London Fog Cupcake
As I sit here and have my late night solo cheese adventure (what? Late night snacks are what the light in the fridge is for!), I’ve decided to fill you in what has been going on in my life. As you’ve noticed, I have been gone for 4 weeks. So, to quickly update you on the 4 weeks that I’ve been away:
- sick for 2.5 weeks (it was brutal)
- had to catch up with school work
- final papers and projects rolled in around the time I was getting better
- have tried to spend more time with my family
- final exams are coming up next week, so studying
- and, amidst all of this, also trying to find time to unwind
It has been a while since I have updated you guys on my resolutions (if you remember my post on what I plan on “resolving” in 2016 haha). Now, to give you some insight into how my new year resolutions have been going, let’s start off with the sleep thing: I have not done well with sleeping recently. I was doing great there for a while until I came down with a cold/flu from hell. Following that, my sleep pattern went downhill. As an example, I don’t know what happened but, the other day, it was as though I went past REM and I hit the 6th realm of sleep – human hibernation. I could barely muster the energy to as much as silence my alarm. When I finally got up I was still very tired – I drank coffee, it didn’t work; took a brisk shower, didn’t help; did some light exercising, barely made a difference. It was as though I was past the point of no return and was still asleep. However, other things on the list are going well. I’ve been keeping up with the rest of my resolutions (except the last 4 weeks of missed blog posts); I have been doing my best, which is what counts. Even though I would like to be perfect, I must accept that it is not humanly possible haha.
As I have mentioned above, I’ve been spending some more time with family lately. It has been fabulous. My future mother-in-law and I spent a wonderful day together when I started feeling better. We went out to the boardwalk and had a delicious cupcake with a little coffee on the side.
This is where cupcakes were consumed.
We then went back to her place where we exchanged recipes. I showed her how to make my family recipe for chicken and she showed me how to make blueberry scones. Her husband gave me a nice collection of meditation magazines to read, it was just all around a lovely time. Dinner and dessert was wonderful, especially after such a nice day. She also gifted me soap she had made along with two bath bombs, which she also made. I cannot wait to try the soap; in fact, I used a bath bomb tonight. We actually went out for lunch and shopping today! It was such a great time.
On the topic of in-laws, my future father-in-law took me to see the new movie called Zootopia. Oh, my goodness! I adored it. It was cute, funny, sweet…it was everything I could want. Some moments I swear I was the loudest person giggling away in the theater. I will watch it again when it comes out on DVD. Heck, who am I kidding, I’ll probably own it.
I have also been spending more time with my parents lately. We’ve been doing casual things like watching movies, going out for walks, tending to the garden, dinners, etc. It’s nice to stop spinning like a hamster in wheel, press pause, and pay my dues to what is most important in my life – family. To finish this post off, I have a recipe inspired by family time (a recipe I’ve recently shared with my future mother-in-law) and that recipe is….
Apple Crisp!
Ingredients
10 cups granny smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced
1 cup white sugar (you can reduce to 1/2 cup if you prefer less sweet)
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup water
1 cup quick-cooking oats
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup butter, melted
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degree C).
Place the sliced apples in a 9×13 inch pan. Mix the white sugar, 1 tablespoon flour and ground cinnamon together, and sprinkle over apples. Pour water evenly over all.
Combine the oats, 1 cup flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda and melted butter together. Crumble evenly over the apple mixture.
Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for about 45 minutes to an hour. Serve with a dollop of vanilla bean ice cream.
Hope this week has been good to you and I wish you all a great weekend!
Pinch of Yumm 