I’ve been hit lately with the recognition and importance of good things. I’ve always known that negative screams, it’s why we tend to notice it most, but the positive is always there waiting patiently and quietly to be found. Here’s some I found lurking amongst my “negatives” today:

Weeds: So they’re all over my backyard reminding me of how much work there is to do, but they personify determination and a free spirit and when they’re gone I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing a job has been done.

Stunted: These little flowers made it out of the ground, even blossomed but they’re only a few inches tall and the flowers are about the size of my thumbnail. What a reminder of how important nourishment is. It’s so easy to stunt ourselves and our growth, I wonder what I’m holding onto that I need to let go of and what things I need to be embracing more to nourish myself?

Bare: My new trees are budding but still look so bare, yet the promise that sings from those little budding leaves is amazing!

Too Late: I didn’t get some of my broccoli stocks cut before they began to flower, now I can’t eat them but boy they look pretty, big and strong. Maybe the late bloomer is stronger and prettier for the delay?

Influence: “Bloom where you’re planted” came to mind as I looked at these flowers planted side by side at the same time. I wonder what made one take off and the other not? Am I blooming?

Sideways Volunteer: First the picture is sideways, just like I feel somedays! Second this is a volunteer tree or shrub, it’s finding it’s way without any direct help or nourishment from me…..hmmmmmm

Unglued: Ug, this is the face of my pool cool deck, it’s literally coming unglued everywhere and chipping like crazy. I guess the upside is change is imminent and won’t it look nice and be appreciated when it’s redone?!

Dirty: Two pool steps, one got cleaned off when my son tested the water temperature this week, the next step remains neglected and dirty as the vacuum doesn’t climb stairs. I wonder what I’m neglecting because it’s a little harder to get to? The clean sure looks nice!

Cycles: Death is unavoidable, yet new growth is always there to replenish.

Singed: Some of these tomato plant leaves were singed by frost and cold, yet they didn’t let that stop their growth. There’s a lesson or two in there somewhere.

Clean Up: It’s too heavy to lift now, but it indicates progress don’t you think?

I think I’m really struck with the reality of how our perceptions paint our reality. I know so many people who find a blame or excuse for everything, including making good things look bad. But the reality is, there’s good in almost everything. You just have to look for it to see it. I hope I’m the kind of person that encourages good things with those that associate with me. I hope I’m a lifter and not a leaner, at least not all the time!

So what’s good in your life?

This morning I took a moment to walk through my yard and enjoy the simple pleasures; to appreciate newness, marvel at the wonder of creation and drink in the goodness of a new day. Here’s some of what I saw:

Over the years, I’ve learned the value of blogging a few things - things that I think I’ll remember but find the details got hazy. Some of my best recipe creations have been lost to the haze, but as soon as I started blogging some of my successes I’ve been able to go back and find them. Technology can be a helpful and beautiful thing. Another benefit for me personally is the way it helps me track progress on goals. I love seeing posts and pictures from big projects from beginnings to end. They say a target to be hit must first be seen, well for me the motivation to keep working on those targets comes from visually being able to view and comprehend my progress. It is literally my fuel for success. So this post starts the first of many on recording my progress toward my goal of true self reliance through the principles of Family Home Storage.

First a little history to understand my perspective. I grew up hearing the importance of self-reliance and preparedness. The wise counsel of preparation has been ever present in my life, although I readily admit that I’ve been only partially vigilant in following the counsel. Instead of a full year’s supply of emergency food storage, I had a couple month’s worth. Instead of financial freedom I convinced myself I was doing great because we were always paying more than minimum on our debts as well as putting money away in several different savings and investment plans. If anyone had asked me how I felt about things at that time my story would have been laced with illusions of grandeur through rose colored glasses. My wake up call came when disaster struck in 2001 and I learned the valuable lesson of direct correlation between our level of vigilance and our survival/recovery. The good news is that we survived a serious blow of six months with no income without declaring bankruptcy. The bad news is that we only barely survived and our recovery was monumental. I seriously underestimated how quickly all those reserves would go when used. We incurred increased consumer debt used to float us through the gap of my husband securing employment. There are not words to express the feelings of helplessness, frustration and entrapment which followed the many months later as we struggled under a mountain of debt and limited resources. Looking back, I see how our partial attention to self reliance played a critical role in our surviving our own emergency, but I can also see how full attention would have provided full benefit. Things would have been different. Things would have been better.

In September I helped organize and present an evening of instruction on the very topic of Family Home Storage. Through the process, I was able to identify several things I still haven’t and should be doing for my own success in this area. The first was moving my knowledge of what I had from my cluttered head to an easier and more tangible system. So this week I took my own advice and went through all my food storage to make an inventory. I pulled things off the shelves, wrote down what I had, reorganized my supplies and then moved all that wonderful information into a spreadsheet.

While I haven’t perfected my system, I now have a start. I organized my list into a column for checking when the item has met my 100% goal, a column for the item description followed by two columns one for “have” and the other for “need.” My goal was to quickly identify in the first column how complete my goal is, the purpose of the last column was to help me quickly determine items needing to be added to a shopping list. I broke the list out into sections that included my pantry, freezer, long term food storage and non perishable items. The goal for food is to get three months worth of usable storage and one year of long term/emergency basic food storage.

Yesterday I put my list on the door of my pantry. I added a checklist for myself and family members to write down when items are pulled and used so I know what needs replaced. I just used a large white mailing envelope to hold my list and attached a checklist on the front and a pencil.

I’ve got a good start to my three month supply and a decent beginning to my long term storage, but I am totally lacking in drinking water and a few other non-perishables. It is recommended to have two weeks worth of drinking water for each family member. The suggestion is 3 cases of individual drinking water bottles per person for that time. That means I should have 12 cases of water bottles, I have one. So my immediate goal is to add one case of water and one package of toilet paper to each shopping trip. In our last home, I’d get caught with my pants down several times when the complex had to turn our water off for repairs. Sometimes it would last a good half to full day. I was so grateful for the inspiration to fill my empty canning bottles with water. The number of times I had to run down to my storage room to get a pint of water was many! I know the value of having usable water available.

My next immediate goal is to start tracking how quickly I use the items in my pantry. That way I’ll know what a three month supply means for me and my family. Right now it would be pure guesswork. I will also start adding that step by step application of one extra can of something here, a few pennies in the jar there, etc. I look forward to sharing photo updates of my progress on my goal. I wonder if it will look anything like the picture in my head?

Lately my husband and I have been having a great deal of conversation on the importance and learning curve of finding one’s balance with regards to the many options for using our time in today’s world. Many of our friends are venturing into online activities for the first time and they’re in the spiral of recognizing for themselves the need to establish balance. We’ve been involved for so long that we’ve almost forgot what it was like when everything was new and how easy it is to become unbalanced. And we’re not perfect at it, we’ve just had a lot of practice. *wink*

One thing I keep hearing in conversations and discussions is the extreme view that recent technologies are either evil or good. It’s a silly case because as with all things they’re both because the potential lies with the user and their agency. Some will use it for good, others for evil. In my humble opinion, I think it’s supremely important to remain an active force for good. Which is why I smile inside knowing how many of my younger friends on Facebook may be thinking twice before they post or share something just knowing that I may see it. *giggle*

My first learning curve came in 1999. I was the mother of a beautiful little toddler and an active advocate for adoption. Online activities were starting a real upswing then and I became involved in many boards and forum discussions on the topic of adoption. I entered my first chat room on an adoption website and met a wonderful group of friends, some of whom I remain in contact with today. We were exposed to extreme anti-adoption personalities on the site that would come to stir up a great storm of mud and ugly. I didn’t like it at all, and sometimes it made me sick to my stomach - made me want to run away and hide from it all. But then that rebellious spirit kicked in and I knew I wanted to fight back for good. I started posting more actively on some of the discussions, especially those that were trying to undermine the potential positives of adoption. It was here that I began to cultivate a necessary and wonderful skill of really thinking through what I shared, of being extremely careful of my wording and my shares so they could not be misconstrued. This is doubly important because with text communication there is no body language, facial expression or voice inflection to get your point across or clarify your intent. It was also during this time that I recognized the dangers of being involved in something so interactive. While a TV can keep you entertained for a while, a chat room could get you addicted with a need and desire to come back often and to put off other things because it was interactive; in this relationship you were getting something back for your time making it far too easy to spend too much of it online. I believe it was the day my toddler buttered our Yorkie pup that I realized other duties might be slipping for my time spend visiting online with other adoptive and hopeful adoptive moms. (I fully expect a comment on this from Pookie’s mom!) But it was the day I caught myself telling her “Just one more Elmo” for the 3rd time in a row that I recognized I needed to fix something. I had to step back and begin to limit my time spent interacting with all these wonderful people who shared interests from adoption to religious beliefs and more so I could balance my time spent in the “real” world with my family, neighbors and friends. It was a fantastic and eye-opening learning curve for me and a lesson I’ve never forgotten.

So when blogging hit the scene, I found it much easier to enjoy it without letting it take over my time. I’d already had the learning curve on website forums and chat rooms as well as e-mail groups to help prepare me. Although, it still took some adjusting as it was too easy to spend hours reading other people’s blogs and getting caught up in how many would come read my own. For a while in the beginning it was delightful to see a Technorati rating run up and blogging awards find their way to you. It was easy to lose focus on both my purpose and my time spent there. Again, I met many wonderful friends, many of whom I remain in contact with on a regular basis. My learning curve expanded. So when Facebook exploded I had the advantage of all this learning behind me. It wasn’t a temptation to get involved in quizzes and games that seems to suck away the sands of time from my daily hourglass. I’d already done that with all the blogging memes when they first surfaced. It was a fun way to reconnect with people I grew up with and I dearly love that ability. While some people complain about not caring about what someone is doing, I find it an easy and fast way to interact with them. People who I would not normally run up to and have a conversation because of geographic or time gaps get a simple thumbs up from me or a comment that I hope they’re feeling better if they shared they’ve got a headache - both things that I was unable to do a few years ago. It doesn’t take as much time as e-mail or reading a blog and I like that ability. It is also a great way to develop and extend new friendships with others. Just this past weekend I was able to easily strike up a conversation with someone I’ve never spoken to face to face before simply because I’ve commented and interacted with her on some status updates on Facebook. It melted that first and awkward barrier and the result was wonderful.

All this said, I know many who are currently struggling with their own learning curves. For many of my friends tools like Facebook are their first venture into the online world. It has all the elements of everything I’ve experienced slowly to this point in one place. It is chatting, gaming, socializing and sharing and consequently I hear many friends express shame or worry over how much time they spend there. Each time I tell them the same thing. I tell them of my own experience and how natural it is to have to find your own balance with these modern technologies, but if they are diligent it will come. The first and most important step is simply realizing you’re out of balance because a problem to be fixed must first be seen.

I do worry for our youth who are growing up with all these tools and digital technologies as part of every day life. Their adjustments will be different because there’s no “new” element for them, it’s just life as they know it. I worry that they will sacrifice the blessings that come from personal interaction and service because it’s more comfortable to sit and text or visit online. I worry that they seem to be missing important lessons such as not sharing or posting information that doesn’t belong to you be it news or photos. I worry that they won’t be able to see the long term impact of sharing something silly when they’re mad or just feeling silly. I worry that they don’t understand what it means to “share” in today’s world; that they are providing proof for anyone to use for or against them. And I worry most because I see their parents struggling to learn these same lessons. My husband keeps telling me it’s time to expand my charm school training into an e-etiquette course! Maybe he’s right. *smirk*

So for all the positive, there is equal negative. It was ever thus. I just feel a need to share that it is what we make it. A private family blog can be the most wonderful and easy way to retain valuable communication and record family histories. It’s the best of both worlds because journaling and scrapbooking can be combined. Now you can even click on an option to have your entire blog published into a beautiful hardback book. These tools can make important things easier and within the reach of everyone. That same blog can also be a source of hurt and exclusion if what is shared is not done with care.

Although there are times when many of us would love nothing more than to be separated from this crazy world we live in, we are not here to be excluded. We are here to learn how to live in this world and grow, how to develop self control and positive traits, in short to learn how to become better people. It’s not easy, but it can be done. Balance can be found if it is sought after. Life is rich when it is obtained. Our ancestors have all experienced it. I’m sure the radio was an addiction in its day the same as TV and every other enhancement and advancement that’s come along. In so many ways striking balance is at the heart of our feeling successful and satisfied. As long as we don’t lose sight of that every tool that comes down the pike will be an advantage for us.

There’s a lot to be said for comfort zones, both for and against them. On one hand they’re our adult security blanket that can help us feel secure and safe. On the other, they can become a barrier and stunt growth.

Several years ago, my husband and I made a painful (and previously yo-yo process) decision to move to Fort Collins, CO for a job possibility. I say painful, because we weren’t looking for it and in some ways felt pressured into it. Once we realized that we were waiting for the impossible scenario that the decision would make itself because the salary and benefits offered would make it easy to decide to move, we were able to realistically look at the opportunity and make the decision ourselves. We learned many things from our 3 months there but the lesson at the top of the list was how comfortable we’d grown being uncomfortable.

I know that sounds contradictory, but it was true. It’s not that we weren’t happy where we were before, but until we moved out of that comfort zone we couldn’t have realized how comfortable we had grown with our own mediocrity. That push caused us to identify and reach new horizons - a pattern that has since repeated itself over and over as we’ve learned to seize opportunities when they surface.

Lately, I’ve had a lot of discussions with friends and family about the value of being friendly. It strikes me that too often we can come across as unfriendly to those we meet or run into simply because we’re “comfortable” with our existing friends, etc. We don’t mean to appear exclusive or uninterested, some of us just require a little nudge out of our comfort zones.

So lately, I’ve been on the lookout in my own life for the times when I start to justify or rationalize not doing something. I’m beginning to catch myself and address this ‘knee jerk reaction’ and I’m amazed at the results. It’s just like retraining myself to tell my kids yes more than no - another comfort zone that seems to sneak up on you.

I’m finding this is a lot like exercising. When I feel those sore muscles that cause discomfort I can’t help but smile because I know that by working them positive things are happening. It’s rarely easy, never convenient and always requires sacrifice but the results are always worth it.

I wonder why it’s so easy to establish comfort zones about the silliest things; why it’s so easy to give ourselves ample excuses and reasons to stay there. Now that I say that, I do understand the primary reason because if I apply this to my ability/desire to get out of bed in the morning I totally get it. I don’t want to because I love that warm comfortable spot and the ability to do nothing but sleep!

So what do you do to help you identify and stretch your comfort zones?

This morning I sat down to my computer and found a welcome surprise; a note in my inbox indicating to me that something simple I shared here helped someone else.

“HI
I don’t know you from anyone and neither you me, but I just wanted to say we have a common friend, Jesus, who knew I needed some info on hooking my RO system to my fridge and led me right to your blog. Can I just say I’ve be looking online for hours trying to figure this out. So funny how posting something like that can help a total stranger in CA.

“I don’t know that I’ll be back but blessings just the same! and thanks for the detailed post!
Ally”

I wish Ally could know how much it meant to me that she’d take the time to leave me these thoughts and let me know that our paths crossed. It seemed so trivial at the time I posted it, so off the mark of much of what I share here that I had really questioned that post. Now I know if for no other reason, the Lord knew why.

I did actually come back and reference this post myself a few weeks ago when we thought the ice maker was acting up again so I guess you never really know do you? It tells me I should be a bit more vigilant about these “little” things.

I am convinced that we are the messengers in the Lord’s hands. He doesn’t often send us choirs of angels when we call, He sends us one another. How happy I am this morning to know that I crossed paths with a stranger, now friend in CA. Ally, I hope you’re having a wonderful day - you sure made mine.

I’m constantly amazed at the satisfaction and boost it is to get simple things done. I tend to think about the things that need done so often that I’ve done them at least a hundred times in my head before I actually get the job that only takes once to be done. What a waste of energy.

I’ve been learning how much easier it is to tell my kids yes instead of no and the benefits far outweigh the inconvenience. For example, a few weeks ago I was doing something when my son came to me and asked if I’d please make him his favorite cookies. My first thought was no, I’m doing something right now. But I’ve been working on retraining myself to that initial reaction by asking why not and how long will it really take, so instead I said yes. I dropped what I was working on and spent the next 15-20 minutes making him his favorite no bake, chocolate oatmeal cookies. Not only did I have a very happy boy, it saved me hours of nagging and interruptions. I went back to my previous task and completed it with a smile on my face knowing I’d taken time to do something that really mattered. If there were any doubt, my son confirmed this simple act with multiple verbal thanks that night and at bed time told me how he loved me with a hundred hearts and I was the best mom he ever had. Those moments are beyond price and they cost me only 15 minutes of readjusting my expectations. It takes so little to move mountains in the home.

Inspired with such simple successes in the kitchen I tried on a few things I’ve been putting off like baking bread from scratch and juicing fruit. I threw a new twist on my banana bread by cooking a large batch in a bunt cake pan. I’ve made several batches of homemade bread now and look forward to exploring new and different recipes. A little success goes a long way!

I grew up with a mother who did a lot of home canning and preservation of foods. I burned her homemade bread when left on watch. I learned how to do things with her tools and I’ve put off doing similar things in my own home for the excuse that I don’t have all the same tools like her steamer juicer. But last week I picked up all those guava that fell of the tree and juiced them. It’s not hard to cook the fruit until tender and create a makeshift drainer. I used my strainer over a bowl and one of my old flour sack dish towels to strain and squeeze the cooked fruit.

I have fruit in bottles in my fridge for immediate use and ice cubes for future use. I can’t tell you how this simple thing lifted my spirits compared to last year’s efforts of picking them up, keeping them on the counter for a few days and eventually throwing the spoiled fruit away.

Other tasks are easier to see and therefore procrastinate, like my floors. With a little unplanned motivation last week I steam cleaned my family room carpet which led to finishing the job on the tile. Have I mentioned how much I love my steamers? Or how much I love seeing the ‘after’ clean from the ‘before’ dirt?

This Saturday, I’ll drop off what feels like a garage full of bags and boxes from the deep clean of forbidden closets and corners of my home. It’s so nice to feel the space and organization when all the clutter is gone.

Little by little things are getting done and that’s my whole point. It doesn’t have to be a marathon event or everything done at one time. Just taking the few minutes here and there to do one thing that’s needing done or bugging you can do so much for your self esteem and motivation. I’ve only recently been let in on the great secret that it’s never done. So I’m not worrying anymore about getting everything ‘done’, I’m focusing instead on completing a few tasks when they come up. There’s much to be said for obtaining balance with this mentality from making cookies to playing a game or reading a story with your kids to clearing out that one junk drawer that’s taking over to preserving instead of throwing out the fruit you didn’t get to before it over ripened. I no longer look at my calendar to see everything I have to get done this week or this month. The lists are taking a much needed sabbatical and I’m retraining myself to keep the little things little, but important enough to get done. I wish I could put into words how amazed I constantly am at how much more I get done and how little time it takes to do most things. At the end of the day I’m learning the value of the lesson to just do it!

I’m always saying that the only constant in the universe is change. I really believe that. It seems that as soon as you find an answer the question changed, or as soon as you feel like you figured something out the rules or game changed. I think if my shoes represented these constant shifts I’d need several rooms to accommodate all the changes!

Today I’m reflective on the power of change. It seems that so many around me are struggling with major life changes. From new additions to separations from death or divorce, financial strain and everything in between, I have so many loved ones and friends currently experiencing the gamut that comes with these roller coaster rides. I find myself looking over my shoulder to see why I’m currently being shielded from something disastrous. I recognize that the majority of the answer is found in the various times and seasons of life, but I still feel the impact of all that’s happening around me. I find myself thinking on what I can do to prepare and fortify for the coming seasons in my own life; gearing up to be the parent of a teen, watching debilitating and terminal illness eat away at parents and grandparents, etc. I’ve weathered some personal storms in the past, I know there will be more in the future. 40 is dangerously close, definitely closer and faster than I ever dreamed possible. In so many ways I still feel like that same girl I knew at 18, I wonder if I’ll ever feel as old as the calendar says I am?

Last year at this time I was thinking on the changes of having both of kids in school the entire day. My first instinct was to fill my time with school studies. It seemed logical. I enjoy elements of law and through our adoption experiences I started thinking maybe getting a law degree would be just right for me. I was excited and anxious as I gathered more information. But the more research I did the less settled I felt. A few months ago I decided that now is not the time for me to pursue this. For one thing I’d be getting a law degree to use it and my goal isn’t work, for another I’ve already sacrificed so much to stay home with my kids I can’t see risking any of that now when they will likely need me at home and that stability more than ever in their lives. So I decided instead to beef up my reading list and educational activities at home.

Yesterday I received another curve ball. Hindsight shows my previous decision to not jump back into school right away lines up for this new change. I took my daughter to an audition this past Saturday to appease her many requests to go back for some. The reader’s digest, condensed version of this story is a birthday gift when she turned 7 blew up in my face. We let her run with it for just over a year carefully avoiding blue smoke grenades and doing our best to avoid landmines. Well, the little stink proved it wasn’t all blue smoke with her NY convention but with mom getting sucked into the career path alongside her and a two year old at home a white flag was raised and mom gracefully bowed out for a “rest”, promising her daughter that when the time was right she’d take her back for some auditions. Last Saturday I made good on that promise and yesterday she got a call back from it. We met with the talent manager last night and it looks like we’re off to the next step. New headshots are on the horizon as well as a manager marketing her for potential work in LA. Looks like travel might be in my near future. Good thing I’m not knee deep into my own schooling eh?

So again I reiterate, change is the only constant. What I wouldn’t give for a few seconds with a crystal ball. What does your future hold my Cidderbug?

This is more closely aligned to the nature versus nurture argument than I’ve realized previously. I’ve made comparisons in the past to life and gardening. There is a great deal of wisdom to be found in these types of comparisons. Today I’m reflecting on the values and impact of past and present actions.

Specifically, I’m thinking on the role of parenting. I’m seeing first hand how so many things I’ve done with my kids are traced back to planting the right seeds. Constant attention and cultivation down the road bear priceless impact, but what was planted in the beginning is absolutely critical. You simply can’t make a tomato plant bear a different kind of fruit.

I’ve always heard how important and formidable the early years of life are. I’ve always known it was true, but I’m only now starting to realize the depth of this truth. As a parent, the number of days you shake your head and wonder if ANYTHING you are trying to teach is making it anywhere are far more frequent than the rays of light when you can see successful penetration. Your kids are like precious little geodes. They are developing the most beautiful and intricate crystals of their character on the inside, but you will most likely be exposed most often to a tough and ugly outer shell as the parent.

Today I’m thinking on how much influence you really do have on those forming crystals inside. It is just like gardening. The best crop comes from early preparation of the soil and care in planting. Cultivation of the growing plants can overcome a lot of problems, but it can’t make up for what was or wasn’t planted. The upside is that it’s never too late to plant. The growth and ability for full potential of what is planted may diminish with time, but the ability to plant new seeds isn’t lost with age.

Some of the most important seeds I’ve been observing in the past several months include:

• Importance of a strong and good work ethic
• Kindness and compassion
• Personal responsibility
• Honesty
• Desire and determination to excel
• Cleanliness
• Respect

There are plenty more seeds that are worthy of mentioning. I think there are core seeds that branch out into other areas, perhaps even become the foundation of several smaller seeds. Equally true is the reality that just planting isn’t enough. Great seeds can be planted and never grow if they receive no care or cultivation. I’ve also been pleasantly surprised in my life to witness seeds that were planted yet remained dormant, suddenly spring to life with great success when the right care was given. Yes, I believe there is a great deal of comparisons to be made between gardening and life. I’m grateful for the seeds I’m witnessing growing with strength in my own children. I hope I’m planting enough of the right ones and cultivating them adequately for full potential to be reached. The harvest is truly the proving point of your greatest satisfaction of disappointment. I pray I fall on the side of satisfaction.

I have a niece getting married next week. I offered to help her with her invitations and cake. I have more confidence in the graphic design of her invitation than her cake but I’m willing to take a stab at it.

Here’s the invitation:

And here’s the first ‘test’ cake.

I’m excited now that I’ve done a test cake at what the real one will be like. Especially knowing I’ll have access to real cake materials and not homemade cardboard frames.

However, it just goes to prove that where there’s a will there’s a way. *snort* I wish you could see the disaster under the top layer of this test cake. It was a cake baked with the cardboard frame on a cookie sheet, and made without eggs because I didn’t realize I only had one when the recipe called for 3 until I was knee deep into the process. It was already crumbling before I attempting to put it on top of a patchwork of rice krispy treats to get it to a 4″ height. I’m still amazed I could make it look anything like a hexagon at all. Blake said it tasted great though and he enjoyed digging into it moments after the test rounds were complete. Their purpose of learning were served and now I think I know what we want to do for real thing.

For my own purposes, I’ll share some of the details that I know today I think I’ll remember but when the time comes it will all be muddled in my memory:

wedding cakes are HUGE. You can’t really downsize if you want a tiered cake because you need at least 3″ between each layer to look right and allow decorating. You have to start deleting layers and spacing them with some sort of separation.

typical wedding pan measurements are 2″ high, they need to be doubled to make 4″ layers both to look right and to allow decorating space on the sides.

rice krispy treats work great as the base, but it takes a ton of them to make the right sized tiers. It took 6 1/2 batches to do the two layers I have a picture of which are only one 2″ base 15″ across and one 2″ base 12″ across. That means it would take 13 batches to do complete two layer bottoms.

ganache tends to remain a little chunky even if you melt the chocolate before adding the cream. However, you can remelt the mixture after it’s cooled and it will become perfectly smooth. That can then be re-chilled and whipped into a smooth frosting. Letting it cool for a few minutes after remelting makes a better drizzle as it’s slightly thicker.

fruit garnish like lemon or orange rine ribbons can sit for a day in the fridge before decorating. They will harden slightly in whatever shape formed in and hold color without drying for several hours in the open air.

doing test runs are wonderful for so many reasons!

A few more test cake photos can be found at: Lindsay’s Wedding