Happy Wedding Cake!.......I mean......Happy Anniversary!

October 23rd marks our first anniversary. I've been looking forward to this day for a while. Not because I wanted to say hey we did it - high five!  But because I've been thinking about our wedding cake.....for a whole year.

I love wedding cake.

The moment Jason asked me to marry him (the second time) I started thinking about wedding cake tasting and all the wedding cake I would get to eat between that point and the wedding. At my wedding, one of the few things I remembered eating was three pieces of cake and one when I got home. It's a real problem for me. 

I figured out early on that I wanted my cake to be from Swiss Confectionery. My caterer had a cake from Swiss at our wedding food appointment and it was love at first taste. From that moment on, I knew I needed to get over there.

That week I called Swiss asking for an appointment to try their cake. They said that they didn't really do cake testing but if I wanted, they would give me one piece of cake to try when I got there. They said I should come in on Friday so I could see all the cakes for the weekend weddings to get an idea of what I wanted.

But the truth is I didn't care what it looked like.

Fortunately for me, Swiss is walking distance from my work. So that Friday morning I went to work pretty early so I would have plenty of time at Swiss. I parked my car at work and set out on foot. As I turned the corner to the street where Swiss is.....I was almost knocked out by the intoxicating smell of delicious divine wedding cake. I breathed it in like I was taking my last dying breath.


I think this is what Heaven must smell like. Like Swiss wedding cake.


* God if you're reading this, I want my heaven to smell like wedding cake. I think the whole rest of Heaven should smell like wedding cake too. I bet everyone up there would really like that. Just a suggestion. Love, Carrie


As I walked up the street to Swiss, I couldn't help but wonder how many other people take this route. How many others go out of there way to smell wedding cake. I would. Everyday. Wouldn't you?


I threw open the door and glanced around the room. I have to say I didn't see wedding cake right away and I was disappointed.


I walked up to the counter and waited for someone to come out of the back where I guess wedding cake magic is made. Wish I were back there.


Finally a woman came out. I tell her that I'm there to see some cakes and that I heard about them from my caterer.


"Oh,"she says, "then you got to try a piece of it at the wedding food tasting?"


I look at her and squint so she won't see my lying eyes. I'm the worst liar. "No mam. I didn't" I say shaking my head.


She eyes me up and down. My eyes dart to the floor.


"That's odd."she said and walked into the back of the cake store.


I let out all of the breath I had been holding just a she emerges with a piece of cake on a napkin.


"Thanks so much," I say. " I really wanted to get an idea of what it tastes like, this helps out a lot." I'm so full of it.


She ushers me over to another room where all the weekend wedding cakes are hidden, tells me to let her know if there is anything I might like and leaves me in a room full of dreamy wedding cakes.


I have an impulse to dive into them, devouring cake by the handfulls and making sounds like the cookie monster but I don't. I contain myself. Somehow.


I don't see anything that screams Carrie's wedding cake, but the truth is that's not why I was really there to begin with. I'm here for the cake. Who care's if it's three-tiered or two-tiered.....well, three-tiered means more cake......


After a while, I return to the counter with the woman who makes cakes. I tell her I haven't quite found what I was looking for that I'll return on another Friday.

"Do you sell cake by the slice?" Wouldn't that be a dream, because I'll take two to go.


"No we don't." "Just whole cakes."


I hide my disappointment and wave to her as I leave the store. Certain I would be back and hoping she wouldn't be there when I returned..


The next Friday, I made sure I made it to work with enough time for Swiss. I didn't want to miss out on one minute of our time together.


As I made my way to the store, I crossed my fingers and hoped the woman cake maker was not there. I pushed open the door, my eyes adjusted to the lights and there he was.... a man cake maker. Thank goodness.


"I'm here to look at some cakes for my wedding," I told him. "I heard about ya'll from a friend." Oh Carrie, stop. Stop lying.


"Oh? Have you tried our cake before?"


"No, no I haven't." I said smiling. I'm amazed at how easily it rolled off my tongue.


And there I was eating another piece of wedding cake. Pretending again that it was the first time I had it. Walking through the room full of wedding cakes to kill time, because I would be back anyway....next Friday.


You might be wondering how long I would get away with this and at that point was I beginning to wonder it too.


The answer is not long.


The fourth Friday, I went to Swiss, things didn't go as smoothly as I hoped. I had my whole act together, what to say to get them to offer it. "No, no I haven't tried it. I've heard it's delicious." or "I heard the cake here is so amazing, I had to come try it."


But that day, after my Friday piece of cake was secure in my hand with a napkin,  guess who walked out of the cake making room?


The woman cake maker.


"You?" she said.


I had just finished telling a guy that worked there that I had not tried the cake before. I had just shoveled a piece of cake in my mouth.


"You've come in before."


I chuckled a nervous, get me the heck out of here laugh.


"I......"


"I couldn't help myself." "He offered and well........"


And I just told her. I told her the truth. Yes I come in here every Friday to look at the cakes. Yes I'm really getting married. Yes on several occasions I said that I hadn't tried but in fact....I had. And....I'm sorry, but.....I love wedding cake. I love this wedding cake. I love Swiss.

I shrugged my shoulders sheepishly. I gave her my most pitiful face.


And she looked at me and she smiled, shaking her head. "You know, you're going to have save the top of the wedding cake for a whole year."


"I know."


"And you can't eat it before then."


"Uh-huh."


"But if you do......" "If you can't make it a whole year...." She said. "I will make you another one."


I smiled. "Really?!"


"Yes. You just let me know."


And with that I went to the room of wedding cakes and I picked out our wedding cake. Nothing fancy. Nothing over the top. It doesn't matter what's on the outside anyway. I picked out a wedding cake that made me smile....thinking about eating it.


And it did make me smile on my wedding day as I'm sure it will on my anniversary.


Thanks Swiss for putting up with me.

Lintel Bean (and sometimes spelled Lentil Bean)

Lintel Bean - a  bean considered to be a type of pulse, a bushy annual plant of the legume family, grown for its lens-shaped seeds.

And well it's also the name we decided to call the baby growing in my belly.

I can't take credit for our name choice. This time. I've been known to nickname everyone with names such as "butterbean" "peanut" and "anard" and my favorite ---their first name + marie ---no matter the gender. For example: "Daddy Marie" "Jason Marie" and  "Christen Marie" - whose real middle name is something like Delores or maybe its Deanna.

I found out I was pregnant about 10 weeks ago.

When I was kid I pictured the way my future husband would propose, never thought much about the wedding, and thought alot about the moment I would tell him I was pregnant. I'm sure most girls think about weddings. But I mostly thought about those special conversations.

I replayed them in my mind, the scenerios, the happiness, the excitement.

I'll have to share my proposal one day, both of them. :) Just not today because this story is about the much anticipated, "I'm pregnant."

When I met Jason and I knew (much later on) that he would father my kids one day, my scenerio became more specific. 

I pictured this:

I took a pregnancy test. Alone. And then I waited, because I'm such a CALM person. So this makes sense. I waited until the timing was perfect.We would be in Target. Walking hand and hand down the aisles and then magically we would wander onto the aisle for the baby clothes and just as Jason would tug my arm to direct me down another isle. I would look up at him and smile a radiant smile. A smile that says I have something incredible to tell you. I would say something like,"I think we belong on this aisle. Picking up a onesie, I would say, "I'm pregnant." And we hug and laugh. And buy everything on the baby isle.

Sound creepy and weird?

It is.

Let me tell you how it really happened. :)

But before I go there. I have something I need to say.

Do you know the story of the boy who cried wolf? And then no one believed him. I think that's how it goes.

Well when I got married to Jason, while he had picked up the habit of snoring....Click here... I had picked up the habit of thinking I was pregnant. Every. Single. Month.

I can't tell you how many tests I took. Or the secret pleasure I felt in buying them. Or how often I told Jason we were going to have a baby. But what I can tell you is that it finally happened. And when you've gone through it as many times as he had, I imagine it's pretty tough to believe it.....well pretty tough for me to believe it either.

So this past June went like most of the other months had. I just knew I was pregnant.

And so it started.

"So I think I pregnant." I told him on the way back from the movies. (This is on Saturday)

Jason smiles and shake his head. Keeps his eyes on the road. No shock, just completely calm. Why? because why should this month be so different then the past 7 months I thought I was pregnant.

"I'm pretty sure I'm pregnant." I said, as I sipped on a Whiskey Sour at a bar on our street. (Saturday night)

We both smiled and shake our heads. No way, Hosea. We both thought. But just for fun, I said it anyway.

"The baby and I are headed to church," I said smiling a goofy smile and waving goodbye to Jason as I headed off to church. (This is Sunday morning)

He chuckles and rolls his eyes.

"We'll say some prayers for you." I say for good measure.

"The baby and I are going to the gym for a while, we'll be back later...." I call out to him as I lace up my tennis shoes. (This is Sunday afternoon.)

I hear him laugh and say, "You know you're not pregnant, you did this last month." (and every month for the past seven months, but whose's keeping score.

You're probably wondering why, if I thought I was pregnant, did I not go immediately buy a pregnancy test? (or drink a Whiskey Sour?)

Because I really didn't think I was AND I embarrassed the heck out of myself buying 5 sets of pregnancy tests all on different trips to the SAME Wal-greens the month before. I couldn't stop myself. I really, really believed I was.

And I wasn't.

And the girl at the check out counter....She knew I wasn't either. I'm surprised she didn't stop me, pull me to the side and say, "You have to stop this right now."

So by Monday night I had the strangest feeling that even though I was saying I was pregnant and I thought I wasn't pregnant that I might actually really......be pregnant.

I made up my mind I would wait until Jason left in the morning. Fly to Wal-greens, pray to God the same woman wasn't working the counter and get my test! The test would, of course, be negative.

It was positive. 

I rubbed my eyes really hard. Squintted my eyes. It can't be. I never thought. My mind was racing. I couldn't think. I started dialing.....but wait!

It can't go down like this! I can't give up my dream of telling Jason. My beloved Target scenario....

But my fingers wouldn't listen. My pounding heart (that I could hear through my ears) egged them on. And the next thing you know, I hear this.

"Hello?" (Such a lighthearted response.) While my mind was racing, my husband was thinking about what he was going to eat for lunch that day.

"Jason are sitting down?" I say this in one breath.

He laughs, "Well I'm driving"

"I'm pregnant." I say and then I hold my breath.

Silence.

"Huh?" "Did you say you were pregnant?"

"I am."

"How do you know?" At this point he senses that I'm not joking anymore. That I'm not going to say "The baby and I just took our 110th pregnancy test and we are pregnant. ha ha! Just kidding!

"It was positive."

"You had a plus sign?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"I don't know." But really, how could I not be sure a minus is a minus and a plus is well.... a plus.

And after a few moments of wrapping our minds around it..... we laughed. Because that's what we do when we're nervous. 

Really nervous. Happy, really happy and very nervous. 

For the rest of the day we called each other twenty times. Just to make sure that it was true. Just to remind each other that in nine months we were going to have a human being that looks a little like him and a little like me. And for now we were the only ones who knew. 

And that's how it started with our lintel bean. :) 110 pregnancy tests, A few "I'm pregnant"s (who am I'm kidding....many), and a panicky not so perfect or dreamy phone call later. :)

In sickness and health, if he snores, you'll still love him....

When my husband I returned from our honeymoon in Italy, it was a time of true excitement. We were married and settling into our house and things were really looking up for us.

After a week and half out of the country I purposely took a day or two off to get our lives in some kind of order.  I spent our whole first day unpacking our wedding gifts and cleaning the living room of shreds of wrapping paper. Wrapping paper that had been thrown around the room in a "I'm going to unwrap all of our gifts" wedding night frenzy. I have some serious problems....

As the day went on I managed to find almost every shred of paper and a place for every gift. Finding a place for every gift was a miracle and I had to be inventive. Like, under the sofa, concealed under the coffee table, and my favorite -- under the kitchen table stacked in a tubberware box. In our sweet little 900 square foot home, storage is tricky, very tricky. And one day when we have a big home, It will be exciting to use all the cool things we're storing.

By the end of the day, it was finally looking more like our home.

I trusted that with all the hard work I did that day,  I would be exhausted enough to overcome jetlag and I would be back to my American schedule in no time flat.

But of course, as usual, I was wrong.

That night as my eyes drifted off into the lovely R.E.M. state of blissful sleep, my ears where jolted by a loud rattling noise.

Snake? You ask?

Nope.

Chainsaw?

Not ah.

No, the noise that persisted in a rhythmic consistency, was the lovely sound of earthshattering snores.

I gasped.

Jason snores?

I married someone who snores?

How could this be?

You are probably shaking your head. Saying to yourself, "She knew this. How could she not?"

I didn't. I swear.

So the real question is.....how did this happen. And is it that bad?

It is that bad. And I have no idea how it happened.

As I lay there counting sheeping, smacking my husband in the arm, and praying to God this was a one time thing. I ransacked my brain to come up with a solution to the problem. Because with every shove and every sheep and every prayer, there was no improvement.

Solution?

The Couch.

Off to the couch, I went. Dragging my pillow, my blanket, and Murphy. Because she shouldn't have to suffer through this either. Poor thing.

The next day as I was getting ready for work, Jason asked me what my problem was waking him up every five seconds the night before. 

I growled....something that sounded alot like, You SNORE.

Jason stood there shocked, "No I don't."

He didn't believe me. So it sounded a lot like I was crazy. And I was wondering if maybe I was.

But I wasn't because that night it happened again. And the next night and the night after that.

I googled. I was desperate. And do you know what I found?

Women who divorce their husbands over snoring.

Considering we had literally just taken our wedding vows. And even though I was sure snoring wasn't included in the "in sickness and health". I couldn't bring myself to do it.

So I bought some breathe right strips. 

Someone told me about them at the supermarket. Let's face it, I needed a remedy or I would never sleep again. And my back was sad from sleeping on the sofa.

That night I went home with my new solution to the problem.

"You are going to have to put this on your nose." I said, handing him the box of strips.

Jason rolled his eyes. "Carrie, I don't snore." 

I shot him a look like I haven't slept in a week and you better or else.

So we rigged his nose up with a breathe right strip.

And as I drifted off to sleep...all I could hear was him breathing.....

and a whistle that took the place of the snore. Like he was whistling a tune out of his nose.

And I thought, I can deal with a whistle. A whistle instead of a snore is good.

And as I thought that very thought...the whistle burst into a full fledged snore and it was over.

The next day I threw the strips away.

A few days later while at my parents house. I mentioned my lack of sleep and the snoring problem. And just as I had finished telling my dad that I was running out of solutions, he scurried into his room and in minutes produced a giant bag of ear plugs.

I realize now that this was for fear that I might return home.

I went home with my giant bag of those squishy ear plugs they give you in the airport. And decided to give it a try.

It worked for a few days. But the thing about those earplugs is that expand in your ear to insure that no sound gets in.

Great idea, for those people that designed them. But for me, this always happened at three in the morning and it made my ear feel like it was exploding. 

I was running out of options.

And then one day as I was wondering around in Wal-greens. My eyes locked on some plastic wax earplugs. Part of me knew those might work. But I couldn't bring myself to buy them. So many bad memories with those things.

You see, I was that kid with the tubes in her ears that had to wear those earplugs when I went swimming. And it might not have been bad if it were when I was a baby but I wore them until I was almost 12. And if that wasn't bad enough I wore a zoo printed yellow plastic swim cap that made me look like an alien. And might have been cool in the twenties but so not cool in the eighties......sigh.

I shuddered. 

I bought them.

and you know what? They worked.

I may be passed the zoo print swim cap, but I would be lying if I told you I don't feel a twinge of embarrassment jamming those earplugs in my ears every night.

But I know it's worth it. I know it's something I could live with, because I can't trade my husband in. 

Maybe snoring was part of the vows after all. :)

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Several months before summer started, I had high hopes for a garden with all of the fixings. I wanted herbs. I wanted spices and I wanted flowers. What is it about plants that just make me so happy?

I feel like they are my pets. Or my kids. Since I don't have any. I have Murphy. But I don't think she thinks I own her, it's more like she owns me, so that doesn't really count. I guess.

I want to mark my plants height. And that's weird. But they just grow up so fast.

I squeal with delight when they make tomatoes or they make cucumbers. I fuss at them when they try to overcrowd each other. (even weirder)

My mint doesn't want to share a pot with my parsley and my cilantro. 

My cucumbers are trying to kill my tomatoes and vice versa. The tendrils of the cucumber wrap around every stem of my tomato plant and try to choke the very life out of it. My defensive tomato plant tries to block the cucumber's sun.

Can't they all just get along?

Sheesh.

You think I'm weird? My husband is too. Thank God. 

He loves our garden just as much as I do. It's all we talk about. 

(Not really.) Okay maybe really.

Everyday I come home from work, he's watering the garden. That's his job. 

Me?

I sit on the deck and get the update on our plants. I don't sit long because I need to check it out for myself.

"How many tomatos do we have now?" I ask. I don't want to sound like it really matters to me that my tomato plants succeeds in life. But it does.

You see for all the height it has, its just not producing like it should. Like it's a C student when it has such potential to be an A student.

Jason thinks it would have done better if we had made more room for it. Maybe seperated it from the Cucumber plant? Don't even get me started on the Cucumber plant. 

It's taking over the yard. Like it owns the whole garden. It's just not statisfied with the room we gave it. It crawls halfway under our house and I won't be surpised if it makes its way entirely to the front of the house and takes over the garden there. It's a bad influence on my poor tomato plant.

Tsk. Tsk.

And for all of its crazy growing skills, it doesn't make cucumbers. Or at least it didn't until yesterday when I stepped on a giant cucumber with my bare feet and screamed.My friend Elizabeth who was with me, screamed when I screamed. And when my eyes shot down to my feet, I saw it. A gigantic cucumber. 

I beamed with pride. 

My cucumber. A real one. 

Why can't my tomato plant get with the program? 


Maybe it could learn a little something from the cucumber.

And like a bunch of crazy people, Elizabeth and I proceeded to lifted up every cucumber leaf, in search for more. 

"Look at that one!" *Scream*

"OMG, this one!!!"  *Laughter*

"Take my picture with it!!"

I couldn't wait to call Jason.

And just like that. I picked up the phone to tell Jason the good news. There is hope. There are cucumbers. Yes, they must have grown over night, but they are here and they are big. We laughed and we marveled over our plant. "We should frame it." I almost said. But I didn't. 

Thank God.

Who frames a cucumber?

Me. I would. Because I'm so proud.

And because I'm so proud, I'm going to leave you with these pictures.

This is the cucumber I stepped on, screamed, and then hugged it.

Chives in one pot, Mint, Parsley, and Oregano in another, and Thyme, Basal, and  'I can't remember what the other spice is' in another pot. 

Did I mention Indiana Jones from my husband's grooms cake lives in one of the potted plants?

 

Preparing for a vegetable garden. So much exitement, we can hardly stand it. :)

Wait a minute...... 
 

I guess I need to do some work too.....

 Doing his job. :)

 The war between our tomato plant and our cucumber plant.  :(

I missed you, paintbrushes.

After a six month sabbatical, I've finally picked up my paintbrushes again! I can't believe it's been so long. I told Jason a few days ago that I might not even remember how to paint. He said he bets its a lot like riding a bike, or something along those lines. 


It was. 


On Sunday morning, while my man cooked me breakfast, I sat down to finish a painting I started last year. Murphy sat on the table and watched ready to slurp up my paint water when I wasn't looking or pounce on my paintbrush as it flickered across the painting. I got a good bit done, but I may make more adjustments later.


If you want to see the picture I am painting from. Click here.

I'm explaining to Murphy that "no she can not drink my paint water, and no she can not eat my paintbrush. thanks."

Now we're starting to see where I'm going with this.

Some hair, hooray!

Let me know what you think. This painting and other new work will be available on Etsy. I'll post when I get my Etsy store going. 


Also, could someone explain to me why I'm getting double paragraph breaks in between my paragraphs, it's so odd.