Tag Archives: cake

A Week Of Celebration, Then A Nap

Posted in Cute Foods, Dessert, Life Ramblings, Recipes by

From Sunday to Sunday we celebrated.

It started with my husband’s birthday.  He claimed he didn’t want to celebrate – apparently another year over 29 was just not something he wanted to acknowledge.  So I said I would just make a cake and we’d have a nice dinner…  We ended up with an apartment full of friends that night.  But it was a perfect way to kick off the week.  We ate cake, had a few drinks, and kicked off our week of celebrating with laughter and memories of the last three years.

I cheated with a box devils food cake in two 9 inch rounds, iced with the Hershey chocolate frosting recipe off their website.  It is the MOST chocolatey-chocolate frosting I have ever tasted… 3/4 cup of cocoa powder chocolatey.  I thought it was a bit much but my husband loved it.  After completely frosting the cake, I took a shot at creative decorating based on some Pinterest inspiration.  Before the frosting dried, I surrounded it with Kit Kats in two-piece chunks and covered it with M&Ms, tied with a fun ribbon to keep it all together.  It was a huge hit. (And it’s the perfect way to hide a cake tier that breaks coming out of the pan… Not that I’d ever let that happen of course.)

Then on Monday, fresh off not studying all weekend, we took our last final and celebrated with a nice dinner out.  I was ready to be done.  I didn’t care about the grade anymore.  I handed it in, took a sticker that said “I finished law school FOREVER” and bounced out of the school.  I was still bouncing when we went to dinner.  As in, I freaked the waitress out because I was literally bouncing in the booth.  There was also singing and twirling… and martinis.  Every once in a while, in the middle of a conversation I would stop and ask, “we’re really done?”  My husband would affirm “we’re really done.”  It didn’t sink in.

Tuesday’s celebration was all about me.  Finally done, I took the first step in getting back to my pre-law school self and literally “lightened up.”  I knew I couldn’t go back to the light platinum blonde I was from dark brown all at once, but I was pleasantly surprised how light she could take me in one sitting.  It’s definitely blonde.  And immediately, I felt like the world was a lighter, happier place.

Wednesday we celebrated with a reception and a banquet at school.  On Thursday we celebrated with the entire class on a boat cruise with an open bar.

Then on Friday night, the main event.  Hung over and/or exhausted from finals and two nights drinking on the school’s dime, it seemed from the Facebook posts that we all did the same thing for most of the day – cleaned in anticipation of our family’s arrival.  And then we put on our big heavy gowns, lined in velvet, and marched out into the square in 95 degree heat to make it official.  AND I DIDN’T TRIP WALKING ACROSS THE STAGE.  You’d think I’d be over that fear, three graduation ceremonies into my education.  But no.  That was, in fact, still my biggest concern.

We followed the ceremony with a late meal at one of my favorite restaurants with both of our families and close family friends (which is always a source of anxiety for me, because the inlaws have almost nothing in common).  But for once, everything went smoothly and everyone was in good moods.  It finally started sinking in… we were done.

Saturday was our final culmination of the weeklong celebration.  We spent the day with family friends who are more family than friends… the girls shopped, the boys golfed.  And then we all came back to their house, and got to celebrate the engagement of their oldest son and his girlfriend of six years who we’ve all come to love.  We grilled out, we drank way too much wine, and we finally got to relax.  No more mingling in uncomfortable shoes, making painful small talk.  Just laughter pouring through the house.

Yesterday, we met my parents for lunch, returned my sister to them, and then we came home and napped. Without an alarm set. Without guilt.  It was, perhaps, a celebration in itself.

We finally have our lives back.

A Perfect Weekend And Just The Green Jacket I Needed

Posted in Family, Inspiration, Life Ramblings, Relationships by

It was a wonderful weekend away.  Capped off with just the green jacket playoff I needed.

I just had this feeling all week.  I told Joe that despite our plan to drive back home on Sunday afternoon, I thought we’d be driving home late.  I had this feeling about the Masters this year.  I wasn’t sure who, but I just felt one of my favorites was going to be in contention for this year’s green jacket.  I was right.  We didn’t get home until almost midnight.

If you don’t follow golf, and you don’t know anything about Bubba Watson, his twitter caption would tell you most of what you needed to know: “Christian. Husband. Daddy. Pro Golfer. Owner of General Lee 1.”  The daddy part he just added… he and his wife adopted a baby boy a few weeks ago.  And yes, he owns the Dukes of Hazzard car.  And if you’ve never seen the golf boys video, I’ve attached it for your viewing pleasure.

Why a sports post from a girl who isn’t incredibly sports oriented?  Because I hadn’t felt that kind of excitement and hope in a while.  The whole family in front of the TV. Then on the second playoff hole, he hits it into the trees, and it looks like it’s over.  Everyone’s guessing the best he can do is punch it back out onto the fairway and hope for the other guy to make a mistake.  But Bubba didn’t.  He grabbed his club, and out of the pine needles hit a shot that magically curved right around the trees and landed perfectly on the green.  It was the kind of shot the happens once in a lifetime.  And it happened at the exact right time.

Bubba’s famous for getting flustered and inside his own head.  Guess what, me too.  Maybe that’s why I knew he could do it.  It was Easter, he’s a new daddy… the stars were aligned.  I cried when he won.  His wife was home with the baby, but he wasn’t alone.  His best friends from tour all streamed onto the green to hug him as he cried.  You don’t normally see that in golf.  Not when the guys have been off the course for hours and weren’t in contention.  They should had been long gone.  They weren’t.  That’s the kind of guys we’re talking about. It says a lot about who Bubba is to.

So does his tweet from last night: To God Be The Glory!!! #Masters.  And from this morning: Up early can’t sleep, don’t want to miss any part of being a dad.

I tell you this story because it was apparently a story I needed to see.  It just kind of hit me in a funny way that I can’t explain.  I’ve been stuck in survival mode for so long that it seems like nothing registers anymore.  I haven’t felt my heart get into something for so long… I was refreshing.

So was seeing my family.  I got the mom hug I needed, I got dad’s homemade pizza, and the lamb cake survived frosting without any surgery this year!

AND, I got my sister time.  I pounced and woke her up every morning.  We laughed a lot.  We talked about memories only she and I can share.  We were late for Easter on Sunday because we decided dying eggs like little kids was far more important.  And it was.

I didn’t want to go home.  My husband knew that.  He offered to drive despite his back pain because I think he figured if I had the keys, we’d never make it out of the driveway.  I didn’t want to come back.  39 days seemed too long to be comforting.  I didn’t want to start missing my sister again… missing my family.  It takes more than two days to get sick of each other when there’s months between visits.  I wasn’t ready to go.

But we had to.

As we pulled out of the driveway I got some consolation though.  A beautiful sunset that hung on for the first two hours of our drive.  I believe sunsets are one of God’s ways of reminding us He’s there.  There’s really no reason a sky needs to fill with beautiful color when it sets, but they’re do because He made them that way.  Because He knew they’d leave us in awe, and fill us with hope.  A picture won’t do it justice.  But it was a final blessing on a weekend I so desperately needed.

Lamb Cake Surgery Needed For My Sanity

Posted in Family, Life Ramblings, Relationships by

The moon is huge and bright this morning.  I haven’t seen it in the early morning for a long time… I’m ok with not repeating this anytime soon either.  I haven’t been an early morning person lately.

But I am today because I want to get home.  I haven’t seen my family since Christmas, and while that may be standard operating procedure for many families out there, it’s not for mine.  My sister and I are six years apart but extraordinarily close.  I only lived a few hours away when I was in college, which meant I could go home a lot to see her grow up.  And once she was old enough, her weekends with were some of my favorite times.

But now she’s taken over my college town, and I’m even farther away.  We have competing schedules and a four + hour drive between us, and I haven’t seen her since we returned from our winter break vacation in January.  And seeing her then was ending our longest ever withdrawal from each other.  I miss her horribly.

I need this trip.  It almost got called off because of my husband’s accident… I’m still not sure how he’s going to manage five hours in the car.  But he says the heated seats recline and he’ll be drugged, and he swears it will be fine.  I think he knows how badly I need to get out of this apartment and this city and away from everything for a few days.  And I need to hug my mom. And eat my dad’s homemade pizza.  And have sister time.  And try to avoid surgery on the lamb cake.

The lamb cake is a tradition in our family.  He’s chocolate. He’s tasty.  And he typically loses an ear (see above).  Poor thing needs surgery more often than not.  Perhaps not a perfectly crafted cake tin.  But it’s old and passed down and one of the best things about Easter is me and my sister giggling as he struggles, mom’s expert fixes, and green food coloring on everyone’s fingers.

I’m hoping it will my rejuvenate my soul a little bit.  I’m running on my last fumes of sanity and this might just be what gets me through the next 42 days.