Friday, November 4th - Step one of my cake is finished

  

 

Conditions at 6:00 am: a rainy 6', heading for a rainy high of 7' but we'll be back into the sunshine and double digits again next week

I spent quite a bit of time yesterday contemplating the design of my cake for the cake auction. Since it is a fundraiser for the playground, I thought I might incorporate that into it. It was meant to be a surprise but in reality there are only two people who read this who will be there so it's not like I'm letting out a big secret!
I wanted to use some of the fondant we had left over from Tuesday's class. I had decided to make a rectangular cake and cover it with the fondant and decorate it a bit. I can usually come up with a better idea but it generally takes me a  while. So I've decided to turn the rectangle into a large bed, with the fondant being the bedspread. I'll make a headboard out of white chocolate and two children made out of fondant, kneeling beside the bed saying their prayers - my theme? "Thank you for the playground" - think it will work? I hope so. If nothing else it will spark some conversation.
So, last night when I got home, I formed the figures of the praying children out of fondant. I've never actually done this before but I've watched them do it on TV many, many times. How difficult can it be? Well, it turns out you need some artistic talant at sculpting, which I don't really have, but I think they turned out not too badly. They need a couple of days to dry out a bit as the fondant doesn't dry out as the gum paste does but I think they'll work. I positioned them along side an overturned cake pan so they are in the right position for putting beside the cake. What do you think of step one?

I'm pretty pleased with my first effort even though they aren't quite perfect. Hopefully the rest of the cake will make up for it. Stay tuned for more photos upon completion!

I got a call from Patti and some pretty excited children yesterday. Last week she got a new car, a Dodge Journey. It seems they had the blue tooth installed yesterday and they were trying it out. Now when they're in the car, all they have to do is say "Call Grandma" and it automatically dials my number. How much fun is that? I wonder how sensitive it is? I suspect you may have to activate something or every time one of the kids asks "Can we call Grandma" will it automatically call?  Gotta love technology.
And speaking of technology I finally got my new answering machine sorted out. I'm not sure why, but the pre-programmed message it came with was a man speaking in French. I'm sure that might have been a little confusing for people calling the Denny residence. But I finally got it figured out. I had some difficulty with it as when I followed the instruction it would come up with a message saying "Not available at this time" so I wasn't able to change it, but apparently it worked itself out because I was eventually able to change it.

Well, that's it for now - a pretty quiet news day. I'm off to work. Don't forget to turn your clocks back this weekend!