote that because I was technically on vacation, although it wasn't very vacation-y.

I will share soon :)!

That's all for now!

Love, Kelli

I'm switching!

Be still my twittering heart! Have you all seen this? I think I must switch to Flutter :)!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeLZCy-_m3s

All kidding aside, I'm going on vacation!! I will still be on Twitter next week, because I'm not sure I have the ability to not be on Twitter. I will probably not post though. I can't wait to show you what I did while I was gone though ;)!

Miss you all! Kelli

I don't feel good today...

Begin rant...

I really don't. And you know what else? My husband is in the middle of tearing out my kitchen. I have bare drywall on 2 walls and exposed studs on the third wall. I have no upper cabinets. They are in the basement getting ready for me to sand, prime and paint them. My husband and his friend are supposed to be there at 4:00 today to take out my lower cabinets, my sink, and my dishwasher. You'd think these two have a death wish or something. What's pushing me over the edge is that my husband (kindly) asked if I could work until 8:00 (aka so I wouldn't be there to bother them) then bring them dinner home and be ready to clean up all the nasty drywall stuff after them. At 9:00 at night, people! I turn into a pumpkin at 9:00! My head hurts. My throat hurts. I have a runny nose and my body aches. Not to mention, I've had pretty weird vertigo bouts for the last week and a half (that's not been pretty). All I want to do is go home and get in my bed and pull my pretty purple down comforter over my head and sleep until Easter Sunday.

End rant...

Tata - K!

PS - I know, I know...I should be grateful that I'm getting a new kitchen. The really really is that my house has been under constant heavy duty construction since for 3 1/2 years now, and I'm completely sick of it! My husband tells me it's almost over, and I don't believe him one bit!!! It took him ten months to renovate my upstairs bathroom (which by the way, he waited until I was on an international business trip to rip out my beloved bathtub) and he told me that the bathroom was the easy part!

PPS - I am really really really finished with my rant now!

PPPS - I apologize to my high school English teacher Mrs. Bellm and my sister Allison who teaches English for all of the poor grammar and punctuation in this post. If you haven't noticed, I don't feel good!

The Important Things in Life...

Have you all seen this? It really makes you sit back and think about what's important in your life.

Take this quiz:

1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.

Bill Gates, the Sultan of Brunei????

2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.

nope, can't do it...

3. Name the last three winners of the American Idol.

David Cook, Jordin Sparks, and Taylor Hicks (not sure what this means about me that this was the easiest category to fill out)

4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize.

John Nash, Jimmy Carter, Dalai Lama, Mother Theresa, Winston Churchill, T.S. Eliot, Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, and that's all I have...(and I'm not sure these are right, but they are my guesses)

5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor actress.

I can't do this question at all. I like watching movies, but I don't tend to like the same types of movies as the "Academy", so I never watch the Academy Awards.

6. Name the last decade's worth of World Series winners.

Baseball isn't my thing, and since the Cincinnati Reds haven' done well since 1990, I have no clue!

How did you do?The point is, none of us remember the headliners of yesterday. These are no second-rate achievers. They are the best in their fields. But the applause dies. Awards tarnish. Achievements are forgotten. Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.Here's another quiz.

I want to share with you these special people in my life. Rather than just give a short name, I want to tell you why each of these people are special. I am going to answer two of the questions today and save the other 4 for Tuesday and Wednesday.

1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.

- Mrs. Perkins: my first grade teacher who taught me that school could be fun and it wasn't scary. I still have a little Raggedy Ann book she gave me on the last day of school that year (let's just say the book is over 30 years old). Thanks Mrs. Perkins!

- Miss Losey: my fifth grade teacher who taught me what a smart student I was. I was a very average student until I came across Miss Losey. It turned out I was a really good speller and would win the class spelling bee every Friday, until she brought a smarty pants 4th grader in to give me a run! Thanks Miss Losey!

- Mr. Clark: he wasn't even one of my teachers. I had Mrs. Ho (yes, that was her name) for Chemistry, but found myself bored by her class. I was bored not because I was bored by the topic, but bored because she wasn't teaching me fast enough. Who would have thunk? Mr. Clark taught the other Chemistry classes and began to tutor me after school. He is the reason that I majored in science in college. Thanks Mr. Clark!

- Dr. Williams: one of my favorite teachers ever! Dr. Williams was my music teacher from the time I was three weeks old (my first piano lesson), to making sure I knew what the story line was before our elementary school trips to the foreign operas (everyone else hated this, but I loved it), to helping me choose a band instrument, making me learn other band instruments because his French Horn section was graduating, teaching orchestra, marching band, jazz band, music composition, etc. As an added perk, he also happens to be my dad :). Thanks Dad!

- Dr. and Mrs. Rambo: This was a husband and wife duo of Biology professors at my college. I can honestly say that they have changed my life. Mrs. Rambo taught my General Biology classes as a freshmen, and then Dr. Rambo taught my Animal Behavior, Ornithology (study of birds) and Ecology, and was also my sponsor for my senior thesis. When my husband and I were getting married, we tried really hard to get all of our family together on a weekend where Dr. Rambo could officiate, but it just didn't work. I am friends with both of them on Facebook, and just last week went running outside with my camera (in my nightgown) to chase down a bird I hadn't seen before. Thanks Dr. and Mrs. Rambo!

2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.

- Pegi/Maggie: Her name alone is a fun story for another day. Pegi/Maggie helped me through a horrible divorce while she was going through one herself. She has the best laugh ever and could make a rock smile. Thanks Pegi/Maggie!

- Trinette: I don't know how I could possible have lived 30 years of my life not knowing you. She has been such a great sounding board for me and only she knows what she's talked me in and out of doing :)! Plus, my son may be only 8 today, but we may be in-laws someday! Thanks Trinette!

- Allison: I wasn't a fan of you the day mom and dad brought you home. I wasn't a fan of yours while you were going through puberty. I wasn't a fan of yours while I was getting married. But somehow, in the midst of all of that, you became my best friend. Thanks Allison!

Thank you again to some of the most important people in my life. Some of you know how I feel and others have no clue. Hopefully, now you do!

Tata - K!