My new iPod nano

Wahoo! My Tootie got me an iPod Nano for Christmas. That was something I initially wanted for my birthday but changed my mind when I realized having my own digital camera was more beneficial. Well, my sweet husband went and got me the iPod for Christmas. So I've been spending the day putting music on it and then I discovered the iTunes store. I've already bought two TV episodes (Numbers and NCIS) for 99 cents each. I really need to not go into the iTunes store too much or there may be some trouble!

(The purple one's mine!)

A great rendition of "12 days of Christmas"

Merry Christmas everyone!

My cupcake craze

When I returned from Spain this summer I had about 2 weeks of no set plans and things to do before having to go back into the classroom. I'm not sure how it started but I began baking cupcakes. It's about 3 months later and I'm still going nuts over it. Here is the list of cupcakes I have already experimented with:

1. Chocolate, chocolate chip: Ray's ultimate favorite. This is one of my cupcakes not made from scratch. I've switched from a milk chocolate cake mix to a dark chocolate cake mix and I use dark chocolate chips. I LOVE dark chocolate. Plus, I have a secret ingredient that helps me to make it extra moist. Only a few are aware of this secret ingredient. Bwahahahah.......

2. Coconut: Made from scratch, I got this recipe off one of the couple of cooking/baking sites I frequent. It's a bit dense and being the novice I'm not sure what to do to make it fluffier. The only modification I did was add shredded coconut on the top while it's baking so you get this nice toasted coconut topping. Gives it more texture.

3. Vanilla Almond Cherry: Made from scratch except for one ingredient. This was a favorite but is somewhat labor intensive.

4. Pumpkin Creamcheese: I made this for a Halloween dinner and it was a hit. I think the pecan graham crust made the difference even though I burned a lot of the pecans when toasting it! The frosting was well-received too since it was light AND was made with Splenda.

5. Chocolate chip zucchini: Ray and I give it an "Eh" vote. A little dry so maybe next time I'll use my secret ingredient.

6. Strawberry: I made this for my cousin's fiance's birthday since he loves strawberries. It was a hit with him so mission accomplished! I'm glad since I rushed making it. I bet it would be even better if I took care to do it right!

I should take pictures to make this more interesting.........

Control your dog, PLEASE

Your dog is very cute. With her floppy ears and that adorable face. I sit there and watch as your dog sniffs mine. Pretty standard. It's a dog park so I know my dog will be sniffed. I watch as your dog runs around looking oh so cute. I watch as your dog barks at mine's. Whatever. My dog's guilty of that. And then, I watch as your damn dog starts barking aggressively and then starts chasing my dog and trying to bite him! Awwww bitch you better control your damn dog! Did you apologize? Nope. You just made stupid excuses.

When you decided to put your dog on the large dog area I thought, "Ok, maybe that's her way of making it right." Not even five minutes go by and your dog is doing the exact same thing but this time it's with bigger dogs so she's being trampled. So after that incident did you decide leave? Nope. You FRICKIN' come back to the little dog area!

So now I'm watching your dog like a hawk. More dogs begin coming to the park and I thought, "Great, distractions." So your dog goes off and plays with the other dogs including constantly taking another dog's chew toy away from it. And then, surprise surprise, 15 min. later your damn dog gets into a fight with ANOTHER dog!

In the end your uncontrolled dog has started fights or attacked four separate dogs and it jumped up and down on a little girl who could be no more than 3 or 4 y/o because it wanted the girl's toy. And what is your method? To just continue to yell and scream at your dog, hold her on her back for a long period of time, and to make excuses. I pray that you don't have children.