Thursday, January 27, 2011

My Passion

I have discovered that I have a passion again. In high school I had such enthusiasm for life and such conviction and passion. After getting married I felt like i lost a lot of that. And it scared me. I had lost so much of what ME was and i didn't necessarily know how to get it back. I didn't have time or the motivation to paint,and every time I did it was frustrating instead of therapeutic. I didn't sing anymore,didn't wear crazy make up,or unique clothes didn't play in the rain as much...I disappeared into the everyday tedious-ness of a wife. And I lived with that. I just assumed my passion was over and my life was wonderful despite not having a passion.

And then I got pregnant and i didn't feel like me at all.who was this person with insane emotions and baby weight? Getting out of bed was a challenge every morning. Working 30 hours a week until a week before kaleb was born was exhausting. I had no energy to do anything extra. When kaleb was born my life changed completely in the best way possible. But I still had no energy to do anything. Come to find out...I have ppd. And I needed a reason to live some days. I know that sounds terrible. But some mornings I had no motivation to get out of bed except the baby crying. I felt useless,boring,and talentless. The medicine for ppd helped with the energy. But I felt like Rachel was gone and replaced with this cleaning,laundry and milk machine. Here to serve one purpose and nothing else. It drove me crazy. I needed SOMETHING.

I started looking at recipes and cakes looked fun,and not as hard as I thought homemade cakes would be. I made red velvet and then angel food from scratch and it was fun. I loved it. I have tried lots of recipes for cake and frosting and fillings. All good so far. Come to find,I'm actually really good at this. Who knew? I took a decorating class, and I love that too.

Some of the cakes I have tried:
red velvet with cream cheese frosting and raspberry filling
Lemon cake with white chocolate ganache and raspberry filling and lemon buttercream frosting
Strawberry cake with almond butter cream
Red velvet with white chocolate ganache and raspberry filling and almond buttercream with fondant calla lilies

I design cakes,draw them all the time. One for kalebs birthday,one for a friend who is on bedrest with a difficult pregnancy,one for my sisters wedding. No guarantees I'll make all of them. But the idea is there. And I'm obsessed. It's therapeutic,calming,and amazingly fun. I love love love making cakes. I have a new passion for life in all aspects because of this. And i know this is gonna sound so dramatic but...baking cakes has saved my life. I realized that on my way to work yesterday. And I know it's weird,but thats me. W-E-I-R-D. And I'm a baker obsessed.

2 comments:

  1. Hooray! The great thing about cakes is that after you make them, you can eat them!! I'm all about hobbies that give something back! :D

    It's difficult changing your life by getting married and then having a baby. And you guys did it all so fast! I'm really impressed. I wouldn't have made it I think. That's probably why we waited 5 years! :)

    And you know, weird is good! :)

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  2. Girl,
    After I have Jack, I am going to need some passion too! (That sounds weird...) But seriously. I hate to cook, but I love to bake. Last year for Mace's birthday I made a homemade boston cream pie and absolutely loved it... then for our ward party I made a homemade lemon poppyseed cake. Cakes and cookies are my favorite. I actually just found a cook book last week that had all of these really cool recipes for cookies and stuff and I told mason that I wanted to do the Julia and Julia kind of thing with it and do a blog about it... we totally should! It would be fun and I am hoping that it could help with my ppd that I am not very excitedly anticipating. Anyways. Let's do it! I just have to either get this baby out or get off of bedrest first...

    love ya girl!

    -Lauren

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