Oops... Has it REALLY been over 2 months since my last confession errrr post?!?!?!?!?! LOL!

Well.... It's been a busy summer. Bear actually took some time off here and there so I have been spending some wonderful quality time with the love of my life. We have gone on a mini vacation to the lake. Which was nice! I had to be prepped for a week at the lake though!!! I went and got AT&T internet service LOL! There was NO WAY I would survive a full week with out internet rofl! Now what does that say about my life. The connection wasn't the best (Facebook was completely out and the withdrawals were tough) but I was able to chat with a buddy and check my emails and such, so I was good lol.

Let's see... what else has been going on... Oh! got a new laptop at the end of July. Made another cake, well actually made two more cakes but there is NO WAY I will put one of them on here... let's just say it was for (Bear hates when I say this lol) Bear's stepdaddy and was a risque one. LOL! If you MUST see it, drop me an email and I will send you a picture. Let's just say that all that saw it commented on how realistic it was and that they could tell the "model" must have been cold. LOL!

The other cake was for my mom's 65th birthday. It has been discussed alot this year about her being born in the year of the Monkey on the Chinese calender. So when I got the new Wilton's yearbook and saw the monkey cake, I knew exactly what I wanted to do for her. So my sister and I ended up with this cake. We had a blast doing it and it was a great hit.

I actually looked and saw that these 3 cakes weren't on there from before. The floral cake was my final "final" cake. I used a buttercream fondant on it and I really liked the way it looked. The only problem I had with it was that it was really greasy. I really enjoyed taking the classes!

The first bear cake on the green base was for a lady that saw my final "final" cake that last night at class. She had the cakes made but not decorated and asked me if I would be willing to decorate it. It was my first time to decorate a bear cake. It was so adorable that I had to make an attempt to do it on my own (the third one). I made the cake from a recipe on a pan I had and it was double chocolate pound cake. The frosting is chocolate buttercream. It was WAY to much chocolate for me (yes, a woman said it was too much chocolate!). Technically this was a triple chocolate bear. It was so funny, because no one wanted to make the first cut! Finally Bear sliced off an ear. Then Jon took a foot. I went out the next day or so and came back to a decapitated bear!!! I was like "OMG! Who cut off his head????" LOL!

Okay, enough cake talk lol.....

I am sitting in a hotel room right now in Dallas, well Arlington, Texas actually, with BAD heart burn! I have decided that me and mexican food need an added ingredient in the form of some sort of acid controller from now on. When you wake up at 4 am with heartburn, it's just wrong! 'Specially now in a hotel room that your sharing with the hubs who is sleeping the sleep of the innocent (yeah right lol) and you don't want to wake up. Oh the decision I had to make. Do I grab my book and mini book light and go sit on the floor in the bathroom so that he isn't disturbed by the light? Do I turn on the laptop and actually be productive and update the blog finally? When I turn the laptop on, do I turn it away from the bed because it seems AWFULLY bright so early in the morning? LOL! As you can tell the laptop won. But as I was responding to an email, all I could hear was the nails hitting the keys and I just KNEW that would be irritating enough to wake the Bear! So I played on Facebook for an hour and a half till he started waking up! The sacrafices I have to make for the love of my life lol!

I have finished one of my quilts and made it a "summer weight" quilt. It has no batting in it. It is the 30's BOM one my secret pal sent me last year. I don't have a finished picture on the computer yet but may take one today for the next installment of my boring life! I will be heading to Austin with Bear for atleast one week possibly two so I will have time to post some more lol. We are in Dallas until Friday, then home a week then off to Austin. He keeps going back and forth on wether I will go with him BACK to Austin the second week. He swears he can't work when I'm with him and the 2nd week is a major work week for him so it's up in the air lol. One day I'm going, the next I'm staying home....

I also finished another dress. This was is just too sweet. And am almost done with the next one so The next time I blog I will HOPEFULLY have it done to show off.

Okay. Enough for now. I may or may not blog again later today or tomorrow but it may not be till week after next lol. I know... nothing new with the way I have been blogging but still thought I would say that lol. Until next time........

So I missed two days... better than 7 months lol......

Well, I did spend the day working on flowers (sorta, it was more like the afternoon lol) with my sister. I am going to be working on more flowers today in preparation for my final "final" cake. LOL! This is the last class to take at this time. Course 4 - Fondant and Gum Paste. *Sigh* What am I going to do without a cake class every week. I was suppose to "graduate" on Monday but as I will be out of town (going to Dallas with Bear), so I am going to "graduate" early lol!

I guess I should post some of the pictures of these said cakes that I have done so that everyone can see that I have done SOMETHING for the last 7 months lol!!!

This was my very first cake I made. It is a plain jane cake with orange flavored buttercream (home made) icing. I call it my "dreamsicle" cake. The icing was a big hit!

The second cake was made with raspberry icing. I'm real big on not being normal! LOL! Can ya tell???? I plan to make a chocolate cake with cherry flavored icing in the future for Bear. I'm thinking it will be like a cherry cordial, which I can't stand lol! So would be just for the Bear! And maybe the boys! LOL!

The third one was done for the Bear. It was a german chocolate cake with coconut flavored buttercream icing! Bear's fav! LOL! I was pretty much making a cake a week at the beginning and testing out different flavors! Can you say cake overload???

These two cakes were made for my sisters birthday. She requested Italian Cream Cake. There is history with that cake lol. This was a favorite of mine for a long time and every time I would go to make it I would have to contact my grandmother for the recipe. I mean it could be only 6 months since I had made it and would have to call her AGAIN for it! This went on for years and BEFORE the internet so it was an actual long distance phone call (before Vonage and all as well) or wait for it to arrive in the mail!!!! She was even gonna give me her original but I pointed out to her that I keep losing the one I get so why would she think I wouldn't lose the original????

Anyway, Shannon decided this was what she wanted as her birthday cake even though it was a hard one to decorate. I couldn't use butter cream ya know! It has a cream cheese icing that you use. That's the rule ya know!!! LOL! So I had to do a "crumb" coat in the butter cream and "decorate" in buttercream. I used coconut flavored buttercream since the cake has coconut in it. It was a hit. The small one was her "take home" portion. The picture on the right was the way it looked when I last saw it at the party. The picture on the left is the way it looked after Noble (her service dog) did his taste test lol!!!! I'm not sure it he liked it or not since it was only one swipe of his tounge and not a chunk out of it lol! Although he did take the best and my favorite rose with that swipe so maybe he has good taste!!!

My next class cake was my Course 2 final "test" lol! Shannon and I had decided after 4 straight weeks of cakes we would not make one until the final. So that gave us 3 weeks of no cakes! YEAH!!!! We just had enough time to get our sugar high down to a managable level lol!

This was the "basket" cake. I think it was french vanila cake with raspberry icing. I've sorta started blocking out some of that kinda thing. We also learned royal icing (which is buttercream that hardens lol) and color flow. The blue birds are the color flow. I did the handles out of the royal icing because a basket isn't a basket if you can t carry it, right??? LOL! Not that these handles are any good lol!

I like this so much that I made a brown one for my mother in law's birthday just two weeks ago. I did not do the color flow on hers but it was a HUGE hit out at the lake. This is the "pup" tent we had to exist in lol. It was a chore having to wait for the air conditioner to finally cool it all off!!!! LOL! I was roughing it ya know!!!! I did not have internet access and a 13" T.V.!!!! LOL!!!!

This was my next cake and my first fondant cake! It make is so smoooooooth but I don't care for the fondant taste. I explained it to my son that it's eatable playdough lol!

I will be attempting marshmellow fondant (from scratch) for tomorrows cake.

This was my Course 3 final cake. It is my first tiered cake. I really liked doing it this ONE time but I don't see me doing alot of tiered cakes lol! I did try a new technique from a book I of my sisters. The royal icing bows. They are really fragile though! LOL! But we should always try new things ya know! LOL!

The last cake I have done was for my "adoptive" son, Louis. He and Jon play their guitars alot so I had to get this pan and make him an electric one. It was a hit with them both. Jon has put in his order for his birthday in October. He wants a spice cake with vanilla icing. lol! Gotta love the boy!

Okay, I have spent a few hours on this that I should be spending on flowers for tomorrows cake lol! So this is it for today! I will be working on another insert in a few days with my final final cake! Until then......,

The rumors of my death have been greatly exagerated...... I just have a life now.....

Well....... The good news is I did NOT fall off the face of the earth! The bad news is now that I am back in Houston.... I have a life! My family keeps me pretty busy now with the different things now. Between sewing classes at the community center, cake decorating classes, the pool, sewing, family and just life in general, I just find it hard to sit down at the computer for long periods to do the blog.

A lot has happened since my last post. We've moved half way across the country and that is not an exageration lol! We moved from the top of West Virginia to the semi middle edge of Texas. It's about 1400 miles, so I can honestly say it was half way across lol!

I have been spending time with my family more and more. We do a sewing class each Wednesday morning. My mom is the main instructor and has decided that I am the co-instructor now. So when her house flooded again, I was running the class so that she could take care of that stuff.

My sister and I started cake decorating classes. This was something I always wanted to try my hand at so I was thrilled to be able to do it. And it has been really nice to do it with my sister.

On an extremely sad note, we lost a loving and wonderful member of our family. My sweet cocker spaniel that was my baby boy, Bandit on May 4th. He was just over 11 years old. Even now, a month and a half later, as I type this I start to cry. It has been really hard on me and I find myself still looking for him from time to time. I know everyone says that eventually it will get better, and it has in a way, but it's still really hard to believe he is gone. Momma loves and misses you greatly baby boy!

Sorry for the trip down that road but I really do miss him and was an event that really did make a mark in my life.

I will try really hard to start updating this more and more... show off pictures of the cakes I've made, some of the sewing things I've been working on, etc. If I do this right, I will be updating either daily for the next week or so... or weekly. Tomorrow I will be making flowers for my final cake that I will do on Friday, so I may or may not post tomorrow lol... See ... I have a life and things to do!!!!!

Until the next time I post (I swear it won't be another 7 months!!!!).....