"Iced Coffee" Cupcakes and portfolio "building"

Tuesday was cupcake day. I had chosen an iced coffee cupcake to go with an ice coffee frappe. It sounds fancy, right? Welp, remember how I said I needed to find the recipe box? Since I didn't have recipe on me, I hadn't gone shopping for the ingredients. So, I had basically nothing to make these fancy sounding little cakes. Sadness ensued.

Luckily, I pulled it together and decided to wing it! I smashed the recipe for the iced coffee cupcakes and Hershey's chocolate cake together. And it worked!!

Here's what I did:

STEP 1- Preheat oven to 350F. Line (about 20) muffin cups.

STEP2- Beat 2 cups all-purpose flour, 1 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 cup cocoa, 2 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp salt, 3 eggs, 1 (4 ounce) package of instant chocolate pudding and pie filling mix, 1/2 cup vegetable oil and 1 tsp vanilla in a large bowl with an electric mixer for 30 seconds. Make sure it's at low speed so all the flour doesn't create a snow storm in your kitchen!

STEP 3- Speed it up to medium speed for a bit until it's all blended.

STEP 4- Spoon into muffin cups, filling 3/4 full.

STEP 5- Bake 20 minutes. Cool on wire racks.

STEP 6- Place a scoop of coffee flavored ice cream (I didn't have any so, Caramel Turtle Cheesecake it was!) on top while it's still warm. Drizzle on magic shell topping (Again, I didn't have any so I used regular chocolate sauce) and toasted pecans.

STEP 7- Devour the chocolaty goodness.

In other, non-food related, news, I am still currently career-less. I got some advice yesterday from my neighbor about building an online portfolio in order to boost my credibility. Easier said than done! First, I had to find a website. Then, I had to figure out said website. I tend to think of myself as tech-savvy but, Portfoliobox, the site I ended up choosing, just boggled my mind! It literally took my all of yesterday and a bit of today to figure it out. I guess it didn't help that my work wasn't already readily accessible...

After hours of frustration, I am only sort-of proud of the result. It's something and something is better than nothing. But I don't think that the little bit of something that is online right now accurately represents the caliber and type of work that I am capable of doing. I just uploaded everything I had done from school that could be quickly formated as an image file. That leaves it looking a bit empty.

However, it doesn't look really fancy and professional! While I am not confident that my portfolio as it is will make quite the difference in my job search as I would have hoped, I hope it doesn't turn away potential employers. Maybe I'll try to mock up some more random stuff to fill it out more... I'd rather it be published work though...

Here's the link: brianafetrow.portfoliobox.me. Tell me what you think!

Weekend Recap

What a weekend! The beginning felt so rushed and hectic!

Friday
I worked Friday evening. After that I had to hop on the highway, heading around the city to the south side, to my boyfriend's house. It was around 11:30 by time I got to his house. The next day was the Butterfly Dreams 5K. While it normally wouldn't be bad to head to his house late after work, with a race the next day I knew I'd be exhausted and my feet would hurt from standing on the concrete for hours.

Saturday
We woke up around 5:30 (i think- my boyfriend just came and got me and I just hopped in the car, I really wasn't coherent until 7). I had looked up the race before and my fears were confirmed once we got there. People who had run the course before were talking about how hilly it was and how the last mile was killer. Great. I don't know about everyone else but, I get all jittery before the race starts and then I feel like there's so much adrenaline pulsing through my body, my legs feel tired and tingly before I even hit mile one. And then the hills came... and they were awful. I thought it would take forever to hit the halfway turn-around point! But the turn-around point was the best turn-around cone, ever! There was a little orange traffic cone AND two girls with a PONY!!! It was definitely good motivation! For a little while, at least. Then the hill came, that last mile that everyone was talking about. I felt like I was walking, it was awful! You don't know how happy I was to round the corner and see the final hill. Yes, that does sound a little bit like a typo but after that hill was a tenth of a mile downhill to the finish line. My boyfriend was waiting for me a little before the 3 mile marker. He gave me a pep-talk as he jogged with me to the finish. After all those hills and how slow I felt I was going imagine how shocked I was to see 25 minutes on the clock above the finish line! That's the best I've ever run, EVER! I sprinted under the finish line at 25:38. woot woot!

With that fantastic time, I managed to come in first in my age group.

And my boyfriend won the whole thing! He's amazing.

After the race ended we headed home for a quick nap and tailgate preparation! The Dawgs played Clemson Saturday and we wanted to ring in the football season with a proper party. It was just family but we made a whole mass of food!

There was a cheese ball,
Chesapeake snack mix,
Paula Deen's All-American burgers (made in slider size),
veggies and dip,
chips and salsa,
and Paula Deen's Lemon Bars.
(We like Paula Deen, can you tell?)

It was all really good but the sliders stole the evening. My boyfriend and I were the only ones who stayed awake to see the disappointing loss...I still have high hopes for the rest of the season though. GO DAWGS!

Sunday
The day of rest. All we did this day was run some errands, swim, and relax.

Monday
Labor Day. I had to work. I left his house at noon and worked till 5:30 on a national holiday. Boo. When I got home I checked my email and I still haven't heard anything from any potential employers. So now it's back to stressing about finding a full time job... wish me luck!