Watkins Glen Park Pics and NC Part Two

welcome back! so today is day two in the lovely outer banks, and i am still working on the whole "stop doing everything pipe the fuck down and relax" thing, having a little success. after i am done here, a few of us are about to go get some fruits and veggies from a local farmers market! i am going to make some strawberry cream pies and salsa later.

this picture here, i totally stood up out of the window on the chesapeake bay bridge sunday morning. that would be all three of our cars! of course, the front running me and my obnoxiously epic hair. i should have let it down to blow in the wind, but that's okay.  :P

anyway, we didn't do a whole lot yesterday, mostly the adventure consisted of walking to duck donuts (which was a little farther than i thought), got some donuts, walked back, went for a swim in the pool, then hit up food lion to collect our dinners (mostly) for the week. i am seriously getting the feeling that i am always going to be mom, yelling at everyone to get in line and get back together and stuff. at least i'm good at what i do.

so! here are a few pictures from watkins glen state park! i will post a couple more pictures from the beach at the end, but i will have more tomorrow!

these, of course, are just a few pictures from the day. we walked about 5 miles or something, and spent about 3 hours here going through two of the trails. all the while, being so close to watkins glen race track, we could hear the sounds of the porsches racing around the track. at one point we were pretty far away so it got quiet, but it was a nice walk and all.

we saw these little guys on the trail, too! the one in front, i actually moved near the fence. he was in the middle of the path, and i thought he was a toy at first! i picked him up with a leaf, just so he wouldn't get stepped on by other people not paying attention, and i wasn't sure if he was poisonous or not, since that would be my luck, having a weird reaction to picking up a strange lizard in a park.

i would like to go back again sometime. it was a nice area, and would be worth the couple hour drive to spend the day down there!

meanwhile, back in outer banks..... ☺

here are a couple pictures from yesterday!

 aren't picture days neat? the house we are staying in is called yellowbird. the pictures never do any of these places justice. they're all so nice! and the more people we bring along, the fancier they get. there are some pretty big houses in this neighborhood. it's like being rich for a week, except we aren't. the area is awesome though, at one end of the block, we can walk down to the soundside and see some awesome sunsets (second picture), and on the other side, after crossing the road, the ocean is a short 10 minute walk away! i made it a point to go out there yesterday after dinner, since we didn't make it the first night. it is something magical. the ocean breeze, the sound of the waves crashing on the shore....even the smell of the ocean in the air. it is so soothing. to be able to be this close, even for such a short amount of time, is truly great.

anyway, i have more adventures in the works for today, so i am off! come back tomorrow for more! thanks for reading!! ♥

Welcome Back from NC!

oh my goodness it has been too long since i've added any new posts lately. more-so than ever, i feel like the month of june was just non stop the entire time. between rally weekend, rons birthday (and other events) work, and more, i have felt like i've been surrounded by chaos. counting down to vacation didn't help! :o

so let's see, where to start? i have a couple cakes i can share, i haven't shared watkins glen state park, and now i'm on vacation....

LET'S START HERE. ^_^

we went strawberry picking a few weeks into june, and i found a strawberry that had quite literally grown a set. i did not pick it. i decided to let it be and continue to grow because everyone needs a nice set now and then. :p

....vacation is already making me more pleasant. especially after finally sleeping after two nights! #vacationdoingitsjob

you know what else is doing it's job? this.

I'M FUCKIN' BACK! ☺☺☺☺☺

i did it. june 30th, i became a real person again. how many people quite literally screech with delight when applying pink dye to their bleached hair? this guy did. i missed it. people at work (customers who have known me for a while, that is) missed it. friends missed it. do you know how many people told me "it's the real you!" or "you're back!"? it is amazing. even more amazing is the fact that people notice how hard i work, and when i told many of them (mostly customers) that i was going away, their first response was "but you can't leave! this place needs you/won't be the same!" followed by "oh vacation? if anyone deserves it, it's you. go enjoy yourself." it's almost a little overwhelming to know that people pay attention to these things. i just do what i gotta do, and never think twice about what people think of me, but it makes me happy to know that people see me that way, and if i can bring some kind of joy to them, then my job is done. so to anyone out there reading this, thank you for your appreciation! ♥♥♥

okay. got the hair. let's go with a june catch up, and then tomorrow i will post about vacation. i got up at 6:15am, so i am thinking this week imma do a week long post of things to make up for not posting in like two months. ☺

i went with a somewhat normal cake for ron's birthday this year, but i think it is one of my new favorite cakes. it is another from my "all cakes considered" book: aunt di's bittersweet chocolate cake. it is a yellow whipped cream cake with a dark fudgy chocolate frosting. i'll have to use a little less milk next time, i had to add an excessive amount of powdered sugar, but it was fucking delicious. when i say this is my new favorite cake, i seriously mean it. the frosting made it.

we went to green lakes for the day and grilled, then came back and had cake and played cards against humanity for the night. that saturday, we went bowling because people couldn't make it on tuesday, and because he loves to bowl.

i had a second cake i worked on that weekend as well.

it is always hard to tell in pictures, but it is a mint green with black music notes and designs. there are black roses on top. this was for heather's niece. these kids and their birthdays and stuff.

i made muffins with some of the strawberries we picked, too! that was breakfast for the week. i made strawberry syrup another day for some pancakes, and that was a great day. because strawberries and pancakes are win.

the last week i have been stressing over getting ready for vacation. it was quite literally a rollercoaster of emotions all week long. the last few days were more depressing than anything. i have been feeling depressed for a little while now, but it almost maxed out in those last 48 hours for some reason. i guess just having a lot on your mind can do that to you.

BUT. vacation is now. that is all that matters.

note this fancy graph i made explaining the relationship between the amount of time until vacation versus the number of fucks given. (notice also that the number of fucks given starts at zero, and goes into the negative, since there are no fucks to be given to begin with.)

alright! well that i think is most of june in a nutshell. i will do watkins glen another day, since i have a bunch of pictures from that on it's own. we are about to go get donuts, though, from one of my favorite places in the area: duck donuts! that is one more thing that i have been waiting for though the last week. because donuts.

beach should be in the works for today! hooray for vacation!! check back soon. thanks for reading! :)

Angel Food Cake and Rally Races

sigh. so how was everybody's weekend? had some decent weather, but now it's back to rain. i went camping and got sick so i'm here drinking tea (earlier) and eating fudge pops (currently) to soothe my throat. buuut that's what i get for bringing half a tent and no blankets.

true story. we got an hour from home and realized we had no blankets, and when we got there, went to put up the tent and didn't have a rain guard. we had to buy a tarp and a blanket, and then i attached some trash bags to the sides of the tent where the tarp didn't reach to keep the rain out. i spent enough money, i didn't want to buy more stuff for a one time use.

it did the trick, though, and kept the rain out on the second night. it was pretty chilly at night though, but oh well. there was fire and smores to be had. after we packed up, we stopped at watkins glen state park and walked the trails there, and then grilled dinner at a random rest area (people do that, right? we did).

before we left, i made an angel food cake! of course, i have no strawberries, and only had a little whipped cream to put with it, so half of it is still sitting. i don't mind it plain. everyone else though, not so much.

i thought it was burning while it was baking, but it turned out okay. both times i have made this recipe, the same thing has happened. i gotta figure something out. maybe a lower temperature or something. this is another recipe from melissa gray's "all cakes considered," and it calls for the oven to be at 375, and to bake for 30-40 minutes. mine was getting slightly dark and done in like 20 minutes. i am confused.

i made some blender salsa too....because salsa is good while camping, right?

everything is so brightly colored when i throw it all into the blender. then, it's like magic. except the part where i attempted to remove the seeds from the jalapeno, because my thumb was burning all weekend long. under my thumb nail, to make it worse. because i am smart, chopping without gloves.

anyway.....


after forgetting half of our stuff at home, we got to wellsboro (pa) around 1230-ish and saw all the cars in their completed, pre-rally wrecked forms before the races began. there was a jump stage that they went to, but during that time is when we checked in and bought our "supplies" to keep warm and dry. we came back in time to hit up the super special stage at the tioga county fairgrounds, where they had the double track.

higgins and drew's subaru

favorite car of the weekend- because art. roberts and gelsomino

go toyota! lol. rally rav4

for  some reason, we were struggling with the camera for a bit. i haven't used it in a while, but i shouldn't have been that dumb. maybe i need more rest than i let on, and it's making me dumb.

the next morning we returned to the green (in downtown wellsboro) to see all the cars off again. i learned things this weekend. the rally cars have to be street legal so they can drive them between stages.

before we left, i got up early and grilled breakfast. best morning ever.

after leaving here, we drove an hour south into the woods somewhere, probably on a mountain, on a bunch of dirt roads to one of the forest stages. these stages were free! yay free!! (minus the gas money.)

there were two different forest stages we went to. we got all of our walking in for the day, i'll say that much! the first one we walked a mile and a half to get to. after several cars, they ended up cancelling the last few because someone wrecked and set a tree on fire on the track.

the second one was the hour drive. we made it early enough to catch all the remaining cars make it through. i took videos of these and saved this still from one of them. i may go back through and take some more, but right now i am feeling rather icky and lacking concentration. how i've made it this far is beyond me.

after a day of racing, everyone is missing parts. #nobumper #rallyprius

'murica truck! second favorite car

...and then he rolled.

this freakin truck though. not only was it super loud, but in his last lap, he rolled his truck. this guy was going up against a porsche, and winning, and then he nailed the embankment and the cone. the guy got out of his truck and took his flag and crossed the finish line on foot, then returned to his truck and drove it across the line after they had righted it. that was a good run.

okay. i think that about covers all the pictures i pulled for now. maybe next time i will post watkins glen and some more stuff. i can't concentrate anymore, so i hope you enjoyed the pictures today. thanks for reading!

All the Chocolate Things

chocolate can be good for your teeth, too, right? at least when it's a big congratulations cake for graduating as a dental hygenist!

just be sure to brush and floss when you're done. ☺

sigh. what a long week it has been. once again, i am in one of those phases where i feel like i am constantly trying to recover from something, even though i had nothing much to do. i mean, maybe a couple late nights, but nothing out of the ordinary.

this cake came up last week for a friend of my mom's. it was big and heavy, but i am pretty satisfied with the way it turned out.

it is a chocolate cake with whipped cream icing. i have this recipe for stabilized whipped cream frosting that includes cream cheese. it is like magic.

(i love the way the teeth border turned out here, btw.)

it also goes great on chocolate with oreos, for a fabulous cookies and cream theme.

yay cupcakes! it piped out pretty well, but i guess the cookies could have been processed a little more so they would pipe easier. i had to switch piping tips because it clogged the end of my large star (hence the weird wobbly appearance of those). these were the same basic hershey's cupcake recipe i always use, plus some cookies crumbled into the mix. have i mentioned how much i love that recipe? it is so versatile!

sigh. otherwise, i am just working working working all day long. tried to run today, but it was way too warm, even at 9:30am; i supposed it was expected when the forecast was to be 92 degrees today. i am waiting now to get ready for work. again. because in the land of retail, nobody believes in a weekend off....even if other people get them. maybe it's just me.

next weekend ron and i are going to a rally event in wellsboro, pennsylvania. it should be pretty neat. we are camping out for the weekend, too. i haven't been camping in a while, so i am pretty excited for that. i won't even lie, mostly for the s'mores. i am a goddamn s'mores fiend.

on wednesday, we drove up to watertown to get his car serviced, too. it was another nice day, so we went out walking a whole bunch, stopped off at sandy beach island state park, and walked some more at green lakes when we got home. i am so glad the nice weather is here, even if it makes me wish these next 42 days would pass faster so i can get to vacation sooner.

i can't believe it is going to be june in a couple of days. holy crap. ron's birthday is next month, this rally thing, i have a wedding to go to, but mostly i just need to rack up deez hours to get some mad money for vacation! it is almost painful to wait so long. BUT....i keep reminding myself that i've been counting down since like 158 days, so 42 is awesome. it is also the answer to everything, but that is another story.

i feel like i have so many things to do, but not really. it will hopefully all work out in the end. anyway, i will leave you with more door art, and with any luck, will have some more treats next week. thanks for reading! happy (almost) summer!