I miss summer. I think everyone is having the winter blues. I’m so over winter. I hate the cold. It really is awful. I was backing up files and came across a folder of Live on the Levee photos. They made me miss summer even more. I only have 6 months to wait until the next one. Oh man 6 months…Wow that stinks. Hah! Well until I cover the 2010 events.. I want to post some crowd shots. The bands,the meet & greets,the vendors,backstage…all of those images are used for flyer’s,pamphlet’s & web. Most of my crowd shots are never seen.I love to watch people. I am a people watcher. “You shouldn’t be so nosy” I have said to my husband more than once. I don’t listen to conversations. I watch how different people interact. I guess I try to justify it that way…I just snap a photo & flash a smile. : )
“The hippies were right” ? lol
That 70’s show..hyde^ Like a long lost brother…
I know so many people that have told me that they have never been to Live on the Levee. I’m always so shocked by this. You’ve lived here for how long and you’ve never taken advantage of the free concerts? Well why not? lol So I invite all my readers to come this year. I’ll post the show list when it’s released to me : ) Also if that groundhog sees it’s shadow next month, I am going to cry. Try to stay warm out there. Brrrrrrr
Gobble gobble goo and Gobble gobble gickel, I wish turkey, Only cost a nickel
Oh I love turkey on Thanksgiving….
Oh Adam Sandler how you make me giggle…
This year for thanksgiving I didn’t have to cook anything! I have a slight baking problem so that’s what I focused on this year. I came across a photo of a turkey cupcake that a friend posted on facebook. I have an addiction to facebook as well,but that’s another issue all together. I fell in love with the photo and decided to try put my own spin on turkey cupcakes.
I spent way too long in the scrapbook paper section. I’m not a scrapbooker so I don’t normally go in that aisle. I had no idea what I was missing! I spent hours cutting out tiny feathers out of pretty paper. My older sister then said to me “why didn’t you just put them on top of each other” “you know cut them out all at once”. My answer to that is “Well that would of been too easy to do it that way”… I wanted to spend forever using a template. I liked cutting them out one by one. Ok her idea was most likely a better one.
The turkey head is a cake ball. If you go down to my cake ball post you will see a link to the directions to those. The beak is just a candy corn(I think the flavor was candy apple). White icing and chocolate chips for the eyes. I have to take a second to talk about the icing I used. It’s a new product from Pillsbury and it’s called easy frost. It’s in an easy cheese type spray can. It really was very easy to use. It was perfect for the eyes. As I didn’t take the time to spray a large amount of it into my mouth, I am sure that will be the plan for next time. The cupcakes were brownies and just a basic white cake. I didn’t want to overdue it since the cake balls were so rich and yummy.
I thought my signs were clever. I was asked by many family members what did I mean with the signs..So here’s the deal.. the turkeys are pretending to be other animals so they won’t be eaten. Two points for anyone reading this that got that. I thought it was funny.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We have so much to be thankful for!
Blessings.
Warning(might be heavy for some readers)
To Write Love On Her Arms
Pedro the Lion is loud in the speakers, and the city waits just outside our open windows. She sits and sings, legs crossed in the passenger seat, her pretty voice hiding in the volume. Music is a safe place and Pedro is her favorite. It hits me that she won’t see this skyline for several weeks, and we will be without her. I lean forward, knowing this will be written, and I ask what she’d say if her story had an audience. She smiles. “Tell them to look up. Tell them to remember the stars.”
I would rather write her a song, because songs don’t wait to resolve, and because songs mean so much to her. Stories wait for endings, but songs are brave things bold enough to sing when all they know is darkness. These words, like most words, will be written next to midnight, between hurricane and harbor, as both claim to save her.
Renee is 19. When I meet her, cocaine is fresh in her system. She hasn’t slept in 36 hours and she won’t for another 24. It is a familiar blur of coke, pot, pills and alcohol. She has agreed to meet us, to listen and to let us pray. We ask Renee to come with us, to leave this broken night. She says she’ll go to rehab tomorrow, but she isn’t ready now. It is too great a change. We pray and say goodbye and it is hard to leave without her.
She has known such great pain; haunted dreams as a child, the near-constant presence of evil ever since. She has felt the touch of awful naked men, battled depression and addiction, and attempted suicide. Her arms remember razor blades, fifty scars that speak of self-inflicted wounds. Six hours after I meet her, she is feeling trapped, two groups of “friends” offering opposite ideas. Everyone is asleep. The sun is rising. She drinks long from a bottle of liquor, takes a razor blade from the table and locks herself in the bathroom. She cuts herself, using the blade to write “**** up” large across her left forearm.
The nurse at the treatment center finds the wound several hours later. The center has no detox, names her too great a risk, and does not accept her. For the next five days, she is ours to love. We become her hospital and the possibility of healing fills our living room with life.
I have to take a deep breath to keep myself from weeping every time I read it. TWOLHA is an organization that is dear to my heart. That short story was written by Jamie. The founder of the non profit organization called TWOLHA. They started because of Renee,but it didn’t stop with her. What an awesome impact they have made since they started.(info here)
I love statistics. Why? I have no idea. Even when I question the numbers. “where did you get those numbers”? : ) (I didn’t get these off wikipedia)
Untreated depression is the number one cause of suicide, and suicide is the third leading cause of death among teenagers!
Princess Diana used to struggle was self mutilation-so did johnny depp,drew barrymoreand angelina jolie.
Depression does not discriminate across age, race, gender, or class.
In the US a person dies from suicide every 16 minutes. Every 17 a loved one is left to make sense of it.
Pre-schoolers are the fastest-growing market for antidepressants.(I read that today, I didn’t even know Dr’s could put toddlers on antidepressants)
54% of people believe depression is a personal weakness.(that number seems high,but If never taken a poll)
Today is Write Love On Her Arms Day! So how can you raise awareness? Check out their facebook page here. Take a big fat sharpie and write the word love on your arm. It doesn’t matter if your 15 or 50. I would love to see more people in their 50’s participating. Maybe someone will ask you why you have love written on your arm and you can start a conversation. You never know who you could be helping.
Since we are on the topic…
November 1stmy husband and I walked the 3.8 mile Out of the Darkness Walk. A walk benefiting the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. I walked with Mothers,Fathers,Brothers,Sisters…all of them strangers to me.I didn’t know any of them personally. They all lost a loved one to suicide. I wanted to be there to show support. My husband and I walked the long row of memorial posters. Their loved ones surrounded the photos in half circles. Many carried signs.”we miss you” “In memory of” Hundreds of people carried balloons. They wrote messages on the balloons and released them as they crossed the finish line. I chose not to take my camera, but I did take one with my phone.I’m glad that I was able to be a part of it. If you would like more information-click here.
I remember the 1st time I ever heard of someone taking their own life. I was a freshman in highschool. Lets call him jay. He was 2 years older than I. I didn’t know jay, but I remember someone coming in to talk to us. “If you need someone to talk to” is the only thing I recall her saying. Like I said I didn’t know jay. I had no idea what color his eyes were,if he played sports,how tall he was… I do remember teachers whispering in the hallways and one girl crying outside of her locker. They said that he parked his car inside of his parents garage. That he shut the garage door and left his car on with the windows down. I don’t know if that’s what really happened. I knew of kids that took the free school day off for his funeral. They didn’t go and just took the day off. I remember thinking that was so disrespectful. When the obituaries came that week I went through the paper to find jay. He and I had the same birthday. I cut it out and put it on my bulletin board. His photo hung in my room for years. I still have it to this day. I never met Jay, but I’ll never forget him.
Today I needed to go to Walgreens to pick up a shipping envelope and baking powder. When I was looking for baking powder, I came across an elderly woman. She was dressed in a thrifty fashion. Mismatched shirt,pants, and a heavy winter coat. She had an obvious problem with her sight and she carried a cane. She was limping back and forth looking for something. I could tell she couldn’t find what she was looking for. She looked in my direction and said “They don’t have what I am looking for so now I have to walk up to the farmers market”. “That’s so disappointing”.
I said to her “what are you looking for” ” Lemon juice” she said. We had a short conversation about how I thought that I recalled seeing lemon juice in the refrigerated section at a Walgreen’s once. I then walked away from her annoyed that they didn’t have my baking powder. I didn’t feel like driving the two minutes it would of taken me to get to a different store.
I didn’t see her again and didn’t think about her again until I saw her try to cross four lanes of heavy traffic. I stopped traffic so she could cross the 3rd lane. The guy next to me stopped after I let her cross my lane. It took her a couple of minutes to cross. The market was only a quarter mile if that, but I knew it would take her a while to get there. It was chilly out and it was about to rain. I honestly almost kept driving. I only had a few dollars in my wallet(which would of been used for my baking powder) and I had to get home to finish my laundry. I turned the car at the last second. I ran in to get lemon juice,paid for it,ran back outside to my car and then sped out of the parking lot. I spotted her walking over a small hill. I parked my car and I walked down the sidewalk to meet her.
I was going to run,but I would of looked like a complete nut running with a large bottle of lemon juice. I didn’t want to scare her. All I said was “hello ma’am Is this what you needed, lemon juice?” She looked at me…had a stunned look on her face, I handed it to her..she said “yes thank you”. I said God Bless.. she turned around then walked slowly toward the bus stop. Im pretty sure she made it there before it started raining.
Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.
You can take that in so many ways. No matter if your a Christian, religious, or spiritual. I think everyone knows that you should be kind to others, even if they are strangers. When I arrived at the laundry room at my apartment complex there were two dryers left for me to dry my clothes. (which is what I needed and the six others were being used) Then as soon as I picked up my laundry basket a stranger came from nowhere and opened the door for me. He held it open until I walked outside. A small act of kindness,but it made me smile.
So today’s post is just about paying it forward : ) It makes the world we live in a little kinder…
A few weeks ago my mother came to me about making a cake for her boss. Boss’s day is tomorrow… Her boss has different types of woodland creatures living under her porch. Kind of like the whole Over The Hedge movie,but without all the talking. They catch them in cages and then release them in the woods.
Every time I bake a cake I have to sketch it out and take notes before I start it.
You didn’t know that I could draw as well did you? I’m a Pictionary legend.
After I draw out my ideas I then make my own fondant. Pay attention ladies and gents who love the look of fondant,but hate the taste of that plastic… also known as Wilton fondant. Open your mind to other types of fondant. I use marshmallows to make my fondant. Its easy peasy lemon squeezy to make and it’s affordable.
There is a great tutorial that can be found here
I first learned about MMF about 2 years ago. This cake was my 5th time using fondant. I started practicing with play-dough at age 3. It’s about the same consistency. I also took a pottery class back in high school. I spent a semester sculpting elephant projects… An elephant bowl that blew up in the kiln.(My teachers actually glued it back together for me) As well as a blue elephant teapot. That one didn’t blow up and turned out pretty great. It’s still one of my favorites things I’ve ever made. I really loved that class. I someday hope to take more pottery classes in the future.
As I enjoyed working with clay there is something to be said about being able to eat your sculpting material. You can eat playdough,but the salt can’t be good for you. I mean straight sugar has to be better for you right?
So here is the final project.
Trying to sculpt a possum was much harder than I thought it would be. Basically it looks like a cross between a zebra and a rat. Maybe a zebra and a bamboo rat. My 3 year old son looked at everything I made and would name them. “apple,bunny,raccoon,carrot,corn,squirrel,flower…..mommy what is that thing”? It’s a possum Zach. You just have to squint a little. ”no it’s not” fine than It’s a Zrat..the zebra rat. Have some imagination kid…
I also made starburst roses. All you do is pop a starburst in the microwave for 7 seconds and mold the petals.It takes me about one minute to make a rose.
As well as my Critter Cake I also made a few batches of Cake Pops. If you have not been exposed to the ”cake pop” you are missing out.For those who have no idea what a cake ball is.
Cake Ball=Icing covered cake rolled into balls, dipped in chocolate,then rolled in sprinkles.
Cake Pop=cake ball on a stick.
So try making your own fondant or cake balls this weekend. Connect with your inner Duff Goldman.
