The Reality of it all

We visited T's Dad this weekend.  Since his fall, he has been laying low, especially since he is on intense painkillers and his arm is in a cast.  Thank you so much for your sweet comments and your prayers.  They mean so much to everyone.  We watched a lot of Auburn highlight films from this past season - I thought football season was over.  We also had dinner with T's best friend, who still lives in his hometown with his lovely wife.  She got an Ipad for Christmas and I'm very jealous.  Those things are awesome!   However, I need one about as much as I need a hole in my head so ... The visit went by too fast, and before I knew it we were packed up and getting ready to come home.  But we didn't come home empty handed -

We brought back a load of wood ... T suggested that instead of unloading it all, we could just leave it in the car and get it out piece by piece when we wanted to have a fire.  Men...

I bought a new lamp, while shopping with T's Mom.  It was on sale - why are lamps my addiction?!?  

T's parent's THANKFULLY bought him some new clothes (and boxers - why won't men throw away boxers with massive holes in them?!?) from Orvis.  I love Orvis.

I also brought back some fabric samples, since we are having new drapes made for our bedroom.  Some of the samples were not really my style, so I threw them out.

I going to use this brown check for the drapes...

And the other fabric is going to be for pillows and such.  I really love the top fabric - I bought it months ago because I knew I could use it somewhere.

So switching gears, I was feeling very domestic and decided to make a cake.  You know this beautiful image from December's Southern Living?  Well, I decided to make the spice cake from the cover.

I collected my ingredients...2 sticks of butter, buttermilk, sugar, eggs - how could this taste bad?

I thought I'd document this recipe and put it on my blog, like I've seen people do before.  This will be so fun, I thought.  I was going to try and make it look very neat and easy and like I knew what the hell I was doing...yeah, well here is the reality of my cooking...

I am such a messy cook - and that's the main thing I hate about cooking.  The mess.  I pride myself on being pretty clean and organized, but I'm neither of those things when I cook, bake, whatever.

I've been this way since I was a child, I made cookies one year in our family kitchen.  You should have seen the look on my mother's face when she walked in.  It was the definition of disaster area.

This picture was after I cleaned...is it normal to be this messy?  It just reminds me of mass chaos - not relaxing at all.  Maybe I need to relax and open one of those bottles of wine in the picture.  Didn't Julia Child drink while she made a feast - maybe thats the answer.

Next on to the icing...this involved something I'd never done before.  Heating the icing over the stove, while you whisk - Good Lord, I need to start reading the instructions before I start a project.

The whisking was interesting - not only because it was like performing a science project, but because it went everywhere.  I'm pretty sure I'll be finding bits of "soft peaks" until we move out...

soft peak splattered all over everything!

Almost done, next was the icing - relatively easy.  Look at Paula in the background - she looks so proud...

I will say the icing turned out pretty cool - it was so shiny!

Even though my kitchen was a complete mess..

the cake was beautiful and edible - alright, it was dang good.  Worth the mess is what I'm trying to say.

Hope everyone has a great weekend.  xx.