Instagram birthday

My birthday was last weekend (31!!) and we had a very low-key day together. Doug brought me Dunkin Donuts for breakfast (their donuts aren't as good as our local place but I love their decaf and iced coffee so much), gave me my gifts including a new knife, this new dessert book (we've eaten at the Loveless Cafe before and it's worth the wait) and a box of decaf Dunkin Donut K-cups so I can have DD coffee at home. We ran a few other small shopping errands, went to an estate sale, where Doug bough a few books and I got a brass peacock statue, had a sushi lunch, birthday cupcakes from Muddy's and a two-hour nap. It was a really nice birthday and I had a lot of gifts, cards, and well-wishes from my friends and family. Here's some iPhone pics from the day:

An updated & decorated space

We're in the process of doing some house updating and refreshing and cleaning and purging. I mean it is spring plus I'm also doing what I guess is called 'nesting'. It's still a little early to work on the baby room but since it's going to get hot quick around here and I assume later on I'll feel not as motivated we've started doing a few things.

Our office, aka the third bedroom, has housed our computer, books, files and other bits of randomness since we moved in. The wood paneling made the room really dark and dated but we couldn't decide if we wanted it painted or not. Finally we decided to do it and hired a painter. It took him three days to prime and paint but we are so happy with the results, it's so much lighter and brighter. Since we've lived in our house, I have used our second bedroom for a craft room but now it's going to be the baby's room. So I downsized a little and merged my craft room into the newly painted office. We moved the craft room items into the office, changed the light fixture and hung new curtains. There are still a few things I want to do like paint the pink bookshelf and frame and hang a few more prints but it's 95% done. I absolutely love it and want to hang out in there all the time now.

Baking with Julia: Lemon Loaf Cake

I skipped the other selection this month but hope to make it soon because it sounded really good. The second selection for this month is Lemon Loaf Cake, hosted by Truc of Treats and Michelle of The Beauty of Life.

Now I'm made a lot of lemon cakes so I'm extra picky. That being said I appreciated the different way this cake was put together but I wasn't a huge fan of the cake myself. It was good, but not my favorite lemon cake. My favorite lemon cake is still this one from Ina Garten. I still enjoyed baking it but I can't say it'll be added to my regular rotation. 

Baked Donuts

I really love donuts. A lot. In Memphis the main two places we go are Gibson's and Howard's. Gibson's is packed all the time and a little further away from our house but they have a little more variety than Howard's. Howard's is super close to our house and busy but manageable. Donuts are obviously not healthy but they're so good. I wanted to make donuts for awhile but really didn't want to invest in a deep fryer. Then I saw the donut pans for making baked donuts and thought I'd get one but never did. 

A trip to Target a few weeks ago found me wandering down the bake ware aisles and I found a donut pan, so I impulsively bought it. It took another week or so before I actually made donuts one Sunday morning for breakfast.

I used a pretty basic recipe which I now cannot find, but I know it had buttermilk in it and a chocolate glaze. It was quick and easy, the only slightly messy part was dipping the donuts in the glaze. While these donuts aren't as good as the ones we get from Gibson's or Howard's they were still very good for a baked/first-try donut.