More Cakes ... A wedding from last year. A week from today and I'll be baking the first of many cakes.

Flowers are made out of gumpaste. Each petal is cut separately and aplied one at a time. Don't do many hydrangeas!!

Shopping List:

Sugar - granulated
Sugar - powdered
Sugar - corn syrup
Sugar - brown
Chocolate - for cake
Chocolate - for icing
Chocolate - for the baker (smile)

Then of course:

eggs
flour - all purpose
flour - cake
baking powder
salt
butter
shortening
almond extract
vanilla extract
heavy whipping cream
buttermilk
bittersweet chocolate
chocolate morsels
cocoa
did I mention chocolate for the baker?

One of several present cakes made for a woman's eightieth birthday party planned by her sons.

I've got to get myself in the cake mode. Wedding season is upon me. I'll start posting pictures here to stimulate me. Don't drink coffee. Need all the stimulation I can get. The top pic is a wedding cake I made last fall. Not my kitchen. The Narnia cake was for Dana's daughter's birthday party. Had to clone the counter to hide Dr. Pepper bottle, mail and other stuff visible in picture. Stuff that I could have cropped out if that stinking lamp post hadn't been so tall.

Learned something new last night. You can't buy Advil Cold & Sinus Liqui-Gels off the shelf anymore. No, you don't have to have a prescription but you do have to go to the pharmacy window and show your i.d.

I found this out last night at 8:30 when I made a trip to Wal-mart to buy said Advil Cold & Sinus. I have these in between headaches that will not, will not go away unless I take one Excedrin Migrane and one Advil C&S. Probably some of the new products would work but I just happened on to this combination and have stuck with it.

A headache started brewing yesterday afternoon while I was in Edmond standing in the sun for an hour on the high-school's football and track field where Mike was taking pictures of the top high-school football players for the cover and inside story for a high-school athletic magazine. (I know there's all kinds of bad grammar and run-on stuff going on with that last sentence. Sorry.)

Had run out of Advil C&S on Thursday but I forgot to buy more when I was buying groceries on Friday. Of course, the Wal-mart pharmacy closes at 6 p.m. on Sundays. So I purchased a few essentials (Frosted Flakes for Ryan and Eggo French Toaster Strips for Evan). Headache was so bad I skipped the book section (gasps of shock heard round the world) and went to Wal-Greens. Got the Advil C&S Liqui-Gel card from the shelf and took it to the pharmacy window.

I was assuming that this was a new requirement passed in recent months. Guy said no, it was something that had passed a year and a half ago, but I've bought it off the shelf in the last three or four months. I was also assuming it was related to the pseudoephedrine content. All those people making up batches of meth in their kitchens. But no, you can't make meth with liquidgels. It has to be the pill form. You're just required to prove you're 18 to buy it. If I had been thinking clearly, I could have asked a few more questions. He seemed like a talkative sort of guy and my wip has a meth storyline. That's okay. Plenty of information on the web. I'm not sure I understand this, but thank goodness for 24-hour pharmacies.

LAUGHTER

Do you ever look at a word and think how odd it looks. Laughter, for instance. Where's the ph or the f? Anyway, one of the things that I've always loved about Mike is the way he make's me laugh. He has a somewhat irreverent humor mixed with a sarcastic wit that can make me laugh, even when I want to be mad at him. I think some of it has rubbed off on me over the almost twenty-four years of our marriage.

Something reminded me the other day of a show we used to watch, Married With Children. Peg and Al Bundy were not your typical couple, but Mike and I would laugh so hard during that show.

My favorite scene: Peg is sitting on the couch. Al comes in the door. Earlier he'd left, forgetting to lock the front door. Peg says something like this (it's been years so my memory may be faulty) ... "Al, you can't leave the house without locking the front door. Someone might break in and kidnap me."

Al replies ... "Yeah, like I ever get what I want!"

Laugh with someone you love today.

STOLEN MOMENTS ... STOLEN TRUCKS

Okay, so the past week has been a little crazy. My m-i-l's surgery went well and she is recouperating very nicely. A friends of ours had a major crisis last week and we're still awaiting news on the situation. I just watched as my sister and b-i-l drove down the street after a nice three-day visit. Their dog A.J. (short for Angelo Jesus) and Maggie hovered somewhere between being playmates and rivals.





































And our locked truck was stolen from in front of our house. We got to meet a very nice police officer. Dana, I bet "Officer Sweetie Man" knows him.

We have three vehicles. The truck is what Mike drives back and forth to work everyday. It's old but it runs, and it enables Evan to drive the Blazer to school and soccer practice. Now Mike will be driving it instead of the truck. Sorry Evan, you've just been sent to the back of the bus.

I didn't get to make any plans to see Dana on Friday like I'd hoped to. And I haven't written anything since Thursday morning. That was the day I thought I broke the laptop. Maggie likes to walk between my feet and she tripped me while I was carrying it to another room. Mike promises all he did was turn it on and it worked, but I'd already tried that three or four times and nothing happened. I guess he just has the touch. I can't begin to explain how relieved I was ... especially since I hadn't backed up to disk in a week. I know ... bad girl.

Just got of the phone with the school ... Ryan has a headache and needs Tylenol. Hope everyone's good. Dana's RT day clicker will be changing to 39 in a few days so we know she's doing good. I'll have to check out everyone else blogs after I get back from the school.