My next project

Normally when I do my blog posting, I manage to upload a recent or relevant image or two the night before or morning of, mentally compose the post as I am driving to work or filing paperwork or am on hold with the computer help desk trying to get something on my laptop fixed, and then I take ten minutes at some point during the day to bang it out and post it. (Some people take smoke breaks, others take coffee breaks... I take blog breaks.)

Where this grand plan derails is when I forget to upload an image. I hate posting naked posts. There needs to be a little eye candy, you know? Anyway, Liam continued snivelling through the weekend and Mallory was sick enough that this morning we even debated sending her to Cindy's. (She was barking like crazy when she first woke up, but after being vertical again for 20 minutes or so, she seemed much better.) And this morning, I seem to have finally caught what the rest of the family already made rounds through. Except that I spent much of the weekend working and have a lot more left to do before the week is out - staying home is not an option. Anyway, that's my excuse for not getting my image posted. Bear with the naked post.

If I had gotten it posted, it would probably be a shot I took this weekend of my parents playing with Mallory on Saturday morning. You guessed it - they were playing Candyland. I think they got through 2 games and then we went to Chad's parents' for dinner last night and took the game there with us, too, and they played 2 or 3 more rounds. Like I said... Candyland is a big hit in our house.

Dawn knew this and sent me a link over the weekend... check it out. It's awesome.

For the uninitiated, that's a cake that replicates the Candyland game board, right down to the lollipop fields and gumdrop forests. My first reaction was: I love it! My second reaction was: we JUST decided on a birthday party theme for this year, and this doesn't fit it. Too bad. And my third reaction, which came sometime later, was... I don't care. I am making this cake.

I don't know when it's going to happen - certainly not this week, at least not before Friday. Not while I am under the weather and not while I am trying to get this project wrapped up. I am not entirely sure how or when I will be able to pull it off, because I want it to be a complete and total surprise for the kids. I don't want them involved in the assembly... I just want to unveil it after dinner one night and see their reaction.

It's going to require a bit of tinkering... this cake is huge... we don't need that much cake in our house! But I am not sure that scaling it down is an option, either, since the candies are of fixed sizes. And the candy canes... well, it would figure that we just tossed a bunch of candy canes a few weeks ago, wouldn't it? I'm not sure I'll be able to find any at this time of year.

Anyway... that's the plan. Something to look forward to when the office craziness subsides. Anyone want to come over for a piece of cake??