Sunday, December 09, 2007

Sugar and Spice



Me and sugar – we’re like PB&J. Well….almost. Maybe I should stick to cakes.

To get into the holiday spirit, David and I joined up with the team from Ernst & Young to enter a Gingerbread House Competition. I wasn’t at the planning meeting, but I heard about it from David – let’s just say that accountants aren’t the most creative types. Nor do they attempt to expand their horizons, either. David’s out of the box ideas were shut down. So they decided to just make a town. I called dibs on the firehouse.

So we showed up at the convention center, with the only planned element the eye-bleedingly orange shirts they had passed out. Of course, I had brought along my decorating toolbox – there was icing involved, after all. You know when you sometimes feel like a dork because you might be over-prepared? I definitely had that complex going on – that people were laughing at me and my toolbox. I got over that real quick, however, when we walked in and I saw people who had actually built a support structure for their creations. So I promptly slid to the other end of insecurity – people were laughing at my sad attempt at being prepared. Don’t hate on my toolbox! I have issues.

Anyway, it turns out I don’t know what the hell I’m doing if it isn’t a cake. The bare bones structure (gingerbread) looked like someone gave a 5 year old a hacksaw. Luckily, after that I got to revisit my love/hate relationship with my toolbox as I set about covering up the atrocity with icing.

It turned out alright – naturally, I think it was the best one in the town. Thanks to David for hanging in there as I went into decorator mode, in which I surprisingly turn into this rushed, snappy lady who takes things away from you because you aren’t doing it right. Or fast enough. It didn’t help someone brought their kids who wanted to ‘help me’. Ack! I don't mean to squash your creative tendencies...but get away from me.

I don’t have kids yet for a reason.



In the end, our display was kinda sad, but I had a good time getting to know his co-workers, a little. Here are some of the other gingerbread houses:






This one kind of freaked me out - what is up with the aerobatic Santa-clones!?




And now, the Third Place Winner in the traditional section….. OURS!





I think there were only four entries in our whole section. Ha. Oh well, I’ll take it. That means there was someone who was less talented than us. Yes! Ha ha...Losers.






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