bend or you'll break

Sometimes the path you start out on is not the one you end up on.  I am sure learning this!

Moving to New Orleans was never something I imagined could happen to us in this life. I was finishing my masters program, going on to the doctoral program, going to live in Brookline or another lovely Boston area for a while. Get a dog. That whole deal. Now I am in the South, jobless, trying to figure out what I'm doing on a day-by-day basis.

There is a yoga quote that goes, "Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape."

I am physically flexible, but not so flexible in any other way. I set my goals, I meet them. I know what I want...okay, not so often but when I finally decide what i want... I always get it. I am a little controlling because I know that the consistency and stability that come with my control gets things done, and productivity makes me happy. When things don't work out the way I want them, however, I get a little "bent out of shape." That's just the way I am.

The other day I set out to make a new cakeball flavor for my friend's birthday. I thought strawberry would be interesting so I mixed up the strawberry cake and strawberry frosting.

mixing in the frosting

This is when I tasted it and should have turned back. But, I thought it wasn't that bad, just different. Fun. And the great pink color was flashy. So I kept on going. Forming the balls.

refrigerating

Getting the red vanilla candy melts to the right temperature and dipping them all in. And, finally, decorating them with white vanilla candy melts. I thought a dark chocolate candy melt outside would be a good flavor match for the strawberry inside so I saved half of the cakeballs to make the chocolate ones the next day.

And voila! They were done! They looked bright and pretty.

I was happy. Until I tasted one. Blech. I think they were like fruity pebbles (my sister used to loooove fruity pebbles). Ben says they're like captain crunch berries. I think both of those fake, sugary, yucky cereals are way better tasting than these.

So, I threw them all in the garbage and was grouchy for a while.

After ten minutes of being frustrated, I took a deep breath and decided to bake a snack.

Which led to me baking my provolone/parmesan/chive popovers, but this time I made them huge. An hour later I had cheesy, oniony, warm, lovely popovers and took a break from all the "doing."

mmm 

I settled down with a few popovers, and then went to yoga. 

Things hadn't exactly gone as I planned. I wanted those cakepops to be done and waiting on the counter to bring out to dinner on Friday night. But, life doesn't always go as you plan- even if I truly believe that it always will. When it doesn't, I'm totally surprised and angry and thrown off-guard. 

It may seem silly, but little things like cakepops not working out bend me out of shape. This time, however, I decided to just let it go and make something else.

So the next day I whipped up cappuccino brownies, put a little white vanilla candy melts on top, and went out to dinner with friends to celebrate a birthday. I even used a box mix (from WholeFoods) because you don't always have to be "perfect."- another lesson I am slowly learning. 

Life is too short to cry over cakepops.