Making birthday cake

So my child turn 3 last week and I decided to be a good mom and make the birthday cake from scratch. Since there would be 2 parties, one at the daycare and one at a playground with close friends, I had to make 2 of them. In order to make a cake, I found this little book with ideas for kids birthday parties and I picked the one that looked more fun and easy, "The Mountain candy cake", which was a cake covered in gum balls, very colorful and fun! So I went to a specialty store and bought all the tools you need to decorate a cake, a big cake pan and lots of sugar, eggs, flour, butter sticks and lot and lots of icing!
So on her birthday I made the cake for the daycare. I made it with whole grain flour which was a big mistake as the cake didn't raise, was very heavy and was not white. I followed the recipe for the icing and didn't come out sticky at all so I couldn't do the decoration like the picture on the book. And then I came up with my version of the cake. My child wanted a Diego cake and not a candy mountain, so I made the Diego cake with some gum balls. Ta-taaa, here it is:



Kids at daycare called it "Diego party" instead of Birthday Party :) Not bad as a first cake! Now I had to make another cake for more people and some of them adults, so the quality had to be better. So my husband and I decided to make it with layer of chocolate and vanilla. He made the chocolate layer and I made the vanilla one. Then we made 2 big batches of icing to cover all these layers and then we had to make the decoration, of course with Diego again! After all this, I had the second cake made from scratch and look like this:



At the playground, there were a lot of other birthdays going on but they declared our cake "the hugest cake of the day"!
So, I did check one more thing off the list of the things to be a mom, - Able to make birthday cake from scratch!

Dating...How?When?Where???

So, I've been married for a while now and as you might guess, I'm not in touch with the "market" out there. But I have a friend that is not married and is looking to get into my side of fence. But how can you do that now days?

1- Quick Introduction
is the case when someone takes someone by hand and tells : Jenn this is Ben, Ben this is Jenn. Jenn has 1-2-3 good things and Ben has 1-2-3 good things. Ben and Jenn say :OH! Interesting! And then the person leaves and Ben and Jenn are supposed to work things out themselves
2- Long Introduction
is the case when someone tells to Jenn everything she wants to know about Ben plus some good feedback about the fact that Ben is one of the bachelors that all the girls are after. This person tells to Ben as well everything he wants to know about Jenn and also mentions the fact that there is another guy that is trying to get close to her. After this both Ben and Jenn want to meet and this person gives them the phone numbers and Ben calls first and so on...
3- Blind date
Someone tells to Ben that knows this girl called Jenn and thinks that it might work between them. Ben asks this person to check if Jenn wants to meet him. Jenn says: "Oh what the heck, ok!" and they go out for a coffee or a bier and goes from there.
4- Online dating
Where people can pretend they are someone else, chat, call and then meet.
5- Family findings
When someone related to you comes to you or your parents and says that has met this person that fulfills all the condition the family is looking for out of the future in laws and after some questions they decide if the girl and boy should meet, how and where and when.

Depending on your personality, number of limits and conditions you put, urgency and family pressure one of these works better than the other. So I made the mistake number 3 with my friend and got stuck into getting a "No" from her. So she actually didn't even want to go and meet the guy for a coffee while he was ok. I got so confused and shocked and a little angry with the fact that she actually wanted to know much more about the guy before she mets him and she wanted this info from me. So I was supposed to get all the answers from the guy, get to her and maybe she would accept to go and have a coffee with the guy and find out on her own most of those questions!! I thought this was just terrible! But another thing I learned is that my friend is geographically limited and the country from where the person is is very important to her. The number one on the list is the country where we are born. Guys from other countries were in the list only if she would fall in love with them by herself... right, I forgot one of the options:

6- Fall in love
is the case when two people fall in love without any external input

I can not believe that a single person would not want to go to meet someone that a friend is recommending. This because I know she is totally against on-line dating and the chance that she will fall in love is not high in my point of view. What makes me angry from all this is that at this point she does not evaluate my opinion, the fact that I think that guy might be right for her is not good enough. BUT, if she would like the guy and I would talk bad about him, pointing out his bad sides and I would say that "I don't think this would work!", she would totally listen to me and maybe give up to the guy!!!
So ....
WHEN
do we listen to other peoples opinions and when do we stop listening to them and stick to our own ?
HOW
are we suppose to meet new people if personality wise we are not very outgoing and the wall of conditions is thick?
WHERE
are we expecting the introductions to come from when friends and family are saturated in their connections?

I guess the first thing should be to have an open mind. I like to think that I have an open mind...maybe that is the one that married me when the pressure from family was at the peek ... not that this is the most important thing you will do on your life... ohhhhhh nooooooooo... but is one of them.

Rock on

Last night I was on my first live concert. And what a concert I picked: SCORPIONS in Toronto!!
Now I know that people 27 and younger have no idea probably who Scorpions are. You have to tell them about the song with the whistle (Wind of change) or Hurricane and maybe will ring a bell to them. But for me, they are one of the favorite bands that have contributed on my growth as a person. Can't say I know all of their songs. I am mostly into ballads and they do have some really nice ones.
So last night they sang some of their new songs and to tell the truth I did like "Humanity". Pretty impressive to like a song that you hear for the first time on a noisy live concert. I guess if I hear it from a studio recording I will like it a lot. And here and there they had some of their classic songs. There were people that didn't sit for a second (unfortunately the ones ahead of me so I had to stand up all the time as well) and they sang all the time because they knew every word of every song!!! Pretty amazing considering that they had the biker looking with a big bier belly!!
It was a lot of nostalgia in their old songs for me. I remember, during my first year of high school, there was this guy that finally took the courage to tell me he loved me (the first time someone told he loved me face to face) and because I was so naive and scared like a mouse I told him not to talk to me anymore. Like a gentleman, up to this day he hasn't spoken a word to me! But he was friend with my friends. I used to exchange a lot of books with my friends and one day I found at the end of one book two songs of Scorpions, written by hand, very nicely. Was "Holiday" and "Still loving you". None of my friends knew English that well or had any interest on writing the lyrics of these songs to my book, so I have a very good feeling was him! To be honest, he touched my heart in a secret place with that! My friends tell me that he has become kind of weird but in my books he is fine. If I have a chance to talk to him again, I would say "Sorry for any pain I have ever caused you! I didn't mean it, just was scared and didn't know better!"
Just in time for this exiting first concert, BlogSpot has introduced this new feature to add personal videos. I am adding this very bad quality of video I got from the concert with my cell phone (no cameras allowed). Those guys can still sing and rock the stage! The drummer was really awesome and he kept the show for about 10 minutes with some drum tricks! The only disappointment was that they didn't sing "Woman", maybe my personal favorite song. My ears still beep, I guess I have damaged them for good! My throat is itchy and my legs hurt... Oh well, was all worth it :)

300 and some

So I made it watch the movie "300".At the beginning I didn't want to as I was told there would be disturbing scenes with children being sacrificed and lots of people being killed. But then I took the courage and I watch it from beginning to end. And it is a disturbing movie, lots of killing, blood, angry men and some almost to very naked women. I was comparing it with "Passion of Christ" and I think this one brings the bar higher. There were a lot of discussions when that movie came out but nothing about this one. Is our sensitivity changed so much that we accept anything shown on TV, any shade of blood sprayed right on the camera, any head cut flying in the air and anything someone called director and photographer decide to put on our face?
What was wrong with the old war movies, where there was a lot more than just the killing in the 120 minutes of the picture? It used to be a lot more attention to the story and the message and some combat for action. Now the attention is to the combat and in between, while they eat an apple for snack, there are some words just to connect the battle that just finished with the next one.
Gerard Butler is a dreamy guy! I really liked him at "Dear Franky". He is hot here as well, also in a good physic (so were the other 299 guys behind him) but the old Greek hair style is just ridiculous on him. In this movie he shows it almost all, except his "package". I guess that is the thing that makes the girls watch this movie when dragged by thier men to the theater or rent it to Blockbuster.
In all I was not very impressed and I don't think I will watch it again, once is enough. Also, I think, for the next year pride parade, there will be a lot of guys dressed up like the big Persian guy that was under the impression he was God. He was a perfect Drag Queen.

Liveaboard

This marine flag means:

L - you should stop, I have something important to communicate

My manager of 1 year just quit yesterday for one of the best top 5 reasons to quit: He has decided to take a 2 year trip on Central America's waters on a boat with his wife!

P - the Blue Peter - all aboard, vessel is about to proceed sea. (At sea) your lights are out or burning badly

He has been a lot around, traveled in all the possible ways (airplane, car, bicycle, rock mounting, boat) and he is an inspiration for life enjoyment. He is the kind of guy that has done well on carrier, has a wife that loves him and he is in love with, has taken all the chances life has given to him, doesn't follow rules out of his own and he doesn't have children. For 2 years before becoming my boss, he has been representing the company in our office in India, managing a group of developers. Then that office closed and he came back to Toronto to spend one cold winter, just like before. That made him think that "It doesn't have to be like this!"

D - keep clear of me, I am manoevering with difficulty

He had a really hard time with the cold while all the time he was talking about the hot weather of India. And then in February he took a trip down on Mexico to visit some uncle of his wife that lived there and seems like that was the trip that changed his mind for good.

S - my engines are going full speed astern

He sold his house for more than he was expecting and instead of buying a new one, he will sell his old boat and buy a new one of those! His wife and him are planning to go to Florida, the best market for boats, and buy a boat there. Florida is the best market for boats because a lot of people start their trips up north and by the time they arrive to Florida, their wives have given them 2 options: "The boat or Me!", so they sell the boats.... or their wives, whichever makes a better deal.

X - stop carrying out your intentions and watch for my signals



I am really jealous! I am really jealous!

W - I require medical assistance

I really need to find the reason why I do not do things like that in my life?! I like adventures, I like traveling, I do not like Toronto's winter and I do like to learn Spanish in Cuba. So I do like to do all these things and I'm not. Trying to find whom to blame....

B - I am taking on or discharging explosives

The biggest adventure I have done in my life is to leave home and move to Toronto at 27. I loved it and I think I did a good thing to move here. But why did I get married here? I shouldn't have gotten married, I should have continued to follow adventures that my heart would have told me to. And not just that, but I married also someone that doesn't like adventures ... I mean the kind that I like because, believe you me, he does like some other kinds! And then there was the kid, don't get me wrong, I love my kid to death, but I think it is hard to take adventures of any kind with a kid that is still on diapers. So it seems like I have made all the possible choices to disable myself from taking adventures and live on the edge. I guess I am the one to blame.

I - I am altering my course to port


Well, I am sorry he is leaving as he was a good boss, a nice guy and things were going fine since he took this job. I wish him all the fun and hope he doesn't meet any pirates out there. As per us here, we will have to find a nice gift for him so he can remember us in the middle of the blue, and a new boss as good as him.

substitute 1;

Getting anal (ogy)

Have you heard the expression " Groceries shopping is the foreplay of the cooking". So someone asked me: What does that make the eating?

In my rhythm of life, I do groceries once a week but I cook every day. So this means that one foreplay can turn me on for all the week. Actually I do have some problems with that. In order to keep my cooking ON all the week, I do use other stuff as well, like research recipes on internet or read cooking books or watch Food TV. Plus, to cook I do not buy everything on one groceries trip. I do have already at home some of the ingredients and spices required from the recipe and I don't need to buy them EVERY time! All these things between the foreplay and the cooking, give texture, taste, color and smell to the last result of cooking.
On the other side, there are people that are called professional cooks and they have other people that do groceries for them and other people that eat what they cook. All they do is cooking without foreplay and they do not eat it.
If the analogy above is true, then people that foreplay must be good sales people and people that use the foreplay must be really good cooks!
So to go back to the question, what does this makes eating? To recap: we need foreplay=groceries, we use some "home" ingredients=spices, we have some recipes to follow=TV and DVDs, we cook=yeah! and then ....we eat it=?!
I guess in the example of the professionals, eating is "tell your buddies" about it , yeah! Make those money worth it so they can be jealous of you. But what do you call the people that read the menu of the restaurant from outside and then decide to get in or not although there was a professional that cooked? I guess they can be 1- priests or 2- been 20 years to prison and forgot how the food tastes or 3-they are working hard on becoming cooks on their own.
In the example of non professionals, eating should be 1-"Got to go" or 2- "I'm really thirsty" or 3- smoking or 4- go to sleep or.... YES! I think that's it:
If groceries shopping is the foreplay of cooking, eating is the foreplay of sleeping!

Talking to people

So, there is about a year that I meet this guy in meetings at work. I know he is German and he has a very German personality as well, which means, he takes things seriously, hard to make him laugh, when talks about work he puts too much heart into it. Anyway, today I found out he is from East Germany, or as he said with a smile, "I'm a communist". I had never meet a communist German before in my life!! I thought so, but looks like I knew one for a year! I mean, I have seen them on TV hitting down that big wall but never actually digested the thought that communists can be even German! Was funny as he mentioned that he did some kind of martial arts on his army training, reminding me that I did take some military training at school as well, just not martial arts, was more of target shooting with old guns. He thought I was Greek so I had to explain to him I am a communist as well, and maybe more than him. Not sure if he took that as a challenge as his smile somehow fainted and he became a thinker, don't know what he was thinking tho'. Yep, this is another thing hard to understand from a German!
And, since German touched my brain and since I like to pretend that I know a little German and since the best way for me to learn a language is from a song (sorry for all the chain created with "and" here), I decided to go and find the lyrics of the only German song I know and like, 99 Luftballons. Actually, I know also another song that Benny Hill sings "Ich habe ein schone rose..." but that doesn't count....and then there are a couple of songs from Falco like "Rock me Amadeus" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ya_k3j1kxXg or "Jeanny" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBW2ZO8Vrac, although, on a second thought, I think he is Austrian.
Here the lyrics of the song in German and English. Enjoy it!



99 Luftballons
NENA
Text: Carlo Karges
Musik: J. U. Fahrenkrog-Petersen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN3itLN57R4

Hast du etwas Zeit für mich Dann singe ich ein Lied für dich Von 99 Luftballons Auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont Denkst du vielleicht g'rad an mich Dann singe ich ein Lied für dich Von 99 Luftballons Und dass so was von so was kommt 99 Luftballons Auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont Hielt man für Ufos aus dem All Darum schickte ein General 'ne Fliegerstaffel hinterher Alarm zu geben, wenn es so wär Dabei war'n da am Horizont Nur 99 Luftballons 99 Düsenjäger Jeder war ein großer Krieger Hielten sich für Captain Kirk Das gab ein großes Feuerwerk Die Nachbarn haben nichts gerafft Und fühlten sich gleich angemacht Dabei schoss man am Horizont Auf 99 Luftballons 99 Kriegsminister - Streichholz und Benzinkanister - Hielten sich für schlaue Leute Witterten schon fette Beute Riefen Krieg und wollten Macht Mann, wer hätte das gedacht Dass es einmal soweit kommt Wegen 99 Luftballons 99 Jahre Krieg Ließen keinen Platz für Sieger Kriegsminister gibt's nicht mehr Und auch keine Düsenflieger Heute zieh' ich meine Runden Seh' die Welt in Trümmern liegen Hab' 'nen Luftballon gefunden Denk' an dich und lass' ihn fliegen

Have you some time for me, then I'll sing a song for you about 99 balloons on their way to the horizon. If you're perhaps thinking about me right now then I'll sing a song for you about 99 balloons and that such a thing comes from such a thing. 99 balloons on their way to the horizon People think they're UFO's from space so a general sent up a fighter squadron after them Sound the alarm if it's so but there on the horizon were only 99 balloons. 99 fighter jets Each one's a great warrior Thought they were Captain Kirk then came a lot of fireworks the neighbors didn't understand anything and felt like they were being provoked so they shot at the horizon at 99 balloons. 99 war ministers matches and gasoline canisters They thought they were clever people already smelled a nice bounty Called for war and wanted power. Man, who would've thought that things would someday go so far because of 99 balloons. 99 years of war left no room for victors. There are no more war ministers nor any jet fighters. Today I'm making my rounds see the world lying in ruins. I found a balloon, think of you and let it fly (away).