more chocolate cupcakes mmmm

I made more cupcakes for work this week! This was the best batch yet.. they were delicciousssss

I had sooo much fun making them pretty and dipping them in pink sprinkles.. I was all giggling and Eric was like, "What's going on in there?!"

I'm so glad I had people to share them with at work, otherwise I would have eaten them all!

just another day

at Hob Lob #12.


we just got this shipment of owl pots in our "Garden 2010" section, and I already bought the cutest little owl.. I almost had a fit when i walked by this aisle and saw them all set up on the shelf.. AHHhhhh so cute!

He is keeping baby Mao (who's not so baby anymore) company until I can work up the courage to kill another plant.


also, in between days of non-stop rain, we have had a few days that make me feel like I'm back in the Bay Area.. clear skies and cool, drive-with-the-windows-down, lay-in-the-grass weather. perfect.

cupcake explosions

so I wanted to make a ton of valentine cupcakes for people.. work, life group, friends, family, etc. so i got some recipes off of Bakerella and set about making some delicious fun.. the chocolate ones kind of exploded in the oven for various reasons, but the yellow-cake ones turned out pretty decent.

All of the supplies on the baking aisle in Hobby Lobby have been calling my name for a while, so I finally bought some decorating tools and had some fun!

I think they turned out pretty nice.. Atleast they look pretty even if the cake was a little dense.. I really need to work on my baking skills.

Also on Wednesday, I got to play mommy to this little guy:

I found him in wandering in the rain a few blocks from my house.. his owner was no where to be found. It was getting dark, and I was afraid his 4-pound soul would be turned into owl or coyote food, so I picked him up and brought him home. (we have one owl that stalks the neighborhood at night, he's huge! And I saw a coyote in DAYLIGHT run through my front yard the other day.. kind of scary.)

he makes Dakota look like a monster!

His dad came to claim him yesterday evening.. it was a good thing I picked him up, because he had just left for a 14-hour work shift when lil' toot (aka Nugget) had escaped.

daisy girl

lately, my days have been full of heaping bowls of chili and cornbread:

and daisy:

Recently, daisy has been completely glued to me. Everywhere I go, she's right on my heels. If I fall asleep while watching tv, she's right there next to my bed, asleep as well. This is new for me.. usually the dogs follow my mom around, so its nice to have someone follow me.. I still don't really understand why she's taken such a liking to me all of the sudden, she never did this before.. but its fun! She even tried to jump on my bed last night... she's not a jumper, and is pushing 10 years old, so she didn't quite make it, but its the thought right?

also, since she's my new best friend, she gets to try on all of the headbands I've been making for my cousin. She's such a great model, don't you think?

oh the exciting life i lead.

So, working in retail for this amount of time has been a very interesting experience. It has also been the longest I've had a job! go me.

Anyway, in the past 3-4 years, I haven't been in Texas for longer than 3 weeks. Now that I've been here for 5 months and talk to hundreds of people a day, I've noticed quite a few things I hadn't noticed before. Here are just a couple:

Besides the obvious Southern drawl and slang found in every-day communications, I've noticed a ton of people call a shopping cart a "Buggy." This is new to me. I've never in my life heard it called a buggy... I thought buggies were old baby strollers... Anyone else encounter/call it this?

The other is the number of people who belong to the Johnson Space Center Credit Union. I see a LOT of credit cards, and I was really surprised to see that JSC far outweighs the other banks and southwest credit cards. I guess this makes sense because I live like 10 minutes away from NASA, but still, NASA employs THAT MANY people?! crazy.

Also, working at the Hob Lob has allowed me to become an avid coin collector. I have only four more of the state quarters to collect, and three of the US Territories. According to my dad the DC and US Territories quarters are pretty collectible because the US mint never announced that they were going to make them and very few were actually made. I have District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Guam, and I am on the lookout for American Samoa, the Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands. I have also found so many wheat-back pennies. Among others I have a 1919 penny (the year my grandma was born), and a 1911 penny!

Due to my recent enjoyment of coin collecting, I decided to pull out this old box I have with my name written in my grandmother's handwriting. It is filled with all kinds of goodies from her travels to Europe and Africa in the 60s, and I pull it out every once in a while to look through all of the little treasures. I had forgotten about all of the stuff in there! Among postcards, slides, really rough toilet paper and old bills from Germany, Italy (Pre-Euro), England and Norway I found some $3 bills from the Republic of Texas and a few $100 Confederate States of America bills. Given they are authentic, in pretty good condition, and earn 2 cents interest every day, they are worth about $500! Thanks Granny! I don't know if they are authentic or not, since most of the bills in that time were hand-written, so I am anxiously awaiting to see if I receive tickets to the Antiques Roadshow in Biloxi, MS. Wish me luck!