A Sailing We Will Go

There once was a boy named Joseph who was so cute that he just had to have cookies made for him. As his second birthday approached, there appeared a Captain's hat and striped invitations to go sailing with him.

But before the celebration could be had, there was baking to be done!

That fancy pants mixer came in very handy. Royal icing appeared as though out of thin air. The fondant, on the other hand, almost blew the motor to smithereens.

Life preserver cookies were requested as there would be so much laughing and happiness we would be in danger of floating away!

A very happy Captain greeted me with a request for a "red cookie" when I arrived bearing the fruits of my labor.

No sailing party is complete without a boat cake...yummy fudge icing!

But even more important than the cake or cookies are the presents! The Captain definitely needed the car he was given by friends. After all, he can't spend all his time on the boat...here he is waiting on Aunt Mean to get it unleashed from it's packing.

But once that super boy approved remote control car was free to zip, zip it did.

In the meantime the sweet First Mates helped Mama unwrap and clean up.

I'm relieved the Life Preservers were given the seal of approval - the Captain ate one before the party and started two more throughout the party - or else I would be stuck swabbing the decks.

Closets of the Heart

Have you ever thought you'd bested some of your greatest fears or weaknesses or flaws or hurts only to have them jump out of a closet at you? Um, figuratively, people. In case you know my fear of closets...the Jabberwocky didn't jump out and grab me last night. Breath easy.

I'm starting to realize that those fears or hurts don't ever leave totally. If you've read this post you know that I believe that we're changed by our experiences. However, changed does not equal being forever damaged. We still have the ability and wherewithal to choose to be different and not be defined by what others have done to us. Even when those actions have directed our steps. It has to be a conscious decision to take the experience and use it for what we need, though.

It's not always easy to do, recognize truth in the face of so many lies and twisted words that we tell ourselves. I had to remember this recently and slam that closet door shut again. I gain strength every time I need to heft myself against that door and it's still rusty hinges. Now if I could only find some proverbial WD-40...

A Year of Cookies

A little over one year ago I found a love. It's called "making sugar cookies" and I would quit work tomorrow to bake all day long if I could. Sorry, it's true. Well maybe I wouldn't quit flat out. I could become the baking audiologist - let me look in your ear and I'll give you a cookie. Not just any cookie but a beautiful handmade, i.e. slightly flawed, masterpiece.

There were Good Luck cookies

Then some 1st birthday classics

SEC football anyone?

Followed by Halloween sweets

Sweet Reagan's 2nd birthday

Some Christmas traditions never change even when the icing does

Super Bowl and a huge party with friends demanded edible football players

Sweet Valentine's Day with DH

St. Patty's Day requires shamrocks

Library Girl's bridal shower

Can you believe how far I've come in a year? This coming weekend is Little Monkey's 2nd birthday and the cookies will be very low key compared to other events, but I'm pretty sure they'll be really cute. A simple life preserver design - the un-iced cookies look like sad donuts, but I'm convinced that they will be Martha Stewart worthy in chicness and simplicity.

I've been struggling with whether I could actually turn this into a side business. So if y'all have any thoughts or ideas on that, please leave me a comment! I'm not sure if I can charge what I think I deserve because I'm not proven yet. There's a bakery in downtown Ft Worth of some renown who charge close to $3 a cookie. And personally I don't like their cookies enough to eat a whole one much less pay that amount. I feel like the dough is undercooked because of the thickness and the dough itself is sweet. The icing is slightly almond tasting which is never stated before you buy a cookie and it's very sweet. For me they just don't taste how I like a sugar cookie to taste. But the decorating is top notch. Even though I don't care for the cookie itself, I would pay the $3 for a well decorated cookie.

Consider this: to bake, ice and then detail roughly 100 middle to small sized cookies takes approximately 10 - 12 hours. The cost of basic supplies is not all that much (flour, sugar, butter, powdered sugar). The cost of speciality supplies depend on the cookie design (cookie cutter, icing colors, dusting powder, disco dust, sanding sugars and boxes/shipping supplies).

Would you pay $3 for a cookie? Do the math...that's $36 for a dozen. It sounds like a lot even to me, but maybe I need to adjust my mindset?

A Bunch of Nothing

There's not terribly much going on right now. That can be really nice actually - that means no crises, no surprises of the bad variety. So what follows will be a general mishmash of what's been going on, both in the world and in my head.

I made cookie dough tonight using that beauty of a mixer. There is a Little Monkey who will turn 2 this week and is having a sailing party - life preserver cookies are on the list! I'm going to make my first foray into homemade fondant - we'll see how that goes. It involves marshmallows and a microwave - marshmallows and any heat source are a bad combo in my history of baking disasters so I may have to go buy the expensive box kind. I also may end up with purple hands due to dying the fondant red and blue.

My workouts have been pretty great - the new shoes are a huge improvement! Even just switching out the pairs every day helps. I ran 4 today which is the longest I've gone in a long time. I miss my running partner...KW can we run soon? I know it's roughly a million degrees here but c'mon! The weeknight 5-7 mile treks across golf course and roadway are helping my endurance, at least that's what I tell myself. Running intervals in this heat has to increase my endurance, right?

Speaking of working out, there is the diet change to consider. I am looking at this change as a lifestyle change. I don't feel deprived of anything and my cravings for sweets has diminished drastically. I don't much want cake or candy or cookies. I do miss Italian bread and soft cheese, but I can still eat these things. Just in smaller portions. It's difficult to stick to the plan day in and day out because I feel that DH is my one supporter of this. My lunch, or "lack" of a lunch has become the subject of discussion at times at work. I just get tired of justifying what I'm ingesting because I don't feel hungry because of what I'm not eating. I really enjoy what I am choosing to eat, for all of my meals and my snacks. 

Cheat day is coming up. That's a diet cheat day, y'all. DH says it's good to have one every 3-4 weeks so the body doesn't adjust to the lower calorie diet and stop losing weight or think you're starving. Yes cheat day is still a week away but we're already making lists of what we want to eat. A brief view of cheat day? Donuts, oreos, Twisted Root for burgers, fries, fried pickles and shakes, and probably pizza. That's as far as we've made it and I already feel a little sick. Apparently I'm not supposed to work out on cheat day so I did it all wrong last month. I know that I'll still eat moderately that day, it'll just be a lot more calories than usual. Looking at our wish list is funny since a lot of people eat this way more days than not but it's a special day for us!

I've gotten DH hooked on Alias and we're into the second season. He was trying to watch them without me but I pointed out then I wouldn't know how to answer questions without giving things away. I love that he figured out who The Man was without any guidance! I'm dying to get to the end of the second season because the third season opener is AMAZING. But I can't say anything about it until we get there. Sigh....it's so hard keeping the seasons straight and waiting for him to be able to see what happens.

My heart goes out to those in Norway that lost family in the attacks this past weekend. I don't know what triggers people to act on delusions or beliefs in such a physical attack. I know that fanaticism based out of any political or faith based agenda is wrong, yet it happens. Sadly I suspect that all too often we forget this and are quick to say "Well look at his politics....all right wing nuts would do the same" or "What do you expect from a liberal?" when in fact these are the outliers of society. Just because someone is the loudest does not mean that we must pay attention to them as a society in ways that reinforces both those stereotypes and those actions.

Well, that's about everything rattling around in my head for now.

Alice in Wonderland Meets Walt Disney

There is a strange phenomenon occurring outside my apartment complex. When I moved here two years ago there was a pack of these living on the golf course.

I suppose that the local golfers didn't relish the idea of losing a leg or hand over a badly hit ball. One day all of the howling, yowling, yipping and small animal genocide stopped. I don't know whether the coyotes up and moved to Florida or whether they were rounded up and rehabilitated in a nice state penitentary. Perhaps they make the state license plates now?

Regardless, the golfers are now unaccosted and it's definitely quieter on the back nine. But what, you say, is the strange phenomenon? Well it seems there are a plethora of these now....

And these....

And these....one of which was helping himself to the ornamental planter in front of the club house. It looked like the planter was trying to swallow the rabbit as his whole upper body and head were inside chowing down. 

(None of these pictures are mine - I grabbed them from Google images)
I didn't realize we had a plethora of friendly wildlife until we were walking outside the apartment complex yesterday and just outside the brush line was field mouse after field mouse and a few bunnies and a couple dozen birds. The birds were all clustered together. The bunnies were more or less loners and looking for the sweetest spot. But the mice! They were almost evenly spaced every six inches or so in a line, like there was some unseen task master who was telling them when they could eat and where to sit.

The surreal part was that none of these animals seemed to care were were walking past. The mice within maybe two feet would dart back into the brush but all the others just kept eating. As we walked they fell away into the brush and then came back out as we moved past. The birds ignored us as did the rabbits.

I kept looking over my shoulder for The Mad Hatter, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. Surely they were just down the road. I think I would have lost it if any of the mice were drinking tea or carrying thimbles.

How Far Do We Go?

DH and I watched I Am Legend last night...and today. I couldn't watch it in the dark - I almost tore the arm of the couch off. Sunlight made it much more bearable. I was actually feeling anxious, my heart was racing and I was physically feeling sick. I couldn't figure out what was bothering me the most. After we switched to some Alias - hey, Sidney Bristow I can get behind - I was thinking about what it was that bothered me the most about the movie.

If you haven't seen it yet, I'll try to not spoil anything. It's centered around the theory that a virus was found that cures cancer. The whole world jumps on the bandwagon. Then, as inevitably happens, something goes awry and this "cure" becomes a whole new beast, an epidemic that kills something like 99% of the world. The remaining 1% are either immune or have devolved due to the virus. That's the plot in a nutshell. I won't tell you how it ends because it's really not important, except to consider if the endings of this type of movie lead us to forget the cause and only focus on what may be.

I realized what bothered me the most is the same thing that bothers me about most zombie movies. There is always a very real cause or catalyst leading to the destruction of a very proud and haughty human race. Are we so far removed from becoming like these movies and books? Are we so sure of ourselves and our quests to unravel all of the mysteries, good and bad, that we'll end ourselves? Will millions of us suffer someday for what an elite few deem necessary without enough research to disprove this theory? Will our passion to end all illness actually cause greater destruction?

Only time will tell whether these questions are ever something to be worried over other than theoretically. In the meantime, if you want a movie that will make you question where our passions, desires and inquiries will lead us, watch I Am Legend....but you might want to leave the lights on.

Running Toward Luke's

**UPDATE - I ran 3.5 in the new Asics and felt great. I'm not completely sold on the Nike's for runs quite yet.**

Y'all know I'm a runner, maybe not the best runner. Okay, definitely not the best runner. At least I don't look like Phoebe when I run.



Actually I've never seen a Phoebe when I run. Lots of ugly runners, people who I run past, or who run past me that sound as though cardiac arrest is imminent. People who wear too little clothing - does anyone in the middle of a marathon want to see someone else's behind hanging out of those little shorts? People dressed up like 80's exercise gurus and monkeys and pirates. Yes, you read that sentence correctly. But no Phoebes.

I try to adhere to the theory that you can run 300 - 400 miles on a pair of shoes before needing to buy a new pair. Usually when my feet hurt I know I need a new pair. The two things I do that are not recommended and bit me in the behind this week?

1. Only run in running shoes
2. Don't take them off without untying them.

Apparently the second of these is most important. When you schlep off your shoe without untying it the "upper" stretches out and there's no recovering. The runner's blister I've been nursing? Because my dang upper was stretched out and the heel cup couldn't fit snug against my gnarly feet.

So I got myself to Luke's as fast as possible after work yesterday. They are my leaders, my gurus, my instructors when it comes to what I do wrong when running. The outcome? Well, I'm definitely poorer and now own two new pairs of shoes.

A cross trainer/runner from Nike

A runner from Asic












We'll see what happens, but for the price I paid they should make me breakfast every morning and clean the apartment while I'm at work.