A pretty stinky mess (...and I'm not even talking about Sofia)

About three weeks ago I decided it was time I tried a compost. We had just carved the pumpkins for Halloween the night after the garbage came, which was really bad timing on our part. But the garbage comes Tuesday morning, and I didn't think our Jack O'Lanterns would make it until Saturday.

So, where was I? Ah yes, my glorious idea to start a compost. All those pumpkin "guts" had to go somewhere and I wasn't going to throw it into the trash or leave it out and let it rot. I decided I couldn't spend much money on something I 1)didn't know how to do, and 2) didn't know whether I would be religious about it. So I decided on a simple green plastic garbage bin with a lid. I had researched it a little and at the time, it seemed a great idea. I even got out the drill and drilled some holes in it myself! That alone was worth the project! So empowering! Then I needed to fill it with stuff. Well, I had the pumpkin guts for starters and some leaves and other "brown" material, like junk mail, news paper, and an egg carton. When I dumped the pumpkin onto my "brown" material, I had a flight feeling that since it had already started to decompose in the bucket I had it stored in, that it somehow was going to be a bad idea. Bravely, I continued my quest and day by day I diligently collected my kitchen scraps, avoiding the meat, because I heard that the fat would attract all kinds of bad things.

Well, I don't know what happened, but the next time I opened the lid, I was greeted by Maggots! *Shudder* I know! I tried to ignore my gag reflex, which immediately started to act up. I am by no means a squirmy person, and thought that once you've changed a poopy diaper, you'd be pretty much immune to such things. But that's where I draw the line. Maggots? Come ON!! There weren't a lot, well, I don't really know because who in god's name would count them? But immediately I went online to see what I could find on this subject. Nobody had ever warned me about them. It's like when you're pregnant and everybody just always tells you the fun and exciting things but somehow decides to ignore to tell you, that the body you once knew, has gone bye-bye, and I'm not just talking about the visible parts, if you catch my drift.
Apparently, I was not the only one with this problem. I found more on "it" than I ever wanted to know about, but my problem seemed simple. My compost was too wet. This attracts the flies and I will not go into detail what exactly happens, but if you google it, you will find out, trust me on that!
I decided I wasn't going to give up so easily. After all, what was I going to do with it now? Throw it onto the streets? I was going to buy wood shavings, the kind I used for the Guinea Pig cage, but again didn't want to spend any more money on it than I absolutely had to. So I chose dirt. That should dry things up quickly, right? Besides, our backyard has plenty of that. Still. But that's a whole 'nother story.

It helped. I got rid of "them" for a while, but they came back as soon as I added more kitchen scraps. Then I read that you should wash out the egg shells, especially the fresh ones with the egg white still in it, because "they" like that, too. Good grief! So I wash the damn egg shells, crush them and THEN put them in, right? Right. Sounds like a lot of work, but OK. Believe it or not, I haven't seen "one" since! Again, I do not necessarily go look for 'em but at least they're not visible. I do understand that "they" help break down the stuff and make it what everybody loves so much, organic, nice earthy smelling compost. But if I have a choice, I'd rather not see "them" or know about it. Hello!

Two weekends ago, Joe mowed our puffs of green grass in the front of our house. To call it "lawn" would be an overstatement. I got really excited, because that's good stuff for a compost! I told him to just go ahead and dump it right into the bin. The next day, when I opened the lid, I was greeted by a delicious smell of cut grass! I was in compost heaven! I felt like I could DO THIS! So I continued what I was doing, all the while desperately trying to avoid for it to get too wet. I turned it every once in a while, because I read that you should do that.

Then came today. Sadly, I am now almost at a point to kick the stupid bin into the street and let the raccoons, skunks and whatever else wants a piece of it have a go at it! I opened the lid, always being cautious since the "m" disaster, and was greeted by a foul smell, which almost made me throw up! What the HELL happened?? Even Sofia, who was standing about 30 feet away said, "Phewie, mommy, what's that smell??" That, my dear, would be mommy's friggin' compost, that she just HAD to HAVE! Did I give up right then and there you wonder? No. I grabbed a bucket, stormed out to the front and got as much of the leaves on our street, as I could, marched back there, dumped some of my mess out (thank GOD we haven't done our backyard yet!), put the leaves in, and filled it back up. Repeated the whole thing twice!

The bin with all its smelly contents is still in the backyard as of now. I seriously doubt that it will ever turn into compost at this point, but I'm not sure as to what to do with it now? Do I handle it too much? Should I put much, much more "brown's" in it? Should I add worms? WHAT? I so want a compost. But if that's what I have to go through EVERY. SINGLE. TIME then I don't want it! Maybe I am delusional to think that this can ever work. I don't know! I don't know. I've almost lost faith. I really do want to help the environment, do the right thing.

So, if any of you out there reading this, have any idea, PLEASE let me know, before my neighbors call the Department of Health, or worse the Police on me because they think I've buried a dead body or something. Anyone? Please?

Happy Birthday Sofia!

We celebrated Sofia's birthday with a big Princess party last Saturday. Her actual birthday was on the 20th, but with the weather being a bit unpredictable these days (so unusual for California for this time of the year) I chose not to wait and celebrate it the weekend before. It was really adorable to see all these little princesses running around the park in their costumes!
Joe had bought her a Cinderella dress for the occasion, complete with staff and tiara. I went and got her her "glass slippers" aka. silver sparkle shoes, to complete the look. Oh, you should have seen her face when we presented her with the dress the morning of the party! The look on her face was priceless as you can see in this little clip we took of her.

I love surprising her like that, it makes my day. And Joe admitted having had a lot of fun buying the dress and accessories for her!

Preparations for her party had started about a month before, or maybe even more, because I started researching online, what type of cake I should make for her. Some of you know, that I really like baking, but for her birthday I chose to do something I had never done before. I was debating between a Princess cake or a Castle cake, in 3D, meaning standing up, not lying flat. At this point, I had no idea of how many people would be at the party, but as my preparations got more specific, I realized I needed a bigger cake, the Princess cake wouldn't cut it. The worst would be to run out of cake at the party, right? So I decided on the Castle cake. I asked Sofia what color it should be in, and naturally, she said, "Pink!"

I decided that I needed to do a cake trial first. I was going to work with fondant, and for that I needed to practice. This turned out to be a good idea, because on my first attempt, I failed miserably. I had rolled it out too thin and it started tearing everywhere. I also needed a really delicious cake, that wasn't too dry but dense enough for me to cut and shape. I decided on a Victoria cake, which basically consists of flour, butter, 6(!)eggs and sugar. That's it. This cake is really easy to flavor, which I did, because even though Sofia said she wanted a Vanilla cake, I felt it necessary to also make a chocolate one.
Working with fondant turned out to be such a fun thing! It's basically a sugar mass (you can buy it already made by Wilton) that is very soft and malleable. Some day I'd like to try making my own, which will probably taste much better. It's also super easy to color it any shade you want, by kneading in some food color gel. I decided I needed some little flowers and leaves to decorate the cake later on, so this gave me good practice in coloring and shaping. The best part of it all, it's edible!
Thursday came around and I needed to start baking my cakes. I was really happy, that for part of this, Sofia was in preschool, because she ended up being a little neglected by me for all the cake preparation.
Friday morning the electronic Babysitter (aka TV) had to come on, because it was time to shape and fill the cakes and also coat it with a delicious vanilla butter cream. I chose a simple whipped cream filling, in which I added frozen mixed berries for the chocolate cake and fresh strawberries for the vanilla cake. I also used a red currant jelly to coat the bottom layer of the cakes. I really wanted raspberry jelly, but couldn't find one (I didn't want the seeds) but the red currant turned out really nice. It gave a little bit of a tangy, fresh kick to the whole cake, very yummy! Coating the cakes with the butter cream turned out a bit of a challenge for me as well. Again, I had never done this before, and actually doing it versus just reading about it was a whole different story! I did a fairly decent job, but it could have been smoother. I didn't bother with it, because it was going to get covered with my fabulous pink fondant.








Setting up the fondant for the side.





That same night it was time to decorate my cakes. I had a 9x13 sheet cake, two 3 layer towers, two turrets, made with cake filled ice cream cones, and a 5 inch topper to cover and decorate. With the help of Joe and Carmen (our Swiss exchange student, who is staying with us until the end of the month) we rolled, cut, squeezed, colored, shaped, and "glued", until about 1am in the morning! The end result was quite a sight to see, in fact, I was REEEAAALLLY happy with the whole cake! It turned out so beautiful! My biggest concern though, was would it also taste good? It did! The cake was really flavorful and moist, but dense enough to hold shape, mmm, so delicious!

Mommy and Papa at work.



One of the towers up close. I piped on some vines with chocolate frosting. Pretty!



Here is the whole cake put together the day of the party. I have to say, I'm proud of myself. It turned out really beautiful, and most of all, Sofia LOVED it!

Happy Birthday Switzerland!

August 1st is our National Day, our Independence Day, the day the first three Cantons (Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden) swore "a bond of brotherhood, and agree to act jointly if their freedoms were threatened by outside aggressors". Believe it or not that was in the year 1291. Yes, my country is over 700 years old, 718, to be exact! It's a time to feel proud of my country, even though I have not lived there for over 12 years. America is where I live, but Switzerland will always be Home.

We did quite a bit of celebrating today. First we went to Sofia's friend Sadie's 2nd Birthday, and after her nap we went to Los Altos, where the Peninsula Swiss Club hosted its August 1st celebration. We were greeted by little Swiss flags all over the place, including one for each of the 26 Cantons. They offered a traditional Swiss dinner of "Fleischkaese", delicious bread, and different salads, followed by an extensive array of desserts, of which most of them were home made, of course! It was simply delicious. They also had a band playing traditional "Laendler" music. I have never really been a fan of it, but I have to say, today it warmed my heart! Of course, Sofia took to the stage as soon as she was able to, and amused many of the guests with some of her dance moves! Unfortunately, I ran out of batteries on my camera, but not before I could at least capture some of it:



We had a good time, and as always it reminded me of home and how proud I am to be a citizen of such a beautiful country!

Most Embarassing Mommy Moment

...so far:

Daughter of 33 Months blaring "Roxanne, you don't have to put on the red light" (by The Police) into her newly acquired microphone/stereo (that we had JUST bought at a garage sale and thought didn't have any batteries), at the FARMERS MARKET last Sunday morning!!!!

I could have just died! But of course, it's all our fault, because at home, we laugh when she sings it, so she thought it was OK. She also sings "this used to be a fun house, but now it's full of evil clowns" (P!nk)

I think it's time to re-introduce her to the itsy, bitsy spider or something...

Dude, we're so toast!!!

"I Can Do It Myself"

That's the phrase I've been hearing most often from my 33 month old these days. In fact it happened about 3 days ago and has just been increasing ever since. It's actually kinda cute; she's figured out how to get herself dressed in the morning (with VERY little help getting those pants over the tush), putting her PJ's on at night and so on. She's also trying to "help" wherever she can, like doing the dishes, pouring a drink, opening the fridge/freezer (she seems to be particularly proud of this one), as well as, opening "her" mail, and she is determined to cook! OK, it mainly consist of putting her food in the microwave to heat up, but she loves to help me prep and I will let her help wherever she can. She is getting really good at mixing that pancake mix on Sunday mornings, let me tell you! It's so cute to see how proud she is of herself when she accomplishes something.
Today for example, we were at the library and as usual, she wants to sit on the computer and "play". Well, this is very boring for me, because I usually end up playing her games because she's too young to operate the mouse. The darned computer was free when we got there, and sure enough, like a magnet she got pulled to it. So I told her she'd get 5 minutes and then we'd go check out some books. I told her, like I always do, to try and get that little cursor to a certain spot and then clicking on it, which as of now, she could do either one OR the other. But today, she grabbed a hold of that mouse and actually hit those buttons! Needless to say, we played for more than 5 minutes. I was so amazed, that I just had to write this down in here.

Joe and I think, she's going through a big cognitive leap right now, and it's just so much fun to watch! Her speech is improving more and more, and her thoughts are really complex sometimes. I feel so unbelievably fortunate to be able to stay home and see her develop like this! It's incredible. Thanks hon, for making that possible!

Anyway, this is one of her latest shots:

A Legend Lives On

I just watched the last part of Michael Jackson's Memorial Service on TV. I didn't see all of it, of fear that I would start crying in front of Sofia. She gets upset too, when she sees mommy cry. So I decided, I could catch up online later, if I wanted to. But the part where his daughter, Paris, said a few words, just pushed me over the edge! It's really sad to think that the only parent they knew is gone. I can imagine, he was a wonderful and caring father to them, and that even though it was questionable sometimes how he behaved with them in public, he did the best he knew how. Protecting his children was his main priority, because he knew first hand what the media can do to you!
I start crying every time I hear about him or I hear one of his songs, it's crazy! I think the fact that his death came so sudden, makes it harder for me to process, because I can imagine, he really would have had a huge comeback with his upcoming England Tour! I was equally shocked when I learned of Heath Ledger's death, too, and it still brings me to tears, when I see him in a movie. It makes me wonder what our real purpose here is? Who is it really, that gets to decide when we have to go? Is it fair to blame anyone? Do we just have to accept the fact, that one day we're here, and the next we could be gone?

I was never a huge fan, collecting everything about him, or buying all of his music or anything like that, but I grew up with him, most of my teenage years were filled with MJ's music. I can clearly remember staying up late with my brother, watching the premier of "Thriller" on MTV. It was on at midnight and my mom let me stay up with my brother to watch it. It was amazing and I knew that I wanted to see him in concert, should he ever make it to Switzerland.

He did, finally and I think it was in 1992 when I got to see him live in Lausanne, Switzerland. I had originally bought two tickets to the show in Basel, but decided to exchange those with someone who had tix to the Lausanne show. I was working retail at a Jewelry store back then, and the Basel show was on a Saturday. Too many of us wanted to go (and had already tickets, without wanting to let go of them, for obvious reasons), so I decided that I needed to find a way to get Lausanne tickets, if I wanted to go. Magically, I did! My then boyfriend (aka. "The Narcissistic F#@*er" but that's a whole 'nother story) and I drove the 3.5 hour drive to Lausanne that Tuesday. I have to say, it was one of the most exciting, breathtaking, most awesome concerts I've EVER been to. And even though, it was rumored that he was in bad health at the time, he gave his fans his absolute best! We drove home, knowing that we had witnessed history! So friggin' cool!
Well, it turned out that I went to work the following Saturday, with about four of us missing, because they too, were on their way to the MJ concert in Basel. Around noon, we heard the rumor that the concert was canceled! I was shocked and a little bit sad that the others wouldn't be able to see him perform, but deep down inside I felt a bit of "Schadenfreude", because had I not given in and exchanged my tickets, I too, would have been the one disappointed. But I did and so now I can be the one saying, "I saw him once in concert!"

I love all his music! It's timeless, full of love. It's meaningful, his lyrics make you want to listen and understand what it is, that he's trying to say. Even when I didn't know English yet, I dissected every line, trying to figure out what he was saying, mostly, because I didn't understand his slang, but also to know, what it meant.

I hope that secretly, he has written many, many more songs for us, that will appear in form of other artist, so that he can continue to give us hope for a better world. Rest in Peace, Michael. I hope that you can finally Rest in Peace!

"Bunnies in the Grass" Cupcakes

I just wanted to quickly show you guys my newest addition on cupcake artistry that I made for my little birthday get together a couple of weeks ago. My dear mother in law gave me this wonderful book called "Hello, Cupcake!" by Karen Tack and Alan Ridchardson for Christmas last year and I finally had an opportunity to try something out. I know, why need an opportunity for baking cupcakes, right?

Anyway, we had a cake but I thought that maybe the kiddies would enjoy their own cupcakes. This is what they looked like (I only made fifteen, instead of the twenty-four, so the effect isn't that great but good enough). I thought the bunny/grass cupcakes would be cute, because my birthday was the Saturday before Easter.


And this is what they looked like, being eaten by Sofia and her friends Nicholas and Zoe! I guess they liked them?


The cupcakes were chocolate, for the grass I used a green tinted, basic vanilla frosting and decorated it with malt eggs and flower sprinkles. The bunnies were first coated with chocolate frosting, and then rolled in crumbled Oreo cookies (for the fur effect). I didn't use the the Oreo filling, just the cookies. The feet I made with white fondant and chocolate frosting decor, the tail a sugar covered mini marshmallows.

It was so much fun to make!