8 hour Eagle Scout Cake

Friday night was spent making an eagle scout cake for a young man in our Church.  I agreed to do the cake a few weeks ago and then managed to plan a trip to Portland the first two days of the week.  Not a problem except that I had to be in Portland Wednesday and Thursday as well.  I got home on Thursday afternoon exhausted which meant I only managed to make a few batches of fondant before falling into bed. 

That meant I had to make the cake, cool it, frost, cover and decorate it after work on Friday.

I left work just a bit early, went to the store and came home to get started.

The cake was red velvet and the frosting was cream cheese.  Very traditional.  The only problem is that traditional red velvet cake isn't as movable as a sponge cake.  Sponge gives some as you move it.  The red velvet did not.  It was a challenge.  Bob had to help me stack it and it was still pretty scary.  

But it worked.  

While the cakes were baking (I made three layers) I made two batches of the cream cheese frosting.  I figured I'd have a bunch left over but I didn't want to take any chances.  Good thing because I used it all.  It was a big cake.  Then I had to finish the fondant, roll it out and cut out the design. Bob helped make sure the design was scaled correctly and had the necessary details.  Nick helped as I rolled out the fondant to cover the cake.  It was a lot and it took all I had to get it rolled out.  

We finished up around 11:30 pm just in time to take it up to the Church so it would be there for the celebration on Saturday.  (There was a baseball game on Saturday and we had to leave town around 6:30 am so it had to be there before we left town).  Next time I will make sure I don't leave town the majority of the week I'm making a cake.  I didn't like the feeling of being rushed.

Side view before we added the border

 Not to bad for an 8 hour cake.

90 days complete...90 more to go

I never thought I would be able to say I completed 90 days of P90x but I did. We bought the DVD's last summer and I made it through maybe 30 days but I don't think it was that long. Away they went to the shelf where I sort of forgot about them. I did have a reminder though, a pull up bar in the doorway to my kitchen. Didn't motivate me to exercise, it was just there.

Fast forward to December. For some reason I decided I wanted to get into better shape. I think it was because my entire arm waved when I waved goodbye to someone. I'm not sure if that was really the reason, but I took the plunge and bought; yes paid money for, an app to track my P90x workouts. That became my big motivator. I wasn't going to spend money on an app and not use it. I really can't tell you why the dollars I spent on P90x wasn't enough to motivate me.

Last Saturday marked day 90. I only chose to workout 6 days a week and missed only 4 workouts over the 90 days. I take that as a good start. If I were a braver person I would post some pictures but I'm not so all you get are some words that describe my results.

I lost 6 pounds which isn't huge but since I didn't start this for weight loss I'm ok with it. I lost three inches in my waist and hips and two inches in my chest. My arm and leg measurements stayed the same but they are more toned than before so that's ok too.

Monday I began my second time through the system but this time I plan to follow the doubles workout plan. I've also started really watching the nutrition piece as well which I hope gives me better results than round one. Maybe then I'll be ready to post pictures.