Here ya go, Dad!

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Once again, I have been called out by my Dad as to my lack of posts.  I have made it my mission to update today, no more procrastinating!

I have been delinquent due to my school schedule. If you remember, I was only taking one class at a time.  How hard could that be, you may be asking?  Well, let me tell you, HARD!  There was so much reading and writing to do, I needed at least a couple hours a day to focus on school.  Between the research paper, the oral presentation with Power Point and the most difficult final exam I have ever been faced with, it has been a LONG seven weeks!  I spent a total of about seventeen hours on the final exam, and that is not an exaggeration!  There were nine questions on the exam. NINE. Seventeen hours.  Do the math!  They were all essay questions, some two part questions, and all required me to go back to one of the three books and refresh and research.  Once I hit ’send’ on the email to get my final to the professor (on time, I might add) I felt like a hundred pound weight had been lifted off of my shoulders!  I still do not know what my grade is.  I will be anxiously waiting.

School is back in session for all of my boys.  Everything has started out with a bang and we are back into the swing!  Here they are on the first day:

Jordan's first day of 7th grade

 

Collin's first day of 4th grade

 

Doesn't he look so grown up?

We have the first week under our belt, and everything is feeling fine!  Collin loves his teacher!  She is sweet and kind and I think he is going to have a great year!  Last year at this time, we had some tears and Mr. T. and I already had to meet with the teacher.  So far, so good this school year.  No tears, only smiles!  Collin’s words were “Mrs. J. is super nice!  She is strict, but nice-strict…not mean-strict!”  That is Okey-dokey with us!  We like strict, especially nice-strict!

Jordan made his way to 7th grade without incident.  He is getting so big, and so grown up looking.  As you can see, he would not even wear shorts on his first day.  Much too cool for shorts!  I dropped him off and he was met by many friends with high fives.  He also started football, which has been interesting.  The first few days of practice, Jordan told us that there were about 75 kids going out for the team and those kids would be divided up into the varsity team (mostly 8th graders) and the junior varsity team (mostly 7th graders).  We went to watch the practice last night and it looks like they are down to about 40 kids TOTAL!  Apparently, there have been several injuries already.  Fabulous.  Just what I wanted to hear.  Even Jordan’s best bud, Eddie Haskel is out for the year.  He took a pretty hard tackle Thursday night, and separated his shoulder.  According to Eddie’s mom, the orthopedic doctor has not ruled out a torn rotator cuff.  He will be having an MRI in a couple weeks to determine the extent of the injury.  This, and there has not even been an actual game yet!  Poor Eddie!  He has been waiting and waiting for football season. 

Jordan’s has been wiped out every single night.  His schedule consists of getting up about 7AM.  Leave the house at 8:15 to go to school.  School lets out at 3:50, practice starts at 4PM.  He has practice until 6:45!  He comes home, eats dinner (he is ravenous at this point.  If you know Jordan, you know that kid needs his food!) takes a shower and goes to bed by 8:30 or 9PM.  He is exhausted!  Luckily, he has not had any homework the first week.  I am not sure how we are going to fit that in!  I guess keeping this busy will keep him out of trouble.  And away from the girls.  I could not help but notice last night at the football practice that there were two girls, both of them Jordan’s friends, in their cheerleader warm ups, giggling and hanging out near the practice.  And so it begins…

I have had a few orders of cupcakes lately.  That went very well.  I made 6 dozen last week for one order.  We also went to a neighborhood picnic last Sunday.  Our neighbors have a “Back to School” bash each year before school starts.  I made my banana cake with creme cheese frosting.  It is one of my favorites and I had some over ripe bananas, so that was my contribution to the picnic.  I had a lot of really nice compliments.  Two days later, one of the ladies that was at the picnic called me and asked me to make a cake for her son’s birthday.  Although I have never done “cakes” before, I thought I could give it a try.   I explained that I was trying something new, and it may not be pretty, but if she were willing, I was as well.  Her son requested marble cake with chocolate frosting.  The chocolate frosting was not a problem.  I can whip up a wonderful chocolate butter creme.  It was the cake I was worried about!  Since I have a recipe for a fabulous butter cake and also a scrumptious chocolate cake, I decided to make both batters and “swirl” them together.  Once the cake was baked, the hard part began.  It is so hard to make a layer cake, and make it even and flat.  Usually, they turn out a little “domed” or they crack across the top.  I did some research and got some good tips.  I also went to my favorite chef store and bought a cake leveler, which was the best $7.00 I have ever spent!  Then I took two layers, made them into four and started the frosting and filling.  Here is what I ended up with:

A four layer marble cake with chocolate butter creme.  I was happy with it and so was the neighbor.  I am anxious to try some more cakes.  I found a recipe for a coconut cake filled with lemon curd and topped with a coconut creme frosting.  It looks heavenly!  I am hesitant to make it for a couple reasons.  Mr. T. will not eat anything with lemon which would mean I would have this 4 layer, fluffy, decadent cake in my house with no one to eat it except me.  And maybe the boys.  I would eat it.  All.  It also seems pretty complicated and I am not sure if I am ready for something that has two pages of instructions.  I may start off by trying things that are a bit simpler.  I could literally spend hours looking through cook books and baking web sites. Hours!  If I could find a way to make a decent living by baking, I would be one of the few people in the world that is truly passionate about what they do.  Sigh….as Mr. T. would say, “If I had a stack of hundreds laying around with nothing better to do…”  I would rent a space, buy my equipment and start my bakery.  There are a few ideas brewing in my head, so I am not ruling it out just yet! 

This morning, the boys and I grabbed a couple garbage bags and went into their rooms and started doing a “pitch and clean.”  We do that every couple months.  It never fails to amaze me that after only a couple months, I drag out a few bags of garbage!  Shoes that don’t fit, old sketch pads, dried up markers.  Collin is a little pack rat and he seems to accumulate a lot of junk very quickly!  If I start to throw stuff out with out him looking, I can usually change two bags of garbage into three or four!  Seriously, I don’t know where he gets some of this stuff from!  There were little gadgets and cords that even he did not know what they belonged to!  Out it goes!  Once it is complete, they both comment on how nice their rooms look.  My response never changes…”Let’s see how long we can keep it like this!”

I am off to look for recipes.  It is a gorgeous, sunny day!  I am ready to enjoy the weekend!

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Tags: back to school, baking