Tying up loose ends

I’ve been busy. Busy and tired, which does not lend itself to good blog writing. But now here I am, back and ready to rock.

Let’s see…

The great ant invasion of 2008 seems to have abated. John discovered there was a lot of activity under the sink, so we concentrated our efforts there, which made a difference. Let’s hope our many-legged friends stay away.

Also, my poison ivy/insane bug bites/itchy arm plague finally went away. My left arm is now a little dry and scaly, but on the road to recovery.

Last week’s kickboxing class was taught by a sub. A sub who almost killed Becky and me. My legs were so sore that I practically fell over when I got out of bed on Friday morning. Tonight’s kickboxing class was taught by the usual guy, and it was so much fun! It was still a workout, but neither one of us felt ready to keel over at the end. I was sure the guy totally hated me at first, but he turned out to be really nice. We kicked, we jabbed, we punched, we stomped. I’m kind of a girly puncher, but a pretty darn good kicker. I also got confused about which hand I should be punching with when, but I’m hopeful I’ll catch on with practice.

In other news, I made a wedding cake. My friend Jules got married last December. Now she and her husband are having a party for her family, and she asked me if I would make the cake. I’m a good baker, but a wedding cake is a whole different story. My cakes are usually delicious, but decorating is not my strong suit. Plus, wedding cakes are BIG. So last weekend I baked a practice cake. I didn’t make the entire cake, but I made two tiers. Check out the before photo with the huge pile of pre-baking ingredients.

It took me all weekend to bake, no exaggeration. By the end of the weekend I totally exhausted and passed out on couch at 9 p.m, right in the middle of the Sarah Connor Chronicles, which is a high-energy show. At times I was convinced the cake would be a complete disaster, but it came out ok in the end. The cake was delicious, and not too ugly. I do now know that my wedding cake was worth every single penny I paid for it, and perhaps more. Jules’s cake will be a 3 tier strawberry vanilla buttercream cake, which is the top tier of the cake you see here on my practice cake.

The bottom layer was a lemon cake with raspberry filling, but the strawberry was everyone's favorite. So it will be a very tall, white on white cake with strawberries inside. Hopefully it will make it to Boston in one piece for the party.

I also seem to have inadvertently started a rumor at work that I have a wedding cake business on the side, because I put the leftover cake out for my co-workers to eat. I suppose the baking gets easier with more experience, but there's no way I could do this as a sideline. I like having a weekend!