cupcakes & curry

It was my oldest sister's birthday this weekend, and because of that (and because I've been wanting to try out the cookbook that Sarah K gave me), I was excited by my plan to bake up a batch of vegan orange creamsicle cupcakes:



They turned out just lovely, as you can see - I am very pleased with the result. They were moist and pudding-filled and the frosting was unbelievably delicious (if I do say so myself; I feel I can, since it was the recipe that made it, not my following the steps of it!).

However, I didn't factor in how exhausted I'd be come Monday morning, because my weekend consisted of:

• going out for a late dinner + drinks on Friday evening, while listening to a fun Irish band perform late into the night


• getting up early to squeeze in a stop at a local charity tag sale my friend was working (which I was unable to locate) before zipping as quick as legally possible down to New Haven to meet up with Sally for a brief visit, which included:


• some shopping at Urban Outfitters & a lovely lunch at the burrito place across the street, and once Sally left, was followed by


• visiting Ikea solo, which was such a bad idea, but I didn't want to "waste" a trip to NH and not stop in!


• hating crowds of slow people more than usual


• deciding on a smaller set of shelves than I wanted because I wanted something I could fit into my car


• struggling to fit the boxes into my car (in flipflops!)...and then realizing that my GPS was wedged underneath the boxes and that there was no way in hell I was going to be able to lift them in order to reach it


• finding my way successfully home, although there were harrowing moments, as in when I attempted to go from 91 to 691, and just blew right past the exit, which would've been okay had I had my GPS...


• realizing it was probably better that I took 9 instead


• making a quick run into Price Chopper to pick up ingredients for the above cupcakes...and feeling slightly better that at least I had the foresight to bring the cookbook with me when I left for New Haven that morning


• getting home, opening the cartons that contained the shelf pieces in order to bring them in one by one...and realizing I had gotten the WHITE ones instead of the BLACK that I wanted!


• getting over that, and


• hauling the shelves inside piece by piece, bruising myself mercilessly in the process, and sweating like I'd just run a marathon


• attempting for quite some time to put the shelves together & swearing a blue streak until I was finally successful (usually I am awesome at following directions!)


• feeling in a slightly better mood once I had shelves up & was able to put things on them


• making orange pudding on the stovetop to prepare for cupcake-making on Sunday


• collapsing into bed...only to realize I was unable to sleep, and stayed awake until around 3 or 4 in the morning...


• waking up early to successfully complete the cupcakes - here they are fresh out of the oven:
  
  


• making a quick grocery store run to pick up ingredients for a double batch of Curried Sweet Potato & Apple Pilaf


• going to my sister's to celebrate her birthday with cupcakes & ice cream cake (while chopping vegetables for the pilaf)


• stopping at my parents' to drop some things off & have my awesome father help me with my car


• running back home to cook & shower before heading over to Jenn's


• finally arriving at her potluck dinner party with a successful pilaf & a few cupcakes in tow

So, there you have it: my unexpectedly whirlwind weekend! I had no idea it'd be like that. I had expected a somewhat slowly-paced couple of days, and had been looking forward to some relaxing smattered with seeing some good friends here & there. No wonder I'm exhausted today.

Plus, I didn't get much sleep again last night.

Can I have another weekend to recover from this one? Please?

xo

p.s. Very sad to hear about David Foster Wallace...I have been meaning to read Infinite Jest for years (really enjoyed A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again - bits of it still stick with me years later); now when I finally get around to it (perhaps after Anathem?) it'll have to be read in homage....