it really is a prettysweet life...

happy new year!!

it's amazing how the end of an old year and the start of a new one makes everyone take a sec to take stock and reflect.....

i'm pretty fortunate to be able to do what i love. it makes people smile, which is also something i love, but more recently the smiles have turned to anticipation, excitement and looks of shock and amazement (in the good way) which is something i take great pride in and am sooo happy to have been a part of!

so how did this start....now, i'm firm believer in the celebration of birthdays (most anyone i know will attest to this, as i would like to celebrate my day of birth for the whole month - deep down i do - but settle for a weekend of merriment with friends and fam). it would follow that in this celebration, there should be cake!! so i started baking cakes for some of my friends on their bdays when we'd celebrate (and sometimes have bday cake & cupcake drop-offs when we didn't, or i couldn't be present).....so while i was being thanked, the gift was actually mine to know that i could put a smile on my friends' faces and make something for them that i knew they would love and enjoy!

but i'm getting a bit ahead here. i really should mention the reason i'm such a fan of birthdays and cake.....it's 'cause it's all about me...well, on my birthday it is, and it really should be about that person on anyone's!! we all get so busy with our lives and 'stuff' that i think it's more than fair to really take the day of your birth and celebrate it. in fact, have everyone around you and everyone you've loved, known, and experienced life with should celebrate it in some way shape or form!!

that's how we grew up in my fam. a birthday was a pretty big deal. it would start with a rather alarming amount of noise and commotion (to a non-duncan, anyway, not difficult to do in my fam) as a wake up call and then being reminded it was your birthday (how could you forget?! it would have either been that or a fire to have people who say they love you pouncing and screaming at you at that time of morning), followed by the inevitable 'so how does it feel to be _ years old??' and then likely we'd roll over and go back to sleep. as we got older, the commotion would be squeezed through the telephone line, also at some ungodly hour of the morning via conference call.....the duncans love birthdays.

right....where was i?? so yeah...it's all about that person....so for friends, once they knew they were getting cake, it only seemed right to make things a little more interesting.....hence the sculpted cakes....let me tell you this: the feeling of pure (and i mean pure) happiness i get is second to none when a friend sees their cake and then eventually bites into it (more later on how i feel about cutting into cake...) and tastes that it's their fave flavours also?! i cannot express....

and then there are the weddings....i'm of that age now where left right, centre and behind, people are getting hitched AND now having babies.....so it made a lot of sense for me to start making my friends' wedding cakes as well.....and the bonus for me was that i could do something for them to add to their special day (you see really, it all boils down to how good making cake for people makes ME feel...)!

so there it is in a nutshell....why i do what i do....it makes people smile, which makes me smile, which makes people smile, which makes me smile....and so on....we all know the importance of a smile and how far it can travel, so if that's what i can bring to this universe, then you see why i consider it a prettysweet life, no?