Off The Beaten Path

I think The Secret is stupid. There, I said it. I also hated the movie and stage versions of Mamma Mia. I know I am in the minority on these two points, but, as with my love of reality TV and my aversion to corporate Friday T-shirt days I have my opinions and I'm sticking to them.

Now, let me be clear, I totally believe in the power of positive thinking, I just don't believe it is an ancient mythical secret that you have to pay 29.99 for a DVD to learn. You see, I tried to watch The Secret but after about 10 minutes I laughed out loud at the pomposity of it all and promptly fell asleep. Even I, a non-Secret watcher, can want something really bad, can vow to make it happen, and it can happen. Just like that, like magic. So, remember a couple of blogs ago I described the main building of my school as Downtown L.A. and the culinary wing as Palm Springs and I vowed to get my Monday class moved to the culinary wing, thus spending all my time in PS (clean, pristine!) and less germy conditions? Well, I did it. Yesterday I walked into class, just the second one I've had on Monday as last week was a holiday, and what do you think it said under "announcements" on the board? Yep, classroom moves next week. Where do you suppose it moves to? Yep, culinary wing! And get this, the reason is because we have too many students for our current classroom, so they had to move us to a larger one. Miracles DO happen! I didn't even have to fake a fire or anything.

One student in class yesterday felt the need to make a comment after every point our instructor made. Literally, every point. By the end of class, which, by the way, ran 3 minutes over not 15 minutes early as we were told it would, the instructor was asking Chatty Cathy to hold her comments. If she had had a BB gun I'm sure she would have pulled it out and shot that hand right out of the sky so we could get on with it already. Why do some people feel the need to hear themselves speak? Initially, some of CC's comments were adding an element of conversation to the class and enhancing it. By the end, you could tell she just needed to hear the sound of her own voice. We don't really need to hear every experience YOU have had that falls under the topic of what we are discussing. One or two would suffice. In the corporate world, I've been in meetings where a co-worker has done this, and it drives me, and probably everyone else in the room, crazy. Edit people, pay attention to cues. When you hear sighs and see eye rolls it is time to stop.

Also this week, I am making my nephew's 4th birthday cake. Initially he wanted transformers but changed his mind to GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra. I've made test frosting, a test 3D mask that will go on top of the cake, and have all the fondant and supplies. This cake is gonna cost $200 by the time I'm done. I have bought so many supplies I told my husband the cake will have to be the be the kids present! I'll take a picture of it once it is done and post it. Hopefully, it will turn out the way I planned. It is my first official tiered, home made, decorated with tricks from all the cake shows I watch cake.

Lastly, I am in the process of making mini banana dark chocolate cancer cakes. It's a recipe I modified from a Betty Crocker cancer cookbook. I volunteer at a cancer support center so I'm bringing them in for the program participants. Baking calms me down. My sis is in the hospital and we are awaiting word on what is going on, so I'm baking this morning. Will take pics and post, of course!

Everyone say a prayer for my sister please.