Selfie

Stream of Consciousness on a Wednesday Morning

A totally selfish post.  As if my thoughts and wishes would ever matter to anyone else but me!

 My favorite peonies, blooming on the side of my house by the driveway.  I see them every time I get in and out of my car.

They've been blooming for 3 days now.  I snap a picture every time I pass by.  

I snapped this picture this morning after I dropped my son off at the train station.  Then I decided to count the peony pictures in my phone.

There are 18 pictures of the same flowers!  I won't bore you with them all.

But it made me start thinking.  How cool it is that I can so easily snap pictures with my phone all day long.  How awesome it would have been to have had a camera phone when my kids were younger.  Which led to this thought: I wish I had started my blog 20 years earlier, so that I could have a really awesome photo journal of my kids as they grew up.

Instead of impulsively taking pictures of everything that catches my eye--like big fish in the supermarket--I could have a phone full of images of my kids.  If only there were camera phones back then.  If only I had a cell phone back then.  

~1997~

If only I was blogging back then.  If only I had internet access back then.  

~2009~

At ages 22, 19 and (almost) 18, there's no way my kids would let me blog about their current lives.  And there's no way they'd let me post pictures.

But if I had started this when they were younger, they would have been fair game.  

Creative Cupcakes with Buttercream Frosting

I love it when my daughter gets creative in the kitchen.  You would think it is the daughter who has had an "eye" for art and design since before she could talk.  Always creative, always an artist.  She's currently in college, majoring in graphic design.

If you think her artist's eye is responsible for creating these fun little cupcakes, think again! 

It's my younger daughter (the one who prefers science over art) who asked me to pick up fruit by-the-foot, colorful goldfish crackers, teddy grahams and gummy lifesavers on a recent supermarket trip.  Decorating props for her latest baking adventure.

I happily snapped my mediocre pictures while she did all of the baking.

Thankfully, she has discovered that nothing beats a good butter cream frosting, made from scratch.

The cupcakes were made with funfetti cake mix, from a box.  Yeah, I'm working on her.

I did not take pictures of the cupcake-making process.  Follow the directions on the box, yada-yada-yada.

Or make your own delicious cupcakes from scratch using an amazing recipe.   Your favorite homemade cupcake recipe, better than any box mix.

So, assuming you have your cupcakes made, here is the frosting and decorating instructions.