Have your cake and eat it too

     Spring break will arrive in about two weeks for me, which means it's time to start planning. A trip to the Bahamas? Hahaha! Right. Yeah.
     Something better, I promise! My mother's birthday is is just after I return from spring break, so I've decided to surprise her with a cake so we can celebrate early while I am home. I love cake decorating. It is one of those things in life that get me even more fired up than I usually am, which is quite a lot (ask my sometimes-exasperated friends). Baking a cake may not seem like much of an adventure, but there's nothing quite like rolling up your sleeves and diving into a project that walks the thin line between success and utter ruin (said overdramatically). For an example of what I'm talking about just swing by www.cakewrecks.com . Anyway, I need my grandest, most awesome cake yet, so if anyone out there has ideas for me let me know. I'm still just a beginner at it as you'll see, but here are a few recent examples:

Practiced my piping skills on this one--can you identify the songs?

This cake I made for my brother's birthday. He is a music performance major, so I thought I'd make him an open book of sheet music. With fantasies of perfectly gorgeous cakes in mind, I rolled up my sleeves to attempt fondant. My arch-nemesis, I was to find out. Long story short, fondant is difficult, and I didn't get the consistency right. Even from the picture you can tell that the fondant melted right off the cake. Fortunately, we didn't give it much of a chance to, as my family ate it swiftly. But still, I was disappointed, and only some delicate piping work (which took hours, leading me to stay up until 2 AM I do believe) was able to rescue it. Which led to. . .

This was my next cake, made for my sister, who loves knitting. I was excited but terrified to start this cake, since it very well could have ended disastrously. The yarn is my second attempt at fondant (if at first you don't succeed, try again right?) but it was leftover from the last attempt, so it was still a bit on the gooey side but it got the job done. The yarn balls are actually rice crispy balls wrapped with rolled fondant (definitely not purely fondant). I practiced the basket weave with as steady a hand as I could manage--you can see a few slips of hand on this side, which of course upsets my perfectionist self. But the idea comes across, I think. My sister seemed quite pleased at least. And, finally:

Quite besides the decoration of this cake, made for my mom's birthday, I have to note that this is the BEST CAKE EVER. I am not exaggerating. My favorite cake was previously lemon cake followed by chocolate, but this one has knocked out all other competitors.

Anyone still here with me? I did warn you this topic gets me fired up. So having seen these, what shall I do for my mom's upcoming birthday? I must surpass last year's :)

Spring

Here in Montana, the weather can't decide if it wants to be spring or winter. Thus it's decided to give us the best of both worlds by snowing every other hour and then melting into a muddy mess in between. Montanans grumble about the bipolar weather, but honestly I find it invigorating. I like not knowing what to expect every time I step out the door, even if I've only been in for twenty minutes.

Okay, so this is Coeur D'Alene, but you get the point.

Yesterday my roommate and I took a belaying test at our university rock climbing wall. Today I am a certified climber! Rock climbing is a very interesting experience. Unlike other sports, it tests your physical skills but also tests your nerve even more. When I find myself clinging up high for dear life, straining to reach for the next hold with my legs trembling, I can give up and let the rope take me down. I can let the wall beat me instead of taking that next iffy reach. But I know if I do that I will have to climb it again because I won't give up until I've made it to the top at least once.

The life metaphors make themselves, so feel free. But that's my thought for today, anyway. Climb on.