Livin' the Dream in Lima

What a whirlwind of a week! The last week of school is always busy... throw on top of that two big dessert/cupcake orders and you have one jam-packed schedule! But I love it. Yesterday I got out of school at 2pm, woot woot for summer break! Although I do  have to go back Tuesday for a few hours to check out and clean up my classroom. But what better way to kick off the summer than to bake 10 dozen cupcakes? Hehe...  I headed straight home and got to work in the kitchen. 10 dozen wedding cupcakes plus an 8-inch topper cake all done in less than 5 hours. I was pretty impressed... I was fully expecting to stay up super late to get it done. I realized last night as we dined on leftovers from my Business Man's bbq lunch that I hadn't cooked dinner  once  all week. Well, unless you count the Little Caesar's pizza fundraiser kit we had on Tuesday. I finally understand when people say they are too busy to cook! We are desperately in need of a grocery stock-up....

Gosh, this past week has been crazy !  It all started with a bomb threat and evacuation of our school on Wednesday. Imagine 1000+ students and teachers walking 3/4 mile down the streets of the Bean Town to make it to the Civic Center from the high school. No worries... the threat was false, and everyone was safe. Sure made for an interesting (and short) day of school Wednesday. Kudos to our students (and teachers) for keeping calm and collected.  Thursday afternoon, I visited the athletic trainer at school in regards to my foot. I'd had a rather painful run Wednesday morning, and wanted to get an opinion from someone who actually knows their stuff. (One can only do so much google diagnosing.) She was afraid it was a stress reaction, and suggested I go see an orthopedist at the sports injury walk-in clinic at OIO . So, Friday morning, that's what I did. A few hours and an x-ray later, we determined it is NOT a stress reaction! Woo hoo. But it is a pretty bad case of...

Since my half on Sunday, I've been taking a few days easy... no running. After lots of high mileage weeks, I'm sure my body is thanking me.  So what does a girl do when there's no training plan to adhere to? Lots of things! On Sunday after the race, we hit up my favorite place in Columbus - Easton Town Center . We had a leisurely breakfast/lunch at Panera, and then followed up with some shopping. Although my legs were screaming at me for walking so much after the race, it actually ended up being good in the long run. My legs weren't nearly as stiff as they would have been if we had hopped in the car and driven straight home. We went in a few shops, including Anthropologie . I love  all their kitchen accessories. Seriously. I could drop thousands of dollars in that store. I have slowly but surely been acquiring a set of bowls  from there. The perfect bowls for oatmeal, cereal, soup, ice cream... pretty much the perfect bowls for anything. We got two new colors S...

Last week, two of my friends here in the Bean Town had babies. Sweet precious little baby girls . So, this weekend, when Amber & I were at the outlets, we might have stopped in a few baby stores. And we might have driven our husbands crazy. But look at these adorable one-sies! And a very good deal, too. I had to talk myself out of getting a third one, just for "some day." And no, I don't have the baby fever. Yet. Anyways, I took dinner to the proud mommies & daddies tonight, along with the one-sies. And I couldn't bring cupcake one-sies without bringing actual cupcakes, right? Right. So I made Snickerdoodle Cupcakes   (from one of my favs Annie's Eats .) I wanted to make something fall-ish, but not pumpkin-ish. (I know, what's the deal? Just wait, pumpkin treats will make their  appearance, I promise.) These Snickerdoodle Cupcakes remind me exactly of the cookie. Light and fluffy and full of cinnamon-sugar flavor. I topped them ...

Lots of things, of course. Shop . We spent Saturday at the outlet mall with some friends, but of course left the camera at home. It was lots of fun, including dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. Yum. We also shopped at TJ Maxx and found some lovelies to add to our fall decor. Little mice... heh. Just kidding. We didn't buy these. Definitely picked these up - pumpkin cake pops anyone? Can't open a jar of sprinkles without spilling them, of course. At least I caught some of them in my sweatshirt? Run.  12 mile long run on Saturday, 5.5 mile fartlek on Sunday. In the pouring down rain. I was about 10 minutes from home when the skies opened up on me. Reminded me a little of this . But not nearly as painful. Those shorts are supposed to be purple and the tank is supposed to be grey. Yea. Bake.  I made 6 dozen cupcakes for a co-worker's surprise 30th birthday party. Ain't no thang, 'cause I love to bake. I think you knew that. Cookie doug...

Ahhh... finally back a sense of normalcy around here. Yes, cupcakes = normalcy in this household. I never mentioned it, but the day we got back from Disney, my parents came into town to help us finish up the last few major projects on the house. It has been a jam-packed holiday weekend, complete even with a 5km race. Yea... this definitely had to go. My parents here meant that my favorite furry friend got to visit as well. I'll get more into the house details later this week, because we've still got a couple rooms to put back together so I can snap some pics. (Gotta wait for that varnish on the floors to dry!)  So let's talk about the  4th of July  instead ! The Bean Town makes a big deal of Independence Day. Last year, my Business Man and I weren't here for the 4th (we were on our honeymoon), so we didn't really know what all was going to be happening. The morning started off with the  Freedom 5km  in the park, literally 0.4 mil...