Flowers.

Yesterday my friend Jessie brought me flowers to celebrate (or help me cope with, ha!) my last day of work. I don't know if I've ever been given flowers before... (Well, as I was racking my brain to think if I have, I remembered one time in high school when I left my headlights on and killed my battery, and I realized it in the middle of the day so I had to call my dad to come and fix it and he did... and he left flowers in my car for me. What a great dad to fix my car for me AND bring me flowers. I don't deserve a dad like him.) Ok, so I guess this was the second time I've been given flowers. But it was pretty special. And they are beautiful. And they look like fall. And Jessie's the greatest.

I love getting flowers. (And yes, I did take these flowers outside to take a picture of them. I hear natural light takes better pictures, especially if you haven't taken the time to figure out your Canon yet. Someday I will figure it out... someday.)

Passions.

I feel like the word "passion" has come up in a lot of the conversations I've had lately... but it's been in the negative. When referring to my new job at JP Morgan, many times I've said the lame statement of: "Well, it'll be a good job, but what can I say, I'm just not passionate about 401ks." I was just reading a friend's blog and she answered the question, "What are you passionate about?" and upon reading that I was completely convicted that I've been focusing on the negative rather than the positive. What am I passionate about? What gets me excited and motivated and high on life?

After much contemplation (ok, not that much, maybe 15 minutes), here is my list of things I am passionate about:

1. Encouragement. I think everyone deserves to hear the nice things we sometimes think in our heads but for some reason are too embarrassed to say out loud. If you like a person's sweater or think someone did a great job at work, why not tell them about it. I love to give compliments and I love to write thank you cards. I'm passionate about encouraging people.

2. Friendships. Solid friendships are pretty huge to me. Tonight I went for a drink with a friend and asked her how she was doing and she didn't waste any time with the lame, "I've been good, how are you?" She went straight into how her heart really is. I loved it! I love how real our friendship is. I'm passionate about friendships. Not only my own but that we all need them.

3. Music. I suppose this is a little more shallow than the things above, but I'm passionate about music. I'm passionate about singing and communicating a message through notes and words. And I'm passionate about instrumentals and communicating emotion through the a major or minor key. I love it all...

4. Creativity. I'm passionate about thinking outside of the box. About creating beautiful things out of not so beautiful things. I kind of feel like creativity is a form of redemption, artistically improving a situation. I know... I just made that way deeper than it probably is, but why not...

5. Christianity. This is what I build my life around... or try to. (I fail, again and again....) It's where all of my passion begins.

The kicker is that while, no, I'm not passionate about 401ks, I can still incorporate all of the things I am passionate about in my new job (ok, well, maybe not music, but I will do that on the side...) It's these things that I will be focusing on... The end. :)

Blessed Baker.

Today was a hard day... It's true, the girl who blogs about how happy and beautiful life is has hard days. Long story short, I'm having a hard time leaving a job that I enjoy and working with people that I love to go into this unknown territory of the "working world" doing something I'm not totally passionate about. I've always been bad at transitions so it only makes sense that I would be struggling right now. The leaving is always the hard part, but once I've arrived at the new place, I'm generally fine. So, since I found out three weeks ago that I got this new job and will be leaving my current job, it's been this never ending, painful transition. It's like a bandaid that you can't rip off, so you gradually pull it away, one hair at a time. Today the bandaid got closer to budging. The staff that I currently work with took me out to lunch kind of as a farewell (talk about bittersweet) and I cleaned out my office (it was like in the movies, where the person has all of their belongings in a cardboard box.) It was just hard.

So I came home, talked it out with my mom, cried a little bit, went shopping :), and then I baked. When I busted out a food magazine with some new recipes in it my mom said, "You always bake when you're depressed." I wouldn't say that I'm depressed, but it's a fact, baking is a pick me up for me. So, that's what I did. I baked, and it was glorious. I made these cookies from Taste of Home magazine called "Mini Cinnamon Roll Cookies" or something like that. They were wonderful...

So today was rough... But at the end of the day, I'm blessed to have worked where I've worked and with the people that I've worked with for the last 9 months. I'm blessed to have a new job that is full time, pays decently, and has benefits. I'm blessed to have a brother that loves me even when he gives me a hug and I say "I don't really want to be touched right now," but comes back for another when I'm ready. I'm blessed to have a mom that listens to me and lets me cry and then moves on. I'm blessed to have a working oven, a beautiful Kitchenaid mixer, and miraculously all of the ingredients I need to make a new cookie recipe. I'm just blessed, and that's the truth I'm focusing on to finish a day like today.

I'm missing it...

On September 1st I got excited because fall was near. It officially became fall on September 22nd but I've realized something lately...

I keep on waiting for fall to arrive and I'm missing the fact that it's already here. I think half of the beautiful season I'm waiting for it to become "truly fall-like" and therefore kind of ignore the gloriousness of the entirety of the season. For example, in September I kept on thinking, "I can't wait for it to get cool outside, it'll be fall when it's cool." Well, it's cool now, and I haven't really acknowledged that it's here and it's wonderful. Now I'm waiting for the leaves to change, and I'm thinking, "Fall will be perfect when the leaves start changing." Fall is already beautiful. And I'm missing it because I keep on waiting for the next lovely thing to arrive.

I think we all do this. Maybe not with fall (you're probably not as obsessed as I am), but we are constantly looking forward to the next thing instead of enjoying our current surroundings. We need to stop. I need to stop. I need to start enjoying fall now, because before I know it the leaves will fall off the trees and turn brown and the cool air that I once found refreshing will turn into a freezing wind that won't go away until March. I need to stop waiting for fall (and more importantly life) to be perfect and start enjoying it for what it is now. So that's my goal. Amen. (Ha, do you feel like I just preached a sermon, because I do...)

(Fact: I need to go out and do some serious picture taking when the leaves start to change (not that I'm not enjoying it now, but if the leaves don't change you can't tell it's fall) because I keep on using the same picture to represent fall. My bad.)

Picking Up.

"Business" (if you can call it that) has been picking up lately. Two weekends ago I baked 4 cakes, last weekend I baked 2, and this weekend I baked 2. It's kind of a shame that now it's picking up. I've had all this time on my hands over the last 9 months with I've only been working 20 hours a week. And now, that I just got a full-time job, things pick up. Tonight I had the realization that once I start my new job I won't have as much time to bake. It's kind of sad...

So, I've decided I'm going to try to bake a lot over the next 2 weeks and take advantage of the time I have. (It sounds like I'm dying or moving or something, but no, I'm just getting a full time job like a normal adult...) Anyway, here are a few of the cakes that I've baked over the last couple weeks. I haven't been as diligent at taking pictures, but I managed to remember for these cakes. (Above is a birthday cake for one of my co-workers. That is supposed to be the Orange County Chopper logo on a chocolate cake with white buttercream frosting.) I still have a long way to go, especially with my writing, but I can see myself improving which is a step in the right direction (sorry you just had to sit through the little pep talk I just gave to myself.)

(Chiefs cake for another one of my co-workers,

white wedding cake with buttercream frosting.)

(Birthday cake for a friend at church,

white wedding cake with buttercream frosting.)

The man on our thermometer.

We had one of those indoor-outdoor thermometers that tells you both temperatures. It broke a few weeks ago and we haven't been able to find one that works well. Today... my dad brought home another one to try. I can't say thermometers get me that excited so I thought nothing of it. (For some reason I feel like older people care about the weather and temperature more than younger people do (with the exception of my college roommate Megan), am I right?)

I didn't even look at the thermometer until my brother Cory pointed out one of the coolest features I've ever seen. It has a picture of a man on it that is dressed according to how the weather is outside!! When it's warm, he's wearing shorts, a t-shirt, and shoes. When it's cold, he's wearing a jeans, a coat, and boots! Isn't that awesome?! So this afternoon it was warm and he was wearing this first outfit... And tonight, although he was a little confused on the sunglasses, considering it was 12:48 am when I took this picture, he was wearing jeans, because it got a little cooler. Isn't that great?!

Yes. I realize this post is silly. But this gave me a chuckle today... so I hope it gives you one, too!

And P.S. I've decided to name the man Gary, after our local weatherman, "Llllllook at that rainbow."

Pumpkin.

Growing up I didn't really like pumpkin pie. I always thought it was because pumpkin was gross, but it turns out it's because I think the texture is gross. Pumpkin, in fact, is awesome. I now LOVE pumpkin flavored things. Pumpkin cheesecake. Pumpkin spice lattes. Pumpkin bread. Pumpkin cupcakes. I love pumpkin.

I was excited for the arrival of fall so I could bake with pumpkin again. The other night I attempted the Pumpkin Cake with Butterscotch Filling and Brown Sugar Icing recipe from Annie's Eats. The recipe was way more difficult than I anticipated and didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped. I took it to work and everyone said they liked it, but who would honestly come up to me and say, "So, Abby, I just feel like you kind of missed the mark this time." (Well, Jessie might.) Anyway, if you're up for a difficult cake and mediocre results, this recipe is for you! BUT, the moral of the story is that I baked with pumpkin, and that was fun.

This afternoon I'm baking with pumpkin again. Trying another Annie's Eats recipe, Pumpkin Butterscotch cookies (I just love the idea of pumpkin and butterscotch, hopefully it'll actually turn out this time.) They just got out of the oven and I'm hoping they turned out well. I have high hopes.

Anyway, yay for baking with pumpkin! I think the next think I'm going to try is a pumpkin cheesecake. I wis you could come over and enjoy some with me!