Like I mentioned at the end of last week, my cousin graduated this weekend and my mom and I took a little (~3 hours) road trip from Houston to San Antonio to celebrate.
I kissed my boys goodbye early Saturday and we headed out. The ride there was pretty uneventful. We just ran into some traffic in San Antonio because we exited a bit early. We still got there with plenty of time to get dressed up and head to the arena for a good seat. The ceremony wasn’t nearly as boring as I was expecting it to be. The class was a decent size and the speeches were inspiring.
Spot the graduate! Ha! (Get it? They’re all graduates? I only care about one, though.) Sorry, Amanda, but you looked bored throughout the whole ceremony. I SO saw you texting!
She said she made it tear-free throughout the whole shebang, but had to let them flow when she saw her mom’s. They were happy tears. We were all super happy and proud. We wouldn’t have driven 200 miles, early on a Saturday morning, if we weren’t. In four years, we’ll most likely have to do it again for this girl:
She graduates high school in a few weeks and will be attending St. Mary’s in the fall. Huzzah!
AND NOW THE HORROR!
Around 9 pm, about 100 miles outside of Houston, my mom and I pass by a stalled car and I whisper, “that sucks..” My mom agrees with an “mhmmmm…” and literally 2 seconds later, we hear a thump and feel the vibrations of our brand new flat tire. Sigh. I’m a big fat jinx. This is where I whine about not having any money in hopes that I jinx myself and get lots more! yeah! Right.
Anyway, we call my aunt (mama to the graduate) and her (and her family! with males!) are about an hour behind us. We wait there in the dark that hour. See, I have no idea how to change a tire. I would have attempted it, but it was really damn dark! There was tall grass and trees not too far off the road. I think I’ve seen too many versions of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to self-learn tire-changing in the middle of the night on a stretch of dark Texas highway. The guys had it changed up in like 5 minutes and we were off on our donut. We had to drive the speed limit the rest of the way and we didn’t get home until after 11pm. It was kind of terrible.
I’ll blog later about how my BABY spent the night without me! I’ll just say he did fabulously! Made this mama proud. I get to scratch off TWO things from my 25 before 26 list, #7 & #23.
I hope everyone had a great weekend, especially you amazing mamas!
This is the apron I made, yesterday. It’s a small round one. Terribly cute.
I’ve had this empty flower pot hanging around for a while, now. I bought it at a thrift store many moons ago. I bought two little succulents, today and I think I may transfer at least one of them to this pot. They’re my new [super duper cute] babies. When it stops raining outside, I’ll get some photos of them for you. I’ve never been much of a garden person, but the prospect of a new house, which means a backyard and just plain ol’ space has my thumb turning green (I hope). I figure the succulents are a good place to start. God willing, I’ll be able to plan a real garden, next Spring.
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! I had plans to take photos of new bookmarks, today, but the weather was not cooperative. As a lover of natural-light, I am waiting for the sun to peek out, so I can photograph them. Look for a shop update this weekend, or on Monday.
Crawling on your knees toward it
Making momma so proud
But your voice was too loud
We liked to watch you laughing
You picked the insects off plants
No time to think of consequences
#2 on my 25 before 26 list is to take a photo of me, or a part of me, once every week. my goal is to be more accepting and loving of myself.
The cupcake of the month (and maybe the year..) is Chocolate and Chilli! Again, I got the recipe from 500 Cupcakes. The batter was pretty hot and I was a little worried. Then, I ate a warm cupcake and it was kind of amazing. THEN, I made the frosting (!!) and oh my God! It was DELICIOUS! Like, all the flavors melted together and kindly left me ugghhhmmming in the kitchen for a few minutes. Yeah, I ate two cupcakes today. SUE ME!
The frosting calls for Tia Maria, a coffee liqueur. I’m sure you can find it in any liquor store, but we used it as a reason to go to our favorite liquor/specialty foods & cheeses store, Spec’s. We visit the downtown Houston location, which is a pretty big warehouse with endless amounts of beer, wine, liquor, gourmet foods, cheeses, and an awesome deli ($2.50 po-boys! get ’em! they’re amazinggg). It was pricey, but I think it’s worth it. Same goes for the dutch-process cocoa and chipotle chilli powder. These are probably the priciest homemade cupcakes I’ve ever made! But. Seriously, guys. I wish I could email them to everyone I know because I think I’m going to marry it. They were that good.
I want to share the recipe, but that might be illegal, since it’s from a book. You should probably buy it, anyway. It’s cheap and there are 500 variations of cupcakes in it. A cupcake book! Everyone loves cupcakes.
I always want seconds. That’s how I remember how to spell the word. It’s true, though. Ask my gut.
If you’re friends with me on Flickr, you probably saw this photo, last week.
#4 on my 25 before 26 list was to try a new cupcake recipe each month. I JUST made the deadline, as it was already the last day of March. I made banana cupcakes. This isn’t the first time I’ve made these, but it is the first time I’ve shared a photo of them, so I’ll count it off my list.
I’m not too big on frosting, so these were naked. The recipe (in 500 cupcakes, which was gifted to me by my awesome mother-in-law on Christmas) called for a cream cheese frosting. I think the reason I don’t usually frost my cupcakes (MUFFINS?!) is that I suck at making frosting. Maybe I should practice, this year. Perhaps by my next birthday, I’ll be able to successfully ice an entirely from-scratch cake.
Check out all the desserts entries at I ♥ Faces, this week. They will make you crave something sweet, even though it’s almost midnight, you’ve just brushed your teeth, and are all ready for bed. Perhaps that cheesecake in my fridge really did call my name, as I was walking down the hall. Perhaps…
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