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    • pinata.

      Posted at 4:05 pm by jasminedesirees, on June 10, 2013
      I’ve been seeing recipes for Pinata cakes for a few months now, so I decided to make one for my brother-in-law’s birthday.
      It was a bit tricksier than I thought, I had to make 4 cakes just to get two that I could use, because brownie mix and cake mix look remarkably similar, and also because baking a cake in a bowl apparently takes a lot longer than it does in a pan, and if you don’t bake it long enough, and then you flip it upside down, you get something that looks a little like this:
      Luckily it still tasted fine, so I ate it.. you know, for research purposes
      Finally, two good cakes
      The stuffing. I wanted to put in little bottle of booze, but I couldn’t fine any. They don’t sell them at Safeway, weird right?
      Cut off the tops of the two cakes so they are flat, and then hollow out the bottom cake
      Fill it up with candy, or whatever, and put icing on it to seal the two halves together
      Sharks colours are optional
      Cake anddd candy. What more could you ask for?

      Here are some tips if you’re thinking of doing this:

      1. Make sure you bake the cakes for at least an hour each, and then check them to make sure they are really well done, you can’t really go by the baking time on the cake mixes

      2. I didn’t hollow out the top of the cake, because I wanted it to still be a cake, and not be all candy, but if you want more of a pinata effect where the candy falls out, you can hollow out the top

      3. Do a crumb coating on the cakes first, before you ice them

      4. And this is important, make sure to spray the baking bowls with non-stick spray to make your life a lot easier when you try to take the cakes out of the bowl

      That’s it. Happy sugar coma!

      Posted in recipes | 0 Comments | Tagged baking, birthday cake, piñata cake, recipes
    • twisted.

      Posted at 7:33 pm by jasminedesirees, on June 7, 2013

      I tried this risky little maneuver last night. I have no idea why, since usually when I go to bed with wet hair I wake up looking like Howard Stern, especially this week when I knew I wouldn’t really have time to fix it in the morning if it went horribly awry, but my bed looked so comfy, and my hairdryer looked even less appealing than usual, so I just went with it.

      It was a bit uncomfortable to sleep with my hair like that, and left me with vivid flashbacks of when my mom made us sleep with curlers in our hair before holidays or school pictures.

      When I woke up, my hair was still a bit wet, so I blasted it with the dryer for a bit, and took it out. It was definitely wavy, I had to tame it down a bit with my straightener, but it wasn’t a huge ball of frizz like I was expecting, so I’m going to go ahead and call that a win.

      If you have straight, or even all one length hair, I think this could work amazingly for you, as for me, I think I will stick with my usual way of doing things, but I will definitely keep this in mind for when I’m at the lake or something with no desire to do my hair, but some desire not to get pointed at by little kids as I walk down the street.

      Posted in life | 0 Comments
    • werkkkk

      Posted at 11:35 pm by jasminedesirees, on June 6, 2013

      Things have been super crazy at work this week, I forget what Derek looks like since I haven’t seen him in ages.

      Even though it’s busy, I really feel like I’m learning a lot, and am taking on a bunch of new projects so it’s really exciting. You can tell you like your job when you really don’t notice you’ve been at for for 12 hours without taking a lunch break.

      As ever, when things get hectic, there is one thing that gets me through, and that is this video.

      Enjoy.

      Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments
    • wander

      Posted at 7:36 pm by jasminedesirees, on June 4, 2013

      A few weekends ago Derek had to work, and I didn’t have any plans. The pool wasn’t open yet,  but it was really nice out, and I felt like getting out of the house.

      I decided to drive a few miles to the next town over and grab some breakfast, and visit a little park I had spotted the weekend before. At the park, I saw signs for a walking path, and decided to follow it.

      After about a mile, I came around a corner, and saw a beautiful view of the bay, and the walking path continued along the beach to a lookout point. There were a lot of couples out walking, and kids riding their bikes.

      I am so glad I decided to go exploring, it’s amazing what can be right in our own backyards without us even noticing.

      Posted in California, exploring, life | 0 Comments
    • favourites

      Posted at 6:33 pm by jasminedesirees, on June 3, 2013

      Here are a few things that are making me happy right now:

      He actually lives in San Francisco, and it’s really through sheer force of will that I haven’t stalked out his address and crept around in front of his house, but it’s likely I won’t be able to hold out forever.

      We almost always ate lunch at home when I was in elementary school, and my mom wouldn’t buy us any “junk food” for after school snacks, but every once in awhile she would break down and let us have dunkaroos. It was a dark day when they stopped making them, but yesterday I found this. I will be most likely be clearing my schedule this week in favour of eating mass quantities and then passing out in a sugar coma.

      The best co-pilot a girl ever had. Cherries are my most favourite

      I’m reading Women by Charles Bukowski, it’s definitely not for everyone but I’d been hearing about him for so long that I decided to check it out. The book has a lot of graphic language and it kind of feels like he’s trying to be shocking, but here are some lines that I liked:

      “Glendoline presumed that the reader was as fascinated by her life as she was – which was a deadly mistake. The other deadly mistakes she had made were too numerous to mention.”

      “Few beautiful women were willing to indicate in public that they belonged to someone. I had known enough women to realize this. I accepted them for what they were, and love came hard and very seldom.”

      Posted in favourites | 1 Comment | Tagged charles bukowski, cherries, matt nathanson, quotes, recipes
    • chill

      Posted at 11:05 pm by jasminedesirees, on May 31, 2013

      Last night we went to Spruce for supper, I’ve heard from almost every person I know in the city how amazing it is, and how I can’t order anything but the burger, and apparently we weren’t the only ones. As we were being seated I checked around to see what other people were ordering and every. single. person in that restaurant was eating a burger.

      It was super delicious, the fries tasted just like potato chips, and they gave us a giant oatmeal cookie for being first time customers. I would definitely recommend it, it was even worth the food coma I was in this morning that made it impossible for me to get out of bed. I skipped my work out/ hour of staring at Don Draper and I also missed my bus to work.

      I am so ready for this weekend, it’s my first weekend home in over a month and our pool just opened so I am literally not moving from my lounge chair all weekend. Except to get my hair done. And I’m taking a sewing class. And I have a birthday party. But other than that, I’ll be poolside with Inferno, the new Dan Brown novel.

      It’s Friday afternoon, it’s a beautiful day, and we live in a world where this is a thing, so life is pretty good.

      Posted in life | 0 Comments
    • peplum

      Posted at 11:15 pm by jasminedesirees, on May 30, 2013

      I always thought peplums were a very strange idea, until I tried one on. Now three of my favourite shirts are peplums, including this white one from Forever 21.

      It might be because I am shaped like one of those little lego men, I don’t really have much of a waist, but I can pretend I do by adding a little frill. Sneaky.

      Top: Forever 21/ Jeans: A’Gaci/ Earrings: So Good Jewellery
      Posted in fashion | 0 Comments
    • the conversation

      Posted at 4:06 pm by jasminedesirees, on May 29, 2013

      The Conversation is an interview series with host Amanda de Cadanet. She sits down with famous women, celebrities, activists, designers, business women, etc, and interviews them. It’s very informal, and she asks really great questions.

      The end result is a really honest, revealing and candid talk about relationships, career, business, family, body image, money, jealousy, race, religion and any number of other topics that all women deal with, regardless of nationality, or fame and fortune.

      One of my favourite interviews on The Conversation is with fashion designer Diane von Furstenburg. She seems so interesting, she is so gracious and confident and seems very wise. During her interview, when asked about what aspects of her life had been part of a plan she replied “I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I always knew what kind of woman I wanted to be.”

      Amanda de Cadanet interviewed actress Ashley Madekwe from  Revenge, who is also one of my favourite bloggers, about why she decided to start her fashion blog. Ashley said that she had always loved fashion, and had all of these nice clothes but that she felt she really couldn’t wear them unless she was going to a fancy dinner because she feels that other women, especially, judge women for wearing heels, or being too dressed up during the day.

      Starting her blog gave her a reason to wear the clothes she wanted, and not care what people think about it. That kind of resonated with me, because there are definitely a few outfits I have in my closet that I really love, but every time I put them on, I end up changing because I think other people will think I shouldn’t be wearing it.

      This blog has definitely helped me with that. Not that I’m really a fashion blogger but I do post outfits sometimes, and it does take a certain amount of confidence and disregard for other people’s opinions to put up pictures of yourself and say “I think this is a cute outfit, and I look good in it.” You are basically offering yourself up to be judged and criticized, but it has made me more confident and I’m much more likely to wear something now because I like it, even if I think that somebody else might not.

      Other interviewees on The Conversation include Gwyneth Paltrow, Sarah Silverman, Melissa McCarthy, and Chelsea Handler.

      Posted in life, thoughts | 0 Comments
    • endless summer

      Posted at 4:39 pm by jasminedesirees, on May 28, 2013

      Some more pictures of our wonderful Hawaii trip. Derek graduated, we kayaked out to the Mokulua islands, went to Sandy’s, did the booze cruise, and stayed at a cabin on Bellows for 3 days. We ate at all of our favourite restaurants, and just relaxed.

      It was heaven. Excuse the gratuitous beach porn shots, it was soooo beautiful I took like 500 pictures of nothing but sand, sky and water.


      Posted in exploring, Hawaii, travel, USA | 0 Comments | Tagged beaches, Hawaii, honolulu, mokulua, Oahu, travel
    • brownie slut

      Posted at 8:49 pm by jasminedesirees, on May 27, 2013

      I’m pretty sure everyone has heard about slutty brownies by now. Cookie dough on the bottom, a layer of Oreos, covered by moist chocolatey brownie mix and baked in the oven. For some reason I’d never tried to make them before, and I finally decided to see what all the fuss was about.

      I decided not to do the Oreos, as it seemed like it would be a bit overkill, and also would have left me with half a package of Oreos laying around which I would have inevitably devoured, and since it was practically a guarantee that I would be eating most of the cookie dough before it ever made it’s way into the bars, it seemed like a good move.

      So my brownies were more promiscuous than slutty. But they were still delicious. They literally took 5 minutes to throw together (20 if you add in the time to eat cookie dough until you are feeling ill, before you proceed with the baking) and then 45 minutes of bake time.

      If you are feeling super ambitious you could make your own cookie dough and brownie mix and then combine them, but I used store bought. It is definitely a lazy man’s dessert, but it’s a bit more special than just making cookies, or just brownies to a potluck, and they are really delicious.

      Derek was calling me brownie slut the whole night after I made them, but you can’t have everything in life.

      It came like that, I swear
      I don’t know why I always want to bake when I’m wearing white
      I burnt my mouth trying it right when it came out of the oven, but worth it
      Yum
      Posted in chocolate, recipes | 0 Comments | Tagged baking, recipes, slutty brownies
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