The Scene In Which I Am Cool FAIL.

For some reason totally unbeknownst to me, the word FAIL has crept into my vocabulary over the past week. And not fail as in the "not achieving something" definition, but as in FAIL, "the ironic use of the word to indicate a situation in which you did not WIN."

You know, FAIL. That thing that was like, totally popular to say.....five months ago.

I caught myself using it to describe "not taking a photo with ratface FAIL" and "using the flash properly FAIL" when captioning photos on Facebook this weekend.

I also just used it in a status update, but to be honest, when the topic of your FAIL is a five-gallon bucket of paint cracking open in your car, it's ok to use no matter how long ago it was popular.

I may or may not have used it in an actual, human conversation yesterday. FAIL.

I'm totally behind the times. FAIL.

I just thought you'd like to know. In case, you know, you were under the impression I was like, totally rad or something. ('90s Valley Girl reference? No? Still uncool?)

The Scene In Which I Review Things (Pillsbury Brownie Minis Edition)

Occasionally I have the opportunity to try new things, and as you'd expect, more often than not I have an opinion about those things. This would be one of those times.

I've been trying to be a little more cost-conscious lately, so when I saw a coupon for Pillsbury's new "Brownie Minis" I thought, well heck. Why not.

I finally got around to making them today, since I am (ahem, ahem) actually cooking dinner tonight and figured they'd be yummy to have for dessert.

With that, here's the Pros and Cons of Brownie Minis.

PRO: Two recyclable trays are included to make the brownies in.
CON: Two unreuseable, plastic, wasteful trays are included to make the brownies in.

PRO: Recyclable trays lessen clean up time.
CON: They recommend you put a tray underneath to catch drips, which you still have to wash.

PRO: You don't need to add eggs, just water.
CON: That means there's some kind of synthetic egg crap in them. Gross.

PRO: You can lick the bowl since there aren't any fresh eggs in them.
CON: You can't lick the bowl...unless you're willing to forfeit 1/12 of the mix.

PRO: You can make only half a batch at once.
CON: WHO THE HELL makes only half a batch at once?

PRO: They're neatly divided into 12 individual servings, and if you only eat 2, it's only 150 calories!
CON: WHO THE HELL only eats two??

PRO: With a coupon, they cost less than regular brownie mix.
CON: With or without a coupon, they produce less than regular brownie mix.

PRO: They cook in half the time of regular brownies.
CON: There's really no con to that. But seriously, who cares about the extra 10 minutes? Are you THAT desperate for brownies?

My verdict? Skip the minis, buy a regular mix, and use a reuseable mini-cupcake pan to bake them if you want the individual sizes. Better overall for your wallet and your world. Plus, FTW, the clean-up time you'll have burns calories, which means you can eat more brownies!

This review was unsolicited and uncompensated. Pillsbury definitely did not request that I try or talk about this product. KThanksBye.

The Scene In Which I -Heart- Canada.

We're back! (And by back I mean REALLY back....because I forgot to post this last week after saving it!)

Thanks to the falling of 4th of July over a weekend this year (read: no weddings for Becky, extra vacation days for Cute Boy) we were able to take off for a vacation to Canada, where Cute Boy hails from.

And I -heart- Canada.

We stopped in Detroit for an evening to see my cousin, her husband, and her two cuties B & E. Speaking of things I heart? Those kids.

In preparation for our trip, I'd gone to Nuture to pick out baby gifts for her two kiddos, as well as two little girls we'd be visiting in Canada.

Because I don't have kids, I kind of forgot that clothes aren't the most exciting gifts to recieve when you're 3....especially when you're a boy.

After recovering from the nearly-tearful letdown, we managed to scarf some yummy pancakes together before Cute Boy and I headed out to drive the rest of the way to Toronto.

Apparently in Canada they celebrate this wacky thing called Canada Day. It's three days before our Independence Day and basically celebrates the same thing with the lighting of lots of fireworks.

Which, since you asked, we got to watch from the 23rd floor patio of Cute Boy's good friends who dwell in downtown Toronto. Heart their condo. Heart their friendship.

Speaking of things I heart, small-towns-that-you-can-nearly-miss rank right up there in fondness for vacation places, so I was pretty happy the next day when we hit the St. Lawrence Market for some excellent provisions, loaded up the car, and headed up to Apsley, a blink-and-ya-missed-it town northeast of Toronto.

Anyplace with driving directions that include "when you get off the highway, keep going until you turn at the Coffee Time" is pretty much awesome with me.

We spent a yummy weekend basking in the sun and lake at Cute Boy's aunt's cottage, hanging out with several of his uncles and five of his teen-ish aged boy cousins. Heart. Heart them tons. Had a blast getting to be surrounded by all that energy all weekend. (Seriously? These kids have endless energy.Possibly fueled by their ability to ingest entire refridgerators worth of food in single gulps.)

Beyond boating, breaking tubes (ahem...ask Cute Boy about that), and grilling lots of yummy things to eat, we also achieved such milestones as 1)learning how to turn on water 2)learning how to start a boat 3)learning how to lock and unlock doors.

It was a big weekend.

Heading back on Monday, we chilled in Toronto another night before heading out to the 'burbs to "Nine & Dine" (golf & eat) with friends there and stay with Cute Boy's uncle and aunt for the night. Because we're awesome like that, it was the hottest day of the year in Toronto. Great day to golf :)

All in all, an awesome vacation!! Thanks everyone who hosted us!!

The Scene In Which We Have One Year, Interns, Cute Puppies and Other Shiny Things

I meant to write a witty introductory motif this morning, but I'm too distracted by the cuteness of Cute Boy, who is stomping around on an air matress "deflating" it.

So far it's not working.

It is, however, amusing our friends' 3-month old Goldendoodle puppy Marty, or, as I prefer to call him, "the cutiest squishiest smooshiest teddy bear puppy baby EVER!"

He's yipping and play-bowing to a sweatshirt right now. Be still my heart.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to need to have a Goldendoodle at some point.

At any rate, I've been feeling a bit neglectful of the poor blog lately, but for good reason- business has been busy!! Last weekend brought three weddings for the flower biz, and thankfully my mom came in to help me and my intern out.

What's that? Did I say intern? OH YES I DID.

Because I have one.

And she rocks. She's super creative, a fast learner, and absolutely the best first employee I've ever hired. I'm going to cry when she leaves me to go back to high school in the fall but I'm really hoping I'll get to keep her on some Saturdays since she lives nearby. If you want to check out a project aside from flowers she recently helped with, check out Becky Gets Crafty! (It'll be the aprons, when I get around to posting them.)

Speaking of the biz, big milestones there! In June we hit our official "Becky has been self-employed for ONE WHOLE YEAR" mark- woohoo! The studio is nearly finished and we've got a grand opening coming up in about two weeks.

Also celebrating a year last week was.....drumroll please.....me and Cute Boy! It's hard to believe that it has been a year since that cute guy who lived in the condo behind me informed me (not asked, informed) that I was going to a concert with him and some friends....and that the rest would turn out to be history. Speaking of things cutesy and smooshy, we had an awesome one-year dinner at Dunaways, where minus a few cocktail drinkers at one point, we had the entire rooftop to ourselves. Score one for Wednesday anniversaries and impending thunderstorms!

And now we're hanging with some friends, celebrating Canada Day today and getting ready to celebrate the 4th of July this weekend...more blogs to follow later about our trip!