Snow White Vanilla Birthday Cake

So, this is not my recipe, but rather, one I got off of Pinterest a while back. I decided to make it, and freaked when I noticed that the original link didn't work! I finally found the recipe online, but I couldn't pin it because it lacked an image (sigh). So, here's the whole recipe, in all its glory:

Snow White Vanilla Birthday Cake         Described as Geburtstag Kucha (Birthday Cake from Rebecca Weber) in Food That Really Schmecks by Edna Staebler "Snow white and light as a feather; baked in layers." Ingredients 1/2 cup butter 2 cups white sugar 3 1/2 cups flour 1 teaspoon salt 3 teaspoons baking powder 1 1/2 cups ice water 1 teaspoon vanilla 1/2 teaspoon almond extract 4 egg whites beaten stiff Method: Add sugar to the butter and beat until light. Sift dry ingredients and add alternately with ice water and flavourings, beating thoroughly after each addition. Fold in the beaten egg whites. Pour into greased layer pans and bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. Cover with Angel Feather Icing and be tactful about the number of candles. www.sweetapolita.com

Madison Bucket List

Madison Bucket List
Well. It's official. I'm moving back to Milwaukee. I can't help but have mixed feelings because I've fallen in love with Madison and this is where all of my friends live. So, in the spirit of leaving, I've compiled a list of all the things I'd like to do before I move on (I know that some most of these things are not in Madison, but I doubt I'll have time to do them when I begin student teaching!):

• Go on a tour of the Capital
• Get a picture on Abe's lap
• Go to a waterpark in the Dells  - Completed 7/3/12
• Go to a fish fry at Toby's
• Visit Gov. Dodge State Park
• Go to the Farmer's Market  - Completed 6/16/12
• Go to the House on the Rock
• Visit Aztalan
• Have a picnic at Picnic Point 
• Visit a museum in Madison
• Go to Johnson Creek Outlet Mall
• Go to a drive-in movie in the Dells
• Tour the Ale Asylum Brewery
• Visit Mt. Horeb
• Visit the remodeled Chazen Museum
• Win money at Ho-Chunk in the Dells
• Go to Cave of the Mounds
• Mine for gems in the Dells 
• Bike around Lake Monona
• Have a drink at the Terrace  -  Completed 7/2/12
• Hike Devil's Lake

Ren Faire minus the LARPing

Here in the middle of my literacy class we've been given a break and I had a thought. I think I'd like to go to the Renaissance Faire and Medieval Times. No particular reason why other than sometimes it's fun to be nerdy.

I wonder if they serve fries there...

New Styleboard

Enjoy!

Pop of Black by mlmillard

P.S. I did find a great Kate Spade hat that just didn't go with this getup:

Candy Realization

You know those "a-ha" moments that change your thinking about something? An epiphany, if you will. Well I had me one of those today: I was watching tv this morning and saw an ad for Cadbury's Easter candy (see below) and my mouth started watering for delicious Easter candy (hollow chocolate bunnies in particular).

I got to thinking about how long it would be before some of that chocolately goodness would be mine (I am a post-holiday bargain shopper) and I realized that I'm still working on my VALENTINE'S DAY candy! Before that, I ended up tossing a bunch of Christmas candy that went bad. Are St. Patrick's Day and Thanksgiving the only holidays where we aren't encouraged to gorge ourselves on sugary delights? I mean, think about it:

February: Valentine's Day (chocolates, primarily)

March/April: Easter (all candy)

March/April: Spring Break (eye candy) 

July: 4th of July (parade candy)

October: Halloween (all candy)

December: (all candy)

St. Patrick's Day: No candy emphasized

Thanksgiving: No candy emphasized

I know it probably doesn't seem like a bit deal, but I think it does reflect our society's belief in providing young and old alike with excuses to indulge throughout the year. Just kind of interesting to think about. 

Am I missing any holidays? These are the ones that come to mind right away and make me think that maybe I should leave the chocolate bunny on its lonesome shelf come this year's post-Easter sale.

Busy!

I'm trying to keep up with this blog, but it's been so hard lately! I know I complain about being busy from time to time, but really, this is the busiest I think I've ever been. Let's just say that in the last two weeks, I haven't had any time to sit around. Here's my week:

Monday & Wednesdays:
Wake up at 5:40am
Leave to teach at 7:00am
Teach from 7:35am to 8:35am
Work from 9:00am to 4:00pm
Class from 4:30pm to 8:30pm
Homework/Sleep 9:00pm-5:40am

Tuesdays & Thursdays:
Wake up at 5:40am
Leave to teach at 7:00am
Teach from 7:35am to 8:35am
Work from 9:00am to 6:00pm
Zumba from 6:45pm to 8:00pm
Homework/Sleep 8:10pm to 5:40pm

Friday:
Wake up at 5:40am
Leave to teach at 7:00am
Teach from 7:35am to 8:35am
Work from 9:00am to 5:00pm
Hip-Hop Hustle from 5:10pm to 6:00pm
Relax :)

Ahh I have another month and a half of this to get my teaching hours in! Crossing my fingers that I make it!

On the Calendar: Dirty Girl Mud Run

I just signed up for a mud run in August! Woo-Hoo! I'm really excited to be getting out there again and doing an event, especially one that looks so fun!
It will probably be me, Lynn, Jen, and Lauren participating in the Hartland area Dirty Girl Mud Run on August 19th at the Camp Whitcomp-Mason campgrounds. (This is where we went to camp in 4th and 5th grade, so let the nostalgia and reminiscing begin!)

This little 5k will be something fun to train for and it'll kick me into gear regarding how I'm going to keep up with my fitness. I've been very diligent about working out at least 3 times per week at the Princeton Club (got a sweet Groupon there) but my membership expires 2/29/12 and I simply can't afford $44/mo for the next year, or $36/mo for the next two years. So, I'm looking into taking Zumba (my favorite class EVER!) through the local parks and rec. department or lately, a co-worker has been trying to talk me into doing a 10 week fitness challenge through FXB. It sounds like fun and is about $300 or so, and might be easier to commit to going to a class that meets 6 times per week than just going to an open gym and having to work out on my own. We'll see.

Next goal: to give up soda. For real.

Google News Badges are Ridiculous!

I've stopped updating you all on my new discovery of Google News Badges because they have gotten out of hand. Really. Here's a current shot of my badges:

I know, right?! I used to put stock in these things as identifiers of my interests, but clearly things have gotten out of control. Google seems to just dole out random badges for articles that make no sense. I have a Britney Spears badge that I earned yesterday....yet I don't recall ever reading an article about her (or one mentioning her, for that matter). An Airlines badge? Huh? That's how I'd describe a lot of these badges: ridiculous.

Hopefully, this will be my last update about them. Maybe a year from now I'll have 100 of them for all sorts of random things I don't read about! :P

Pinterest and Styleboards

So you may have noticed that I've taken a break from blogging. That's what happens when your life is consumed by work, school, teaching, and going to the Club (Princeton Club is a local gym where I scored a 2 month membership for only $50!). This weekend has been busy, in a good way, and today I thought I'd browse Pinterest. I've been on there for a while and within the last two weeks, I swear that every girl I know on facebook has started following me and my boards (along with, of course, every other girl on Pinterest). Where I once thought I was in a utopia of breathtaking images, inspiring attire, and beautiful baubles there is now an abundance of self-promotion ("Check out my jewelry on Etsy!") and feverish pinning (sort of a "Look what I found! I saw it first!" attitude with seemingly haphazard pinning) that have come to clutter the field. That isn't to say that these types of pins are caused by my facebook friends, but since the bandwagon is overflowing, everyone seems to want to hitch up another wagon and hop on before it's too late. On the other hand, when you refresh the page you will see a barrage of unique images every time that you might not have otherwise seen or considered pinning in the first place!

Anyway, I digress. My point was, that rather than repin a cute sweater for the 10,000th time, I decided to explore something relatively unknown to me: Styleboards. While I may have been in the know about Pinterest when it was just beginning to catch on, I am only recently exploring styleboards and creating them on Kaboodle. Just for fun, I created this one (see below) which I call "Daytime Romantic". Fun, flirty, and casual elegance define this look.

Daytime... by mlmillard

I should probably note that posting this board is not for shameless self-promotion, but rather, I can't find a way to pin it onto one of my Pinterest boards without hosting the image elsewhere (which will inevitably cause unintended self-promotion) :). Maybe the self-promoters and "I pinned it first" pinners aren't so bad after all; I mean, the point of Pinterest is to collect images of the things you love and cause inspiration (and maybe some people's inspiration comes from pinning like mad!).

I'm sure there are more styleboards in my future!

New Year's To-Do's

I've been in a "bettering yourself everyday" type of mood lately, so I don't have an end goal to complete any particular resolutions per se this year. Rather, 2012 is going to be all about being a better me in general. That said, I've come up with a list of things I'd like to accomplish this year (and beyond). Here it is:

Adventure

1. Visit Aztalan (see wikipedia photo --->)

2. Take a road trip
3. Visit Katie in Spokane
4. Visit Elizabeth in Arkansas
5. Go to a state I haven't been to before
6. Go to Canada, eh

Fitness
1. Do a bike race
2. Do a sprint triathlon (Danskin, probably)

Outdoors
1. Go camping
2. Buy a State Park pass
3. Go hiking often
4. Go cross-country skiing

Self
1. Whiten my teeth (or stop drinking soda!)
2. Wear more sunscreen (though I do look awfully nice when tanned) ;)
3. Join the Optimists

More to come!