Another donut!

I got another donut at Psycho Donuts!

"Kooky Monster

This Psycho favorite is topped with
crushed Oreo® cookies & will leave
you all googley eyed & wanting
MORE !!!"

The bright blue drizzle immediately caught my eye, and who doesn't love Oreos? This place seriously has the most creative donut toppings.

I'm going to San Francisco tomorrow to check out the Mission District. My buddy and I are going to check out a cool sandwich place I heard about from one of the other blogs I read. Stay tuned!

The most beautiful donut in the world.

This is it.

"Strawberry Fields

Something to get hung about!
Strawberry icing, freeze-dried
strawberries & Pocky Stick, it
should be on our menu forever."

A buddy and I went to Psycho Donuts tonight after dinner. It's this awesome, funky little donut shop that's open until midnight, right next to a comedy club. They have amazing looking specialty espresso drinks, too. One of these days maybe I'll get to the light rail station super early so I have time to grab one before work.

So, that was the highlight of my night. Have you ever seen a donut more fantastic?

St. Patrick's Day!

I'm really on a roll here with updating my blog. The St. Patrick's Day cupcakes are done so I thought I'd post a picture before they get eaten and I get too busy to bake something for a while until maybe the next holiday.

A cupcake is a cupcake, as long as they're baked properly, and I used a somewhat fudgy recipe, which is actually what I prefer, rather than something that's too dry. Maybe they just turned out this way because I cut down the sugar by half a cup, used soymilk and also Ghiradelli hot chocolate powder instead of unsweetened cocoa powder. My coworkers are sure to love them.

I'm sure you've noticed that I added a fun new feature to my blog. As a future librarian, I couldn't help adding "tags" to each blog post so that most posts are now in categories: "cupcakes," "holiday," "pasta," "travel," "cute party foods,""cookies,"and "cakes." I may come up with more categories over time, if more subjects present themselves.

And now, for something somewhat different....

This post is about neither food not travel. Well, time travel, kind of, because these are pictures from the past. Pictures of me that I thought would be fun to share. :)

This is me at Bridal Veil Falls in Provo, Utah last summer. It's a very pretty waterfall.

This is me as a hippie at a Halloween college party a few years ago. Fun times!

This is me on my first day of Brownies. I think I was in maybe 2nd grade.

This is my sister and I when she was a baby. I must have been about five in this picture. I liked making silly faces, haha.

Well, that was a nice little trip down memory lane, wasn't it? :)

More Weekend Fun

Last weekend, I went to Santa Cruz with some friends, and it was great fun. We went to Natural Bridges Beach, and then walked around the shops downtown for a little while, getting dinner at a neat Mexican food place with high mission-style ceilings, then dessert at Marini's Downtown.

There were little tide pools all over the rocks, with sea anenomes and mussles. So pretty!

The tide started coming in while we were there, too. While we were walking on the rocks, we had to be careful not to get hit by the waves! That wouldn't have been so bad, we just didn't want to get our clothes wet, haha.

It's really a very pretty beach. All kinds of people were there just walking around the rocks, or relaxing and listening to music with some beers. It definitely had that "college town" vibe, as UC Santa Cruz is nearby.

It was a real adventure to think of ways to get across the rocks-- climbing along the sides, or just jumping down and climbing up the next rock.

This has got to be the most lovely hot chocolate I have ever had. Leave it to a candy/specialty store to make a pretty hot chocolate, with extra features you wouldn't expect. The chocolate shavings ontop and the fudge tucked at the side were so fun. It tasted delicious, too!

So, that was last weekend... this weekend I have just gone grocery shopping, relaxed and did homework, but I may go out later on tonight. Hope everyone has a good week!

San Francisco Again

So last weekend I had a little day trip to San Francisco.. and it was really nice. I got to hang out with a couple of my friends and a couple more of their friends, and the five of us got dim sum at Imperial Palace Restaurant in Chinatown. We sat down and they brought the dim sum out to us in little bamboo baskets, and we must have had at least ten different kinds. Pork buns, shrimp dumplings, veggie dumplings, little taro squares, sesame balls, something with egg custard inside... it was everything I hoped it would be. I was so hungry I just wanted to try everything, and I didn't take any pictures, but just google "dim sum" images and you'll see what the beautiful world of dim sum is all about.

After lunch, we looked around at some little shops. I got two very pretty, soft scarves at a little shop I spotted before we went to lunch. They're made out of pashmina and silk, and I've been wearing one or the other to work every day. One is blue and gold, and the other is pink and magenta. They come in every color you could imagine, so I might get a couple more next time I go. They're so soft and light, yet keep me quite warm. Perhaps I'll wear one in a picture in one of my future entries.

Anyway, we also paid a visit to the Fortune Cookie Factory, which is inconspicuously hidden down this little alley. There, you can buy bags of fortune cookies, and even watch this lady make the fortune cookies. The cookies are cooked on this sort of rotating belt, and the lady peels them off their little irons and slips a fortune inside, and bends the cookie together before it hardens. There are even chocolate fortune cookies.

Before leaving Chinatown, we got some bubble tea, and hung out at a little park to rest. At the park, there were a whole bunch of people-- old and young, just enjoying the sunny day. Some people were even doing group Tai Chi, and there was this pretty oriental music playing. This is why I love San Francisco, it just breathes with such life and energy.

 Chinatown is so colorful, too. There are always pretty red paper lanterns hanging along the street.

We met up with my sister and her boyfriend at Blue Bottle Coffee Company, and my friends enjoyed some coffee before they left. I got the brew of the day, Giant Steps. They have more than enough to say about it on the website, and I'll just say it wasn't anything less than what I was expecting. Blue Bottle is huge in San Francisco, there is often a line out the door. My sister got a New Orleans style iced coffee, which was also quite good.

The Mint Plaza location, where we went, is unique to some of the others in the city, because it has a bunch of fancy coffee machinery. One thing they're very proud of is their siphon bar. I'm not exactly sure how it works, but it's very pretty.

 After coffee, we headed over to the Westin Hotel, which boasts 32 stories and is said to be one of the tallest buildings in San Francisco. Passers-by can go up an elevator and view the city from the very top floor.

Everything just looked so peaceful from up there. It was so quiet, too. My ears were popping a bit because of the elevation. Just imagine what it would be like to stay in that hotel!

Walking around throughout the day, I saw several pretty murals. I guess that's a thing in the bay area, cool murals everywhere. Here are some of them.

After walking around a bit, we went and got some pizza for dinner, went to a record & CD store, and went to H&M, my new favorite clothing store, where I found some cardigans for work. Then we parted ways and I looked back happily upon a great day.