Sad time at Bertie’s Bakery

So there comes a point in every household that you just have to do some gutting. Others would say “house purging” or simply “spring cleaning”. This occurrence has been happening around my house a lot lately. After a while, you run out of space. I could just make a massive pile of things and stack, squeeze, cram, and jam things into every nook and cranny like we are accustom to seeing on the newest reality TV shows about “hoarding”, but I personally believe in the less is more concept. If I were designing a house or cake studio of my own, minimalist would be worked into the style.

So why is this a sad time?

Because it was time for some of Bertie’s Bakery’s first cakes to go:

Don’t scream…

But the Award Winning Triathlon Cake had to go too. You know this cake STILL ranks in the top of all of my page views week after week! Over two years later you guys are still showing the love! Don’t worry, someday I’ll make a new and improved triathlon cake!

There’s more:

To this day, the tuxedo cake is still one of MY favorites! I am surprised there are not more “grooms cake” requests for it. I think it looks really classy on a side table next to a big elegant wedding cake. But that’s just me.

And yes. The triathlon cake went in the garbage sideways. The cake base was too big to fit otherwise. You could definitely say that the swimmers in the bottom left had corner are lucking out with a “down river” swim! Ha! (I know I am not funny).Realistically this isn’t “that” sad. The triathlon cake was ridiculously well documented by The Boss who photographed the bejesus out of it. It will not be forgotten among the the triathlon community nor by me at the bakery. The other cakes as well have all seen their time in the spotlight and are now fading, cracking, or simply collecting dust. It was time.

So again, you might ask, why is this “sad times at the Bakery” if I am so okay with the cleaning up and moving on process? Well, for me, putting the cake in the garbage was one thing. I said my good bye’s (no really, I talked to the cakes for a while… the Boss was both laughing at me and worried), the cakes understood, they new it was time.

But what I couldn’t handle, what really really wrenched my heart was when I came home in the evening after the garbage man had done his rounds and saw this:

It was a massacre. I was horrified. I had hand molded each and everyone of those swimmers. Their little hands, swim caps, and goggles. That was it. That was what made these “sad times”. Seeing my little guys smooshed into the driveway. That’s just no way to go.

I’m just hoping that the long weekend (here in Paris!) will be enough to take my mind off of them!

Au revoir!

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2012 Race Calendar… errr, Lack there of

Many of you have e-mailed or asked in person “what’s next” on my race calendar? After a very successful 2011 race season, what does 2012 hold for me?

Currently I do not have any triathlon or running race on the schedule. Instead I’m picking up competitive Paddle Boarding.

I’m sure that some of you are scratching your head wondering where the heck that came from? But first, let me explain. As a disclaimer, I am not complaining. Stuff happens, and it’s what you do about it that counts… with that said, “stuff” has hit the fan so far in 2012. For the foreseeable future (errr first half of the race season), I will only be cheering at races. 

As you might remember from a few posts over the past few months, I have mentioned that I had several long time injuries that escalated from nagging to screaming. Unfortunately since the New Year these injuries have kept me from training.

First there was the IT band issue.

I finally went to see a physical therapist, who diagnosed me as being gluteus-ly challenged! She said that having zero gluteus muscles contributed to a terrible running form, which in turn caused terrible strain and stress on the IT bands.  So for six weeks I really backed off the running to let the inflammation and irritation in both knees cool off and focused on functional core and glute strength training. By the end of the sixth week I was running relatively pain free up to around 10 miles.

Back to running: Check!

While all of the running issues were being worked out, I was also getting a long long looooong time injury checked out. My shoulder. I have no idea what I did to this shoulder, but for about 5 years I haven’t been able to lift my right arm over my head. I know, “WHO NEGLECTS SOMETHING LIKE THAT???”. Well, school teacher insurance wasn’t so hot and I found ways around not using my right arm above shoulder height! Problem solved :)Unfortunately my physical therapist didn’t think this was as cool of an adaptation as I did, so She sent me off to a specialist. Where you see the arrow (above) is where they stick a very unfriendly stent/needle and “distend” your shoulder joint with an entire bag of saline solution and MRI dye. Had I known the MRI was going to go down like that… I would probably still be adapting to new ways to avoid use of my arm!

In the end there was absolutely nothing wrong with the integrity of the joint. Meaning it was my muscles and my brain that were not communicating very well. With almost complete atrophy of some rotator cuff muscles along with over built and stiff other rotator cuff muscles… we had a lot of work to do! However, as of yesterday I am back in the pool!

Back to swimming: Check!

Now you’re thinking, “if all of her injuries are on the mend and almost completely recovered, is she really going to switch to paddle boarding?”

Well my friends. Since this spring has been full of rehab mixed with a little homesickness, my Coach and I decided that I would benefit from a break from his vigorous training schedule. I wasn’t focused, I wasn’t healthy, and I needed time to recover. So, once I was recovered enough to run around and be active again I signed up for the one and only thing that my coach always asked me to stay away from while in competitive training mode! You know how it goes, you were told “not” to do something, so as soon as the opportunity arises you go an do it. That something would be soccer! Yep, that’s right, I was playing in an Arlington women’s leauge. The only problem was that once people saw that “your back” in the soccer world the phone starts ringing for you to come play pick-up, sub for their team, etc. and you end up with more than one game on a given day.

You have to remember that soccer was my LIFE for almost 20 years, that’s something that you can’t just forget about. Mentally I suppose. Your brain can’t forget about your first love, but your muscles sure can.

Even though I’m no longer a fraction of the technical player I used to be, I still play as hard as I did then. And thus with efforts like that… you tear your unprepared muscles. That’s right. I went ahead and played too many games in too short of a time, and ended up partially tearing one of my quad muscles. Nice job!

Back to Running: Fail.

So, I hope that through my tone you can understand that while I am pretty disappointed I’m not walking around with a black cloud over my head. Life is still good, and I am in good spirits finding other things to do with my time.

Mostly those “other things to do” include driving my husband crazy, messing up the kitchen, cleaning up the kitchen, and day dreaming about moving to a tropical island to spend my time paddle boarding around! That would take my mind off of running.

Thanks to everyone who has sent along words of re-hab encouragement and interest in racing life. There will be race reports again some day!

On that note, I’ll leave you to ponder moving to a tropical island.

Enjoy!

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Cookies, Cupcakes, and an MRI

Just in case you didn’t know… it’s Friday!! Again! Holy moly the time is flying by in these parts, and I feel like I have so much to tell you!

First, I’ve been working on my cookie decorating! I’m definitely more of a cake decorator, but I really love how creative you can be with cookies. Plus, I can mail them! It’s pretty hard to put a cake in a box and FedEx it to someone, this way if I have a friend that I want to send a “I’m thinking of you” card to, I can also include a sweet treat.

So I know the Cupcake Cookie isn’t super original, but I do think it’s super cute! I have many friends who “like” cupcakes, but are honestly more in it for the icing and would much prefer a cookie! I also have a few friends, two to be exact, who may or may not be guilty of buying canned icing and putting it on their warm, freshly baked cookies! So in reality, these cookies are dedicated to them! They know who they are :)

Next on the agenda is the winners of the Pin Wheel Cupcake Topper giveaway! As promised there are two winners, one randomly selected from the blog and another from Bertie’s Bakery Facebook.

The Facebook “Liker” who was randomly selected was: 

Reem Paulus! You should totally check out her Facebook page as well, great work posted there! http://www.facebook.com/CakealiciousByReem

And the Winner from my comments was:

Robin @ Bird on a cake! Her blog is also something else! Great work by this baker/blogger as well!

Lastly, here are a few things that grabbed my attention this week. Pretty sure you’ll like them too!

These cookies were posted by A Dozen Eggs Bake Shoppe, and while I think the shamrock and flag are cool, I beg to wonder why those sweaters are in the back??? LOOK at those sweater cookies! I’m wildly entertained and impressed by the idea and execution! Well done, well done!

Next up is blogger Lizy B.I literally just booked my tickets to Florida with my sister the other day, and basically all we are going to do for a week is read, sun tan, read, sun tan, read… well you get the point. So where does Miss. Lizy B. come into all of this? I also just bought the whole lot of Hunger Games books on my kindle. I plan on reading them all in one beach vacation! These cookies blew me away! What great work, I love the painted symbols!

Lastly, but certainly not least:

“Good Lord” is what I said when I read the title of this blog. The District Chocoholic posted “Birthday Cake Brownies” and I knew I was in for it. If you haven’t checked out her blog, she is the chocolate diva! Seriously, she is a chocolate connoisseur and can tell you all about different kinds, and the chocolate shops in our area! Lots of good information found there!

Okay that’s it for now! Hope you have a great Friday! Most of mine will be spent at the hospital/ orthopedic specialist as I finally agreed to get an MRI/Arthrogram. More on that later :( Wish me luck! 

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