Washing allergies away?

The Mr. and I got maliciously invaded by allergies the last few days. We were doing great, both happy to be done with our colds, and then WHAM ..... can't breath anymore. So off I went to Kaiser to go pick up those lovely allergy medications for us when I quickly became visually surrounded by various types of these ..
The good ol' Neti Pot. If you haven't heard of this contraption, it became increasingly popular about a year or so ago when Oprah had Dr. Oz on her showing raving and ranting about it. He had some studio audience members come up on stage, tilt their heads to the side, and basically pour some water from the pot into one of your nostrils.

Basically, the poor guests looked like this:

scary, huh?

Everything I read about Neti Pots is positive. I seriously don't think I can recall seeing one bad thing about these. They are at health stores, at pharmacys, Targets, etc. and are the new "in" thing when it comes to cleaning out the bad stuff. The good ol' Oprah effect. I never would have guessed that she could get people to consciously pour water into their noses and have it come out the other nostril, only to get everyone to fall madly in love with the product.

Here is my dilemma: I am scared of these things! I just feel like it is so odd that I'm not sure it is worth buying?

I always come up with weird little ideas and fears, over-thinking little things and constantly debating. My first thought is, what happens if you start laughing when you pour it in your nose? Do you start spraying it everywhere like a kid shooting milk out of his nose because of uncontrollable laughter? This is what I always think of when I see these things! I know that probably won't happen, but come on ... haven't you thought the same thing? (Just smile and nod people)

I just don't know if I have the guts to try this out. Then again, I feel so miserable at this point that I will probably give in. Every year around Feb/March I get terrible allergies and they usually turn into infections if I am not careful.

Has anyone else tried these little suckers? How were they?? And if you have laughing stories... please share :) Haha

He is a Good Time Cowboy Casanova

Where have I been ? I don't think I can even put my last few weeks into words that make sense, so I'll just list what has been going on instead:

- sick
-hubby became sick
-hubby got me sick again (don't you love being married?)
-successfully fought off a sinus infection before it became unbearable

-worked usually at 4:30am or 6:30am
-came home from work, napped and "restarted" my day
-school Monday through Thursday from 2-7ish
-came home, relaxed my brain by playing some computer games or catching up on my tv shows
-slept

*constant repeat*

It has been so difficult to get used to this new schedule of mine. For the past eight or so years of my life, I have been a night-owl. Go to bed at 3am? Yep. I was always the closing shift lead at Starbucks, having my hours range from getting home around 11pm to 1:15am, which would then leave wonderful room for sleeping in the next day, and then school in the afternoon before the work shift began all over again.

Now, I am changing everything up. Because I am taking credential courses at school, they are all mostly offered after 2pm and go quite late into the evening; this consequently means I needed to suck it up and finally become an opener at work. I had to some how find a way to accept the fact that my old bedtime of 3am was going to quickly become the time that my alarm would annoyingly buzz next to my ear in hopes of waking me up. This was not a fun realization...

Unfortunately I've become dependent on my naps to get me through my days. I know it probably isn't the healthiest thing to nap constantly so hopefully this will change with time. Then again, gotta do what you gotta do .... right? I also am somewhat addicted to my naps because it gives me an excuse to cuddle with this little dude of mine.
(Please ignore how terrible the photo is ... I think Kevin took that when I was exhausted from a 4:30am until 12:30pm work shift and getting ready for the nap of the day)


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Onto happier subjects!!!

So I finally began promoting my love for cupcakes. As you have probably seen in the past, I loove experimenting and just having fun baking those precious and tasty things. The fun thing? I actually had an old friend from high school/softball ask me to make her some Valentines cupcakes for her boyfriend. Totally stoked!!


And here are some others that I was experimenting with for Vday


I had so much fun doing those. I just figured ... why the heck not, you know? I think there are so many little things that we do everyday that we should all do more often. I also began to experiment with cakes and made my nephew Sean a Toy Story cake..... I'll post another update tomorrow with those photos :)

Hope everyone is doing great <3

A Summary of my Week

A Look Back

Today while watching The Cake Boss on TLC I began to have a massive craving for cupcakes. This craving then led to thinking about our wedding cupcakes .... which then led to:

Me: "Hubby? Can we get married again?"

Hubby: "...no..."

Darn it.

Needless to say, I am now thinking about our cupcake wedding cake and how much we loved it. For all of my new readers I thought that I would share it with you digitally, unfortunately not in reality..

First off, we went to this amazing cupcakery in Studio City, CA called Big Sugar Bakeshop to taste test our cupcakes. I think we tried about 8 different cupcakes, and besides feeling completely sick afterward, we were in sugar heaven.

The first cupcake that we chose to be in our cake ensemble was their Boston Cream Pie cupcake. Oh my HEAVEN. It is a vanilla cupcake with a vanilla bean pastry cream filling and chocolate ganache. Ammaazzzing

The next one we chose was just a plain chocolate cupcake with vanilla icing; we wanted something that was more simple for the picky eaters :)

And to top it all off? Big Sugar Bakeshop made us a mini cake to go on the top of our ensemble. We chose a vanilla cake with a lemon custard layer inside. Also, SO delicious.

The finished product was more amazing than we expected. Everyone loved being able to come and just grab their cupcake(s) and enjoy.

*Sigh* I miss that day :) It was truly wonderful

Here are the pictures of our wonderful cupcake wedding cake:

Cha - cha - cha - changesss!

So I changed my layout and colors once again.... I can't resist myself! I am just one of those people that becomes bored really easily: I remember growing up, once I was of age to start decorating my own room and had permission to paint my room, the world changed.

Let's see... age 16. First, there was the light blue paint that quickly enveloped my walls that showcased all of my Abercrombie & Fitch surfing pictures that were taped up onto my wall (I have to admit, looking back this was the best of them all).

Next, I decided that all four walls being a light blue was getting boring. How to fix that? Paint a palm tree on your wall! Seriously? Oh yes.

I can't even remember if my parents knew what I was up to that day. I just remember grabbing the paint cans from the garage and beginning to paint a huge palm tree on the wall. And the best part? I actually drew two coconuts on this tree, a little fantastic finishing touch that pretty much looked hilariously phallic by accident. Oops..

So about a year later, if that, the blue walls became boring once again and I was growing tired of the coconut jokes. I needed a new color that fit my senior year and my new attitude. What color fit that? A royal purple of course. I painted three walls a nice white, and then the wall behind my bed was a nice royal purple that stood out dramatically. It was perfect and was that perfect amount of extra oomph that I was craving.

Unfortunately a few months after that we moved out of our wonderful home. I always wondered what the buyers had thought of that random purple and dramatically gorgeous room... (okay the gorgeous part is a lie, but at 18 years of age, who cares right?)

So anyways, this is all basically a warning of the upcoming color and layout changes this blog will fall victim to. But hey, it is better than being boring right? Oh yes

I now realize I need to go find photos of this palm tree and share it with everyone...

Free goodies for your blog!

The lovely Shabby Blogs has their new Valentines Day layouts and goodies available, so hop on over and go grab your blog some cute decorations :)

Rainy Day Recipe

While being stuck inside yesterday during the crazy rainstorm, I became restless and wanted to bake something fun. Why not? :) Rikki Tikki and I were snuggled up most of the day in our blankets and it was time to try and be productive, so here is a fun recipe for you guys to try out on a nice rainy day!

Three Berry Pie

1 cup fresh strawberries, halved
2/3 cup white sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
2 cups raspberries
1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries
2-3 tsp fresh lemon juice
cinnamon
1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie (I used a pre-made crust instead!)

** Note: I personally used frozen berries. Just make sure you let them defrost for about half an hour before using them.
(Only takes about 20 minutes prep time and then 60 minutes cooking time)

1. In a large mixing bowl, stir together sugar,cornstarch and a splash of cinnamon. Add strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and lemon juice; gently toss until berries are coated.
2. Line a 9 inch pie plate with half of the pastry. Stir berry mixture, and transfer to the crust lined pie plate. I personally made sure to sprinkle a little bit of the white sugar and cornstarch mixture on the crust before pouring the berries inside to help it from making the crust soggy.
3. Top with second crust, and seal and crimp the edge. The recipe didn't call for it, but I brushed on a egg and water mixture (1 egg + 1/4 cup water) over the top crust before placing it in the oven. It worked out perfectly :)
4. Place a foil trim over the crust to keep it from burning!
5. Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes when using fresh fruit, 50 minutes for frozen fruit. Remove foil. Bake for an additional 20 to 30 minutes, or until the top is golden. Cool on wire rack.

and TA-DA!!!
Enjoy your treat!!
And obviously, make sure to top it off with some wonderful vanilla bean ice cream ;)