A big surprise!

My aunt (my mom's older sister)never had kids. When we were younger she stayed with us and helped bringing the three of us up, so she's been like a second mother to us. Scolding us, teaching us, molding us into the individuals we are today. Eventually she got married at a much later age and due to various reasons I won't disclose here she decided against having kids.

I once jokingly said to her that she must've been scared of the prospect of having kids after raising us three. She just laughed, shaked her head and smiled to herself...

... Wait, what?!?

XD She never really elaborated any further on that but every year on Mother's Day or her birthday we still do a little something for her. Usually we get her a gift and I make her a cake (something with coconut since that's her favorite).

So this year we decided to play a trick on her. I knew that she was supposed to be in a meeting all morning until 2pm. So around 11.30am I quickly called her husband to give him a heads up and let him know we were on our way. Much to my surprise, it was a female voice picking up the phone... wait she sounded an awful lot like my aunt...wait, it WAS my aunt. Panic ensued and I desperately tried to think of something remotely intelligent to say so that she wouldn't have any suspicions. No, she wouldn't be coming over, yes the meeting had been cancelled, yes she was sure she'd stay in all day now cause she was tired...

I hung up the phone, very disappointed. What to do now?My uncle didn't even know about this, that was what the phone call was for. Argh! Several days of planning all ruined all because we didn't take into account a minor detail.

What to do now?

At this point my mom stepped into action, resourceful as ever :) She called them up again, asking to talk to my uncle, explained the whole situation and asked if he could drag her out of the house and over here. By then, we expected my aunt to suspect something was going on, so I quickly ran over to the local supermarket and picked up a "raspberry swiss roll" as a decoy. To be perfectly honest, I felt kinda embarrassed, standing in the ready-made cake department. I've never even looked at store-bought cakes before. We're not talking about bakeries but more like those prepackaged cakes available in supermarkets.

Anywhoodle, I rushed home, dumped the cake on a plate and waited for my aunt and uncle to swing by. When we saw them through the window we quickly covered up what we were doing and rushed to the door to greet them and sing "Happy Birthday" The funny thing is, the worst part wasn't seeing the hidden disappointment in my aunts face when she saw the swiss roll but more the fact that I actually had to eat an entire slice. We all did... My mom discreetly pulled my uncle to the side and asked for his house keys and after they left, we quickly packed up and drove to their place and finished arranging the surprise.

My uncle came in the door first and headed for the kitchen pretending to do his normal routine. When my aunt came through the door we had the cake in hand and yelled surprise. She looked very surprised, almost shocked.


Unfortunately we didn't get a picture with her surprised face but this was snapped just 2 seconds after.



The coconut deluxe. Replacing regular milk with coconut milk for the cake, then there's a coconut cream filling in the middle and then it's got glazing topped with shredded coconut.



My uncle then proceeded to the living room but seeing what was in there, he quickly closed the door and went into another room. So unknown to what was waiting for her my aunt opened the door and saw this:










I know it might not seem like a lot of balloons but when we were blowing them up it seemed like a million, well to me at least.

At the end of the day she was thoroughly surprised and very happy. She really didn't see it coming especially after the swiss roll decoy. Now the only thing is, we have to come up with something even bigger for her birthday next year...

Finally the temperatures are going down

It's not the warm weather I mind, well not as much as certain people I know at least. The issue I have here is...well. For those of you who know me in person can testify that I'm not exactly skinny, not that I'm morbidly obese either but you probably won't see me on the runways of Paris anytime soon. To put it in a nice way I have love handles... and front handles and back handles and side handles as well. To top it off, I have something that has a charming name like bingo wings. (Don't know what it is? Consider yourself lucky and please take 20 seconds to wikipedia the term in order to read on.)

You will almost positively never find me in something with bare arms and if you do it's very certain I'm wearing a cardigan, shrug or other piece of fabric to cover up the monstrosities. I especially hate it during the heatwaves in summer and people inquire whether I'm hot and if I wouldn't want to take off my cardigan and I look at them, all red and sweaty in the face, shake my head furiously and assure them that "I'm quite fine, thank you"

Beause heaven forbid that they see any more of my flesh than they have to. I would actually rather suffer in silence with beads of sweat trickling down my face and back than scare children and elderly people or anyone who is so lucky to have ventured out in the public the same time I have.

So, even though I enjoy the sun and the summer I certainly do not enjoy the outfits I have to wear during that time. Sure, I don't NEED to cover up but the reason that I'm so self-conscious is that I'm guilty of thinking to myself, every time I see an overweight person letting it all hang out or twisting and screwing themselves into an outfit that's several sizes too small, GEEZ cover some of that up, will you? And because I think the things I do is why I'm afraid to prioritize comfort over covering up.

So, yes I know that I need the change to start with myself first. Because if I can start seeing people of all shapes and sizes wear whatever they like, maybe I will dare venture out in a more baring ensemble. Not now though... but maybe next summer :)