I Told You!

See?

See, I told you!  I told you sea shanty festivals were a thing!

Oh, wait, no I didn't.  That was in a private letter, not a blog post.  A private letter I wrote last night.  And haven't even mailed yet.  Then, this morning, this popped up in my Facebook feed.

Creepy as heck or not, my point still stands.  Sea shanty festivals are a thing, and I'm going!  OK, not to this one, because it's halfway around the world, and there is that whole being broke thing...but one day, I'm going to one!

Maybe someone could organize one in Galveston some day. I'd go to that.  Or maybe I wouldn't.  I've been saying I'm going to go to Dickens On The Strand for years, and I've never been.  It'd still be cool to have one there.  They could do it on the Elissa.  To which I've also never been.  I've been by it, just not on it.  Sigh...one day...one day...

Ah, well, in the meantime. there's always YouTube.

  

So, yesterday, I really wanted to do something to celebrate Independence Day.  After much hemming and hawing, I decided to make a cake in my Texas shaped cake pan.

Those are totally a thing, y'all.  For reals.  I've had one for years.  It usually hangs on the wall,

but I got it down, washed it up, and used it for this special occasion.

I was going to make a cake from scratch, but copped out and used a mix.  And I used canned frosting as well.  Seeing as how it is just me going to be eating it, I'm OK with that.

Not a word about my sloppy icing job.  I still had noodle arms from splitting some firewood.  And that icing was really thick.  About halfway through, I thought, "Man, I should have warmed this icing up in the microwave.  Oh, well, too late now."  And I carried on.  Noodle arms and all.  Eh, it's good enough for me.  I'd briefly thought about buying some fondant and decorating it like a Texas flag, but didn't really want to pay that much and do all that work.  Being as it was just me and all. 

The benefit of it being just me was that I could take whichever piece I wanted.  You guessed it. 

Home.

Funny thing about that cake, none of my cake carriers were quite big enough for a Texas sized cake.  I had to put foil on my largest cookie sheet just to have something to put it on.  Now that I've eaten Brownsville and El Paso, it might fit into one of my carriers.  If not, I'll eat Amarillo, too.  Then it'll for sure fit.

Remember that yarn I cast on and didn't quite know what I wanted to knit with it?  This is what it ended up being.

No pattern.  I just made it up as I went along.  Next time, I might try to do the entire body in that pattern, as it makes the hat feel really thick and squishy.  I'm not sure how I'm going to manage the decreases, though.  I guess I'll make that part up as I go along, too.

OK, OK, guys, you can take your tinfoil hats off.  That festival poster up top...I follow one of those groups listed on it.  They posted it on their Facebook page.  Just a happy -- if someone freaky -- coincidence.  Facebook can't really read your mind.

At least, I don't think so...

*cue Twilight Zone music*