What in blue blazes

... was I thinking?

I have 33 yards of 45" wide (that's over 371 square feet) hot pink taffeta sitting there waiting to be made into can-can skirts for a baker's dozen of 5- to 7-year-olds. It didn't seem too terrible when I thought it was only going to be for eight or so. And when I thought I could get the fabric in town. And before I had the great idea to put a 4" x 50' strip of netting gathered into a ruffle on the bottom.

Since I couldn't find 33 yards of coordinating (much less matching) fabric at the Big Name fabric stores (even on-line!), I turned to eBay. The fabric arrived today. I've got the netting already cut and in a corner of the dining room. I made up a prototype tonight and figured out what changes I have to make. Thankfully the design was spot-on, I just need to tweak the execution a bit. And get them all done in a week. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

"My Faivit Cat" - Sappy Cat Blogging*

Sweet Daughter asked if she could guest blog tonight and so she wrote a story about one of her toy cats, Maggie. She asked that I please correct her spelling since she didn't want to take the time to ask how to spell all the words she didn't know. So without further ado, I present "My Favit Cat".

My Favorite Cat

My favorite cat is Maggie. She can write , color, and paint. She is black and white**. She likes to be with me. She is a sweet cat. Her favorite is vanilla. She loves ice cream. She is a Webkinz. Meow!


* In memory of William whom I had the pleasure of meeting last spring in Pittsburgh.

** Amended after the fact to read "She is black and white with green eyes."

Sweet Daughter Blogs about Goldie

As I mentioned earlier in the week, the goldfish got moved to a bigger tank this past weekend. Last week, Sweet Daughter had the opportunity to do some creative writing in school. She wrote about her fish needing a new home and asked if she could guest blog tonight, so here is her contribution -- fresh from first grade complete with creative spelling.
"I have a pet goldfish. Her name is Goldie. It will be four days intell we give her a bigger tank. She use to live in a pond. Now she lives with us. She is very crazy. She bumps into the tank alot. I hope we get her a bigger tank. She is bigger then you wood expect. She is way big. Bigger then a regouler goldfish."

At first, I was horrified by the spelling, but then I realized it was a creative writing exercise she did for fun, and it was all about the story. What better way to stifle creativity than by criticising something they haven't learned to do yet? Better that she enjoy the process, and the spelling will come in time.

Let’s start with cake.

In case you’re new, or don’t remember everything you read on every blog, Sweet Daughter is rather fond of cats. She requested a “Hello Kitty” cake for her sixth birthday. So we poked around the interwebz and came up with our version of the Hello Kitty Cake. I am no artiste when it comes to cake decorating. I've always preferred a cake taste good over looking good, so a professional-looking cake has never been a priority. Here's what we did ...

Start with a two-layer cake mix/recipe. Bake one 9” circle and one 9” square.  Attempt to have the cakes come out of the oven at approximately the same height. If you are actually successful, go out and buy yourself a lottery ticket because your luck is just that good.

If you’re really “detail oriented”, cut a circle and square out of paper the same size as your cakes in order to make a pattern so you don’t mess up when it comes time to cut the actual the cake. Go ahead and cut your cake pieces and realize that they bear only a faint resemblance to the paper pieces.

Go ahead and dry fit the pieces together and notice that the parts from the center of the cake are MUCH higher than the parts from the edge. Take a serrated knife, and carefully saw off some of the high spots while shrugging your shoulders and assuring yourself that the frosting will hide a multitude of sins.

Slap some icing on the pieces of cake like mortar on bricks and stick them together. Recall something about a “crumb coat” from reading all those fancy cake-decorating sites, and carefully ice the sides of the cake, then the top. Calculate how much icing you have left and start filling in the low spots. Congratulate yourself when you realize you’re made just the right amount to frost the whole cake and have it look somewhat level even if it does look more like a mummy than a kitty.

Try to make a bow out of “Fruit by the Foot” and silently curse whoever thought it would be a good idea to run serpentine lines down the length of the thing, causing it to fall to pieces. End up shoving a couple of rows together to make a wider piece on top of a piece of waxed paper. Cut out a bow shape. Realize you can’t peel the waxed paper off because everything is too sticky and floppy. Stick the whole thing in the freezer and see if that helps. (It does.) Quickly peel the waxed paper off the rapidly thawing bow and slap it on the cake, thanking the stars above that your daughter thinks you just worked magic instead of fussing about a sub-par bow.

Add jelly-beans for the eyes and nose, black gel icing for the whiskers, and do not obsess about things you'd do differently. Instead, bask in the glow when the birthday girl tells you that you “rock” and gives you a hug of epic proportion, and vow to remember this in 10 years when you can do nothing right.

Life's a beach

Sweet Daughter and I had the opportunity to join my sisters in Chincoteague and the end of July for a few days. The weather was beautiful. SD learned how to ride a boogie board. She watched a guy reel in not one, but three "baby' bullhead sharks (bull sharks?). That is if a two and a half foot long shark is still considered a "baby". She thought they were really cool, especially since we were swimming right by the fishing lines. The next day, she watched one of these get reeled in.

She wanted to help. I discouraged that notion. Then I noticed these beautiful little clams smaller than my little fingernail in shades of lavender and peach and pink. And I showed SD how they dug themselves back into the sand when uncovered by the tide.

And she FREAKED OUT. The shark made her laugh. The ray had her wanting to get up close and personal, but the clams had her spending the next half hour yowling about how there were some without shells and they were hurting her feet.

Adolescence is going to be fun, I can already tell.