About Emily

December 30, 2011

I love cake! What else is there to say, really? It’s funny – the above photo was taken at my wedding (photo courtesy of West Loop Studio in Chicago, IL). You’d think I’d have more decorum and class (and not be shoving a giant piece of cake into my own mouth in front of all of our guests), but that’s me. My husband tells me this is one of his favorite photos of me because it’s so “authentically me” (and I look like a mischievous child). So there you go.

Well, there is a lot more to talk about other than my adoration of cake! Twizzling Whimsies has been in my life for several years now, in a handful of different iterations. As life has changed, so has this blog. And let me tell you, life has thrown some changes my way these last few years.

Twizzling Whimsies started in Chicago, and so that’s where this story begins. I moved to Chicago (from Virginia) in 2005 to attend graduate school. I never intended to stay beyond getting my MA, but I fell in love with the city and I couldn’t bear to leave so quickly. So I stayed and decided to live a little

Several years after moving to Chicago and many adventures later (in 2008, to be precise) I met my husband. By that point in time I had started to become interested in cooking. I don’t know what set it off, but all of a sudden I wanted to be able to make good food and not just order out all the time (or eat cereal for dinner…). It didn’t help matters that Kirk surprised me with a Kitchenaid stand mixer out of the blue one day. I got home from a business trip and there it was, on the kitchen table! Yay!

We moved in together shortly thereafter (my closest friend tells me the surprise Kitchenaid was a sign of the seriousness of our relationship). We lived together in my small Logan Square apartment for a few months. I spent my time baking a lot of bread, and I cooked my first big Thanksgiving meal on my own. We got engaged in the summer of 2009 and then moved into a much larger timber loft in Little Village, where we lived for just over two years. The loft was chosen mainly because it had an insanely large kitchen. During those two years, we planned a wedding, made a TON of caramels (I had this idea that I wanted to make my own wedding favors…), got married, went on our honeymoon, and dealt with a brain tumor that put everything on hold.

In March 2011 Kirk went in for an MRI, and that was when everything changed. He had a partially inoperable brain tumor on his brainstem. He had undergone two previous brain surgeries when he was younger for the same type of tumor (meningioma), but this one was different – it was a skull base tumor in a really icky location – hence making it impossible to completely remove.

In May 2011 he underwent his third craniotomy, and then through much of June/July it was daily radiation treatments and rehabilitation. During that time we spent a lot of time talking – evaluating our lives and what we wanted. An illness like this (especially when you’re dealing with it at ages 28 and 32 respectively) tends to slam some perspective into your life. All of a sudden, the things you thought were important – working, building a career, keeping up with the hustle and bustle of city life – don’t seem as important anymore. It soon became clear that it was time to move on from Chicago. We decided that we didn’t want to passively watch our lives float by.

I applied for a couple of jobs in different areas all over the country. I got some interviews, and ultimately it was a job in Tucson, Arizona that was most appealing to me. Not only did the job seem like a great fit for me, but Kirk and I were completely blown away (and surprised) by how much we loved Tucson. I never expected in a million years that I would end up in the desert. But here I am, sitting on my couch in a house nestled at the base of a mountain in the Sonoran Desert, surrounded by sand, rocks, and cacti.

Wow.

It’s crazy to think about how things can change so quickly. But now here we are, embarking on new adventures in life and cooking in Tucson, and I’m ready for what’s to come. I hope you’ll stick with me!