Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins...AND...Halloween!!

Well, hello again readers!!! And by readers, I mean Morghen since no one else reads my blog haha. But that's ok...just means I dont have to worry about my "audience" getting mad at me...I think!

Anywho...So have I mentioned that I love baking? Well actually, it's more that I hate being bored, and when I get bored, I just start either cooking or baking to make the time go by faster.

When I bake, I usually only make things that have chocolate in them, but I have been known to make some pretty awesome pear/apple/cherry pies from scratch. I prefer to make my own crust because I get really proud when I can make a deliciously sweet and flaky crust without any help from anyone else. But I do understand the handiness of a store-bought pastry shell in a time pinch.  Those pies are so easy to make. Just buy some premade pie filling (your choice), cold pie  dough (next to the premade cookie dough with the butter), then just unroll the shell on a pie pan, add your filling with some butter, and bake. Simple right? Yes. But if you have time (and usually I do), you should def make your pie entirely from scratch. It's almost just as easy.

I really have no idea why I just talked about pie, but whatevs. Maybe someone was wondering how to make a simple homemade dessert and came across this post!

Anyway, I typically make chocolatey desserts like brownies or chocolate chip cookies or pastries with chocolate either on top or inside the dough. But I wanted to expand my chocolate repertoire, so I decided on a chocolate chocolate chip muffin. The first time I made the recipe, the muffins were ok. I liked them, but I knew they could be better. On the second attempt, I made some adjustments, so the muffins would be more chocolatey...and more delicious! Still, I knew I could improve. Finally, on the third try, I got it! Cooked perfectly with the right amount of chocolate, I achieved my goal of making a delicious batch of Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins! Yay me.

These pictures are from my first batch of muffins, so you can see how the muffins rose in the oven and what they looked like as a finished product.

I hope to one day either work in a bakery or own my own bakery. So this is definitely a starting point.

OK. Let's move on.

Last month, my roommate Erin invited me to go with her and her sister to a crafts fair in Tennessee. They go there every year I think, so it was really sweet of them to let me tag along. 

There were tons of homemade crafts and such and plenty of dogs walking around with their owners!

We had a ton of fun seeing what everyone came to sell, and we even got to pet some animals at a Petting Zoo! There were llamas, puppies, chickens, goats, geese, and miniature horses!

I got my picture taken while feeding the horses...which reminds me, I need to see if I can find the website that would have those pictures posted! The llamas didnt seem to like short people because they wouldnt let me and Erin pet them. Oh well. Some random guy brought an alpaca to the fair and walked around with it on a leash letting people pet it. Now that was awesome!

Here is a picture of Erin and me in between the two bigger thorough-fairs of..well...the fair haha.

I got some cute charms to add to my necklace, and I will post a picture of them soon.

That's pretty much it for the fair, so on to the next!

HALLOWEEN!

So as you know, I was Marilyn Monroe.

I only have a few pictures of my costume that my friends took (I dont have a camera).

 This is Sami as a guidette (Jersey style)

 I was trying to do the Marilyn look, but I dont think I was very good at it lol

 Hahaha, I feel like I just look clueless.

This is me after I took off my costume and was about to head home. Beau was sweet enough to give me a ride. Thanks Beau!

Well, Sami's party was pretty kick ass. There were lots of different kinds of costumes. Most of the girls weren't slutty lame costumes, which was pretty refreshing. It's one thing to be feminine, but it's another thing to just wear skimpy clothing and call it a costume. One of my fav costumes was Gumby. It looked pretty awesome, not going to lie.

The next day I had work at 8:30 am until 2:40, so I was glad I got about an extra 2 hours in. Then I went to Stephen's house with Britney and Christina. We decorated his house up for all of the cute little trick or treaters, and it looked so good! I wish I took a picture. 

There were a ton of good costumes, and most of the kids were pretty friendly, although a few of them could have used a few more manners. However, we did get some older kids, and I totally called them out on it. They said they were "ummm 12?" but they definitely looked at least 14 and didnt even bother to wear costumes. Idiot kids. I told them next time they need to where legit costumes. This one kid, who was probably 11 or 12, said he was Paul McCartney (he was dressed in dark jeans and a black hoodie)...he definitely just looked like an emo kid who just left school, so his "costume" was a bit of a stretch too.

Oh well, I had a lot of fun, but I got pretty tired pretty early. So I went home around 1am I think.

That's about it for my Halloween weekend. I thought it was pretty eventful, but then again, I'm usually bored all day, so doing anything outside my apt. is pretty eventful lol.

Here are a few more festive pictures from my apt though...cant wait for the next holiday and more festive decorations and pictures to come!

 Pumpkin decoration

 Another pumpkin decoration...

 This is the scary, furry spider at Sami's house. It was huge!

 Scarry pumpkin! Get it? Scarry...because it has scars...and it's scary...no? you're an idiot.

 Angry Asian pumpkin!

Two faced pumkin!!

Oh yeah, tonight I had dinner with my old roommate Ashley (hey Ash!)!!! I love her. We are going to have another play-date next week sometime, so I will definitely write about that when it happens!

Until next time folks!

<3