Day 105: New Thing Baking--Mark's Birthday Edition

After my ever-so-pathetic blog post on baking cookies for the holidays, it should come as no surprise that Mark and my family gave me bake ware...and lots of it :) Who needs to have a wedding to get great kitchen items? Just being young and complaining a little gets the job done.

Anyhoo, today presented an opportunity to use my new gifts. It was Mark's birthday and I decided that there was no better time to break in my mixer, measuring items and bake pans. His favorite cake is a carrot cake, so I used another gift--the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook to make him the "Best-Ever Carrot Cake." With a name like that, it's got to be good.

I say this shamefully, but I'm not sure that I've ever baked a cake before--and if I have, certainly not one from scratch. I'm a big cookie and brownie girl, but I can't remember a cake off the top of my head. I've made some with my parents and grandparents all along, but not just for the heck of it.

So yes, today I baked a cake, a birthday cake and a carrot cake--three New Things rolled into one, and a master use of Christmas presents.

Delicious!!

Meet the Parents

Despite the fact that I've been in this relationship for a year and a half now and that we live together, my boyfriend and I have never made the family introductions. For my birthday, my parents offered to take me out to dinner at Kobe Steaks and I suggested that my boyfriend invite his parents too. It's been a long time in the making, but today, finally, I introduced my parents to my boyfriend's parents.

I've never been in a relationship long enough to make this kind of move, so this was completely uncharted territory for me. How to arrange this? What circumstances are most conducive to meeting parents? I just made the somewhat selfish proposition that my birthday meant I could invite whoever I wanted to my party. So there :)


They talked about us, family and other basic, innocuous things about life. No one argued about religion or politics or anything scary that might drive the classic in-law hating game. That alone makes it an unqualified success for sure.

Tiffany's, Need I Say More?

I have recently gone back and forth about this project, wondering if I can possibly explain my intention to people and actually do something new every day for a year. When my birthday came yesterday, however, I was never more sure that I would do this, mostly as a reason to brag, that my boyfriend gave me a little blue Tiffany's box!!

As any lady will tell you, the distinctive robin's egg Tiffany box is often equally as thrilling as its contents, perhaps a remnant of the childhood trend of playing with more packaging than toys at Christmas. After my thrill of simply setting eyes the box, I opened it up to find one of the Tiffany Key pendants that I have had my eye on for at least a year now. So unique and elegant. Not only was it my first piece of Tiffany's, but it contains the first diamond a gentleman suitor has ever bought me. 

Happy Birthday to me!