Little Miss, in Disguise!

Happy Spring!

Yesterday Little Miss and I made butter cookies, ["For us?" she asks. "Yes!" I answer.] and are decorating them for Easter.  We bought beautiful tulips from the local florist last week, (I picked yellow and she picked purple), and we are crafting easter baskets from the dollar store.  Anything to avoid spring cleaning...

I am presently working on another story about Little Miss, but until then why don't you pop by my cake site and think about how YOU eat a cupcake!  

Merry Christmas!

As I was rushing around today in a panic, finishing cake orders, preparing our own food, and listing all of things I haven't done, I look over at a plant sitting beside the washer. It is my grandma's Christmas Cactus and it is in full bloom. It made me take a breath, and wonder what grandma would be like on a day like today. She'd probably be frantic, too, actually!

Take care this weekend everyone! Safe travels and all that! And if it doesn't turn out the way you planned - don't tell anybody!

The Triumph of the Caterpillar

Every year I have a battle with caterpillars eating the leaves off of my rose bushes. I pride myself in picking plants that really just need to be cut back a bit each fall - and then get Mr. Man to do it. So a few years ago, I noticed my beautiful rose bushes being attacked, and realized something needed to be done.

Soap and water, is what I was told, so each morning my son and I went out and "drowned" the suckers in an attempt to fend them off. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't.

But this summer I have had to let the caterpillars win. My daughter, an avid fan of nature programs on TV, has vowed her allegiance to the rose caterpillars and will not let anyone at them.

"They belong free to live in the wild," she says.

Why they can't go to someone else's wild is beyond me.

So come by early June to see my beautiful roses, but for the rest of the summer avoid walking by our retaining wall, as you may find one of my daughter's friends dropping onto your shoulder, enjoying the wild.

Flowers from Grandma

As a collective, my kids and I have decided Grandma is in heaven dancing, tending the flowers and kittens and not necessarily sharing a house with Grandpa.

I have unconsciously started filling my house with flowers since Gma first got sick. Now, some of the more substantial, potted plants have come from friends. In fact, yesterday I was greeted in the school parking lot by a friend with a hug and a pot of tulips.

But today when I was quickly running through Walmart to pick up cream cheese, these coloured daisies jumped out at me. I honestly thought of Gma immediately and was overcome with a desire to HAVE THEM NOW! I realized, then, that they would have to fight for a vase and a place in my shop as I had indeed been buying flowers without really thinking about it.

My dad said, in his eulogy, that if everyone was Jean, all of the flowers would be tended, and we would all have dishes of water to float the blossoms on our tables. If I am developing that unconscious desire to tend the flowers then so be it.

I could not have mimicked a more deserving person, and of course, developed a more beautiful habit.