Writing this made me hungry...

What do you do when you desperately want to bake something yummy but the kitchen is nearly stripped of the baking staples? I thought looking at pictures from previous baking experiments would help, but nope, it brought me to the point of needing to blog about it! Oh well, hopefully you all aren't sitting there with bare cupboards.

Dark Chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting.

They were surprisingly not sweet...at all, actually

I LOVE making home made soft pretzels.

Super chewy oatmeal raisin cookies

Butter cookies with raspberry jam.

I still haven't found a recipe for butter cookies that I am in love with. If you have any favorite recipes that you would like to share with me, I'd love it. I'm always looking for new ones.

Chocolate milk and spandex and bells, oh my!

Last weekend my little town hosted the largest bike race in North America, The Tour of the Battenkill. Can you believe it? My tiny little town with one traffic light in the center of the village has been the hosting this event for several years. Friday is the main set up day for many of the vendors of the expo, and Saturday numerous bike races in many categories take place. There are official races for kids around 8 or 10 years old to races for adult men and women, and then on Sunday they bring in the pros. Professional bikers from all over the world come the this Tour because of the level of difficulty it provides. One lap is 62 miles and the challenge is that nearly all the roads are curvy back roads, with lots of steep hills, and they alternate between paved and dirt roads. The Pros race this course not once like everyone else, but loop around it twice!

This year I worked at my family's maple booth for the weekend. The best part was watching the kids faces as I made their maple cotton candy.

Here are the winners from one of the races on Saturday. One of the things they are given at the podium is a bottle of chocolate milk, but not just any chocolate milk, it Battenkill Creamery Chocolate milk. You can't understand why people get so excited about it until you try some, so if you are ever around the Washington County area of New York, you've got to try it...apparently, it's also a good recovery drink for the bikers.

Speaking if chocolate milk, my little brother and his friend were given shirts as a thank you for "helping" at the milk booth.

And then my little guy came racing in, placing 7th in the kids race!

Here he is with helmet hair, his medal and wearing and holding new shirts that were given to him. He came home with about 5 new shirts after that weekend!

These two little girls are getting their picture taken with a famous racer Greg Lamond.

There were around 200 pros when the race started, by the time it ended, there were only about 50 left. Also, if you think you hear cow bells in the video clip, you are not mistaken! One of the big sellers over the weekend were little cowbells with the race logo on it. The kids ring them like crazy when the riders come through.

Seconds after he came through the finish line as the winner of 2012, this biker from Spain was surrounded by the press. I couldn't even get a picture of all the camera crews and reporters after this cause they came out of nowhere and took over the space.

Despite the chaos and overwhelming amount of spandex that invaded the local area, it made for a very exciting, topsy-turvy weekend in my sleepy little town. There were 3,000 registered racers this year, so I don't even have any idea how many more will come next year!

Meh, who really needs to do their homework?

The past couple weeks I have been procrastinating when it comes to my school work because I've been so caught up in dreaming up costumes for my England trip. I watch all the Jane Austen movies I own (which are a lot!) and sigh at every dress, bonnet, spencer and pelisse. I am a proud owner of the Regency Gown Pattern, the Elegant Lady's Closet pattern, the Regency Underthings pattern, and the Regency Spencer/Pelisse pattern all from Sense & Sensibility Patterns. If you have never looked there for historical patterns, now is the time to start! They are all such perfectly lovely designs and, from my experience, relativity simple to assemble as well.
As I am in school and still looking for a job, my funding is limited, so all I can do for now is dream up ideas and draw then out so I don't forget them. I have been able to make up a few "test" bodices, stays and a spencer out of some muslin to get an idea for sizing...I want everything to perfect, I mean, it is going to be worn at the Jane Austen Festival! I am so very excited for it!
So now, my dear readers, if you have any suggestions for me as to where I can find fabrics, bonnets and accessories for my regency outfits (or any outfit really!) that will be created in a few months, I would be ever so grateful for them.

Summer came during spring break!

I had my lovely holiday from classes a couple weeks ago in March (which shows how dreadfully overdue this is) and I had everything planned out. Though I feel I should know by now that things never go as planned for me! My plan was this: to have a happy week of reading and sewing or baking something everyday. The weather suddenly turned absolutely gorgeous! it was high 70's and low 80's the entire week! As my sewing nook is in the basement and the kitchen doesn't have very many windows, I didn't want to be cooped up. So it was out to bask in the sunny yard and read my ever growing pile of books. Here are some things of that week of sun-shinning bliss.

I'm one of those people who buys things off the clearance rack even if they don't fit because I say "oh, well I sew, so I'll just take it in and make it fit."...but then I never do.

These are the skirts I was supposed to work on over break

My little brother was very excited because he finally lost his first tooth!

I ate so pancakes with our fresh maple syrup...yumm!

This little guy knows how to clean his plate after pancakes

I finally got the papers I needed to graduate this spring. Yay!

Some of the books I was reading over break. I was happy to find "Mandy" on my little sister's book shelf. I've been wanting to read it since I was 10 or 12 and for some reason never did. Such a cute little book.

I'll have a real post sometime soon, I promise...hopefully :)