1. Really gray hairs?? You choose to stick out everywhere today. Did you grow overnight??
2. Aside from the crazy gray hairs, I still see that adventurous teenager in the mirror.
3. Chocolate cake is going to taste so good tonight.
We have been really busy here in the VanHoose house. After my AWESOME trip to Vegas with my parents and sisters (more on that to come) our house was hit by a bomb and each of us fell prey to a flu-like illness. I blame someone on my airplane. I don't know who they are but thanks to you we all went through a zombie like period. I guess I should have played Thriller afterall.
My birthday dinner was not fancy and out on the town as Isaac had hoped. Since he was still running a fever we decided to save society from our illness and stay in for dinner. Since we decided to stay in, and we had all been sick, I decided comfort food was on the menu. It really doesn't look like much but I'm telling you, it melts your sorrows away and makes you think that you got a little magic dust sprinkled on your head and are a kid again.
I recently learned roses in my cake decorating class and was able to try that out on my cake. Since I normally make white or strawberry for class, we went all chocolate here. The cake was from a box but then I added some extra flour, sugar, vanilla, almond flavoring, instant coffee and chocolate chips to make it that much more decadent. Not to mention the chocolate butter cream frosting. A long time favorite is the "perfectly chocolate chocolate frosting" that is on the side of the Hershey's box. If you are ever looking for a great cake and icing, this is an easy go to recipe. I modified the icing recipe slightly as I used 2 sticks of softened butter and instead of melting it and adding the cocoa to it, I just creamed it and doubled the cocoa. I then alternated back and forth between powdered sugar and milk until I got the desired richness. I think all in all it was about 2/3 a cup of milk and 4 cups of powdered sugar.
The roses are just some leftover buttercream that I had in my freezer...seems that is becoming a staple in my freezer!
My 2 sisters have contributed a lot to my 30th birthday. My older sister asked me while we sipped on white wine spritzers in Vegas, "so, do you have any resolutions for your next 30 years? Any deep thoughts?" A great question and one which you would think would spawn an awesome conversation. I, unfortunately, had not thought that far ahead so I think my response was something like, "uh, um, nope. Not sure."
Well, I have had a 4 hour plane ride and 2 hour car ride to think and I came up with a few.
1. Floss more if not every day. Seriously, you only have one set of teeth and considering how I like to eat, life will be come boring and full of oatmeal if I loose all my teeth!
2. Get outside more. I have always loved flowers and gardening. Time to get those books out and further my education...outside with a lot of sunscreen on.
3. Give more than I get. This should be easy but is so hard. I look around and see just how blessed I am; wonderful family, a healthy baby, parents who are a big part of my life, in laws who actually like me, a husband who tries so hard to make me smile, a wonderful home, an education, I can keep going! But if I look beyond my house there is a world out there hurting and I want to do a lot more about it than just write about doing something about it.
4. Laugh out loud every day. I think this will be my favorite :)
5. Save for travel. I don't want money to be the reason why I miss any family milestones.
6. Keep learning. My Hero Mrs. Cain always said, "if you aren't learning anything, you must be dead. There isn't a day that goes by that you shouldn't learn something." Not only do I want to learn, but I want to remember what I have learned too.
7. Bake, cook and clean. The first 2 are easy. The last one, not so much.
And then there is my younger sister. She so perfectly reminded me that though I am not in a new decade of my life, there are some perks to being a grown up. You can eat cake and ice cream for dinner any time you want and no one is going to tell you not to.
And that is exactly what I ate last night. :) Take that gray hairs.
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