Trick or Treat? Well, peanut butter chocolates, to be specific

BOOOO!!!!

It's the day before Halloween, and I am preparing accordingly.

Usually, holidays mean dessert. Halloween is a slight exception; Halloween means candy. Which means, I'm off the hook!

I have never seen a more excited jack-o'-lantern in my life!
picture courtesy of drinks.seriouseats.com

I confess: I am a sucker for Reese's peanut butter cups.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

But around Halloween, you start seeing a deviation from your traditional round, notched peanut-filled candies. The Reese's marketing team starts doing backflips trying to give you even more reasons to buy candy on Halloween. They start producing things like 

This pumpkin-shaped Reese's! --Or: 

picture courtesy of whatimdoin.wordpress.com

A Reese's with a pumpkin on it! 

My response? 

BRING IT ON!!!!

3 Reasons I Bake Bran Muffins!

Three Reasons Bran Muffins are Healthy

1. Apparently flaxseed is so good for you, that had my muffins existed approximately 600 years ago, it would have been illegal not to eat them!

Haha I'm not even kidding! I found this on like three different sites! And they're not even all flaxseed vendors!

This is like the opposite of banning large drinks in New York...

Apparently, as if by divine inspiration, Frankish emperor Charlemagne predicted the health benefits of flaxseed and required it consumed by all his subjects!. If you don't believe Charlie, WebMD also agrees.

(original) image courtesy of thehistoryprofessor.us

2. They're NOT cookies!

Image courtesy of okmagazine.com

You'll have to decide for yourself if that's a plus or a minus.

3. Bran muffins = sleep. 

Portable bran muffins --> I can eat breakfast in the car or at school instead of at home --> I can wake up later --> MORE SLEEP!

Image courtesy of clipartpal.com

Those reasons sound good enough for me! 

Maybe actually my favorite dress so far...no seriously.

I have to admit, every year I look forward to Homecoming: not because I'm a football fanatic, nor because I like wearing silly hats to school during Spirit Week (though I do)--but because it's the perfect excuse to make the most beautiful, exquisite, fancy, outstanding dress that it is within my capabilities to pull together. 

(Whee!!!)

I am at the point where I have so many self-sewn dresses that if I was going to spend time making another semi-formal dress, I wanted it to be, not only stunning, but notably different.

The cutouts on this dress are perfectly positioned so you can see my really flattering bikini tan from the summer. Haha ;)

I was almost giving up hope of finding an exceptionally flooring pattern when I came across this

Marfy 2323

I'm not sure what makes this design so arresting. I think it's the contrast of the geometric tightness of the top, with the angular straps, eye-catching diamonds, and central gathering, with the ethereal looseness of the skirt. I think it's gorgeous. 

Furthermore, there's little doubting that this is a unique design. Have you ever seen a neckline like that before? Or a slit that's not actually a slit? 

For those of you that are unfamiliar with Marfy, their patterns are expert-level, which basically means they come without seam allowances, or lining pieces, or, oh, instructions. When you order a Marfy pattern, you are pretty much ordering the geometric pattern pieces, and it's up to you to put them together. 

And I had never put together a Marfy pattern before.

Guess what that means? 

MUSLIN!!!

Starbucks Frosted Lemon Cake (without flavedo!)

The other day I was besieged by a raging craving for dense, moist, sugar-gilded lemon cake.

As I saw it, I had two options.

The first was transporting my hungry self to the closest Starbucks (I still can't get over the perks of driving myself!) and passing some money to the person across the table for a pre-cut slice of their own lemon-flavored breakfast cake.

Starbucks' lemon cake

Hm, tempting. I mean, the convenience of the option. Compared to the alternative, which is making it myself...and as a first-semester senior facing the considerable challenge of summarizing my life in an immaculately structured 600-word essay, I barely have time to produce cookies for the nourishment of my poor ailing family, much less indulge every junk food hankering that interrupts my English homework. 

I mean, iced lemon cake is iced lemon cake, right? 

That yellow highlighting means that I don't know what Starbucks is talking about. Therefore that scares me. (Also, I'm sort of concerned that they feel the need to call lemon zest "lemon flavedo" )

Ok, maybe if I bake really fast, making lemon cake won't take that much longer than detouring to Starbucks...

(Besides, we all know that all baked goods are not created equal, right? That's why I have a blog ;) )