Cupcakes with Edible Glitter

I found this edible glitter for a really decent price at a cake decorating store in Houston, Texas when I last visited my aunt. I thought it was a pretty touch. Unfortunately, I was too lazy to make my own icing so the tub stuff lost it's pretty shape too quickly...even before I was able to take a picture!!!

Bees, Ladybugs, and caterpillars.

I made these buggy cupcakes for my mom's friend's family get-together. I had a lot of fun with the colors, especially with the shades used for the caterpillar. The wings of the bees weren't exactly what I pictured when I thought of the project, but I'm learning that my original ideas for decorating usually need to be adjusted. Mom came up with the cute idea for the flower cupcakes.

Painting my bedroom

This truly took a group effort. I am so happy with the outcome. Mom helped with picking up furniture from the store, painting, and other prep stuff, Barry helped with electrical stuff, Erik helped with furniture assembly, and Kim helped with painting. Oh, and the kittens helped by testing out the new comforter. The comforter isn't actually new. Nana, my great-grandmother, made it in 1995. It's beautiful and works well with the new room decor.

Cake Decorating with Mom

My mom and I took cake decorating classes at JoAnne's Craftstore back in August. These are our final projects. I did the "School House," and she did "Bee Happy." Hers was much cuter!

Halloween Cupcakes

I'm getting in to the spirit of Halloween extra early this year. I've got my costume prepared, a place to go on Halloweekend, and I'm already practicing my party foods. Here I've made Tombstone cupcakes (with Mint Milano cookies), spiderweb cupcakes, and mummy head cupcakes. They all need a little adjusting... but that's why I made them early! I've also made brownies with funny creatures on top. These were made by drizzling icing over giant marshmallows then adding candy details. These also need some adjusting.

Anyway, I think I can officially say this now, Happy Holidays friends!

Learning to decorate cupcakes!

I'm just dabbling into the fun world of cupcake decorations. Hoping to someday be very skilled. Scheduled to take cake decorating classes next week!

Owl cupcake. Oreo cookies for eyes, and m&m's for eyes and nose.




I loved making these color swirled cupcakes. Both the cake (which I regret not getting a picture of) and the icing were swirled with pretty rainbow colors.







Watermelon and Strawberry Cupcakes. Both made with vanilla frosting (dyed) and strawberry boxed cake with mini chocolate chips baked in.








Inspired by my school mascot.




Butterfly cupcakes with chocolate butterfly wings.

Most of the important girls in my life all gathered for one beautiful afternoon. Even Anna, our newest VIP made a cameo and she was such a doll that day. We passed her around the table and she let everyone hold her with only a few protests.


Erik jumped off the roof into the pool. This was his second and final jump. He cut his foot on the roof top and bled all over the place. It was a pretty deep cut and he was out of commission for a few days after the injury.


These are the treats I made for the get-together. My second batch of cupcakes ever. The brownie, strawberry, green grape kabob was an idea I tested from the back of the brownie box. I thought they were cute, but nobody touched them.

Two Whitneys

At the end of this school year, I packed up everything in my classroom, and with a heavy heart, left the job that I love with all my heart. The school district that I work for, like other districts in the state, had to lay off 88 of its least senior employees, and I was one of them. I spent three years working on that campus, and it was devastating to lock my classroom door for the final time, knowing that I won't be coming back next year.

As I looked at my empty classroom for the last time, I thought about everything I lost this school year. Besides my job (truly one of the hardest things I have ever gone through), my grandfather died in November, and my loving cat of 18 years (my only sister--since I'm an only child) died during my Spring Break vacation. My cat's name was Whitney.

Spring forward to June 2nd: my best friend, Kim, loyal and thoughtful and everything you need or want in a best friend, sent me a link on edjoin to apply for an open English position at ABC Unified. Had she not sent the link, I may have never even applied. Once I applied, I imagined that many qualified candidates applied and that I might not get a call back for an interview (but fingers were crossed). But I got one today.

The name of the school that called, Whitney High School. It's a grade 7-12 magnet school, and one of the top 100 in the country. When I was a little girl, I had always heard of the school and I tried to picture what kinds of kids could be smart enough to go there, and now that I'm a teacher, I find myself admiring their annual APY scores in the newspaper. Smart kids. Great teachers. I have an interview Monday and my heart is racing and my knees will be sore from praying. I know I'm meant to teach. Hopefully Whitney is the home away from home that I never imagined.

I've got the earrings... not the job.

Inspired by Kim's blog, "Kreative Kompilations," especially by the large-head puppy (lol), I decided to get crafty myself. I looked up Tornado jewelry and found something online that looked similar to this. So I made my own. It was my first attempt. I'm planning to try again... just maybe not today.

Old Man Stranger

A red cross volunteer welcomed me to the snack table after my blood donation yesterday. The 75+ year old, freckled, slow moving man said to me, "It's funny, you look so much like Joy. You see I'm a caricature artist, and your bone structures look just like her. She's a lady that goes to my church. Your nose, your cheeks. Just like her."

As I nibbled on cookies with my one good arm, I asked, and he told me about how he began drawing caricatures when he was in eighth grade and how his passion developed into a career. He works at weddings and celebrity parties in LA. He can draw 20-30 an hour, side view, 15 front. If he had time, he would draw backgrounds too. I told him I had a caricature of my best friend and I drawn by an artist at the OC Fair with the Eiffel Tower in the background. I liked the look on his face each time I asked a question. I could see him revisiting his past as if the snack table suddenly transformed into his own caricature background.

He was a Christian man and a substitute teacher during parts of his life. He had even subbed at the school where I work (years ago, though).

Yesterday was a long, upsetting day, but this stranger slowed me down and let me absorb some of the goodness in the world. He was one of the only smiles I saw all day.

Well I have Lost You

Because I was reminded of this line of poetry today...



Well I Have Lost You by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly;
In my own way, and with my full consent.
Say what you will, kings in a tumbrel rarely
Went to their deaths more proud than this one went.
Some nights of apprehension and hot weeping
I will confess; but that's permitted me;
Day dried my eyes; I was not one for keeping
Rubbed in a cage a wing that would be free.
If I had loved you less or played you slyly
I might have held you for a summer more,
But at the cost of words I value highly,
And no such summer as the one before.
Should I outlive this anguish—and men do—
I shall have only good to say of you.

You're the best friend, that I've ever had.

Ooo. you make me live
whatever this world can give to me
It's you, you're all I see
Ooo, you make me live now, honey
Ooo, you make me live
You're the best friend
that I ever had
I've been with you such a long time
You're my sunshine
And I want you to know
That my feelings are true
I really love you
You're my best friend

My Sadies Date, 4 Years Running

Last weekend I took Erik to the Sadie Hawkins dance as my date and co-chaperon. He's been my date to Sadies four times in our history together: 2001, 2002 (our junior and senior year of high school), 2009, and 2010 (my first two years of teaching). At last year's Sadies he noticed that a couple kids on the dance floor were kicking something around on the dance floor. He went over to pick it up and discovered a small clear baggy with a white powdery substance in it. My boyfriend: DEA. This year was a lot less intense. It was held at K1 Speedway instead of Knott's Berry Farm. Erik got to ride the go-karts for free once before the dance started and I'm pretty sure he got the fastest racing time all night. My boyfriend: Speed-racer.

All in all we had a good time. It's funny to chaperon kids at a high school dance. Compared to the adult world, high school dances are very lame.

That's all I've got.

The Elephant in the Room

I received a layoff notice a few weeks ago and my heart is broken. I love my job. I love teaching my subject and I love my students like they're my own children. I am anxiously looking forward to the graduation ceremony of my seniors this year (the same kids that were my juniors last year), but dreading the final day of the job I was born to do.

I'm not the only one that received a layoff notice. It's the elephant in the room. I hate how people are treating me differently at work. Instead of getting a cheerful, "Hey, Lauren, how you doin'?" in the teacher's lounge, they've begun to touch me on the shoulder and say, GRIMLY, "How are you these days?" I realized today that I AM the elephant in the room and I HATE HATE HATE it.

My mom said that when layoffs happen, people feel like someone's died and that they can't help sharing their remorse. I know that they're trying to be thoughtful and concerned, but I just don't want to be reminded of my pending unemployment when I'm still trying to do a good job at the job I have right now.

Save the black wreaths for another occasion. I'm terribly sad, but I'm desperately seeking the open window, and I know it's somewhere to be found.

Whitney

I spent all day with my cat by my side. She's seventeen years old and she's very sick. I have tears in my eyes as I write this because I know our time together is limited. What follows are the things that I have been thinking about these past few weeks.

Whitney has been my very best friend since I was an eight-year old girl that desperately wanted something to love and to call her own. I begged my mom, "Please, please, please." She was concerned about bringing a pet into our home that I was clearly allergic to. The first time I touched a cat I was three years old and I remember my neck itching and my eyes puffing over. I was swollen and sneezy and itchy and miserable. But I was one convincing eight year old that fell in love with a spunky little cat named Minnie. I held the black kitten in my hand and pulled her close to my nose and took a giant sniff and I proclaimed, "See, Mom, I'm not allergic." And that night we took her home.

I wanted to cuddle and pet her so badly that night. She wanted to tour the new abode. I remember that she just kept circling the rooms and sniffing things and my mom said, "Just let her do what she needs to do."

The next morning I had to go to school. It was the longest day of my life. I thought about her every second of the day. I was so scared that she would get in to something and that she might get hurt. But when I came home, I discovered, like Mom had promised, that everything was fine.

The debate about what to name this black sweetie went on for two weeks. Minnie just wouldn't do. My aunt Lisa helped. We liked Whitney, yes, named after Whitney Houston, but we also liked Aretha. Mom wouldn't even consider a name that wasn't human-sounding. No Whiskers.

Whitney soon picked me to be her person. I liked being her person because she was my cat.

I taught her a trick, or maybe she taught me a trick. When I ran out of the room and hid behind a wall she would follow after me and I thought that was so sweet. I'd run around from the hall to the family room and say, "Presenting, WHITNEY!" and she'd come running around the corner on cue.

At Christmas she'd climb up the trunk of our Christmas tree and any time I tried to do my homework she'd climb up to the table, sit on my paper and tap my pencil with her paw making it impossible to write. She's a sucker for pencils, and string, and in her younger years, laser pointers. She used to be a mighty bird hunter. She'd sit in the big open window and chatter her teeth. And on my birthday she does the birthday dance and sings to me. (Mom assists with that annual performance.)

Whitney loves my hairdryer and my hairbrush. As soon as I turn it on, she gallops into my room and wants to rub her cheeks on my hairbrush. I once bought her her own brush, a people brush just like mine, but she didn't like it. She likes my brush.

After our beloved first tabby passed away when Whitney was 10, we introduced a new kitten into the house. His name was Jake and he was a tiny puff of grey cuteness. Whitney hissed at him a few times when we first brought him home, but they would soon become friends. He really looked up to her and treated her like his sister, and I think they've made great companions since we can't be home all the time.

In her prime, Whitney weighed 17 pounds. While Jake has grown to be just as big as Whitney, Whitney has lost more than half of that weight and gets cold more easily. It's been a long winter. She sleeps on her heating pad and when she stays in my room at night, she rustles her way under the covers. She makes a little nest in between my curled up body and the body pillow and it makes it hard to sleep because I'm half awake the entire night making sure I don't smother her. Because her appetite is low, she hasn't eaten much. Little tufts of hair are falling out in clumps, and I can feel her spine when I pet her. She looks so tiny next Jake. And she is.

I don't know how to cope with the idea of losing a friend that has meant so much to me for the last 17 years. There is little comfort to find in the death of any one, or any cat that I've loved. I hate change, and I hate death. I HATE death. I do. I hate it. And I wonder if I'll ever be able to face it head strong with confidence in believing that the end of a life is okay if it's been well lived. I just can't be sure. What I am sure of is that I loved Whitney and my mom loves Whitney as much as we possibly can and that Whitney knows we love her. And for that reason alone, Whitney has had a good life.

Here's to coping with a few painful weeks to follow and to pain that is so strong simply because I loved so much.

She will be loved

I was at lunch today with two of my very best girls and while talking over french-fries and cheeseburgers, I could hear a song by Maroon Five playing. Like many songs, this one reminds me of a happy time in my life when I was 20 or 21 when I met someone that would become a very good friend of mine. She loved Maroon Five.

After five years of friendship, she got married to her long-time boyfriend. I was honored to be her maid of honor in the wedding. Today she lives in Texas with her military husband, and in three months she'll be living half way across the world in a beautiful Italian city, further away from me than she's ever been before. I know she's going to love it. She's going to see things I'll only ever wish I had seen and while I'll spend much of my time missing her, I'll spend the rest of that time feeling green-eyed that she's going to be so experienced in European culture and life.

I'm still feeling the pain of growing up. I always wanted to be an adult and do adult things and have adult responsibilities, but now that the time is here, I realize that this transformation involves hard stuff too, like learning to cope with the fact that people, the same people you've loved for so many years, move away to begin their adult lives. And I hate that kind of change.

I wonder if time and space will pull us apart, and I hate the wondering part as much as I hate the actual possibility of it happening.

To my beautiful friend, I know you're going to be so happy in your new home. Do know that I love you so so so much and that no matter how much time or space separates us, you will always be loved.

Pink Clouds and Funny Fruits

"I'd like to just get one of those pink clouds and put you in it and push you around."

My students are ooo-ing and aww-ing their way through chapters five, six, and seven of The Great Gatsby. After reading and LOVING Of Mice and Men they moaned, "Miss Allen, why do you like this book? It's not half as good as Of Mice and Men!" I know it's rough having to read four chapters about characteres that seemingly aren't connected, but I promised they would like it, and Fitzgerald is finally delivering.

While the kids are busy uncovering the details of the unfolding love triangle and the surprising and tragic death of one character, I'm busy reveling in the beauty of Fitzgerald's language. Character Jordan Baker says in chapter seven, "I love New York on summer afternoons when every one's away. There's something very sensuous about it - overripe, as if all sorts of funny fruits were going to fall into your hands." It makes me long for my own version of sensuous summer afternoons in southern California when a quiet nap in the sun feels like a dip into a pool of well earned happiness and relaxation. Oh, how I long.

Katie

A beautiful friend of mine carries on a sentimental blog record of the beauties and struggles in her life. Her eloquent words have inspired me to write, or rather, blog about the things in my own life that I think are most important. Thank you for your inspiration, Katie, a first-time mother as of this morning. Congratulations, and thank you for being a beautiful face and a caring soul in my life. All my love.