A Reason for Cake

Birthdays can be the greatest. As a child, I used to look forward to the potential toys I would get on my birthday even though each year, I didn't necessarily get all toys. Even so, the anticipation of a new Barbie or Polly Pocket was rather exhilarating. Once I turned 16, however, the fun of birthdays kind of ended. They just became a little bit on the boring side. When I got married and celebrated my first birthday as a wife, Howard surprised me and made the day so special! But now that I'm 30, I've realized that the BEST thing about birthdays isn't the gifts or being the center of attention or getting all the Facebook messages.

The best thing is cake.

Yes, cake. I never enjoyed cake as a kid, so I feel as if nowadays, I am making up for lost time.

Last Friday, our headmaster's wife brought in a cake to celebrate his birthday one day early with the staff. When I'm at school, I especially enjoy cake and sweet treats because I feel as if it's a great "reward" for hard work and the calories/fat don't count, haha. This cake was no exception. Despite the fact that there was a lot of cream in it that I avoided, the cake itself and the strawberry filling was really good!

Doesn't the prospect of cake or sweets throughout the school year make it that much easier to go to work? I think so.

The Smell of Autumn

I had a free mini candle coupon for Bath & Body Works that expired yesterday, so Howard and I made a quick stop at the mall before we did our grocery shopping. They didn't have many available that I actually liked since I don't enjoy the pumpkin or bakery scents, so I chose "Autumn."

It's described as follows: "A crisp fall fragrance that blends dark pomegranate with red delicious apple and juicy fig and notes of fir balsam." It's not really the kind of scent that I would want in a 3-wick candle, but since it was free, I was more than happy to pick it out! I do like the scarf background on the label though. It reminds me of the "Flannel" candles I have! I actually haven't been lighting any candles lately because I'm so tired by the time I get home that all I want to do is nap. I should totally use my mini candles from BBW or my votive candles from Yankee Candle because that's why I have them! I don't have to wait for the wax to pool, and then I'll have something exciting to look forward to when I grade papers!

Breakfast in Bed

Howard and I rarely bring food in the bedroom. Wait, being that we're in a studio apartment, technically we always do since our bedroom is also our living room, which is also our kitchen, haha. Okay, let me rephrase that. Howard and I rarely eat food in bed because of crumbs and such. When I'm sick, I'll have dry cereal or hubs will make soup for me. Other than that, we're usually in the "living room" portion of our apartment.

A little over a week ago, there was definitely a reason to eat something on the bed! On the last day or our honeymoon in Disney World, we had apple turnovers from Main Street Bakery. This was our first and only visit to the Main Street Bakery before the remodel and the addition of Starbucks. I had wanted an apple turnover for the longest time, so we bought two the night before when we were at Magic Kingdom for Extra Magic Hours. EMH lasted until 3am, so we were too exhausted to get up for a park despite having annual passes, so we relaxed that morning with this delicious treat!

I was also extremely worn out, so a morning in with some episodes of 24 on Netflix just seemed so perfect.

When my mom and I went to Mother Mousse to pick up my grandfather's birthday cake after school one day, I saw that they had apple turnovers and picked one up so that Howard and I could share it for breakfast the next day. It just seemed appropriate that we enjoy an extremely simple breakfast in bed!

This was nowhere near as good as the one from Disney World. Even looking at the pictures, you could see that there's a huge difference. But the pastry was good as was the frosting drizzle. The apple part wasn't the best, and there were raisins in it as well, which always throws me off. When there are raisins in things where I don't expect them (like sometimes there are golden raisins in fried rice at Chinese restaurants), I just have to think, "Why can't people leave well enough alone?!"

Despite it being in a completely different class all on its own, it was still just a tiny taste of Disney World that we could have at home.

Soapy Soup

Just had to share this vocabulary sentence that made me inwardly chuckle as I was checking homework yesterday while my kids were taking a test. I had already gone through half the stack, so I just wasn't expecting a simple mistake to be so entertaining for me!

The Inevitable Friday Nap

No blog post cuz I kinda fell asleep at around 6pm and didn't wake up until 2am. Am I the only teacher who does this? There's just NO adrenaline in me any longer, nothing to keep me going. All I want is to be in bed to sleep. Teaching is so rewarding, but it's also so exhausting!