iBake.

Things I made when I didn't open Blogger for two good months:

Just, you know, showing off. Why not?

Cheers.

The most-awaited wedding ever (is it? nah, I'm being overly melodramatic)

Today's visit to the perfect line resulted in a treat - finally got to see Barbie and Ken getting married! I may have only owned one Barbie doll as a little girl (and that, too, I inherited from my elder sister), but I remember getting a Barbie picnic set on my 4th or 5th birthday (or was it my 6th?). I deplored the fact that there was no doll included but I loved the little picnic table with its tiny colorful plates and cups, and a separate basketball hoop and basketball. My Barbie, unfortunately, had no Ken or any of the friends that the picnic set box picture showed - a full table of friends having a grand time at the picnic - but my doll was happy enough to pretend I was her best friend and let me share the whole scene with her.
*Sigh*. The days of toys.
What a mood uplifter! (yes, that's not a word). Something finally cracked through my miserable sadness.

Head over to the Barbie wedding post to see it for yourself, and the original source links =)

My Green Retreat

The colors outside these days are simply breathtaking. Twice I have gone out to take pictures of my garden and lawns, and the only thing that is stopping me from doing it again now is an uncharged camera battery.
The greens are so fresh, the freshest I have ever seen them. Standing among that vegetation, it is easy to forget the grays and the browns and the beiges, the dust and the heat and the haze that exists outside the four walls of my house’s boundaries. I am in love with the greenery. Green is currently my favorite color, or rather, my range of favorite colors. For there are hundreds of shades of green, fresh and bright and dark and dull and shiny and yellowed and tinted – hundreds of shades in a single tree, on a single plant, in a single leaf. Hundreds of shades and shapes interspersed with the lone bright red or pink or white blossom, solitary flowers here and there poking out quietly from within the explosion of freshness-mint-green.
This morning it rained while I was sleeping and the smooth floors were dry by the time I had woken up and gone out. But the neat forest was alive and clean and washed, bursting with life and color and rippling under the cold breeze. No sunlight, no sparkling, but still alive, still bursting. I feasted my eyes on the beauty of it all, taking careful controlled breaths into my lungs and testing the air to see if it agreed with me. I felt washed, I felt alive. I felt beautiful. I closed my eyes and resisted the urge to breathe as deeply as I could, tempted as I was to run into the thick green grassy carpet with my arms wide open, run against the wind and feel it pull and push me, I just stood quietly and wondered. Smiled. Glad to live a moment in my garden early enough, as yet untainted by the dust carelessly scattered on the wind by the careless and the unfeeling. Glad.

Of sunsets, and pretty skies.

This time of the year gives us amazing views of the sky - formations of clouds, interspersed with colors of merging shades, with sunlight sparkling in here and there. Not only is the weather getting warmer, but the transition visible up high is beautiful. No matter how bad my day is ending, I get to see a pretty sunset which gives me something to feel good about.
I love those times, few but precious, when I cannot for the life of me feel upset about anything.
Grey-blue and white, purple-blue, indigo, paler, and pink. Sometimes salmon. Bright heaven - peeping out from between a tear in the fluffy world up there. Everything makes sense. Everything is simple. Peace. Serenity. Love. I can fly up to do anything and be everything.
I can breathe.