OFFICIAL DISCLAIMER ON PHOTO: hmmmm....now that was a problem considering how photophobic I am....this is my most recent one...but it is oh, about 10 years and XXX pounds ago -- oh to be so thin and young again!!! -- ok will settle for young...cake, especially chocolate just taste too good!

Currently trying to get my home-based business going while continuing to teach high school drama, journalism, media, and English full-time and serving as my church's treasurer. (now if that isn't a pip -- an English teacher doing math!) My fledgling business is called: Tier-riffic Cakes & Things -- the things allows for cookies, candies and what-not.

On the other side of 50 and tripping down the hill to the valley of 55 (if only I could learn to drive "that" slow!) Now living in Lumberton, NC just down the road from several other CCers based at Fort Bragg having previously lived in: Delray Beach, FL; New York City; Chicago; San Antonio; Oneonta, NY (upstate), and hometown, Danville, IL.

Have been decorating cakes since "then" -- best I can tell as I started cooking and baking at 4 years old (that's what comes from having a farm raised mom and dad -- self-sufficiency!!) Mom was a great cook and loved to bake. Ahead of her time in believing even boys should cook, iron, sew, and do laundry (we all sort of fell short in the "cleaning" dept...dirty enough to be home, clean enough to be healthy -- just don't look at the dust on the shelves or dust bunnies under the bed!)

Used to watch the original broadcasts of the French Chef w/ notepad in hand, ready to try the recipes on the family. Then it was the Galloping Gourmet, The Frugal Gourmet, Yan Can Cook and most any show on Food TV, especially the cake challenges.

The earliest cake I can remember is a totally from scratch German Chocolate Cake somewhere around the start of high school, although who knows how many cookies and pies and Christmas treats (and cakes too) had preceded it. I do admit to high-jacking my little sister's Easy-Bake Oven shortly after she got to see just how well it backed. My most "unusual" cake was the 4th of July one decorated one hot summer in Florida using only zip-lock baggies filled w/ icing and the corner cut off! My first wedding cake preceded any formal training -- 3 stacked tiers: 14 (white/BC filling), 10 (chocolate/chocolate BC) and 6(same as 14) covered in fondant. With the exception of the (in)famous three Wilton classes (at the ripe old age of
50+), totally self taught. .

Love working in fondant -- especially now that I have learned, thanks to CC, to make MMF. Pretty much willing to try any new technique at least once -- after all, you do get to eat the mistakes! And, as if we all didn't know, love to sketch up new ideas for all kinds of cakes and whip out templates to help out others.

Stumbled across CC last summer (2005) while looking for ideas for a baby shower cake I was pegged to make from my niece and have been here ever since. Addicting does not begin to describe the power CC exerts! Looking forward to many more happy cake adventures (and mis-adventures too)!