(vegan) Cupcakes are wonderful
I mentioned in a previous post that I am a big fan of the book Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. Let me reiterate:
best cookbook ever.
To be fair, I never thought I would say that. As desserts go, I've always been more of an ice-cream-cake sort of girl. In fact, I hate most frosting. The sugar content makes the roof of my mouth feel funny, and leaves a sour taste in my mouth. (What? No,
you're weird.)
Oh, but this cookbook. Incredible. Until last night, I was particularly fond of the peanut-butter cupcakes and the cashew-butter cardamom cupcakes (which are subtle and powerful at the same time, it's like a magic trick). But last night, I decided to try the
basic chocolate cupcakes topped with a chocolate mousse (linked picture is from the blog of the author).
Holy crap.
This is what cupcakes are supposed to taste like. Basically, you've never had a cupcake before. Trust me.
Annnnnyway, in other news.... :)
We're finally starting to feel settled in the new place, but we don't have
internet as-of-yet. I'm writing at work right now (waiting for some code to finish running) and of course I forgot the cable for my phone so I don't have any pictures to share. They will be up soon.
My nugget for you today involves a website I'm currently obsessed with:
muxtapes.
Playlists have time limits again! It's fun, so if you're as music-obsessed as I am, I recommend it. You can search for a list you might like via
muxtapestumbler or you can just go straight to
mine. Enjoy!
Transitions
We move this weekend! I'm really excited about this. You should be too. Do you know why? Because as soon as I move, this space will be inhabited with excessive house pictures in lieu of excessive puppy pictures. See? Aren't you excited?
But as long as we're on the topic of the pup... We went to a
coffee shop / dog park for knitting this week. Yes, that's right. It's half coffee shop and half dog park. It's decently close to the new digs, so I have a feeling I will be going back frequently.
Rachel and Emma (Rachel's adorable new pup) got there a few minutes after us, and Kaisa actually jumped on Rachel when she walked in. This is a HUGE recent development for my usually-shy girl. It made for an awkward moment when I wanted to squeal with joy, but felt it necessary to apologise instead. But Rachel was nice about it, and Kaisa was as happy as ever, and it ended up being a lovely evening. Hooray for Kaisa, the social butterfly in training...
Fetch!
More hiking pictures!!! Hooray!
These are from last weekend at Red Top Mountain. Of course, being GA, the mountain is more of a hill, but it's next to a lake. So the draw for me is that it's one of the few places around here where K can swim, which is always really fun for all involved*
*really!! It's hilarious to watch, and she loves it. So much so, she actually barked at Nick when he was taking a break (she appeared to be worn out, but I guess not). It scared him half to death, which was really funny because he jumped and yelled back at her. It was so uncharacteristic of both of them, it really made me laugh.
Hotlanta, to go
Yep, it's 100 degrees here.
I hope it cools down by next weekend, when the moving begins.
Speaking of moving, Nick and I are on a roll regarding picking up essential items on the cheap. Between us, we have very little furniture (sans an abundance of matresses, which will come in handy for furnishing the guest bedroom). So, being neurotic, I needed to get some furniture before I felt ready to move. I recently found an entire set of beautiful livingroom furniture for $200 (thank you, craigslist!!!), and Nick just bought us some
deck chairs that are so comfortable I might vote that they live in the sunroom (he paid half that). Anyway, I also found a set of these:
at my local Salvation Army, for $9. What makes this deal so sweet is that they're available on Amazon.com, so if I want to expand the set or get replacements I know where to go.
MAN, I am good at this poor college student gig! Next on the list is closet space (think antique armoire), sunroom furniture (?), kitchen table, and book shelves (lots of them). I think Nick might want to build the last two with his new fancy woodworking toys, and the former will have to wait until (1) we move in and (2) craigslist offers up something good :)
Allllllright I should get back to packing. (Also, why don't grocery stores offer up boxes anymore? Apparently now you have to call ahead by a day or two. Lame.)
Goofy pup
We've been getting out a lot lately. This is from last weekend, after a run to the park. Last night we went to a local restaurant to sit on their deck during the tornado warning. Kaisa and my knitting buddies were loving it until the downpour began... No actual tornado though. Such sensationalism...
Debauchery
I'm not feeling my best tonight, and as such I am staying in and doing notsomuch. Instead of blogging about doing nothing, I will blog about a semi-recent fun event.
The Moustache Parade of 2008.
I'm not sure who was the brilliant and awful person to come up with this event, but a vast majority of my male friends participated by growing moustaches... a week or two in advance. It was glorious, and horrendous.
Us girls, well, being bald, we had to improvise. Enjoy.
Free time? What's that?
Ah, the semester is over. I survived. I passed quals, my classes, and... the majority of... my students. I am a happy camper. So why haven't I been writing, you ask?
Well, I've been working, which is great. I'm pretty into my research as of late, which is a really nice change of pace. More on that later.
The more likely culprit is The House Search. Nick and I are lookin' to shack up at the end of this month (yay!), so I've been looking at a looooot of houses. That shit is time consuming! But also amusing. We looked at one place last week that was something out of a horror movie. It was a couple thousand sq ft, had 20 ft ceilings and was probably a hundred years old, easy. It was a homestead house, apparently, and as such did not have a living area, only a 7-ft wide hallway from which all the equally-humongous rooms branched. Best part? The second floor "wasn't renovated" so the owners used it as storage. Tenants weren't allowed up there. Creepy much?
Yeah. Right now we're zooming in on a loft complex with a pool and a doggie "run" (like a small but loooong fenced dog park), but we're keeping the options open. We've got time.
The pictures are from recent hikes. The one of Nick is from a week or so ago on his birthday - all he wanted to do was go camping but the weather didn't oblige. It rained all Saturday. Luckily on Sunday we did sneak in a hike at our favorite (closest) spot, and it was a lovely day.
The rather unfortunate picture of me is from a few weeks back, when we decided it would be a good idea to try a 15 mile day hike. That's me taking a necessary break after mile 12 or so. By mile 14 I was limping and suffering from a horrendous sunburn. (What? Sunlight comes through the leaf cover when there aren't any leaves?) I was pretty proud of myself by the end, but I won't be trying a hike like that again after several months of vampirish behavior such as studying/sitting on my ass/living in the dungeon at school. Ahem.
Other fun things about life right now:
Vegan cupcakes take over the world, knitting my first pair of socks, and a Lord of the Rings marathon potluck this coming Wednesday (gotta take a day off every once in awhile, right?).
PS- I heart you
craigslist.
I have a dream...
... that, someday, I might have time for blogging. This semester is so close to being over I can taste it. I am so close! And yet so very far away.
So some big news lately. I passed my qualifying exam finally (took me two solid attempts) and good thing, too, because shortly thereafter I got word that I had been awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship! WooHoo! That's three years of life paid for (including a bit of a pay raise) and a significant ego boost because those things are competitive. In fact, my application was
ranked 3rd nationwide. Yikers.
So when this semester is over I can take some time to really celebrate. Before then, my students and my classes have me by the throat.
Here is something cute:
Committed.
I am going to make a new-semester resolution to post in this blog regularly. In particular, to take more photos. Maybe posting a photo a day is a little ambitious, but if I got in the habit it would make me very happy. Let's try one a week for now.
It's beautiful here.
More to come...
DNA scarf!
It's laying on the fleece that I bought to line the back, which is almost a perfect match color-wise. It's still curling pretty badly - but it's wool and I've heard blocking will help that. I expect the lining will help it hold it's shape too. I will post better pictures someday soon, maybe when Nick gives me back my camera.
