Baking!

At long last, the mojito cake! (Recipe may be found HERE)

Prepping the layers with the mojito syrup:


And the masterpiece! It was yummy.


Bonus beginning of a rainbow cupcake:

Whoa!

The place where Mark and I met has burnt down!

(And yes, I am the classy type of gal who picks up boys at sketchy bars)

Adventure day!

After lecture this morning, Mark and I headed into Hamilton, each of us on a mission. Mine was to trade $50 for an awesome, massive textbook that I've been humming and hawing over buying for a few months. I finally found it for about a third of what it goes for new, and now it is mine! HOORAY! Now I can learn about ALL THE DISEASES!

Mark's mission was to visit lots of schools and hand out resumes and hopefully make some contacts. He was also successful!

We took the scenic road back (after FINALLY eating at 2 pm for the first time that day, we are moody beasts when we are hungry), driving up along the escarpment. I can't believe its taken us 8 months to explore whats on top of the big hill we see so often. Turns out that whats on top are waterfalls! and wineries! And pretty houses taking advantage of all of the pretty views! I can't wait to go back. We stopped to hike a bit to see the waterfall (as usual, I was well prepared with my hiking fip-flops). We then stopped at a winery and had a couple of half-decent samples. And then Mark got to see downtown Beamsville (gripping!).

We got back in time for some exciting rehashing of my old MA thesis, it looks like it will be presented in the fall in Philly! WOOOOO! And then R came over, whisked me away to the gym. I followed up by whisking her away to THREE different grocery stores, to prep for our yummy night of baking SECRET THINGS!

To top off the wonderful day, I got to experience the joy of running through a spring downpour! I'm not being the least bit sarcastic - I absolutely love the feeling of getting drenched by warm spring rain. By misjudging the location of the car, I got to run for quite a while trying to find it, getting myself a good, happy soaking.

Exciting weekend ahoy! Pics and more posts after that :)

Diggin' a hole (and fillin' it back up again).

Today WAS the day. I've been looking forward to having a REAL garden for years, and now that I'm finally in a place with a lawn, it's finally going to happen. But not today. After grabbing some supplies, and chatting with our property manager (who happens to be my upstairs neighbor), Mark, Missy and I staked out a sunny little patch of lawn, and started digging. And digging. And digging. And then Gina and Jesse came over and watched us dig, and has some coffee and delicious cake with us. Since we only had two shovels, they got to talk with one of us at all times!

We were just about finished digging the patch when out landlord showed up to check on something in the basement tenant's apartment. And was clearly pissed that we were digging a garden. Apparently, since the lawn is small (10x the size of the plot we dug), he wants it to remain entirely grass (and quite a few weeds), and not other growing stuff THAT IS ACTUALLY USEFUL. I mentioned but didn't belabor the point about how we had gotten permission from the FRIGGIN' PROPERTY MANAGER about digging a garden in that spot. ARGH. So after spending the morning digging out the patch, we commenced filling it back in. Tomorrow I'm going to throw down some grass seed, and start a grass garden. And I will then get some big planters, and plant me a smaller herb garden (bitter herbs, anyone?

But, lest a beautiful, sunshiney day be ruined, we finished our outside work, moved our little party inside for a yummy salad made by Mark. And then my parents showed up! And then we went to a winery and tasted a white wine that was so light and refreshing it could be described (by Missy) as rosewater! And then we went out for yummy dinner! So, all in all, good day, and I cannot wait until I have a house of my own. NO GRASS ALLOWED.