Cake Decorating Week - Days 4, 5, 6, & 7

I haven't had much time for posting, so I'm going to bundle all into one post.

Day 4 : I baked 12 cupcakes and 1 9" round. I also frosted the cupcakes with blue frosting.

Day 5: I only had time to work on the cupcakes a little bit. I covered half of each cupcake with graham cracker crumbs.

Day 6: I put a Teddy Graham on a square of Fruit Roll-Up and put those on each cupcake on top of the graham cracker crumbs.

Day 7: I put little umbrellas in each cupcake. They became little beach cupcakes; a perfect summer treat. (Please forgive the bad pictures...)

I also pulled the round cake out of the freezer and worked on it. I cut it in half, and then stacked the halves to make a half-round cake. I did the crumb coat, froze it, and then did the frosting coat and froze. I did that in purple. Then I did the rest of the frosting in a darker purple and pink. I made a half-birthday cake for a little girl in our ward. Earlier in the week, I called a member of the Primary Presidency and asked if any kids in our ward had birthdays the last week of December so that I could do a half-birthday cake. There was one lucky little girl who did. It was fun decorating the cake, and just as I was finishing, I felt like a was sort of getting the hang of things.

Summary of Cake Decorating Week:

I had fun! It was a lot of work, though. And a bit frustrating at times, especially because I don't have a lot of the right tools. The frosting kit I have has to pros and cons, so I learned a lot working with it. I think it would be great to get better at working with the frosting, as well as learning to make my own cakes and frosting from scratch. I think there's a lot more that I can learn from this. And I think, with a lot of practice, I could get a lot better at it.

Cake Decorating Week - Days 2 & 3

On Tuesday, I spent forever trying to get the cake decorated. I did the crumb coat at one time, then much later I was able to do the top coat of frosting.

This is after the top coat of frosting. I think I did pretty good for my first time. There was hardly any crumbs in it.

I was finally able to decorate the cake after the kids went to bed. They had requested a rainbow cake, so that's what I decided to do. I used a new little decorating kit that Jason, my brother, got me for Christmas. I ran into a few problems, but was able to work past them. I'm  not really good at a lot of the decorating techniques because I haven't practiced them enough, so I was a bit slow and everything was pretty uneven. The kit comes with 4 bottles that you attach the tips to, but that led to a few problems because I was using 7 colors. What I tried doing was starting with the red, then I mixed yellow dye to make it orange. The problem is that the bottles are accordion shaped so that they are easy to squeeze, but that means all the dye and frosting get stuck in the folds. It definitely made the job a bit more difficult than if I'd used icing bags, but that's okay. It still came out pretty cute. (I haven't put Photoshop back on my computer yet, and I'm too lazy to do it now.)

This morning, I was woken up by the kids and Annabelle was asking for her hands to be washed. It took a minute to sink in, but then I asked her why she needed her hands washed and she told me, "From the frosting." So I ran into the kitchen and looked in the fridge, where we'd stored the cake so the frosting didn't melt, and the cake now looked like this.

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It still tastes good, and I was able to salvage enough (after she got to it again on the counter) to share with the kids' friends. Besides eating cake, I didn't do anything for cake decorating today because I was just too busy.

Cake Decorating Week - Day 1

I got a big bucket of butter-cream frosting on Thursday at a Relief Society activity, so this week is Cake Decorating week! I bought a bunch of cake mixes at the store today. And I baked a chocolate cake and got it into the freezer, but that's as far as I got with all the activity and stuff going on in my house.

Yoga Week - Days 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, & 7

Although I tried getting up early enough to do yoga everyday, Annabelle has beat me to it every day. And though I constantly looked for opportunities throughout the day, they never came.

And today's Sunday, so I won't be doing any yoga today.

Summary of Yoga Week:
I didn't do any yoga at all this week. But I'm actually feeling relieved that it's over. It was stressful constantly trying to find a way to do the yoga. I was always trying to find ways to get my kids to sleep early or take naps or stay occupied just so I could do yoga. And when I would think I finally had the chance, something would happen so I couldn't do it. So I'm glad Yoga Week is done because it just doesn't fit in my life right now.

Yoga Week - Day 1

This week is going to be Yoga Week. I didn't decide that until late, though, so I didn't have the chance to do yoga today. I was originally planning on doing gardening, but realized I didn't have the money for soil and plants right now. I'm going to have to do yoga in the mornings before the kids wake up because they get really crazy if I do it when they are around.

Viola Week - Days 4, 5, & 6

The past couple days, I didn't really have time to do anything for Viola Week, nor did I really know what to do. Last night, I did start looking up more ideas for slipping pegs.

So today, I pulled my viola out and tried one of the ideas. I used some fine sandpaper to roughen out the areas that were all smooth and shiny on the peg. That seemed to be working, so I went to the piano and started trying to tune the string. I was tightening and tuning, when suddenly, there was a huge SNAP! And my bridge had broken in half...

Now that my heart has mostly stopped racing (it was really loud and scary), I can think about what might have happened. I haven't really touched my viola in several years, so the strings and everything are old and haven't been maintained. I think that the strings were just so old that they couldn't get to the right note without being over tightened. I'm obviously not a viola expert, so I don't know if that's true, but it's my theory.

While I have another bridge, I don't have anymore strings and I don't know how to replace a bridge or strings. So Viola Week has come to an end.

Summary of Viola Week:
I feel like I didn't really get to do anything. I'm excited that I have an idea of how to tune my instrument, but I never got to play. So I think I will try Viola Week in the future, when we can afford to have it repaired.

Viola Week - Day 3

Today, we walked to a music store to ask about fixing a peg that slips. We were told we need "peg dope."
It costs $13.95, but we are flat-broke right now, so I have to wait to get it. I'm not sure what I'm going to do tomorrow... maybe research another DIY way to fix the peg.

Viola Week - Day 2

Well, I tried putting candle wax on the peg for my "A" string to keep it from slipping, but it didn't work. I didn't have the chance to try it out until just now, so it's too late to really try anything else. I think I'm going to look up a music store in the area that we can take it to and I'll ask someone there if they know how to fix it.

Viola Week - Day 1

So, today is the beginning of viola week. Today, I pulled out my viola and tried to get in tune. It's really sad, but I never knew how to tune my instrument by myself. I think part of it's because I am not naturally able to do things "by ear" and that was how everyone tuned their instruments in my high school orchestra. I never had a tuner and I don't remember a piano that we could use. So I always thought I was just unable to tune my own instrument. It's been 9 years since I was in orchestra and I've only pulled my viola out a very few times in those 9 years. Whenever I did, I couldn't seem to figure out how to tune my instrument. Today, I was much more determined to actually do it. I, mostly, succeeded. My "A" string is having some trouble; at first I thought it was the actual string, but I realized that the peg is just slipping. I found a tip online to help loose pegs, but I didn't have time to try it before Charlie woke up. It felt great tuning those other strings, though. I feel like I'm finally making steps toward something I should have learned more than 10 years ago. My poor viola has been through a lot in the past 9 years, including 5 moves in 3 different states. All of that seems to have been a little hard on the viola; one of the seams looks like it's starting to separate and the varnish is cracked a little bit, but I don't think it's a huge deal because it seemed to work just fine today. Tomorrow I will do more inspecting and see if I can get that peg to stay in place as well.

Running Week - Day 7

We walked to and from church today, but I wasn't going to do more than that because it's Sunday.

Summary of Running Week:
Running Week totally did not work. A big part of that was due to my legs just not being physically up to it. I don't have the necessary strength in my leg muscles and my bones aren't able to handle that much shock or weight. Another thing that kept me from really trying again was a major attack of hives that swelled my ear to twice its normal size; I was taking Benadryl nearly every 4 hours for 2 days, and then I needed time to heal up. I think I want to have a Running Week 2 later, after I've had time to keep walking and do some other exercising.

Running Week - Day 6

My kids woke up before my alarm even went off, so I wasn't able to run today. We didn't even end up walking anywhere today because it was so hot.

Running Week - Days 3, 4, & 5

On Tuesday, I got this crazy rash that got worse and worse over Wednesday. It slowly started getting better yesterday, but I'm still super itchy. So running has not been on my mind the past few days. I'll probably be walking to the park today, but that's the extent of it until this rash isn't so bad.

Running Week - Day 2

I tried running this morning. Apparently, my bones aren't ready for that kind of thing. I was trying to do the Couch to 5k, so I started with 5 minutes of brisk walking and then tried alternating 60 seconds of running with 90 seconds of walking. As soon as I started running, my left tibia was protesting. It was so bad that I was limp-running. I tried it a couple more times, but it was just too much, so I walked the whole way home. I was out for 20 minutes, though, so I know that was good. I guess I'm just going to have to walk more and build up what my leg can handle.

Running Week - Day 1

I usually decide what the next week is going to be on Sunday night. Last night, I was thinking of doing Gardening Week, but I realized this morning that we can currently fund that project, so I had to change. I decided on Running Week. 

So I didn't do any running today because I'm planning on doing it in the mornings before the kids are up. It's okay, though, because I'm going to do the Couch to 5k, and you only run 3 days of the week. So today, I just found the routine and pinned it to the start screen of my phone as well as two pages with recommended before- and after-run stretches.

I'm a little bit scared to do running because I haven't really done any running since my surgeries and I don't know how my legs are going to take this. I'm just going to keep my fingers crossed and try my best. I'm excited, though, because I used to love running and I've been wanting to pick it back up for years.

Piano Week - Days 5, 6, & 7

I didn't play any piano the past 3 days! I had a migraine on Friday, so I didn't really feel up to playing then. And we've hardly even been home yesterday or today, so I didn't have time to play. It's kind of sad because I enjoy playing.

Summary of Piano Week:
I had fun! I loved pulling out my old books and playing again. It wasn't as difficult to find time to practice as Singing Week because I only really needed Charlie asleep. And I didn't feel as self-conscious about having people hear me practice. I think I will try keeping the keyboard out and still try to practice somewhat regularly.