Oh my goodness--an update!

Shocker, I know!

I am sooooo bad about updating. I always say that I'm going to be better about it, but this time I mean it. ;) I'm sure the two of you who still remember I have a blog are totally believing this.

Some stuff has happened since March when I last posted. Stuff like:

DINGO!

Dingo is the cute little Australian shepherd mix we adopted. He has quickly developed the nickname of Dingbat, not because he insists on chewing on really weird stuff or attacking a dog three times his size. No, Dingbat was earned because of times like this:

He and Cleo (mostly) get along well. He is very playful, very affectionate, and very hungry!

Adam and I recently went to Scarborough Faire with the gang. Not only do we hit up a ren fair each year, but we do it in style:

I'll save the rest for the next post, which will be soon....for real this time!

AFA Dinner 2009/Spring Break

Adam and I recently attended the Air Force Association dinner at the Worthington. This picture was taken in front of a beautiful mural at one of the receptions. It's so fun to dress up again. I'm glad we get to do this each year. I found a dress for next year a few days later. We may have to get really dressed up for our anniversary dinner this year...I don't think I can wait to wear this one!

Spring Break is winding down, and it was great. In fact, it was so good it's left me wondering: why don't we have a break every season? I think Fall Break has a nice ring to it. The first day involved the dress shopping mentioned earlier. The next day involved a trip to Oklahoma City to pick up some seats for the Sprint (the project car Adam and his dad just got). Highlights of the week included scrapbooking with Kayla, painting our bedroom, and lots of baking yesterday and today. I made casino cakes for Bible study tonight, mostly because I have really been wanting some and I'm not driving back to the bakery in Shreveport to pick them up! I think I have the recipe figured out. I hope everyone likes them as much as I do!

I'll post some pictures of the bedroom when we get the curtains up. We painted it a shade of blue called "Cool Dusk," and I just love it. It looks especially good with the silver accents we have in the room. I thought I'd be a lot better at this decorating thing, but it's taken me a while. Oh well--I have time. At least the craft room is done. :)

Guts

It’s been a busy two months since my last post. I’ve been all over the place! Back in November I went to a conference in Corpus, followed by a recruiting trip to the lovely Panhandle region. (In case you can’t tell, that “lovely” was dripping with sarcasm.) That was followed by a week of lots of recruiting activities in the Fort Worth area, and that was followed by the week of Thanksgiving.

I began December with a trip to the Central Texas region (Waco to San Marcos, with lots of small towns in between). The highlights of that trip included a visit to the much-hyped Stamp Salado (lived up to it, but the way!) and a pancake breakfast at Kerby Lane Café, where we went on the PAL Conference trip back in high school. As soon as I got home from that, I turned around the following Monday for a one-day trip to Houston (not the best idea, I can now say—that’s a lot of time in the car, even for someone who actually prefers road trips, like me!). The weeks that remained consisted of working on getting my spring semester students accepted. Personally, there was not much time for anything with all that travel. My grades didn’t suffer, but my social life may have. ;) That’s been one nice thing about this Christmas break. I’ve had the chance to reconnect with old friends and see family members I so rarely see. It hasn’t been without its share of drama, but overall it’s been a nice time to catch up and reminisce.

One thing that has not been good is my condition. I started a new treatment for Crohn’s that seemed to be working really well, but that didn’t last long. The idea of surgery to repair damage that has been accumulating started getting tossed around in December, but with the idea of having it maybe over the summer. That was the plan—until things got much worse the first day of my Christmas vacation. One ER trip and CT scan later, and I was faced with the idea of surgery—in just two weeks. So, I will be going in for some pretty major surgery that involves a surgeon playing with my guts (the least graphic way I could think to say it) on January 5th. I know three other people who have had this surgery, and all swear that the results are almost immediate. At last, the near-constant hurting and embarrassing noises (like the ones my stomach was making during my Marketing final that got me some annoyed glances!). No more Prednisone (so I can get my face back!). I’ll probably be nervous the day before and morning of the surgery, but right now, I am just so ready for it!

I will be in the hospital for about a week, and will be out of work for four to six weeks. Adam and I are very fortunate to work for such understanding people: my boss, who just had a family member go through a similar ordeal, was so sweet about it, and Adam’s commander even let him know that his trip has been pushed back to February and to take whatever time he needs next week. So, now, we can just focus on recovery. I think we’re both relieved to actually get to plan this hospital visit. I haven’t able to do that since I got my tonsils out when I was 7!

In advance, I appreciate your prayers and well-wishes. I already know that my friends and family are the sweetest I could ask for. :)

Adrienne

Captain!

Back when Adam was still just a cadet at OSU, he talked about how badly he wanted to make Captain. Most people have their eyes on Colonel or General (which would be great, too), but Adam had a more immediate goal of serving his four years as a Second Lieutenant and then First Lieutenant, then advancing to Captain. Today, after those long LT years, he is there.






His parents, my mom, and I attended his promotion ceremony at Garland during his drill weekend. He was being such a punk and wouldn't tell me who would be pinning him today, and he thought he was being soooo sneaky by asking his parents and I to do the honors. (I wish I would have practiced, though--the holes already punched into his uniform by the LT bars are perpendicular to the Captain holes, which caused a little confusion!) I'm so happy we were all a part of it this time. The original commissioning, of course, was huge, and complete with an engagement announcement! For his promotion to First Lieutenant, he was in Florida, so I only got to hear about it over the phone.






He asked Colonel Allen to give him his oath, which he chose to memorize and recite completely, rather than back to the Colonel a little at a time. Before the oath, Colonel Allen told a few nice stories about Adam that highlighted his dedication to the Guard. I love it when people brag on my guy!













Of course, no Guard function would be complete without the legendary Guard cookies...or a Captain cake! We had some of each, as well as Christy's Wedding Day Punch recipe.













Way to go, Adam! :)

Cake Class 2

I'm a little behind, but here are the cakes I made in the second round of cake class.

This one is from week 2: the present cake. I have a really good teacher who gives us a lot of freedom, and you all know how I am! I can't make the thing in the book! So, I made a round one with blue ribbons.

This was the final project, fondly named by Stacy as the "Wesleyan Wedding Cake." I made it blue and yellow on purpose, since I planned to take it to school. (The present went to Adam and his pals.)

This is a closeup of the bottom tier, so you can appreciate the hours it took to make all those flowers! I chose yellow cake for the bottom layer with traditional buttercream icing in the center, but for the top layer I went with chocolate cake and chocolate pudding icing. It was messy, but it sure tasted yummy!

The roses are made from fondant that I dyed yellow. The blue fondant is actually hand-made marshmallow fondant, meaning that I took ingredients, combined them by hand, and turned it into much more delicious fondant than the stuff from the box. I think I got one girl in my office addicted! Another one has the fondant flower on her bulletin board (since they stay good forever, it seems).

I haven't made anything else lately, except for some banana bread last night. (Sorry, Dad, I forgot about this when you asked. You can have some if you want! :) I think my waistline is thanking me, so until it's time for pumpkin bread, I think I'll take a break from the sweets for a few more weeks. Not to worry--I tend to go nuts for the holidays, so the baking is just on a short break!

First Customer!

The day I brought the present cake to work was also the day I got my first customer. One of my coworkers asked me to make the cake for her daughter's birthday. We went through a few different themes (I still have a good idea for a Cheetah Girls cake, if anyone needs one!) before settling on good old Winnie the Pooh. I was searching for ideas online and came across a Pooh clock for sale. It was a round clock with Pooh's head peeking out at the bottom. I figured it was perfect for a round cake. So, I gave it a try, and I like how it turned out:

I used some of the new techniques I'd just learned in cake class on this one, like the star border and image transferring. I think my favorite part was nailing the color of Winnie the Pooh. I had to mix colors to get that shade, and I like the shade that resulted. I also like how smooth the actual Winnie the Pooh character is on the cake. I've really learned a lot in this cake class so far, especially when it comes to little tricks and tips for acheiving a more professional cake.

Speaking of cake class, I've been to two classes, so I'm halfway done. It was so hard to concentrate at work last Tuesday, because I was soooo excited to go play that night with icing and cakes! The first class was just a lecture and demonstration, but it was a good place to start. We then got our homework: mix lots of icing in the big three consistencies (thick, medium, and thin), prepare all of the supplies, bring in an iced cake, etc. Mel, the teacher, warned us that it would be our most stressful and confusing class, and while she was right about that, I still had a blast. We covered a few different techniques, like writing on a cake (which is funny, since I was the one they'd call out of the office at Target some evenings to write on cakes when the bakery didn't have anyone who knew how!). We also learned how to use the star tip, and I must admit, I like star borders better than shell borders, but I never thought of it as an option! I also learned how to make the base of a rose. This cracks me up, because the making of the entire rose is actually divided up over the length of the class! We're going to master a step at a time, but I've made them before, so I find this a little slow. I guess I'll work on proper technique this way, which will be good, since my idea of technique up to this point consists of trying to remember watching my mom make stuff on my birthday cakes. Here's the cake I finished during class:

It wasn't actually the birthday of anyone who would be eating the cake, so I just put "day." Oh well!

A Present and a Test

This is the cake I made for Yasmin's birthday. I'm on the Special Events committee at work, and this means that sometimes, in addition to planning birthday parties, I get to make the cakes as well. She said that her favorites are white cake with buttercream icing, and this is it...in present form!

It was a hit, but as the artist I see so many things I would change: the ribbon was tied too tightly (it's not real...I don't think it's going anywhere!), I should have taken more time to level the cakes, and I really need to work on even coverage of frosting (which would be helped by leveling all pieces and making sure the sides were trimmed evenly). In spite of the things I'd change, I guess it was pretty cute for a first try. In fact, it just might have landed me my first customer! One of the ladies I work with asked me to make her daughter's cake, but I was a bit nervous about talking to her about the cost until I talked to my mom about it. (The lady had asked me how much I'd charged, and when I said that I wasn't sure she told me to think about it and get back to her.) I really respect my mom's opinion, since is what she does for a living! Unfortunately, by the time I reached my mom the lady had left work for the day, so I had to just leave her a note. Hopefully, she's still interested, but I guess we'll see on Monday.

Other than possibly starting the cake business way earlier than I ever expected, I have been working pretty hard on grad school. The first big hurdle was taking the GMAT, and while I didn't need a very high score to satisfy what was left of my admission requirements, I still took it very seriously, and got a score that was just past the halfway mark, so I guess I can't complain. However, I just got back my official scores (the score I mentioned earlier consisted of 2 of the 3 sections: math and verbal), and it turns out that I aced the heck out of the writing section! The score report said that the average is around 3.5 out of 6 possible points, and I got a 6 out of 6! I am so happy with that! It's a shame that this portion of the score doesn't count for much, but I'm going to make sure that the dean knows about it. :) (I guess that might sound intimidating, but she's been a friend of mine since I first got my job, before I was in grad school or she was actually the dean.) Through the class I'm taking, I have the option of taking a test to get lifetime certification in Project+, which I am going to go for. Right now, I have no idea if I'll ever use it, but it sounds so attractive to put on a resume, so why not? Honestly, that option sounds like it will be easier than the final exam, too. ;)