Assessment...

Over the last few weeks, I have walked into a million houses. (Ok that's exaggerating! It's probably only a thousand! LOL!) The thing is that I walk in and I start to assess everything I see. What were these people thinking? How did they live? Did they EVER clean? Then I started thinking...how many times a day do I assess people? What is she wearing? Does she even have a full length mirror? Why would you treat your children like that? But rarely do I ever stop to think about the struggle that is going on in that person's life. We all have them. Some might show a little more than others, but they are all there if you just take a moment and look. A death in the family years ago that has never truly healed. A mask that has been worn for so long that looks so good, but it's weight is about to kill the person who constantly puts it on. A wife who is trying her best but can never seem to measure up to her husbands perfect standards. A mother whose child has turned out to be the one who the whole town knows as the "bad kid". A dad cashing his pay check wondering where, when, or if the next one is going to come.
 Every day, we pass people who need what we have, a peace. Yet instead of reaching out and helping, we judge and walk right by just adding to the pain that they feel. Can you imagine what it would be like if Jesus had reacted the same way to the "sinners" he came into contact with? You and I would be right down there on the bottom of the canyon of despair with no hope of ever getting out. I love the fact that he didn't and I would hate the fact that someone doesn't have the knowledge that they can get help out of that very oppressing canyon to live on the level ground that the cross has provided.

Back again!

OK...so I know that my posts have been more non-existent than ever, but with good reason...I am happy to report.

I am HOME!

The end of my active duty contract is 24JUL2010! So I am on terminal leave, looking for a house, a job, a brand new life basically! It is an exciting time, but also a crazy one. I have a lot of mixed emotions about leaving my soldiers to go to Afghanistan without me. I know, I know. I did my time. They can do theirs too, but they are like kids. My kids. You get them when they are new to the army and you raise them. Hopefully, right, instilling the army values and training them with all the knowledge that they will need to survive and thrive even in the worst of situations. So even though I am ecstatic to be home, and on to new things, there are parts of me that still play in that motherly area of the NCO...needing to watch her babies while they fumble their way through the grenade launching, missile exploding, heat ridden desert summers, frost bitten winter mountains, and oh yeah the boredom of this coming deployment.

-To the 94th BSB S6 shop, remember: There are no boundaries on a commo dog. I am watching you! They can talk about ya, but they can't talk without ya!
My love to all,
SGT Rudloff.

This is the first time I have tried to put some other type of filling besides a spread inside a cake. This cake ended up four layers of chocolate cake with strawberry inbetween two and whip cream icing in the middle layer.

It was by far the hardest one I have done yet. The strawberries made the cake shift and move and my whip cream icing losted its fluff so after I had gotten the outside iced the cake fell and I had to do some repair work. But here is the final product.

Time

I have 83 days left until I go on terminal leave and 99 days left until my ETS dates. This being said, it feels like last week I had 83 day left to terminal leave and 99 days let to ETS. Time usually flies by but over the past few months it has become a turtle crawling along. I usually have so much to do that I can hardly find time to breath...I mean I cannot believe that the past three years are already gone. Between basic and AIT and Polk and deployment then back from deployment and becoming an NCO...well the time to sit with nothing to d hasn't been there. I have found that I really hate to not be busy.Don't get me wrong, I like to curl up with a good book or watch a tv show series as much as the next person. But I really miss people...my people. I miss having people to go to the gym with, having my phone beep non-stop from all the texts or phone calls. Yes, it has been a stressful, long journey through this monster we call the military, but there wouldn't be one ounce of me that has regretted any of it. I have loved and hated the whole thing. Right now I am in the deep hatred spot, where you just want to walk in and tell your boss exactly what you think of him and how you think the company is doing with some really well chosen words. But since I can't I will settle for complaining to you all and telling you all how miserble I am right now...that way tomorrow I can walk in just like I did today with a fake smile on my face telling everyone hello and biting my tongue to keep the "word vomit" at bay!

Busy doing nothing.

So I haven't updated in forever...no excuse. I am not busy, just so "not busy" that there is nothing to write about.

How about some pictures of the latest cakes? Thats always better than the boring going on around here~

This one is strawberry cake with buttercream icing, but I put strawberry jello in the filling between the layers. It turned out really yummy!

This small cake was left over from cupcakes...I try never to waste an opportunity to practice, so here is my practice. I didn't make the icing for this particular cake so it is a little well un-coordinated color wise but hey practice is practice right!!!

This one was before I started class...you can tell because it isn't flat on top...it slopes!  :~P I really like the simplicity of only two colors, but I think smaller lines would have been more ellegant.

The first cake I made at cake decorating class. We were supposed to write Happy Birthday on it, but since I didn't know of anyone's birthday, I just left it blank.

Well, that is my life for the past couple of weeks. CAKES...very interesting hobby...my commander and 1sg had tons of fun with me taking baking classes as they call them. But hey it makes mondays something to look forward too.

~It's SPRING~

~Here is how I know it is spring...this is pollen off of only ONE of my window sills. Spring is in full bloom down here!~

~This is the landing outside my door. Yes, all that yellow is pollen. Just yesterday it was clean!~

Maybe I should coordinate a little better!

The color scheme on this cake is off. I think that there are too many different ones and they don't really go together, but I had icing left over and since I don't have a big fridge I actually made the cake specifically for the icing this time. I had certain things I wanted to practice too, so here it is.

This is the first time I have actualy used roses that I have made. I have practiced them a lot...just to scoop them all back into the icing bowl to do it again. Mostly because, I don't really like a lot of icing on my cake, so I think everyone else is the same. Haha...I have learned that is not true.

Here's another experiment...

I have been atempting to create a filled cupcake. This is a raspberry filling. I had a little trouble though because it was too thin. Cream cheese and things with that consistancy work great and are really easy with this new cake decorating tip that I have...jellies or jams would probably work, but I think they would be too sweet so I used fresh fruit. It was interesting to do, but tasted great and had a different look too!

Then I got tired! HAHA. Here are the rest that I didn't fill.