But On The Bright Side . . .

Here's a shot of the three (count them) three strawberries that managed to survive . . . well . . . ME being their gardener.

It wasn't the easiest of tasks to get those plants there, I'll have you know.  I mean, I actually had to DIG them up from the patch at the farm, DRIVE them home, DRILL sloppy holes all over the side of an old black plant bucket (OK, that part actually was a little tough), FILL that bucket with dirt and compost, and then PLACE all the strawberry starts in the various holes of the bucket.  Then I had to FORGET about watering the strawberries, then wonder WHY most of the plants died and all I got were these three strawberries.

But don't get me wrong: I'm actually thrilled to death that I, The Toxic Housewife, Herself, managed to grow three whole strawberries!

And then the birds ate them.



Luckily for me, the strawberries at the farm where I'm taking my gardening class are comin' on strong, and we got to harvest some this week.

Luckily, I just happened to be making pies last night, so I just happened to have extra pie crust.  And a ton of whipped cream.  So, combined with the fresh strawberries, I had a pretty good dinner last night (yeah, because I was too full on strawberries to have a REAL dinner).

Why, you may ask, was I making pies last night?  Well, Bee and I had planned to have a Dessert Extravaganza! yesterday.  I wanted to figure out how much it costs me to make some of my signature (read: stolen from others) cakes and I also wanted to take pictures of said cakes; then I can offer them up for sale through my non-existent baking business.

Since the weather's been gorgeous, we invited about 50 friends and their friends for the party in our back yard . . . then found out it was supposed to be cold and windy yesterday.  So we pushed the party back to next week, causing some folks who were super-excited about the event to no longer be able to attend.  And guess what?  Last night, the original planned party day, was beautiful: sunny and not too cold, with my irises ending their bloom and the bees calmly buzzing around.

Bastard weather predictions.

Hopefully NEXT Thursday will be lovely, and we'll get tons of people at our house to help eat all the cakes I'm making.  And, hey, if they happen to spread the word to all their friends and neighbors about what an awesome baker I am, that's just a bonus!

Finally, my big excitement this week was getting my hair highlighted.  This is my natural shade:

I told the hairdressing student at the hairdressing school that I wanted "just a few natural-looking highlights".  I had in my mind's eye that I'd still be a dark brunette with just a few gold stripes.  I was a little surprised when I ended up like this:

I don't think that picture really even shows how blond my hair is.

However, the hairdressing student just thought it was FABULOUS, and her professor thought it was GORGEOUS, and Bee thought it was CUTE, and the folks at my Bootcamp class thought it LOOKED REAL NICE . . .

so I guess I'll keep it as-is.

You can look forward next week to a couple sugar shots: pictures of some of the cakes I'm making.  I'm planning on the following:

Applesauce Carrot Cake
Key Lime Cake
Cameo Cake
Chocolate Chunk Cake
Lemonade Cake
Almond Cake
Cream Cheese Lemon Pound Cake
Apple Pie
Rhubarb Pie
Pumpkin Pie

Don't you wish you lived near enough to come to my party?