My online dictionary defines “appreciation” as a recognition
of the quality, value, significance, or magnitude of people and things; a
judgment or opinion, especially a favorable one; an expression of gratitude; a
rise in value or price, especially over time.
Many of you know that this time last year our family was in
the throes of wedding planning for The Girl and her fiancée. Decisions and more decisions go along
with planning a wedding. One of
the important ones is the wedding cake.
A day was planned to go “tasting”.
Now let me tell you—wedding cake tasting is a lot of fun.
You can eat cake on and on without ANY guilt....
You can eat cake on and on without ANY guilt....
One of the stops on our tasting route was with with a cake baker
who lived north of here—out in the rural areas of a neighboring northern county. She had no big storefront as others
did, but worked out of her kitchen set up in a little house in her yard.
And her skills as she showed us options….I mean really showed us options by doing decorating right there while we sat and watched.
It doesn’t take a big building in the city to have a successful business. She’s proof of that and our appreciation for her cake is as well. Let me tell you….I was impressed. That cake melted in my mouth. Delicious.
If you need her business information for your own needs, let me know and I'll supply.
And her skills as she showed us options….I mean really showed us options by doing decorating right there while we sat and watched.
It doesn’t take a big building in the city to have a successful business. She’s proof of that and our appreciation for her cake is as well. Let me tell you….I was impressed. That cake melted in my mouth. Delicious.
If you need her business information for your own needs, let me know and I'll supply.
We decided to “trade” with her and made a contract. She was to make a tiered wedding cake,
a small sugar free two tiered wedding cake, and a groom’s cake that looked like
the Auburn University stadium. The
stadium cake was designed from an emailed photo. Uh huh. One has to be exceptionally talented to make a cake from a photograph, especially with such detail. She did
not disappoint. Beautiful and
delicious. They looked like this:
The next week I was to return her silver pedestals and I did
that early on in the week. I had
to stop on the way a couple of times and wake myself up as the lack of sleep during the wedding planning
months had begun to catch up with me and I was feeling a "crash" of my body.
When I arrived she wasn’t home, so I left them where she had
instructed. As I was about to
leave, she pulled up in her driveway.
Did I mention that The Cake Baker had been diagnosed with
cancer a couple of months before the wedding? I thought not.
She had begun her chemo and was going wig shopping later on that
day. We stood in her driveway,
talked, cried, hugged, and bonded. The
Cake Baker has become The Cake Baker Friend to me. A friendship was formed that day and I have been blessed
beyond measure to know her.
She is an encouraging person who treasures every minute of life, loves
the Lord, and recognizes blessings.
She has truly been such an inspiration to me. Our friendship has grown and I am filled with an attitude of
gratitude.
The Cake Baker Friend had a regularly scheduled cancer scan a
couple of weeks ago and she reported to me this morning that all had remained clear! I believe in prayer. I believe in praying for God’s
will. The Lord’s Prayer in Matthew
says to do that. There are times, though, when my idea of a good answer is not necessarily God’s will. I try always to give thanks for the
good and the bad as the scriptures say “in EVERYTHING give thanks” but that is
admittedly hard sometimes. Whenever
the answer comes to pass and is the one I wanted, my cup overflows. So today, my cup overflows.
The Cake Baker Friend has a saying at the end of her emails
that I’d like to share because I think it is something we all can learn from…it
goes like this:
“Thank you Lord for the rough things in life, for they
opened my eyes to the good things I wasn’t paying attention to before”.
And I say, “Amen.”