third time's (almost) a charm

A couple weekends ago, my friend Brooke and I threw a well-deserved birthday party celebration of Charlotte. As with any plan, party, or project, I was way excited and had grand visions of how it would turn out. A key aspect of my vision involved having a giant cupcake-shaped birthday cake on my aqua cake plate, surrounded by smaller plates of regular-sized cupcakes. It was a beautiful image, but my hopes were shattered as soon as I attempted making it a reality.

Cake #1: The first cake I mixed up was a chocolate pound cake using this recipe that came with my giant cupcake pan. (I leave out the coffee grounds and chocolate chips, though) It's a delicious cake, and I was so so so excited to make it all on my own with all my new kitchen supplies. The batter seemed a little off while I was mixing it, but I passed it off, thinking that maybe the different elevation made it a little different than at home, and that it would still turn out okay. False. I realized there was a problem when I smelled the smoke. Opening up the over revealed that a good deal of the batter had exploded out of the pan and landed on the bottom of the over, where it continued baking and burning. "Explode!" you say? "Cake can't actually explode." Well, I'm here to testify that some of the batter was indeed projected from the pan. The cake batter crater is visible in the photograph below.

As one who aspires to have a bakery someday, you can imagine how discouraging this was for me. It was only when the pathetic cake cooled enough for me to inspect it that I realized what I had done. While measuring out the butter in the initial stages of mixing, I had been on the phone with my Grandma, asking about the leavening. The house-brand butter I had purchased for my cake-baking came in the form of one-pound bricks, and was marked accordingly in 1/4 pound increments. I really did know that 1/4 lb butter is equal to 1/2 cup, but my brain couldn't handle the conversation and conversion at the same time, and instead of putting in 1 1/2 cups (or 3/4 lb) I put in 1 1/2 pounds. of. butter. Yes, POUNDS. !*#@&@!*$*#* The cake was greasy to the touch. It was disgusting. It was a failure.

Cake #2: I started mixing up the batter for my cupcakes right after Cake #1 hit the oven, and everything went smoothly until started beating in the eggs, which is when I was forced to attend to the disaster happening in my oven. I spent a good deal of time beating smoke away from the smoke alarm, opening windows, and scraping burned batter off the bottom of the oven before I could return to my cupcakes. By the time I was able to distribute the batter into cupcake pans and get them into my neighbors' oven, (because anytime my I heated mine, smoke would pour from all openings) the leavening had been active for too long, and the cupcakes fell. !@#@*#$&@&%@#&*&*$!

This is how I felt. If you can see past the blurry quality of the photo, you can see the green mixing bowl full of slowly dying cupcake batter and the black fan I pointed at the oven opening to clear the smoke. (Fashion detour: note the Susan cast-off necklace, cardigan, and earrings. Cast-offs make my heart soar, even while beating smoke away from a greasy cake.)

Above you can see the burnt crumbs I scraped from the oven bottom. Is that a wisp of smoke I see?

Cake #3: When I realized my buttery mistake, I had just enough time before a date to mix up one last cake. The batter was delicious, it baked perfectly, and I left my apartment at 8 feeling excited to have at least one decent cake for Charlotte's party the next day. However (yes, after all this tragedy, there is still a "however") since the cake was too hot to take out of the pan before I left, it ended up sitting in the pan for too long and came out in more pieces than it should have. At this point, I was totally dejected. It was 11:30 at night, I was splattered with cake batter, the kitchen was splattered with cake batter, I had a sink full of dishes to to, I was hungry because the only food I'd had time to eat all afternoon was licked off a spatula or drunk out of a chilled aluminum can, and my last attempt at birthday cake greatness didn't want to come out of the pan. *&%$#@*#$&@!#!@%&%$@$#&@&#!!&%@#

In the end, it all worked out. I froze Cake #3 in four pieces (as opposed to the two it should be in) and reconstructed it with the help of some delicious, yellow-tinted powdered sugar frosting. It served nicely and was enjoyed by all, and I have learned my lesson to never converse and measure butter simultaneously.

Have you ever blown up anything?
Do you have a hard time letting go of your plans and visions?

fashion victim

I'm a sucker for a trend. If it's cute and stylish, I will adapt the look and love it. That's just the way I am. Fabulous flats and high high heels are just a couple of the trends I happily embrace, though I often have to apply the "no pain, no gain" motto. Breaking in a new pair of flats can be extremely painful owing to the necessity of building up callouses where the tops of the shoes rub. This normally entails one or two slightly painful days, complete with moderate limping and use of band-aids. I learned last week, however, that level of pain required to break in flats is almost directly proportional to the level of shoe fabulous-ness.

Exhibit A: The flats I have been dreaming of my whole life.


I have been yearning for yellow flats for a while now, and this pair found me at TJMaxx the week before I came out to Provo. Something about them speaks to my heart. Maybe it's the perfect yellow color, the patten-leather-like shine, or the cream and gold buckle, but I. Love. These. Flats.

Upon wearing them for the first time last Tuesday, I quickly learned that they were going to test my true devotion to style. After wearing them for a day on campus, I was sporting purple, painful blisters. Throughout the next day, the state of my feet only worsened, so that by the time I woke up on Thursday, my feet were stiff and extremely sore. I could barely walk, a fact to which Charlotte can expertly testify. (She kept trying to get me to trade her my flats for her flip flops, but the flip flops didn't go with my ensemble at all.) I had her meet me early to walk up to campus for our 9:00 class because my movement was reduced to a slow and painful hobble, which takes significantly more time than pain-free striding. By the time we were up on campus, I was full-out limping. My feet throbbed so much that I had to take three ibuprofen so that I could be mobile for the remainder of the day. I was pathetic, though not because I was hobbling and wincing around campus, but because my devotion to my yellow flats was not deterred in the slightest.

(the blisters were way worse a few days ago, but this pic still gives the size and general painful quality of my battle wounds. Note the culprit shoes in the background.)

With the help of my roommate (who's training for a marathon and knows a fair bit about blister care) and the wearing of sandals all day Saturday, I can happily report that my blisters are healing and that I wore my yellow flats today with no limping or throbbing. I passed the test, and now I look forward to a very rewarding relationship with my yellow flats. You comfort-shoe-supporters can keep your Crocs, because I will let nothing come between me and the perfect accessory. No pain, no fabulous gain.

College in a Can

Last year, I had a hard time accepting many aspects of college life. Everything about being home seemed so much better than student life, but this year, I'm okay with and even enjoying it! Tonight, I spent three hours reading from textbooks, taking notes, and studying for and taking online quizzes. When my brain felt sufficiently full of the Doctrine and Covenants, nutrition, competitive advantage, and international accounting news, I took a quick dinner break. Though at home, I eat fantastically well, I was completely satisfied with my can of green beans and can of Diet Pepsi. I heated, buttered, and salted my beans, put them in one of my cute thrift store bowls, and ate them with my preferred utensil: chopsticks. I'm so grateful that this year I'm enjoying college life. It must be the fact that I'm finally out of the dorms and feel like a real college student, but I love my independence, simple meals, and the joys of having a flat of Diet Pepsi under my bed.

Back in Action!

Hello, my faithful followers. I'm sorry for leaving you hanging on my last, less-than-optimistic post about Provo. I'm here, and my first week was amazingly successful. Saying goodbye to my family was tough, but I felt none of the debilitating homesickness I felt last year. It was so easy to slip back into school life, and I'm really enjoying myself. My ward is fantastic, and I already know many new people and friends. I feel like a part of things here, which is wonderful.

My apartment is less than luxurious, but I'm okay with it. I've been blessed with the ability to see past the small things like a constantly dirty kitchen floor, messy living room, and sink full of dishes, and accept it as part of living in a college apartment with five other girls. The two roommates who I didn't know before I came here have been here all summer, and they didn't feel the need to make room for us new move-ins in the fridge, cupboards, or bathroom, or even tidy up. Since moving in last weekend, I've already mopped the kitchen and cleaned my side of the bathroom. I refuse to become the only roommate who cleans just because I actually notice dirt, but this initial cleaning was more for my psyche than anything.

I'll take some pictures soon to show the good and the bad at my apartment. My roommates, though adverse to cleaning, are into decorating and making our apartment cute, though their taste is not always spot on. I'm happy with the cute orange curtains, but I could definitely do without the monkey and sea horse sculptures. To each his own, I guess.

Class-wise, things are looking good. Taking the pre-requisites for the accounting program is great because they actually count for something. After a year of GE's, having direction is fantastic.

I'm doing so much better than I could have hoped for. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, seeing as I've been praying for strength all summer and I know that I have many friends and loved ones praying for me as well. I know that the strength and capacity I'm feeling is not my own, and I am so grateful to be the recipient of so many blessings.