Today is not a good day.

Cupcake Company!

I posted pictures of cakes that I have made in the last few years on Facebook and a random stranger asked me to make her wedding cake! She loved my cupcake tower and actually wants to BUY a cake from me!  I am super excited and terrified all at the same time.  Can I actually sell cakes?! Can I handle that?

Scared and excited!

Mrs. S

Meds or not?

I have clinical depression.  After a year of counseling and at the suggestion of my counselor, I saw a doctor to see about getting on medication.  I was perscribed Fluoxetine and have been on it for a year and a half.  The thing is I am on a pretty high dose and I don't really feel like it is doing the whole job.  So like a very bad patient I weaned myself off of the meds to see how I can function on my own now that I am doing things I like in school and we have our own home ( owning home = having my own space and less worries).  After a month of being completely unmedicated I feel the same. Honestly I feel a little happier but I am scared. 

I have been in really scary bad bad places mentally in the last two years and I really don't want to go back there.  Even on the meds I was frequently sucidal ( I have had less thoughts of self harm/ suicide since I have been off of them).  I do however still have not awesome days, I am happier and don't really feel like my lows are any lower than they were on the meds.

So I guess my question for the cosmos is do I try this semester of school without meds and just see how I do? Or do I go talk to my doctor and see if there is some other drug that can make the lows totally go away?

 I have never tried anything else because when I went in after a year to talk to my doctor again to tell her that I was still having suicidal thoughts and she was not available.  I ended up talking to a PA who totally ignored me when I said I was struggling and actually perscribed me excessive amounts of the drugs (like a 3 month supply at once) I actually had to sign them over to a friend so they were out of my house so I didn't overdose-I could have died 6 times with the amount of pills I got in one perscription refill.  Needless to say I don't really think that drug was working for me.

What do I do now? Any ideas?

conflicted

I have a struggle of late that I don't know how to handle.  I have recently acquired a 17 year old child in my home.  My brother.  We have been playing with the idea of letting him stay with us not just for the summer but for his senior year. however, I just dont' know if that is going to work out.

Here is my dilemma, he and my husband don't really get along which make things difficult for me.  It means that Mr. S and I fight more often and always seem to just have this tension floating around.  I feel like I am always in the middle of a fight between the two of them.
And I don't know how much I can trust Little Brother.  I think he is a good kid but a few less than squeaky clean things have happened in my home in the last few weeks and while I can't pin them on anyone for sure, I do know Mr. S better and he knows what I will and will not tolerate in my home and the consequences to him for violating my trust are much more severe.  

What do I do? The scary sad part is our mom doesn't want Little Brother back. (parents are in the middle of a divorce and dad has no place for a kid) She would take him don't get me wrong but it would be grudgingly and that just makes me feel bad-especially since she has 3 other kids at home still.  I don't want him to feel like he isn't wanted, but I can't handle the constant frustration in my home. 

Will things get better when school starts for him? Do I trust him? Do I give him a really short leash?  Do I just send him home for the sake of my sanity and marriage?  I don't know how to raise a teenager, especially one who is mostly raised, I only have dogs.....................

Help?

Success!

I spent all day on Friday making cupcakes for my sister in laws wedding.  I made 150 in 3 hours then I made two 6 in round layers for the cake top.  I made them all from scratch-6 batches of cake batter!

But look how cute and round they came out!

 (this was the second batch, I had to do some recipe tweaking to make them cute like this)

This is 81 of the 150.  The top of my portable dishwasher was completely covered!

The next project was to transport them all 45 minutes to my inlaws.....

out of the 150 about 130 survived the trip.  I tried to make more when I got there but I can't cook anything in my mother-in-laws gas oven so the 2 dozen I tried to make turned into a bowlful of crumbs.

After a lot more expirementing, I figured out the right frosting and the right technique to get them frosted cute and swirly.

Here are my practice ones on the stand my husband made for me to display them on

Saturday morning I spent 4 hours frosting the rest of my cupcakes. My arm was so tired. I am not sure if it was lucky or not but I was using a cookie press.  It was nice because all I had to do was push a button and swirl it but at the same time I could only frost 5 at a time before having to refill it. 

Whether it was worth it or not, after 4 hours and 8 batches of buttercream frosting I had them all done.

After the wedding I had to set up the cake for the reception.  It took longer than I anticipated but in the end I think it was worth it.

What do you think?

a closer view of the flowers

I think it was worth all of the work.  It was exactly what she wanted and I did survive. 

Maybe one day I will consider actually trying to get paid for cakes.

We will see......