Do any of you have a great white cake recipe?  I know I should have found one sooner  but I’m at my best when under a little pressure.  Please don’t tell me to just go out and buy a mix.  I like to make my cakes but have never made just a plain white cake.  I’ll be trying out a recipe today and see how it goes but if anybody has one that they know is moist and perfect, please share!  Thank you!

♥ Andria

(The picture is from my vintage recipe booklets.  This one is for Gold Medal Softasilk Cake Flour, printed in 1931.  it includes an illustration of two brides making birthday cakes for their husbands.  One uses Softasilk, the other doesn’t and she fails.  There is a drawing of her husband mad at her and the flat cake.  Hilarious and sad.)

Slooowwww.  I know the shortest month is the longest, but really?  I mean, just, really?

(Bangs head on table from boredom/exhaustion)

I want it to feel warm.  I want to hear the birds sing their spring songs.  I want the two feet of snow on my deck to be gone so I don’t have to look at it anymore.  I want a little pool to go in its place.  I want to have picnics in our yard and to plant new, green things.  I want to feel and smell the sweet breeze through open windows and watch it billow my curtains. I want to see chubby baby toes in sandals.

I have big things planned for March and I think it will be a turning point for me.  My baby will be one.  I’m looking forward to this day and yet, not.  It makes me so sad and I sort of want to just get it over with and move on to the next stage.  Like removing a bandaid.  I’m excited for Evelyn being a bigger girl this summer and all the things she’ll do but I know I’ll ache for the days when she was little.  Bittersweetness at it’s finest.

These days are trying as she generally refuses to eat anything but clementines (which she will literally throw herself down on the floor and beg for if she even spies one) and animal crackers.  I keep offering different things but most times give up and let her have a peanut butter sandwich.  Today I made grilled chicken with pasta a peas.  No way.  Then I warmed up some meatloaf my mom said she ate so well last night.  I think she may have had one or two bites before throwing it to the dog.  Feeding a baby was easy. A toddler is going to be a different story.  I’ll take any ideas you have.

Don’t be shy.

Come on out and say hi!

Check your mailbox for valentines.

Oh.  You didn’t get any?

It’s alright because I’m your valentine and you are mine!

See.  That’s better.  I’ll take a kissy now.

Thank you very much!

Hope everyone has a Happy Valentine’s Day!

Let’s talk about flowers today.  I know there are lots of flower snobs out there.  Generally these are the people who get mad if their sig-other doesn’t buy them an eighty-dollar bouquet of red roses with ferns and baby’s breath.  But, maybe with times being a little tighter, you should think outside your Russell-Stover heart-shaped box and consider accepting the beauty of some other lowly flowers.

First up: the carnation.  I love me some carnations, when done right.  They can be a little sad when there are only five of them in a vase with the above mentioned baby’s breath filler.  But when en masse they can be breathtaking.  They smell like pepper, which I love, and last forever.  Regard these examples.

So pretty.  Now lets talk about tulips.  I drive past a florist every time I work and I watch the price of a dozen rose bouquet go up on their sign as it gets closer to v-day.  Last night it read “29.99 for a dozen roses,” under this it read “tulips, 1 dozen- 12.99.”  Yes, please, I will take those!  I know everyone thinks about tulips as an April flower, but in the dark of winter these are just the breath of light-heartedness I need.  Tulips are pure joy to me and they make me smile every time.  My momma stopped by the other day with a pot of planted bulbs that have grown and opened their proud petals.  They are white with red stripes down the center and smell like the sweetest honey.  Delightful.

I love the one with the conversation hearts in the vase.  I really love how the tulip gets even more romantic as it starts to bend and open its petals completely, like in the second bouquet of white ones.  Very Jane Austen.

I would also be excited if I was the recipient of a living plant that I could enjoy for a long time (depending on how long it takes me to kill it).

I love the rosemary heart topiary, or this succulent wreath.

Now don’t get me wrong, I do love roses, but I prefer the billowy wild type not usually found in the floral shops.  There are just so many beautiful flowers out there that I think it is unfair that the rose gets all of the glory on special occasions.  So maybe just take a little time to stop and smell the carnations!

Here is some pretty art to subtly and not so subtly remind you how important love is all the time, not just for a weekend in February.  Just click on the picture for the link.

I knew I would miss some days, but that’s okay.  I had company and things to make for a co-worker who was leaving.  Lets just jump back into the game!

The Valentine goodies today are kind of on the geeky side but I like that stuff.
I have a love of calculators and have always wanted this one.  Someday it will be mine.

I think this is so funny.  You can watch your love grow!  Love grow- get it?!  Hahaha!

And for every baby with geeky parents:

These are from cafepress.  So cute!

Speaking of babies, mine is finally sleeping through the night.  Maybe I will stop feeling like a zombie now.  Happy Monday!

Feeling adventurous this Valentine’s Day?  Would you like to expand your baking repertoire?  Try making some heart macarons!

These beauties are from Jayme over at Delectable Deliciousness (picture is by Jayme, too).  Macarons are futzy to make but they are sooo good.  These particular heart-shaped goodies are red velvet with cinnamon buttercream.  Oh how I wish I had the time to make them!

In other happenings: I am no longer nursing Evelyn.  She isn’t completely weaned yet but she has lost all interest in nursing after becoming so mobile and I lost my supply.  Not a big deal because I was hoping to stop breast feeding around her first birthday but it still makes me kind of sad.  I think it is worse because that was our time to be close.  She doesn’t like to snuggle (didn’t like to even when nursing) but I could still hold her close.  Now I just have to hope for those moments when she wants to sit on my lap and look at a book or just rest.  Just another milestone on the road to becoming and independent member of society, I guess.  The up side-  I got to get some new bras and thew out my nasty nursing bra that had a missing hook and a hole in the band.  Good riddance!  It’s so refreshing to have the ladies back to myself for awhile.

I love these little felt hearts from The Purl Bee.  I love Purl.  We are hopefully going to New York City this summer and I am hoping to make a stop there!

They made them as pins but I think I’ll make some into little ornaments to hang from my Valentine’s tree.  They would also be cute made into a couple different sizes and clustered onto a satin hair band or put onto barrettes for a little one.  If mine only had some hair.

Yay! February is finally here!  January was such a long month and if I can just make it through this short month I see warmer, sunnier days in my future.  There are good things to look forward to and I’m not filled with the worry and anxiety of delivering my first baby.  We are going to have a visit with Sarah and her children, Olivia and Henry this week. There is Valentine’s Day, my favorite holiday, and my two favorite people, Scott and Evelyn, have their birthdays this month.  And don’t forget tomorrow is Groundhogs Day!

Speaking of Valentine’s Day, I thought I would do a little countdown and try to put up my favorite things for the holiday everyday (not sure if this will happen, at least a couple times a week).  Today I have some cards that you could send to your sweetest.

1. love is in the air 2. sugar pie 3. i heart you 4. friggin’ 5. be mine 6. venn diagram 7. finger prints 8. be mine bright 9. love

These are all letterpress cards.  I ADORE letterpress.  My heart starts to flutter a little and my palms start to sweat when I see any piece of letterpress, that’s how much I love it.  I will save any tag or card that is letterpressed and run my fingers over the relief. I’m always on the look out for an antique tabletop press but they are hard to come across in working condition.  Someday…

I love getting valentines.  When Scott and I were still in high school together he put cute valentines in my locker during classes so I would find it when I went to switch books for the next class. I still remember decorating shoeboxes and cereal boxes with wrapping paper and doily hearts for grade school parties. I bought Evelyn a little mailbox to put her valentines in and I hope she enjoys the holiday as much as I do.