The cake is a lie.

I’m completely burned out. I should’ve seen it coming, but it hit me so hard last Sunday that all I could do was start crying on the drive home from Joe’s parents’. I’ve always known that I’m more introverted than extroverted. As much as I love hanging out, socializing, being goofy with friends and dancing all hours of the night, I have to refuel every once in awhile. Get alone. Do  nothing. Do something I usually do with people, alone (like see a movie in the theatre; love doing that). And what with all the wedding plans and pre-celebrations (hello three showers in the last week), and working full time, and being engaged to a 100% extrovert, I tend to forget how important it is for me to slow down occasionally. So last Sunday as I was bawling, Joe and I decided that the following Sunday (today), I would have the day to myself.

The best laid plans, of course.

I did have most of the day to myself…after church and brunch with Joe (which were both wonderful), I headed home and considered making a list. A things-I-should-do-with-my-”day-off” list. Yeah…I need help. My “me day” almost turned into just another busy, nonstop moving day of getting stuff done that can’t be put off any longer. But alas; stuff got put off. I went to the beach, for the first time in like, a year.

I freaking LIVE at the beach. I know, I’m ridiculous.

Of course, getting there was stressful. Not that I don’t know which way the ocean is, but I had a hard time finding parking. (Fast forward momentarily to when I was leaving the beach: cash or check only. All I had was a card. I got some sort of writeup that I have to mail in with my four dollars in the next ten business days. Add it to the freaking list. Rewind to finding parking.) So I parked, grabbed my beach towel, iPod and a book, and considered finding a spot on the beach to lay out. There were a zillion people on the beach…big surprise. Fortunately, there is a grassy park area just on the other side of the beach, and there weren’t many people in that area. I parked in a dry-ish patch of grass (allergies, people), threw down my towel and laid down to get some sun. I alternated between lying on my back, eyes closed, iPod in, and lying on my stomach, propped up on elbows, reading my book. Did this four or five times at about ten-minute stretches until I felt good and toasted (and admittedly a tad bored). Then I threw my stuff in my car, except for keys, camera and cell phone, and walked along the beach a bit.

It should’ve been really peaceful and relaxing, right? Listening to the waves, letting the water drift across my feet… Instead, within a minute of my walk, I saw a dead seal on the shore. At first I thought it was just a giant rock that was, for whatever reason, attracting a ton of flies. (Yeah, I’m slow on the uptake.) When I realized it was a dead sea creature (and that I was standing about eight inches from it), I veered away and tried to resume my peaceful, relaxed, refueling-my-energy state of mind. Unfortunately, hyper kids and angry parents kinda killed that for me. So I walked back up to the sidewalk path that runs along the whole beach, right near all the parking lots, and discovered some kind of art show or swap meet or something…and the first thing I saw was what appeared to be a charcoal drawing of Courtney Cox…completely naked. Wow. Not exactly part of my “me day” plan.

Anyway, all in all, I’m glad I went to the beach. I finally got to feel like it’s summer around here. And I got outside, which is always refreshing. But I (stupidly) didn’t even THINK about the fact that, on my day of me and only me, going to the beach was the farthest thing from that, because lots of people like the beach. So, it was fun for the hour and a half I was there, and then I left with a four-dollar mail-in bill to pay…

And headed to the grocery store.

More people.

But also the ingredients for the cake I wanted to make for the dinner that Joe and I are having tomorrow night with two friends from church. I got those ingredients (enough for two cakes, in case I screwed the first one up), came home and got to baking.

The cake came out really good. The problem? In order to know that the cake came out good, I had to cut it. And I don’t want to bring a half-eaten (okay, only about a fourth-eaten, as it stands right now…) cake to a dinner party…thing. So I thought about setting off to make the second cake. Then I looked in the fridge at the vast amount of space we have. Which is to say, there is NO space for a second cake. Also? I have nothing to serve or store even ONE cake in, much less two.

But the cake needed to be made. So, at 9 p.m., I went back to the store to see if I could find some contraption to store and/or serve my cakes in. Wanna know what I came up with?

Two giant (7-qt) plastic bowls that were right next to the kids’ toy shovels and beach toys. These will top my cakes to keep them from a) falling over inside my car, or b) attracting flies. But since they’re SO huge, I don’t have two plates that are big enough to sit UNDER the bowls, so it’s going to be an interesting drive down to Joe’s place in the morning with BOTH cakes (I’ve got to get rid of the first one, so I’m pawning it off on co-workers. Works like a charm).

Aaaaanyway. Now I’m waiting for my second cake to finish baking, and then it’s bedtime.

Ask me if I feel like today was enough rejuvenation time for me to feel ready for another week of work and wedding stuff.

I dare you.

(PS: Despite the subject line of this post, the two cakes about which I wrote are, in fact, not a lie. But if you know where that line comes from, you are probably my new favorite person. Or you’re Joe, in which case, you were already my favorite person, and I miss you.)