Walk with Me

I am in the Young Women's organization again.  I know that a few of you are, too.  I have been very excited about working on Personal Progress again, and now the medallion is WAY cooler than that silly girl in the flowing dress I earned back in high school.  So, I've been pondering projects in the Choice & Accountability value.  I decided that the thing I most need to make a choice about and then be accountable for is my health-- my eating habits, my weight and exercise.  However, I know that if I just set a goal to exercise everyday, I will probably fail.  Also, I wanted something that had a spiritual meaning, too.  So, I decided to walk from Winter Quarters to Salt Lake City, figuratively speaking.  It is 940 miles.  My usual walking course is 4.2 miles, so it will take me roughly seven months if I walk everyday, longer if I get lazy and shorter if I start walking a little farther each day. 

I added a new gadget at the side of the blog to track my progress.  I'm hoping by the time I walk 940 miles, I will see some improvement in my body, too, but maybe not.  Either way, it is going to make me healthier and I think it will give me a deeper appreciation for those women who walked all that way in one short summer. 

Anyone up for walking with me?

Checking in

This home schooling gig is kicking my booty.  I realized that I haven't blogged for two weeks, and yet there were several things I wanted to blog about.  The first is my foray into the world of fondant cakes.  My friend Sarah gave me a oh-so-simple recipe for marshmallow fondant, and the cub scouts were having their annual cake sale to raise money for day camp.  Since I was obligated to bring two cakes (one for each scout), we all decided this would be a great time to try out fondant decorating.  I made a grand mess....

...but I had happy boys in the end.  We looked online for cake designs.  Dylan wanted a lego cake, modeled after a much larger and more elaborate wedding cake that we had seen on Cake Wrecks.  For Ethan's I decided we needed a lucky green cake.  (The cake sale was way back on the 9th of March.  Yeah, I've been out of touch for awhile.)

This is a close-up of Dylan's cake.  He did the lettering himself.  We used rice crispy treats to shape the top notches and the pot of gold below.  I know it's not perfect.  It doesn't look near as good as the ones Joanna does for her girls' birthdays, but I'm hoping by the time we get to birthdays, I will have the technique down.

And, here is our pot of gold cake.  I learned that the fondant lightens as you work it into a dough, so neither of my colors were vivid enough.  Plus, the black was from a different kind of food coloring, and I can really tell the difference between the good stuff and the cheap stuff.  I think I will be buying the good stuff soon.

I also decided that I need to buy myself some new cake pans.  I used spring form pans for the pot of gold cake, but the lego cake we just put in a 9 x 13 and cut it.  It wasn't quite even. 

The best thing about this was that the process was easy enough for the kids to be involved.  They helped cut out the designs and stick them to the cakes.  Mazie helped Sarah form all the little balls and stick them on.  I am so looking forward to to making a girly cake and maybe a Father's day cake.  That is, if we ever finish kindergarten, second grade and fourth grade. :)

Okay, I'll tell you...

If you scroll all the way down the blog, "forever" appears right in the middle at the top of the screen.  You have to get below the words to see it.  It's printed in very light gray on the white background.  Now can you find it?