Learning to Say No...

“Half of the troubles of this life can be traced to saying yes too quickly and not saying no soon enough.” ~Josh Billings

merk

verb

1. To kill someone

2. To beat someone at something

3. To insult someone

4. To do something to someone that causes them to feel merked

adj. (merked)

1. A mix of feelings including a combination of at least two of the following emotions; embarrassment, frustration, annoyance, confusion, irritation and powerlessness. Examples include; being lost and having no reception on your phone to check google maps, locking yourself out of your house and having to pay a locksmith over a £100 to get your locks changed, or transporting a wedding cake to a venue only to find that it collapsed in the box along the way & you only have 30 minutes before the guests arrive to fix it!

Merkage is always avoidable, always, but that is what makes the feelings worse. 

So now that I've clarified (to an extent) what I'm talking about, let me tell you about the last time that I was merked. I am having some work done to my garden and have been inviting gardeners to give quotes. One lady arrived on Saturday morning, moments after the window cleaner had finished their work. The front of my house was very wet even though it wasn't raining outside. Anyways, I opened the door and the lady walked into the house barely drying her feet on the two mats outside my front door. Her first step left a massive muddy shoe print on my wooden floor and she proceeded to take two more steps leaving two more muddy wet footprints. 

I was merked, fully & completely, and did what all conscious human beings do; I stopped time - well dramatically slowed it down anyway. As she turned in super slow motion to face me for further instruction as to the way to the garden, I pondered on my options. 

Option 1 - I bite my tongue and let her walk through my house leaving horrible muddy puddles and just clean up when she's gone. I had visions of her doing the running man in her dirty shoes on my kilim rug & moonwalking through my clean kitchen to the garden.

or

Option 2 - I tell her go back and wipe her feet before coming any further, making everyone feel super awkward.

I chose option 2. 

It was very awkward as I sent her (politely) back outside to wipe her feet (as any civilised human being would do). It was really awkward, but 100% necessary for me and the happiness of my kilim rug. I mean really! Who does that anyway?!

It was a victory for me and the shape of things to come. As I alluded to in my last post, 2014 could have been called "The Year of Merkage". I didn't say no enough and instead allowed people to rob me of my energy, time, love, happiness, creativity and money. By not saying no, go and wipe your feet before you come in my house, I let people trample all over me with their muddy shoes! No more I say!

Excited by my new found strength, I decided to celebrate by making one of my favourite cakes - the naked vanilla cake. I am a big fan of "less icing is more" when it comes to cakes. I also love berries, meringues & edible flowers so threw everything together in one cake because that's how I'm rolling these days!

The cake is a vanilla sponge with vanilla buttercream, sugared berries, meringue kisses and pansies (edible flowers). Click below for links for all of the recipes (for the cake, double the recipe and cook in an 8" inch tin and double the buttercream recipe);

Vanilla cake

Vanilla buttercream

Sugared berries

Meringue kisses

All that's left to say is that I have green highlights in my hair. I wanted turquoise tresses but instead it's green and yes, I am a little merked.

Peace & love

xx

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