I am a proud grandma! I love to bake and try new recipes. My husband says he's my guinea pig, but never complains! He eats well as a result! I also love to garden both veggies and flowers. I have a black lab, Charlie (in my pics), and we have my daughters beagle (Buddy) now also (she couldnt take him to Germany with her). We also have a cat (Nala), that was my daughters when she went to Germany in 1999 and couldnt take her with them! I told her she couldnt go back anymore, she will start leaving kids with us instead of the animals! LOL I love trying new dishes, esp Italian foods and baking, breads, cookies, cakes, brownies, just about anything. Favorite used to be making cookies with the kids at the holidays, but as they have grown and moved away, we lost that one. I make a lot of candy and goodies at Christmas, as gifts. My biggest thrill is working with yeast, successfully. I have my failures with it, but dont give up. A fresh loaf of homemade bread is beautiful! I also love to decorate cakes, and have made many fun cakes over the years. My worse tradgedies I think were fudge and divinity that either didnt set up at all, or were rock hard! I am a pretty safe player, when cooking, I make things I feel pretty confident I cant mess up too bad!