CAKE DECORATING

ALOHA and Happy Friday!

My Question(s) this week......

Have you ever decorated a cake for a celebration?
Did you go big or small?
Have you ever used fondant icing?
Any tips or tricks?

I have not done this before but I am seriously considering it for my son's 2 birthday in October. He loves Mickey Mouse and I am thinking about making a Club house cake.

I have done a lot of research, read a lot of tips and tricks but I am scared to death it will be a catastrophe. I say this because I just made a double layer cake the other day and just the icing job on it was awful.

I have been watching lots of the cake decorating shows and they make it look so easy. I am probably getting in way over my head. I might have to do a test cake first to see just how bad it will be.

LAST QUESTION: SHOULD I TRY THIS OR HAVE I LOST MY MIND?

Play along at An Island Life for Aloha Friday. If you’d like to participate, just post your own question on your blog and leave your link at An Island Life.

THE GARAGE

Have you ever been driving down the road and drive by someones house and they have their garage door standing wide open and the garage is just filled to the max with stuff?

Well let me tell you this is my garage. Eight years ago when we bought our house it was not in move in condition. AKA... we gutted the inside and left the kitchen and dinning room in tack for us to live in. Having only two rooms and lots of stuff 90% of our belongings went into the garage. As our house expanded and became more livable we moved some stuff into the house. However over the years we have also moved a lot of stuff out. This has caused that stuffed to the max effect to our garage.

I am so embarrassed every time my husband leaves the garage door standing wide open. If I had it my way it would never be opened, ever. Reality is this isn't going to happen so I decided this was the weekend we were cleaning it out. We both had a four day weekend so this was a doable task, right? WRONG....

In my mind cleaning out junk, getting rid of stuff and buying shelves to put totes on would make this a simple task. My husbands mind thinks so different than mine. First he decides he wants to build shelves. Instantly I am frustrated because if you have ever heard me say before my husband is an engineer and nothing is ever simple with him. He say's to me, I will make them simple. Again, not buying into it.

We start clearing out lots of stuff. Let me say he is the pack-rat in this family for sure. I can't tell you how much stuff he thought he needed to keep and then when he turned his back I tossed it into the trash. He says I am not sentimental. Maybe not but to be sentimental you need to enjoy it and you are never going to enjoy stuff sitting in totes in the garage.

Friday afternoon he heads off to buy wood to build the shelves. He returns a couple hours later with wood and drywall. Why does he have drywall? He wants to put drywall up before building shelves. Oh wait but all power was removed from the garage years ago for safety reasons and he decides before he can drywall he wants to run wire so he can put electricity back into our garage.

Can you see where I am going here? My simple project turned into a four day project that is only about 40% done. We got one shelving section up and it looks so nice but so much more still needs done.

I have several large items I need to get rid of and not sure what I want to do with them. I think sit them at the curb for anyone to pick up, or maybe Freecycle, or maybe Goodwill. I have to haul them to Goodwill and honestly I think the guy at Goodwill is sick of seeing me. The worst part is a lot of this stuff we now have sitting out in the drive way. So my embarrassment has extended from the open door to anyone who just drives down my road and looks at my driveway.

Does anyone want to take a guess as to when my garage project will be complete?
I am going with never! My husband worked very hard this weekend so I have to give him credit for that but why he can't ever stick with the simple plan I will never understand.