Delicious Cupcakes

Has the cupcake-bakery phenomenon hit your town yet? This seems to be a growing trend in Austin, and I like it!

We tried one place down on South Congress a few months ago (they make cupcakes & serve them out on an old airstream trailer). Today, I tried another: Cupprimo - which is located just down the street from my office in a little strip mall (just a few doors down from Sambet's - excellent for Cajun). It was wonderful -- I had a white chocolate mocha (which was sweet-but-not-too-sweet, not at all bitter, and had ample whipped cream which I love), and a double-chocolate cupcake. It had excellent frosting and was just really well done. Top it off that I was served by a woman I know from church. Far friendlier place to get a cup of coffee than the local Starbucks.

It's a little strange, admittedly, to have a coffee shop & bakery specializing in cupcakes, but I like it. Cupcakes are small enough that you don't feel stuffed or guilty afterward, but instead are just nicely satisfied.

Way Too Hot

Just to let it be known that it's WAY TOO HOT outside right now! I got out of the office (needed a break from the huge project I'm working on) and did a little shopping (when my brain feels broken as it did this afternoon, shopping somehow is a good escape). I nearly melted on my way from the car to the stores. Ugh. If this keeps up, we're in for a very long summer. Today's high at the weather station near me was 103 degrees at 5pm, and it only got down to 79 overnight.

Normally, we can count on it being comfortable, temperature-speaking, until we get back from Cornerstone (typically with tons of rain here while we're on the trip). The heat doesn't usually get unbearable to me until late July or August. Not so this year.

Anyhow, better get back to the huge project. I'll explain more what that is someday. :)

Lists

Things to Try:

• Pie-in-a-jar. Maybe this is a way to make pie and not pig out on it all ourselves (or have it turn nasty before it can be consumed).
• Revised iPhone. Of course, I've heard nothing about the monthly fee for data-transfer being reduced, so I can't see myself getting this anytime soon, but I do like how things are improving.
• Sunrise or just visiting Haleakala in Maui. We heard from some friends who had been there for sunrise recently - sounds like something I may want to do (after all) if we do wind up in Maui for our fall vacation. I had written it off thinking that a) it would require us to pack too many odd clothes and b) we'd have to get up too early. But, I think there are ways around both problems.

Looking forward to on the road to Cornerstone:

• Cardinals vs. Mets on June 30th. We're looking at tickets to catch a game on our way to Cornerstone.
• Family Force 5's new ep. Need to buy that and get it onto the iPod before the trip.
  
• James Brownie Funky Jackhammer. To the good folks at Andy's Frozen Custard in Springfield, Missouri (next to the Fazzoli's and the questionable-looking motel): get ready! We'll be visiting you soon and I know you'll need to make at least one of these.
• Just not being at work! Matt's been working a ton lately. He got to experience what his office looks like at 3:30am one day last week (not the first time he's done that, but the first time in a while). We're both really looking forward to a vacation. I haven't been working as many hours, but I'm still pretty tired and wanting vacation, too.
  

Liking:

• Mountain Dew Supernova. It's strawberry flavored energy-enhanced dew. I never thought I'd try an energy drink (and I kinda doubt that real energy drink enthusiasts would count a bit of ginseng as a real energy drink), but I like the flavor. I wish they sold Caffeine Free Dew here in Texas, but I haven't seen it in years (I wonder if it's available at all anymore). I also enjoy that both Rudy's (at least the Austin franchisee) and Mighty Fine Burgers has Mello Yello on tap. I never used to be able to get that in Austin.
  
• When We Left Earth. As mentioned previously, we enjoyed the first 2-hour installment and looking forward to next weekend's episode. We're 3-hours behind on Battlestar Galactica and still have the entire set of The War to watch -- so why not add another 12-hour set to the tivo?
• Getting a CD of wedding photos from Steve & Sara. A couple of those may be printed to replace a few outdated photos from around the house.

Not Liking:

• American Airline's new baggage policy. In the last 15 months, I think American has "delayed" my baggage more times than they've gotten it to arrive on time. They've also messed up a day of my Hawaiian vacation by late crew and generally not been the most friendly people to deal with (compared to Continental, for instance, which has given us quite good service lately). It's hard for me to justify an extra baggage fee when I don't have anymore confidence they'll actually get the bag to me than past record shows. And yes, I know they need to find ways to make money like anybody else, but there are other ways to do that! I think the unintended consequences of this new plan will be major. (I can see it now - waiting in line at security or in the aisle on board the plane as somebody tries to cram in their multiple large suitcases to avoid the fee.)
• Noise. Way back in elementary school when we had to write essays about what study environments we felt we did best in, I'd write that I didn't feel like I could study when there was a lot of noise. Turns out, I'm no different as an adult. I'm loving the noise-canceling headphones Matt gave me for Christmas, but even they don't cut out an entire office's worth of chatter. The new laptop for work is nice, too - I can get away when it gets too loud now.
  

2 more Chronicles

Over the weekend, I finished re-reading The Silver Chair and The Horse and His Boy. Both were enjoyable and easy reads, but I think I enjoyed Horse more this time thru. In it, Aravis and Shasta, two children from Calormen (a country south of Narnia) take an epic journey that includes escaping from a lion, navigating a big city, crossing a desert, and finding a passage thru the mountains. Through the journey, I like how Lewis weaves Aslan into the story in more unique ways than in some other books. In other books, we primarily know him as a lion, the son of the great emperor-across-the sea. In this edition, we not only find the familiar lion figure comforting, teaching, and correcting the children, but also that of a gentle cat keeping Shasta company among the foreboding-looking tombs, a fierce beast spurring the travelers onward, a creature with sharp claws punishing Aravis (when she deserved it). Though this volume doesn't really add a lot to the overall story-line (Shasta & Aravis aren't really mentioned in any other significant ways), but I think it serves the entire set well by developing Aslan's character a bit more.

I'm finishing up this re-reading presently with The Magician's Nephew. Reading the first few chapters, I was surprised by my reaction - I wanted to skip over the parts with the weird uncle Andrew. I guess I found him so annoying and evil (knowing how the story goes) that I just didn't want to think much about him - I don't know. Anyhow, a couple more nights of reading and I'll have to put these books back on the shelf (or really, give them to Matt, who's been reading them too) and find something else to read.

Matt suggested I read The Right Stuff after we enjoyed the first of the Discover Channel docu-mini-series When We Left Earth. Last night's first episode went thru the Mercury & Gemini NASA missions. So, I might just grab that from the bookshelves next.

Re-reading the Chronicles

Seeing Prince Caspian in the theater recently renewed my interest in re-reading the Chronicles of Narnia. Other than the (admittedly odd) choice to read The Last Battle first (why - well, because it was the one we had a copy of in the house before ordering a new set), I've been reading them in the order they were written. The written order is:

1. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)
2. Prince Caspian (1951)
3. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)
4. The Silver Chair (1953)
5. The Horse and His Boy (1954)
6. The Magicians Nephew (1955)
7. The Last Battle (1956)

(reference Into the Wardrobe)

I skipped The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe this time thru. Having spent many long hours during my senior year of high school playing Mrs. Beaver in the stage production, I know that story line too well -- and find that it's actually hard to read the book now without remembering classmates' voices and things that happened during rehearsal.

Just a few favorites so far (having re-read The Last Battle, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in the past couple of weeks):

• The ending of Last Battle - I wouldn't want to risk spoiling it for anybody who hasn't read it, so I won't explain it. Just trust me that it's just about the best ending to a book ever -- I just can't help but smile every time I read those last few pages. I find this book a little slower-going at first than some of the others, but the ending totally makes up for it.
  
• The interaction between Aslan & Lucy in Caspian regarding how Lucy choose between following what she thought she saw and knew she wanted to follow (him) vs. following what she thought was safe (her siblings). It's just this great moment that captures something so childlike, yet also so very grown-up. I can't really explain it, but I like it.
• Edmund's transformation in Dawn Treader is always a great moment.
• Also Dawn Treader - Ramandu's Island. I love the image of the birds bringing a little live coal from the sun to the "retired star" every day. (I think this is a bit like Isaiah 6 and have always wondered if Lewis were inspired by that as well.)

More to come as I finish...

No More Clowns!

Yesterday, a major milestone happened at our house: all traces of clowns were removed. No, we don't have a clown-phobia, but we were tired of the cute clown border that's been up in our office (apparently the prior homeowners used that room as a nursery). We stripped the wallpaper border (which actually came off easily - a rarity in this house). Today, we've put up the first coat of "chocolate coco" (dark brown) paint. We'll put on a second coat after church. Gotta love the 12:30pm service on days like this!

Eventually, the office will have brown walls with white wainscot on the lower 1/3 of the walls and white trim. But, the wainscoting project will have to wait for another weekend - so we'll be living with a half-done room for a while longer.

Matt's been taking pictures as we work -- once we get the computers uncovered and the office is functional again, we'll upload them.

One other positive side-effect of painting the office - I had to clean it. Now if I can just keep it clean...