Mom's Bday and other catch-up. :)

Birthdays tend to happen in groups in our family.  Charissa (my sister) and Mom celebrate 8 days apart, and my step-mom is the week after that, so I always get REALLY caked out around this time of year.  (And in January, where my dad and little brother are 3 days apart...and again in March, with three sisters and I all having our birthdays a week apart from each other...)

ANYWHO.  I've also lost the passion for cute cake making.  I'm going for delicious these days, maybe because I don't eat sweets as much so I really want it to be worth it!  I'm sure someday I'll get back into fun cakes again, but...times and seasons, friends.  :)  So here's the German chocolate cake (my mom's favorite) I made:

And here is the festivities: balloon throwing in Mom's and Charissa's new living room.  It was a low-key birthday, with pizza and cake and balloons and tired people.  :)  But it was still nice.  Happy birthday, Mom!

I haven't been in the mood to blog.  I've been a little down about the job thing (yup, no teaching job for me right now), and it has brought up a lot of hard feelings and kept me from feeling much motivation at ALL this week.  Other than dishes, I've done NO CLEANING all week!  I got a little more LEGO crafting done for my someday classroom on Monday, but between needing more money to finish them and the sad truth that they won't be put to good use anytime soon, well...lost my mojo.  I've caught up on some TV shows I hadn't been watching all summer, taken the dogs on some longer walks than usual, and just generally been a bummer to be around.  Pity party, complete with violins.  Not pretty. 

NO MORE!  I have struggled harder than usual even to find peace with this and so many other things in my life I don't like and feel powerless to change, but the last few days have been very odd and I've found the beginnings of a tranquility I can't totally explain.  I'm not completely there yet, but it's taking root more and more each day, and the thought keeps coming to mind that it's going to be okay, this is just a MOMENT and the Lord's plan for me is so much more than this moment.  Maybe I'm just meant to do something else right now (even though I prayed and thought long and hard about it and felt led in this direction...but that's the way it is sometimes).  Part of me is almost excited to figure out what that something else is with the Lord.  And I keep thinking back to other major life disappointments and remembering the things I learned from those moments, the strength and perspective I gained, and that most of them DID END WELL.  I'm grateful to have those solid, happy moments to dwell on, and to know that life is a roller coaster--the downs are always followed by big UPs, and sometimes even the falling can be a thrill.  (Not for me, though...I actually hate roller coasters...but still. :)

So...maybe tomorrow is the day I will feel the cleaning and the crafting and the photo-taking bug again.  Or maybe not.  But I will get there.  I'll try not to keep you waiting too long.  ;)

A few other pictures of my life right now:

I've had banana ice cream or banana/peanut butter milk shakes like every day.  YUM.

Stinkin' cute puppies.  I love that Voodoo still follows Obi around everywhere and copies even her body language.  :)

Found the most amazing ever FREE font to use in my someday-classroom: LEGOTHICK!  Outlined in yellow and put on a red background, it looks SO GOOD, don't you think?  :)  I'll have to post the final products of these two signs soon.  :)

Filled in for activity days last week.  The cute girls learned some babysitting-appropriate games to play...here they are blowing a cotton ball from one side of the room to the other.  So fun!