Swirl Drop Flowers

I used some birthday money (thanks, Mom!) to buy myself cake decorating supplies in the form of a Wilton Decorating Basics Student Kit that included 12 decorating tips, 4 standard couplers, 2 featherweight bags, 6 disposable bags, 6 parchment triangles, 1 flower nail, 1 cupcake nail, 1 decorator brush, 12 flower template stickers, 1 spatula, and a practice board with stand and patterns. I think it was a pretty good deal.

I was so excited to get it! So the week it arrived, I made some sugar cookies and decorated them with swirl drop flowers. (PS: When does making cookies with kids become fun? Because I sure find it frustrating, but Charlie loves helping.) I liked the idea of a small project to start practicing; I didn't want to try tackling an entire cake right off the bat. I think I chose well.

It was fun. And they turned out pretty pretty if I do say so myself. I did run into a snag that I was concerned would be a bigger problem then it turned out to be: the tip to make the swirl drop flowers (Wilton 2D) requires a large coupler, and my kit only came with standard couplers. Weird, right? I was too excited to be deterred, so I just put the tip in the bag without any coupler. It worked. Not ideal, but successful. I definitely prefer how the coupler holds the tip in place, so I will be getting one eventually.

Since I had never made sugar flowers before, I wasn't sure what kind of frosting to use. I was reluctant to try royal icing because I've never used it before and I didn't have the ingredients. I've worked with buttercream before, so I used a Wilton buttercream frosting recipe I found online. As some of the comments suggested, I used all butter instead of half butter and half shortening. I wasn't sure about consistency, but I knew I didn't want it too thin, so I only added 1 T of milk instead of 2. The frosting turned out delicious! And while I'm no expert on the perfect consistency to make sugar flowers, I think it worked out really well. But I am definitely interested in suggestions!

To make the flowers, you rotate your wrist and squeeze out frosting at the same time. It's only a little tricky. When I went slow, more turned out wonky than almost perfect. But when I got in a groove and went a little quicker, it seemed more turned out almost perfect than wonky. I don't know; what's the best way to establish muscle memory? The thing I need to do better next time is to stop squeezing before I pull the frosting away. You can see that some of the flowers are a bit spiky, and I think I jumped the gun and pulled the frosting away before I stopped squeezing.

Now, as I was looking stuff up online to get ready for this attempt, I happened upon one of the most amazing frosting tricks ever! I'm serious. It's genius. If you don't believe me, check out this video--the good part starts after the first minute:

I tried it with this project, and using this trick made cleaning the frosting bag almost non-existent! I only had to clean a tiny bit of frosting out of the tip of the bag. It was so quick. I will do this from now on. (And I think I'll store my leftover frosting wrapped up in plastic wrap in the fridge or freezer for future use--it'll just need to get to room temp and then it's ready to go!) I had been debating the whole reusable vs. disposable frosting bag scenario. After all, the disposable ones are super convenient--and I REALLY like things to be easy. But why continuously pay money for frosting bags? This new trick has solidified my choice: reusable. Yes, the trick requires some plastic wrap, but it's not like the stuff is expensive. I think it's a perfect compromise.

Kittens

My entire life I have desperately wanted a cat. Twice a year (on my birthday and Christmas) I would plead with my parents to give me a cat. Apparently I got really annoying. Anywho, it worked. . . . According to my mother, that is. Because I got a stuffed animal cat (NOT taxidermy--that'd be creepy) almost every birthday and Christmas. Oh well. I survived my childhood even while being denied my greatest wish.

Eventually, maybe high school, my mom proposed a compromise: if I stopped bugging her about getting me a cat, when I owned my own home she would buy me whatever cat I wanted. Deal. So I put my desire for a cat on the back burner. I could wait until I was done with college and all that anyway.

Well, guess what? I've owned my own home for a few years now. And yes, I've been seriously considering taking her up on that offer. But I've never owned a cat. What if, as my mom thought, I got a cat and decided I hated it? I've seen that happen with people. They get a pet, and then a little ways into it they totally regret it. I didn't want to do that--to me or the animal.

Eventually I found out that the Humane Society has a fostering program. Cool! So I got as much information as I could about the program, and Chad and I took a few weeks to think and talk about it. And then we decided to go for it. And that's how we came to foster these two beauties:

Abby (8 weeks) and Olive (5 weeks)

They are both girls, but they're not from the same litter and not even the same age. It's important for kittens to stay together while they're young so they can develop important social skills. A kitten who is isolated from other kittens too early may be more rough during play with humans later because they didn't have siblings to play with to learn how much claws and teeth can hurt. So the Humane Society put these two together, and they're good friends.

I have learned a lot since bringing these two home!

1. Kittens are difficult to contain. We were told we'd probably get kittens around 6 weeks old. And Chad and I assumed that being that young they wouldn't be very skilled jumpers or climbers yet, so we cleared out some space under a desk in our kitchen for the kittens. We were planning on letting them have the run of the kitchen but blocking off their access to the rest of the house using a child gate. It worked great for a half a day! They were content to explore the kitchen for several hours. But eventually Abby climbed over the gate and then Olive followed. So we attached cardboard to the gate thinking they couldn't climb up a shear wall. But almost immediately Abby jumped over the gate but poor Olive was left behind. So we laid down one of the benches that goes with our kitchen table and put the gate on top of that. But almost immediately Abby jumped over the gate. Apparently an 8 week-old kitten can jump over 4 feet. Impressive. The only solution left to us was closed doors. We kept the kittens in a bathroom during the night and let them explore the house during the day. We did keep our bedroom doors closed those; I especially didn't want them to have accidents in the boys' room.

2. I really like having cuddle buddies. No surprises here. I was confident about this going in, but I could really get used to having a soft ball of fluff purring in my lap while I'm watching a movie or reading a book or playing a video game. It's nice. I'll miss it. I think Charlie really liked it too.

3. Sure, kitty litter is gross--obviously--but it's not too bad. Throughout the day we'll check the litter and scoop any poop we find. Then about once a week we dump the old stuff, clean out the box, and put new litter in. And yes, there is a pet odor combined with a litter odor (the litter has a "fresh scent" which is a bunch of malarkey but then I don't think it's possible to manufacture a truly fresh scent) in the bathroom where we keep the litter box, but it's not an overwhelming, disgusting, permeating-the-entire house odor. It's totally manageable.

4. Kittens can easily get confused about where to dig, squat, and bury. We have a bean bag chair. It's a chair I've had since I was a kid, and I've kept it around because I thought the boys would like it. They don't. Oh well. But the kittens sure liked it! Except they seemed to think that they should dig around and do their business in it. The bean bag chair has been thoroughly cleaned and put away. And accidents have decreased dramatically.

5. Balls of yarn are not just for cats. Sorry for the grainy picture--it's Charlie. But I think that about covers it. For whatever crazy reason, he calls it his "paint." Weirdo.

6. While kittens have dangerous claws and teeth, they don't always use them--even if they feel threatened. Part of the appeal of keeping the kittens in the kitchen was that we could keep them away from the kids. When we realized containment wouldn't work, I was afraid for Emmett. He's 16 months old and doesn't understand things like "gentle" or "don't poke the kitty in the eye." You know, somewhat important things like that. I imagine the kittens feel for Emmett what the citizens of Japan felt for Godzilla. When they see him coming they try to run away, but when a clear path of retreat isn't available they get this look like they're thinking, "No sudden movements. Maybe if I don't move, he'll lose interest." Of course that's their downfall. But even when Emmett has gotten his amazingly strong little hands on them (pulling tails, poking eyes, throttling choke holds, and other general rough grabbiness) I have never seen either kitten even swat a paw at him. Abby got stuck under a bed with him once, and while he tried to drag her out by half squishing her, she didn't react at all. I've been surprised.

7. Kitten hair doesn't get everywhere. I think we've all been around those pets where if you pet them or they rub up against your leg for even a brief second you are immediately covered in massive amounts of pet hair. I've been pleasantly surprised. I've only seen kitten hair in the bathroom where they sleep. And when they get up after snuggling on my lap for extended periods while I pet them, they leave no hair behind. No hair. None. I honestly don't know if it's (1) some kind of fluke, (2) their youth, (3) cats in general, (4) I'm more blind than I realize, or (5) I found magic kitties, but I was anticipating significantly more shedding than I've seen.

Overall, it's been a really good experience. And while I've decided that I enjoy having an animal in the house, I'm still not ready to commit to a pet for the next 10-20 years. But I think that if I were to get a kitten to keep in the future, I'd want to start by fostering the entire litter, so I'm in a better position of picking the best one. :) Not all kittens are created equal. And when the Humane Society says a kitten is "litter trained," they mean that while shut in a small environment at the shelter, the kitten uses the litter box. Your house is an entirely different story.

Our time as foster pet owners has come to an end, and it's time to take these beauties back to be adopted:

Abby (11 weeks) and Olive (8 weeks)

We might foster again. It's been an experience I'd like to repeat. We've got a lot going on in the next month or so, but after things get back to "normal" we may try again. I'll keep you posted.