Full on Grown-up

Well, I'm 27 now. In my late 20's. That's, like, old. First season of "Friends" had Monica say she was 26, and I remember watching that at age 12 and thinking, "Wow, that is like a full on grown up." And I guess that's what I am too. I reread my post last year and can't help but to feel a little proud. I do have that extra ring on my finger. I have that house in the neighborhood with the good school. I do have more hours at the library, though not nearly as many as I'd like. I'll post more on that later. No bun in the oven yet, but not for lack of trying (more on that later too).

This birthday I also get my house back. My sister in law has been staying with us since May and she's pretty much moved out now. I mean most of her stuff's still here but Kenny promises it will be out this week. I can vacuum at 10 am without worry of waking someone. I can get stamps from the guest room at any time. I can wear my skimpy night gown once more. I have full run of the house. Woot! That's really the best birthday present I could hope for. I mean, I'm all for helping out family but I really like my space. And 5 months is plenty for helping out family. Other gifts included the first two seasons of Community and season 6 of How I met your mother, so I'll be quite occupied for this week. Quite a few gift cards too. Not really sure what to buy with them. Shoot, maybe this is maturity. Like material goods don't buy happiness or something. Na, that can't be. I spent a couple of hundred dollars down at Disneyland this weekend and felt happy as a clam. Though thinking of it now most of that stuff was for other people...

Anyways, where do I want to be at 28? Motherhood most likely. I have baby fever in the worst kind of way only made worse by my cousin's adorable baby girl. She's so far away that I'll need to have my own lest I go broke trying to visit the east coast more often. I also want to be down to one job, be it the library or some other job I'm in love with, this whole 2 half time job thing ain't cutting it. I also want to rid myself of the crap I don't use. I've lived with Ken almost 3 years now and few things have moved over with me. I should get rid of the things that haven't and I should get rid of the things that have and aren't used. This will be my big winter project. Especially if I'm planning on bringing more stuff into our house, even if it will be baby sized. I'll keep you posted on how it turns out.

The return of...

Fun Fact Friday!

1. I am not able to fall asleep without either a tv or radio (ipod) on.  Absolute quiet has me thinking too much.

2. Pizza is the only leftover I will ever knowingly eat.

3. I have offically crossed the line into preferring beer and wine over mixed drinks. Hope I never go back.

4. I can not bring myself to get rid of a pair of shoes until they are completely unwearable. It doesn't matter if I bought them years ago and the pricetag is still on them. My husband is not a fan of this trait.

5. In honor of my upcoming Disneyland Halloween trip: My favorite Disney villian is Ursula. She makes being a hidious monster sexy somehow. This woman is amazing.

Decorating Class 3

I know I complained a lot about the first decorating class being so expensive, but actually the last couple of classes were relatively cheap. And fun, surprisingly fun. Class 3 we got to decorate cupcakes and make little flowers on them. Here are some of them:

This one here was probably the easiest and arguably the most impressive. Just iced a cupcake with blue frosting. Then make 3 white dots on either side for the clouds and attach them with a sour rainbow strip. It looks complex but is quite simple. 

This one here I over did a bit, the bottom petals are supposed to be a bit smaller, but you get the idea. The teacher also told us a cool way to alter it to make it look like a christmas tree, so I'm set for the holiday season now!

This is one of the roses I did. I did this one with a star tip which is not the "wilton" way to do a rose, but lets be honest, it gets the job done and as you'll see below turned out a bit better. It was much easier to do  as well. The leaves were really fun to make too and I think really gave the flowers life.

This is the rose, not impossible, but hard to do when the icing won't go out evenly through the top. I think if I wanted to fix up the petals with decorating brush I could.

To the left we have a shaggy mum, very easy and fun, kinda like playing with the play dough fun factory again. Above we have tiny rosests, like my big rose, but smaller. Makes for a good border.










These are probably my favorite. They remind me a bit of those flowers they have in Hawaii. I used them a lot in my final cake.

Here are all the cupcakes I brought in to the library. It's amazing how many different looks I could get out of a few bags of frosting. I'm definitely trying out new looks once I have a reason to make cupcakes. I guess the holidays are coming and these are so much easier to make than a full cake.

Baby Fever

So I know I'm supposed to give an update on my decorating class, but I don't have the energy for that right now. It's going well though, and I'll post pictures and stuff later. I'm very jittery from drinking a whole pot of coffee by myself this morning. Why a whole pot you ask? Good question. I'll get back to you on that one. It was one of those good ideas I have like finishing the bottle of wine by myself or eating all the pasta so I don't have to throw any out.

Last night, I had not 2, not 3, but 4 dreams about taking a pregnancy test to positive results. First off, I hate dreams where I pee, it makes me really scared when I wake up that I'm gonna wake up in a puddle. Second off, I know I'm not pregnant. Like positive I'm not. So what's the deal? I may just have babies on the brain. Last night Ken and I went over our friends house to have pizza with their two and 3/4th kids (she's due in December). Their oldest who's almost 3 loves me. She was following me around all night, constantly sitting on my lap, giving me hugs, really pushing on my biological clock. Ken said I'm not allowed to visit the kiddos til the dreams subside.

I don't know, I mean I'm almost 27, I'm married to my partner of 3 years, I have a house so it's not completely out of the question to have kids, but do I really want them? Ken's great with kids, like really really awesome with them. We had people over to the house a few weeks back and he was playing with the kids in the backyard as if they were his own. He's a father, he just doesn't have kids yet. When I see him light up with kids there's no way I can deny him that.

This will change both our lives significantly though. It means less vacations, no more afternoons at the wineries, at least not for a while, and no guest room (though that's nothing new).I feel like I just got my adult life, am I ready to start my parent one? I feel like this is the time, but I'm enjoying life so much right now I don't want that to change. Is there a way to freeze time for the next year or two where we won't get older? I suppose it's not out of the question to put off having kids for the next couple of years. My parents didn't have me til 30 and even if I waited two years I'd still be ahead of them. But Ken's ready now. I know he is. And having kids might take a few years of trying too. Maybe I should just see what happens. *Sigh* how does one know when's the right time?

The World's Best Puppy

I experienced arguably the biggest loss I've ever experienced in my life this last week. My 15 year old puppy had to be put down last Friday. For the first time in my life I've experienced heartbreak.

I was lucky enough to get Morgan as a Christmas present when I was 12. My mom put a dog bone in my Christmas stocking and told me that we should go find a dog that would enjoy it. This led us on a 6 month journey to find the perfect dog. On May 27th, 1997, our journey was complete. We followed a C.A.R.E. listing to a home with two puppies born on March 25th, a boy and a girl. We had wanted a boy. Had a name all picked out (Homer). But when we got to the home, this baby girl was placed in my arms and immediately started licking my face. We were told she was the smarter of the two. She was not the prettier of the two, as her brother was black and adorable. It didn't matter though, I was sold. I turned up to my mom and said I want her. And then we got to bring her home.

The naming process was a long one. We made a big long list of all the names we would want to name her and then had to pick our final 2 which we would vote on. Mom's was Amore and something else equally lame. Mine were Cookie and Pebbles. Dan's was Kimberly (after the pink power ranger) and Morgan (after Geena Davis in Cutthroat Island). Mom though naming a dog after the town you lived in was cool and therefore won. At first I vowed not to call her Morgan, but eventually I came around.

Morgan was my dog. She was the family dog, but she was really my dog. She slept on my bed every night. She would always come to me when my brother and I would have a contest calling her to each of us seeing who she would go to. I took her on walks. I took her to the dog park with my friend Brian. I gave her baths. Hugs. Flower leis as collars.



One time when I took her to lake with my friends I was swimming across it I look back and saw Morgan swimming after me. She couldn't bear to be apart from me for that long. Once she caught up she tried to climb up on my back. It was hard but I got the both of us over to the other side. It was one of those times that I realized how much she cared about me.

Whenever I was upset, Morgan had a sixth sense about it. She would come up next to me and let me know she was there for me. She came up next to me and just sat as I cried. Not begging for attention or anything, just letting me know she was there. It was the most amazing thing.

Then Morgan starting getting old. We were scared there wasn't much time left for her. To help ease the process we adopted Butters, a maltipoo. This actually helped breath new life into her. She was playful again. Running around. Youthful. It was wonderful. For this reason alone, I will always be thankful for him. It was not meant forever. Slowly she was losing ability to walk. On Friday when I went to visit she had gone from 3 working legs to 2. She could barely hold her head up. Mom told me she'd been whimpering the last few days and wouldn't come in from outside. We knew it was time.

We got a vet appointment and took her in sobbing all the way through. In the waiting room my mom talked to the front desk as I made hazy eye contact with the cataract filled eyes of my once playful pup. She gave me one last kiss.I held on to my sweet puppy as the vet gave her something to put her to sleep. She said after she fell asleep we could leave her there and they'd finish the job. I told her we needed to be the through it all. Morgan slowly faded to dream land in my arms, my brother Dan petting her head, and my mom crying at the door. The vet put in the fatal needle as I wanted to scream I changed my mind and wanted to keep her around. I didn't though. I knew that would be selfish. I knew Morgan needed to move on.

After she had past we put her on the table. Staring at her lifeless body, tears running down my face I was glad I didn't wait til this site awaited me at home. Her death involved her favorite person holding her and her other favorite petting her and staring into her eyes, both of us repeating over and over "Good girl. We love you so much." It's the kind of death I want to have when I'm 105 (which is what she was in dog years). I'm so lucky I haven't lived with her these last 3 years. When I come home to work I'm still greeted by 3 kitties, one of who is laying on me as I type this. I can still pretend Morgan is happily playing at my folks house. I'm sure she is in Doggie Heaven. And when I go, I know I'll see her again.

I made a promise to her on her death bed to never love another dog as much as I loved her. That's a promise I feel confident that I can keep.

Decorating Class #2

This class we actually got to do stuff which was fun. I got to use pretty much everything I bought which made me feel like my money was well spent. It was a little stressful because I got wax paper to smooth out the icing like the teacher suggested. Parchment paper is what I think the teacher meant since wax paper was not affective. Due to this it took me longer to get my cake iced and it didn't turn out quite as fantastic  as I was hoping. Still here's the finished product:

Today I was off by 12 so I gave it another try and think it turned out much better. First split the cake and filled it with chocolate pudding:

As you can see, I made an icing dam with green icing that was left over from the cake I made yesterday. This not only holds in the pudding, but also helps the keep the cake together when I add the top layer:

Now the cake is ready to be frosted! I mixed blue dye with just a little bit of green and it came out with a lovely Tiffany's turquoise:

I was then able to smooth out the lines with parchment paper so it looked rather nice. This would be a great cake to do a stenciled design on, but I didn't feel like mixing up piping gel for it so I just went with the Tiffany theme and added with accents to it and here's the final product:

Now what will I do with this cake? I'm not sure. I already have a decorated cake at home that I don't really want to eat so I'm thinking of bringing it into work and letting people go crazy. The problem of course is if I saw a cake this pretty in the break room, I would not cut into it. And I really want my cake board that's underneath back. Oh well. I'll figure something out.



The most expensive $20 class ever

Tonight is class two of my Wilton cake design. I bought the supplies for it over the weekend and am now another $100 poorer, this was after the other $100 I spent on it already. I hope I actually get use out of these. On the plus side though, I made my frosting and cakes yesterday and they turned out fantastically. Tonight I'm going to have to ice the cake and put a pretty design on the top. This could turn out to be a pretty fun skill to learn as I'll be able to put any design on a cake. The only ones that are coming to mind are team logos, but I'd be happy to make those kind of cakes. I'm also relieved the only two family birthdays coming up are my own and my husband's, that way both cakes can come out looking awful and it won't matter. Anyways, pictures will come later. Wish me luck!

The quest to become even more awesome

As you might have figured out from previous posts, I'm trying this thing where I'm uber awesome and skilled in all things. This journey took me to Michael's where I signed up for the Wilton Cake decorating class. I'm not sure what the real point of taking this class is other than fun bragging rights, but I'm glad I did. The first class was pretty boring as we just waiting around watching the teacher ice a cake while telling us all the new stuff we'll need to buy to do it right. But by the end of class we got to frost cookies which was fun enough.

Next week I have to have a ready made cake brought in along with two kinds of frosting and a whole bunch of new decorating tools. What's worse is I'm not sure if I actually own any cake pans which means that I may need to buy a few of those too. Oh well. I wasn't really that attached to my money anyways. Stay tuned for more cooking updates!

In addition to the decorating class, I have also decided to take up acrylic painting. I've never taken a paint class so this is going a little slower than I anticipated. However, the nice thing about putting paint on a canvas is no matter what the finished product looks like, it's still art. In an attempt to spend quality time with the husband that wasn't video game or tv related, we decided to paint pictures. Like what usually happens when I put my mind to art, I drew something I thought was pretty and could stand looking at. Here's the work in progress:

Stargazer lilies are by far my favorite flower, which is why I had a bouquet of them from my wedding and am attempting to grow them in the backyard. It seems only right that it be my first attempt at art. For my next project, I'm thinking of trying the Sharks logo, but only if I can do it well enough. Gotta show respect.



Bettering myself

Hello gentle readers. I swear I'm going to write blogs that aren't just updates eventually. At least I'm pretty happy this time. As some of you may remember based on my blog at New Years I made some resolutions that it's taken me 8 months to start doing. I have been making this house my own. I'm growing lilies in the back yard. I've like planted the bulbs, and then watered them, even though the package didn't tell me I had to, and then eventually they've sprouted! I can already see some buds that are going to open up into beautiful pink stargazers which I can always associate to my wedding too. Yay! We also have the kitchen stuff ready for order which means my house might actually completed by Christmas. I'm excited. I've also been reading quite a bit. I joined a teen reads book club with the teen librarian at work which is the perfect marriage between my juvenile book love and my adult club love. I read the first Sookie Stackhouse novel which I'm unsure if I actually liked or not, but the point is, I read it and by the time the ball drops on December 31st I feel confident that I'll have read 12 books that year. I also took up acrylic painting. I'm still a newb at it so I'll wait a bit before posting pictures, but I have already done an adorable one of Piglet. I feel proud. I signed up for a cake decorating class in September too so stay tuned for that.

Those were all my resolutions, but I haven't stopped the awesome Julieness there. I've started working out, for like the first time since I was dating someone who would have dumped me if I didn't. It began just as playing a fun little game called Just Dance 2, but blossomed into exercise videos and such. I feel great and proud and sexy which are my favorite things to feel. I've been cooking at home every night I have off from work, and more than just pastaroni or chicken roll ups. I've made stuffed peppers, garlic chicken, lemon pepper chicken, cajun salmon. It's been incredible. I feel myself being a grown up, not just playing grown up. I've got a costco memembership, a wine club memembership, a book club...life's pretty awesome. Now if only I could get the rest of my family on this plan...

When does summer start?

So I've been pretty busy lately. Even now I'm supposed to be going to work in half an hour but lets see if I can get a quick update in first.

Summer is here but it doesn't really feel like summer. Maybe it's because I have yet to go to a single baseball game. I don't know if it's the A's have let me down so much the past couple of years that I can't stand to look at them anymore, or if I'm just so annoyed by all the bandwagon Giants fans that the sport has me kinda turned off to it. But my team the Phillies are doing well and I just don't have the patience to watch them.

I also really haven't been to the beach this summer either. I went on a camping trip to Morro Bay a few weeks back and despite being right next to the beach, it was just too cold to lay out on
the beach. We walked on it a few times but it's not the same as having a towel out on the sand pretending that I'm tanning when anyone who really knows me knows that's not ever going to happen. It was still a fun trip, though my inlaws brought a bus they converted to an RV and we spent most of the "camping trip in there watching movies and drinking coffee. We also got some wine tasting in, some shopping done, ate at a really nice restaurant, you know, all the typical camping things. We did almost make smores though. I feel like I should get credit for that.

I really only have myself to blame. I have been working a lot, but even on my days off I decide that it's best spent shopping at Bed Bath and Beyond and then watching IT Crowd on Netflix. I haven't seized summer in a way I normal do with happy hours, bbq's, trips to Santa Cruz, etc. At least this weekend I have a trip to Disneyland planned. That's not a summer event for me normally, but I'm excited for it. I also have a goodbye summer BBQ happening at my house. Sadly, I think this will be the most summer like thing I'll do this year. Oh well. I guess this is growing up.