treats.

I've never really been someone who cooks. I've always enjoyed baking, but it was infrequent and rarely from scratch. But lately I've been throwing myself into baking and cooking, because it's fun and time-consuming and doesn't leave room to think about much else than measurements and stirring and chopping and cooking times. I have all kinds of amazing recipes bookmarked and I'm slowly going down the list and trying new ones. Many of the recipes are Autumn-y, so I'm waiting until it gets just a little bit closer to a Fall month to try any of those. I don't want to get all of my Fall excitement out of the way too early and spoil it for when Fall is actually here (as if that could ever happen), so I've been sticking to relatively 'Summery' or season-neutral foods for now. 

I woke up early yesterday morning and made these blueberry muffins from scratch. I think they are honestly the best thing I've ever eaten, which is so strange because I made them. I won't say how many I ate between yesterday and today (okay, seven) but they were amazing. Crisp and crunchy on the outside and soft, melty, and crumbly on the inside. I can safely say after eating these I will never use store-bought muffin mix ever again. And they do have a little nod to Fall, in the amazing cinnamon crumble topping. 

Tomorrow is my birthday. We had out-of-town plans for the day but those had to be re-scheduled for this weekend, so we'll be staying in town for tomorrow instead and I'll just have to celebrate my birthday twice (darn).

cat windows.

I attempted a shop photo shoot this morning but the weather did not cooperate. So instead I'll be spending the day making these, listening to this and (fittingly) this, catching up on reading, finally hanging the cheapo ikea mirror I purchased back in February, and all the other little mundane sorts of tasks that get pushed to the side and eventually forgotten.


I'm trying to be really good and not wish wish wish for Fall so soon, but it's been hard. It's getting hotter and hotter, the kind of heat that nearly knocks you over when you walk outside, smothers you, wraps itself around you like a sticky shroud...and I know we haven't even seen the worst of it yet. We still have at least three to four solid months of heavy heat before it's realistic to even hope for a hint of chill in the air. Maybe I will give myself permission to run the air conditioning all day, drink hot coffee, watch 1950s French horror films, and pretend it's October (just this once).