red velvet cheesecake cupcakes!

I've been meaning to post these for ages now, as I made them a month ago for Steve's birthday. Red velvet cheesecake cupcakes! They were amazing!

I posted the recipe to Scarlet Threads blog yesterday, so go have a look!

birthday week has arrived!

My birthday was Tuesday, so Steve made me a lovely dinner and bought a cake from Cake Love, my favorite DC bakery.

Bacon wrapped tenderloin, bacon wrapped scallops and grilled asparagus with lemon. Oh, and wine, of course. That may seem like a lot of bacon, but on one's birthday, we don't pay attention to such minor details ;)

Strawberries inside the cake! Nothing better.

I'll be celebrating for the rest of the week. Tonight I am taking a Valentine making class at Paper Source followed by dinner with two friends, and then Saturday night I will have dinner with a few more friends at a place in Arlington. Sounds good to me.

Hopefully the corgi will arrive sometime this week too ;)

Do you celebrate birthday week too?

birthday spending

Steve's birthday is coming up in a few weeks and he's going to be 35! Eeeek! I've been thinking of ideas for festivities, and I want to do something fun, of course. I have one idea that I am doing, though I won't write it here now, just in case he reads this (he does very occasionally!), but it is super great and I know he'll love it.

His birthday is the 13th of September, a Monday this year. I was thinking of having people over Sunday and making a cake/cupcakes, and maybe going to a pub for a while, but I feel like we always do that and that gets old, like him! ;)

Nearby here, there is a ropes course that sounds really fun. Has anyone ever done something like this? It has ziplines, a ropes course and all sorts of obstacles. When you go, you have a 30 minute training session and then two to three hours of fun on the course. It is $55 a person and that includes the rental for equipment and such.

Do you think this is too much to ask people to spend? It isn't as though I'd invite a huge random group of people, it would all be close friends. Would you be annoyed if someone asked you to spend this much for someone elses birthday?

Thoughts? Ideas?

wine and cake...what's better than that?

As part of birthday festivities at one of my favorite Virginia wineries, Steve bought me a red velvet cake from Cake Love, one of my favorite bakeries in DC. They were ahead of the cupcake trend- they have cupcakes, yes, but also cakes and pies and all sorts of amazingness. Across the street from the bakery, they have a little shop with a cupcake bar where you can choose your cup, icing and toppings! So fun. Come to DC, I'll take you there :) The owner wrote a cookbook, and I have a signed copy of his book!


Here is yours truly with my cake. Yes, I shared!




Once everyone was leaving, Steve packed everything into the car. When I got home, I opened the box, and this is what I found---

Confession- I may, on occasion, leave a bar with the glass I had been drinking from. When I was in Krakow, one of my friends and I would have a contest to see who could leave with the most glasses. I think our record was nine glasses- that included two pint glasses, shot glasses and others, all stacked inside one another, very, very carefully! Yes, I managed to get them all back with me and now I have some very cool pint glasses from Poland.

When you go to these wineries, they (most of the time) let you keep your glass as a souvenier. Of course, we acquired several glasses throughout the afternoon and along with these in the cake box, I found a few more in one of the gift bags holding a present or two, and I know I saw a few in the backseat of Steve's car. Oooops.

Need a wine glass? Leave a comment and tell me your favorite kind of both red and white wine. I'll randomly pick someone on Friday (January 29) and send them a glass or two, and maybe another goodie, who knows!

hello 30's!

Just like that, I am thirty years and one day old. Oy vey, oy vey indeed. Celebrations were had and they were all sorts of loveliness. Now, thank you notes must be written and mailed this week (confession- I may have just mailed my Christmas thank you notes last Friday...but the point is, I mailed them!).

On Saturday, I met with a group of local quilters about beginning a DC Quilting Guild, and I am really excited about it! There were about a dozen girls there, all roughly my age (give or take a few years) and we had a lot of things to talk about, a lot of things we want to do. I think this will be a good thing.

This week I am going to an info session about a mentoring program I learned about. I may volunteer with that, we will see. I think I still need to sign up, oops. This weekend is Steve's company's holiday dinner (a month later!) and then I am going to a bridal show with one of my favorite girls.

Do you go to a gym? Which one do you use? Do you like it? I am considering joining a gym. I say considering, because I often have brilliant ideas of things I want to do, and this is just one of them (ha!), though it would be a good thing. Truthfully though, I hate going to the gym. In high school, I worked at one and got a free membership which I almost never used. So, the idea of paying for something that I already know I don't like doesn't thrill me. Who knows though, maybe if I found the right thing, I'd like it.

I like the idea of a juice bar at my gym :)

thirty-somethings, all at once

The Chinese say that this is the year of the tiger, but for me, it is the year of the 30-something, as a good number of my friends are turning 30. I still have no idea how this is happening! I feel no older than 24! I miss 24- it was such a good year!

I'm kicking off my 30's on Sunday (oy vey!). A friend's husband is 30 a few days later. A good college friend is 30 the beginning of February. And so on, and so on, and so on. I won't take you through my next twelve months of birthdays, but rest assured, they are all written in my calendar in pink pen!

The end of February I have two 30th birthdays; one the 22nd and one the 26th. The 22nd is for my oldest friend in the world, H. She was born almost one month after me (I'm the 24th, she's the 22nd) and our parents lived across the street from each other when we were born and so obviously we were friends. The birthday on the 26th is for one of my best friends from high school, D. H lives in my hometown and is having festivities on the 27th of February, a Saturday. D lives in NYC and I got an email from his girlfriend this morning indicating birthday festivities on the 26th, the Friday, his actual birthday.

I was thinking of going home for H's birthday, as my parents will be at her party, along with other family friends. Of course I want to go to D's as well! NYC isn't too far from DC, and NH isn't too far from NYC, right?

Would I be crazy to try both? Take the Chinatown bus to NYC Friday afternoon, then a bus (or maybe fly?) to NH from NYC Saturday morning and then fly back to DC Sunday? Maybe I should take the Friday or the Monday off?

I mean, I did two weddings in one weekend in two different states...two 30th's should be a piece of cake (pun intended!), right?

it's my birthday! (well, almost)

So, since my birthday is quickly approaching, I've been considering where to have festivities. Over the last few years, I've had it at various bars in DC, but I thought that since I am turning 30 (wait, what?!), maybe I'd do something a little different this year, to kick off my 30's right.

A winery!

We all know how much I love wineries, and it seems like that would be a good place. They are usually spacious enough inside that they could seat a large (20ish?!) group. Plus, people could do their tasting, and then buy a bottle of their favorite. If you buy a bottle for $15ish, that is about the same as buying two drinks and leaving a tip in a bar, right?

The biggest problem that I see is the distance. Most wineries are not super close to DC, for obvious reasons, so people would have to drive an hour or so, depending on where they are coming from. My birthday is a Sunday, so it would be an afternoon thing, which I think would be perfectly lovely.

Question for you, dear friends. Would you think it was horrid if someone asked you to drive an hour or so for their birthday? (their 30th birthday! it's a big deal!) Would it be mean of me to ask my friends to do this? Obviously I'd look for somewhere close (my favorite Virginia winery is down in Charlottesville, almost three hours away...I won't do that!)

I'd totally drive an hour for your birthday. Especially if it was at a winery.

Thoughts? Opinions? Want to come celebrate with me? :)

birthdays and such

Steve's birthday is coming up in a few weeks and I have no idea what to get him.

I feel like this happens every birthday/holiday, probably because it does! I am so bad at presents, I never know what to get anyone! It isn't as though it's just him...I am the same way with friends and family! I have tons of ideas, but can never narrow it down.

He's not picky, and I feel like I need to be creative, but at the same time, it's hard. I don't really get him gadgets, because he has several, and I never know which ones, (ha!) and don't want to repeat something. He's not a huge sports person, so tickets to a game or event wouldn't really work for him. Usually I try to do something fun- last Christmas, I bought him several things, and enrolled him in the beer of the month club, which he is still enjoying! I can't remember what I got him for his last birthday! His birthday is three days after our anniversary, and this year, we will be in upstate NY the week prior for a wedding (Labor Day weekend) and will probably spend a few days there. We are thinking of going to Niagara Falls while up there, and a few wineries in the area, so it will be a mini vacation.

Am I an awful girlfriend for having no idea what to get him? What did you get your S.O. for his last birthday/Christmas?

yay birthdays

Ohhhhh, happy birthday Mel!