#Birthday! #BirthdayCake - Rose Bouquet Birthday Cake #Yum! And Sooo Pretty! #HappyBirthday #BirthdayParty! #Cupcakes! #Icing #Roses #CupcakeBouquet #WeddingCake

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#BirthdayCakes! Yum! And so pretty! #HappyBirthday!! 

Oh, hey, did you know that if you freeze your birthday candles, they'll burn slower, enough time to blow out your Birthday Candles, and not get wax on your cake! Yahoo! Good Tip, right? I just heard it on #TheDoctors - a good little show! : )

  One of my all-time favorite Birthday Cakes, a Princess Cake, from Gelson's Market 13455 Maxella Ave, Marina Del Rey, CA 90292 

And if you just want to pop in on your way to the beach, you can just get a slice - so delightful, and soo pretty!

Okay, so this is really funny - I just went into my picture files, right, to find my pictures of my gorgeous Birthday Cake, so I could show you how to make it, yourself, if you were so inclined... 

 How cute is that, right?? I love it!

You know, I didn't know they had all these new ways to make beautiful little flowers - and some really big flowers, too - even MORE important, to me - and maybe you, too! lol! You could totally make your own very fancy cakes! 

Hello, New Business Idea! : )

Oh, this cake is gorgeous, and would be so easy to make, too - basic rosettes, different shades of pinks, or whatever your favorite flower color is, then pipe the green stems, then the green leaves!

I LOVE it! Beautiful!

#BirthdayCake #CakeDecorating #birthday #wedding #shower

#fancycake #prettycake #prettycakes #icing #frosting

I wanted to show you how to deconstruct the Rose Bouquet Cake, show you how to make the Rose Bouquet Cake out of a flower pot, a round styrofoam ball, toothpicks, and 15 tiny cupcakes with a LOT of icing in the shape of a rose... and when I was looking for my Birthday Cake pics, all these other pictures came up, and I thought, well, I'll quickly show you these lovely pics of another one of my favourite Birthday Cakes, the Princess Cake from Gelson's in Marina del Rey, California - it was such a beautiful cake, and soo delicious (well, first slice, then we put it in the freezer, don't know if anyone ever did have any more cake - hahaha! But it was an incredible cake, for sures!).

Anyway, I go to choose which pictures to put on my blog, first, for the best way to show you how to make the Rose Bouquet Cake, right? And all these pictures come up, sooo, long story short, here they are, a big mishmash! I ALWAYS pretend to eat the whole cake by myself, pretend to take a big bite out of the whole cake - is endlessly funny to me! hahaha! I wonder where that green dress is (it's not a real green dress, that's cruel...for all the Bare Naked Ladies fans out there! hahaha! BNL, if their name is all cleaned up! lol!)

So, scroll down, you'll find more cakes as you go! lol!

Okay, so here's my first Rose Bouquet Cake - omg, it was soo crazy delicious. We get these lovely cakes at the Cupcake Shop in the Uptowne Plaza in Victoria, BC, it's right beside the Walmart bit, across from the waterfall... and Cara, my gorgeous, wonderful, fantastico daughter, always orders these lovely cakes for my Birthday - how sweet is that?? (Thank you, Sweetheart!!), and I think she orders them a day or so in advance, since they put extra icing in between the cupcakes, to fill the whole thing in, make it look perfect, and is all very exciting when you pull a cupcake out, and get the 'extra' icing - is like a little dream come true - a dream for extra icing! hahahaha! Makes me laugh! lol!

(7.24-9.4) Mixed Roses starting at 19.99 - the lowest price of the year

Yahoo, here's my Birthday Cake from this year - I'm 51 - wow, where did the time go?? lol!  

If you happen to be all fresh and young, right now, lucky you, but no worries about getting 'older' - is fun, you'll love it, and don't fall for any crap that you have to look or dress or feel a certain way specifically because of your age - no need to cut your hair when you're 30, or when you have your first child, or turn 40, or 50, or any specific age... even if your mother or your friends or your co-workers or the media, insists on it - no, let them have their favorite haircuts, and you get to have your very own style, whatever that is - long, short, you get to choose what you look like, all by yourself! #YouBeYouBoo! lol! 

This was endlessly funny to me - here's the original name on the cake - nailed it!  My name is AILSA, not ILSA, but I do have a cousin called Ilsa, ironically enough! lol!  We laughed so hard when we saw this, then the girl at the Cupcake shop was so sweet, she immediately went and made a new 'name tag' for mah' Birfday Cake! lol!

It's gorgeous, though, right?  Omg, it was craaazy-gorgeous, but here's another really funny thing - they didn't have a box for it, so we had to carry it home, just like that, holding onto the pot, so-to-speak...buh'dum'bum!  So I was carrying it up to my place, I kept saying, man, if I ever get married, again (and I hope I do, one day, if the guy is really great! hahaha!), I'm gonna carry a cake like this as my bouquet, it was so crazy-gorgeous, and smelled so good, then you could just eat it, afterwards - now, that would get me right through the ceremony, right? An incentive of delicious cupcakes after the nuptials? Nuptials... sounds like something scrumptious, right??  Like the Flower Bouquet?? hahaha! 

Oh, here we go - these are the pictures I was trying to find for you! lol!  So, for this gorgeous little Cupcake Bouquet, you will need to either go to the bakery and buy one (haha!), or, get a nice little clay pot - or anything that the round styrofoam ball will sit in, nicely...and place 15 toothpicks around the styrofoam ball. 

See how the toothpicks are spaced apart? The goal is to cover the whole area, of course, with little cupcakes, and they are the tiny cupcakes - you can buy these at any grocery store, too, then fill in the open areas with extra icing, or maybe some little leaves? Use your imagination, you'll come up with something really pretty! 

When you're eating this amazing little cake, each person just pulls out one cupcake at a time - is sooo cute, you'll love it!

I save the base for the next time we might like to make another Cupcake Bouquet Cake - good idea, right?  I just love it!

This Cupcake Bouquet Cake would be great for Easter, too, or for weddings... I'd rather have something like this, for a centerpiece - wouldn't your guests be sooo excited to get extra cupcakes?? haha! And you can use any flower theme... you could have so much fun designing something new! : )

Kick up the flavor with Jello Crystals?! Worth a try! : )

Oh, and you know what I was thinking? (No, me no gonna make you guess! lol!)  Anyhooo, I was thinking about the sprinkles on these phenomenally delicious little cupcakes - and they are soooo little, very tiny, and oh-so-good...but I really think it's the sprinkles that make the icing so incredible, and the other night, when I was making our fave little Jelly Squares, I had just poured the Jello Crystals into the 2 cup measuring cup, right?  To make the Jelly Squares?  And it occurred to me, I bet this is what they sprinkle on their icing, to make it really pop!  Sooo, maybe we should all try this?  

So, if you have Lemon Icing, try sprinkling a little bit of Lemon Jello Crystals on the icing - it's worth a try, right?  Can't hurt, that's for sure, and it might be the trick to making them truly amazing! I gotta try that! 

 See how it works? Each little rose is a mini-cupcake, careful put on a toothpick, to hold it in place - is sooo sweet! Literally - is so nice and sweet! lol!

Super-cute, right? You can make this Cupcake-Bouquet with any cupcakes - I like the mini-cupcakes, but you could easily use regular sized cupcakes, too - do whatever makes you happy, right? lol! 

Oh, and here's something funny - I said to Cara, my gorgeous daughter, right after we brought my birthday cake home, this year, you know what, I think I have a picture frame just like this cake!  So here it is - that's me on the beach in Marina del Rey, waiting to go into the Cheesecake Factory - I think this was a Mother's Day - who knows? The Cheesecake Factory in Marina del Rey, California, is one of my favourite places to go - is always great, and so pretty, there! 

This picture frame matches mah' birthday cake! lol!

 Louise Hay, my favourite Girl, at 89, now, I think!  She's amazing, I love all her books! So uplifting and lovely, you'll feel so great about yourself, and your whole life will change - will be so great!!

And, clearly, I love Flowers! lol!

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Jimmy Carter's New Books - A Call to Action and A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety #Beautiful #WiseWords

Jimmy Carter - Kind, Caring, and Always Smiling. What a Legacy!

I'm in the middle (literally) of reading Jimmy Carter's A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety. Wow. I am blown away by Jimmy Carter. What a life. And Officer and a Gentleman is an understatement, for the phenomenal brilliance and steadfastness of this incredible man. How lucky America was to have Jimmy Carter as a President - I loved him as an American President, from my own perspective, in Canada, back then, always knowing how incredibly intelligent he was, and what a World Peace-Keeper (values very close to our hearts, in Canada), but I am just in awe of all the incredible accomplishments of Jimmy Carter. I had no idea.

And, sad to say, even though I have lived and worked in the States for many years (I'm back in Canada, now, but maybe the doors to Immigration will be more open to Canadian H1-B Visas, again, soon), I was shocked and deeply saddened to see the deep-rooted racial divide that Jimmy Carter describes in his book, A Full Life. I can only imagine what a different country it would be, now, if Jimmy Carter had gotten another term in Office, if the racial divides we see, today, would not have been erased. 

It is nauseating to read that teachers were fired in Georgia if they belonged to the NAACP, or did NOT support racial segregation. Omg. That makes me shiver. How horrendous is that? Shocking. Makes me want to cry, as I write this. I Thank God I was raised in Canada, with open and loving parents, and we lived in a culturally diverse place, everyone equal. Oh, My Goodness, no wonder things are so awful, for so many people, far too many people, in the United States. In 2015. It is beyond shocking for me to read about this. 

I am so glad that Jimmy Carter has written this beautiful memoir, to tell the full story of what his life entailed, and how he evolved with every change and turn in the road - and there were many. 

The brilliance and kindness of this man are written in every word. I hope this book can be incorporated into High School and College Courses, so everyone can have a deeper understanding of what has been, and where you can go, from here. 

I just came over to the computer to Tweet out a quote from the A Full Life, and then ended up writing this, but here's the quote, and Jimmy Carter says he said this at his Inauguration as President of the United States, and when he received his Nobel Peace Prize, and attributed to his teacher, Miss Julia Coleman...

"You must accommodate changing times but cling to unchanging principles." 

I hope you can get a chance to read Jimmy Carter's brilliant and beautiful books - you can get them from your Local Library, too - and if your Library has an online account, which I hope it does, you can 'order it' through your library, too. and advocate for Jimmy Carter's books to be in every school library, and incorporated into an excellent class curriculum.

This link will take you straight to Jimmy Carter's brilliant book, A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power. (I get a wee something from each sale through my links, too, so, thank you so much!)

Wow. I just finished reading Jimmy Carter's new book, A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power.  I'm trying to breathe through it - what a powerful book, and a critical read to bring a much more egalitarian world for all women and girls. It's very interesting the role religion plays in keeping women in submissive roles, allows the many religious organizations to claim scripture that they can sometimes manipulate to oppress women. Horrifying.  Has certainly been used against me, in my own life. I had a horribly abusive first marriage. He loved to use the Bible against me, and I was very religious, at the time. I still am deeply religious, but am less involved in the Church, now, unfortunately, and, Thank God, I was finally able to get away from that monster, and live a happy and fear-free life. Living in constant fear of your life is horrific, and if you happen to be reading this, and recognize those words as true to your own life, please make a plan of action of your own to get out as quickly as you can. And seek out a good lawyer before he can get to every lawyer in your town, since that quickly and easily prohibits you from using that lawyer - a very common technique that abusers seem to know all about, but I had to find out about, the hard way...

Jimmy Carter - Kindness Personified

Oh, man, just trying to wrap my head around what I've just read in Jimmy Carter's A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power.  It's a tough read, no doubt about it, but if we could get people around the world to read this incredibly well written book, very incisive, very serious book, then Jimmy Carter could make even greater progress, in continuation of his work (along with his wife, Rosalynn) through The Carter Center, to bring equality, safety, education and healthy lives, to women and girls around the world.

Okay, well, this is getting a lot more personal than I intended it to be - scary for me, since the laws don't protect women - in addition to what Jimmy Carter calls for around the world, I would like to see better law enforcement for women of domestic violence to have solid protection for themselves and their children, before something horrific happens. Even getting a restraining order, in many parts of Canada, is very difficult, and not particularly useful, since I was told that the physical attack had to happen before the police could take any action. That's disgusting. Jimmy Carter mentions in his book, A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power, that there is a GPS device that can be used for the police to keep track of abusers. This seems like a step in the right direction.

Also, I think the biggest difference in dealing with abusers is if MEN did not allow or tolerate known abusers. If a man knows another man is abusing his wife, girlfriend, child(ren), or any other women (or men), don't accept it. I know this can be very difficult, but men are, of course, the key to turning things around for women. And OTHER WOMEN, too - I know, personally, I had more grief from leaving my marriage from other women - ugh. Makes me sick to think about it. These women would rather that I stay in an abusive marriage, for the sake of the institution of marriage. Disgusting. So we need men AND women, to get on board with everyone becoming equal, in our own realities, in all of our own lives, so we can all prosper, live nice, happy lives, free from fear and violence - surely that's not too much to ask for?? It's 2014, for God's Sake. Really, let's do it for God's Sake, for that real meaning.


Well, sorry for this being so serious... when I was watching Jimmy Carter on David Letterman, they had to have a similar, really difficult conversation, because this is really serious stuff, but at the end of the interview, Dave leans over to Jimmy Carter and says, "I thought you would've been a little funnier"...very funny! Lightened up a difficult topic. And it is a very good book. You will feel enlightened about what is going on around the world, and very shocked and surprised by much of what you read, and how many lives Jimmy Carter and the Carter Center have saved and made so much better - in the millions - what a remarkable man and what a great cause! And, then, hopefully, you will feel a Call to Action, too, see what each of us can do to make the world a happier and safer place for everyone - won't that be nice?  Okay, be kind to yourself and all others (unless they're horrible! lol!) Ailsa 




This link will take you straight to Jimmy Carter's brilliant book, A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power. 

How to Fix Your Toilet from Overflowing..and Other Yucky Water Problems!

Water Problems

Okay, Water is pouring out of the Dishwasher or a Tap has Burst -- what to do, what to do??

Go to the Furnace Room (Utility Room). Shut Off the Main Water Valves. Turn the Valve Clockwise (to the Right) to Shut them off.

The Main Water Shut-Off Valves look like Large Levers (often Red and Yellow) or in an older home, the Round Knob Handles. They're usually on an Angled Pipe.

The Lever is Open when it is Flush with the Pipe in a Vertical Position.

The Lever is Closed when it is in a Horizontal Position to the Pipe. 

Call your Plumber.

See the Yellow Lever? That's the Main Water Shut-off Valve.

And now for the Toilet... did you see the Bernie Mac (aaaww, so sad, I miss him...) Episode where Wanda discovers the Toilet Overflowing? It's every woman's worst nightmare (or one of the worst!)...

Well, I can never watch anything without linking it back to my Site in some way, so I immediately asked Dwight (now my ex-husband, but don't worry, we're all fine : ) to please show me how to deal with that... so here are some lovely pictures of the Toilet.

Lever is CLOSED when it is turned to a Horizontal position.

Okay, there's the Toilet. And there's the pipe at the Base of it. See the little Lever?  All you have to do is Turn the Lever Clockwise (To the Right) until it's Horizontal (closed). 

OPEN

Now you will probably still have a bunch of yucky water to clean up, but at least you'll have stopped any more water from coming out.

Try turning the lever back to it's Vertical state, when the water level has gone back to normal in the toilet. Try flushing the toilet. If it works, yahoo, you've solved the problem. If not, try a plunger, turn the water back off... hopefully, it's fixed, by now! Good luck!

Now you can call your Plumber, if you feel like you still need some more help.

Happy Living! Ailsa xox
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