Winter break hiatus

It's been a while since I've posted, but mostly because I haven't done a lot of baking. Weird, I know, but I was completely lazy during break. It was nice. Now, school starts tomorrow. Ugh.

I was supposed to go on a super fun trip this break to California. That would have been a very good reason not to bake or post. BUT our airline was completely unable to get us there. As in, sat on the plane an hour past departure time, was told to get off the plane, waited through two promised departure times, back on plane, waited for luggage loading, waited for deicing, taxied all the way to the runway and then taxied back to the gate for the second time, was told another repair would take 15 minutes, listened to them say they "lost" their mechanic, wasn't helped by any airline staffer, got off plane, discovered three other flights had taken off to where we were going, listed to them tell us they wouldn't take our luggage off of our current plane (with all our ski gear in it for the next day) and finally decided to cancel altogether. It was a trainwreck. We canceled our trip to Sacramento/Lake Tahoe/Napa/San Francisco. We got a refund for our trip, but it was still super disappointing. I didn't get to see my friends or go skiing or wine tasting or anything. So instead I went shopping and went to Melting Pot with Drew and his family to make things better.

That whole situation was super disappointing, but I guess that just means Spring Break will have to be better. We're planning on Vegas, which happens to be the cheapest option for the most fun. We're thinking of staying at the Mirage and flying Southwest, which doesn't seem to have the same kind of problems as other airlines do. I really want to go see the Beatles Love Cirque de Soleil again, and also maybe the new Elvis one. And I think I might go to the spa for the first time ever.

I also want to hit up some great restaurants. I know we'll go to Mesa Grill, but if you know of any others that are a must, let me know!

Last night there was a mini dinner party at my house. Dinner was made by Tim, and was a pepper-chicken-pasta-raspberry mustard concoction. It was quite good. I made Olive Garden breadsticks (and burnt the hell out of my arm while doing so), then got back on my cupcake kick. Martha Stewart helped me out. I made stout cupcakes. As in Guinness stout. They're very winter-y tasting, because they've got a whole bottle of Guinness in them, plus brown sugar, lots of molasses, cinnamon and nutmeg. On top, a Guinness glaze (with only two ingredients, beer and powdered sugar). I liked them well enough, but not really my style.

I also made cookies and cream cheesecakes, which are excellent. Oreo in the bottom, Oreo cheesecake mixture in cupcake papers. They're pretty awesome.

Now I just have to figure out what I'm going to do to get rid of all my food so often. I'm definitely wanting to get back to baking regularly. We'll see how much I can do between readings for homework. Ugh.

One fun thought before leaving: When I was back in Salina, I went through my grandma's old recipes and all her old stuff. That includes her wedding cake topper. Here it is, circa 1944: