Let Them Eat Cake

I had cake class last night. The women have calmed down a bit with their banter but now we have a guy that is more annoying than all of the ladies combined. He already works in a bakery and said he took the class just to learn the rose. Trust me, the rose is HARD. I guess he feels such a sense of superiority over us non-bakers that he constantly makes loud comments and sits there with his GIANT tub of icing from work and makes roses over and over. He also has a wonky eye so I don't know where to look when he talks to me. Class went well on the whole and I'm prepared to make our super finale cake next week. It's some kind of flower basket in cake form. As usual, my mom struggled with her flowers. She got out a few good ones but by the time she got it down we had moved on to something else. Bless her heart. At one point she was making some flower and it had gone so awry that I could do nothing but sit there and laugh uncontrollably but I didn't want to make a lot of noise and that made it worse so then I had tears streaming down my face. Like I said before, she's good at the baking and I'm good at the decorating. It's a perfect partnership. The best part was in the parking lot after class because we already look like sherpa's with all the crap we have to lug and we had our flowers in these flower former things and a gust of wind came and blew half of them off. My mom was so distraught to lose her 3 flowers that she was going to pick them up off the asphalt. I had to bat her hand away with my foot because she was going for it even though it landed ICING SIDE DOWN. That almost made me pee my pants.

I'll post a picture of my cake next week. Unless it looks like crap in which case we'll forget this ever happened.

Giant Hamster Ball

Good Monday to you. This was the first weekend in ages that I actually felt like I had a weekend. Thank you sweet gods of time for giving us an extra hour. Ahhhhhh...so relaxing.



Not really. We did a lot of house stuff this weekend. Jeff went all Mrs. Doubtfire and went on a cleaning spree through the whole house. I'm certainly not complaining because he cleans better than I do and he got rid of all the crap that had accumulated from the renovation. I spent the better part of the weekend making curtains for the living room windows. I still have a frustrated interior designer living inside me. They look pretty rad but I have to make some adjustments because I just eyeball stuff and they're about 8" too long. I wish I were more organized and precise but I'm just not and I've come to accept that everything I make has a certain percentage of wonk in it and I'm totally fine with that. I love those groovy looking George Nelson ball clocks from the 60's but they're like $500 so I decided to make my own. I knew going in that there was just no way that I could get all the spindles evenly spaced so I decided to alternate them. It still didn't matter because some of my holes were off and the dowels all sat in the holes differently and then the hols I drilled in the balls weren't straight either. I decided to keep going and make the best of it so I now have the wonkiest Nelson tribute clock on my wall in the history of tribute clocks.

I took the picture from a more flattering angle but trust, it's totally off. Anyway, I don't know where I was going with this conversation........oh yeah, I'm disorganized.

Tonight is cake class again. Next week is our final class where we make our big fancy cake. I'm excited because I've done pretty well on my flowers. Nevertheless, my mom and I are cheating at this point. Her skills on the pastry bag aren't really, um, that great, so I'm "helping" her with her flowers. I figured I'll make her bake my cakes for next week so it all evens out. The more frustrated I get in school the more I want to open a cake shop and make awesome cakes all day. I could be a graphic designer/cake lady/kids book author. Hey, I could illustrate a children's book through the magic of CAKE DECORATION! That would rule.

Trick or Treat

Jeff and I went to my sister's house last night to hand out Halloween candy. We handed out candy in our neighborhood once, but we only got one trick-or-treater and he was about 19 and should have had a job to buy his own candy. The thing is that I love to give out candy. I love the little costumes and the power that a big bowl of fun-size Snickers has over the children. Thus we travel 30 minutes away to the middle of suburbia to spread the Halloween cheer. Most of the kids were really cute and I saw an impressively large number of pirates. Three boys came dressed as "party boys" and they kinda looked like K-Fed crossed with Zac Ephron. How is that a costume? Anyway, two little boys, Batman and his sidekick "wrestler/ninja-guy (I'm still not sure)", thought it would be okay to repeat our house as if we wouldn't remember. Um, it's one per customer AND if you're going to be a sneaky repeat, maybe carry a larger bucket as I had to place the new candy on top of the PREVIOUS one. I let it go in the spirit of giving, but I didn't wish them a happy Halloween and I hope their teefs rot.


When we got home, there was a package on the front steps. It was kinda big and I thought maybe someone had sent me a gift. Wouldn't that be nice to come home and have a random gift waiting for you? Anyway, it wasn't a gift per se, but it was our Adoption Process Guidebook. Bask in its glory and its size:



That's one big book. Sorry for the blur in the first one but the flash kept reflecting off the cover so I turned it off and it all went awry after that. There is an overwhelming amount of information in there and much of it is legal jargon that I don't understand. yikes. It's pretty cool though because it's REALLY HAPPENING NOW!


On another note......

I meant to post this on Monday but I forgot. My mom has a new dog and she brought her by on Saturday to visit her cousins. Her name is Gracie and she's super cute and has enough energy to run a medium-sized city. Here she is:

My dogs, however, prefer to spend as much time barely conscious as possible. They don't quite know what to do with this bundle of energy when she comes over and quite frankly, they don't care to deal with her. Since they can't talk, I'll let their expressions speak for them:

Clearly they're thrilled.

Blog Burn

I had this conversation with a friend recently.

me: "Hey, how are you (blank)?

friend: "Oh great, how are you? How's the adoption stuff going?"

me: "Oh it's going. Loads of paperwork and stuff to get done. Hey did you get my email about our blog? We put up any adoption info we get."

friend: "Yeah, I got the email but I haven't looked at it. I mean honestly, who ACTUALLY reads those things? I am way too busy for that."

(end scene)

Ouch.

Booger Boy

As you may recall from a previous post, there is a fellow I go to school with that has "issues", especially where bodily function is concerned. I have been trying to figure out exactly what the deal is with him and I have come up with nada. Sometimes he's really gross (as we all remember) but other times he will burst out with a really funny comment at a highly inappropriate time. For instance, today we were in the middle of doing a project critique, which is similar to standing up and having people throw rotten tomatoes at you while you defend your work that you thought was awesome, and he busted out this little gem while eating fun-size Starburst packs brought in for Halloween:

"AWWW, wouldn't you know it? Two pinks in the same pack! CAN YOU BELIEVE MY BAD LUCK?!"

This outburst was made during someone else's critique and while the room was all serious and quiet. The girl getting critiqued was already a nervous wreck and she just stood there staring at him in horror. I swear I almost peed myself trying not to laugh because inappropriate humor is usually the funniest kind. He followed that up by picking his nose and wiping it on his jeans leaving a shiny white trail. Classic. He clearly has some sort of something going on, but he is capable enough to attend college and he completes his projects correctly and on time. Graphic design isn't exactly rocket science but it's not that easy either and some of his stuff is actually pretty good. He is a mystery to me.

Confrontation

I like to keep things here at Kimchi central at a light, neutral stance, much like the Swiss. However, today has been one of those days that has summoned me to the top of my soapbox so bear with me as I lighten my load.

I have noticed a trend among people these days who feel as though they have free reign to say whatever comes into their little heads. Some call this "being blunt" or "telling it like it is" or "not caring that you come across as a big jerk" or what have you. This type of thing tends to lead to some kind of heated confrontation, of which I am not a fan but of which I bore witness to today. That's not to say that I sit by meekly and take whatever crap is thrown at me, but I have learned many lessons in life and the most valuable has been that it's easier to catch flies with honey instead of vinegar or something like that. Maybe it's bees. I don't know but my point is that being nice and trying to work things out without getting all jacked up isn't that hard and quite frankly, it will get you a lot further than being nasty. There are lots of days that I'm crabby and don't want to fake it, but being a jerk just makes it REALLY hard to like you and want to be around you. There is another life lesson I hold valuable and that is, if you can dish it out, you better be able to take it. If you think that someone is being stupid or you don't agree with what they're saying, unless you have a REALLY good reason for it, just let it go. Why take every opportunity to point out someones flaws or shortcomings and act like you're the boss of the world? Maybe you have those same shortcomings and seeing them in someone else makes you angry at them, but you're really angry at yourself. Paging Dr. Freud!

I have been making a very concerted effort to try and change my disposition so that I can actually BE happy instead of just faking it, and the only way I have found to accomplish this is to try and stop judging those around me. Does it always work? Hell no. There are LOTS of people that ring my bell, but I try keep that private. I'm not saying don't bring up bad subjects or hide stuff under the rug, just don't approach stuff with a gigantic chip on your shoulder and expect everyone to think you're awesome. Am I saying that you should sugar coat things? Well yeah, sometimes and what's wrong with that? You may think you're being all cool and forthright by "telling it like it is", but you usually just look like a wiener and that's not good. Anyway, I'm sure I've strayed off topic but I think you get my point that people need to stop being so dang nasty and start being nice to your fellow humans. Lest you think I'm being all self-righteous, I spend a sad amount of time reading online gossip where they skewer celebs like beef tips and I will laughingly point out a shiny shirt on a man if I spot it. I said I TRY to be better.

Okay. I'm off the box. Sorry for the rant but I had to get it out so I can make room for lunch.

Weekend Loverlies

I wanted to post some pics of the kitchen to show off our hard work this weekend. I say "our" in the royal sense because Jeff did most of the heavy lifting(thanks, honey). As you can see from the (crappy) photo, the counters are done, the sink is installed and working as is the dishwasher. I can't tell you how exciting it is for us to not have to do dishes in the bathroom anymore. Seriously. Bathtub dishes suck.
Clearly, the place is still a disaster area, but we are finally in a position to get stuff put back together. I am going to get the backsplash installed this weekend (hopefully) and then we only have the bar area left to tile. It has been a very long 10 months, but seeing it all come together makes it worth all the headache. The sink turned out so freaking gorgeous that I just like to stand and stare at it. Here, you can too:

Oh so pretty.

Here's a close-up of the countertop:

We did give ourselves a small reprieve this weekend and went to a spectacular party at Mike & Brian's beautiful new house. Seriously, their place is REALLY nice. As usual the food was outstanding as was the company. Of course, I mention the food first because I spent a good 30 minutes hovering over the table eating my own weight in cheese dip. You know, I could eat appetizers at every meal. I already have an abnormal obsession with things in miniature so an appetizer spread calls to me like a sweet siren. I wish they made tiny hot dog buns for little smokies. That would be so awesome. Anyway. We had a great time and it was so nice to see all my girls! Jeff and I are truly a couple of lucky ducks to have the group of friends we have. T-Rav, you crack me up!