I'm in such a bad mood. I promised to make a cake for the Harvest Festival at Mulan's school tomorrow night. The cakes have to be delivered at 9:00 a.m. They are for the winners of the musical chairs contest. In the abstract, in my midwestern mom, suburban kitsch oblivion, I thought it would be really fun to make a cake. That is, until it was 8:00 p.m. tonight and I was making a cake. A cake that had to cool before decorating it. And decorating it before bedtime was important to Mulan. And by 9:00 p.m. it was very, very, very not important to me. Instead of a happy mother-daughter decorating experience, poor Mulan tried to have fun while I huffed and puffed and grimaced and wanted to blow the house down.

I so often wish I could clock out as a mom. I wish I could say, "Hey, I put in my 14 hours, I'm out! G'night!" So we decorated the cake, me in a poopy mood, and now it's in the refrigerator in hopes that it doesn't turn into a big puddle because it was really still too warm to decorate. I hate Fall Festivals. I hate goofy cakes. I thought I would love all this and I don't. I really don't.

Also, my camera is on the fritz and it will only take one picture without a flash before it closes down and insists on new batteries, even though THAT IS CLEARLY NOT IT'S PROBLEM! So I had one shot, and that's the shot - the poor cake in the fridge.