Hope for the Future

Former foster parent for over a decade. Now working mom of seven with a side hustle of cake baking.

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We are going to head to NYC on our way home for a quick two days in the city. The younger boys have never been. The older two were 2 and 3 years old when last there. I have relatives that lived in the city for years, so they’ll hoof us around which is super helpful, but I’d love any fun food recs you have. The kids want frozen hot chocolate. Anything else that you can think of that would wow a 7, 10, 12, and 13 year old? They are not super adventurous eaters.

They want to see the Statue of Liberty, 9/11 memorial, maybe the Empire State Building, the Balto statue in Central Park, and E has to check out the AKC place (she’s super into it). Anything else I’m missing that are must sees?

@foster-the-world , what recs do you have for me? 😊

@on-the-precipice, what say you for things to do with kids?

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Cape Breton is absolutely gorgeous! We loved how remote it was and all the adventuring we were able to do.

We are in our tent and it started raining at 4:30am. It’s still going. The tent is taking on water. It’s time for us to either buy a new tent or consider a hybrid camper of some kind. We are also realizing that our 2017 15-passenger van with 150k miles on it needs to be replaced. It has been a good van to us and I will be sad to see it go (also, no one wants to be making a car payment in this economy).

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Spending most of the month of July camping in Canada, and I’m not sad about it. That said, I knew there would be differences, and tried to prep myself for international travel, but we are still struggling.

We had to upgrade our phone plan to include data while in Canada

We got a nail in our tire on day two

Tried to have the tire repaired at Costco, but they only take Mastercard and I don’t have one of those

Gas is pricey—at least $30 more to fill up than we pay in the States

Rest areas are different

We are adjusting and learning as one does when traveling to different places. Also, eating beaver tails and poutine and that pretty much makes up for any challenges.

We are covering five provinces while we are here and then will travel home via the U.S.

[on-the-precipice]

Does my big orange and white cat want to be cradled like a baby?

Yes, because he *is* Baby

No, cats hate that

Voting ended onJun 28

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So much kitten cuteness over here!

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I’d never read this book before, and I absolutely loved it.

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A graduation cake and cupcakes that went out over the weekend. The cupcakes are vanilla on vanilla and chocolate on chocolate. The cake is a triple layer white (vanilla) cake with vanilla icing.

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I made this triple layer hot cocoa cake filled with homemade raspberry curd. It’s iced with chocolate buttercream and topped with dark chocolate ganache and fresh raspberries.

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Kitty is giving off beach vibes! 🏖️

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Went on a tour of the animal shelter for a 4H event, and left with five more foster kittens. The five we had been fostering went back on Tuesday and one has already been adopted by our babysitter. These babies are about four weeks old and were dropped off while we were there for the tour. Gosh, they are adorable, but clearly missing mom bc they follow us around like ducklings meowing. They have terrible diarrhea from the change in whatever they were eating to milk replacer and wet food. They have clearly never seen a litter box. We are setting them up with a smaller space and giving them a few days to adjust to food before getting too worried about any of it, but the shelter gives me their number so I can text whenever I have a concern.

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I’m barely surviving my life right now. After nothing has worked to treat DH’s depression, he started ECT last week. This is really the only thing left that he has not tried. We spent about six months thinking about it.

I’m driving an hour each way into the city and then it’s about three hours there. Today three of the kids had appts at the children’s hospital across town so I dropped DH off, drove another 20 minutes to the other hospital, and then went back across the city to collect DH. Now I’m waiting to get gas in the very long line at Costco.

H’s ADHD is the worst I’ve ever seen in someone. It’s actually debilitating. I don’t know how to help him. We are going to try a new med, but I’m not hopeful. We tried a therapist which actually made things worse, not better. I don’t know what else to do.

Three weeks until summer break.

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Chocolate on chocolate—classic and delicious!

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These are some of the many steps that went into making this four layer 6” chocolate giraffe cake. I initially baked three layers and after stacking it decided that it wouldn’t be tall enough, so baked a fourth layer and added that to the stack. Filled and crumb coated it all in chocolate buttercream and then iced it in a pale yellow vanilla buttercream. The brown fondant is chocolate. I had to cut out all of the spots. I didn’t have a cutter but used a combination of a circle and square cutter to achieve the look. Then I made the snout components and then the eyes. The ears and horns I freehanded and then put them in the oven with the light on to dry overnight. Thankfully, that seems to have done the trick. Fresh flowers, and voila! A pretty giraffe for my SIL’s bday. If I had to do this again, I think I would charge $300! I made this one for her just because I love her. ❤️

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I made a chocolate peanut butter cake for the church auction over the weekend and it sold for $650!

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I saw this author speak a few weeks ago. I had not heard about him prior to attending the speaking event. While speaking, he mentioned he authored two books. I checked this book out from the library over the weekend, and have managed to make time for it every evening this week.

It’s a tragic foster care story. He was taken from his mother due to mental illness at age seven and plunged into the Los Angeles foster care system. Prior to that, he had lived with his loving grandmother in Chicago.

He eventually grew up (in foster care), went to law school, and sued the foster care center he spent time in while in care.

It’s a worthwhile read.

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This was my fascinating book read over the weekend.

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One of my closest friends from high school died last week. The funeral was today.

Having mortality smack you in the face as a middle age person with a lot of kids at home has got me doing a lot of processing.

I’m really struggling. The funeral was packed. At least 600 people. We live in a small, rural county and he worked for one of the local cities, so he was well known personally and professionally.

We haven’t seen each other regularly in a number of years, but he was such a present person during my formative years. His wife graciously allowed me to come to his house and see him/say goodbye one morning last week, and he ended up passing away a few hours later. He wasn’t awake while I was there, but I’m so grateful I got to hold his hand and talk to him one last time.

Their oldest kid will graduate high school next month. I cannot imagine being widowed at this age. I am so very sad.