I think I figured it out...

I think I was on an Olympic high??? I miss them...

Here today, gone tomorrow....

Can you believe it takes over 3 hours for my slow little hands to decorate a cake? Would you believe that someone put "handi-wrap" right over it to cover it up? I couldn't believe it. I didn't actually attend the birthday party, so when I looked at the picture on the camera, I asked why it looked so funny. Oh, well, of course, that's the plastic wrap on the cake. What else could it be???



At least there was no real damage. Here's what it looked like after the plastic wrap was removed.



The practice cake was made with two types of icing -- old stuff out of the freezer, and new stuff, out of, umm, a little plastic container. The colors looked much better in the picture than on the real cake. Since I knew one cake would probably not be enough for all of the people, I knew cupcakes or another small cake would be needed. We did 2 McQueen cakes. We were going to make a Sally, but McQueen just didn't look good enough to only have the practice one. Just in case you're wondering, I am not sure if either cake tasted good.



My dad had a wreck yesterday in his truck. Today we found out it would be a total loss. He's ok, and that's all that matters to me.

Lately...

Lately, I have not been a nice person. I have actually avoided public places, social gatherings, or other events where I may have to be nice. It's really sad, but I just think my "niceness" has expired, or ruined. I don't know what to do to get it back. I am sure that this is no way for a person to co-exist in a world with other people.

This weekend I left town. There was a hurricane coming. It was going to be bad. There was a HUGE area of possible impact. I'm certain millions of dollars were spent evacuating people and pets from the most likely impact area. Well, hurricanes...lately, they are just another item on my grumpy list. Lately, I'm tired of doing the responsible thing. (Some people felt that it would be more responsible of me to cancel my plans and sit home and wait to prepare for a hurricane that would not really affect our area.)

Lately, I'm tired of doing things for other people. I have lost the desire to donate to charities, offer meals to the homeless, or simply go beyond the bare minimum of what is required of me.

Lately, it ticks me off at myself for acting in such a selfish way. I remember a couple of years ago, I had the same problem. A good friend of mine, a mentor in many ways, put it to me quite simply. He said quit doing things for people and expecting something in return. Lately, I've had a hard time remembering that.

Maybe it's a midlife crisis? Am I old enough for one of those?

Hopefully, I had a good enough time over the weekend that I can get over it - at least some of it! I had a great holiday weekend. I'm glad that the hurricane, lack of dog sitters and just sheer worry did not keep me home this weekend. Lately I worry way too much...

Let there be practice cake...

This is the practice cake for the birthday party this weekend. Dylan turns 5 on Saturday. He'd been asking for a Lightning McQueen cake for over a month. I really did not think I could pull it off. I had talked him into a race track with Lightning and some of the other race cars. Believe me, the little runt let me know which cars did not belong on the race track. (In other words, no Doc on the race track!)

Anyway, very long story short, I went out and found a cake pan last night. I avoided work today and produced the cake. It took me over 2 hours to decorate it; yes, I'm very slow. Now, I'm off to see if it "meets approval" before I make one for the party.

Who knew I could do this?

Let it be YELLOW

Ok, so a few weeks ago, we yanked the wall paper in the entry way. It was around the time the house was going to get knocked down next door. Well, after completely wasting away last weekend, I vowed, this weekend would not be a waste. It hasn't been. Yesterday we cleaned the entire house, cut the yard, and went to pick out a color for the entry way. (Seems like house cleaing and yard work are minor chores, I'm not sure why it takes us so long to get them done.) We selected several shades of brown, grey, and silver. One of the books has a lovely yellow shade. But the little card did not look like the color in the book. This morning we decided to look into that yellow color at the store. (Big mistake by the way...) Anyway, after much debate and at least another hour looking at colors at the local Home Crap-o store, we selected a light yellow color.

A few hours later, a few gripes later, and it's done. Well, it's almost done. It's painted. We try to switch out the hardware in the rooms when we paint them. So we were thoughtful enough to purchase a new face plate and switch for the lights and electrical outlet. We never thought about the door handles. So for now, we're sticking with what was in there. After all the door handles match the light fixture, which we don't like, but it works, and well, we haven't found something perfect enough for us.

So, the room is not completely done, but we're just about done for today. Our lesson from this...pick some paint colors, bring them home (or take the paint samples out of the box labeled "painting supplies" because I honestly think we have just about every possible one we may like), pick a color. DO NOT FALTER ON THE COLOR CHOICE WHEN RETURNING TO PURCHASE THE PAINT. This was a critical mistake, and made me start the project quite crabby. HIS OCD kicked in big time today wen we went to purchase paint. So, my patience was zapped from the get go of the project. But, I do like the color and I am glad that we did it! Yeah!

It's still early, so I'm sure the pups get walked today, and even a car or truck will get washed. GO PRODUCTIVITY!!