We Kept the Snow Globe

update. UPDATE!

Life has been treating me well. I got promoted to full-time, my friends and family are as amazing as ever, super-duper cleaned my apartment, and my Aloe is having babies!

I’ll start with the apt.

Last Saturday after Wilmington Thanksgiving, a tradition that some friends and former residents all started about 3 years ago–double turkey=yum, I decided that I would finally clean out my walk in closet so that my lovely Paul can continue to say he loves me and mean it 100%. Instead of I love you, but I don’t understand why you can not hang up anything..at all!

As I folded and hung the clutter became too much.  I began to build an itinerary for the following Sunday of the order and ways in which we were going to cleanse our abode (ha ha, ew!).

The rules were pretty simple: 1. If it has been in a drawer, bag, under a bed and we forgot about it, DONATE IT! 2. If we hadn’t used it in 6 months and it costs less than 5$ to get a new one, DONATE IT! 3. If it’s a pile of usless papers…and I am a true paper pile master, SHRED IT (just in case) and RECYCLE IT!

We began at 9:00 am and ended around 5:30pm. Which was great because we ate all our meals, got in only one argument “but my Spongbob Snow Globe IS a Collectible!” and watched two movies.

The first flick was London which was barf-ick terrible and The second is probably my favorite of all time SLC Punk. I made Paul watch the second because I think that the movie London was trying to send SLC’s message via Jessica Biel and that hot guy from fantastic four. I think he agreed…but he’d never admit it because that would mean the movie I picked was better than the one he picked. In that case he would have to return his Harley, shave his beard, and erase his tattoos because that’s part of man-law, I believe.

Nonetheless,  my apartment feels so clean! Everything has a place! and the Wilmington community now has a bunch of goodies from these two young hipsters to buy from Goodwill.

also, during the cleanse…I noticed that my beloved Aloe is having three babies! I am going to wait until next week to replant them…and I can’t wait!

Happy Turkey Day y’all!

Ampers

I was blessed enough to get to spend an entire day with the Davis children. Michael, Whitley and Hannah are three of the sweetest most precious kids I have ever met (outside of my own family, that is). They love to tell jokes, play pretend, and share. Best of all, they think my jokes are funny and the watch Spongebob! So yea, I still love Mr. Squarepants at 23. Deal with it! That’s another topic for another day.

Some highlights from the afternoon:

9:00am

Hannah – Will you help me with my Pamper?

Amber – Sure thing, hold still

Hannah – Thanks Amb..HEY Amper rhymes with Pamper!

(yes, that was repeated about 100 times every hour until lunch)

11:00pm

Amper – Hannah, did you wash your hands?

Hannah – no…but Look! there are noooo germs!

After explaining that germs were microscopic so you can’t see them even though they are there, Hannah proceeded to stare at her hands for a good two minutes before washing up.

1:00pm

Whitley – What are you painting?

Amper – A cornucopia

Whitley – What’s that?

Amper – It’s a decorative basket used for fruit

Whitley – That’s weird…I don’t like cornucopia

9:00pm (past Michael’s bedtime…you really lose time playing with legos!)

Amper  – Michael, you played really well with your sister’s tonight, you are a wonderful big brother

Michael – I know, I am the best.

–the kid is as modest as I am. Humble times infinity!

I love afternoons with them

Purple Sunday

A rainy Sunday with this guy:

Plus The Revolution:

Equals a perfect afternoon

Now let’s go crazy!

Dream Cake

After graduating college and moving into my first big girl apartment, there has been one blessing that has saved me money and kept me sane. My Kitchen.  It is so perfect for making cakes! Weeks where I am not making confection creations for friends and family are few and far between. Some women have their Yoga, I have my cakes.

I can do something for my friends and family that is special and exactly the flavors they wish, MUCH healthier than what store “bakeries” offer, made with love…and FREE! (for two reasons, 1 because I LOVE to do it, and 2 because on the off-chance I make something that is suitable for cakewrecks.com, I won’t feel as guilty).

For weeks now I have been dieing to create a pumpkin-shaped cake. However for some reason people were not requesting what I wanted them to! Just because I say that you can have whatever you want only counts if there is nothing I have been wanting to bake! geez!

The creation for the one of the little girls I baby sit? NO! She wanted Mickey Mouse (so I drew a mouse that resembles him..no copyright infringement here!) 

Chocolate cake with vanilla frosting

The cake for my friend’s bridal shower? NO! She wanted an elegant combination of  funfetti cake with rainbow chip frosting (NOT fun-fetti frosting, it’s SO not the same) and vanilla frosting.

 

Soon it would be November, where slutty Pies and Cobblers and Puddings would show up and be all like, “who needs cake? it wont melt your ice cream like me. It doesn’t even have fruit that was probably canned  years ago and filled with unregulated BPA and HFCS that will be in your body for years to come…that cake won’t commit to you like I will.” Hussys. I had almost given up on my cake dream.

Alas! What’s that? A Halloween party?! and I am invited?!?!? even if I don’t make a cake?!! No, of course I am making a cake, but you know…just making sure that’s not the only rea…oh ok, of course we’re friends! Perfect! No thanksgiving pies to compete with my masterpiece! I had my reason to bake my dream cake.

I started with two bundt cakes, both chocolate, one is died orange:

Paul is making gang poses in the back….That’s real G, honey britches!

The cake was assembled, but I was distracted by the hole that my beautiful (and borrowed!) bundt pans had left behind. How are my cakes supposed to fill the lonely void in someone’s soul if it is incomplete itself? how can my cake love you and make your taste buds happy if it has not been fulfill first?

After some pantry searching I came up with a solution: MARSHMALLOWS! Fat-free, somewhat low in empty calories, perfect! I filled the stacked cakes with marshmallows and nuked it for like 1 minute…but I repeated that like 20 times since I had never done it before. I am all about precision.

Pleased with my end result, I chilled the cake so it would be 100% cold for icing the next day.

The process involved one tub of chocolate frosting, drizzled with half a tub of vanilla frosting, dyed orange, and topped with 4 large hand painted (with food coloring) marshmallows. I also sprinkled coca powder on the top to up the adorable.

And finally its party debut!

 

on the table….whoo hooo!

 

Good Thing Calories Don’t Count on Halloween!

 

 

Blarg Blarg Blarg

So excited to finally have a blog to call home! My mother and sister have one, and I am now jumping over the bandwagon!

Last night I had a small pumpkin carving extravaganza with a few friends. I fed them organic gluten-free spaghetti with ground turkey.  YUM!

(Except, I didn’t tell anyone that until after because…well, I don’t think they would have eaten it)

After dinner, and a leetle bit of Duplin Christmas Wine, my dear friend Mckenzie and I commenced in smack talkin’ pumpkin’ carvin’ and pumpkin’ seed cookin’. That’s right y’all!

Here are a few photos:

My Creation

Mckenzie!

All lit up

Happy Halloween!