Hurdle Jumped.

I did it.  I said goodbye. 

I posted notice on my website.  I put Etsy in permanent vacation mode.  I've officially closed up shop.  And while I'm still feeling a bit antsy about all of this, I know that given a couple of days, I'll feel calmer and calmer and begin to enjoy my newly reclaimed freedom.

Already, I can feel my face more relaxed and less pinched.  And, I'm not feeling as frantic as I go through the steps of each day.  I've had two friends interrupt me to say that I look happier and healthy.  My mental to-do list has dwindled from a thousand entries to somewhere near twenty-five.

Ahhh.  I just can't begin to put a price on that.  Sometimes, I forget how much my well-being is worth.  I hope you'll jump in and remind me from time to time.  I certainly need a nudge every now and then when it comes to considering myself a priority. 

This feels good.  Great, even.

Saying A Sad Farewell on Sarandipity Sweets blog

Weekend Scrapbook 3

Another weekend has rudely flown on by.  When will they ever learn to stick around a little longer, to move a little more slowly?

I spent some time on Saturday in the garden center at Lowe's.  Just being among the flowers and plants brings me peace.  It helps get me back to centered, in a way.  And it doesn't hurt that the Dahlias and Daisies were blooming so bright and cheery for me.

And of course, while I was there, I became enamored with a plant that just absolutely needed to go home with us.  This time it was a half-price Hibiscus, and the only one left with red blooms.

I've since named her, "Jane."

Jane has lots more buds, just ready to open up and say hello.

For scale:  Rory meet Jane.  She will block the path you've stubbornly been using, despite our having put up hazards and blocks.  She will force you to walk around so that the grass in that patch will finally have a chance to grow.  Make nice with Jane, you hear?

Jane might possibly have been my reward for accomplishing this: On Friday, I finished up an order of 216 cake pops for a local wedding and then delivered and set up on Saturday.  The groom made the stand, and I filled it up with 5 different designs and flavors of cake pops.  Hurrah for being finished! 

(For the curious, there are more photos over on the Sarandipity blog.)

Wordless Wednesday: Eggs-cellent!

More photos over at the Sarandipity blog!

Today is Brought to You by the Letter M

M.  As in Monday, MS, and money! 

You mayyyy remember a whopping month ago, I mentioned my new blog, Sarandipity, and helping my childhood friend, Jenny, fundraise for her Multiple Sclerosis walk.  I decided to make my donation this year with the help of Sarandipity Sweets, to see how much we could raise by making it a joint effort.  It was simple - for every cake pop sold in March, I'd donate fifty cents.  Want to know how we did? :D

I'm proud to announce that, with all your amazing support, Sarandipity Sweets donated $313 to MS research through Jenny's team.  Hurrah!  I'm seriously so amazed and thankful for everyone who teamed up to help make a huge donation. 

How's that for a happy Monday, eh? 

March-ing for MS

Jenny & Sara, 1985

Big News, Chapter One:

During the entire month of March, Sarandipity Sweets will donate 50 cents for every cake pop sold to a Multiple Sclerosis research fundraiser.  I'm so excited about this!!! 

I've got a ton more details about the fundraiser and about the girl leading it - Jenny - on the Sarandipity blog:

March MS Fundraiser details
on Sarandipity Sweets' blog

Please go check it out!


Note:  I pinky-swear that not all of my posts here at "sweet somethings" will just be re-directs to the new Sarandipity blog.  I promise.  But this one is just too bigga news to keep isolated over there on Sarandipity.  Gotta spread the word!!

Spanking New Blog

I just wanted to drop you a quick note to chat about my new blog.  Yes.  Another blog I'll be writing for.  We're up to 3 now, folks.  This new blog is a companion to my Sarandipity website (that's coincidentally undergoing a major facelift with a sprinkling of Botox here and there).  I'll be using the Sarandipity blog to post photos that don't make it into my shop and to make announcements.  Oh, and to host giveaways, weeeee! 

Both the blog and the website are still getting updated and squished around and second coats of paint, but please swing by and let me know what you think!

Ze New Bloggity Blog: 
SarandipitySweets.blogspot.com

Birthday Photo Recap



Valentine's flowers and birthday cake, courtesy of Mr. Bo-tacular.





Note to Bo: When you swirl the frosting like that, it makes it super duper easy
for me to steal swipes of it when you're not looking :)



Happy Birthday, Dear Saraaaaaaa.  I totally turned 5 years old this year, guys!

Oh.  Hello.  No, you can't have any of my cake.



Post birthday dinner, posing in front of the Anthropologie store.
That store is my version of heaven.





That Anthro display dress is made out of paper!  It's seriously gorgeous.



 

Keyboard Cake Pops!

My newest shape is a simple square, but it lends itself to a gojillion customizations!

Y?  Because I like you! ;)

Potpourri No. 6 (Anticipation.)

Gosh, I'm just so delinquent with posting!  I've written 18 posts in my head already; have you read them?  No?  Maybe when you develop that super power, we can truly be friends.  Until then, you'll just have to content yourself with my disjointed scraps of thought. 

• After much squealing and jumping up and down, I finally got to see the Hood to Coast movie last night!  I ran that 197-mile, 12-person-per-team relay in Oregon in the summer of 2009, and I absolutely loved every dirty, chaotic, brutal minute of it.  Marnie and I flew up to Oregon to run it with a drama-drama-drama team, and it became one of the many running experiences that have bonded us.  (Ohhhhh, the stories she and I giggle over)  We both want to do the relay again (I'm insisting on being Captain next time!); anyone want to join us?  You think I'm kidding, but I'm so not...  The dvd for the film will be released in the next few months, and they're working on doing more showings in theaters.  I'll keep you posted - you definitely need to see it.  If for nothing else than to see how beautiful the state of Oregon is ♥

• Remember this girl?  Caley (aka Sidenote) is flying all the way here from Minnesota to vist me tomorrow!  Holy cow, I'm so excited!  Also?  How lucky am I to have two best friends flying to see me within in a 2 month time span?  Over the top, pot o'gold (and not the Alabama kind of gold, folks), pinch-me lucky.  While she's here in the ATL, we're planning to do girly nonsense like bake cakes, make crafts, thrift shop, and visit book museums.  Yes, indeedy, we're a couple of wild ones, watch out. 

• We've lived in our cute little condo for 11 months now, and I just finally broke down and bought an area rug on Monday.  There isn't a speck of carpet in our downstairs, and dangit, I'm tired of having cold toes.  Bo and I have completely different tastes in area rugs; he's more Modern, while I favor Traditional.  He thinks what I like is dusty and uptight; I think his choices are primary color havoc.  But the beauty of procrastinating a purchase like this is that it totally wore me down.  I found one for cheap, with free shipping, in the right colors, and hit Purchase.  I kinda really think that it looks like a 3 year old took crayons to it, but Bo assures me that it looks nice.  It's supposed to arrive tomorrow, so cross your fingers that it doesn't cause erratic behavior or seizures every time I stare at the swirly geometric shapes.
• Tomorrow is my day to post something for the food blog, and guess who hasn't even settled on a recipe choice yet?  Eek.  I have an idea in mind, but I'm completely worried that it'll flop and I'll be forced to post a whole writeup for something that's icky.  Related:  Anyone have a recipe for Apple Vinaigrette dressing?  One that tastes a whole lot like the one at Panera?
• I haven't posted photos of mockups for a long, long while, so I thought I'd end with something - literally - sweet:



Mockups for a baby girl's baptism ♥





Word-full Wednesday: A Review That Makes My Heart Burst

(click-zoom to enlarge the print)

The Sarandipity Sweets listing on Yelp

Wordless Wednesday: Dino the Dinosaur

Sugar Coma

Sugar Coma 2010!

So, you know.  Yesterday was a typical Sunday afternoon for me - a gorge fest with 18 different kinds of sweets that left me feeling more than a little woozy about the whole ordeal.  Except that this time, I wasn't in my kitchen, and I had a sidekick.  Presenting, the sidekick.  Yamin is her name, actually.  She sits right next to me at work, so I dragged her to the sugar feast with me.

The event was aptly named "Sugar Coma."  We weren't sure what to expect (other than sugar, duh), so we wandered in to see this:

Basically, a ton of dessert tables, a ton of women, and a ton of lowlighting.  So we stepped on in.  To see mini cupcakes.

Mini cupcakes as far as the eye could see.  At every single table.

At first, I was downright gleeful at the sheer amount of free mini cupcakes being forced on us by the vendors.  I mean, really, how can that ever not be fun??  And then...Well, after about 4 of them plus the scoop of brown sugar ice cream plus the mini slice of sweet potato pie plus the homemade marshmallow plus the bite of a canoli plus plus plus, I was not only dying of thirst, but I was pretty much over the whole event.  And that, my friends, was only 3 tables in.  Seriously.  That was barely a dent in the whole thing.

(Are you feeling me on the mini cupcake overload?)

At last, variety! I thought this was cute, but nobody was partaking. Maybe the milk was warm? But I had to take a photo of it, just for the sheer novelty. I mean, in a sea of cupcakes, milk and cookies seems fancy and new and just so unexepected.

Yamin was sweet enough to hold my treats tray while I snapped photos :)

If you zoom in to inspect, please note that this is only half of what I originally gleaned, and I skipped 75% of the vendors. Really.

Sugar, sugar everywhere, and not a drop to drink.

All We Ever Do is Say Goodbye

Ok, not really.  But the John Mayer song I'm listening to keeps repeating that phrase over and over again.  Nice and cheery like, isn't it?

Just a few tidbits and updates going on in Sara Land...

I had a fantastically long chat last night with Mellisa (over at her blog), and part of our 2-hour ramblings was about blogging and our personal blogs.  I whined about how I'm sad that I never seem to post anymore, other than my Friday recipe posts.  Life just seems to be getting away from me and getting away fast.  I love writing for a handful of reasons, and when I don't post, I feel the same kind of yearning that I do when I don't play my piano.

I hate to complain that Sarandipity business is picking up, but holy cow, it is.  (Sidenote:  Anyone out there seeking an internship that pays only in cake pops?  I might know someone who knows someone who's hiring.)  I'm totally scared for myself in anticipation of the holiday season.  (Sidenote:  I might also know someone who knows someone who really should hire someone to smack her over the head everytime she says Yes when she shouldn't.)  On a completely happy note, I've officially hired a graphic artist to create a new logo for me!  She'll be doing new logos for the sucker bags, for Etsy, and a few other places.  I can't wait!!  I'll totally post the logos here when she's finished!

Oh - another fun thing!  I have an appointment this Saturday to get my hairs did.  I'm hoping that this lady (my second new hair dresser so far here in Atl) is all the amazing goodness that I grew accustomed to with Tamara in San Diego.  So, we're back to the age-old dilemma:  what color?  You'll remember way back that I posted a whole scary collection of photos of my rainbow of previous colors.  I totally love me some red hair, but I'm currently leaning toward a more auburn or chocolate shade of red - maybe like these?

(I like their hair, not them.)

(Yeah, don't judge.)

Other than that excitement, there isn't a whole lot of new going on here.  The weather kindly gave me some cool temps and rain over the weekend, and I nearly cried in gratitude.  It's nearly October, and we're still consistently having 90-degree weather.  It's time for the cold and gray, already!

Wordless Wednesday: Fruity