Uno Año Mas.

First annual birthday post! Somehow, I don't think I'll forget to post about my birthday from here on out, but someone remind me if I don't, eh?

Yesterday was my official birthday, and even though I had a pre-birthday party while H. and I were in Texas, I wanted to make a little cake for the occasion. I knew exactly what I wanted: a lemon-almond cake. Turns out a lot of almond cake recipes use almond paste or blanched almonds, but I didn't feel like running around outside on my birthday. I finally landed on this Swedish Almond Cake recipe and edited it to my liking (substituting 1/4 c. whole wheat flour for all purpose flour, using butter even though the commenters tell you not to, etc.) including adding some lemon juice drops to the batter. After baking and cooling, I iced it with whip cream and promptly took many pictures.

Oops! This is a pre-icing photo, complete with the box of chocolates
H. got me, and a flower that didn't quite make it into the vase.

The pie plate was the perfect thing to ice on.

We didn't have any candles, so I used a match.

A peek inside the cake!

I forgot to take a picture of a slice of cake. Well, I say "forgot", but it was really that I inhaled that slice like a good whiff of helium. The cake turned out light and fluffy, and the slight hint of lemon cut through the richness of the whip cream. In other words, super delish omg.

For two consecutive days it has rained after H. gets home from work. The first day there was a little rain and a lot of wind (50 mph), and yesterday there was a lot of rain and a little wind (30 mph). There were actually road closures this morning from all the rain last night, and we've got rain in the forecast for the next couple of days. That makes the temperature no higher than 100 degrees, and I am super excited about that. We might even go hiking if the temp stays in the 90s (maybe I should ask H. before I plan that).

Clouds cover the mountains. While we get rain, they get hail.

Pigeons huddled together to hide
from the rain.

On the news last night there was a story about a flower that opens once a year (and not necessarily every year), and if you wanted to see it in person you better get your hiney down to some place or other. I wanted to go, but I feel like these time lapse videos are a pretty good second since it was raining something major.

Cereus Time Lapse (professional)

Cereus Time Lapse (home-grown)

Such beautiful flowers! Although I don't think I could wait five years for one to bloom and possibly miss it overnight.

So far, I've gotten one rejection email from a hospital that I applied at. I'm not really all that down about it because (1) people kept telling me how awful looking for a job is, and (2) I didn't feel I was actually qualified for the job, but I applied anyways just to see. Coincidentally, H. got another call from some company that wanted to interview him for a job.

I've been diligently cleaning things up around here (more so than everyday stuff), and I finally got the desk all cleaned off. What better thing to do first than put flowers on it?

It will stay this clean forever (fingers crossed).

These birthday flowers that H. got me smell absolutely
divine. I never knew I loved the smell of eucalyptus!

Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. 

One more quick update for you all - my wedding flowers are growing! Right now they're just in the green leafy stage, but upon closer inspection there are a couple different types of leaves, which means different flowers. Since we were gone for the 4th, they all started crawling along the dirt towards their light source, so I think it would be detrimental to them to turn around the window box at this stage. In short, they'll be crooked, but hopefully they'll still flower.

I thought there would be more,
but I'm happy with my little harvest.

One was smart enough to crawl over the edge of the box.
We'll call him Leo, as in Da Vinci.

Well, I think that about wraps up my birthday-day. I wish I didn't have to wait 364 days for the next one!