One Last Movie for 2009

Katherine and I went to see Up in the Air. I have to say, ending the year watching a comedy was brilliant on our part.  Maybe it’s not so much a comedy as its listed but there was some great dialog and I did a fair amount of laughing.

A recap of the movies seen this year:

Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Australia
The Reader
The Soloist
The Proposal
Inglorious Bastards
Love Happens
The Blind Side
Precious
Up in the Air

Ten movies, nine of them with Katherine and one with Chari.  It is a far cry from the two-a-month we were aiming for in January.  In fact only January and November did we make two a month.  But 10 movies is 8 more than 2008.

My new years eve was spent anticipating cookie delivery to my sweetie.  Cleaning my house and the pool, I got quite a bit done off of the list of stuff to do.  Playing cribbage and foosball and drinking coffee with Mary.  Going to a movie, dinner and cocktails with Katherine.  Ringing in the new year at Vivian and Azea’s playing Scrabble and Yahtzee and toasting in the new year with Katherine, Vivian, Azea and Aysha with Chari on speaker phone.  All in all it was a pretty good and productive new year.  I think I’ll accept the adage that what you are doing for new years eve you will be doing the rest of the year…..but oh wait, I did start the day with a work computer issue and had to run into work….but then again, I did make extra money for that.

Guess I’ll be productive, make money, go to movies, play games and generally have an entertaining year with a fair amount of laughing!  Welcome twenty-ten.

New Year Quiz

It’s that time of year again.  Here is the quiz from last year.  Copy this years,  fill it out in your own blog or Facebook, just put a link in my comments so I can read about your year.

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?
Started my own business.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
In fact I did, and I have.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Mary’s girlfriends sister is the closest so “No”

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No again, Thank God.

5. What countries did you visit?
No traveling this year.

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
More vacation time.

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
December 18th Chari’s back surgery….self explanitory.
July 17th, first wedding cake delivered.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Started a business from home, ran “most of” a half marathon.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Reverie I guess.  Not in my control but still a failure.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Nope.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Cake gear I’m sure….maybe business license.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Taylor:  graduated, career, clean, sober.  Fabulous.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Drug companies / Insurance companies / Greedy people who are more concerned for their nickels then their fellow humans.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Mortgage, bills and Cake Gear.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Cakes.  (Baking not eating)

16. What song will always remind you of 2008?
Um that would be Cake.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? a little  happier
b) thinner or fatter? a little thinner
c) richer or poorer? a little richer (not really richer, just a little less in debt)

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Traveled, visited friends.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Again, complain less about my sucky job.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
Dinner at Katherines.

21. Did you fall in love in 2008?
Nope.

22. What was your favorite TV program?
Ace of Cakes, Cake Challenge, Cake Boss….there is a theme I’m seeing.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Dont hate anyone.

24. What was the best book you read?
Only read about 10 books, best one would be Glass Castle.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Asa.

26. What did you want and get?
Warm Summer and prolific garden.

27. What did you want and not get?
New Job.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?
Oh, I saw quite a few…Slumdog, Precious, the Blind side and Reader were all good but Soloist was probably my favorite.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I worked on the new kitchen floor.  Forty-Four.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
More time with Chari.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
Ha ha ha ha, fashion concept…..  um, yoga pants.

32. What kept you sane?
Sane, did someone say I was sane?

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Fancy is a strange term.  I don’t go for the celebrity types.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
Obama’s inauguration and the Health Care Reform debacle.

35. Who did you miss?
My Mom, every day.

36. Who was the best new person you met?
Mandy.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.
Fondant is a pain, but look pretty.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
Everywhere I’m turning
Nothing seems complete
I stand up and I’m searching
For the better part of me
I hang my head from sorrow
Slave to humanity
I wear it on my shoulders
Gotta find the strength in me

Here comes another New Year

Yep it’s that time again.  I had to check back here to see if I made any resolutions this year.  That would indicate that either my memory is toast or I completed them so early I let them go. Muahahahaha  Well actually it was to run a half marathon, and plan a baking business. Done and Done!.  Hey Woo Hoo.  I accomplished my resolutions and didn’t even realize it until the end of the year.

I have high hopes for 2010.  Not that 2009 was a disappointment but I always have fresh new start over feelings at the new year.  Not so much a review of the past year or examining what didn’t happen, I tend to not look in the rear view mirror much (good or bad).  But just in the fresh scrubbed, new slate feeling of the new year.

I want to continue on the same bakery business path I’ve been on.  In doing that the realization that unless I get a high paying bakery job I’m kinda stuck right now in the corporate print word that so readily wants to such the life out of me.  But there is hope for this year at work as well.  We should be pretty busy, but there is light shining in the tunnel and new fantastic experienced help that well, helps.   Besides the fact that my co-workers seem to be my biggest customers at the moment.

I think I might sign up for another half marathon too.  If I have that to train for, perhaps I wont let my sucky work schedule get in the way of running (as much).  Besides this would be my 3rd one, one I walked, one I ran the majority of it and this one I can run the whole thing.  Yep Yep.  If I put it here maybe I’ll remember and follow through with that.

There is the list of things to accomplish this year, marathon, baking business, re-build garden, lose 50 pounds.   Guess I’ll just leave it at that.  No use putting things down that I have no way of fulfilling, like quit complaining about my job.  (joke – in case that is unclear)

Long Weekend

Long Weekend/Mentoring/Business Fail

A four-day weekend, without a trip to California, without being on call but, still lots to do.

The highlights…..

Christmas Eve I had a couple cake orders for Baby Cakes.  They were both Pineapple upside down cakes and were pretty easy.  I also went out to Freddies and to the cake store, clearly just to experience the Christmas Eve madness because neither trip were necessary.

Christmas started out super low-key.  I slept in, made coffee, walked Missy, talked to my aunt in California and kind of just hung out with the dog for the first half of the day.  Then I went to Katherine’s for dinner.  She had purchased a lovely organic meal from PCC and as we sat and visited and waited for her mom and the mom’s boyfriend to show up and our friend Steven and his mom.  After everyone got there we realized, the dinner still needed to be heated.  We had talked right through her schedule.  Dinner was about an hour later than she had planned but it was still perfect and everyone had a lovely time.

When I got home that night I should have put together all the baking gear I would need to take with me the next day, or perhaps Christmas morning in my self described “low key” morning but I did not.  That meant Saturday morning I was showering and doing my hair since this cute little cut requires more maintenance that I am used to and I was also pulling together decorating tools, cooling racks, fondant gear and recipes to take up to Chars.  Of course I took the wrong exit AGAIN and was lost in the crazy windy roads up in MountLake Terrace and I have got to remember its exit 145 from now on!!!

I was up there all day to help the high school senior with her class project that she must complete to graduate.  She had emailed me months ago and asked if I would be her mentor for a cake project.  So yesterday was the day we baked a cake and logged hours for her project.  We had a good time making the cakes and the icing them.  It takes quite a while when making a three tiered cake and each tier has two layers and they take about an hour each to bake.  Just oven time was over four hours only because we were able to bake the two smaller layers at the same time.

They fed me and kept one libation or another throughout the day.  Also Katherine had picked up Missy and taken the dogs to the park and then back to her house so when we were having fondant issues and I realized I was going to be there until midnight I was able to text her and ask that Missy stay overnight with them.

We had major fondant issues.  We used the same recipe I had used in the past but when we rolled it out and tried to put it on the cake it would just tear.  We made more, we put in the fridge, we tried several different things before changing her design all together and we rolled and cut out stars and she painted each one onto the cake.  I am thinking we should have started the day making the fondant so it would have had eight hours or better to rest.

At about hour fourteen, she put the final stars on the cake and I showed her how to dowel and stack the cakes.  She gets an “A” if I were grading the class.  There was a party tonight and the people there were going to rate the cake on appearance and taste and she will log more hours for her class.  Luckily Char is a photographer and she took a ton of photos throughout the day and will help her put her presentation together that she has to give to her teacher and graduation panel.

So in other news Reverie is currently dead.  We have lost the space we were building the cafe in.  Looks like I’ll be out the time, energy and money I’ve put it so far but in the long run it isn’t all that much considering everything I have learned.  I also still have Baby Cakes small business going even if I am only getting a few orders a month it is a lot of fun.

Even with four days I still didn’t finish getting my house cleaned.  It is better than it was yesterday and I got the yard picked up but I really think I work better under pressure.  I have another four-day weekend coming up, granted I am on call but maybe if focus I can get some chores accomplished before then.