Totally Random

 I honestly had no clue what this post was going to be about until I opened up my photo folder. I don't have time (or mind capacity) to write a thought-out post but still want to keep you all up to date on our adventures. 

So here, is my totally random blog post:

 I found this apron at World Market (the home goods version of Trader Joe's) and want it. Need it. Have to have it. It is my life motto at the moment and in the near future. It also made me giggle because it reminded me of a good friend from our time in France, Sarah and the sign that this came from.

 We bought a food processor! It is amazing!

And we went to a locally famous pumpkin/apple patch in Illinois. We had a great day in the sunshine and came back with lots of apples to make applesauce with. Which, still has yet to be made (3 weeks later). 

Life, please calm down so I can make my stinkin' applesauce!!!

A List (cause I'm way behind)

1. Some of you may have gathered through family or even facebook that I am finally employed. It was a quick development; I dropped off a resume on a Friday, went in for an interview the following Wednesday, a kitchen interview the next day (Thursday) and on Saturday morning, I started my first day of work. I am doing something similar to my stint at CoCo's in Pittsburgh, working half in the front and half in the kitchen and while my ideal would have been to only bake, I do love my interactions with the customers. And it's a job! And I am enjoying it! Both the people (co-workers, employers, and customers) and the baked goods (all from scratch) have been wonderful to work with so far. I am really, very happy to be employed again after such a long break (1.5 years...gasp!).

2. Since beginning my job, we have had some serious issues with kitten separation anxiety. Case in point:

 And

3. A few projects were completed before I went back to work.

 My dad made me this stool when I was little and it has been used and abused, broken, fixed, glued and it was desperately in need of a new paint job. I'm loving the happy French blue color. 

 I'm realizing now that I have a thing for brightly colored furniture. I finished the orange weeks ago but it sat unused because we had no hardware for it. That is, until I came home from work to find that Michael had made handles from spare chair parts and a cork (on the door, which still needs to be messed with, but it works!).

And there it is with the matching wine rack and the pile of wine bottles we've been saving for this year's batch of wine.

4. Apparently, Kathy Lee's stylist and I are on the same wavelength. Thanks to my wonderful m-i-l Ginny for pointing out the match.

As a reminder, here's my dress from Megan and Mike's wonderful wedding.

 And here is Kathy Lee wearing my dress the very next week. At least I wore it first. And, I bet she didn't find hers on the Banana Republic Clearance rack with an extra 40% off!

5. After many failed attempts, I managed to remember that I can make a good baguette. The downside to that is that Michael will no longer accept Trader Joe's baguettes for his lunches.

5. We had a great visit with our friends from France, Megan and Joe last week. I'm hoping to post a more significant post on this later but they were in town for a poetry reading that Joe was the star of and despite having many friends to visit here (they lived in St. Louis before moving to France), they took an evening to share with us one of their favorite hole-in-the-wall pizza joints that I am sure will be come part of the Friday night rotation.

6. We've been tapping into our German roots lately with spätzel two nights in one week!

7. As a celebratory dinner this past weekend, Michael made me a very, very happy girl by buying two yummy lobsters so we could have my favorite meal of all time, lobster bake. Yummm!

Getting There (with a wedding cake)

 Did I mention before that I was doing the wedding cake for my brother's (and now sister-in-law's!) wedding two weeks ago near our hometown in Pennsylvania? 

Did I mention that I was going to be baking the cake (for 170 people) in Saint Louis and flying with it to Pennsylvania?

Well, I did.

And it was stressful.

Along with the stress of baking some rather large cake layers in a less-than-perfect (read:cheap-apartment-grade-but-at-least-its-not-electric) oven, cutting the cakes into nice, even layers, freezing the cake in layers, there was much more that needed to be acquired, packed, and remembered.

I feel like I should copyright this.

© 2011 Lauren D. Reindl

Well, that wasn't so hard! Not that I really think it bares (bears? I don't know which one is grammatically correct here!) any legal clout. And I feel like I need to copyright the information, not just the picture. Any lawyers out there? I'm confused.

Anyway, this is the write-up for this particular wedding cake (which I seem to have left at home. Mom? Is it there?). And after at 4:30 wake-up (it's OK, Pepin had me up at 3 anyway), a quick pack of last minute things (including 4 frozen wedding cake layers into a Igloo Cube cooler along with an ice pack and all the sharp objects and toiletries we were taking home [since the rest of our luggage was carry-on]), we jumped in the car and headed to the airport.

Parking at the St Louis airport can be as cheap as $7 per day -- isn't that crazy?

 And this was our lovely greeting while we waited for our plane at 6am.

Our first leg out of Saint Louis was extended in the air for a bit thanks to some nasty weather that the pilot had to avoid so we ended up landing in Detroit 30 minutes late.

Leaving us, and our cooler under the plane only 30 minutes to get to the next plane to Elmira.

We made it -- Detroit is a pretty easily navigated airport -- but then I started to sweat. Would the cake make it?

Then the announcement came over the loudspeaker: "Flight *blablabla* to Elmira, New York has been delayed because the crew had been held up on another flight". I've never been so happy for a flight delay in my life.

And then the cake came. 

40 minutes after our scheduled departure we were on the ground in Elmira (or Corning...whichever it actually is).

Hello Corning/Elmira Regional Airport. So nice to see you!

My dad was there waiting for us. Unfortunately, since the man has never and will never own a cell phone, he wasn't warned that we would be late or how late we would be. It seems to be our curse that we can never get in on time from a flight (thinking back to our long trip home). 

As soon as the cake came around the conveyor belt we ripped it open and checked (it had been duct taped for the voyage) on the cake, which was fine; a bit thawed, but fine. 

45 minutes later we were home and after greeting what few family members were already at our house, Zoey (my 4-year-old niece) and I got to work on the cream cheese icing for filling in between the layers (she put in the butter). And within two hours, the four layers were filled and back in the freezer, ready to be iced the next morning.

Then we all went to the rehearsal dinner and the fun began.

Stay tuned for rehearsal fun, wedding pictures and most importantly, cake pictures!