Since I am a couple days behind, I will just go ahead and do brief snippets for A, B, and C today.

A is for ACCEPT IT.

Casting for The Hunger Games movie was announced, and the interwebs are in an uproar. No! Not that person! He is terrible! She is so not Katniss!

Here’s the deal: a movie is not a book. They are two separate forms of media, and as such one will never be exactly the same as the other. The movie is inspired by the book, and will hopefully stay true to the story as much as possible, but they will NEVER be able to cast the perfect people,  because the perfect people do not exist. For every person who reads the book, there is a different image of Katniss, Peeta, and Gale.

We all need to just accept it and move on.

B is for BIRTHDAY

Mine is coming up, but really this is about the birthday cake I made for my old boss’s daughter last week. She had a horse-themed party and wanted a pasture cake:

C is for CONTEST!

As in, I haven’t had one for a really long time. So, I am at 130 blog followers right now. As soon as that number hits 150, we will have a super fun contest!

The birthday girl added the princesses for me

2. And the leftovers…

Yes, there's cake in those cones

I have had a headache pretty constantly since Monday evening. I know it will go away eventually; they always do (even the 14-month headache of 2004-2005 eventually went away). Pretty much, this is my how my week has gone/will go:

Monday: Work*. Go home and make 2 metric tons of marshmallow fondant. Inhale entirely too much powdered sugar in the process (this just *might* have something to do with this darn headache).

Tuesday: Work. Go home and try not to die. Realize that YA Book Club is at 6:00 Thursday night and I have yet to start the 400 page book. Read like a maniac. Eat fondue. Have friend come over to help polish off said fondue. Try to read more while friend is over without being completely rude.

Wednesday: Work. Mix up and bake 4 cakes and 9 cupcakes. Oh right, and make dinner. Read. Double-wrap cakes and stick in freezer. Read. Fall asleep 50 pages short of the end of the book.

Thursday: Work. Make giant batch of buttercream icing. Make and eat dinner. Manically read 50 pages. Go to YA Book Club and have a brilliant discussion about a fabulous book. Level and crumb-coat 4 cakes. Eat too many cupcakes. Make ice-cream-cone castle turrets.

Friday: Work. Ice, cover-in-fondant, stack, decorate, add-turrets-to….completely assemble cake. Take cake to party location. Go home and pass out.

Saturday: Work. Mix up and bake one more cake. Make more buttercream icing. Frost and fondant cake. Spend too long obsessively decorating until finally pleased with said cake. Look around–ohmyhellthisplaceisadisaster–before collapsing. Write…if, in fact, head is still attached to body.

Sunday: Oh, glorious**, glorious Sunday! Can you please come two–or maybe three–times a week? Relaxation! Church! Food! More relaxation!

*This would not be so bad. But what was supposed to be a nice breezy work week turned into a manic, crazy, insanity-filled, holy-crap-Sony-Classics-can-you-please-screw-your-heads-on-straight-please, stress-week. Um, but really, I shouldn’t complain. My mama is an accountant entering the last week of tax season right now. And she only has one eye. (Okay, okay…she has them both. But she hurt one and can’t wear her contact in that one. And her vision is like 20/3,049,398 so she can only use one. Maybe I should get her an eyepatch.)

**I definitely wrote that as inglourious. I blame the fact that I have been pouring over theatre grosses for Inglourious Basterds for, um, eternity? trying to convince a film company to let us play one of their titles.

Sigh.

/craziness

1. Yummy

When I was a sophomore in high school, I decided I wanted to open a restaurant someday. It was going to be a big restaurant in Wilmington, North Carolina. Then it was going to be a smaller sushi joint in Wilmington. Then it was going to be a small cafe (this is where Bubba started to try to talk be away from Wilmington)….something with a lot of focus on desserts, ’cause really that’s the most fun part about eating.

Over the last few weeks, I have thought it would be nice to start small, doing a desserts-exclusive business out of the home. I could consign my goodies through local restaurants and coffee shops and hire-out services for parties and weddings. Then someday, I could even open a little storefront.

Yeah, the vision has changed over the years, but the ultimate goal remains the same: I would like to open some sort of eatery at some point. Yes, I would need to narrow that goal down before actually diving into such a venture. For now it is just something nice to dream about.

Besides, how great would it be to be able to do this for a living? :

This was my birthday cake last year.

2. Home, home on the range…

Or, um, something like that. Another dream I have is to someday own a home with a bit of land. Ideally, it would be a home that Bubba and I put a lot of work into building it on our own (yeah, so looking at house plans is one of our favorite pastimes). We would like enough land to have a couple horses, a few chickens, and an alpaca or two. And also some pygmy goats. And a giant garden

Now, if I am talking really ideal, my dream is to have this house and this land in a place that has a creek or small river running through it. A creek that leads to a lake so I could row the creek to the lake in the mornings for some exercise and time to think. Also, it would be great if this place was in an area where it is possible to row on creeks for more than three months of the year. So, yeah…someplace warmer than this.

“Two For Tuesday” is a blog meme that I just made up last night when I was trying to fall asleep.

What is it? Post two of anything: book reviews, pictures, quotes, poems, songs, videos, rants, shout outs, whatever floats your boat. Just connect them somehow. That’s it.

Today, I have two pictures that inspire me. The first has to do with my writing, the second definitely doesn’t.

You might remember that I recently started rewriting Incubus completely from scratch. It is proving harder to write than anything else I have ever tackled (including earlier drafts of the same book). I have added some elements that make it a much deeper, more emotional novel than it was before. When I find myself struggling with the writing (which is near constantly these days), I just think about the bird necklace, and it helps me push on.

In Incubus, both Kyle and Jayne have a necklace much like this one. The necklaces hold a special place in each girl’s heart, and both girls cling to the necklaces as a sort of symbol for hope.  I won’t go into detail as to why, but now you know why the necklace is motivating to me. It is woven into the story and helps me remember the importance of the story I am trying to tell.

After I worked the necklace element into the story, I realized that–holy cow!–I have a very similar necklace of my own. I had forgotten all about it (though I imagine deep down I remembered, or I wouldn’t have described such a similar one in the book). So now, when I am feeling particularly stuck in writing Incubus, I put on my own bird necklace and make myself get back to work.

Okay, moving on…

My second bit of inspiration is this:

I was just asked (um…maybe 4 hours ago) if I would make a princess castle cake for a friend’s daughter’s 6th birthday. Of course!

Now, I will be honest: my cake won’t be this nice (um…this cake comes from a bakery with a minimum price of $250–we just aren’t $250 cake kind of people). My cake will probably have two round layers and turrets made out of ice cream cones. Much simpler.

But this one sure is nice to look at!

I have been excited about my Halloween cake for well over a month now. So, I will be brief: this cake is awesome. I mean, not to toot my own horn or anything, but it pretty much rocks.

BRAZILIAN CAKE*

• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 3/4 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup cocoa
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 2 eggs

Mix** together dry ingredients. Add oil and eggs. Mix** slightly and add 1 3/4 CUPS BOILING WATER. Mix** well. Bake in two 9-inch pans at 375 degrees until done (check with a toothpick–ovens are all so different).

DELIGHTFUL CHOCOLATE FROSTING

• 1 stick butter, softened
• 4-5 cups powdered sugar
• 8-10 tablespoons cocoa
• 4-5 tablespoons milk

Cream sugar and butter. Mix in cocoa. Add milk and mix until smooth.

The white frosting is just your basic, every day white frosting. I don’t have a recipe for it. I needed to get it done quick, and didn’t want to wait to soften more butter, so it consists of a little Crisco, some butter flavoring, vanilla, powdered sugar, and milk. I just added stuff and mixed it until it was a good consistency and flavor. Frosting is not rocket science!

The bats are just sugar cookies, with some black dye (really, the dough was much darker before baking) added to the dough. I didn’t have bat cookie cutters, so I cut the little guys out with a butter knife.

Overall, this cake was quick and easy. But still super cute and tasty!

*I got this recipe from a friend when he was living in Brazil. It is my fail-safe cake. Whenever I have a decorating idea, but don’t have a specific cake flavor in mind, I use this one. I love it that much.

**Mix this cake by HAND. Part of what makes it so good is its texture–a texture that is lost when an electric mixer is used.

In my church, the first Sunday of (almost) every month is fast Sunday. For two meals (or ideally 24 hours-if you remember the day before…), we fast. Each month, my old ward has a “Break Fast” potluck in the afternoon. Bubba and I still go, even though the ward is technically for the young NON-married kiddos. Really, the Bishop is one of my best friends, and who can turn down free food?

My favorite part about break fast is that it gives me an opportunity every month to try out a new recipe. So, without further ado, here is the recipe of the month:

turned out okay for such a quick decorating job...

SUPER AWESOME WHITE CAKE

• 2 1/4 cup cake flour
• 1 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 1/2 teaspoon white vanilla
• 1 1/2 cup buttermilk (add the vanilla to this)

• 5 egg whites
• 1/3 cup sugar

Cream shortening and butter. Mix all dry ingredients together and add to creamed butter/shortening. Add the buttermilk (with vanilla) and mix until smooth.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until they turn white; add the sugar and beat until meringue-like.

Fold meringue into batter until evenly mixed.

Bake at 350 until a toothpick comes out clean (ovens are all too different to be timed).

BEST EVER BUTTERCREAM

• 1 cup shortening
• 1 cup butter
• 1 teaspoon white vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon butter flavoring
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 6 tablespoons milk
• 8 cups powdered sugar
• 2 tablespoons meringue powder

Cream together shortening, butter, vanilla, butter flavoring, almond extract, and milk until creamy. Gradually add powdered sugar and meringue powder. If it’s too stiff, add more milk; if it’s too thin, add powdered sugar until you reach a comfortable consistency.

Now, there is good news and there is bad news. Which do you want first? The bad? I thought so.

Bad news: I broke. I was determined to finish my current work-in-progress longhand. I was doing a great job. Everything was going well. Until today. Today, my mind got overloaded with the story. My brain kept trying to put more and more on the page, but my poor little cramped hand just couldn’t keep up.

Good news: I really think the writing by hand exercise has been effective. I am thinking more about the words I write, so my draft is in better form than previous first drafts were.

Bad news: Now that I am back to typing my first draft, I might also slip back to typing out the first thing that comes to mind. That is not a terrible thing-edits and rewrites exist for a reason-but I am enjoying cleaner prose.

Good news: I type much faster than I write longhand. Typing, I will be able to finish this draft way faster than using the good old pen. Which is good, ’cause I want to be done by the end of October. I fully intent to participate in NaNoWriMo this year.

Bad news: I will no longer have notebooks full of scribbles to put on the shelf labeled “First draft”. I suppose I will have to relinquish the Jo March title also.

Good news: With faster writing, I will have more time to spend on my other passion: