7 Quick Takes about Being Uptight, Historical Fiction, and Cake Decorating Tutorials I Didn't Expect to See

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

My 17-year-old daughter came up to me with a smile on her face and said "Look, it's you!" and showed me this video.

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Not really on vacation it's not, but in everyday life? Absolutely. How else would anything get done in a family of 8 without a mother like this?

And I only wish I was competent enough to work out a minute-by-minute schedule as tight as hers. I get that this video is supposed to be satire, but I think it's inspirational.

—2—

At church, I'm the Young Women president, leading a group of about 20ish girls ages 11-17. It's actually a little hard to explain what a Young Women president is, because it's more than a teacher or an activity planner — although I also do both of those things. It's really a calling to pray for, mentor, and get to know and love each girl as much as she'll let you, in all areas of her life and regardless of whether she actively attends church.

I've had a lot of different callings (church volunteer jobs that you don't exactly volunteer for) and this is definitely the one that resembles motherhood the most to me. 

It's one where you feel like you're never doing enough, and sometimes you wonder if you're even making a difference. 

But sometimes there are little moments that are so encouraging.

This week one of our 17-year-olds was initiated into her school's chapter of the National Honor Society. She was given a rose to give to someone who inspires them to have their core values of leadership, service, character, and scholarship, and she gave the rose to me.

To tell you the truth, I don't usually care for flowers, minimalist that I am. But this flower makes me smile every time I walk by it.

—3—

Speaking of my Young Women's group, before class last week I overheard them discussing a book that one of them is reading, which she described as "historical fiction." Someone asked what time period it was set in, and the answer was: "the 1990s."

I was DYING trying not to laugh.

Just imagine, there I was, a relic in the room who'd actually been alive to see such an epoch of history, and they didn't even realize it!

—4—

It was school shirt day at my daughter's high school, where the college-bound seniors were invited to wear something with the logos of the schools they were headed to in the fall.

My daughter didn't have any BYU shirts just yet, but she pulled a Jim Halpert and taped a piece of paper to her shirt that said "BYU  YAY."

My 7-year-old asked her on her way out the door in the morning, "Why does your shirt say 'boo-yah' on it?"

—5—

I can't decide if this is better or worse than when the kids take off every couch cushion to make a fort. Both mean that no one can sit anywhere else in the living room and that I get to clean them all up afterward.

Probably reading "The Princess and the Pea."

But maybe I'm just jealous because that actually looks like a super-comfortable spot to read.

—6—

Sometimes I wonder if I should be doing more to foster my 12-year-old's passion for baking and encourage her culinary skills, other than just shrugging and letting her do what she wants in the kitchen. 

This week, she decided while doing a school project on Somalia to deep fry some Somali donuts to bring to class (she did have to ask how to deep fry and I had to bring her to the store to buy oil.)

And then the next day she asked to make the Family Home Evening treat, and practically before I could say yes she was in the kitchen with the blender going making strawberry cupcakes from scratch and piping on homemade buttercream frosting. (Sorry, no pictures, we ate them all immediately.)

Lately she's been using the piping set I have in the kitchen for some reason and just trying to figure it out herself, but I thought it might help her to see a video on some basic cake decorating techniques. 

The first video that came up was from The Topless Baker; at first I guessed the name was a play on words having to do with the upper part of a muffin (anyone who watched Seinfeld in the 90s knows what I'm talking about) but nope, it's literally a guy who makes instructional videos on baking while shirtless. I guess you have to make a name for yourself somehow on the Internet, and he found his niche.

—7—

I've been using Inkscape, my favorite vector graphics program, to design things a lot in the last few weeks. I've made flyers for our church youth fundraiser, invitations for my son's baptism, and invitations for my daughter's senior recital and also programs for that same recital. 

I'm completely self-taught, so maybe I should search YouTube for the Topless Graphic Designer (on second thought, that sounds like a horrible idea for a web search) for a solid understanding of the basics. But I don't know, my skill level fits my current needs so it's probably fine.

When I got home from taking pictures of my daughter and her friends going to senior prom this past weekend, I realized the kids had put a weird setting on my phone and everyone was stretched until they looked like normal-colored Avatar people. But luckily, I could easily fix that in Inkscape.

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