Vince & I drove to Cosby, TN on Friday evening. We met a ton of family members there, such as my parents, sister (& her family), Vince's parents, all of dad's siblings, and lots of cousins. The weather was sunny & beautiful. On Saturday, we played some outdoor games such as volleyball and corn hole. Uncle Alan had a huge bonfire going, so later that night, I made some smores. We ate great food all weekend!

On Sunday, several of us ventured out on a hike in the Cosby Park. This park had several paths you could go on and they all crossed some water several times. We took the 1 mile hike called the Nature Trail. They smoked several pork shoulders for dinner and we had watermelon for dessert. The only thing missing was some homemade ice cream. We raided the huge mulberry tree in Uncle Alan's front yard. I have enough for cobbler and jam.

The family reunion photo

PC Issues

So about a week and a half ago, I rebooted my computer and now it is having serious issues. I don't turn it off too often, but now I find I have to turn it off 4 times if I want it to be accessible. I'm really hoping I don't need to pay big money to fix it or have to get a new one, but this one is driving me crazy. I guess I could take it down to factory settings & reinstall all the programs, but that will be my last resort.

Right now, the worst issue is that it freezes up whenever it wants to, mostly when it goes into sleep mode, or the screen saver comes on. Sometimes it's just frozen when I turn it on & I have to reboot it a few times & finally it comes up and I can click on things. Wish me luck that I can get this laptop working properly again.

One thing to note is that during a few minutes when I had it up, McAfee did remove a Trojan, so I don't know if it keeps trying to reload the Trojan or not. I can't seem to keep it moving long enough for me to do another complete scan.

On a positive note, my phone does lots of things for me, such as checking Facebook or email, so I'm not at a total loss.

15 Years

This past Sunday, I celebrated my 15 year service anniversary with Milliken. In some ways it has really gone by fast. In other ways, it seems like a long time. There is some saying about how long the days are but how short the years are. That is so true. Some days really drag out & take for ever, yet the years are flying by.

For my service gift, I picked something very different than my 5 or 10 year gifts. Both of those gifts were crystal (vase, pitcher, glasses). I decided to get something that I've wanted forever, but would never buy myself...a telescope. Every time I hear about a planet that can be seen or an eclipse, or certain stars that are bright, I wish I had a telescope to really see them up close.

Thanks to Vince for helping me put it together! Now we just need it to stop raining so we can figure out how to use it. It did not come with any instructions. The assembly picture was just a picture of it put together. So bring on the stars & planets so we can figure it out in real time!

Neighborhood Fire

A house burned down in one of our neighboring subdivisions this past week. Vince came home and said he saw the fire trucks. I looked out the front door & saw the smoke right in front of our house, just over the trees. I was convinced that a house in The Oaks was burning, probably right near the pool as it was directly in front of our house. I drove over there & saw that it was further in the trees, so I then drove over to Rock Springs. Come to find out, it was a house in Hawk Creek III. This neighborhood is way down Willis Rd about a mile from our entrance. It's so strange how with all the twists & turns, that house ends up being just over the trees from our neighborhood.

I couldn't get close to see it with all the firetrucks, so I drove past it the next morning. The neighbors standing outside said they did not know what the cause was. Total loss.

Mother's Day at the Biltmore

On Mother's Day, Vince & I went to church with Barbara & Jerry. We ate a delicious meal at The Peddler Steakhouse & received a buy one get one free entree coupon for next time. After our wonderful meal, we drove up to the Biltmore.

After going over this bridge, we found a waterfall.

In all the times I've been to the Biltmore, I never stopped on the side of the road to get out & look at the waterfall. This time, we did!

We arrived at Antler Hill Village and posed in front of the bucket where you can smash grapes with your feet.

The weather was just beautiful & we all enjoyed the day.

Spring Fling & Mayor's Cake

This past Saturday I made Spartanburg Mayor White's 50th wedding anniversary cake. The world is such a small place. One of the mayor's daughters happens to live in Nashville and works with one of my old high school friends. He saw my cakes on Facebook and recommended me to her. She contacted me about doing her parents' cake after checking out my website. This was quite something since she had never seen my cakes in person nor tasted them.

The event was held at 10am at the Piedmont Club. This is an exclusive country club. After I arrived, the event manager asked me if I had any business cards. She said folks are always asking her for cake recommendations. Woo hoo! Maybe I'll get some more business there.

Vince was kind enough to help me deliver all my cakes on Saturday. The mayor's cake was the heaviest so he used a wooden board to put it on and carry it. I also met another lady that lives on the east side at the Piedmont Club at the same time so she could pick up her birthday/Mother's Day cake. And then we delivered a birthday cake. It was a productive morning and I got my name passed around in some nice social circles.

For lunch, Vince and I headed to the Spring Fling. Now let me back up & say that we attended the bike races on Friday night. The bike races were fun & it was nice to hang out with Vince's parents and some friends we saw there.


Saturday, however, was a completely different story. We went to eat all the fair food for lunch at the Spring Fling. I have very few words to describe the atmosphere there. It was horrid. The crowd was completely different from Friday night. I don't honestly think anyone from Spartanburg was actually there. The people were shoulder to shoulder, pushy, and downright scary. We left after 5 minutes. I'm hoping next year will be very different.

Cowpens Battleground

On Sunday afternoon, Vince & I drove to Cowpens to see the infamous battlegrounds where we defeated British troops in 1781. I read an article that in 1972, there were 2 major highways and 50 structures on the battleground that they had to reroute or move before restoring it as a national park. They are even restoring the type of trees that used to be there at that time.

In the picture below were about 5 wild turkeys back in the woods.

This picture showed the original carving from the 1800s. The memorial was in disrepair until the late 1900s.

MOD 2011

On Saturday morning, I got up early to deliver 2 cakes for the United Way of the Piedmont's Great Cake Bake that benefited the Imagination Library. I delivered them at 7:45am. Both cakes had book themes. But we'll get to them in a little bit.

The March of Dimes march for babies walk was at Duncan Park this year. They had a 2.5 mile route and a 3.5 mile route. At 8am, the registration started for the walk, along with instructions, songs, and breakfast biscuits. The walk started at 9am. I walked/jogged alongside Kaye and her kids, Lainey & B.J. Kaye brought her iPod and speakers so we had some great walking music. We started the walk with a jog in order to get around the thousands of people that were crowded around the start line. We walked briskly and jogged up several steep hills. The weather was quite cool at the start, which felt great after getting going. I finished 3.5 miles in 50 minutes. We won three awards for our company.





After the walk, I headed over to the Denny's Plaza to see if either of my cakes won an award. I wasn't sure how many were competing, who was judging, or what the prize was. They told me 5 people were expected to compete in the Professional division, but it ended up only me and one other guy brought our cakes. Only his was styrofoam and not edible. They marked off big points for that so one of my cakes won. Yeah! The first cake I did was a book called Goodnight Moon. Since the Imagination Library gives children ages 0 to 5 free books, I asked everyone what their favorite children's book was. Everyone mentioned this book so it was clearly the book I had to do.

I pondered on my second cake for a while. I knew I wanted to do the Imagination Library logo, but after that, I just wasn't sure. I did the Goodnight Moon cake in all buttercream. I used a new technique called frozen buttercream transfer to do the Goodnight Moon image. So on the 2nd cake, I wanted to use mostly fondant. Although, I did do the Imagination Library library logo in frozen buttercream transfer as well. I decided to do lots of little books in fondant and a parent & child reading a book. I thought about doing a mother & daughter, but instead my hands just started creating a boy and father. Sometimes I don't even know what will be created until it's done.

I had looked online for some ideas, but couldn't find anything that I really wanted to imitate, so I just had to do my own thing. And lucky for me, it won first place!



I let them auction off both cakes to raise more money for the Imagination Library.

(Notice someone's big thumb print in my Goodnight Moon cake right in the middle. Guess someone wanted to see if it was really icing.)
The best part was that the three judges that are pastry chefs at local colleges/businesses all asked for my business card.