Tag Archives: goals

Rolled Fondant Cake

Yesterday was the Glambaby’s birthday and today is Boo Boo the Wonderdog’s birthday. I decided I was going to try my hand at rolled fondant frosting. It’s #60 on my goals list and I’ve always wanted to try it.

I’m left handed and it’s really hard for me to decorate with buttercream because all of the tools, tips, etc. are made for right handed people and it just doesn’t work. But fondant always seemed like roll and place and I figured it would be easier to do.

I used the Marshmallow Fondant recipe at All Recipes to make my own fondant. I don’t konw what your fondant eating experience has been but mine has been Blech! Nasty. The reviews for this recipe were good for taste and ease. They were also very enlightening. I read through them all so I would have the best chance of success. There’s also a video to watch to gain more courage.

I knew I could do it, I was ready!

I chose this cake for inspiration.

I made two layers of brownie in five inch pans so it’s a pretty tiny cake but it’s all we need. I put peanut butter cups into the brownie before I baked it. For filling, I melted chocolate chips.

Then I rolled out the fondant. It was easy! I used cornstarch to keep it from sticking.

I then place it over the cake.

I took a small amount of the fondant and worked some red food color paste into it. The palms of my hands are still red. 🙂

I then cut out the little hearts, painted their backs with water and stuck them to the cake.

I know there are fondant cake making secrets I must still learn. How to keep my hands from being dyed when coloring the fondant, how to make it smooth.

But for the most part, I’m pretty darned excited with my first effort at rolled fondant. Doing what I did seemed pretty easy and I would definitely try it again. 🙂

Ton of Fun Challenge

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I do really well at challenges because I’m super competitive. That’s why I joined the Ultimate Blog Challenge this month. And now, I’ve joined the Ton of Fun Challenge at Fleet Feet Sports.

The 12 week program offers nutrition advice, fitness workouts and accountability. Fitness isn’t tough. We work out every day and I feel terrible if we miss. And I could write a book on diet and nutrition but the actual doing of it? For the food part? I need accountability!

I went yesterday a.m. for my first weigh-in. I stepped on the scale and learned that I have had WAY too much food fun the past couple of months. The good news is, it makes me feel like crap so I’m ready to get in line.

If you read my blog, you have read about my 100 Goals list. I’ve added completing this challenge successfully to the list. Like other goals on the list, if I attain this one, it will allow me to also achieve (or be closer to achieving) Goals 2, 3, 11, 12, 13, 19, 20, 31, 43, 47, 53, 54, and 79. Interesting, eh?

A couple of those goals are fitness and running related. A couple are wardrobe related. 🙂

The program offers support in a facebook group and prizes for reaching various goals. I’m excited. This is one challenge I’m going to win! 🙂

Do you use challenges as a way to help you achieve a goal?

Molly Ringwald, Ruby Wax and me…

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I recently read Newton Neighbors by Suzy Duffy. I really enjoyed this book and am honored to have a Suzy’s guest post today about tending to your bucket list. With my own list of over 100 things I plan to accomplish, I’m fully behind this idea. Enjoy! 🙂

How’s your bucket list looking these days? Do you still have a wish-list of things you want to do?

Or did you dump it along the way with work, family and funding pressure? As autumn rolls in and kids head back to school, I think it’s a great time to remind you how precious your list really is. Haul it out and let’s think about this.

Ask any seven year old worth their salt about their wish-list and they’ll happily regale you with their plans to become a pop star, then an astronaut – maybe a spell in the white house before curing cancer and achieving world peace. While they’re a tad over-optimistic, I think as we get older we become a bit over-pessimistic. Somewhere in the middle is a good flight path.

Here’s my suggestion. Get a pen and paper and list ten things you’d like to do in your life. It isn’t as easy as it sounds because we’ve become so darn good at building excuses – reasons why things can’t be done. For now try to ignore all those excuses and write down the top ten things you really want. When you’ve got that done, list them in order of priority – one being your top ambition and ten, the least important. If we don’t have goals, how are we ever going to reach them? Here’s the funny thing, sometimes when we’re aiming for one thing, we get a totally unexpected bonus that wasn’t even on our radar.

Top of my list for the last five years has been to get to No. 1 in the New York Times bestseller list. This is practically unheard of for a new writer. I don’t know any mothers-of-five who have done it (except Debbie Macomber, and she has a thirty year head start on me) but that’s not the point. The point is the mountain is there and I want to climb it, page by page and book by book. Wellesley Wives got into the top one hundred in the Amazon Bestsellers list so I’m hopeful Newton Neighbors will climb even higher and so far so good, because reviews are excellent. Nowhere on my wish-list did I have plans to visit Australia. That didn’t even enter my mind but thanks to the success of Wellesley Wives in the USA, my publisher, The Writers Coffee Shop flew me to Australia – to speak at The Sydney Writers Festival on how to write romantic comedy. That was four months ago and I’m still flying high on the endorphins. Sydney was everything I imagined it to be and more. I was familiar with the landmarks of the city but to see them up close was just amazing. Sydney was an unbelievable fringe benefit of aiming for No. 1 in the bestsellers list. The same could happen to you. Aiming for goals puts you in the way of other fantastic adventures and experiences that might never have come your way if you ignore that bucket list.

I’ve been a huge fan of Ruby Wax for years. She’s American, living in the UK and did a hilarious TV series a few years back – interviewing some of the most colorful characters on the planet; Imelda Marcos, Pamela Anderson and the like. There was nothing Ruby wouldn’t say. She was wildly inappropriate and even wildlier funny! Imagine my thrill when I discovered she was staying at the same hotel as us in Sydney. She was Down-under to promote her new book too. I was rubbing shoulders with my idols. Another major celeb who checked in was Molly Ringwald. Yep, she has a book out too.

It kinda makes me wonder how in the heck I’m ever going to get to the top of the bestsellers list with so many people writing books. Then again look at the fun I’m having along the way.

This is a really good time of year to get your list back out and think about what you want. I’m sure your days are already full with family and work but we’ve got to squeeze as much fun into life as we can. Don’t ignore your bucket list – you owe it to yourself and who knows, it might be you I meet in Sydney next time. Wishing you good luck with your list and get connected through the links below to let me know how you’re doing.

Lots of love,

Suzy xx

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