One Heck of a Week

I haven't had the energy to post all week.  I know, Deb deprivation is a horrible thing to bear! Just kidding!  Last weekend I had to take Sarah for her visit to her Dad's.  This entails me driving 7-8 hour round trip.  The Friday trip hit me worse than any other drive has.  By the time I got home, I was so swollen and in more pain than I've felt in a long time. It took almost three days for it to get to a manageable level.  And then that Monday I had to turn around and make the trip again!  This time I didn't feel a lot better until Thursday.  I thought my energy had come back on Wednesday, but then I hit a wall could not bounce back. 

After that, any energy that did come back had to be put on a cake I promised to make.  Normally that would not be a big deal, but Daniel's back is out again and that leaves Momma in charge of most things around the house.  As for the cake, I'm glad to have had the chance to do it.  I learned a lot about working with butter cream covered cakes and started improving my piping skills.  Plus, I got to make two new fillings for cakes! 

To be honest though, I was beginning to doubt that it would all come together for delivery this morning.  I should have expected a little craziness. Something has always come up when I made cakes in the past.  But this week it's been nonstop!  First the travel-lag hitting as bad as it did.  Then Daniel was knocked out and not able to do a lot with the kids while I was working.  Finally I started working on the cake Thursday.  I cut out over 285 little flowers and made little round dots to fit in each one.  It was all I could do to keep the kids out of them! Finally, on Friday I got to start decorating the cake turrets and putting the cake together.  Brenna is teething and very needy which put a damper on things.  Daniel came home early from work and was feeling awful.  Then my butter cream refused to "crust" and I could not get the top layer to smooth out.  I felt as though I were in a boxing match with some force that was determined to force me to give up on getting the job done.  I'm a little too stubborn for that though!

I finally decided to refrigerate the cakes in hopes of getting the butter cream to set.  It was after midnight as I dragged myself to bed.  As I made my way to the bathroom, Daniel moved to take Ashton to bed and discovered that he peed it.  I'm not kidding here!  I could barely deal with that knowledge.  I only wanted to crawl in bed for a few hours of sleep. We got him cleaned up and I grabbed a blanket and headed to the couch. Daniel dealt with the bed and I crashed.  Only Brenna woke up 2 hours later.  I got her up and tried to get her to go back to sleep but she wasn't buying that!  I asked Daniel to watch her as I needed some rest.  He laid her back down later and at 4 a.m. she started doing the crying and then going silent for a while thing. At 5 a.m., I gave up on rest and went for her. Since I could not sleep, I decided to work on the cake. 

Funny things happen when you get a bit of rest after being so exhausted.  The cake finally started coming together.  The butter cream did not set correctly, but I managed to get it smooth.  I then used an impression mat to give the castle a rock facade.  Some places would not be impressed upon, so I drew those in with a knife. I ran out of butter cream the night before and made a batch so that I could start decorating.  Meanwhile, Brenna found some powdered sugar in the kitchen and started licking it up.  She then dumped a bag of snack sticks all over the living room and created general chaos throughout the house.  But, she left me alone to work and I decided it was a good trade off! 

By the time the rest of the family got up, a lot of the cake was completed.  I was working on decorating the plastic pieces and assembling them.  About forty-five minutes before we needed to leave, the cake was completed.  I took some pictures and we all took turns keeping Ashton away from the cake!  It turned out great and I thought we were out of the woods. We got it out to the car (thankfully we have an ugly, but very convenient awning in the back of the house) and started to leave.  That's when Daniel noticed that someone had busted out the back window in his car.  We decided to leave it until we got back home.  Not much could be done and everything was already soaked.  I truly think that Satan didn't want this thing to happen.

We dropped off the cake and I love knowing that it made a great birthday suprise for a special little girl and her family!  That is one of the things I love about the specialty cakes.  They are unique and add a little extra pop to a birthday.  And the face of a child when they see it is wonderful for everyone involved!  Plus this may lead to me doing a few more cakes for folks in the future!  Who knows. 

Anyway, that's why I haven't posted anything lately.  I've been having a crazy week.  Not bad, just crazy. And things are already looking up for next week!  Why?  Because each day is a new day from the Lord and that excites.

Oh, I found out that I have to get a 3-hour sugar test. I've been putting off until this coming week because my mother-in-law had her chemo last week and it makes her ill the entire week.  Pray for her if you think about it.  She's so tough and faces a hard week after every treatment.  But she'll be watching the kiddos next week while I drink the gross juice and get my arm poked repeatedly!  Lord willing I will not have gestational diabetes. I don't want to think about insulin or anything more in that regard.

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