Yeah, that's how today felt.
You know how occasionally you hear those news stories about people who have to call 911, because their cat has them trapped in the bathroom and they're afraid to come out?
Yeah, that's how today felt.
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Given that we celebrated a milestone anniversary, I thought I should take a few moments to reflect on marriage.
I remember when we first got engaged and everyone was congratulating us. I thought it was kind of weird - I mean really, what kind of accomplishment is it anyway? It's not like getting a degree or achieving something else where you had to work really hard and put in lots of effort. If anything, it should have been a time for sober reminders not giddy celebrations! As in, "do you kids know what you're getting into? Do you have any idea what happens after the confetti and cake?!" Not to sound like I haven't been happy we decided to say our vows. But like anything in life that is worthwhile, there is more hard work that you realize going into it. From the outside, everyone just sees a happy couple. Only the two people involved know how much effort it takes to stay a happy couple - the compromise, the difficult conversations...making the decision to be a couple again and again. Commitment is not a one-time process, it's constantly renewed. Of course it's not all labouring away in the salt mines! There have also been so many just plain ol' good times. From wonderful holiday memories to having our own little traditions, like watching Elf every Christmas. Marriage means many of your big moments are shared ones. Like buying our first house - looking back, I'm so glad that I was able to do that with Dennis. We have a history together that continues to build. One of my biggest fears about getting married was loss of privacy. When I was dating Dennis, I wouldn't even give him a key to my apartment. There was a part of me that was so starved for my own sense of space, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I didn't want to always be listening for the door to unlock, wondering if my alone time was going to be interrupted. Of course, once you're married you kind of have to give someone the key. I thought this would be the biggest adjustment. But what totally surprised me was how natural it felt to share the space. I realize ten years is a drop in the bucket compared to other couples. But I guess that's the other thing I've come to believe about marriage. You can't compare yours to anyone else's, you have to figure out what works for you. And figure it out again when things change - because things always change! Today Dennis and I celebrated a milestone - ten years of marriage! Hard to believe it's been that long. The years have truly just flown by.
Tracy had gotten me this cute "book" purse for my birthday. I thought our anniversary dinner would be the perfect occasion to use it. Dennis had made reservations at Ayden Kitchen and Bar. Ayden opened up downtown last year. The owner/chef is Dale McKay, who was the winner of the first season of Top Chef Canada. After working for years in Vancouver and London, it's pretty cool that he decided to return to his home town to start a business. Dinner was awesome - the service was incredible, and the food was so good. We started with Popcorn Prawns (loved the sauce) and Kennebic Fries (salty goodness). After that, Dennis devoured his steak and potatoes and I attacked my pasta (home-made tagliatelle with sausage). We ended up sitting next to another couple and the wife is an acquaintance of ours. In between courses we had a chance to chat a bit. It was a wonderful romantic dinner, so we decided to finish the evening with...a trip to the medi-clinic. Yep, I take that whole "for better or worse" thing quite seriously. My persistent cough hadn't lightened up at all and I was starting to feel not great as the night progressing. We stopped off at home for my health card, and then went to the nearest clinic. It was a busy Friday night - I think it was about an hour to get seen. The doctor noted that my lymph nodes were quite inflamed so she prescribed an antibiotic for me. Let's hope it kicks in soon! Apparently Tamoxifen can have a bit of a suppressing effect on the immune system, so it could be that it takes me longer to fight off colds and such. (But better a cold than cancer, I suppose!) Cake - the last legal drug in the workplace. Well okay. Technically coffee is probably the last legal drug. But people get pretty excited about cake. It's an instant popularity boost!
I don't bake a lot because usually what I'm doing is pretty time consuming. But when the fancy strikes me, I like to go all out. This is one that I've been planning for awhile. It's made with 6-inch cake pans, so slightly smaller in diameter than regular cake pans. I had to search a bit to find them but was able to track some down at Peppers Kitchen in Lawson. I love that they're a little different but it was a bit of a learning curve to figure out how full to fill the pans. And to find a recipe, since most of them are either for 2 8-inch pans or 3 9-inch pans. I ended up doing two different kinds of cake batter. A vanilla cake - I've finally found a recipe that I like and that is consistently good. The other cake was chocolate but I decided to use chili-infused chocolate instead of regular semi-sweet. Very subtle but it gave it a bit of zing. I baked the cake layers on Monday and did my crumb coat. (My whole life has changed since I've discovered crumb coat!) Yesterday I decorated after I got home from work. Initially I had planned something different (that would have involved creating scalloped edges with sparkles) but instead decided to go with roses. I love the look of these roses - so lush and Victorian but so easy to do. I amped up the wow factor by doing an ombre icing. I had some lovely cornflower blue colouring gel from Wilton's. The end result was lovely - the colour didn't get deeper so much as it mellowed. I love the cornflower shade - it's so pretty and so old-fashioned. The only challenge was getting it to work. It was a touch tall for my cake carrier and the top ended up getting crushed a bit. Luckily I had some icing leftover so I brought my piping bag to work and did a touch up when I got there. My cake was greeted with a lovely fanfare, which of course I live for. (I really do this for the applause. It's probably kind of pathetic.) Of course, this cake wasn't meant to be eaten in large quantities, unless you happen to carry insulin. There was a lot - and I mean A LOT - of icing on that baby. All told, it was probably about 2kg of icing sugar to complete it. (So wrong and yet so right.) Totally decadent...which is why it's probably good I don't do this too often! |
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