Home Again, Home Again

While B and I were in San Diego, one of the flowers I planted last fall bloomed:

I bought a "blue and white" mixture of Dutch irises, and in the catalog photo the different colors all bloomed at the same time. I guess it doesn't work that way in real life--I now have two white irises and no sign of any blues. Fortunately, while randomly placing bulbs in the flower bed, I somehow managed to put the two white ones at either end, so it looks like I planned it that way!

Tomorrow is choir retreat day (one of two this month). I signed up to bring dessert for the lunch potluck, then discovered that someone is celebrating a birthday, so I went ahead and made a birthday cake:

For once, I'm done with my cake before midnight! (A lot of my cake and cookie decorating happens after 11:00 pm--I never seem to learn the lesson that it always takes longer than I expect.) It took a while to get the green color right. I mixed the first batch using just "Avocado," and when I spread the crumb-coating layer on the cake, B and I both agreed it was a disgusting shade of green. So, I added a little bit of "Forest," which has more blue, then enough "Super Black" to mute the color. M still doesn't approve of the color, but B and I think it looks okay now.