Whisking on Pens & Needles

I feel somewhat like a bear coming out of hibernation – it’s been a small eternity since I’ve posted anything!  Between keeping the peace amongst the felines, madness at the office, stepping towards opening up a retail outlet and all the other things that make up this life of mine spattered in between, I haven’t had much time to sit down and collect my thoughts.

So let’s see … on the feline front, I am failing miserably.  Bella is still terrified to leave her 2nd floor “apartment” for fear of running into Jasper, who still attacks her whenever he’s given the chance.  We’ve brought her down to our bedroom a few nights here and there, and although she acclimates quickly, if we leave the bedroom door open, she freaks and rushes to hide under the bed.  I can understand the fear – her 7 lbs vs. his 23 lbs … plus his complete ferociousness with bared teeth and even puffier self make one scary package.

On the other hand, Bella seems to be completely at ease with Jameson.  Oh, don’t get me wrong, he’s shown his darker side to her as well, but she feels comfortable defending herself, which we have strongly encouraged.  I’m guessing since Jameson’s only about 2 lbs heavier than her, she feels like she can hold her own.  Most of the time though, she and Jameson can be happily co-existing in the same room without any issue whatsoever.

I’ve questioned whether or not adding our new lil’ girl into our family was a good idea many times since last November, and every time I am in doubt and she is in the room, she crawls right up on my chest and kisses me on the face.  I think she’s ok with her two room palace at the moment, even though I’d like her to have our entire house to romp in.

On the work front, I’ve been insanely busy, which in turn has made me turn into somewhat of a hermit.  While I am definitely *not* a fan of the work I currently do by day, I will admit that I have learned a whole hell of a lot over the past few months.  I like to believe that I needed this experience here at this agency to prepare me for events in the future.  I stepped into this new account with hardly any knowledge of how this client’s processes worked and quickly realized that I was being looked to as a “go-to” person on the team from other capabilities on what needed to get done when.  I’m hoping that the time management and stress management skills I’ve had to develop in order to survive in this world will come in handy when I open up my own shop!

On a positive note,  a co-worker & friend connected me with one of her friends which led to me getting the opportunity to submit my cakes into a popular magazine in the area, and I think that one of them is going to be published!!!  Of course, as exciting as that is, it propelled me to start moving on getting a real retail space of my own so I can finally put 100% into my dream of making cakes & chocolate full-time instead of trying to squeeze in as much pastry work as possible during my “off hours” when I’m not here at the office and not passed out on the couch after the sadly commonplace 14+ hour work day.

I don’t want to jinx myself, but I think I may have finally found a new home for cake & chocolate production.  More details to come once things become more concrete (literally & figuratively)!

I’ll close, of course, with cake – a little late is better than never, right?  This was my mom’s birthday cake this year – Chocolate devil’s food cake, filled with peanut butter mousse, frosted in buttercream & decorated in modelling chocolate and painted chocolate.  And just in case you were wondering, yes, my mom’s birthday is actually on Christmas Day!

Christmas Tree Cake