silly golf cake

I had this idea like a year ago, reading a magazine and saw a cake was made in a flip flop shape just felt it was funny looking, it was the type of cake that makes you smile just by looking at it. Then I said to myself, I could transfer the idea to make a silly-looking golf cake, not necessary a flip flop but having a theme for the cake seems fun.

At that time, I had the 14th hole of Jupiter Country Club in my mind which is a nice par 3 over water with two deep bunkers guarding the front part of the green. Now that I am at eastpointe country club, the 16th hole re-assemble a similar look to it without much elevation changes.

Victor does not feel too well lately so I have some time in my hand to fool around at the kitchen. I drew 4 scratches then I expand the most reasonably looking one into a one to one ratio drawing on a piece of wax paper, which later I can trim the cake or create some mount around the cake following the real size wax paper drawing.

While I was trying to buy baking supplies at a local cake supply store, the owner share her cake creation album with me, actually it was the owner's sister, she did not bake the cake, her younger sister did but she showed me the album. Her version was pretty funny looking but technically it was just different color of butter cream frosting and different style of piping. I needed texture, forms and slope so I decided to go on my own.

Turns out it was better-looking than the professional custom baker version, I would check later if it taste good though, the cake is going to my friend's two young daughters.

A friend was complaining that I made the cake out from cake mix (red velvet cake), well, it took 6 hours actively working around the kitchen just to fool around with the frosting, it will take 8 hours if I make the cake from scratch. I would say that is about the maximum amount of time that I committed to make a cake, the next project would be a wedding cake if it takes so much time! Anyway, Victor was amazed at the cake and said: "I've never seen anything like it!"

Summary of cost:

Cake mix $3
Pumpkin cream cheese filling $6
Marshmallow mini $2 (use as filling and also use to build mount of the slope)
Honey Graham Cookie $3 (crumble for bunker)
Eggs $2
Butter $5

Coconut sweeten $2 (rough --- mix with icing color green in a zip-lock bag, roast in oven for 15 minutes to dry afterward)
Rice Crispy $1 (crumble for cart path)
Licorice $2 (use as borders around the lake, use a carving knife to shape rakes)
Jello in blue $1 (use as lake, mold into a plastic glad box lined with plastic wrap, when the jello set a few hours later, un-mold onto the cake surface)

Icing color $3
Lady golfer $3
Green sprinkler $3 (fringe of the green and tee box grass)
Coconut oil $2
Jelly bean (tee box marker)

Creativity and Patience --- Priceless!

House Launched!

http://www.hometakesvideos.com/showcase/tour.php?id=1638&cat=tour&style=ub
you may have to copy the above link, then paste it on your browser. I have trouble to post a hyperlink through java script on this blogger site.



click the above link, should lead you to a video tour of the house, it did not show the guest rooms and their bathrooms entirely but it shows a little bit on the photos button on top right corner. Every looks pretty good except victor's office, it shows his coffee cup hanging on the desk top.

it took more than 3 weeks to get the house into its tip-top shape for photo-shoot, I am very happy with the outcome, this is the first step to getting a prospect --- at least get dressed up! If I wake up in the morning with thick glasses, did not wash my face and comb my hair, I am sure there won't be any prospects; same theory goes to getting a client to look at the house, it has to be presented well.

Let's see what happen next! I am getting excited

Chilean Miners

It was definitely a miracle, after 69 days being trapped under a copper and gold mine, 33 workers were successfully rescued.

From the trapped miners in China, North Carolina or the trapped soldiers under the submarine in Russia... no one survived, but this time, all 33 of them were saved, praise the Lord.

I was closely follow up with the news, it was truly an unbelievable rescue effort, joint venture from different countries, all work together under one goal --- is to free the miners.

Despite the help from all over, the 33 men themselves have to be strong enough to hang on. They voted a leader underground, who is the foreman I think he is 54 years old. He lead everybody to stay strong and connected, he told everybody if anyone starts to fight for the very limited resources and be sure they would all die together, he divided the food and water equally for the very first few weeks before people realized they are alive underground, he lead to pray everyday, he made everyone spiritually strong to hang on and have faith to believe they would be freed.

I couldn't imagine how lives were among these 33 men in 530 square foot closed space without sunlight. This would be a very good material for a movie and I will definitely go watch it.

The support from their family and friends are overwhelming, I doubted if they could hang on without having their support. The funny part was one miner has a wife and a girlfriend, today he wanted both of them present while he is being rescued by the capsule. Well the girlfriend shows up and cry in tears while seeing him alive, the wife did not present, she probably want him dead now after this event. ^_^

Just a reminder, if you are a miner; make sure you deal with one woman at a time!

Lean and mean

This is the last 3 days of Victor's medical treatment for his sinus problem, and he is going to consult an oral surgeon on Wednesday, worst comes to worst he would be undergo that sinus surgery and rest for 2 months afterward.

Yesterday was the first day he played 18 holes in 3 weeks, he got his hole-in-one on 9/24 and he did not play after that due to colitis flare up, he lost probably good 15 lb. We went out to practice on Saturday and he played 11 holes with me, then just hold the flag for me from 11th to 18th. He said feeling the fresh air is good. I cheered him up by telling him a dear friend of mine has to pay $150 each time when she visits a dietary doctor to try to shred 15 lbs, "you got it for free, victor! cheer up!"

He was laughing then.

Medalist golf and country club was very nice, the condition was better than the Ritz I would say. There's something about playing the golf course and not seeing many houses, feel more natural, more into the environment I am playing in, over marshland or around the lake, it was just very pretty and relaxing. I remember we went to see their houses when we first moved here in 2004, it had no sales office whatsoever, there was a trailer showing little models in a box and floor plan, I could not imagine how it will be 5 years later and I got scared when I looked at the scorecard, it was 5800 yard for the ladies tee and I was a beginner back then.

Even now I am much improved, still shot in the high 80's at the Medalist but I like the course very much. That resort course we played in Thailand called Springfield golf and country club is very similar but with mountains as backdrop, of course the condition is not as fine as the Medalist where the green rolls like a Persian oriental rug. But the overall layout with natural surroundings and forced carry marshland are very much alike.

I like an intimate club, where everything is smaller and everyone say hi to another. Rather than a gigantic club with thousands of people coming in and out every month. But I also don't like the fact that Medalist has such a small group of lady golfers, probably less than 15 actively playing, plus the men-rule-the-world kind of attitude. It is a men's club basically, the membership account goes to the man of the household and you are Mrs. so and so or you are the wife of someone, it is like saying you don't deserve your own title but an attachment of a male member. That is what I hate about traditional country club format.

In Asia it is similar too, the caddy service the men in your group first. If someone is pouring tea into your cup be ready this person will fill up the cup of the men at the table first. I protested it once at the club, they pay double the amount of store credit to the men's champion and I had half; luckily a month later I saw the credit amount was doubled to what it should be. Sometime you have to think, it is not the money, there is principle involves in certain things in life that you must fight for it, or you'd lose your ground.

natural remedy

Sometime it sounds very caveman like to believe in natural remedy, but it is the fact that western medicine heals one problem create the next. Personally I don't take anything unless the pain is unbearable, I may take a pill here and there, the last time I took a pain-killer was after a removal of my wisdom tooth and it basically knocked me out, I mean literally the pill did not kill any pains but just made my head very heavy and I went to sleep all day.

I had a stomachache a few days ago, followed by heartburn and bloating. Usually from eating too much in too fast a pace, or I did not move around after I ate a full stomach. Now that I remember it was the Ryder Cup, so I ate and sit on the chair to watch the Ryder Cup for a long time instead of moving around as usual. It lingered to the next day, I decided to make a soup that would make these problems go away. The key ingredients here are ginger, garlic and tons of white peppercorn, the rest is not important but I had to make it tasty so I put chicken stock with some fish ball and romaine lettuce in it, you could just use the broth with romaine lettuce if fish ball is not your favourite on the menu.

Miraculously, everything went away like half an hour after I drank the soup and chew on some cooked peppercorn. In ancient Chinese herbal medicine, peppercorn creates warmth in the stomach and expels gas in the intestines; ginger is the strongest natural anti-inflammatory from the earth. This combo just did its magic to me, but the true knowledge in Chinese herbal medicine is not one remedy fits all, it has to work on different body types. The body types mentioning here is not how we were built, it is how our inside of the body functions and an experience Chinese herbal doctor can tell by listening to your pulse, check your tongue's color, looking into your eye...etc. to distinguish what kind of body type you are, in order to give you the proper herb to heal that particular problem.

There are hot body type, cold body type, neutral body type and a mixture of cold + neutral or hot + neutral.

for example my body type is cold + neutral mix, ginger has always work for me; but my elder brother is a hot body type, if he takes ginger it will create problem for him. There was a time Mom made some special Chinese medicine soup for a very cold winter, it supposed to warm everybody up and encourage blood circulation. My mom, my father and I drank it and felt great but my elder brother drank it and he said he felt very hot inside, then he went to sleep a few hours later, he had blood running out from his nose at sleep. The conclusion was that soup did not suit his body type, it created heat on top of heat so the body had to channel it out.

The above remedy is not suitable for anyone has gallbladder problems neither, so we can not just listen to a remedy then use it, we must evaluate all facets of the herb and our own body before we try something.

Victor has been suffering from sinusitis and toothache, two of these problems together are very complex, you don't know it's the chicken or the egg. The sinus problem could be created from an infected tooth root giving pressure into the sinus area to create blockage; or he has the sinus problem all along but he feels like a toothache because the sinus and tooth share the nerve in the same area, it means it feels like a toothache but the pain is actually coming from your sinus.

After consulting two ear nose and throat specialist, he is going to visit another dentist and oral surgeon. It is like a gamble to determine who should you listen to, because the ear nose and throat specialists said it is the sinus problem, cut it open and see what's inside. The dentist think it is a root canal's issue so we can't be sure, both sides think they can operate on you and make the problem go away.

Meanwhile, taking all these very strong anti-biotic has creates problem for Victor because he has ulcerative colitis, these strong pills kill the possible bad bacteria but also kill the good bacteria in his GI. So in the meantime when he is dealing with all these confusion, he has to deal with a ulcerative colitis' flare up created by the pills which supposed to help his sinus / tooth problem.

never a dull moment.

Message in a bottle

I was reading the newspaper today, it mentioned an Australian student from Melbourne wrote a letter then put it in a bottle, throw it into the Atlantic ocean in spring of 2009 as it was a project of his marine biology course at Florida Atlantic University here at our doorstep. A 17 years old boy from Ireland picked up this bottle at a small fishing village in Ireland while spending time with his family vacation a few days ago.

Guess what?! Through the current of the Atlantic ocean, we are not that far apart. A regular airmail with the cheapest fair would take 2 weeks to send a letter to Ireland, this way it's free and it only took 1 and a half year but you don't know who is going to receive it. Funny, isn't it?!

The boy and his father, who is of course in vacation with him along other family members are very excited to reply this trans-Atlantic letter to this Australian student.

However, this student was in surprised, stated that he would never thought someone will receive his letter in the bottle. I just found it very fun to read this article, I did something like this when I was a little girl, probably 10 - 12 years old I don't quite remember. Nevertheless I wasn't knowledgeable enough to know the current in South China Sea merges into the Pacific Ocean, nor there was an email address to allow someone to send you a message in a second in those days.

I have a good habit to write down what piss me off on a piece of paper, or we shall call it a letter. Then let it hangs for a few days to decide to send it or not. My usual practice is I made all the points I had to make in the letter, explain myself very clearly and describe my feelings very truly to someone I am writing to. Then I put a hold onto the letter, decide to send it out or not 3 days later, to tell you the truth it was very rarely I send that letter out after 3 days but it was a good practice that I let my thoughts out on a piece of paper, so emotionally I am not trapping anything inside of me, at the same time I don't just lash it out onto someone nears me or working for me at that time, it acts as a very good buffer and the fact was it worked while no one is getting upset.

Shall you have anything bugs you from the policy of your club or your spouse's crazy ideas; write it down on a piece of paper --- now I would change my move, instead of hanging onto it for 3 days, stuff it into a bottle and throw it to the Atlantic Ocean.

Photo Shoot II

I am happy the weather is nice today, just a bit windy but the sky was Oh So Blue, made the photos look exceptionally well. The photographer will send me a copy tomorrow and I am excited to see it.

However, I followed the footstep of the photog even I only have a tiny little digital camera, unlike his professional gear -- to take photos around different angle of the house and from the outside. The reason as I mentioned to him, the house rarely look this tidy and have things all hidden from the counter top, I might as well use this opportunity to take some photos. He likes the bathtub scene and spent a lot of time in the masterbathroom, I personally took a lot more photos outdoor than indoor.

Ok we are ready to go, let's get some action!

Also, don't get too carry away about seeing the bathtub scene and use too much of your own imagination, it's nothing like what you are thinking while looking at that picture. Just that the scene itself is very inviting, the fact was in real life --- Victor and I were so tired from working around the house over the weekend, we dumped tons of epsom salt and eucaluptus oil into the bathtub and soak in it at a different time zone to ease our aching pain over the body! Sorry to inform you we did not have an oz more energy to do something else such as the one you thought about.