I haven't forgotten you, my bloggy friends...

...I've just, well, been busy! Finally ;)

First and most importantly, how fantastic does my husband look in his new suit? He looks like a lawyer already. We've survived the first week of law school beautifully, and next week when I start my new schedule, I anticipate life at home to go even more smoothly. He, in the mean time, is adjusting to all the reading, reading, reading...

In addition to my crazy back and forth schedule at work (oh, how I long for routine...), I've had a couple extra cakes to do at home. My first and biggest cake project to date was a Jimmy Buffett-slash-golf themed sheet cake, which was a gigantic undertaking but really turned out to be a fun cake. Not one I'm looking to repeat any time soon, since I spent hours hand making all the decorations out of tinted white chocolate, but it looked impressive enough to justify it's price tag anyway. The other cake was a cute two layer 10 inch round cake for a little boy's cowboy themed birthday. He requested a horse. His momma requested chocolate, and something that would work with her decorations, which were all bandana-inspired. NO PROBLEM. I think it turned out really cute, and I hope Preston and his momma were as pleased as I was. The bandana sides in particular were a blast, and I really feel like they *made* the cake. That, and the rope border, which is one of my favorite borders to do but I rarely have such a perfect opportunity to use it. More pictures of both cakes and all the details will be up on the cake blog shortly. Also cake related, the lovely Hannah and I have done some conferring on her upcoming wedding cake, and it's going to be just fabulous! I've never been more excited about a cake, and couldn't be happier about who I'm making it for!

So, thanks to the extra income from the cakes, I found myself in the unusual-of-late circumstance of being able to buy a lil' somethin' for myself. Man, I miss shopping. Anyway, while out shopping for ties and sock for the budding lawyer, I found these shoes and absolutely fell in love. Everyone deserves some fancy dancin' shoes, now I've just got find myself somewhere to go ;) I mean, really, how adorable are these? Clinton and Stacey would be so proud...

So, yeah.

Hey, August, huh? Yeah, it's, well, it's been that kind of month. Where a whole lot of nothing happened, but enough of it to keep me from the blogosphere like a good and proper communicator. So, July went something like this--Matt got into Law School, we elected to take a "staycation" to celebrate his final moments of freedom, it rained approximately 25 of 31 days this month, I grew the pumpkin vine that ate Knoxville, and the decorator at my bakery announced she was moving to Dallas at the end of August. Or something like that.

So, once the two big life events presented themselves (Law School, Check! New Job for me, Check!), the rest of our time (in between hiking trips and Rug Doctoring the carpets) was spent figuring out just what the heck our lives were gonna look like come, say, September. The good news is, I think we've got it all figured out. The bad news? We're gonna be pretty damn busy for a while. Anyway, it looks like it's gonna go a little something like this....

Matt starts school August 17th, Monday through Thursday, 6:15 to 9:45 pm. If the decorator job hadn't come through, this would mean we'd see each other about 2 hours a day, but thankfully that won't be an issue now. I'm going to finish out my current schedule at the bakery (Tuesday through Friday to 6 pm) in August, with a few Mondays as the decorator to make sure I'm up to speed (today was one of those Mondays, and I'd say my speed is A-Okay). Starting in September, I move to an early shift (finished by 2 most days), and Matt will go to work a bit earlier as well, so that he can be home by 4:30 or so. I'll have dinner on the table at 5, we'll get to eat together like normal people, and he'll be off to school by 5:30 or so. So what am I going to do with my 4 1/2+ hours a night during the week? Good question. If I had any money, I'd go back to pottery class, and maybe by next year I'll be able to. In the mean time, I just so happened to have invested in some ceramic paints, oh, AGES ago, and finally am going to have the time to put them to use. These things are a blast, and maybe this will be the thing to get my creative juices flowing and that long-ago promised Etsy shop opened. Also, I have a few dozen home improvement ideas kicking around in my head, and the fact is that, when I get bored and I'm all by myself, I tend to go drastic. So don't be surprised if I tell you I've dug a fish pond, repainted a room, or ripped out some carpeting on a whim. That's just how I roll...