I SLEPT. I BAKED. I CONQUERED!

As my vacation winds down there are some fond memories to share, some of which I will do here now, and some later. This year, after just a few years from planting our little pear tree, we hoped that the fruit it bore us would finally be edible. But unfortunately, still not so.

This is probably the largest of the pears this year, and there were many. But even though they are really juicy there still is no sweetness to them at all. Rather like sticking a lemon in your mouth.

We hope that at some point, perhaps as the tree matures with time, there will be edible pears to enjoy! Still, the pretty white flowers this tree produces each spring is reason enough alone to be worth having this little tree in our front yard. Ah well, maybe next year!






I've baked many a cake in my time, but for some reason I never made cupcakes. Weird huh? I've never bought a muffin pan nor little paper cupcake "cups".

Until this vacation, that is. I saw a baking ad in a magazine or somewhere and for weeks before my vacation I kept craving what I saw. I promised myself that while I was at home with time on my hands and rested joints I was going to do this.

These are coconut flavoured cupcakes. Don't they look delicious? Are you drooling yet?? Hahaha I made them from scratch, and they are sooooo moist. They're so easy to make that I made them 3 times. Once for us, another time to take to my dentist's office while there on an appointment (I've been going there for so many years and wanted to give them a nice little gift, which by the way they loved), and the third time I made a little half-batch to share some with my best friend when we spent an afternoon together the other day.





They are a hit. Everyone likes them, and the BEST thing is that they taste just like my craving tasted like in my mind. How satisfying is that!

I used coconut extract to flavour both the cupcakes and the icing, and then dipped the iced cupcakes into coconut for texture and more flavouring. NOW are you drooling?

Before my vacation started I made myself a list of things to get done, like I do every year. This time, I did horribly. I was so tired I spent the entire first week just sleeping and resting. The second week (where did the friggin' second week go???) I had a doctor and a dentist appointment, and slept some more. This last week is full of get-togethers with friends (see you tomorrow Vickytoria!), and a couple of photo shoots which I will tell you about in another post soon.

The biggest project I need to get done is to repaint the walls in a stairwell. These past 3 weeks I've managed to get the walls prepped. No paint can has seen the light of day yet, but I'm not back to work until next week so we'll see.

See? As I type this I have laundry on the go and I'm yawning. I am going to go for a nap. What can I say? Working for a living makes me tired.....well okay, it's the "getting up with the alarm clock no matter HOW little sleep I got because of snoring hubby" thing that does it.

And right now he's at work so I'm going to go sleep in my bed. Alone. Mua haha!

Take good care of each other, and have a good weekend!

PEACE!
Love Jude