4T4

It's my birthday.  I'm 44.  That's good news, since a week ago I thought I was turning 45.  I'm not kidding. I just categorize myself as "older," and am not the type to obsess about being younger.  Some of those famous people about my age are starting to look weird.  Artificial.  I really do prefer natural, graceful aging.  Does that mean I will never color my hair?  No.  I'm still undecided on that.  Does it mean I won't use eye cream to slow the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles?  No.  Although I'm not sure there is much of a difference between when I do and when I don't (I do use the cheap stuff).  I just want to be graceful about it, not gaunt and stretched and botoxed and implanted and I'm-50-going-on-20 about it.

Anyway, in celebration of my b-day, Shilo is on her second angel food cake of the day.  I'm sure it's the altitude.  She uses a cake mix, and had one glorious success a couple of years ago (seriously perfect), but for some reason, today, like the past few times we've tried, the cake fell in the last 5 minutes of baking (honestly, I think Betty Crocker changed the recipe).  I've been enjoying the unbeautiful rejected cake.  It IS my birthday.  I suggested she try convection baking #2 -- we haven't tried that before.  I, however, am no expert, the only things I convection bake are root vegetables.  It's worth a shot, though, and regardless of how beautiful or un- it turns out, it will taste good.

This morning I spent a couple of hours on Pinterest (because it's my birthday), which sometimes feels like a phenomenal waste of time.  I do, however, feel like I have pinned many wonderful and useful things that I plan to use someday.  Soon.  I have tried quite a few recipes, discovering that often those color-popped edited step-by-step pictures don't always mean a tasty dish in the end.  Even if it's beautiful to look at (which mine haven't necessarily been).  I think I've had more flops than successes, but that doesn't mean I'm swearing off Pinterest recipes for good.  I have wondered, however, just how many recipes a girl needs. I have this deep-rooted desire to have a repertoire of never-fail recipes that are beautiful, delicious, and easy.  I tell myself that is why I am on a never-ending hunt for such recipes, and Pinterest seems the perfect place to accumulate such a collection.

I have also wondered exactly when a girl knows she has enough pins, since I have plenty to keep me busy for a long, long time.

I have moved on to working on a Singing Time project, while my lovely daughters (no school today) dust, vacuum, clean and bake.  It's been heaven.

Mauri took a quick video of the puppies in their new Walmart sweaters ($5 vs. the $20 Petsmart -- or is that Petstupid?-- ones) on her ipod, I thought I would share.

Random-thought blogging -- another favorite thing to do.  So far I am loving today.