Live...In Concert

This last week I got to go to a concert of one of my favorite artists: Brandi Carlile. This is the second time I've gotten to go to her, and I'll probably try to go everytime she comes to town. The fortunate thing, is that she is from Seattle, so I think she makes frequent trips to spokane.

Derek, and I went, with my sister Rebekah to the Fox theater, where she was accompianied by the Spokane Symphony. I have to admit, I was a little wary about this, because I didnt' know what kind of concert it would be. I do like the symphony, but I came to hear Brandi sing! I was definately not disapointed. It was such a good show that it even made me forget the guy's BO that was sitting in front of us... until he moved and stirred up the, ah aroma, again.



Oh man, I can't even tell you how much I loved it. She is not well known, but has had several of her songs play on Grey's Anatomy, the most well known was, "The Story". Anyway I don't have pictures becuase they didn't really turn out but here are a few song samples. These are my two favorite songs.
Turpentine:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzXhoMOn90Q

and The Story:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y72jRaoRvHs

Orange Tulips! this is the third attempt to take this picture. I wish now I had saved them to show the progress... I asked Derek to take my picture with the latest flowers. The first picture I looked stoned, according to him, which I agreed with him. The next picture he told me to widen my eyes more, and (Rebekah, you know what's coming...You should make a post about it!) I looked like a deer in the headlights. this is taken of me laughing from the last picture. Its the best one. Anyway, once again, I am loving, "The Year of the Flowers!"

Cupcakes

I am slacking in the exercising department. Today I was dragging my feet, as usual, to go to the gym. I got changed and was almost out the door, when I thought about these cupcakes i wanted to make. Well, as I had the butter sitting out on the counter all night so it could be room temperature, and everything ready to make it, I stayed home from exercising and decided to make cupcakes instead. Could you blame me? I also had the excuse that I couldn't exercise AND make the cupcakes, as I work tonight. Anyway I am finally making another post, and here are the cupcakes i made:

I used a recipe from Marth Stewart for Vanilla cupcakes:

http://www.marthastewart.com/portal/site/mslo/menuitem.fc77a0dbc44dd1611e3bf410b5900aa0/?vgnextoid=2665542a0780f010VgnVCM1000003d370a0aRCRD&vgnextfmt=default

Then I used another recipe from Martha for Strawberry Meringue Buttercream. It was suppose to be fluffier, but I guess I didn't beat the egg whites enough. I can never get that just right. I used the strawberry freezer jam that I made last fall and still have alot of. It tastes really good:

http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/strawberry-meringue-buttercream?autonomy_kw=strawberry%20buttercream%20frosting&rsc=header_2

I ended up with a cupcake that tasted like a really pumped up strawberry shortcake. Yumm-O!

You might ask if they were worth it, for the extra calories they provide, and that is not being worked off... I'll just say they're pretty darn good!