Funny Friday: Broadway Nails imPRESS

Remember the ridiculous nails I got in my voxbox earlier this month? Well last weekend we decided to have a little fun with them. I put them on my friend's nails. And then we had fun show casing them.

 Can you tell we were playing settlers? No wonder it took like 2 1/2 hours to finish the game, with fun things happening like this.

They didn't last very long. I didn't use the nail cleaner, or the little file they gave because I didn't want to scratch up her nails. But we had a lot of fun with them anyway.

Hal put one of the extra pinkie nails on his pinkie toe. It was absolutely disgusting, so you should thank me for sparing you any pictures.

Hey, they're a conversation piece, right?

We found an apartment!

I have some good news!

WE FOUND AN APARTMENT

And we couldn't be more excited. It was really depressing looking at apartments in the DC area. They're SO expensive. Like Hal could get a room for almost as much as we pay for our entire apartment.

It made us think that maybe I couldn't go at all. Since I doubt a bunch of dudes would like me just showing up and sharing Hal's room with him. Although they would have loved my cooking.

My co-worker mentioned a website her son used to find a cheap apartment in DC that is specifically for people of our religion.

So I googled it just to see.

I looked up virginia...no go.

I looked up DC...no go.

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I looked up Maryland.

There was a listing in the College Park area for a large room for a married couple with it's own bathroom on the top floor of the house. The family lives on the bottom floor of the house. It's totally available for when we need it.

AND, it's cheaper than our current apartment.

Seriously, we feel endlessly blessed. Like the Lord is directing us.

It will be like having a host family again. I hope.

Honestly, I've been avoiding talking to our apartment manager since she's not one who likes to bend the rules, and I'm afraid she'll say no. But fear isn't going to really get me anywhere, now is it?

But I'll be joining Hal in DC, either when he goes out, or a month later in September.

So give us your DC tips!

Strawberry Vanilla Buttercream Cupcakes

Today I'm sharing a favorite recipe of mine. I've made these cupcakes a few times. They're my go to cupcake for events. It's not often that Hal can eat desserts that are pink, as they usually contain Red 40 (red food coloring) so I really liked making these, and that the strawberries are what make the frosting pink.

The first time I made these my father in law ate all the left over frosting. Partially because it's that good, and partially because it's Red 40 free. No really, this is some of my favorite frosting I've had.

Now don't judge these cupcakes based off of my pictures. I'm a little food picture handicapped, and obviously my frosting didn't quite turn out. It wasn't so beautiful, but it was delicious, and that's all that matters, right?

Taken from a recipe posted at honey & jam

Vanilla Cupcakes

(Makes 12)

2 cups of sugar

1 cup softened butter

3 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

3 cups cake flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup buttermilk

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees

Beat the sugar and butter together on medium speed until they are light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.

Beat in eggs, 1 at a time until the yolk disappears into the mixture.

Beat in vanilla and almond extracts

Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a separate bowl. Add to mixture alternately with buttermilk, begin and end with the flour mixture.

Beat at medium-low speed just until blended after each addition.

(Batter will be thick)

Pour batter into lined cupcake tins, about 3/4 full.

Bake for 20 minutes.

Strawberry Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

1/2 cup softened butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/8 tsp salt

1 (16 oz) package of sugar

1/2 cup chopped strawberries

Beat first 3 ingredients together on medium speed until creamy.

Add strawberries and powdered sugar alternately, beating at low speed until blended and smooth after each addition.

The real strawberry frosting are what make these cupcakes for me. And the light fluffy almond flavor of the cupcake. So good. Now head over to honey & jam and look at her amazing photos of her cupcakes, and then you can laugh at mine. By the time I thought about taking pictures I only had a few left, they were all eaten. So let that speak for itself.

Funny Friday: E Cards

It's been a while since I've done a Funny Friday post, and I'm craving it. Keep your advice coming about my last post. I'm going to go out there with him, it's just a matter of when.

We need some laughs now.

 

Now share something funny with me that you heard or saw recently.

Lend Me Your Thoughts

I feel like I ask for advice about my life a lot on this blog. I'm going to trust in the fact that, who doesn't like to give advice? And pretend you all love it.

But really, for this one I could use some different perspectives.

We just found out Hal was offered an internship, in Washington DC, for this fall. He figured out that he can rearrange some order of classes, do the internship and still graduate next spring. The internship is kind of a big deal, it's with a government run company who regulates all accounting firms to make sure that another Enron doesn't happen.

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Now here's where I need your advice. We have a lot of options with this one, so let me run through some ideas and you tell me what you think.

He'll be gone for like 4 1/2 months for the internship. We just did 3 weeks apart which was our longest, and it was pretty darn sucky.

I'll give up my job, that's ok. But I don't want to give up our apartment. We did the whole pack away your life and live very minimally thing already. And we love our apartment. It's only one of two like it in our complex, so it's unlikely we'd get it back. It just would suck to give up so much for only 4 months away.

So....

-I can go with him in August and we can find an apartment for the both of us, but apartments are really expensive. It would be cheaper for him to just live there and get an already furnished apartment with some guys.

-I can stay here and work for a bit to earn more money and join him later

     -Either like a month after he leaves

     -Or go out to visit once and join him after two months, perhaps in November.

-If I work for a month it would pay rent on our apartment for pretty much the entire time Hal would be gone. But that's a lot of money for an apartment we'd not be living in.

-Maybe we could find some friends to sublet our apartment. It's a stretch, but it would be amazing for us. But we'd have to fight the apartment manager to allow it.

So....

What do you think?

Segregation Series, In Color

I had my last birth yesterday to certify as a doula. But because I met them at the hospital at 2 a.m. with only having gotten a half an hour of sleep, I'm dead woman walking today.

So I'm going to give you guys something to think about.

When I first saw this series of photographs I was stunned.

As the woman in the article where I originally found these photos pointed out; I'm admiring this woman's skirt as I'm looking at a photo of her waiting in line to use the "appropriate" drinking fountain. Doesn't that make you feel a little strange or uncomfortable?

They are previously unpublished color photographs that Gordon Parks took for LIFE magazine in 1956, following an extended family and the struggles they went through under the Jim Crow laws in the south during segregation. The Gordon Parks Foundation recently found them in a box marked "Segregation Series"

 I think my favorite thing that he captured in these photos is that they're every day moments. These are moments that they probably went through every week if not every day under the Jim Crow laws. That is what makes these photos so stunning to me.

I don't know if I had ever seen color photographs that highlight segregation before. Yes, black and white photographs show the line of segregation clearly, but there's something about seeing them in color that makes them so real. A lot of people my age, who haven't grown up in the south really have no idea what segregation was like. I think these photos that he took of this family, of their everday circumstances highlight what a normal family they were. They weren't any different from white families of the time, other than the law made them different. And that, is crazy.

Please go look at the rest of the photographs published by the Gordon Park's Foundation on the NYtimes  website.

Capitol Reef: Cottonwood Wash

Our second day we decided to hike Cottonwood Wash. They had warned us that there was still water in areas in the canyon, but we weren't deterred and headed out anyway. We walked about a mile in the wash before we entered a canyon and started to climb around boulders, and hiked there for another mile before the entered the slot canyon. This hike was a lot of fun!

 walking in the wash. All of our shoes were filled with sand by the end of the hike.

 This is the mouth of the narrows canyon. This was mine and Hal's first slot canyon hiking experience. We were so excited to see the mouth of this narrow canyon.

 Pretty quickly into the canyon we ran into water.  We had to hand and feet brace across this water. Megan made it half way and fell into the water. It doesn't look too deep, but it went above her waist when she fell in. After that, and with the cyst on my wrist I knew I wasn't going to make it. Brownie points to Hal for coming back across and carrying me through it on his shoulders where is didn't get a drop of water on me.

 And now we come to my favorite part of the hike, this giant chalkstone. We had to climb up through this small little space between the chalkstone and other smaller boulders. It was really cool to climb up into it.

This is me coming up through the small hole between the chalkstone, other boulders, and the canyon wall. Please notice creeper Hal down below me.

 And finally we reached this large pool of water. Hal and Charles tried to swim around the corner, into the even narrower part of the canyon to see if they could see an end of the water, but the water was sooo cold. They made it to look down the narrow part, and couldn't see an end to the water so they hurried back into the sun to warm up. We debated about trying to keep going.

Then we ran into the ultimate hiker who we watched be really smart and pull himself out of the water once he reached the narrow part. We were all super impressed that he kept going when we decided to turn around.

I would really recommend Cottonwood Wash as a hike, probably not for kids though, well at least not the whole thing. We saw some families turn around as soon as they reached water.

The next day Hal and I hiked Burro Wash alone. I really liked this hike. There is a trail, so you don't have to hike through the sandy wash, which makes the 2 miles to the mouth of the canyon go a lot faster. Since it was just the two of us, and I knew there was water, I left my camera behind. This hike is probably overall harder than Cottonwood, depending on when you turn around. We reached a really narrow part, which was filled with water. We tried to wall brace up and over, but we were too inexperienced with wall bracing, and the stretch of water was too long, so we turned back. I'd love to go back with some experienced slot canyon hikers and attempt this hike again.

On our way back out, we ran into that mega hiker again. Turns out he reached the end of Cottonwood Wash and said it was amazingly beautiful with an arch that pops up out of no where. So I guess I gotta go back and do that one as well.

Spring Fever Vox Box

I was super lucky to get another VoxBox. They're exciting like BirchBoxes because you never know what's going to be in them.


Here's what my box looked like this time.

I got a TastyKake Kandy Bar Kake in smores flavor. I don't notmally like these types of treats, but I tried it and it wasn't bad. Hal on the other hand scarfed this thing up.

Next up I got a set of imPress Nails in a hawaiian and zebra print. Honestly, this is like the worst print they could have sent me. I was excited to try these nails, but with the print, I won't ever wear these nails.

Schwarzkopf Profession Oasis + Dust it matte powder, this was my favorite item of all of my vox box. The powder gives your hair texture and lift, and because it's matte, it doesn't make it look shiny or greasy. Really, it just gives your hair volume while not making it obvious you have product in your hair. I have loved using this on days inbetween hair washings. It brings back the volume to my hair.
Secret Outlast - Completely Clean, I was kind of excited to try this. My Dove deoderant totally leaves white marks if I'm not careful. I didn't mind that it was a gel. It takes like 30 seconds to dry, but then it's fine. My only problem with it was the smell. I hated the smell of the deoderant. It smelled so fake and artificial that I couldn't stand it. The second time I tried wearing it I sprayed perfume on my pits part way through the day because I couldn't stand the smell anymore.
The box was also supposed to contain NYC appelicious lip balm, but it was a big bummer when my box arrived without it.
Want a voxbox of your own? Sign up for influenster, and start reviewing!

Capitol Reef: Cohab Canyon

For Memorial Day weekend / my birthday / Hal being home again we decided to head down to Capitol Reef National Park for a long weekend with some friends to find some cool sites and slot canyons to hike.

Hal headed out early to get a us a camping spot. We headed out really late, and ended up driving on a very bumpy dirt road right around midnight. We finally made it to the campsite, and settled in for the brightest night sleep I've ever had. The moon was amazingly bright and beautiful.

The next morning we headed out to the visitor center, almost an hour away from our primitive campsite to get directions for the slot canyons we wanted to hike. You need the right directions because they'll tell you things like, ignore the canyon that appears from the north, about 1.5 miles from the road and continue along the wash. I highly recommend going to get the fliers with directions if you're going hiking in Capitol Reef. A lot of times you're just walking in a wash, not a clearly marked trail.

Since we had to stop by the visitor center, we didn't have time to make it back and still hike one of the better slot canyons, so we chose to do Cohab Canyon, which isn't too far from the visitor center. The canyon itself isn't a very long hike, but it's full of small side canyons. Some of them were very cool.

 When we were walking along towards the end of the canyon, I looked down and someone had scratched LOOK -> into the rock. I looked and the below picture of this amazing arch is what I found.

Towards the end of the canyon you could choose to hike out to the highway, or to a lookout point. We chose the lookout point, and it did not disappoint.

On our way back to the campsite we stopped and looked at some petroglyphs that are right off the road. They were very cool to see. The anthropologist in me was amazed by them, but it was so sad to see that people had graffitied the rock, and attempted their own drawings. The picture below was taken through the big binoculars they have to look at the petroglyphs.

                            

I definitely recommend Cohab Canyon if you want a taste of slot canyons, but don't want the intense hikes of the bigger slot canyons in Capitol Reef. After the initial set of switch backs to make it to the mouth of the canyon, the hike was really mild. Make sure to bring lots of water though, it can get really hot out there during the day.

I'm linking up with YOLO Mondays at Lost In Travels.