Sorry If You Thought I Was Dead

Howdy folks!  It has been an embarrassingly long time since I've contributed to this little blog of ours.  Truth be told, I haven't been doing much foodie-wise except drooling over other blog posts I've found via StumbleUpon (you think Facebook is a time-suck?  HA.  I scoff at your Facebook.).

The good news about my long hiatus is that I have lots of ideas for future posts, and lots to share with you, dear readers!  Highlights may include (but are not limited to) my first trip to Europe, graduating from college(!), my first real job (pending actually getting a real job), grad school (pending a decision to go/where to go and selection of a course of study), Laura's wedding/shower, the opening of my new bakery (pending funding, a business plan, and growth of "a pair" large enough to actually do it), and, of course, my future exploits in the kitchen.

But today I will leave you with a link to a blog related to my most recent obsession--though it is, for now, only an obsession played out through the internet.  Can you guess what it is?  No, not that.  It's decorated cookies!  And I have seen few bloggers with as wide an array and as well-done an arsenal of decorated cookies as Callye of The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle.  After discovering her site on--where else?--StumbleUpon, I spent several hours devouring all 51 pages of her Flickr photostream.  I could never actually pick a favorite, but these* are near the top of the list.  If you'd like to try your hand at decorating, the blog has tutorials, recipes, and lots of drool-worthy pictures.  You can also follow Sugarbelle's on Facebook and/or Twitter (while you're at it, follow me!).  However you decide to check out this Texas-based baker, be prepared to spiral into a tailspin of despair as you realize you will never EVER be as good as she is.  (That may have been a singular reaction on my part.  You may be a better decorator/more confident person than me.) 

*Little-known fact: I am OBSESSED with anything nautical.  I have maritime-themed shoes, jewelry, undies, sweatshirts, sweaters**, t-shirts, socks, you get the idea.  But, alas, I fear I am a poseur because I have never once been sailing.  Although I did spend a lot of time on ferries between Greece and Italy during my three-week sojourn in Europe this May-June.  More on that later, I promise!

**Does it piss anyone else off when people call sweatshirts sweaters and vice versa?  They're not synonyms, people!  They are two distinct entities with clear differences.  Confession/irrelevant rant (leave now if you don't want to read an account of how my Catholic education resulted in legitimate elitism craziness): one of my many faults is that I'm somewhat of a vocabulary/grammar/language snob.  That's not to say I'm a perfect writer, but I do spend a lot of time trying to make my compositions technically correct and fun to read (anyone else use a thesaurus when writing posts?).  I just don't think it's that hard to proofread your stuff or have someone who knows their stuff proofread your stuff.  Blame it on the "Grammar Nazi,"  aka my fifth- through eighth-grade English teacher who had us diagramming sentences 50 minutes a day.  And now, almost a decade later, I still know what a predicate adjective is, so I guess my Catholic-school education was worth the tuition after all (just don't tell God I haven't been to church in about five years).   By the way, sorry for the footnote within a footnote...that's probably not proper English.  Sometimes it's okay to forgo convention for the sake of style, right?  It's all about balance.  Just don't confuse sweater/sweatshirt, there/they're/their, your/you're, or its/it's. ;)