home trip

mom often asks why i don't go home to visit that often. 1) the rents always come to philly. 2) bunks hates the car ride. here he is hating on me:

3) i get exploited for child labor!! 2 weekends ago, dad ripped out the light blue carpeting in the master bedroom, and he and i installed new oak hardwood flooring! my job was to lay out a random pattern and to hammer the boards in place while he followed with the nail gun. this world needs "28-year-old" child labor laws! isn't the floor pretty though??

squash soup

i'm quite the fan of soup, in particular squash soup. mom left me a massive acorn squash,

so i decided to make myself some squash soup! i garnished it with some of bunks' parsley!(these pics are actually from this past winter... darn teaching! it takes over my life!)

a summery peach pie

sadye (sarah from high school's other name- we will use this for her from now on, so that you don't think i'm talking about wee sarah from brown!) invited me over for dinner 2 weeks ago so i brought dessert! a basic peach pie!

the perfect blend of tart and sweet! i carved bunks' name on top, since carving "helen" would seem narcissistic! i forgot to take a pic of the finished product. oops.

happy 4th bday, bunks!

bunks turns 4 today!!

may you have many more years of mischief-making!

jimmy's xmas socks

oops, i never posted a pic of the finished product! unfortunately the 2 balls of yarn didn't knit out in the same sequence of colors, although they're from the same color batch. hehe. jimmy looks like he has duck feet!

pittsburgh and a new dress!

this sunday we went to pittsburgh to visit the jimster. jimmy took us on a bike tour through ridiculous hills for 2 hours, we went out for really authentic thai food, and jimmy gifted bunks a mini carrot from the garden he started in his backyard. i often bake jimmy some goodies when i see him, so this time, he got black bottom cupcakes!

mom wore her bday shirt from her bday last year (although, as you may recall, i only got around to finishing it for this year's mother's day). it was hard to snap a pic of her front-on as she is wildly impatient.

here she is, looking not too thrilled that i succeeded! cute outfit isn't it?

the dress that i wore to pittsburgh actually was cut out a year ago; i was dreading the completion of the project because it is from the same pattern as lan's dress from last year, although i used a different neckline. not really a fan of repeat projects!

i got the fabric from my visit to durham last year: it is a thicker coral fabric with japanese flowers scattered throughout. i made a grey pleated trim for the midsection to break up the coral and to pick up on the grey flowers.

emily and sarah consulted on whether i should line the pockets with trim (yes, this dress has pockets! see above!): both agreed that i should not.

even bunks joined in on the process by messing with the fabric on the mannequin while i handsewed on the trim! bad boy!

the inside is lined, as the coral fabric feels a little scratchy.

here's the final result! thrilled it's finally done!!!

2 new patterns!

julia, my former roommie in dc, was in town a couple weeks ago to check out wedding venues and to compete in a sprint triathlon. oh, and to visit me. while here, we trekked to joann fabrics to hunt down sewing patterns. i snagged these 2 for $3 each!

can't wait to start them! today also happens to be julia's bday. how appropriate! happy bday jules!

mia's visit

jimmy and his gigantic bunny-muncher, mia, came to visit the bunks. they had a face-off.

bunks escaped, unharmed.

i baked jimmy some cupcakes to celebrate his visit. brown velvet cupcakes with the rest of the raspberry frosting leftover from the cupcakes i made for my summer school students for quiz 1.

the inside!

bunny: 1, doggie: 0

breads?

banana bread for hs sarah's kid, mason! it's his first time tasting it!

and orange bread for sarah and my road trip to the jersey shore! i had never been before. it was awesome!

now would you consider banana bread and orange bread, breads? they are awfully sweet and cakelike in my opinion!

molten chocolate lava cakes!

recipe from joy of cooking! slightly crispy on outside, very moist on inside. this may be my favorite dessert! round 1: dessert for dinner at sarah's house. sarah is a friend from home who now lives in philly as well! yay for old friends! (i'm not sure why the bottom of the pic never loaded. however, i don't feel like reloading it, so you'll just have to deal!)

round 2: dessert for mom's visit to philly while i drowned in summer school work. she was wonderful, cooking me meals and taking care of the bunks. i'm so lucky to have such a wonderful chocolate-loving mom!

chapter 2 quiz treats

quiz: equations, inequalities, and graphs of lines

treat: chocolate chip crisps

zzzzzzzzzz...

bunks, while i'm teaching at summer school...

challah french toast

and homemade blueberry sauce!

michelle, a good friend from my brown univ. days, and i treated ourselves to a lavish breakfast when she visited a couple weekends ago. we actually made it 2 mornings in a row; it was that good!

happy 4th!

2 more rounds of cupcakes!

for easter, i made the math dept cupcakes! white cake with lemon icing! this was the last one left. oops.

and now, summer school has started. it's more intense than the regular school year because we meet for 4 hours a day, 5 days a week (even more than my teaching load during school!!). so, don't be surprised if my attention to this blog continues to be limited. i will be done july 22 though! i'm teaching algebra 1, which is a nice change from the intense calculus teaching load that i had during the school year. the kids are HILARIOUS. naturally i had to bake them a treat since i had to subject them to the torture of a quiz on thursday. cocoa devil's food cupcakes with raspberry frosting!

mommy's bday present!

mom's bday is actually in august, 4 days after mine. i've been so so swamped this year that although i started this shirt for her last august, i never got around to finishing it until mother's day this year. sigh.

m.a.t.h...i.s...t.a.k.i.n.g...o.v.e.r...m.y...l.i.f.e.

anyhoo, so around front, the shirt has a mandarin collar and 3 rows of ruffles on both sides of the button placket.

here's a view of the back.

the pattern is for the jj blouse over at burdastyle.com.

happy very belated birthday, mommy! thanks for being so patient! i should probably get started on her bday present now for this year, seeing as i work soooooo slowly.

lan and robert's xmas presents

well, i finally met up with lan and robert over the memorial day weekend at their beach house in delaware. their christmas presents were held hostage in my evil clutches, but after 6 months, i decided that flannel pj pants were totally appropriate for the summer. hehe. robert's had a tesselation of cars!

here's a closeup of the faux-drawstring ties.lan's had sweet peas all over. here are her faux drawstring ties:unfortunately it didn't fit her, so mom gets another pair of flannel pj pants! she currently owns the most helen-made pj pants out of anyone! hehe. i'll make lan another pair after the major black friday flannel sale at joann's this november. maybe i'll get them to her in 2 years, if she's lucky...

black bottom cupcakes

think hostess cupcakes. center is a cream cheese filling with chocolate chips. so amazing!!

i swear i'm still alive. just swamped with finals and other end of the year nonsense!!!

sunny bunny

the bunks, sunning himself. love!

2 more rounds of cakes

for the office, due to bummy days. devil's food cake with coconut pecan topping:

and chocolate mayonnaise cake with butterscotch icing. yes, mayonnaise. makes it real moist. and this was my first attempt at butterscotch icing. it was decadent. i will be making it again!

organization gone wild!

matt, a math teacher colleague, introduced me to his label-maker... hehehehehe. you may consider me ocd. however, i just keep my baking supplies REALLY organized. hey, you have my particular ways to thank for making sure you don't end up eating cake made from cornstarch instead of flour!

new skirt from an old skirt

my friend kate, who is a colleague at my school and a college roomie of an old friend from high school, organized a clothing swap amongst her friends back in november. at my height, of course i'd never find anything that'd actually fit me. however, fabric sources abounded! i ended up snagging one of kate's skirts: a navy pleated a-line skirt with really cute floral embroidery and eyelets throughout the fabric. using the marie skirt pattern from burdastyle.com

and the fabric from kate's skirt, i made myself a tulip shaped high-waisted skirt! i love it! there are sewed down pleats in the front and back and an invisible zipper to the left. the the skirt slightly flares out at the hips and then curves back in at the knees (hence tulip-shaped). the pictures unfortunately don't really show off the flared shape of the skirt, but rather make it look more a-lined. however, when on, the flaring is more noticeable. i made the waistband a little wider and more substantial than in the pattern so that it'd be more high-waisted. i love it! yippee! oh, and might i note: this is my first project from scratch where i used the serger! success!

bunny invasion

yes, you heard that correctly. bunnies have invaded the school at which i work. i may or may not have had something to do with that. every day, i drive emily to my apt and she rides my building's shuttle toward her apt. sometimes we just miss the shuttle, so we spend an hour making origami bunnies until she can catch the next shuttle. we make big bunnies and baby bunnies.

eventually, the bunnies took over my apt, so, we strung up the baby ones and made a bunny garland for the office. eventually we'll make a big bunny garland for the foyer of the 2nd floor of the math building. hehehe