Pittsburgh

Just got back yesterday from an amazing trip to Pittsburgh to visit friends.  I had a fabulous week of relaxing excess :D  Lot's of good food and fun.  We did everything from checking out the city and all it had to offer, to going into Amish country and taking pics of covered bridges!

Here are my favorites:
Wholey's - Amazing variety, fresh fish (as in tanks), great prices on meat, kettle corn, fudge, and specialty foods.
Enrico Biscotti - I don't remember the name of the place - it was on the strip and it was AMAZING!
Penzey's Spices - They stash their vanilla beans in cigar tubes which is brilliant.  Great variety, I think they had 3 or 4 different cinnamon options.
Contemporary Craft - This place was part museum, part gift shop, and part workshop.  They have classes by a visiting artist that changes every 3-4 months.  Additionally, they have a free walk-in studio space where visiting artists donate materials so that patrons can make something using the same materials as the featured artist.  It was an amazing space, I would love to have something like it here in KC.
Mount Washington


I'll add more when I get the pics uploaded!

Travel Quilts and Embroidery Machines

So, I'm currently working on what I'm calling the 'Travel Quilt'.  The star fabrics are sort of vintage travel with an old postcard feel, postage stamps and vintage bicycles.  I have been playing around with designing the quilt in Photoshop with the fabric samples so that I can get a feel for how it will look when it's done.  After talking to my wonderful quilting teacher, Karen, about my concerns of too much pattern and about wanting to incorporate some vintage touches like embroidery in the design, she suggested using a neutral off-white and tone-on-tone embroidery in the 6x6 blocks.

Well, let me tell you what that set in motion!  I found the most amazing site for embroidery patterns, Urban Threads, where they have some off kilter, and completely my style, designs!  I found some great Steampunk collections which would match this quilt beautifully and that I can think of using on easily a dozen other projects :)  They actually offer their designs in 3 different formats; machine, hand, and digi-art.  I love that flexibility!

Of course, I don't have an embroidery machine, so that set me spinning another direction.  I was reading reviews, checking Craigslist, Ebay, etc.  I was in love with this Singer Futura CE-250.  I found a great review here.  It is a few years old and I don't see a follow up on how much she likes it now that she's had time to play with it.  But it sounds like she was looking for exactly what I am in a machine, something that I can use my own designs with, that has a larger embroidered size hoop, and doesn't break the bank.

I just started looking at the Singer Futura SEQS-6000 and it looks like it's pretty awesome. Does anyone have any other recommendations that fit the bill?

Etsy and Facebook forays

Today I started putting some oomph into my attempt and getting my businesses off the ground!  It's somewhat intimidating because there are so many things you can do and directions you can go.  I'm starting by sharing with my friends and pushing out from the inner circle.  We'll see how it goes.  I'm cautiously optimistic.  Everyone cross your fingers!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ginja-Crafts
http://www.facebook.com/pages/GinjaCakes

http://www.etsy.com/shop/GinjaCrafts

cakes, cupcakes, and more cupcakes!

So, what started as a birthday cake has snowballed into weekly cupcakes.. or so it would seem!  Last weekend I made the most fabulous chocolate peanut butter cupcakes.  Why were they so fabulous?  Because, dear reader, they were dipped in chocolate at the end making them reminiscent of the best Reese's peanut butter cup EVER!  I won't reinvent the wheel by reposting the entire recipe when it can be found on my favorite blog.  Visit Jenny's blog for the recipe, stay for the company.

If you aren't following this blog, you should be!  She is so inspirational.  Not only for being candid about being a breast cancer survivor, but for her unique view on the challenges so many of us face day-to-day.  She's open about her struggles, doesn't try to be perfect, but does try to learn from them and share with the rest of us so that maybe we can learn a thing or two about ourselves as well.  Reading her blog is like sitting down to coffee with a friend.  You feel at ease immediately.

Ok - a tad off topic but I seriously love her blog.  Back to the cupcakes!  I made 36 of these puppies and they disappeared in a blink.  I am not even the biggest peanut butter fan and I was in love with this buttercream.  I love swiss meringue buttercreams anyway because they are so smooth and less sweet than american buttercream.  If you've never made a swiss meringue buttercream, be advised that it does take a bit more work but the results are delectably worth it!  Let me know if any of you try it!

Blueberry Cupcakes

Apologies for this being late... I saved it as a draft and am just getting back to it....

I can't wait to tell you about these fabulous blueberry cupcakes I took to my friend's house.  His birthday was on January 22 and I was going to his house for dinner.  Knowing he wasn't a baker (to be honest his cooking skills surprised me as well), I asked him what his favorite cake was.  He said he'd been craving blueberry cake with warm cream poured on it.  Well, with that as inspiration I set out to find something that would invoke the essence of that.

First, let me just say that there are not a lot of straight up blueberry cake recipes.  Blueberry muffins, sure.  Blueberry cake... not so much.  I didn't want something as dense as a muffin, I wanted light fluffy cake.  And, although I get that blueberry and lemon pair beautifully, I was very conscientious about making sure the blueberry was the star.  Again, going for berries and cream comfort, not summery blueberry lemonade :)

I ended up deciding on a catering cake recipe I found here. 

As soon as he said blueberries and cream, I knew exactly what frosting recipe I wanted to try.  My friend at work had been telling me about this whipped frosting that started as a roux of milk and flour... that's right folks... I said FLOUR.  That recipe is here.

While on my quest for the perfect blueberry cake, I did come across this blueberry jam recipe to use as a filling.  I couldn't resist :)


Now, I am a gild the lily kind of a person... so I also made some sugared blueberries and candied meyer lemon peel for the garnish.  If you've never done this (I hadn't), just google it - it's super easy.

Sugaring the blueberries involved dipping in a beaten egg white and then rolling around in granulated sugar.  See - not that tough...

The candied peel took a little more effort but was totally worth it.  You basically boil them in a cup of water until soft and then you pull them out and add a cup of sugar.  You bring that to a boil and then add the peel, simmer until translucent.  Strain the peel, reserving the syrup for yummy things like iced tea, and let sit and dry out for a few hours (I twisted mine).  The last step is to roll in some granulated sugar which keeps them from sticking to each other or anything else.  Careful, if you have a lemon fetish like me you might not have any left for garnish!  I could NOT stop eating them!  Pics eventually but for now at least I got the hard bit down and out :)

German Chocolate week

So, this is, apparently, German chocolate week.  Sometime last week I got a Paula Deen article that included a twist on the traditional German Chocolate cake.  It had a buttermilk based chocolate cake, a cream based custard coconut pecan filling, and chocolate ganache.  Last Friday, I got hit up by my sis to make her Dad's b'day cake.  When I heard his fave was German Chocolate, well, ya know.....

I think it turned out to be a passable option.  However, I found it so rich and dense that I couldn't eat very much of it.  Very sweet.  I did really enjoy the chocolate frosting boost from the ganache though.

So, although it wasn't 'bad', it wasn't going to make the keeper file (Sorry Paula!  You know I love ya girl!)  Fast forward to this work's potluck.  What a perfect opportunity for a German Chocolate remake. 

I will start by saying that due to time constraints I went to the box for the cake.  Figured easier and quicker for week night baking and of the pieces I wanted to revamp, the frostings were higher on the list. 

Thus began the internet search for the perfect coconut pecan frosting/german chocolate cake recipe.

This first link get's honorable mention for having an amazing host of yummy cupcakes and ideas.  The Cupcake Project has a great post on German Chocolate cupcakes and although the presentation wasn't my fave, it does include history of the cake (which is because of the chocolate, not the country of origin). 


For my cake, these are the winners!  I'll post later and let you know how it went over with the guinea pigs/coworkers :)

This chocolate cream cheese buttercream won because I thought the tangy-ness of the cream cheese would cut the sweetness of the coconut pecan frosting.  So without further ado - THE Chocolate Cream Cheese Buttercream (and decoration inspiration) I went with.


The Coconut Pecan Frosting I used was a Martha Stewart recipe.  I have to say - this had the best caramel smell as it was cooking.  Just heavenly!

Inspiration

Not sure exactly if anyone really reads this but me but lately the blog I adore is Jenny's.  Today's message is more sobering but struck very true to heart on several levels. 

http://www.jennymeyerson.com/uncategorized/project-health-and-a-sobering-reality/#comment-1865

I, thankfully, haven't had to face a serious illness like cancer but I can relate to her on so many other levels.  I have been calling 2012 my year.  I've been actively reaching for my goals instead of passively hoping they come my way.  When I first came across Jenny's blog, I was struck by her zest for life and her list of to-do's.  I've stuck around for her sense of humor in life, wise words, and cupcakes/general craftiness :)

Today's post dealt with weight loss/health which is one of my goals I'm realizing this year.  But it also dealt with the side issue of how quickly a critical word can cut you down.  She speaks of this one negative comment and how that affected her whole day and spilled over to her family.  As a mom, how often have I had that happen.  Where one thing snowballs and the people who suffer are the people around you.  I think what she's provided was a moment of grace and humility that would be hard for many of us to achieve.  My friends will tell you that I often give the advice that you can't always control a situation or another person, you can only control yourself and how you react.  She echoes this sentiment in her post and it clearly influenced her response.  This is a good lesson for today.

Long time no see!

Hi Everyone -

I've been out of it a bit... So much going on to blog about and so little time.


The summary since we last spoke:
Moved from Orlando, FL to Olathe, KS
Went from working at Apple to working for AMC Theatres!

Obviously there is more to those 2 statements than meets the eye but both changes thus far have been very positive. 

More later....

All Things Paper - Klutz Paper Flowers Book

Found this during my blog stalking.... looks like it would be more exposure to paper flowers and a great summer project for my daughter and me.  They're giving away 2 books here

Fly By Night

A followup to my previously rambling post.

I was listening to the radio when Fly By Night by Rush came on... now I've loved Rush for a minute as a kid that was the type of music my mom was listening to and so it's definitely 'comfort music' for me now.  Music has always had a calming affect on my world.  It's funny how your brain picks out lyrics that match your state of mind.  Good or bad most people naturally gravitate toward the 'mood music' that represents them at a particular place/time.  And, as we all know, music can transport us.  When I hear the Eagles greatest hits I am instantly transported back to a road trip I had years ago!

As usual, I digress.....

The point to today's post was that when I heard this song I had to look up the lyrics because they seemed to exactly capture my pensive chaotic thoughts. 

"Fly By Night"

Why try? I know why
The feeling inside me says it's time I was gone
Clear head, new life ahead
It's time I was king now -- not just one more pawn

[Chorus:]
Fly by night, away from here
Change my life again
Fly by night, goodbye my dear
My ship isn't coming and I just can't pretend

Moon rise, thoughtful eyes
Staring back at me from the window beside
No fright or hindsight
Leaving behind that empty feeling inside

[Chorus]

Start a new chapter
Find what I'm after
It's changing every day
The change of a season
Is enough of a reason
To want to get away
Quiet and pensive
My thoughts apprehensive
The hours drift away
Leaving my homeland
Playing a lone hand
My life begins today

[Chorus]

I still don't know if I'm staying or going but I know change is coming.  The one thing I know is that when something isn't working you need to find what's broken and try to fix it.  You might not be able to but sitting in place spinning your wheels doesn't get you anywhere.

Addicted to Approval - Self-Worth

I've had a lot on my mind recently.  I don't know how many people that read his have ADD.  I know we joke about it - throw the word around anytime you feel scattered.  For me, that's the world I live in all the time.  My mind has thousands of things going through it at any given moment and to focus on just one takes a considerable amount of will on my part.  After 36 years on this planet I can focus on one spectacularly well.  It's like if you have 15 tvs on and they're all on different channels.  Each tv relates to something going on in your life.  The picture on one catches your eye for whatever reason.  You turn it up so that you can hear it above the others.  The other noise is still there but you can filter it out.  With me so far?  Great!

So let's say tv 1 is work.  I can program tv 1 to be from 9-6.  But then my son is tv 2.  He has a doctor appointment that I have to schedule somewhere in that time frame.  Oh, but then tv 3 is my daughter, she needs me to take her to gymnastics.  Tv 4 is the hubby who wants something from the store.  Tv 5 is housework.  Tv 6 has my dogs.  Tv 7 is Connor's school.  Tv 8 is Kyleigh's school.

You get the point.  Trying to scan all of them all the time does me no good.  What typically happens is when I'm at work, I'm thinking about work.  No room for the other stuff.  So, often what happens is that I space making appointments when I'm supposed to.  Or I forget to pay a bill until, for example, the electricity gets cut off.  As an adult, it's so frustrating to feel so out of control of your brain.  I have so many ideas that I end up shortchanging them all.  I don't do anything as completely or well as I think I could because I get distracted and then by the time I get back to it I've forgotten my original intent.

The reason for this really long intro is to give you a glimpse into myself.  A glimpse of the chaos that has been my mind and world my entire life.  It's both a blessing and a curse. 

I've been very introspective over the last few weeks.  There are a couple reasons:

1. the 27th was my birthday - rarely good, always a reason to dwell internally
2. I'm very conflicted about my current life direction
3. Oprah!

Oprah? you say?  Oprah indeed.  American royalty.  I finally got around to watching the episode with one of my favorite royals, Sarah Ferguson.  Why is she my favorite?  Good question.  It could be her red hair so like mine.  It probably has more to do with her realness.  She's touchable royalty.  Diana, to me, always had this storybook princess grace about her.  She seemed untouchable, someone I couldn't imagine being in the same room as.  Fergie was someone that you had the feeling you could have a cup of coffee with and really enjoy chatting.  And, as of that episode, it turns out that she was the instigator of an Aha! moment (in Oprah speak).  They were showing clips of her upcoming series on OWN.  One particular clip was with Dr. Phil.  Basically he told her she was addicted to acceptance and approval.  They were talking about how she self-sabotaged her happiness and basically kept seeking approval from those around her while internally never feeling worthy of accepting that approval.

I can totally relate.  Obviously we have very different backgrounds.  And I can tell you clearly that my issues are directly related to my parents and upbringing or lack thereof.  My parents were teen parents.  My dad wasn't in my life past age 6.  My mom constantly went from guy to guy in her own vicious cycle.  Never content to be alone.  She has always needed a man to validate her.  She also has had a problem with drugs and alcohol most of her adult life.  As a child, I would do anything for my mom, anything to get her attention, good or bad.  My childhood was party after party of me trying to act more grown up than I ever should have and trying to get the adults to pay attention to me.  It was also very lonely.  I was jealous of the attention my mom showered on other children.

The irony of me is that I always come off self-assured and confident.  In truth, nothing could be farther from the truth.  I'm a shattered teacup on the sidewalk.  All rough edges and pieces but soft on the inside and fragile. 

I'm a pretty direct person.  It seems to be a character flaw.  To take others at their word.  I seem to trust the wrong people at the wrong time.  Actually one saying that sums me up is a day late and a dollar short.  My life is all about potential not yet realized.  I continue to have hope that I'll grow into the person I know I can be.  And this introspection is certainly part of that. 

I have so many acquaintances and so few friends.  Partially it's been me moving and partially my ADD out of sight out of mindedness.  I tend to lose phone numbers or forget to regularly call/email my friends. I think of doing said things at the weirdest times. 

Every major life decision I've made, I've tried to put as much thought into as possible.  I've always been introspective and able to see my decisions and why I made them clearly.  But it seems like I always make the wrong one.  At what point am I supposed to know what the right decisions are?

Case in point, moving to Orlando.  I thought I had good reasons.  My husbands job was stable - it was with the state and he'd been there 10 years.  I was working for significantly less as a baker because I couldn't get an IT position with my lack of degree.  Then we move here only to find out that their special education is ridiculous.  Their schools for typical kids are marginal at best.  And for the last 2 years me and the kids have been miserable.  Now, my husband's job is closing.  Thank you Dick Scott! Oh, I'm sorry, that's Rick Scott, with an R - my bad.  I don't know what the next step is - we don't have money to move anywhere so except for the grace of God and a few friends, we're screwed. 

I know this is rambly but it was more for me than anyone else.  Sometimes I just need to dump my feelings out to sort through them.  If anyone does end up reading this, please accept my sincere apologies for the brain dump.

Everyday inspiration

I was just thinking how my mind is constantly going and how things constantly grab my attention and get my mind whirling on how I can make that thing, make it better, make it different.  My problem is holding onto the idea until I can make it happen.  I try to write them down but that means I have to remember where I wrote it down.  Sometimes if I can I'll take a picture with my phone.  That definitely helps.


I'm interested in hearing about how everyone else grabs those inpiration whispers floating through the air.

iPhone

i <3 my new iPhone.  So of course the first thing I did was look up some patterns for ideas for a cover.  I'm ordering a case but still want an uber cool pouch for it.... pics as it develops

Another Day... Another $$

What a crazy weekend.  Wedding was great - pics will follow of the fantabulous things I made for it.  I would have been on cloud nine but somehow was just too busy to really enjoy it.  But it was a wonderful night - truly special.   More to come....

ADOS results

So this post is about my son.  That's really a book in and of itself.  School has never been his friend but we were slowly but surely starting to gain ground.  Then we moved to Florida.  Florida is a cesspool of incompetence.  It's so maddening when there's not even the tiniest attempt of masking how little they actually care about whether or not your child is successful.  I guess in some weird alternate-reality-sort-of-way I should be grateful.  They pissed me off enough to start poking into options.

In KC, they wouldn't re-diagnose my son because whether or not it was accurate or not didn't matter.  They had such a long wait list that they wouldn't even add him.  I decided it was time to dredge that fun back up.  Pretesting my son's diagnoses were:  ADHD (age 5), Anxiety Disorder, Pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS), and Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) (age 7). 

So - PDD-NOS - this is the great catch all.  It means, no you're kid's not typical but we don't know exactly what's wrong so here's this cool catch all patch to help him get help at school.  I didn't necessarily agree at the time but they told me they didn't start out tagging kids as Aspergers - that if it were Asperger's essentially we would know when he got older.  Well, we know. 

The ODD label I never agreed with but who am I, just the mom.  My son is not always compliant.  In fact, when trying to get out of non-preferred activities (read - schoolwork) he is very non-compliant.  He definitely pushes buttons to try to get his way.  I don't think he counts as ODD because whenever we've had ugly physical behavior it's been a response.  He doesn't initiate oppositional behavior and he doesn't ever exhibit it without triggers.  In fact, I have a stack of papers that refer to him as sweet or sensitive. 

Anyhoo - now to the news... I took him to the Child Development Center here in Orlando and Connor went through some cognitive testing as well as an ADOS.  So I don't remember the entire scale but the cutoff between Aspergers and Autism is 10 and Connor score a 13.  So yes, you read it here first, his actual score puts him as HFA.  However, the tester and his therapist agreed that his state of mind that day influenced his results and so they're still pegging him as Aspergers.

What this means for me, as his mom, as the person that had to go to 100,000 different school meetings and deal with family member after family member who seemed to not get it, is vindication.  When you have that many people acting like you're making a mountain out of a molehill and you know they just don't get it, well it's refreshing to hear a medical opinion even if the result was slightly more dramatic than you had even anticipated.

They actually want us to look at a day program that would give him some more intensive therapy.  It's hard for me as a mom to be ok with that.  On the other hand, after everything we've been through if they can help him then I'm all for it.  And, as always, I'll be with him every step of the way! 

New Blog Design

Thought I'd actually start doing this.  Free therapy and not restricted in characters like I am on Facebook.  

I have been in an odd place lately - need somewhere to talk things out - it helps clear my head.  I'll apologize in advance for any future feelers that get hurt over anything posted here.  It's not meant to be PC or overly thought out.  It's meant to be a place to pour out some anguish and hopefully fill the hole that's left with some love.

Place to vent

Just a place for me to vent about life. And to talk about whatever interests me that day. Could be anything from baking cupcakes to making jewelry to playing WoW