My new hiking boots

I decided that I'll work in chronological order, to publish all the things I've been accumulating this past week.

Ever since I bought my new hiking boots (squeee!) I've been raring to go on a hike and start breaking them in, and three weeks later, the opportunity finally presented itself. My schedule and the boyfriend's never seemed to match up, and I generally prefer to go with someone. And very few people I know seem to be as über-excited about hiking as me, or the boyfriend. Also, life is full of stuff to do, so hiking was tossed onto the back-burner for a little while.

But last Sunday, we finally got our hike on. And it was marvelous. The weather cooperated, it was cloudy but no pouring of rain happened, and partway through the day the sun came out. Temperature was perfect as well - just right for a vigorous walk. We might have over-done it, just slightly, as we set out around 1 and got back after 7. . . And boy my legs and feet were tired. Not sore though - those boots I chose were a pretty smart investment. I have to get used to how rigid the sole is, and after 4 hours or so, I started to notice a little bit of chaffing on my left ankle. But how many shoes can you say that about? I think these will work out pretty darn well.

Now, photos!!!

I love how my city has these hidden pocket of semi-wilderness. During the hike, every so often I completely forgot that I was in the middle of a really big city, full of lots and lots of people. We might not have easy access to purple mountain majesty or wild and untamed forest, but a 10 minute walk from the boyfriend's apartment and we were urban hiking. I have no excuses for the quality of the river - there are many beautiful waterways on this continent, and this is not one of them. Though it is apparently a whole lot cleaner than 100 years ago, so that's some progress. I guess :(

______________________________________

And now that that's done (I really hate the brute force photo uploader you have, Blogger. . . No customization options?? Lame), I'm going to go to sleep - it's been a loooong day, and I never had that nap I wanted.

But now there are four more blog posts soon to be coming your way, with a third completely new baking project coming up this lovely long weekend. Another new recipe from Smitten Kitchen, of course. Awesome!!

Stay beautiful, Mother Nature, and I hope you're having a wonderful long weekend, Dear Internet.

I've been remiss

Oh, Dear Internet, where does the time go?

I was going to post yesterday, I had it all planned, but then I decided to take a quick nap first. And woke up at midnight.

In addition to having missed my intended blogging, I also missed a friend's band that was playing in town. Sucksorious. Bad friend alert. . .

On a completely random note, I did get around to doing my fingernails, a couple of nights ago.

not so awesome . . .

Toes are easy - you make a big mess, and then fix it in the shower the next day. Fingernails are stupidly difficult. Especially if you suddenly have to go to the washroom while the polish is drying. . . Wheee. In a few minutes, I will be (for the third time) attempting to fix this mess. At least it's only three nails this time. I think it's due to the fact that you never don't need to be using your hands for something. I'm a genius, right? 

<crickets chirp> 

Sigh.

And now, for something completely different! Random fact about me, your humble blogger: I eat my apples kinda funny. I always, sometimes consciously and sometimes not, end up with a kind of sine wave in my apple. Look!

wheee! though, it might
be a cosine wave. . .

I never said I wasn't an enormous nerd :)

And now for the more interesting part of this post - I have two (count them, two!) new bakings to share with you in the very near future. I need to go to bed now (because obviously something needs to be fixed in my circadian rhythm), but I'll leave you with a little taste of what's to come.

awwww :(  sad not-quite-strawberries

That's right - one of these recipes will include strawberries. Though, luckily, the companions of these guys were rather less pathetic.

Quarter teaspoon?? Hah!

And the second recipe uses rather more cinnamon than the original required. Cause I loves me some cinnamon (seriously - I have eaten some straight from the jar, and chewed a stick left over from hot cider. The boyfriend thinks this is crazy, but I don't see why). In addition to the baked goods, I still need to upload my hike photos to share with you, so that's three whole new posts coming your way, sometime in the near future! Awesome!!

If you're paying attention (and what are the odds?), you'll notice that the quality of the photos still isn't so stellar. Partly from the fact that it's hard to take pictures of things your doing while you're doing them, and partly because camera phones aren't too amazing. I might have my actual camera back, but with no cable, I can't share any photos I took. So I opted for convenience over quality. Not that my photos will be much better when I start using the real camera. . .

I have a crazy-busy weekend lined up (yay long weekend!!), so I can't guarantee exactly when these new posts will be emerging, but I hope to have them all up by the end of the weekend - especially once I've found my camera cable in the mire that is the boyfriend's cave of an apartment. I hope you have a marvelous July long weekend, Dear Internet! I'm certainly looking forward to sleeping in (that is, getting up at 8 instead of 5:30. . . AM. . .), and maybe even having a nice nap in my hammock. If the weather co-operates.

Stupid Mondays. . .

Okay, Dear Internet,  do you have any ideas on how to make Mondays not always suck?

While nothing majorly bad happened today, a serious of unfortunate events (mostly due to oversight/dumbitude on my part - and thanks to the boyfriend for that word. . .) have made my Monday not so awesome. Not that Mondays tend to be particularly amazing, but generally you don't want to hide under your covers until it's at least Thursday by the time you get home. Well, for me anyway - I can't really speak for the bulk of humanity on that one.

First off, I tried another of those tasty cupcakes I made this passed Saturday, but this time I forgot to immediately consume Advil. I'd completely forgotten about the espresso powder that is in this recipe. And coffee products are the one thing (that I've come across, so far <crossing fingers>) that give me migraines. Luckily the amount of espresso in each cupcake must be very minimal, nonetheless I spent the day fighting a different-than-usual terrible headache, wondering what had caused it. Duh. 

Which means that I'm in no shape to go spinning tonight with my friend. Mope. And my phone just reminded me it was time to go to spin class. Thanks, phone. . . This is especially annoying because our schedules are so opposed this week that we won't be able to meet up until after the long weekend. Which actually means that we won't have been able to get a spin or body combat class in together for a couple weeks now . . . Oh well.

In addition, I went on a lovely long (over 4 hours) hike with the boyfriend yesterday afternoon - it was the perfect day for hiking, and I took a huge number of photos that I want to share with you, so I took back my camera finally. Completely forgetting that there is a second piece of equipment needed to actually put the images onto my computer. And that piece of equipment is still buried somewhere on the boyfriend's desk. So no hike photos for you, The Internet. You'll have to wait. 

Nothing much else happened, especially since the headache caused an infernal listlessness that made motivating myself at work rather harder than usual. So my list of recipes-I-need-to-try has increased yet again (damn you, Smitten Kitchen!)

So here's a picture of puppies I found on the internets. Cause puppies are always the answer.

source: Siberian Husky Dogs Canada

And now I want a puppy.

This Week in Baking, part 2

I also made the chocolate soufflé cupcakes with white chocolate cream for a baseball/birthday party that was supposed to happen this afternoon. But with the crazy (and changeable) weather, people dropping out, etc., it was decided in the end to post-pone the game. 

So now I have a few dozen chocolate soufflé cupcakes sitting around, waiting to be delivered to the birthday boy. . .

But here are some pretty pictures to peruse!

whisking the chocolate

more whisking. . .

creaming the egg yolks and sugar

combining the two

so beautiful. . . sniff!

action shot!

blended

whipping the whites

like, 5 seconds later

and 10 seconds after that. . .

adding the sugar

stiffish peaks

folding in the whites

gentle!

pretty icebergs of whites in a
sea of chocolate goodness

all combined!

filling the paper thingies
messily. . .

baked!!

 

mmmmmm. . .

whipping the white chocolate
mint cream. Also mmmm

I had to try one, with the cream (you spoon a nice amount into the little depression in the top of the cupcakes). . . Veeeeeeeerrrrrrryyyyyy tasty! I definitely recommend this recipe. I also learned that lactose-free whipping cream works exactly the same as regular whipping cream, and tastes just the same. Lactose-Intolerant Dairy-Product Lovers of the World Unite! In rejoicing!

And please, continue to ignore the crappy alignment - this is a template that apparently has no idea of how to deal with the idea of side-by-side photos. . . 

So, Dear Internet, want to try some cupcakes?