So remember when I said I want to do more baking? You should, it was the last post. So I talked to my Mom about it and she said she’s totally cool with the idea of me baking all the time. I’m not 100% sure she understood my question… because I never, ever would have thought she would want me to bake more.

Oh well. So as much as I would love to get into the kitchen right now and start making all manner of cakes and cookies and other delicious treats, I can’t. At least, I couldn’t for the past few days. Mostly because of a lack of ingredients and tools, a direct result of a lack of funds. Sending me into Williams Sonoma or even a grocery store baking aisle armed with a credit card (sans limit) apparently doesn’t make it on my Mom’s list of priorities - for reasons I will never understand. What could possibly be more important?

So today I took a general inventory of baking tools that I have… and ones that I need. I’ve got:

• A total of 2 cake pans. One is a loaf pan, one is a really huge rectangle one that I hardly ever use because it’s ridiculously large.
• A plethora of measuring utensils, from teaspoons to cups. The coolest of which is from Pampered Chef, and measures both liquids and solids, depending on which way you turn it. Very cool.
• Rolling pin (lol)

And… basically that’s it. Here’s what I need:

• More cake pans. Circles, squares, and a smaller rectangle would be great.
• Muffin/Cupcake pan - how else am I supposed to make cupcakes?
• Piping utensils. I don’t have any tips, couplers, or bags. On the rare occasion that I was required to pipe something (in my infrequent baking past), I was forced to put the icing or what-have-you in a ziploc bag, and cut one of the corners to a small enough tip. Ghetto much?

Like I said, a quick trip to the ‘baking needs’ aisle in a grocery store would be great, if I had the monetary backup. But I don’t.

And the small fistful of cash I do have is already pre-spent as far as I’m concerned, because I am determined to finally get my hands on a tangible copy of Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse. I’m so done with library downloads, it’s not even funny. And as an added bonus, I can make a ‘Team Edward’ t-shirt if I get the special edition of Eclipse. I’ve got enough money for those books, and that’s about it. All I need is a ride to the closest Barnes and Noble. I prefer Borders, but we’re already Barnes and Noble members, and I can’t afford the books without the discount. And we’re already headed near a Barnes and Noble sometime next week, so it shouldn’t be too hard to swing by and pick up the books.

So I guess the solution to all my problems would be to get more money. I’m just about ready to start the website for my current client, and once that project is finished I’ll get another (small) handful of cash. I’ll probably buy some baking stuff with that, or try and save it so that I can buy Breaking Dawn without having to borrow the money from my parents. Blah.

And here are some random asides to add to this already ridiculously long post:

• I know that I was thinking about re-designing this here lovely website. I still am, but since Photoshop is as of yet unavailable on my computer, I can only do so on my old PC. And I just don’t have the will power to do that right now.
• I am thinking about (have been for a while) starting a baking blog (I know I’m not the only one). Again, I need to go to Photoshop to do the main part of it, so I’ll just wait a bit. At least, I’ll wait until I start baking more frequently.
• This summer is going to be incredibly busy. My brother now lives with us, and we’re still working on getting him settled. We just started picking out colors for his room. My older sister is visiting us for a month-and-a-half, so us 4 kids are usually pretty busy doing different things. Also, we’re expecting quite a few guests this summer, so it will get pretty hectic around here. And I thought I was busy before.
• With my brother and sister being here all the time, and my old PC being used by my parents or younger sister, I have reduced access to my computer. Most of the time, I can only squeeze in a few hours on the computer during the wee hours of the morning - if you follow me on Twitter, you’ll notice that between 1:00am and 3:00am Vegas time I’m usually still awake, doing all sorts of stuff.

And some final comments to close up: I will be baking a practice cake for my little sister’s birthday (July 4) next weekend, with fondant and all. I will take pictures, and post them here. Also, I will try to resist reading Twilight/New Moon/Eclipse again until just before August 2^nd, and if you notice any Tweets talking about how I’m starting to read them, please feel free to send discouraging tweets my way. I’ll try to time it so I read Twilight, then New Moon, then as I’m almost finishing Eclipse, I get my hands on Breaking Dawn. I’ll finish Eclipse, and then read Breaking Dawn - that way it will be one uninterrupted Twilight-fest. Awesomeness.

Okay, I think that’s all I wanted to say. If I think of anything else, then I’ll just add it on later. By the way, comments are love. Don’t be scared to leave one!

Things are a little crazy here (hence not updating for almost a full week - sorry!). My brother recently (as in, a few days ago) moved in with us, so we’re busy getting him settled.

Also, I have a new client! We met today, and I’ll be sketching up ideas for her site in the next few days, for another meeting next week or the week after. She gave me her deposit - 50% up front - and I was finally able to purchase Super Smash Brothers: Brawl. Finally! I’ve been wanting that game since it came out. I loved Super Smash Brothers: Melee, so I knew this would be good. I played it at a friend’s house, for hours. It was a blast. I was hooked. So, I bought the game. I also bought two wireless Gamecube controllers, because playing SSB:B with the Wiimote is pretty difficult, seeing as I’m used to the gamecube controls from the days of Melee.

Other than that, I’ve become increasingly obsessed with Twilight (who would have thought it was possible - humph), so a lot of my online time is spent doing that kind of stuff. Seriously, if you haven’t read the book, you have to. It’s a must. No joke.

Thanks to izziesquared and mosaiclife (now mulderitsme), and all the other baking-related talk on Twitter, my love for baking has been renewed. Thanks, guys! I’d forgotten how comfortable I am in the kitchen; it’s been a while. I even had a thought about my future career. I’ve wanted to do web design for, like, ever. Ever since I started going past basic HTML coding, and BBCode for profile-like sites, I’ve wanted to do it for a living. I’ve practiced. I’ve gotten a lot better. But it didn’t come naturally. Now I don’t think that means I shouldn’t do it for a living. I was just thinking, since baking has been a part of me for longer, maybe I should focus for a little bit on that. I’ve decided to bake a cake (all out, three tiers, fondant and all) for my little sister’s birthday, which is coming up very soon. My parents are cool with it, but they want me to make a practice cake first, so I don’t mess up the one that matters. But really, why would I make a whole practice cake? My mom wants me to keep it simple for my first cake (that is, first cake beyond ready-made mixes, with tub icing), maybe two tiers instead of three, drop the fondant, just keep it plain.

I don’t think so. I’ve wanted to work with fondant since forever, just because of that silky smooth finish you can get with it. Mostly it’s used for wedding cakes, but nowadays it’s being used for more stuff. The fondant is staying. Maybe I’ll drop it to two tiers, but I don’t want a totally simple cake. I want a challenge!

If it turns out all right, I’ll put up pics here. If it turns out really well, I’ll keep doing it. I’ll bake more often, for more occasions, and try new things with cakes (I love cake decorating. Can you tell?). Who knows, maybe I’ll do cake decorating full-time, and web design on the side. Maybe I’ll drop the coding part of web design, and just do purely front-end design. I could do that on the side.

What are your thoughts? Your opinion matters to me!

As many of you know, Twitter has been having major issues these past few weeks. Server crashes, database problems, you name it. Random downtimes throughout the day, and performance that is just slow.

Let’s just hope they get it fixed soon.