I Did it....I did It....I did it.... yeah....

Ok folks, 

Remember last month when my husband had to buy me chocolate to lure me back from the dead because I failed my derby test?  Well I passed this month and I am on to bigger and better things!  At least I am now learning different derby stuff and am really excited.  We are now starting contact and so far it is all I have hoped it could be!!!  I will probably make a fool of myself and will most likely start falling more, so be prepared for bruises!  

This week and the week after and the week after that are going to be VERY BUSY!  I am going to be a baking fool and I am not sure my house or family will be able to handle it! This weekend is the PVRD's first bout of the season and everyone is required to be on deck!  I have volunteered for the bake table because that is my comfort zone...so I am going to bake things for said table.  Also, my almost father is turning some high number on April Fools day and I am going to bake him a vanilla bean cake and THEN my nephew is turning 2 and I am going to make HIM a cake for the 7th.  I am very tired just thinking about it!  But it is what I like to do, so that works ok! 

I found a link for some super yummy crusty bread that is actually easy to do!  It came out great!!!  

http://simplysogood.blogspot.com/2010/03/crusty-bread.html

This is an interesting blog and I find it amazing how much information is out there if you have time to look for it! I get inspiration every day to try new things!  Now I just have to find the time....

Oh here is a picture of the cake I made for my darling niece.....not my best attempt, but I learned a few lessons.

ALSO!  Here is the bout info!  Check it out!!!  

April Attack!

Posted: 04/01/12

In the first bout of the 2012 season, Florence Fightin' Gals take on the Quabbin Missile Crisis. The Dirty Dozen will also face off against the Bomb Quads of VT Mens Roller Derby. 

Date:  April 1, 2012 

Location: Lossone Rink, 22 Greenwood Ct., Easthampton, Mass.

Time: Doors open at 2 PM, game starts at 3 PM. 

Tickets: $8 in advance, $10 at the door. Kids 10 and under half price.

Advance Tickets:$8 at Off The Map Tattoo, 112 Cottage St., Easthampton, at Turn It Up! in Northampton, or online here. Adult tickets only.

Join in the fun! PVRD will be at the Springfield Falcons game at the MassMutual Center on March 23. Stop by our table and say hello!

Failure on the Derby Floor....and a grand husband too!

Ok.  I failed.  Big time.  I don't do failure well.  If you know me, you know that I really enjoy myself and all things relating to me and feel as if the solar system rotates directly around my head.  I finally was told by my DH to start paying attention to other people and asking questions about THEM(hmmmm) that I might find myself pleasantly surprised at how interesting other people are.  Now I tried this, and still tend to find conversations with others drifting back to me.  This is a sad truthful fact and I do try hard to listen more and be more interested.  One day I will be better at this, but for now, BACK TO ME.

Failure=ME falling while "Falling" during a test and apparently not squatting low enough and OH yeah!  I am not stable on my left leg while careening out of control around the derby track. Here I thought i was doing fairly well and was pretty impressed with myself.  So I kind of maybe goofed off a little because I am SO bad under pressure that I once(thrice) threw my glove at a softball that I should have been catching when my friends parents came to see my game.  So yes, I fell....and NO, I usually do not.  And also, I usually do better than I did that night but oh well.  So the thing that chafes the most is that the two girls I was connecting with were one of 4 or 5 girls out of 25 that did pass.  After failing I found out that I have the perfect mentor assigned to me and then instead of hanging and having a nice little gathering after practice, I got out of dodge ASAP and cried in my car the whole way home.....Wee Wee Wee.

Luckily I have a band of merry friends surrounding me and encouraging me not to give up....including my wonderful husband who has been VERY supportive of this and went to the best chocolate place in town during Lent.  He then resisted the smell of fresh chocolate and picked out the BEST chocolates ever and brought them to his still weepy wife and THEN put the little one down for her nap so I could eat them in peace....LOVE HIM!!! And love all of you who support me and put up with me.  So I will go back on Monday and try to not be embarrassed and keep it up.

Also, I am making a fun cake for my niece who turned Six today and can't wait to put it all together....right now here is a sneak peak.

What do you think?  Colors to muted for a rainbow cake for a girl with a very BRIGHT personality?  Let me know!

The Panda Bear Stare...

Updates are coming from me but first I have to tell a little tale of a late night drive home and a Panda Bear.

It was a dark and stormy night(actually it was not stormy but VERY dark-as it was 11:00pm), and this roller mama was deliriously driving home from a KILLER derby practice.  We started doing Fresh Meat work, I.E: knee drops, crossovers, etc. then went on to more skills practice and sooo much endurance.  My back still hurts from when I fell off of my three wheeled skate and has never gotten any better, and I also have sad mama back muscles in my lower back which YELL at me when I go in circles.  So that was hard, but not as hard as skating in a circle and then taking turns weaving in and out of moving people up a line while going in circles as fast as possible.  I LOVED the weaving part of this activity and thought I did pretty well at it.  No fear and pretty good at squeezing my plus sized boday in between skaters.  The part that was falaphal, was the actual skating around and around and around.  We went so long, and I am so out of shape that I almost puked like the fat kid running the mile in gym class in the summer. (which was pretty much me back in school minus the fat).  I was never really physically fit.

Anyhoo....I am wandering. On the ride home---NOT stopping at any fast food places for fries and a GIANT Diet coke, I was minding my own business when what do I see a couple hundred yards(or feet or inches-I am not good at guesstimating distance) but a Panda Bear. Now we all know that this was probably NOT a panda bear.  But I swear I was delirious from my exertion or something and this mailbox looked just like a panda sitting on the side of the road staring at me.  I shook my head to clear it and squinted through my bleary eyes and still could not reconcile with the fact that there was not a panda bear sitting there.  In fact I have not actually verified this information, so everyone in Easthampton should be on the lookout for this cuddly creature.