Scrabble Cake: Fondant overload

My office celebrated our company's seven year anniversary this week.  Sushi luncheon, lottery cards, and a webcam session with all of our virtual folks across the country made for a rather enjoyable hour.  Last year for the anniversary party I made a simple cake adorned with our company logo. This year, I had to step it up and I put together a Scrabble cake filled with the acronyms we in the government consulting world use on a daily basis. 

To start, I made a simple 13 x 9 red velvet cake. Let it cool and then plopped it on my carrying tray. 

Next, I pounded out some vanilla fondant and rolled it out onto my new fondant rolling sheet. I skipped the $20 fondant roller at the craft store and used a regular ol' rolling pin.  I don't know if there's a better way for transferring the rolled fondant to the cake, but the hubs and I left it on the rolling sheet and flipped the sheet over the cake.  Then I just peeled off the rolling sheet. 

Then, I just used a simple paring knife to trim the fondant around the cake.  I did the big cuts first, formed the fondant, and just kept trimming as I went.  I smoothed out the fondant once I was done trimming.  Tiny knicks can be fixed with just a drop of water. 

While the fondant on the cake was hardening up I prepped for making my Scrabble tiles.  There are 100 tiles on a standard English Scrabble board.  Since the board is traditionally square and I had a rectangle cake I was going to make a 8 x 8 board on my cake.  Since a Scrabble board has 15 tiles on each side I figured I would save myself the math headache and just make my tiles half in squares.  A 6 by 6 inch square of rolled fondant yielded 144 tiles, which was more than I needed, but I actually planned on my last row being all messed up from dragging my paring knife.  Then, I figured I'd have a few leftover tiles to spare incase I messed up writing a few letters or made any other errors. 

My rolling sheet was labeled with 1 inch squares so I cut my vertical lines first on the 1 inch lines and then just eyeballed cutting them in half.  Did that on the horizontal lines and I was good to go.  I think the hubs was actually impressed with my math skills and dedication at this point.  

I drew on paper a Scrabble board and where I wanted my letters.  I used my paper template as a guide to place the board on the cake.  To finish I used a small tube of chocolate frosting to draw on the board lines.  I pierced the frosting tube with a sterilized safety pin that way I had a super small hole to control the flow of frosting!  I used the same frosting tube to write on my letters.

Unfortunately, I used my company's name in a prominent location on the Scrabble board.  I didn't think about that until writing this post and I thought, "crap, do I really want to broadcast where I work?" So that's all you get to see up there! 

Takeaways

1. The bigger the cake the better!  The bigger the cake, the bigger your tiles and half inch tiles were way too small to write both the letter and the point value. Not having the point values on the tiles really bugged me.  A standard Scrabble board is 15 by 15 inches and I think a 12 x 12 cake would have been a great size for the cake.
2. Details matter people! I actually made all 100 Scrabble tiles and left the remaining pieces on the cake tray.  Some of my co-workers were like, "oh, you could have made this word here." My response, "really, where are you getting the 'H' for that? There are only 2 'Hs' on a Scrabble board."  Having that type of detailed cake really mattered. The hardcore Scrabble folks were impressed for those level of details.  I even included the two blank pieces and people loved that. 
3. Everything takes more time than you think it will.  I didn't finish my cake until 11:30pm! I completely underestimated how long it would take to write out all of the letters.  Perhaps it's my fault, but I played a ton of words on my board and that might have been a huge part of the problem. However, back to point #2.  There are four separate center divisions at my office and I wanted to make sure that all four of them were represented on the board.  I am not kidding you, but I was on the CDC website while making this cake trying to find an acronym that worked for my board. 
4. Your hand will hurt after squeezing a frosting tube for that long. Swear to goodness my hand was sore the next day and I could barely grip a pen.  The trials and tribulations of baking are sorely unappreciated. 
5. Don't stress out and just eat some cake! 

It's always hotter in Arizona

The Baltimore area has been crippled by extreme heat over the past two weeks and it's been just miserable.  Good thing I've been prepping for the heat because three weeks ago I was on a site visit in three areas of Arizona and the coolest weather I encountered was a mild 105 degree day in Tucson.  It was absolutely brutal.

I actually attempted to walk 6 blocks in downtown Phoenix to get back to my hotel from a meeting on a Friday afternoon at 2pm.  I'm not kidding you, I had to dive inside a building lobby for a few minutes half way through my walk because I thought I was going to pass out. The things I'll do to save on cab fare!

I will give Arizona credit where credit is due: Arizonans recycle and they respect water! Every where I went someone was offering to either give me a bottle of water, recycle my bottle, or refill my bottle.  Each of the three hotels I stayed in had recycling containers in every room.  Public parks, street corners, and gas stations even had recycling containers at every garbage can.

I also met with a variety of housing developers and they were incredibly proud of the green building measures that they were putting into place in their projects.  Everything from recycled concrete roof tiles to gray water systems were utilized.  It was really amazing to see.

The only thing interrupting the clear blue sky is the framework of a house. 

Recycled concrete roof tiles.  50 year lifespan and roughly the same cost has shingles.  Perfect for long-term sustainable housing. 

I don't think I actually met Bob, but I'm thankful he could lend me a clean hard hat.  

Not my idea of a garden, but sure why not. 

Wait, is this sign warning me that there are warring factions of scorpions and snakes waiting to battle?

I think I could feel the water evaporate out of my veins it was so dry out.

 

Did you know that it takes roughly a 100 years for a cactus to grow an arm?  Some folks in Tucson told me that little tidbit of information. 

So, so, so hot. 

You know things are warm when you see a city park and there isn't a kid in sight.  I kept waiting for an alien ship to come down and put all the people back in their places. 

I was probably a bit too excited that I was able to pack for a full week of site visits (flew out Sunday night and returned Friday night) and fit everything into my carry-on bag.  Unfortunately because of all the sand I left the heels in the bag the entire trip! I hate when that happens because they took up valuable suitcase space. I was pretty ticked when my bag had to get gate checked on my return flight.  I hate online check-in because if you don't do it promptly 24 hours before your flight time then you're stuck at the end of the pack and I wasn't even flying on Southwest!

New Orleans: An oldie, but goodie

I was exceptionally fortunate to have the opportunity to travel to New Orleans for work.  I had my butter quota filled for the next three years in the 44 hours I was in the City's limits.  However, I was there on Halloween night, which was awesome.  It also didn't hurt that I got to run a few times in 70 degree weather at the end of October and beginning of November.

I kind of started this blog post and then forgot about it.  Meaning I dumped some pictures into a post and then never labeled them!

If you've been to New Orleans and I screwed anything up, please leave a comment and let me know!

Just a few hours on the ground in NOLA and I headed over to Bourbon Street.  I am totally comfortable admitting that I stopped on a corner and took the two photos above. I then promptly buried my camera into my bag because even though it was only 9pm it was already getting a bit rough.  Turns out there was a bit of a shooting spree later that night, while I was asleep, and a few people were killed. I never felt afraid for my personal safety, I just knew my lack of coordination coupled with the high drinking levels of the crowd meant it was ideal conditions for me to fall over and possibly break something. 

Possibly the best name for a beer, although I might be a tad bit biased. 

Marry a bridge engineer and it becomes mandatory to take a picture of any decent sized bridge!

Need help!  These were some kind of really cool art down along the river near the casino and aquarium.  Anyone know what these are called? 

Really cool chandeliers at the Audubon Nature Institute.  They were shaped like bugs and venus fly traps. 

Mmmm, I don't know where those beads came from.

St. Louis Cathedral and Jackson Park which at night was really pretty.  I could spend all day there.

Mmmmmmm rock candy at the outdoor market. 

You have to love a city that decorates to the nines for Halloween.  There were even decorations at the airport.

A trip to New Orleans wouldn't be complete without stopping by Cafe Du Monde for some coffee.  It happened to be incredibly hot outside and I didn't have time for beignets, but I did grab a gigantic iced cafe au lait and brought home a whole canister of coffee for my office mates. 

St. Louis Cathedral and Jackson Park. I wish I would have seen the stairs at night so I could have taken this picture in the dark! Next time!!!

New Orleans is definitely on my list of places to go on vacation and really give the City a proper visit.  Anywhere you can grab a drink where Napoleon used to frequent is an okay place in my book. 

Any other must sees in New Orleans?  

The annual office holiday party

I love my job. There, I said it. I know that's taboo to say in some places and it can be quite uncool to proudly proclaim it, but I really do love my job. Are there days that I'm not feeling the love? Absolutely, I am human after all. However, those days really are far and few in between. It's not just working in housing and community development that makes me happy, but it's also the company that I work for and the amazing people that I work with that keep me in a perpetual happy state. I can honestly say that I have friends who get sick and tired of me always saying that I love my job. It's that annoying.

This year I celebrated my two-year anniversary at my company in October and last weekend enjoyed my third office holiday party. Let me just get something out there about my office: we like to work and play hard. We take our work very seriously and we take our holiday parties very seriously. This year was a very nice affair at a lovely locale in downtown Washington, D.C. and the hubs and I decided to abandon surburbia and spend the night in our nation's capitol. I told the hubs that before we headed back to the hotel I wanted to walk by the White House to see it lit up at night. Yeah, that so didn't happen :)

About two hours into a wonderful party the company president and vice-president started the annual speeches and gave out a few awards. The hubs and I snagged a nice, quiet table in the back corner and had a wonderful view of the whole room. All in all things were going well.

Then, disaster stroke.

The ridiculously tall, yet gorgeous Miss M over at District Sparkle took my camera from me. I stood up to take a few pictures during the speeches and she just sauntered over in her 6inch sparkly high heels and red dress and just snatched my camera from me. My 5'7" self couldn't match her height, so I just handed the camera over and trusted that she wouldn't drop it.

Seriously people, don't be fooled by her love of all things sparkly. She's intimidating!

One year I'm going to learn how to keep my eyes open in a picture. I swear that's going on the New Year's Resolution List for 2012!

Then, the biggest award of the night was being handed out and I was sitting quietly in back paying attention when low and behold, my name got announced.

Yeah, that's how I roll. Win an award and I cover up and try to duck under the table. Chances are I covered my mouth because I was afraid I'd say something really embarrassing like "Jean Louise Finch" because when I swear, I don't actually swear. Or, I said, "you've got to be kidding me." It's a toss up really.

The next half an hour went by in a blur. You know why I don't like winning awards? Because then everyone wants to come up and congratulate you and even worse, take their picture with you. I actually like giving speeches, but I really just don't like standing up in front of people. I despise having my picture taken. I have terrible posture, smile too big, and more often than not give off crazy eyes. I can usually get one normal smile out of about ten pictures. I know a few of my co-workers flipped through their pictures from the holiday party and thought, "why does Heidi look like she's about to be electrocuted?"

However, I do remember being happy to have a picture with my two office "moms." We travel together for work quite a bit and there have been numerous times where each have been accused of being my mom.

Seriously, also adding "stand up straight" to the 2012 New Year's Resolution List. No wonder I always have back pain!

Thanks Miss M for the pictures and for letting me borrow your sparkly gold belt. It really helped jazz up my $25 J. Crew dress :)

(Sadly, the office crew is a blonde short! These chic ladies are part of the reason my bank account hates my shopping habits)

The funniest part of the night was when of my co-workers came up to the hubs and I and said, "great, Heidi, you got me in trouble. He's (pointing to her husband) mad at me for not thanking him during my speech."

Whoops! Of course when I got up and thanked my office for the honor I told an entire room of people that I didn't do anything in life without the support of my husband and I thanked him for being my partner in crime.

Was I not supposed to do that?

When we were getting ready to leave (*cough* to head out to a bar) after the party the hubs and I were saying goodbyes to a few co-workers and someone said to the hubs, "are you proud Heidi won?"

His response, "I'm proud of her every day."

This, ladies and gentlemen, is why I typically avoid wearing mascara. The dude barely talks and then he has to lay out something like that on me. I know he's proud of me, but I don't typically think it and I don't remember the last time he said it out loud or even to another person.

That's enough attention for me. I'm going to go burry my head in the covers and not come out for a few days.

Coming home for the holidays

Due to some pretty intense travel schedules to finish off the year, the hubs and I haven't spent a full week together since the beginning of October. Actually, the longest amount of time we've spent together during that time period was the four day weekend for Thanksgiving. It's been hectic and crazy.

To make matters worse, downtown Detroit is lit up like a Christmas tree. Well, actually there's a giant Christmas tree, plus a whole host of other Christmas trees. It's making me miss the hubs like crazy. To me, the holidays are spent with family and just thinking about the holidays makes me think about family. The hubs is the biggest part of my family, so not spending time with him is making things pretty rough.

This sight last night wasn't making things any easier:

Festive holiday lights - CHECK!

Giant Christmas tree - CHECK!

Adorable kids ice skating - CHECK!

Hot chocolate - CHECK!

Families with dogs - CHECK! (can't see them in the picture, but there was a very cute dad with two beagles cheering on his kids out on the ice)

The saddest part is I'll be home Thursday night and yet the hubs is working over nights this week, which means I won't see him until Friday night. Not terrible, but it's getting old.

I know I sound really whiny and I know there are families who spend far greater time apart than we do. My heart goes out to them and I hope my whines don't offend them. This is just unusual for us and it's the switch in routine that's really got me out of whack. I'm tired of cooking for one, I'm tired of eating out, and I'm just tired of not having my nightly laughter filled moments with my best friend.

I'm looking forward to Christmas more than ever this year because we'll both have a full week off from work and we'll get to spend almost every blessed moment together. Then, we'll probably be sick of each other!

Honey! I'm home!!!

I don't know about your house life, but my house runs on a fairly tight schedule. There are so many standardized times in my work day that any major deviation from the schedule could cause a catastrophic risk to my day. Okay, most of my times focus around food or commuting, but that's normal, right?

5:45am - wake up

6:43am - leave for work

7:00am - park car/kiss hubs goodbye if carpooling

7:05am - catch train

7:45am - arrive at work

8:00am - drink coffee

9:00am- eat banana and yogurt

12:00pm- eat lunch

2:30pm- eat snack

4:40pm- leave work

4:51pm- catch train

5:24pm- get off train

5:55pm - arrive home

5:57pm- get mauled by two dogs!

Seriously! I try to come in the house all nonchalant and low-key, yet if the hubs is home already he gets the dogs all riled up and they go nuts. If I get home first or we come home together then they usually leave me alone and attack him.

Tonight I had to pin Jax to the ground and give him a serious belly rub before he would let me get out of my boots. I was terrified he was going to rip my hose or worse cause a drag in my favorite silk duponi skirt!

Other days, it's rather hilarious to come home "early" and catch the dogs by surprise. I got out of work early last Wednesday and when I came home both dogs were still asleep upstairs and it was hilarious to see them stretch themselves out and sleepily saunter down the stairs to greet me. My absolute favorite "trick" was taking a half day at work and coming home hours early and seeing Jewels' little head pop up in the window upstairs and look at me like, "what the heck are you doing here?"

Honestly, I think after a four-day weekend in which the normal schedule was thrown out the window both dogs were ready for the hubs and I to go back to work. They had 20 hour sleeping days to get back to!

How about you - do you have a fairly tight daily schedule? More flexible? Any pets that like routine?

One Mississippi

Not to sound like a a broken record, but I'm behind on blogging ... again!

Last month I hopped on a series of planes and by way of Chicago found myself in Minneapolis for a few days. I was out there solo, but managed to have a good time nonetheless.
The first night when I was walking to my hotel I noticed a series of bikes scattered around the city. When I looked up the name online I was pleased to find out there was a cool bike share program in Minneapolis. Score! Thankfully I had a few hours to kill before catching my return flight and I was able to pick up a bike to get around and see more of the city. So I did what any normal person does, I strapped my bag (with laptop!) to the front of a bike, stuffed my camera down my coat, and zoomed around the city. You know, sans helmet and all!
When I picked up my first bike I refreshed myself with the rules and found that if I "rented" a bike for 30 minutes or less it was free. There was a $5 daily rental fee, plus an additional charge for renting bikes for loner than 30 minutes. So for the next two hours I hopped around from one bike station to the next and was able to see most of the city for a whopping $5 24 rental fee on my series of bikes. There was only one 30 minute period that ended with me peddling furiously towards a bike station to return my bike, get a new code, and check out the exact same bike! I got there with 2 minutes to spare! Not too shabby!

Don't let the straightness of this pedestrian overpass fool you! The 90 degree turns at the end proved to be a bit tricky on a bike!

I have to admit, it's been a long time since I've been sharing the road on a bike with vehicle traffic. I was slightly nervous and at first stayed on as many side streets as possible! I also didn't stop very often to take pictures because I was having too much fun peddling around.

There was a really interested and complicated series of skywalks throughout the city. I guess folks there like to have a way to travel from building to building in the middle of winter without bundling up. It took a lot longer than walking on the street, but it was kind of cool to walk from a downtown office building back to my hotel without stepping outside.

I'll search out a baseball stadium any day of the week. Unfortunately, tours weren't given on the day I was there. Maybe next time I'll be back during baseball season.

One of many bike pit stops!

I left my last bike where I began my journey, grabbed my luggage from the hotel, and then walked up to the light rail headed for the airport.

See you later Minneapolis!

San Juan... again

Yeah, so it looks like I'm going to be flying down to San Juan quite a few more times for work.

Even this beach hating, anti-swimming, pale person really can't find too much fault with this.

San Juan, Part Dos

Let me first say that my Spanish is absolute crap! Seriously almost a week in San Juan and I got by with a warm smile and four simple things:

"Hola!"

"Gracias"

"No hablo Español."

"Cafe con leche."

Yeah, that's about the limit of my Spanish speaking abilities, which means I really need to dig out the Rosetta Stone CD and dive back in. However, all those of years of taking French were not wasted in vain because I was able to read plenty of documents written in Spanish and ascertain enough information to finish my work.

And next time I need to figure out how to buy more than 2 bags of espresso and 1 can of coffee beans to take home with me! I love dark coffee and being back in Puerto Rico was like a flashback to honeymooning in Brazil where the coffee was divine.

Besides working 10-plus hour days, I was able to enjoy a few moments of fun in San Juan.






Amazing celebration for Noche de San Juan celebration in the hotel's pool area. There was a beach chic fashion show that started at 11:30pm, which meant I drank even more coffee the next morning after being up until 1am. I'm way too old for that behavior on a work night!!!