Happy Friday the 13th!

Things are good for now. Wilson, Evan and I visited Andrew over Halloween weekend and had a rollicking good time. The Sopranos did so well at MACfest that I was actually pleased, which is unusual for me. I got a temporary job as a baker's assistant, which means I'm getting paid a bit to make a lot of cookies and cupcakes. The highlight of the job so far was making a lemon torte (which is a cake. Rather confusing). It turned out to be very pretty, and I was pleased.

Anyway, here are some pictures!

I dressed as a princess for the annual Halloween Concert.

Mom and I attended a cupcake decorating class! It was fun, but the instructor brought incredibly poor-quality ingredients, so we ended out giving away as many cupcakes as we could, and throwing out the rest. Ick.

These are the other cupcakes I made. They may not look quite as polished, but the white chocolate frosting actually tasted good (a miracle, I know).

I brought a pumpkin cake to Andrew's house! This was my first time successfully making fondant, so yay!

In other news, Wilson is perfect. Why do I say he's perfect? Well, our dishwasher was broken, and on Tuesday he stayed up and did all the dishes from Fancy Pants Dinner Club, and let me go to bed because I was exhausted from working at the bakery. Then he got up early and drove me to work so I wouldn't have to take the hour-long bus ride. See? Perfect. Exactly when I feel totally stressed and overwhlemed, he turns on the pamper switch and makes me feel a million times better.

That's all for now.

-Brianne

Didgeridoo

Blogger won't let me upload anything, so no pictures today.

Bellatrix has adjusted very well. She scratches her post and not the furniture, she always uses the litter box, she understands when breakfast/dinner time is, she loves every person she meets, and she sleeps on people's chests, to everyone's great satisfaction.

Last weekend I visited Brendon in Boston, but I'll save talking about that for when I have pictures.

The last couple days were just right. On Friday Wilson and I saw Where the Wild Things Are, and I loved it. Yesterday we walked down to the farmers' market, ate at Afternoon Delight, and met up with Evan!

But we had a bit of time to kill before meeting Evan, so we went to Orchid Lane to look at the fun stuff on the $15-and-under side. What did we find there for fifteen bucks? A didgeridoo! We bought it, and neither of us can play it, but boy is it cool!

Anyway, we got to hang out with Evan, which was great because we missed him. After we dropped him off at the train station, we came back to my house and ordered pizza for dinner (I've been trying to not eat junk, but I really wanted pizza and Wilson gave me permission). We started watching What about Bob? because Wilson and I both like Bill Murray, but there were too many awkward situations for Wilson to handle. Instead we watched 10 Things I Hate about You, which I had never seen, and I really enjoyed it.

After Wilson went home, my house felt rather lonely (my parents are in Tawas, so it's just me and Bella). When I grow up I'm going to have a smaller house, so when I'm alone it won't feel so big.

That's all I've got for now. I might bake today, because I'm a little chilly and the oven makes everything better.

-Brianne

A New Family Member

Firstly, a few pictures from our recent zoo trip:


This crab. I want to eat him.


I find the "press the lens up to the glass to steady it" tactic works well.


This was crazy zoomed in, and I'm pleased with how well my camera performs.

Now, other things that have happened:

My cousin William got married! And I wore very shiny shoes! It was possibly the first time in my life that I've worn what would generally be described as a classy, coordinated outfit. Don't worry, I won't make a habit of it.

And two days ago, Wilson and I got a cat!


Her name is Bellatrix Wilson Rhoades. She a snuggle bunny whose favorite napping spot is on top of Wilson (on top of me seems to be her second favorite). She likes to play fetch with toys and run up and down the stairs. Bellatrix loves being brushed and she even enjoys belly rubs! The Humane Society had memos about some behavior problems with her, but she adores everyone so far. I guess we just have the right family dynamic for her.

I'm sick again (or still; it's hard to say). Today Wilson made me soup, and I spent a lot of time in a little cuddle pile with him and our kitty. That definitely made my day better. :)

-Brianne

Birthdays! Well, One Birthday, But a Special One

I ran out of steam during my last post, so I haven't written about Wilson's birthday yet. Think way back to Wednesday, August 19th.

First, I set up Wilson's group birthday present. I collected money from a bunch of our friends, and I am so happy with everyone who helped out. Andrew especially, since he threw in a sustain pedal and helped make sure than my choice of keyboard was a good one.


As you can see, I made a collage of everyone who helped out. The cat photo says, "Astro Cat will play for you / the Symphony of Space." The books on the far right are songbooks I found at choir camp (which is on the Interlochen campus). The one on top is Michael Bublé and underneath that is "Maltshop Memories," which has some great oldies.

Once I had this set up, I brought Wilson downstairs. I made him close his eyes and led him to stand in front of his present, which I said he had to listen to. I pressed a few buttons, and it played back the one-note-at-a-time Happy Birthday I had recorded. Wilson had a perplexed look on his face. Obviously a keyboard was not even on his radar, so the song wasn't giving him any help. :D I had him open his eyes, and he was shocked! It was fabulous, and all thanks to everyone who helped out or knew about the gift and didn't say anything.


My private surprise for Wilson wasn't a surprise, unfortunately, because he looked in the fridge and saw his cake topper.

I still decorated the cake while he wasn't looking though, and he still really liked the pirate.


Yarr!

Note: I do recommend making modeling chocolate; it's just corn syrup and melted chocolate. However, when coloring white modeling chocolate, mold it first, then paint the color on. I found that the food coloring changed the consistency of the chocolate and made it hard to work with.

Anyway, later on Andrew, Evan and Alex came over! We all walked around getting free things for the birthday boy and went to Pizza House and Meg's House and I can't remember what we did when we were back at My House. All in all, I think we made this a good birthday for Wilson. In fact, his birthday celebrations weren't even over, since the next day the guys played laser tag, Friday Lizzie took him to an Our Lady Peace concert, and Saturday we went to the zoo with the high school crowd to celebrate birthdays and an engagement.

I do have a few pictures from the zoo, but this post is already long, so I'll save them.

-Brianne

Sick, but Happy

Today was an under-the-weather day. Fortunately, as soon as Wilson learned I wasn't feeling well he offered to make me soup, and it is yummy and has agreed with my stomach when other foods have not. So, yay for boyfriends! Boo for sinus infections.

Another plus: Pretty Woman was one of the on demand movies on our TV, and it just might be my favorite movie of all time, so I got to curl up on the couch with some ginger ale and smile at everyone's favorite red-haired prostitute-turned-fancy lady. I'm still all phlegmy and achy, and I'm sure falling asleep will be a pain because my sinuses are mean. However, I continue to feel quite content with life.

I'm back on track in the search for an additional job. I love living at home, but I may feel the need to move out in the (relatively) near future, and I want to have already saved up enough money to do that. I do hope to have time aside from Sopranos and two jobs for baking; there are so many more recipes I want to try. I want to branch out to meals made in the oven, like casseroles, pot pies, lasagnas, chickens, etc.

Although I will never abandon desserts:


I made cookies for the counselors at choir camp. This was only one of several types of dessert I made (I only have pictures of these though; silly me).

Only one general observation for today: Simple things, like soup and cookies, make me happy. Sharing those things with others makes my life perfect.

Even when my snot is orange.

-Brianne

Best Cake Yet!

I recently made a cake for Andrew's birthday. This cake took me quite a while to complete. The steps:
1. Cut a hole in a box (just kidding. I made a 9x13 inch chocolate cake).
2. Baked a 9x13 inch yellow cake.
3. While those cooled, I made a double batch of buttercream (and panicked because I forgot to put the applesauce in the yellow cake, but it turned out fine).
4. Made a half batch of white frosting, piped it around the edge of the top of the chocolate cake.
5. Spread raspberry jam on top of the chocolate cake.
6. Spread buttercream over the jelly, put cake in fridge.
7. Spread more raspberry jam over the buttercream, set yellow cake on top of chocolate cake.
8. Chilled cake again while I made a big batch of white frosting.
9. Had the most difficult time in the world frosting this damn cake. I will never use this recipe for white frosting again.
10. Chilled the cake again. While waiting for it to cool, I mixed the colors I needed for the design, which reminds me, I forgot to explain the stencils for this:
A. I made a drawing on graph paper to get the pixels right.
B. Drew an outline of the border, cut it out.
C. Drew an outline for light blue and whites of eyes, cut it out.
D. Drew an outline for dark blue, cut it out.
E. Drew an outline for face color, cut it out.
F. Labeled the order I needed to use the stencils in and what colors should go in them.
11. Took the cake out of the fridge, spread gray buttercream through the first stencil, then chilled again.
12. Spread white and light blue buttercream through the second stencil, fixed mistakes (carefully!) with a toothpick (I had to do that with the other layers too). Chilled again while making the blue darker.
13. Spread dark blue through the third stencil. Chilled again.
14. Spread yellowish color through the face stencil. Chilled again.
15. Using more gray, redid some background pixels to bring them up to foreground height, then wrote birthday message. Chilled cake overnight.
16. In the morning, I put black food coloring in the remaining white frosting to make it gray. As horrible as it was to frost with this stuff, it did okay in the bag while I made a shell border.

Anyway, here's my creation:

It went over quite well, and I'm quite pleased. I would say it'll be quite a while before I make a cake this involved again, but Wilson's birthday is coming up fast. :P

-Brianne

It's a piece of cake...

I'll summarize July in cake:

This was my first try at making fondant. Unfortunately, I didn't have glycerin, so I had to make a version of fondant that dries much faster and turns out much harder than regular fondant. This made rolling and cutting a huge pain in the neck, and I thought the results were sub-par. I originally wanted to make Mega Man (hence the blue), but this fondant simply didn't stay pliable for long enough. One of these days I'll find some glycerin, and then maybe I'll have a better fondant experience.

This was, as you may have guessed, the Independence Day cake I brought over to Newey on July 4th. For my first go at making white frosting, it went very well. This particular type of frosting is dairy-free, and tastes like marshmallow fluff, except instead of being full of crazy chemicals, it just has water, egg whites, vanilla, corn syrup, and sugar. And by the way, there are fifty marshmallowey stars on that buttercream flag.

Jenni came over and made an upside-down plum cake with me! She gets credit for the pretty plum design. We both get credit for mutilating as many plums as we sliced. I get credit for pouring some brandy on top.

And finally, Ashley's 21st birthday cake! I'm very proud of how this turned out. It involved a lot of steps:
1. I made the cake the night before. Chocolate cake is usually better the next day.
2. The bottom layer of the cake tried to fall apart on me; I made a double batch of buttercream to make sure I could put enough in the middle to make everything stay put.
3. Since the buttercream was so thick in the middle, I had to chill the frosted first layer in the fridge before putting the second layer on. Otherwise, the weight of the top would have made buttercream sploosh out the sides.
4. I frosted the whole cake with chocolate, then put it back in the fridge to harden the frosting a bit.
5. Using an Exacto knife and transparency paper, I made a stencil of the girl (Becca drew it for a Sopranos concert) and the number 21. It barely stuck to the cooled frosting at all.
6. After using the stencil with pink buttercream, I removed it (carefully!) and hand-piped the glass (you can tell...oops), the border around 21! and Ashley's name.

Seriously, isn't that some good cursive? I only recently learned how to do it, too.

So, that was July. If you had the chance to eat one (or more) of my cakes, I hope you enjoyed them. I'm already excited to try more new things in August! :)

~Brianne

What I'm up to

I visited Nathan in St. Louis with Wilson, Kaitlin, Nate, Helen and Kyle. We had lots of fun, and I'm already pining for the delicious frozen yogurt place there...

I'm getting more comfortable with my job. I've begun the actual grant application drafts, and I've definitely got my work cut out for me. I met with my bosses on Wednesday, and they're happy with what I've done so far, so that was a relief. I was sort of afraid they'd tell me I was doing everything wrong.

I'm also getting more comfortable with my haircut. It looks better now that it isn't greasy from the henna any more. I still think I prefer it a bit longer, but it does look super cute when I straighten it (which I've done once. it takes so much effort).

Wilson has started training for his job at Clean Water Action. It's a hard job, and he gets out late, but he seems to be in a better mood now that he has it. My house is closer to work than his is, so for the past few days he's been sleeping over here, and then coming back here after work. It feels kind of weird. Not in a bad way at all. I'm happy.

Actually, I'm very happy. I'm not even too concerned about the direction my life is going. For now, I'm taking it one step at a time, and enjoying being done with school forever.

LOL

In addition to depicting laughter in text form, LOL also stands for Locks of Love. I'm getting my hair cut today, and I was thinking about how much I wanted off, and decided on 8 inches. Then I saw that LOL requires ten inches for donations, so I guess I'm taking off ten. Or maybe eleven, just to be safe. That will probably bring my hair up to my shoulders once it curls up, so I'll still be able to put it in a ponytail. It miiiiight be short enough for Wilson to notice the difference... I'm kidding. He notices things.

I've been spending most of my productive time working, making pizza and making ice cream. The vast majority of my time is spent unproductively. Gotta work on that...

Lazy

Somehow, my Econ final grade was actually a straight-up A. Woot!

I still feel like I'm resting up after the school year. Soon I'll be starting my part-time job and working out with Wilson, but I've enjoyed these few days of nothing to do and cuddling with Wilson instead of making him use the elliptical.

I'm a Grown-Up Now

Final grade in econ: A-
overall GPA: 3.97

Yeah, I'm happy with that.

Now, a week-long nap would be great.

Last One!

I'm in the MLB (Modern Languages Building), going over Econ notes and practice problems before my exam, which starts at 4pm. Wilson came over yesterday to help me with problems, and we jointly figured out the mistakes I had made on the practice final. There was just one problem that we couldn't figure out (Wilson's kind of rusty on some of the stuff), but I just figured out what I did wrong, all by myself! I still might not do very well on this exam; most of the questions try to trick you, and I'm very good at falling for tricks. But, we'll see. I did some math, and figured out that, assuming I'll end up with an A in the English Bible (I think I will), I can get as low as a C+ in Economics and still graduate with Highest Distinction. That means that I can get a C on this final and still be okay. That would be comforting, except I got a C- (before the curve) on the midterm....

Go go gadget, study!

Other paths to grown-upness

My boyfriend has decided to enlist in the Marines. I won't go into his reasons, but I'll tell you my reaction: upset and nervous. I'll break this down.

Why I'm upset:
- Boot camp is 12 weeks long (He'll probably start in January. Happy birthday to me!).
- The time commitment, from the start of boot camp, is four years. Wilson said that if I lived in Ann Arbor, we'd be able to see each other about every two months. If I lived near the base, it would be more like twice a week. This brings me to my second list.

Why I'm nervous:
- What if his base had nothing around it/ was in a very conservative area/ was in the South so I could never go outside without mass amounts of sunblock? I don't like the idea of choosing between liking where I am and hating that I can't see Wilson or hating where I am and liking that I can see Wilson.
- What if he turns into a violent, emotion-repressing thug? I'm a pacifist-hippie type. As I said to Wilson, I don't want him to end up driving a truck with an American flag decal on the back window (If you drive one of these, I'm sorry: I don't have anything against you. I just wouldn't date you).
- What if he has to kill people and gets scarred for life?
- What if something happens to him? Obviously my greatest fear.

I promise, I can see how being in the Marines could end up being really good for him, and if that's what he wants to do, I'm going to be supportive. So let's move on to another list.

The positives:
- Wilson said he'll work out with me this summer.

That's one! I'm going to see more eventually. Go go gadget, positive thinking!

Two out of five professors agree...

...that I deserve an A for this semester! :) My other grades aren't in yet.

That was my piece of good news. What's yours?

Almost Time...

I am officially done with three of my five classes.

Steps remaining before entering grown-up land:
1. Finish paper comparing The Passion of the Christ and the Gospels
2. Study a whole bunch of econ
3. Bible final
4. Econ final

And that's it! I even have a job lined up already! Okay, so it's part-time, and it's for my uncle, but hey, the economy isn't too good to artsy people at the moment.

I want to talk about my summer goals, but I should probably wait until I'm completely done with school.

Finishing school doesn't make me a grown-up

Since I'm entering a new stage of life and all that, I thought it fitting that I start a new blog. So... yeah.