How Some Colorful Cupcakes Came To Be

Here is the twelve step process that lead to the creation of my Color Run Inspired Cupcakes.

1. Sign up for The Color Run with a bunch of your girlfriends from college and come up with a catchy name for your team.

2. Decide you're staying with Vickie for the after-party Breanna and Matt are having.

3. Instantly feel obligated to bake something for said party because that's how you roll.

4. Be wandering around Hobby Lobby one day and find some pretty colored sugars.

5. Realize it would be adorable to make cupcakes that look like they've been through The Color Run.

6. Make Love & Olive Oil's Fruit-Filled Lemony Cupcakes (and raspberry filling)

7. Make Smitten Kitchen's Cream Cheese Frosting (because it's white like your Color Run shirts and it's the best cream cheese frosting you've ever had and you should know because you're a cream cheese frosting connoisseur)

8. Cut little cones out of your cupcakes to make room for the raspberry filling. (ooh pictures!)

9. Fill cupcakes and replace tiny hats.

10. Frost and decorate by dumping random amounts of different colored sugars on top.

11. Refrain from eating one right away and take to party where everyone will love them, even people who claim to not usually like lemon-flavored things.

12. Don't forget to actually participate in The Color Run!

Lyndsey, Lexie, and moi!

Desk Picture

Here is a picture of my desk at work.

Crappy quality brought to you by cellphone camera in a dark room.

Here is a list of things on/around my desk, clockwise starting with my chair at 6 o'clock:
- My favorite hoodie
- Assorted papers, post-it notes, pens
- Inspirational flippy calender from boyfriend's mom 
- Phone, cords, backup hard drive
- Box of tissues
- Sweet mini print by the awesome Kal Barteski
- Peanutbutter M&Ms
- Second monitor (desktop = raspberries) with laptop below (desktop = Totoro)
- Hello Kitty calender
- The Max Ehrman quote that begins: Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence... 
- Water bottle, also with one of Kal's designs on it
- More calendars, papers, job tickets, office supplies, and 900 more post-it notes

Tada! Thanks for stopping by!

P.S. My desk at home is a lot more awesome, because when I was younger my mom painted flying cats all over it. I will update later if I can get a good picture of it.

Design: Coffee

If coffee ever becomes self-aware, bands together and decides to take advertising into its own tiny bean-hands, I've got its first campaign covered. I hope coffee remembers that I've been there with it through hot and cold brews, from my first gas station 'cappuccino' to the caramel brevé I ordered this morning from my favorite coffee shop, usually with cream and sugar but even the one time when I was little that my grandma made my brother and I try it black to teach us some kind of lesson.

My sweet fancy graphics were done as Illustrator practice, and the slogan comes from something my cousin said on one of those facebook surveys that used to be popular waaay back about a year ago. Thanks for the inspiration, Danelle!

But really, who that loves coffee would ever argue with this sentiment? I say no one.

Throwback Thursday

I don't know about you, but I used to really love those email surveys you filled out and spammed all your friends with, back when spamming your friends was cool. Now that we have things like facebook so your friends already know every single thing you're doing every second of the day, those surveys have kind of died off. Sad, I know. But I have some good news! I found one today, and decided to post it here as a throwback to the old days of friendly spam and angsty Xanga posts about boy troubles. 

So without further ado, I present: A-Z of Me

A. Age: 27

B. Bed size: Three-quarter. It's a weird antique size.

C. Chore that you hate: Dishes. So much hate.

D. Dogs: I don't have any, but I like my parents' corgis. 

E. Essential start to your day: Coffee = life juice.

F. Favorite color: Cerulean!

G. Gold or Silver: My mom told me once that I look better in gold.

H. Height: 5' 4"

I. Instruments you play: In high school: flute, tenor sax, and piccolo, but not much anymore.

J. Job title: Web Specialist

K. Kids: None for me, but I love my nephews. And my pseudo nieces/nephews too.

L. Live: Ohio

M. Majored in: English with a concentration in Literature, minor in Studio Art 

N. Nicknames: I still get Jord, Jordie, and Ami occasionally.

O. Overnight hospital stays: None.

P. Pet peeve: Wet sock syndrome.

Q. Quote from a movie: "Whoever invented rope was a real a-hole." -Chazz Michael Michaels, Blades of Glory

R. Right or left handed: Mostly right, but I can do a lot of things left-handed too.

S. Siblings: Two brothers, one sister-in-law.

T. Time you wake up: Ugh. 530.

U. Underwear: Yes.

V. Vegetable you hate: Raw tomatoes.

W. What makes you run late: Not getting out of bed.

X. X-Rays you've had: Just my teeth.

Y. Yummy food that you make: Everything?

 Z. Zoo animal: Otters. Fennec foxes. Penguins. Red pandas. I could go on.

Puketastic

I realize that for a blog based on my art, food, and life, I don't talk much about my life. I need to keep things on the bright side today, so this is what I ended up with.

I have very strong opinions about some things. When I think something is gross, I tend to use the phrase "puke cheeks" which was coined by either my brother or his wife many years ago. And that brings us to my newest list: Things That Make Me Throw Up In My Mouth.

Today's sub-topic: Words and Phrases

1. Referring to your significant other as "my beloved"

 2. The words "hearty," "fluids," and "moist"

3. Tomatoes were once known as "love apples"

Dang. This post ended up more focused on food and drawing silly pictures. Oh well. So, what say you, audience? Are there any words or phrases that make you physically ill? Please share!

SOTD: Chocolate Banana

I have decided this is the best protein shake/smoothie. So, you're welcome. It made my jelloy arms and legs happy post-workout this morning. Sorry there's no picture, I was running late and drank it in the car on the way to work.

Chocolate Banana Smoothie
Put these things in a blender and blend:
1 banana, chunked up and frozen
1 scoop vanilla protein shake powder
Whole milk
1 spoonful of unsweetened cocoa powder

Yes, I said unsweetened. Stay with me here.

Cocoa is good for you (antioxidants and all that crap) and with the banana and the shake mix, there's more than enough sweetness in there already, so the cocoa does a nice job of cutting through some of that. It could only have been better if it had hidden kale in it, and I might try it with coconut milk next time to cut out the dairy. The fact the banana is frozen gives it the perfect smoothie consistency, and everyone loves chocolate + banana (except my mom), so dessert-like smoothie for breakfast? Win win winny win win.

Thrift Store Lessons

Yesterday, I wanted to go thrifting, so after work I drove over to our local Volunteers of America (because it's bigger, cleaner, better organized, and less smelly than Goodwill.) When I stopped at the stop light where I needed to turn, there was a creepy clown outside, holding a sign that said "Volunteers of America 50% Off." The parking lot was the fullest I've ever seen it, but when I was in there, there was a sign up about one color tag being 50% off and another be 75% off. So I wanted to make sure the clown had not mislead me into believing everything was 50% off, which resulted in having the following conversation with the nice lady running the checkout.

Me: Is everything 50% off?

Lady (emphatically): NO. We do this every last Tuesday. When you flip your calendar over, find the last Tuesday and mark on it Volunteers of America 50% Off Day.

Me: ... So, everything is 50% off today.

Lady (like it's obvious): Yes. And every other day this month anything with these colored tags is on sale. If it has a grey tag, tomorrow it will be 50% off and if it has a red tag it will be 75% off. That way there is always something on sale.

Me: Is there a way to know what things have which color tags?

Lady (like I don't know what colors are): It's the color of the tag. See? This one is grey.

Me: Well yeah, but I mean, is there some way to know what clothes will have which color tags? Like if I wanted to look for things with red tags, do they mean something?

Lady (like speaking to someone who doesn't speak English): It means it's 75% off. That's what the colors mean.

Me: ... Okay. ::gives up because she's finished ringing me out and there's a line behind me::

Perhaps I was unclear in asking if there was a code for the color of the tags, like grey tags are sweaters and red tags are high-waisted polyester grandma pants. But the moral of the story is: Volunteers of America has a 50% off everything day on the last Tuesday of every month. I bought six pieces of clothing for under six dollars. I call that winning. And of course, I brought back some photographic souvenirs. Enjoy.

Seven of the same ugly wig.

Haunting frog statue, circa the early 90's pastel era.

Portrait of the matador as a young man.

I did the modern version of 'flipping my calendar and finding the last Tuesday' so there's now a monthly reminder in my cellphone about the VOA sale.  I might have to go back sooner though, just to buy that painting so I can cross my sister-in-law off my Christmas shopping list.