BEDM Day 9 - Carrie's Cupcake Craze

So we all know that I'm a big Pinterest fan.  This year I decided to try a cupcake recipe for Mom's birthday.  I asked her the flavors she was looking for and it was quickly settled that chocolate and coconut were a must.  I found an amazing Samoa Cupcake recipe from Sweet Pea's Kitchen which worked perfectly from the recipe.  I added a couple of extra things and I have trouble with getting frosting to the proper amount of stiffness, but other than that excellent recipe. 4 out of 5 stars from me.

My next cupcake adventure was for a co-worker and current laboratory student.  She wanted pineapple and coconut and since I LOVE pineapple and coconut I was more than happy to oblige.  The recipe I started with was from The Cake Blog and I knew there was no way I was making pineapple flowers for the top.  Her Tropical Cupcakes were a great recipe also and the cake was sooooo moist and delicious.  I had toasted coconut at home which I used to top mine and I think they gave it a great crunch and flavor.  5 out of 5 stars.

After perusing the cupcakes at Sweet Pea's Kitchen I decided I wanted to try the Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting.  They weren't bad.  The cake was a bit on the dry side and I think I'd like to try the Peanut Butter Frosting with the cake from the Samoa cupcakes.  Only 3 out of 5 stars, in my opinion.

Sometime in here I also made Chocolate Espresso Cupcakes with Nutella Cream Cheese Swirl Frosting from Feed Your Temptations.  Like the dark chocolate ones, the cake was just a bit dry.  I think the Samoa chocolate cake was by far the best (and easiest!) chocolate cake I've made from scratch.  It might end up my default chocolate cake from now on.  The frosting on these was to die for!!  Nutella is now my new favorite food.  We also had crepes in Cannon Beach that had banana and Nutella in them and they were incredible.  We seriously waited in line for 20 minutes on our last day at the beach to get one before we left.  Mom's been recreating them at home and I'm not sorry. :)  Oh yeah, 5 out of 5 stars for the frosting...3 out of 5 for the cake.

By this time we were into March and I wanted to make something yummy for my own birthday.  I also love maraschino cherries and I found some beautiful Almond Maraschino Cherry Cupcakes from Your Cup of Cake.  I know that almond extract makes cherries truly taste like a cherry.  It's essential in any cherry pie I make.  But I was disappointed to see this recipe used a box cake mix!  Making a cake from scratch isn't that hard so I found a plain vanilla cupcake recipe to get the ingredient amounts from.  Sad thing was that it had way more baking powder in it than any cupcake recipe I had made so far.  And the cake ended turning out more like a muffin than cake because of it.  :(  My first semi-failure.  They were pretty for sure, but not the best.  I also tried to make cherry frosting, but the juice and the buttercream frosting did not like each other much and the frosting was not smooth and beautiful but kinda mottled.  Oh well, they ate fine.  2 out of 5 stars, but only because I didn't truly follow the recipe and got too cowboy with my changes.

I gave cupcakes a rest for a bit at that point.  I did have big plans for Easter however.  I wanted to make Carrot Cake Cupcakes because, please, anyone who doesn't like carrot cake is crazy.  I did lots of research this time and found a moist cake with pineapple and again did my own little adjustments. This recipe came from Just A Taste.  I modified the baking time for cupcakes and had to add a bit more flour because the batter just seemed too liquid.  They were very yummy and the cream cheese frosting is as close to heaven as it gets.

There's lots more cupcakes on my board (I had to dedicate one just to cupcakes alone!) and I'm excited for the fruit ones...strawberries, peaches, blackberries.  Just have to wait for them to come into season.  I'm thinking I might be able to start a cupcake delivery business on the side.  You know just have a website with all the cupcakes I'm currently offering and then deliver them to whoever orders them for parties and such.  It's an idea...

Blog Every Day in May

So I was trolling the other blogs I read and I found a blog challenge, which I love.  I'm a competitive person and though I am a bit late into May to get this started, I thought I'd jump right in.  I haven't touched the blog this entire year yet and we're almost half way through....yikes!  So I've revamped the look of the blog and I'm gonna catch you all up on what's going on with me.

Blog Every Day in May - Day...um 8!

Let's start at the very beginning, it's a very good place to start...oh!  Sorry, I slipped into Sound of Music mode there.  Let's start at January.  Nothing much happens in January around here.  It's cold.  The holidays are over (phew!).  It's dark and all you want to do is eat and sleep and be as bear-like as possible.  So in January I, of course, planned out my vegetable garden and did an inventory of the seeds I had.  I placed my orders for the seeds and plants I needed and then I went back to my hibernation hole.  I also made some resolutions, let us see what those were...

Goals for 2014
1.  Make it to 200 lbs or less
2.  Lay path next to woodshed, make gate, finish edging, buy picnic table/bench
3.  Plant St. Francis garden, put in waterfall
4.  Build Reading Cottage
5.  Knit two shawls for myself and sew two bags for myself
6.  Dye yarn with kit from LAST year
7.  Work on drawing on the iPad
8.  Work on learning the piano
9.  Write two blogs a month
10.  Spend at least two hours a week writing on my books

Hmmmm.  I didn't do too well on most of these so far.  Totally blew #9 already.  And most of those yard related projects seem a bit too big to do all in one year.  Working on number 1, I'm at 222 right now.  Losing 22 pounds this year doesn't seem too over confident, unless other circumstances arise.  I've started one shawl for myself and if I could just finish the one I started a while back I'll be on target there.  I started a cape for Emily, but then set it aside to knit a hat for camping (which I finished!) and maybe some gloves.  I've got start-itis, I want to start everything and finish nothing.  Haven't worked on my piano at all this year, though I looked at it longingly the other day.  Yeesh.  I've done terrible at all of these!  But I do pin a lot of wonderful things on Pinterest... :)

Knitting Round-up

The readers have spoken (okay, just Melinda) and they have determined my next blog shall be about the knitting projects that were accomplished this year!

In January I was finishing a project that I started on the way home from Cannon Beach in September of 2012.

It is the Lintilla shawl by Martina Behm.  I used Malabrigo Arroyo in the colorway Azules.  I really loved the pattern, which was easy and interesting enough to get me through to the end.  The shawl is warm and fun to wear as a scarf wrapped around my neck all poofy.

The next project was an infinity scarf for my cousin Katey.  Unfortunately, though it's been finished since February, I haven't gotten it to her yet.  I need to give it a bath and pin it out, and I'm afraid it's too small to be wrapped around twice.  It is a modified version of the Summer Wind scarf by Irish Girlie Knits.  I used Tanis Fiber Arts Blue Label yarns in Stormy.

After that I decided to knit a pair of fingerless gloves for Mom for her birthday.  Around Christmas last year I got a Molly Makes magazine with these Owl Mitts in it.  I had to modify the size, as they were very small, but I think the product was worth the effort.

For those I used Mochi Plus in Caramel Latte, which I thought looked like owl-y colors.  I have another yarn to make a set for myself...but they haven't made it to the top of the pile yet.

After that I decided I wanted a pair of mitts for myself.  I had started the Eureka Valley Mitts in April and then abandoned them as the twisted stitch technique is a bit taxing.  I managed to finish the first mitt when we went to Cannon Beach in September this year, but the second is hanging out there in limbo.  Maybe I'll finish them up this next year.  They are Mochi Plus again, but this time I used the Seaview colorway.

Then before we went to the cabin I thought that having a hat for the cool nights would be lovely.  I knit up a Subtly Cabled hat using Mini Mochi in the colorway Neptune Rainbow.  Unfortunately it was too small for my head.  Not around, just in length.  So it's up for being gifted to anyone who gets this far into my blog post and has a small-ish head.  I can measure it, if you want to know how long it is.

After that summer and gardening took over my time and all knitting projects were set aside.  Before we went down to Melinda's baby shower I did manage to knock out an adorable baby hat called the Upside-Down Daisy hat and a pair of booties to match, both knit in Knit Picks Comfy Worsted.

I took a picture of the hat, but not the booties, so here is a borrowed photo of Melinda's little girl rocking the outfit.

Then while we were down in Arizona I picked up some beautiful yarn and knit myself a pair of fingerless mitts in the pattern Raw Honey using Mochi Plus in Red Zone, which reminded me of the colors of Arizona.

I got on a mitt kick then and continued with Fetching knit in Debbie Bliss Pure Cotton for myself as well.

But I needed to make one more baby hat for a friend that is due in January, so in a week I knocked out the Little Pumpkin hat in Knit Picks Comfy Worsted again.  I need to make a pair of booties to match still, but I've got one more month...

And most recently I've been working on some Susie Rogers' Reading Mitts for myself.  These are in  an alpaca yarn that I have misplaced the tag for.  But it's beautiful and has a lovely halo to it.  The first mitt is done and I'm thinking about casting on the second right now.

So that was the year in knitting for me.  I'm hoping to tackle some more projects for myself (I've been dreaming of shawls lately) and some for others (Emily's cloak is high on my list.  Sometimes I just go through my bags of yarns and patterns and think...damn! I buy nice stuff!

...Arizona, The Beach (again), and Another Visit From Nicole!

So when I last left off, Cindy and Carrie were running from one vacation to another, working hard in between and trying to stay on top of the garden and lawn maintenance as well.  At one point during all these planned vacations, I got the great idea to add another!  My cousin Melinda was busy during this time growing her second baby and I asked her if she was going to have another baby shower.  She said she'd talked about it with some friends and it seemed like it wasn't taboo to have a second shower, especially since she was having a girl this time.  I asked her when it would be, she gave me an estimated date, and I said that I had that weekend off.  She told me if I was going to come she'd make sure it happened that weekend.  So I booked a trip.  I convinced Mom to go with me by telling her the hotel we were staying at had a water-park attached and I'd pay for the hotel and airfare.  So the second to last weekend of August we flew out of Pasco down to Phoenix.  Now Mom and I have always said that our best trips are often:  1.)  Planned at the last minute, and 2.)  Contained within a 3 day weekend.  Well this trip did not break that record.  We had a blast!  We got down to Phoenix late on Friday (also part of our M.O. - arrive very late at night at your destination and then try to drive somewhere) and on Saturday morning we met up with Melinda.  Actually I think it was more like Saturday afternoon, because we went to the water-park for about an hour that morning, got all gussied up for the shower and then hit up a yarn store (because that's a requirement whenever we go someplace new).  We visited with Melinda, Eric and Camden for a little while and then gathered the packages that had been mailed and Mom, Melinda and I all headed to the party.  It was lovely!  We got to meet all of Melinda's friends and co-workers, ate delicious food and cake, and played a few party games.  Melinda opened her presents and she got plenty of adorable clothes, blankets and toys for Baby Girl.  I really enjoyed meeting all the people I hear about in blog or on Facebook, especially Kelly - Baker and Cake Decorator Extraordinare.  She made the amazing cake that looked like a teapot for the shower.  Plus she has a wicked (as in awesome) sense of humor, because when we met she said it's like meeting a celebrity; you know a lot about them, but you don't know what to say.  Kelly - "I really like your raised beds."  Me - "I'm a big fan of your work."

That's right people!  That's a cake!!

After the party, Mom and I were still a bit hungry so Melinda joined us at one of their favorite places to eat, Smoothie Cafe.  I'd heard about these amazing smoothies for so long and I needed to get one before we left.  They also had delicious sandwiches so we had a well rounded meal.  On Sunday everyone piled into Eric and Melinda's SUV and we went and visited her office as ASU and then went to the zoo.  Camden was the real star of this point in the trip because he was wildly entertaining.  He was going to turn, in his words, "3 candles" that Friday and told us all the things he was going to do for his birthday.  He also told me how he really liked the ocean and could make the sound of waves breaking on a beach.  I told him we had a lot in common.  We all enjoyed walking around the zoo (except for maybe Eric, his knee was pretty swollen at the end) and Camden played for quite a while in the splash pad they have at the zoo.

Afterwards we all went to Sweet Tomatoes, a delicious buffet-style restaurant, and ate Arizona style - outside under the misters.  Since I hadn't sent anything down for Camden's birthday, I had the bright idea that we'd take him to Toys R Us and let him pick out something.  Melinda said this could go one of two ways, sweet and pleasant or tantrum and crying.  I was up for either option.  After lunch we went to the toy store and Melinda told Camden he could pick out something he wanted.  The first thing he sees is the fart gun from Despicable Me.  We said that it was a good toy, but maybe he wanted to look around a little more than just inside the door.  We walked through the Legos (not interested), the Barbies (picked up a pink Mini Cooper) and then we made it to the Cars section.  Here all former items were forgotten.  Camden chose some single Cars and a pack of 10 (maybe?  I can't really remember how many) that included ones he didn't have in his collection.  He deemed these good and we were ready to go.  Before we left, however, I walked over to the puzzles section to get a couple of those too.  He's recently become interested in them and when we had arrived that was the first thing he showed me was his puzzles and we put one together.  So obviously he needs more.  We picked out two puzzles, an ocean one and a 3-D image one.  Happy as a clam we all headed back home and I untied the cars while he played with puzzles and we watched a movie.  Later Melinda, Mom and I all went to the Babies R Us so that she could look at the swings in person.  Part of her shower presents was money towards one and she wanted to see them in person before she went and ordered one online.  Wow.  I didn't know there were ever so many options for baby swings.  Or how pricey and high tech they can get!  After that we went back, had some dinner, listened to Camden's nighttime stories and talked to Melinda and Eric for as long as we could.  The next day we packed up, drove to the airport and flew home.

Some views from our hotel

Downtown Phoenix in the distance

Those hills look fake…like you're in an amusement park...

The Columbia river welcoming us home

I had told Melinda that I wanted to see a haboob (giant sand/dust storm) while we were there.  They had promised thunderstorms all weekend, which what the storms usually precede, but no luck.  When I got home, however, I found on my Facebook a picture of one with the tag that I'd just missed it.  They had one about an hour after I took off on my plane!  So close....


So about a week after coming back from Arizona we headed down to Cannon Beach.  It was our usual 5 day summer stay and it was fabulous.  We relaxed, knitted, ate good food, watched 3 weddings on the beach, knitted, drove down to the Tillamook Creamery, and walked the beach a lot!  Mom and I both took our Fitbits with us and on one day I clocked over 16,000 steps!  Woo hoo!  I got to eat things I'm not usually allowed anymore, like donuts, ice cream, pizza and beer.  We tried the crepe place and really liked them!  I didn't overspend on yarn, but I did manage to buy some more fabric for making bags, which means I have about twelve sets waiting around for me to feel like sewing (which is a rare occasion indeed).  I have been playing around with nail art lately and decided to try and put starfish on my toes in honor of the beach.  They don't look much like the Pinterest picture, but they were cute nonetheless.  It was a good time had by all.

Then at the end of September, Nicole thought she'd come up for a visit.  It was the beginning of the fair up here and I told her we'd take Emily and her along for the ride, since we had decided our day to go was that Saturday.  Nicole and Emily drove up on Friday and spent the long weekend with us, leaving on Monday to go to visit her parents for the rest of the week.  Saturday was a lovely day and we did all the fair things you're supposed to do.

We visited the petting zoo…

Mom was thrilled with the goats.  You can bet we'll be getting those next...

And got some cotton candy (and an elephant ear for the adults)…

Took a tour through the kids' barn…

And found a pumpkin with Nicole's nickname on it…

And lastly found a house full of hops for Nicole.  

She'd been saying that she missed the smell that signals the start of fall here in the valley.  And it's true.  Every morning on my way into work we pass the hop processing plants and when you get that good wiff of hops, then you know fall has arrived.  Emily said they smelled "funny".  Guess you have to grow up with that kind of thing.  I also asked Nicole to help me make the messenger bag she had sent me material for.  We cut it out and I gave it my best effort on Sunday to get it done, but I ended up having to finish it the next weekend I was off and mail it to her.  At least she got to put her input in on what material she wanted where and I think she was happy with the final result.  Poor thing didn't know that sewing is not my favorite thing.  I like the item I get at the end, but the process is hell to get through.  Especially cutting.  I hate cutting the thing out.  But those are the things we do for people we love.  ;)