Princess of Power

While following links from people's gchat status, I ended up over at Dork Yearbook. I thought I was a pretty cool kid. According to this post...not so much. I'm sure there is a picture of me somewhere but for now we can just pretend that this is me and the little girl. Shouldn't she be in diapers?

What to do when it snows

I checked the weather on Sunday morning and saw that the forecast was calling for 6-10 inches. Miriam, Will and I went to the store to stock up on the essentials. Snow was on it's way. It's what you do.

While we were out I picked up ingredients for butternut squash soup and lamb stew. While at Whole Foods something caught my eye. Key Limes. It's not often that you find key limes. I couldn't resist. I picked up a bag of them and decided I would find some use for them.

The snow came. We had 5-8" depending on where you measured in the yard. This meant I was working from home. After answering a large batch of emails I looked through some recipes and decided that I would attempt a key lime pie. The recipe I settled on called for a graham cracker crust but my graham crackers were stale. I made a pie crust and juiced all 25 key limes. That took a while. It was totally worth it. I love key lime pie but had never had home made. The taste was truly fresh and more tart than mass produced pies. This recipe may have to go in the permanent recipe book. Et Viola. The finished product.

Oscar Winners Don't Eat This

I had some people over to watch the Oscars. I served heavy hors d'oeuvres that everyone pitched in to put together. I wanted to try something new for dessert and came across this recipe. The detail sparked my interest. I won't lie, it took a couple trips to a couple different stores to find all the ingredients. The recipe was so detailed I felt I needed to follow it exactly (which really isn't my style). I sifted all the dry ingedients.Chopped the 85% cocoa bar that was in my Valentine's care package. Then I folded it into the batter. That's right. I'm still using Meaghan's mixer. At this rate she may never get it back. This was the densest cupcake batter I've ever made. It was closer to brownie batter. There was enough batter to fill 15 cups. The recipe calls for the cupcakes to be baked for 30 minutes but I think that was too long.

While the cupcakes baked, I fried the bacon, saved the drippings and browned the butter. That lovely combo went into the fridge to chill. I made sure my dinner guests didn't see the congealed concoction when I pulled it out and started adding all the other ingredients to make the crazy and yet delicious icing. If you take a look at all that goes into these cupcakes, you will see that these are not pre-Oscar diet approved. My guests were tentative yet intrigued. Once they gave them a try, the cupcakes were a hit!

Holly Hobbie: Bedroom Curtains

The creative bug has taken a nibble. I have started to try my hand at sewing again. A set of curtains had caught my eye at Target. I'm such a sucker for their home decor section. When I saw they were on sale for about $10 I figured I would buy one panel and try my hand at tailoring them to my needs. Since I'm a dungeon dweller, I don't have full windows and floor length panels really wouldn't suit my needs. Over the weekend I compared the panel I bought to the curtains already in my bedroom and developed a plan. I spread the panel out on my bed, measured and cut the fabric.
I ripped seams, pinned and sewed the panels and ended up with two curtains for my two bedrooms windows.
The fit in perfectly with my green and pink room. What's up next? Who knows?

I Belong to the Christian Bale Cult

I was watching a piece on Christian Bale the other nigh on the Biography Chanel. It was saying how until Batman, Christian Bale had a cult following but wasn't quite at superstar level. Who knew? I thought everyone had fallen in love with Christian Bale in the early nineties while watching him sing and dance in Newsies.
No? Really? You mean there are people out there who haven't even seen Newsies? (cough...Lis)
Now that he has starred in Batman, Christian Bale is all the rage. Rising to popularity with the likes of George Clooney and Kermit the Frog. Kermit the Frog you say? That's right. Take a look at this montage that someone decided to put up on the interwebs.
Man I love the interwebs. Sigh.

First Day of Class

I just got off the phone with my sister. She was semi panicked because her class was starting in ten minutes. Somewhere on campus in the freezing cold, she was on the phone with me trying to figure out where her class was. We went through two different log in processes and finally just looked the class up on the directory of classes. The class was a religious class on pilgrimages. I decided she was just getting in to character for the class.

The semi panic in her voice reminded me of my first day of high school. We had just moved back to Virginia and I knew next to no one. Our house was being built and we were living in a cramped apartment until it was finished. My mom thought it would be a good idea to drive us to what would be our bus stop and have us catch the bus there as we would for the following years. Clearly my mother doesn't love me or she would have just driven us to school even though we were going to three different schools at that point. For some reason or another the bus was late making me late to school and my first class. Panicked I tried to find my first class. Eventually I did. As I entered the classroom my teacher proceeded to berate me about my tardiness. It felt like eons before I could get the word out to tell her the bus was late. I was mortified. I looked like an idiot in front of a class full of people who I didn't know. Was this going to be how the rest of my high school experience would be. Nope. I ended up being head cheerleader and having the time of my life in high school. Let's hope the end result for the girl's last semester at school in the same!

Dance Class...Not So Much

For a couple of months now I have really been wanting to go to this cardio class at my gym. The class is called Cardio Video Dance. The brief description on the website says " A low-impact workout with the music and choreography from popular music dance videos adapted for the fitness environment." I took a class like this at the gym at Tech and it was awesome. We learned dance routines from music videos like Janet Jackson and Britney Spears. Lately I have been going to the gym at lunch more often and the 6:30pm class schedule just wasn't working out for me.

Last night my schedule finally worked out so I could make it to class. I walked into the studio and was the only person there. Once other girl walked in tentatively. The instructor walked in and as she was setting up the music encouraged a very tall man to join us. She said the class would be really fun and described it as a Jane Fonda-esque workout. She said she figured "if it worked for you mother is will work for you."

With that I turned and looked at her and cocked my head to the side inquisitively. She went on to say that the gym didn't consult her before they put the description of the class on the website. That's when I decided to speak up. I told her that after reading the description I came in fully anticipating her teaching us the moves to Beyonce's latest music video. She chuckled and said that would be fun but she had no clue how to teach that.

I would have walked out but she then started talking to the guy she had roped in to taking the class. He was saying how he hadn't worked out in two years. She asked him about his Olympic rings tattoo. He said he had danced in the opening ceremonies years ago. After that, I was hooked. We started chatting and then the class began. His comments are what carried me through. He was hilarious asking us why we weren't huffing and puffing like he was. He even knew that the UCA on my shorts stood for Universal Cheerleaders Association. I'm happy he was there. The class was extremely boring and I would have left early had I not had my own personal entertainer right beside me. When I head to the gym today I plan to tell them that they need to change the name and description on the website. I don't really plan on taking the class again even though I did break a sweat.