just in case

just in case you thought

i might be prone to exageration,

i can be, i often am,

but not about this...

nacho as my witness...

the wisteria

one day this spring i went into my pantry and i thought there was a curl of paper, like the kind you get when you open a package of food, poking out of a drawer.  when i bent to pick it up i realized that the wisteria that covers my pergola had grown under the deck, over the sill plate and into the house. i laughed so hard.  when i showed my husband he shook his head slowly, knowing he was going to have to deal with the invasion. 

truthfully, that made me laugh even harder.  that's wrong, right?

wisteria reaches for the house, curling against the screen of our second floor bedroom.  it grabs at the garage.  i'm not sure that it doesn't swallow the occasional bird.  i am sure that it is beautiful and lush and cooling in this heat-wavy summer.  and even though my husband dislikes it with a passion, he prunes it and beats it back without hurting it too bad.  and he does that just for me.

So, this is it

This is my classroom for the next two semesters.  Comfy, right? 

Bare feet, television (hi claudia!), sitting on the couch, sounds like a dream. Right?

Please, tell me I'm dreaming... 

Unfortunately , I am not feeling so great about it.

When I went back to school 18 months ago (has it really only been 18 months?!) I realized for the first time that I actually liked school.  I was getting together with other grownups, albeit mostly female grownups, discussing things that actually mattered to me, learning stuff, and finding innumerable ways to help each other get through this "oh my god, what was I thinking going back to school?!?!?". 

(I am speaking for myself. Perhaps everyone else wasn't so freaked out?)

We were all in the same boat, though some of us had been in it longer than others, finally going back to school, focused on our goals.  We all talked about when we would graduate and how excited we were about starting our new careers.  Then, at the end of the spring semester we realized that our program was going on-line.  We will not be together in a classroom when the end of our undergrad undertaking arrives, we will be in our living rooms, divided by too many miles.  We have vowed to keep in touch, and to get together when we can.  The truth is, all the facebooking and texting, the random phone calls, even working together in on-line classes will NEVER compare to the times we all schlepped our way to Amherst, exhausted from long days at our for-now jobs, and became closer than you would think a group of grown-up girls could.

What should have ended with a bang, feels more like limping into the home stretch.

Steph, Bridget, Liz and Liz, Jamie and Jaime, Jenn, Cindy and Christophe,

and Karen (who am i supposed to be mean to now?)  I miss all of you already.

exit up ahead

it's about having an exit strategy, or two, or three.
if you've ever had one of those jobs that sucks the life out you and gives nothing back, you know what I mean. without an exit strategy things can feel pretty hopeless. with a clear vision for the future that does not involve your current job you can tolerate substantially more junk.

my main exit strategy involved going back to school, 20 years later, and becoming a teacher. i'm happy to report that that is going better than i ever could have expected. June 2011, and i'll have my degree and my certification.

now i also have a few minor exit strategies. they won't likely result in a full time career, but they may allow me to break free a little earlier than i'd hoped. i am officially baking for fun AND profit.

Sweet Sweet Broccoli * Home Made Sweets is open for business!

in the next few weeks i'll be posting a menu of available treats for parties, celebrations, or just to treat yourself! we'll be starting out with cupcakes and bars, maybe a few cookies, and see where we go from there. Nuno and Ed have promised to keep me in business themselves!

so promise to come back, and i promise to post more than once every six months. really, i do.

2010: Year of the Cakeball?

I am treating "Kevin's Birthday Cake Debacle" as an incident that sets the tone for 2010. It reminded me of some valuable lessons, tested my patience a little and it worked out alright in the end.

Repeat after me: never make a simple cake without parchment paper in the pan. NEVER. I'm not kidding.

Seriously, a spice cake that should have hopped onto the plate, ready to be robed in buttercream, instead came out of the pans in pieces. Distressing.

So I iced the one surviving layer. Happy Birthday Kevin!

Then, I didn't cry, I almost didn't even curse.

I took my ruined cake and made cake balls.

I planned on dipping them in white chocolate. That didn't exactlay work out - the chocolate decided to get soft and go no further.

I might mention at this point that the Patriots and Packers both lost playoff games during this process...maybe I should take responsibility for that as well?

Eventually the cake balls made it into a bath of milk chocolate...

and evaded the papparazzi...

But they were lovely, I promise!