Working Girl, Chocolate Strawberry Cupcakes and Camping Fun

Chocolate Strawberry Cupcakes

Been a little busy lately and had to shelf the blog so I could actually get some sleep at night.  

About 6 months ago, right around the time of my last post, I decided to do a big job change.  Usually a job change along with the already hectic lifestyle of a single Mom is enough to cause some anxiety.  I decided to take that anxiety and add a little jet fuel.  You see, this job change also entailed quite a bit of travel and in the midst of the job ramp up work and the travel, I also decided to move back to Oak Park.  Hooray for that but holy stress attack.  Not only did I have to shelf my blog and cooking but my running and spinning also went on hiatus.  

Despite the craziness, I am absolutely thrilled with the new job and I love being back in Oak Park.  This is a wonderful neighborhood where I can walk my son to and from school every morning and afternoon down gorgeous tree lined streets.  Along those lines, my son did start Kindergarten a few weeks ago and I have been enjoying the experience of yet another chapter in this great adventure of raising a child.  

          

Tyler - First Day of Kindergarten

Ok, so now that we are all caught up, about those cupcakes.  I really didn't have a choice in baking these since the little girl who requested them alleviated a lot of pain in my back and neck.  

You see, in my effort to be a good Mom, I decided to take Tyler camping with a another single parent and his daughter.  This is not the first time I have been camping but it has definitely been decades a while.  I went camping plenty of a few  times when I was a kid and never had a problem sleeping on cold hard surfaces.  Those days are long gone and when I tried to sleep on the ground with nothing but a sleeping bag separating my body from the hard surface of the campground, my neck and back paid a serious price.  Like, trip to the chiropractor serious.

My friend was a little smarter than me and brought along a blow up mattress for his daughter who is 6 years old.  His reasoning was that he didn't want her to get turned off to camping by being uncomfortable.  I can certainly understand that since I undoubtedly did get turned off to camping after not being able to turn my neck and not being able to sleep.  So I begged aforementioned little girl to let me sleep on the blow up mattress and promised her anything she wanted.  She said I could sleep on the mattress but I had to make chocolate cupcakes with strawberry frosting.  Thank God for the simple requests of children.

I slept relatively well the second night with the mattress and I vowed to make sure that I would show up with those requested cupcakes.  As a side note to this story, Maria, after sleeping on much tougher ground the second night, of course woke up the next morning bright-eyed, fully rested and without neck pains.  Oh, the beauty of youth and the jelly bodies of 6 year olds.  

Below is a picture of Tyler with Maria, the girl with the magic mattress:

    

Maria and Tyler

The cupcake recipe is from a previous post of mine for chocolate cupcakes.  I got the strawberry icing recipe from here, better know as Annie's Eats.  I cheated and added a little red food coloring because as you might have noticed from the picture above, Maria is seriously into pink.  She saved me a trip to the ER so I figure the least I could do is boost the color in her requested cupcakes.