Bay Area Food Bloggers Bake Sale - today!

Phew! I spent all day yesterday baking! If you're in the bay area - stop by! If you're stopping by because you saw my URL on a cupcake box - welcome!! Here are my bake sale offerings:

Lemon meringue cupcakes: Lemon vanilla cupcake with lemon curd filling and meringue frosting

 

Coconut cream cupcakes: Coconut cupcake with cococut cream pie filling, toasted meringue frosting, and coconut

Sadly, my torch gave out before I could toast all of the meringues, but I did what I could. And I learned that I can only reasonably expect to make 4 dozen good (fancy) cupcakes in an afternoon/evening, and that I should always have backup fuel for my torch! Alternately: this.

For you, self!

I've been under a lot of stress lately, much of it self-inflicted (short term stress -> long term awesomeness), but still stress nonetheless, so I decided to reward myself (for dealing with it, for bettering myself, for resisting the urge to quit my job and open a money drain, err, bakery). Along with vacation time (spent recovering and doing nonwork productive things, not actually doing vacation things), I bought myself some tulips - my favorite! how kind of you to remember! - and also some lovely things I found on the internet lately and ordered.

(Note: I'm definitely not cool enough to have sponsors - everything in this post is 100% stuff that I found, fell in love with, and bought full price for myself.)

First, my Ssekos! I found these on a random blog via craftgawker and love how versatile they are. I ordered one pair of sandals, 2 extra straps, and now I have 3 totally different pairs of shoes, each with a bazillion ways to tie them! These are definitely my go to for summer. They are comfy because I tie them to fit my foot perfectly, and they stay on better than flip flops, and I think they are super cute too. I haven't taken pictures of the silver straps on, but I love those even more than the black. *swoon*

omg, what is up with my ankles?

It is no secret that I am in love with Modcloth. I spend a ridiculous amount of money there from time to time, and my wardrobe is starting to tilt towards being comprised mostly of things from there. This month's purchases: Kapow! Boots, Whole Lot of Sole Heel, Happy Travels Dress, and Seine Saunter Socks (not pictured).

These boots are, erm, not in my normal price range. I just wanted to try them on because I loved them, but once i had them there was no turning back (with some encouragement from Tim). So I am now the proud owner of some sexy bright red leather boots.

The shoes! *swoon* They are definitely something 6th grade me would have loved (I was all about the 60s), but 7th grade through a year ago me would have rejected as silly and impractical. I'm glad my adventurous side is coming back. I do kind of almost die when I try to walk around in them, but I'm learning! I love the dress, too, although it is perhaps a bit short for work. The skirt is so full and fun to twirl in, though!

New things are not the most important things in the world, but I do know that I'm really fortunate to have a job that allows me treat myself every once in awhile. It really did brighten up my weekend to have a new few things to try on and wear out!

After another long disappearance...

Hellloooooo readers! Have you all run away since I have been the absolute worst at posting? Let's do a big combo update post, shall we?

1. Bakesale plug
2. Life updates (woooo) + plans for the blog
3. An outfit post (scroll down if you're just here for pictures and not words)

Bakesale

If you're in the SF area, stop by this coming Saturday and buy some baked goods made by me or many more talented food bloggers from the bay area (hint: there are a lot of them). Or, if you're not from around here, see if there is one in your area (sorry, looks like Tennessee isn't feeling the love). I'm hoping to make some pie-themed cupcakes (lemon meringue, coconut cream... maybe a third option if I'm feeling overly ambitious!) - I'll post an update about that later, hopefully before the sale. I am hosting a party later that day and won't be able to stick around and sell the baked goods, alas, but they'll be there for your consumption!

Updates!

Obviously not much happening for me in the blog world these days, but real life continues to be exciting and crazy. Work was really not doing it for me (pay and job security are/were fine, but no sense of satisfaction) so I recently switched teams, and now I'm taking a week and a half off to pump myself up for the new stuff I'll be doing. I'm hopeful and mostly excited, but also still a little burnt out and hoping that clears up by the time my vacation days run low. I'm also still figuring a lot of things out in my personal life, which is good but tiring and sometimes (often) stressful. In my free time (and even on my new team at work) I'm planning on getting a little more into web development and some UI/frontend work, so I hope to finally give this blog a facelift soon, to get some practice. I also have a huge backlog of food/recipe posts to share - it'd be nice to get back in the habit of posting those when I find a few free minutes! This is probably all rather boring, but if you know me in real life you might care, and honestly it's all a pretty big deal to me, so there you go :)

Oooh, pictures

Outfit! It got super hot here in the bay area last weekend, so I busted out the shorts and my brand new Ssekos sandals! Seriously, love these shoes.

A couple of self-portraits featuring my lovely cozy bedroom and palm-tree-shaded spring sunshine.

 

shorts, lacy tank: Express; black shirt: Gap; necklace: Delia's?? from my childhood; watch: Target; sandals: Ssekos

Yay, photography by Tim, thanks dear! Also thanks for remembering that I wanted to take photos before it got completely dark out (the blur in some of these is due to setting sun darkness).