And so it begins.

Well. Isn't this great? I have a new place to yap about all that occupies my whirling dervish of a brain and--AND!--I get to pretend that people will read it and care. Whoo hoo!! My friend and blog-mentor Karina asked me [in a very reasonable tone, although I'm guessing, since it was on IM] what kind of blog I wished to start, and naturally, I was flummoxed. There are kinds of blogs? Who knew??

Okay, most of the planet. But still! Hey, I'm not even on Facebook or MySpace, so this really shouldn't be a surprise.

You might be asking yourself, my imaginary reader, you might be saying, "Self, what does Lisa Marie intend to discuss on this lovely little blog?" Handily, I have the answer to this. Ready? Wait for it....

Whatever.

I know! Isn't that all-encompassing and vague and lame beyond reason? I don't even feel bad about it, either.

So. For today, what will it be? The joys of being an embittered spinster? My poorly behaved wire haired fox terrier? My upcoming vacation? No...I think I shall delight my legions of fictional followers with tales of baking.

My friends know I love to bake. [Yes, I do so have friends. Don't be mean.] But this love does cross over into the unhealthy-obsession-thank-God-I'm-too-lazy-to-be-a-stalker territory. In the past week or two, I've made a coconut bundt cake, two kinds of banana bread, lemon poppyseed cake with sour cream topping, carrot cake with triple cream frosting, chocolate cake with the chocolate version of triple cream frosting, a double batch of Scotch shortbread and last night, a simple white cake with strawberry frosting. What can I say? There have been a lot of birthdays lately.

I'll focus on last night's foray.

Both of the recipes were shamelessly nabbed from other people's blogs and recipes collections, so I'm not going to act like I came up with this stuff on my own. I will say the cake was interesting in that it acted like a wacky cake with its white vinegar & baking soda combo, but also used pancake mix and eggs. Wild, huh? I can't wait to hear what people think of it. Don't worry, I'll be sure to pass these comments along.

Note to self: I need to be sure the strawberry puree I use in my next strawberry frosting isn't cold, as this made the frosting curdle a bit. Butter. So fussy.

Mwah!