I was telling my boy yesterday that I think the best job would be reviewing bakeries. He pointed out I would be huge if I had this job but it would be a delicious premature death by suffocating in my own fat.
My roommate and I reviewed local cupcake bakeries for science a couple years ago with excellent results. The excellent result being using Sweet Mandy B’s for our awesome volcano cake the next year.
The boy and I are planning my No-Baby Shower and once again I have the chance to summarize cupcake findings FOR SCIENCE.
Reviews behind the jump.

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I don’t do New Year’s resolutions but my boxing class at the park district just happened to start the 2nd week of January so that means I will just happen to learn boxing this year.
It only took one class for me to realize that the boxing boot camp class I took at Bally’s was good for making me sweat but not so good for technique. But that’s why it was boxing boot camp, not boxing training.
The park district is boxing training. Some of these guys (it’s mostly guys) will go on to fight in amateur matches. Some already have. As it is with most athletic things, I am the suckiest one in the group. Everyone seems to tolerate this pretty well. People will stop me and correct my stance or press on my fist to remind me to tighten it up. A girl helped me turn in circles and jab today. It’s a lot harder than it sounds. So far I just punch bags and shadow box so I haven’t interacted much with others.
During my first class 2 guys were sparring and there was some blood. It seems like the blood part is optional. The instructor asked a girl if she wanted to spar today and she said no, she doesn’t want to hit people. So I guess I can train and not worry about my pretty lil face.

Happy new year all!
It’s hard to remember to post with all this holiday excess going on!
I did the whole Xmas thing with my family and it was surprisingly calm this year. My big brother kept his proselytizing to a minimum and I kept my shaking of children to once an hour. I sent out Xmas cards with a picture of Santa in meditation pose and the words “Dharma Dharma Dharma!” above him. Dharma is translated to ho in Japanese. Buddhist joke! I noticed that I didn’t get a card from my aunt and uncle in The South and I don’t think I got one from them last year either. I haven’t seen them in a while but I still talk to my cousin. I sent her a card and present and got a “Happy CHRISTmas!” text back from her. Oh, Jesus lovin family members. I feel more Buddhist the less I let you upset me.

For NYE, I went to Takashi with my boy and friends and then to Subt to see Holy Fuck with a bigger group of friends. Takashi is a Japanese fusion restaurant and it doesn’t focus as heavily on the raw fishes as other Japanese restaurants do. I think they were just as fancy as Blackbird (the restaurant I went to last NYE) but about half the price.
Subt was good because it wasn’t packed so there was room to stand in the back and drink without being smashed into by drunk hipsters. Afterward was late night food and immediate passing out. I’m getting old.

I went to the doctor for my tube tying follow-up. He said everything looks good and reminded me I can have unprotected sex before I left. How often does a doctor do that!
At work, we seem to be trudging along with a grant application that I don’t really think is feasible. Grants often require a match which means the agency has to put up a certain percentage of the amount they are requesting. This particular grant requires a large match amount and our agency just doesn’t have it. We can use in-kind matches, percentages of the salaries of staff that will work on the project but that won’t cover the full amount. It seems like we are going after the grant because we are desperate for new funding sources which ultimately wastes a lot of my time when I put grant writing/prep effort into a grant we aren’t going to get.
The exec team member I’m working with did bring up a good point. He said if we could just get one grant in, it might give us some momentum and the CEO would notice our efforts and maybe give us more time to work on future grants. Rights now there is no designated grant application time for the exec team. It’s just tacked on to everyone’s regular job. It’s a big part of my job but I have a few applications in process and other stupid stuff to do. I spent some of this week filing a big stack of papers and thinking about how it would make much more sense to hire a part time person to do the admin BS part of my job. I know, no money in the budget.

Next week starts boxing and next month starts burlesque lessons. I’m going to bash and bounce!