"would you like a sample tray?"................!?!?!?

spent most of the day baking...which is always fun.  piper's been quite sick the last few days, but today she was in much better spirits!  we skipped church, so as not to get all the other kiddos in the nursery sick and snotty, because piper really does like to share.

anywho, i stopped at a cute little place in belmont called the gourmet food barn the other day because my friend told them that i make awesome cookies (thanks!), and they said...hm, we love awesome cookies!  will you make some for us!??!  so i offered to bring them a sample tray...then i spent most of the day figuring out what exactly a PiperBellies sample tray actually is.  turns out its a pound cake cupcake or 2, vegan chocolaty chocolate cookies, coconut chocolate chip cookies, chocolate and classic shortbread, lavender heart cookies, and chocolate whoopie pies with a cream cheese filling.  YUM!  i, sadly, am vegan this month so couldn't eat thousands of spoonfuls of cream cheese filling like i wanted to...so i had 2 vegan cookies instead.  anywho, i'll be bringing the sample tray over on tuesday morning, and will be posting pictures of everything tomorrow...all of them will be available for anyone to order....going on the permanent PiperBellies menu.  if you think of anything else you think should be on a sample tray...or on the permanent menu....you should tell me.

for savannah

well, piper is sick.  she has a terrible cold, and is quite miserable.  had a hard time breathing last night, but with a lot of time sitting in the bathroom with the hot hot shower running trying to steam out some of that mucus...and saline solution.  which she hates.  who wouldn't?  she was up basically all night.  poor baby.  she's feeling a little better today, but not much.

anywho, thought i'd post real quick while she's taking a nap...finally.  aaaaaaaand as soon an i typed that i heard a little voice from upstairs.

BUT this is a cake i made for Savannah...she wanted a white cake with white frosting and pink and yellow roses...so here it is!

eternal sunshine.

Constantly talking isn’t necessarily communicating.

life.........

so...maybe i don't have the most exciting life.  i've lived in new england for my whole life.  i don't have a million friends, but i have a handful of really great ones, i have an amazing daughter, i went to college for a while, i'm taking some classes, i have my own baking business, which i love, i live with my parents, i don't party, i do pretty much the same things all the time, but i like those things!  i like to make dinner with my friends, i like to go to portsmouth, i like to drink coffee, i like to eat burritos, i like hanging out and laughing...is this so wrong?

should i feel guilty for not traveling the world and going to the olympics and having a bunch of half friends, and eating gourmet meals, and blablabla.  i don't even know if i would like those things.  sometimes i like to be "adventurous", but not all the time...i think my life is pretty adventurous in general.  i'm a mom, for goodness sakes!  what could be more of an adventure than that?  i love my piper, i love my friends, i love my family, i love to bake...i think these things are exciting and they are what i love.  i don't think we should have to feel sub-par or mediocre for doing what we love.

and that is what i think. 

all you need is love...?

i've been thinking a lot about love and whatnot today for some reason.  has anyone noticed that the theme of most love movies (chick flicks, mostly), goes like this.....fall in love!  oh no...don't fall in love because it hurts and it sucks and its hard....and then....aaawwww, everything is okay because we're in L.O.V.E.  which generally annoys me because this is not how real life works, and sometimes the person you want to be with doesn't want to be with you and someone you don't want to be with does want to be with you, or sometimes you want to be with each other, but there's just no way it could work, or maybe you want to be with each other but the timing is off, or...blablabla!  life is not a chick flick.  obviously.  and this is okay.  its just that we live in this culture that promotes that these movies are reality, so when you're not in a perfect relationship with an abercrombie model and you don't wake up looking like you've just been airbrushed, you feel like there's something wrong with you!  well, there is not.  the fact is that you are just a real person...not living in a movie.

the good news is that there are real love stories.  people do fall in love, and live happily ever after.  we should not give up hope, just because we aren't a 16 year old disney princess with long flowing hair and a 12 inch waist being kissed by prince charming while forest animals sweep the floors and do the dishes.  this is the real world, but maybe there can be unrealistically happy endings here too.  gosh i hope so.

phew!

so, good news.  i went to burrito me today (tracy and i drove 40 minutes just to get a burrito....so worth it.), and when we walked in the door, low and behold, there was my basket of cookies WITH ONLY ONE LEFT!  ohmygosh i was so nervous that no one was going to buy them, but you did!!!  thank you thank you thank you!  i hope you enjoyed them eating them even more than i enjoyed making them!  so, needless to say that they ordered more, and i've just spent some time baking in the kitchen ( i have to bake out of the commercial kitchen at the camp that i live at...they are so nice to let me use it...but i have to wait till they're done with it, so i can't start to bake until like 8:30 pm.), and i am now waiting for my cookies to cool so i can package them for a delivery tomorrow!  gosh i love doing this.

in other news...piper is a crazy person!  she is crawling all over the place, and thinking everything is funny, and being really stubborn, and just...wow.  her personality just keeps growing and growing.  i love her so much.  she had a little cold, but is being quite a trooper.  i had to work today and my mom is in virginia with my brothers, so auntie tracy babysat for me all morning/afternoon.  piper was thrilled.

anywho....my cookies could be cooled now, so i'm off to package them!

p.s. every time i am able to sit down and watch the olympics, male figure skating is on.  EVERY TIME.  where is the snowboarding and downhill and speed skating and manliness?!?!?!   i just have bad timing.  no offense to all you male figure skaters reading my blog.

tofutti.

being vegan for a month isn't just about eating nothing but tofutti ice cream sandwiches....but this is a major perk.