Counting Blessings

Have you ever looked at a trial while you were going through it and said it was a blessing?  That is hard to do.  Often it is only after the trail is over that we can look back and see that it really was a blessing.

As an adult I look at my time growing up on the farm as a huge blessing, although at the time I thought it was a never ending trial.  I am sure most of the time my parents thought of it as a never ending too.  My wonderful parents had 10 girls and 1 boy.  I am the oldest, so I got the opportunity to break in my parents, or just break them.  Being a family of all girls in my youth didn’t stop us from doing all the big jobs on the farm.  There were many years that we were the only hired help.  My father had quite the job to train all of  us on the big machinery.  It is really no wonder that the equipment had breakdowns when it is mostly being handled by teenage girls.  But we held our own in many ways and the machinery survived (all little worse for wear).

One of the many repairs that we learned to make was changing a tire.  The jack was always present in the back of the truck, and we had to put it to use many times.  I even remember jacking up Dad’s 1066 tractor to change a tire.  How grateful I am now for those learning experiences.  
In the past week winter has hit Kodiak by force.  This is our eighth winter in Kodiak, and I can’t remember a year when it has been this cold and snowy in November.  Early last week I realized that I did not want to spend the winter sliding around on the roads.  Every day we spend almost 2 hours driving around town.  This came about because of a new adventure we undertook this fall, Alyssa, Samantha, and Connor all took on paper routes.  They also all start swim team again this month, so our afternoons are pretty busy to get school and paper routes done before swim team.   Needless to say that good transportation is very important to me. 

So last Monday after sliding my way along to drop off the girls for piano lessons, I went home and dug out my studded tires.  They still had some good tread left, but sadly the studds were no more.  This lead to me calling all the tire places in town (3 of them)  to price restudding. So before dropping Alyssa off at orchestra, (yes, yet another daily destination) I dropped off two tires to be restudded. 

The next morning, while Alyssa and Sam were doing online classes, I was found outside in a snow storm putting my newly studded tires on.  I choose to only have two restudded for the front and to use the worn out studds on the back.  As I was putting on the last tire I found that it was flat and needed to be repaired.  Since this is not a life lesson that I have learned, I still had to take the tire in for a flat repair.  When I went in to pick up my tire they asked if I wanted them to put it on the car.  Many of you reading this may wonder why I didn’t just go that route.  Chad likes to point out that I usually fall back on my pride at times like this.  However, I did have my own reasons.  Having only three tire shops in town, when the first snows come they are all swamped and the wait can be really long.  So I opted to save time that I did not have by doing it myself.  As the nice young man carried my tire out to the car he commented that not many people know how to put on a tire.  I don’t know if he meant not many women or just people in general, but either way I think that is a sad statement.  Everyone should know how to change a tire.  Having that ability has saved me many times, and I love being able to take care of it myself rather than waiting for someone else.  

I guess sometimes trials can be blessings when we learn something that will prepare us for later.

I hope that my kids say the same thing after their trials this winter with the paper routes.  Just are a few pictures to show what winter means for them.

I’m back, for now.

2011 has been a crazy year.  I know the year is not over yet, but I am starting to see the winding down.  Especially since I just had to book tickets to Anchorage for more medical testing. (allergy tests this time)  My appointment is in December, which seems like a really long time to wait to see a doctor, but this is just another thing about living on the “rock”.  I was told that appointments are booked 3 months out for the Anchorage office, and 3 years out for a visit here in Kodiak.  I know, CRAZY!
So, now I have my travel plans made and can sit back and enjoy the next couple of months, or not since I can’t eat anything.  For the past year I have been in and out of doctors offices.  It has always been the same thing.  In March, after multiple tests, it was discovered that I had gall stones.  This meant surgery to remove the offending organ.   That happened in April and I was assured that I would be perfectly normal in no time.  That wasn’t the case!  Although I still managed to keep up with everything, I still was not feeling good and had the same stomach pains.  So the first part of June I was in the O.R. again for a colonoscopy and endoscopy.  If one wasn’t fun enough we went for the double whammy.  I was told that everything was fine with no reason to explain away the pain. 
Fast forward through the summer where I spent a couple of months down south soaking up the Idaho sun, working on the farm, and in my families fast food restaurant.  Aside from the continued problems I was having a great time.  The kids got to spend time with grandma and grandpa and work with me on the farm.  They mowed lawns, fed chickens, weeded the garden, (the big Idaho kind, not the Kodiak box kind) they all got tan, and even a little sun burned.  It was great to see them with some color and spending so much time outside.  We attended family reunions and saw people we have not seen for too many years.  I got to work with my younger sisters and brother who were all very young when I left home.  It was great to develop a relationship with them and recognize that they are young adults and not the annoying little kids I remembered.  During all of this fun I was also seeing a natural doctor to try and find some answers.   
I got back home the middle of August and we immediately started figuring out our school schedule for the year.  Alyssa and Sam also picked up a couple of paper routes, and started some online classes.  The school year has been great as I see the girls branch out and start to learn more on their own.  Connor has started kindergarten which means that we play games, read books, and learn letters while the girls are in class on the computer.    That is our time and we can’t get enough of it.  The last couple of mornings Connor has been pulling down some of his favorite games along with his reading binder and his “school folder”.  He gets everything set up and waits for me to come in.   He gets a spelling test where I say a letter sound and he writes down the letter.  It has been great to see him looking for the letters he knows and starting to put them together into small words.  This is the first time I have had to teach reading.  The girls started to learn in school so this is a little overwhelming, but I am so excited to see some progress.   Our days are crazy busy, and we never have enough time. 
Friday has become our fun day.  We have a small homeschool group from church.  So we get the kids together on Friday mornings for our activity.  Last year we alternated doing cooking, science, and art projects.  This year we have focused our activity on history.  We are using The Story of the World, which has an accompanying activity book.  It includes a color page and map for each lesson along with projects that tie in with the story for the week.  We have started with ancient history and have had some great activities.  We have had an archeological dig in my garden, cave painting, constructed a replica of the Nile River, made cuneiform tablets, mummified hot dogs, and tie dye Tshirts.

 

As you can see, our fun never ends.  Neither do our days really, as we jump from one thing to another.  But winter will be just around the corner and then maybe we will slow down.  Or not!  But hopefully I will find more time to write down a few thoughts and save some of these memories. 

Surviving!

Finally!  The culmination of months of practice, weeks of stress, and many sleepless nights of worry.  I can breath a little easier and actually sleep at night.  The big wedding cake is done, the wedding is over, and there were no frantic phone calls concerning a fallen cake.

Sometime in January a bride and her mother came into Ton of Fun asking if we would do wedding cakes, and then all the fun began.  I have been practicing for this cake ever since, and I found many opportunities to improve my skills. 

 

 

 

 

First I had a couple of birthday cakes in January.   A 1st birthday!  This cake was fun.  The mother wanted a small smash cake for the baby and a cake for all the guests.   I had some fun with this one and formed most of the decorations out of fondant.  She did not want the cake covered in fondant, and I don’t really blame her.   My buttercream icing tastes so much better than even the marshmallow fondant.

 

 

Then we had Sam’s birthday.  She invited all her friends over to watch a movie and asked that her cake be shaped like a ticket stub. 

 

 

 

 

The next week I had two bigger cakes to do.  We set up a booth from Ton of Fun for Kodiak’s annual Wedding Expo.  Melanie had an idea that she wanted for the cake and it was perfect because it followed the idea that was requested for the big wedding cake.  I also loved the cake topper that Melanie had ordered, it fit perfectly for Kodiak.

Like I said, that was a busy weekend.  I set up the cake for the Expo Saturday morning and went to teach my class as the college.  When I got home I had another big cake to do.  This one was for a 40th Wedding Anniversary.  The librarian at the college had asked me to do this after letting me into my class room one day.  I was really excited to do this cake for her and to get the extra practice.  She loved it, and went on about how yummy it was.  I love hearing that kind of praise.  I don’t think a cake is worth doing if it doesn’t also taste as good as it looks.

 

 

 

 

I managed to get a couple of weeks break, and then I was at it again.  This time for a boy in our primary.  I had known that Albert’s birthday was coming up, so I offered to make his cake in exchange for getting my hair highlighted; and Silvia was as excited about this deal as I was.   They were taking a couple of his friends out to the shooting range, so that was the theme that I went with.  I figured that if these kids were anything like mine, the cake might be wasted on them.  My kids gobble down ice-cream, but don’t often ask for seconds on cake.   So I cut out some sugar cookies to dress up the cake a little and add an extra little treat for the kids.

 

 

 

 

After than I did get more of a break for a couple of weeks.  On March 1 I made another little practice cake for the wedding, just a single layer and had the bride, groom, and bride’s mother try some.  I was concerned that they like it if I was going to really charge them.  Plus, a wedding cake is a really big deal, so I wanted to make sure they were happy.  The groom raved that he normally did not like cake at all, but he loved mine.  I really hope he was not just saying that, but the bride and her mother was convinced.  

During the next couple of weeks we were busy moving the store to our new location and I was trying to not worry about the up coming cake as the day continued to draw near.  I had ordered the separator sets from Wilton the first part of February and they were not here yet, so I was nervously checking the mail each day praying for a packing slip. 

Meanwhile, I had a call for another cake order.  This one was for Wednesday March 15, just four days before the wedding.  That is ok, I could do this, and it would be extra practice.  The party there was Nerf War, and she requested a two tier cake.  She did not want fondant, so I covered the cake with buttercream, but I could not think of any other way to make to decorations.  Chad had suggested just buying some Nerf darts, but I really wanted everything to be edible.  I formed each dart by hand, and then used Connor’s dart gun as a model to form the guns.  The darts all looked very real, and one even fit into Connor’s gun after it had dried, but was not solid enough to fire.

 

 

 

So Friday dawned and bright and early I heated up my oven for a marathon baking day.   I had finally received the hardware I ordered the day before (from the order I placed the first part of February) as well as the second order I had to place and have sent 2 day air.  I knew there was a possibilities that the first order would come in, but could not take the chance that it would not.  I had anticipated needing 10 cake mixes, so I bought 12 for good measure.  I wish that I could say I make my cakes from scratch, but they don’t turn out consistently, and for this I needed consistence.   The cake sizes were to be 14”, 12”, 10”, and 8”.  I began with the 14” cake which required 2 mixes for a 2” deep pan.  It baked for an hour and came out of the oven perfect.  At least it was perfect right up until the moment when I was getting ready to dump it out of the pan and it went onto the floor.  Not a great start to the day, but I mixed up another set of cakes and began again. 

The round pan set that I have is 3” deep, and I love them.  It means less baking to get a taller cake.  Unfortunately the biggest pan I have is a 12”, and I needed a 14” for this cake.  Melanie had a 14” pan that I barrowed, but it was only 2” deep.  She had suggested baking at least 2 and possibly 3 of the 14” cakes to get the height, so I started with that.  Once I got going I realized that to get everything else to match up I would need to bake 3 of the 14” cake and 2 of all the rest.  My oven was running non stop from 7:30 am to 5:30 pm.  As I said, it was a marathon baking day!  Chad helped me get cake boards cut from some scrap plywood sitting in the shed, and I had everything ready to go for the next morning.   It still turned into a really late night as I decided that I would get the 14” cake assembled and iced smooth.  This would be that much less that I would need to do Saturday morning, and I was starting to worry that I would not have enough time.  I wanted to get the cake set up around 1:00 to make sure that there was plenty of time and I would not be rushing to finish for the 5:00 wedding.  I got the first tier of the cake assembled and set it out in the entry way to keep cool for the night, finally got the kitchen partially cleaned up and went to bed around mid night.  However, I woke up at 4;30 with my stomach twisted in knots and got up to begin another long day. 

I checked on the big cake to make sure that nothing had happened to it during the night.  I was terrified that I would need to redo the who thing and I knew that they was no time for that.  That cake had faired well during the night, and I started to prep everything to be ready to begin again once daylight appeared.   The next several hours were spent cutting more cake boards, whipping up batch after batch of icing, and going to Walmart for drill bits since our were currently MIA.  I would need to drill holes in the cake board so that I would be able to push a dowel through the bottom two cake layers to prevent them from shifting. 

Once everything was ready I was set to begin.  I carefully assembled each cake layer measuring to keep everything level.  This cake was going to extraordinarily tall and needed to be perfectly level.  Chad continued to measure and cut dowels for each layer of cake as I assembled and iced each one.  By lunch time he took the kids to grab some lunch while I put on the finishing touches.  By the time they were back I had it all assembled and we were amazed at the height, sitting on the table the cake towered above me.   Now I had a chance to jump in the shower before delivering the cake to the reception hall.  I was scared to death that it would all collapse during transition, but we boxed up each piece separately, and had put in as many supports as we could to make sure it would hold the weight. 

We arrived in the reception hall to see it all beautifully decorated and easily found the spot for the cake.  It took us each a couple of trips to carry everything up the flight of stairs, but it all made it in one piece with almost no touch up required.  

 

 

It looked good set up, but I wished there were some flowers to add a little more color and definition to the cake.  They had planned on filling in the space between the spiral plates with flowers, but the one ordered had not turned out and the mother was still trying to get something worked out.  My part was finished and we walked away with a prayer that it was still be standing when the reception started.    For the rest of the night my heart stopped each time the phone rang.  But 8:30 I figured the reception was over and I could relax. 

 

We were amazed when we sat down and figured the numbers that went into the cake.

16 cake mixes (including the one that went on the floor)

2 quarts of oil

4 dozen eggs

There was over 20 lbs. of frosting using:

12 lbs. of powdered sugar

6 lbs. of butter

3  lbs. of shortening

2  1/2  lbs. of raspberry jam for the filling

 

Chad says never again will I do a cake this big, and at the moment I agree.  I am gratified to know now that I can, even in my teeny- tiny kitchen.  And we all survived it, this time.

Snow Day

 

The sky was still dark this morning, but that was no reason for the kids to stay inside one more minute.   We all woke to find a blanket of snow with more continuing to fall.  By 10:00 the kids were up, dressed, and ready to plow into the white wonderland.   Even Kaylin was happy to don her boots and snow gear and run outside to frolic with the older kids.  I shoveled the drive while the kids sledded down the little hill behind the house.  They quickly mastered a new trick of standing on the sled and Sam showed me she could make it all the way to the bottom of the hill on her feet.  

Living in Alaska you would think that the whole winter would be white and snow days would be a common occurrence.  Sadly, here in Kodiak that is not the norm.  We do get snow, and sometimes it is like today and the kids can go out and enjoy the white goodness.  Often it is accompanied by rain making it slushy and not much fun to play in.

So today most things fell to the wayside as we enjoyed a good snow day with hot chocolate and games inside while wet things dried.  In the afternoon it was time to head back out before the light of the day was gone.  The snow plow has not been through yet, the kids are awaiting the mound of snow it will bring to dump at the end of the circle.  They were able to dig a snow fort into that mountain of piled snow in December, and they have hopes to recreate it now.   

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Out front playing in the unplowed road.  Who lets their kids play in the street?  Oh, right!  That would be me.