Cakes, cakes, and…

I’ve written several posts, but I never get the time to finish them. In fact there’s never enough time for anything, and I’m sticking to my idea that time IS speeding up!

Take this summer (other Brits will know I’m being sarcastic even using that word! What bloody summer?!), the kids have been off school for over five weeks, and are due back next week. But we haven’t done anything I can remember.

The house is in a worse state than ever, and calling ourselves ‘the Clampits’ is no longer a joke. I haven’t done a thing in the garden, still haven’t decorated the cloakroom (and we’ve been living here 7 years this September!!), we’ve not had any outings, and I haven’t called any of the moms I promised to see.

All I ever do is make cakes.

Or so it feels to others. The BH is not amused. He’s at the end of his ten days off, and has just told me he thinks it’s all been a waste of time as he’s barely seen me. It makes me feel like shit when he’s cross with me. But giving up my dream of being good enough to make a living at cake decorating, leaves me feeling hollow.

I’ve never really had a dream before. In fact the only other thing I ever really wanted to do with my life, was have kids, and thankfully I sure as heck managed that ;)

But at the moment, making cakes takes a lot of time as I’m not so good I can just throw things together. And not having a proper workplace causes things to take twice as long. And then not being licensed means I can’t charge what I should be charging. Vicious circle.

Life seems to hold a lot of vicious circles, and I have habit of buckling under them. But I want this dream. I want a kitchen of my own where I can leave my work out if I have to dash off somewhere, I want a licence so I can charge proper money, and I want to be good at it.

But I’m feeling a tad bruised today, as I had my first ever TOTAL disaster yesterday. I made a three tier topsy-turvy cake for S’s birthday party (yes I know it’s month since her birthday, but you know me – always behind!).

It looked great, and I knew it was going to taste great. And for once the sun came out (I’m mentioning that, because I don’t think the heat helped). I took my pictures, here’s one:

and then loaded the thing into my car. We weren’t three minutes down the road (which isn’t so far, when you’re driving at 20mph because you have a cake in the car) when I knew things were going wrong. By the time I got to the party the entire cake had collapsed into itself, leaving nothing but a gooey mess.

If I wasn’t on happy pills, I would have sobbed until the cows came home. But I was mortified with embarrassment for the two other mothers we were sharing the party with. They took it quite well, all things considered.

It’s knocked me. And I think, the BH thinks I should give up this lark. He hasn’t quite said it, but I can feel his lack of patience. And a part of me thinks he’s probably right.

I earn good money from my book-keeping jobs, and when I’m not doing them, why do I spend all my time doing this, when there’s so many other things I could be doing?

Maybe I should give it up for a year or two. Just until things are straight. *Sigh* it might be the sensible thing to do.

And this would be the right time to decide as I’ve only got a couple of cake orders lined up, one I have to start tomorrow, for Thursday, and another in November (which I didn’t want as it’s Nano month, but I had to bribe J’s best friend into going to bed on a sleepover, and a castle cake was all that appealed to her).

Oh heck, here I go in circles again!

Why isn’t life ever simple? School runs and accounts just feel so ugh. I want to walk Ryker on the beach, make cakes all day, and have kids who don’t whine at everything. But Ryker’s dead, the beach is full of disapproving mothers (who are daring enough to dedicate their lives to their kids and doing ‘fun’ things), and in fairness to my kids – I don’t have the time, cash, or inclination to do what they want (though in my defence, I can say they hardly ever agree anyway!)

And here I am, middle of a sunny day, hiding from all the stuff I should be doing. I’d better go.