Life Lesson: Keep It Simple

It’s the little things that usually please us the most.
A cool slice of watermelon on a blazing-hot day.
A nice comfy bed after an arduous day.
A long, hot shower after a hard day’s work.
Such was our adventure in bunny cakes. As many of you may know, our mom had a bakery for 30 years so she knows her way around a convection oven and pastry bag.

Last year, post-Easter I was regaling my yoga class about the holiday experience of my parents’ dog finding all the Easter eggs before the humans and some other antics.
It turns out there were a few Easter-Egg-Hunt virgins in our class, so we made a plan for an Easter experience the following year.

It evolved over the year and turned into an Easter bunny cake decorating party. It’s a thing, trust me.

I grew up with these baking kind of experiences. I have made countless cakes, gingerbread houses and many other confections in my lifetime. So much so, that I forget that it’s not common place. I take for granted everyone knows how to make a rose out of icing, that the key to smooth icing a cake is hot water, and if you want to have control of the icing — keep the pastry bag twisted tightly.

These are things I just know. But not everyone does so my mom graciously offered to teach some of my friends how to decorate their own cakes.
She made it easy. She baked all the cakes, pre-made several different colors of icing. She put the bunny cakes together so all we had to do was the fun part — decorate.
She gave help when needed and sometimes when she just couldn’t take it anymore. You don’t create cakes for a living and not stumble upon some perfectionist habits.

And within a couple of hours we had five lovely bunny cakes.
We didn’t climb Everest, although that may be on the bucket list.
We didn’t go out to an expensive dinner.
And we had a great time.
We sat around two tables and iced cakes — plain and simple.
It is the little things that please us.