Musical musings for February

I hope you didn't think I had forgotten about this month's musical musings. I definitely had not, I just almost ran out of time to squeeze it in on here. I am honestly not sure when or if anything other than country music will appear in my purchased folder, but I am completely okay with this. I managed to buy quite a few songs this month, both new and old artists as well as Lady Antebellum's complete album. This was all courtesy of a gift card I got from some friends for my birthday. I will really be listening to a lot of Lady Antebellum's music in the next week and a half, as I get ready to go their concert on March 10th. Speaking of concerts, my housemate/fellow country music lover and I managed to score tickets for the much-coveted Luke Bryan concert in May. I have seriously never had a concert be so hard to purchase tickets for. The successful purchase really has to be credited to another friend who managed to get two tickets side by side by selecting one ticket in two different browsers. Yes this is the lengths I will go to sometimes and just shows what awesome friends I have. So without any further ado, the music now in my iTunes library is:

1. Golden (complete album) - Lady Antebellum
2. Ain't Worth the Whiskey - Cole Swindell
3. Lookin' For That Girl - Tim McGraw
4. This Is How We Roll (feat. Luke Bryan) - Florida Georgia Line
5. Grew up in a Country Song - Jordan McIntosh
6. We Are Tonight - Billy Currington
7. Up All Night - Jon Pardi
8. Carolina - Parmalee
9. Jumped Right In - Dallas Smith
10. Southern Girl - Tim McGraw
11. The Blues Have Blown Away (feat. Connie Britton & Lennon & Maisy) - Nashville Cast
12. Don't Put Dirt On My Grave Just Yet (feat. Hayden Panettiere) - Nashville Cast
13. You'll Think Of Me - Keith Urban

February's musical musings can be found on these albums (images courtesy of iTunes)

Curling

I am not sure if anyone got struck down with a case of Olympic fever recently, but I personally managed to watch some of the action. Although, I honestly wish I had watched more because I think it is awesome to see what some people are capable of achieving, plus I get incredibly patriotic. In the aftermath of the Olympics, I coincidently was able to try my hand at curling via a Groupon offer with a bunch of friends, who like me were all newbies. After a quick 101 from an instructor at the Richmond Curling Club, we were split into two teams and pretty much left to do our own thing. What followed was an entertaining hour and a half as we all tried our hand at being the skip, the sweeper and the curler. My efforts were questionable, but I managed to contribute a point to the winning team's final score. It was a really fun afternoon spent in great company even if I did come away with a bit of a bruised knee probably due to my ill-formed technique. Two hours over in the blink of an eye and with them a winter sport tried whilst snow fell outside, one I definitely will do again.

Cake and cookies come together

During my time in Vancouver, I've been lucky enough to have some great people become a part of my life. One such person has allowed me to not only become a friend, but also a part of her family. We celebrated her baby shower last Sunday and I was honoured to be able to assist in the preparation. This of course meant some baking amongst other things. I was charged with making mini cupcakes so I decided on a funfetti cupcake using the recipe found here, topped with a mini sugar cookie courtesy of this recipe. I baked the cupcakes using vanilla yoghurt and regular milk where choice was necessary. I managed to make fifty-one mini cupcakes using just a single recipe batch and found I needed to bake them for 11 - 12 minutes. For the frosting, I did my usual experimentation in combining icing sugar, butter, vanilla essence, milk and pink colouring to tint for a buttercream variety. For the sugar cookies, I did not add any almond extract, but otherwise followed the recipe as written. I did however make the mistake of adding pink colouring to tint at the end instead of before the dry ingredients. This is why the cookies turned out more tie dyed than actual pink, but cute teddies and feet nonetheless.

I was also responsible for this guy (courtesy of a recipe provided to me) sans the eyes and his ducky friends, which were all done by the guest of honour's best friend and amazing chief baby shower organiser:

What I am most proud of was the candy bar that I got to source and create. Who would have thought that pink candy wouldn't be so accessible, but I had a lot of fun scouring the stores for it and doing a few visits to Party City. I cannot take credit for the tablecloth, white owl, the main candy bar sign or the cookies you can spy. However, the rest was all me with a sprinkling of assistance in set-up from the guest of honour's two adorable nieces.

It was such a lovely shower that took a well-led army to create and pack up, but it was definitely worth every minute of it. We all cannot wait to meet this baby girl!