Guitar Hero

So, we were watching the Grammys and Green Day was performing so Max grabbed his axe and busted out some sweet moves.







UPDATE!!!- So, I don't know why these videos won't play but I think it's a blogger problem. If they tell you unavailable, check back and hopefully they'll be up and working. Stupid blogger.

Cake Alert

So, this may be one of my favorite cakes ever so check it out at www.theatomiccakeco.blogspot.com.

Somebody get me a St. Joseph statue, STAT!

So, I haven't posted in a while because we've been in a frenzy getting our house ready to go on the market. It's officially going up in 14 days, so I have 14 days to find somewhere to store the endless storage tubs filled with all the priceless crap we've accumulated over the last 10 years. And paint my ceiling. Through this process I must also figure out how to convince Max to help keep the house clean. He will keep it clean for approximately 14 seconds now, which means when I get a call that an agent is coming over in an hour or something, I will totally not lose my shit freaking out over cleaning up his mess. Nope, I'll be totally calm.

This shall be an interesting endeavor. I kinda can't believe we're doing this.

Cake Alert!

So, this is late going up because I forgot to take a picture before it was picked up and my client was so sweet as to send one over.

www.theatomiccakeco.blogspot.com

The House Saga, day 4.

So, I just found out that the house has been taken off the market. Typical. My agent thinks it might be due to some water damage that happened earlier this week. When he got there, he found the pipes under the sink had burst and there was water through the ceiling and all over the basement. Oh yeah, I think I forgot to mention this in my earlier post. Anyway, he thinks and I hope that's the case but my luck is not that good so we're probably getting the gong. Wah wah.

Update: Okay, so I talked to Jeff and he also thinks it's for water damage repair. He also thinks we should take advantage of this extra time to get our shit together. I'm going to follow his lead.

Update 2: It was taken off to fix the damage. We're still in the running!!

What's next, a MINIVAN?

So, last night we decided to go look at a house for sale. We've been threatening to move for years, but now that we have the kid and another one down the road it's become a necessity rather than a maybe. The problem is that we live a block and a half into the city limits, where options are either a crappy public school or private school and I'm not so keen on private school for several reasons. Anyway, I found this house a few months ago while I was fake house shopping online. We normally look in a few neighborhoods around here, both of which are close to Jeff's work and tend to have houses that are older and interesting. Unfortunately, old and interesting is expensive in this area so we would have to either downsize (um, no) or settle for something like one bathroom or off street parking, neither of which are appealing to me. Our house now isn't big but it is for the city and we have two full bathrooms which is rare in these parts. There wasn't anything new on the market in these areas so I decided to check around other areas just for giggles. I ended up finding this one house near Liz and became obsessed. I've watched it for months now and the price had dropped a few times and we finally decided to go see it, just to get it out of our system.

Here's the kicker. This house is located about 1/8 of a mile from the house I lived in when we first moved to the suburbs from the city when I was 3. We moved about 4 miles away when I was 7 and I lived in the general vicinity for the next 13 years. I moved once more to my sister's house for a couple years, which is even further out until I settled back in the city when I was 23. That was 12 years ago and I vowed I would never move back there ever again. This is when I tell you to never say never. No one can believe I'm looking at a house in the suburbs, especially in BALLWIN! (If you aren't from here, it's a pretty basic John Hughes-style suburb) The thing is, we love this house. It's a kinda mid-century modern-ish, low slung ranch. It's different from the other houses in the neighborhood and I remember as a kid recognizing that they were cooler looking than our boring 2-story. The other thing about this place that has us mesmerized is the square footage. This mother is freaking HUGE (to us)! The main floor has 4 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms, plus a huge kitchen, dining room, living room and family room. The downstairs is just as big and totally finished. It's basically like 4 of our houses now if you count the basement.

The downside is that it's in the suburbs (HA!) and that it hasn't seen many updates since the first Bush was in office. I'm going to try and just deal with that knowing that eventually we will be able to transform it like we did this house. The location, I can't help but here's the deal. We are lame. LAME. We didn't go out a tremendous amount before Max came along and we go out even less now. Yes, it's nice to be near the zoo and Forest Park and stuff but it isn't like I can't drive there if I want to go, right? RIGHT? Listen to me. I'm justifying this to people of the internets. Regardless, nothing is done and we just looked and we still have to sell our house in addition to about 10 million other things we need to do before we could move so this is all probably just my senseless ramblings. Who knows what'll happen. I might move into my car. You just never know.

I think he's almost ready for the 2028 Winter Games.

So, we got snow last week and all I heard around this house was about how Max was going to go sledding. I dismissed this talk because it was also 8 degrees outside and I wasn't too keen on turning my child into a Korean popsicle. Jeff isn't as cautious and when I mentioned frostbite he laughed. He also thought Max was old enough to go skiing and I had to remind him that this is the same child that repeatedly trips over thin air so perhaps we should wait on sending him down a mountain with two thin strips of wood strapped to his feet but I digress. We finally decided that it was warm enough yesterday to give it a go and by warm I mean it was slightly over 20 degrees out. There's a small park near our house that has baby hills so that was our target. My main concern was keeping him warm and dry so this is how he looked:

Here they are on their way up. I stayed at the bottom so I could a) stop any wayward sleds and b) try to take pictures while stopping wayward sleds.


He couldn't bend at the waist with that thing on, which is why Jeff had to get him on the sled like this:

And they're off!

They went down together a few times before we decided to let him fly solo. I'm hellbent on raising an independent child so consider this a life lesson, son. I was worried he would be scared but he was totally fine.

After he went down a few times, he discovered a chain link fence to stand by and contemplate life.

After that, he realized he could also run around in the snow and we weren't going to stop him. And by run I mean he would take about 3 steps before face planting.


This happened a few more times and then I decided that we were done. His shoes were pretty much frozen over at this point and so was I. He really loved it and kept his hat and gloves on the whole time, which is nothing short of a miracle, so I'm sure we'll be back out soon. How old do they have to be to ice skate?

Cake Alert

We laughed. We cried. We made some cakes.

www.theatomiccakeco.blogspot.com

He's a shoe in.

So, this week has been a big steaming pile of crap for me. Stress, stress and more stress wrapped up in anxiety, topped off with too much to do and not enough time to do it. Oh yeah, and snow. Jeff hasn't had it any better. In fact, he had to go to work so early today that he got dressed in the dark. Because it WAS dark. This was the result:

I shall leave you with this in the hopes your Friday and ensuing weekend prove to be much, much better. Stay classy.

Ick.

So, I didn't really get into this last week to spare you the gore but screw it. We were all sick over New Years. Not just sick, we were SICK. All three of us. I'm not naming names, but we were around some friends over Christmas that MAY have been carrying this crap around but we didn't have it hit us until a few days later. Max started it last Tuesday by throwing up in his crib. I thought it was nothing since he was singing as he threw up and has been known to gag himself with various objects for fun and was playing with a Doodle Pro and had the stylus in his mouth. I cleaned it up and disregarded. Then he started pooping like it was going out of style. Like 8 diapers in about 6 hours. I still figured it wasn't that big of a deal because he was running around and playing with his new toys like everything was fine and the doctor always says that if they don't act that sick, they probably aren't that sick. The pooping continued through the day accompanied by one more throwing up right after dinner. In fact, Jeff was holding him right after he ate and I looked at him and for some reason I knew that barfing was going to ensue. I was like "Jeff, I think he's going to throw up" and by the time Jeff ran the 10 feet to the bathroom, Max's dinner was making an encore performance. After some Gatorade and probiotic yogurt, he was finally on the mend and about 12 hours after the initial throwing up he was done. I was pleased that it was swift and relatively painless.

Oh how I was wrong. On Wednesday, Jeff got off early for the holiday weekend. He came home, Max was feeling fine by now and we were settling in for a nice long weekend. We had planned on getting a bunch of stuff done around the house, I was going to be able to catch up on work and Jeff was going to finally fix the speaker in my car that has been out for almost a year. By about 5pm on Wednesday, my stomach had other plans. I hadn't eaten all day, which I know is really bad for you but I tend to either forget to eat during the day or I'm just not hungry but by 4pm I'm starving and would probably eat the Donner party if they were in my fridge. Anyway, that Wednesday I had gone to the store to get stuff for us for the weekend and decided to pick up some chicken wings from the deli. I was so hungry by the time I got home that I wolfed them down while standing in the kitchen putting the groceries away. About an hour later, I was starting to question this food decision. My stomach was not feeling good and I felt really tired so I told Jeff he was on duty and I went to lie down. The nausea got worse and worse by the minute and soon I had to turn the TV off (WHAT?!) because there seemed to be a food commercial every 3 seconds and the mention of food was making everything in me do flips. It finally reached critical level and next thing I knew I was in the bathroom revisiting my chicken wings.
I will tell you that this was the most painful and violent illness I've had in a very long time. I was lying on the bathroom floor crying because the stomach pain and nausea were SO BAD that I couldn't move. Reading the label on the Pepto made me sick. Turning my head made me sick. Everything made me sick at this point. Liz and LM had already gotten it so I knew what I was in for but I didn't think it would be THIS bad. The worst part is that I hate throwing up. I HATE IT. I will do whatever is necessary to NOT throw up but at this point I was powerless. This went on well into the night. Jeff opted to sleep in the couch (smart choice) but apparently Max woke up around 2 so he had gone in to sleep with him. I woke up about an hour later, feeling better but worn out, found them on the floor and told them to join me in our bed so that maybe we could all get some sleep (not smart.) I must have drifted off at some point because I was suddenly awakened by Jeff darting out of the bed at around 6am and running into the bathroom to throw up. SUPER. This went on ALL DAY LONG. It was so fun to have two sick parents and a toddler who didn't give a rat's ass and insisted on doing everything he wasn't supposed to do all day. I think even the dog was throwing up. By early evening I was feeling much better and Jeff was on the mend but still not great. We spent our new year's eve in bed, me eating spaghetti (the only thing that sounded good) and him sipping ginger ale and we were asleep by 10:30. We were all 100% better by Friday afternoon but this thing was a DOOZY.

According to my doctor, this thing is going around so BEWARE. If you start to feel sick, grab a trashcan, have a seat on the potty and hang on. It's a very bumpy ride.

Cake Alert

This weekend was a strange yet intriguing request. They needed just a top cake but it was very last minute and there wasn't time so I made them a cake dummy. A fake cake. They wanted cherry blossoms on the sides and a small tray of sushi on the top. I was ALL OVER THIS. Miniature fondant sushis? Um, yes please. I mean seriously. Check this out:

This is all I have. They put it together on site. They were adding two origami animals. I bet it was cool and I hope they send pics.

That aside, this fake cake got me thinking about starting up a business renting fancy fake cakes to brides with big dreams but tiny budgets. I could make the fake cakes and they could rent them for the night and serve sheet cakes to the guests. No one would be any wiser. Hmmm....

Anyway, check it out even though you just looked at it.
www.theatomiccakeco.blogspot.com

Happy New Year!

Jeff & Amy, circa 2000

So, it’s 2010. How do you say it? Twenty-ten or two-thousand and ten? I kind of hate the twenty-ten but the latter is a mouthful. I don’t know. I’ll call it nothing. That’s what I do when I am unsure of someone’s name. I just call them “hey!” How was your new year's eve? Exciting? I hope. We were in bed around 9 and asleep by 10:30. Seriously. That's how freaky we are. Anyway, I’ve been reading all these decade-ending lists online and it got me thinking about the last 10 years. (On a side note, isn’t the end of the decade really the end of next year? Oh well, let the people have their fun.) Jeff and I started dating superbowl weekend of January 2000. The Rams versus someone else. We won. We dated in secret for a bit because our love was CONTROVERSIAL but it wasn’t that long, maybe a month or two but before winter was over, we were out of the closet. It’s nice that we started things off with a nice round number. Anyway, after you do the math, this means Jeff and I have been together for 10 years! That’s a long time. I was thinking about all the changes to our lives since then and it’s kind of astounding to me so I decided to bore you with a list of my life’s ups and downs for the last 10 years:

2000 – Jeff and I started dating. He was a chef; I was a travel agent working for my mom. Our first date was to Lowe’s. Yes, the hardware store. Nothing gets the loins burning like the bathroom fixture aisle. After we dated for a while, he decided to go back to school and leave the restaurant biz. We also took our first trip together to Las Vegas. It was eleven billion degrees. My meemaw and I usually went to lunch on my birthday so this year we went to the restaurant Jeff was still working at so she could meet him. We’d been dating for about 2 months at this point and when we walked in he had balloons, streamers and flowers on the table for us. He made quite an impression.

2001 – In January, Jeff asked me to move in with him and his roommate, our friend Rob. By summer, Rob had moved on and things were going great. Jeff proposed on Christmas day at 12:01am. He was still in school but almost ready to leave the food biz.

2002 – Wedding planning was in full swing this year but things at work sucked now because of Sept. 11th. The travel industry was in the crapper but we forged ahead. Jeff was now working out of the restaurant business and had started his new career as a computer guy. Sadly by fall, his mom began to lose her fight against cancer. We got married on November 29^th and thankfully she was there to see it happen.

2003 – This year pretty much sucked. Jeff’s mom died in April, which sadly wasn’t our first funeral of the year. My mom had to close the travel agency after 20 years in business. By the end of the year, we were working independently out of another agency but it wasn’t really a great situation. By the end of the year, I quit the travel biz and enrolled in college.

2004 – I spent this year working odd jobs and taking a few classes. I had decided to get my degree in interior design so I spent a good deal of the year painting people’s homes. Faux finish was all the rage, you know. I had a nice little run but it was really hard physically and I wasn’t making jack. Jeff was working for an accounting firm and had to wear a tie everyday.

2005 – This was the year we decided to have a baby. Fun, right?! This was also the year we found out that I can’t have a baby like normal people. Not so fun. I also went to work as a temp in a cube farm. This was my first corporate-type job and while I worked with some awesome people (HI GUYS!) the grind was not for me. Jeff had gone to work for the lighting company he still works for now. We tried for the whole year to have a baby but it wasn’t working. It was fun, though.

2006 – This was the year I decided to shit or get off the pot in regards to school. I went to part time at the temp job and took classes full time. We also started looking into Chinese adoption. All of this came to a screeching halt when my meemaw was diagnosed with cancer. I ended up quitting everything to take care of her and by the end of summer we had moved her into our home. I went back to school in August but things weren’t going well and I wasn’t happy because of everything going on around me and my choice of study. My meemaw died that fall and it was the worst day of my life. A week later I failed a textiles text, said EFF THIS, changed my major to graphic design and started over. We had also been doing fertility stuff this whole time and nothing was working. We had abandoned the Chinese adoption because the agency was weird and we were going to give it one more go next year.

Good grief this is long. You might want to stretch or something.

2007 – I plunged headfirst into school and decided I had found my place. School was going really well and I got a part time job at an art supply store. We were still trying to get pregnant but had zero results. We switched doctors and hoped it would increase our chances. This was also the year that I took my first cake decorating class. I remember knowing after the first class that I had found my calling. I also stepped up my graphic design studies. This was also the year we remodeled our house. It was many months of dirt, dust, nails, doing dishes in the bathtub and trips to Home Depot. In the late summer, we attended an adoption workshop with Holt. I had gone as far as I wanted to go with the treatments and wanted my sanity back. We talked to a woman who told us about the wonders of Korean adoption. We were sold.

2008 – I set myself up to graduate in the spring of this year. School was going very well and I was giving it all I had and had somehow managed to make straight A’s. I continued to take cake classes and started my cake obsession. We completed our adoption paperwork in April; I graduated in May and got an internship and a part-time job in graphic design. While I was interning, I met my now boss who was looking for an interior designer who could also do graphics. Well, hello there. Two days after I started that job we got our referral call for Max. That was one of the happiest days of my life. I was still doing cakes and now people were actually asking for them! And paying real paper money (sometimes)! We went to Seoul on December 7^th and came home with Max on December 11^th.

2009- Well, I don’t really think I need to talk about this year since you’ve read about it all already. And if you haven’t, what is your problem? Now, we’re this family and I still make cakes but a lot more and a lot bigger and crazier and I still have my job but less of it and from home. This was the year that my life changed forever. I’m 35 now. I was 25 when Jeff and I made that trip to Home Depot. Who knew it would all end up like this? What will the next 10 hold? I have one word for you: LOTTO!

Happy New Year everyone!