Giant cake and a bump on the head

It turns out that my debit card was somehow compromised and the bank canceled it. They sent me a new one, but it would have been nice to have a heads up. You know, like a phone call or even a letter saying something along the lines of, "Yo, we didn't want anyone to steal your money so you won't be able to use your card anymore." Whatever, at least I know now. We don't know why Andy's card is having trouble. The bank said they didn't see a problem with it and we used it a couple of times today with no issue. Let's hope it stays that way.

While I was at the ATM today testing my card, I managed to give myself a giant welt on my head. As you know my car is, once again, out of commission, so I've been driving around Andy's monster truck Jeep. When I get into my Jeep I can pretty much just open the door and sit down. Not so with Andy's. He has a lift and giant tires which cause me to have to sort of hoist myself up into the car and swing in at sort of an angle. I guess I was agitated from my debit card problems and didn't pay enough attention to what I was doing. So basically I slammed my forehead into the door frame as I was getting in. Luckily, I hit the padding around the frame so that helped not give me a concussion. I'm pretty sure I would have been unconscious for a second if I had hit just metal. But my head hurts and I'm counting on it being blue tomorrow. Right now it's just red and swollen.

After I got everything sorted out and ran some errands I came home to get my bake on. Our friend Ally is leaving Saturday to go to Europe for the next six weeks. She's an awesome cyclist and is getting a free trip to go race with the US National Development team. How great is that?

So in celebration of her achievement and to send her off in glutinous American style I made her a giant cake. With 14 layers. It was really fun and not as difficult and time consuming as I thought it might be. I got the recipe from Bakerella, who is everything I aspire to be. Truly she is my baking hero.

Anyway, here are some pictures from today's baking marathon:

14 cakes, cooling

Icing phase 1

Icing phase 2
Ally with her cake

If you want to see Ally in action she'll be on Versus on April 4th riding in the Tour de Flanders.