on being brave

every so often something comes up and the thought of whatever it is gets caught in my throat and my heart starts beating a little faster...and i recognize that old friend deep in my knees... fear. the good kind. the kind that pushes me out on a limb. makes me hope for the best and tickles the butterflies in my stomach.

i have learned over time to go towards that kind of fear. i think it is easy these motherly days of mine to lose my fear magnetism. i am just not in very many situations that can scare me anymore. i used to walk a few more lines... now it seems i am often taking the safe route because there are usually a few people holding my hands.

so my ears have perked up and my eyes have sharpened to the places in my life where i can squeeze some good old fashioned courage out. it's not much... but it's what i got right now.... and i'm okay with that. :)

a few weeks ago it was driving a borrowed stick shift, through the snow for a 4 hour road trip with all three kids by myself... with ari in the front seat for the first time being my chatty cathy driving buddy. she was soooooo excited. :) i hadn't driven a stick in years. plus i was driving in unfamiliar territory.. with ari trying to 'help' and getting way too close to the stick shift. it was a little nerve wracking for sure but when i arrived... the pay off is that good as gold feeling of accomplishment. that is money in the bank of

being a brave girl.

 
then it was that moment right before the first paint stroke on our TV armoire. the tossing of the cares into the wind... the shushing of the what if i hate it? what if i regret it? what if???

and then there are these hi hat cupcakes. i saw the picture and i could feel that feeling wash over me. they scared me. i used to chase that feeling down ski hills and jump out after it in airplanes... and now cupcakes scare me. i clearly don't get out as much anymore these days. ;) martha will hook you up with the recipe here.

they require a lot of chocolate. do you like chocolate? spring for the good stuff because you are worth it. )

side note: you have to grease those reusable silicone cups. yeah-- i didn't know that....

and here the first scary part begins... the frosting. this frosting is supposed to turn sticky and hard enough to stick to a cupcake upside down??  well okay then. i found it turns out much smoother if you heat the sugar to turn it almost into a syrup first.. the second time i got lazy and didn't do it and i thought it was a little grainy. i was able to heat it enough by letting the bowl i was whipping it in touch the bottom of nicolette ( aka my orange pot :))

well hello there mr. success...

i stuck them in the freezer for a little while before i dunked them instead of the fridge.. i figured it could only help the case i was pleading against gravity to not steal my frosting tops into a pool of chocolate...

let the dipping begin...

 scared...

is....

 good....

whew...and now i started breathing again.

the little guys were almost like cream puffs. soooo good. :)

so that was my trial run.. everything went perfectly. i was supposed to be bringing these to an event and so i had wanted to test run such a crazy cupcake.
so of course the real deal day my cupcakes looked more like this....

um. not cool.

and this is when i remember i am NOT really a baker. i have no idea what happened.. perhaps overmixing? something to do with the temp of my butter? i will tell you this though... my ADD had definitely kicked in and i was just not quite as interested as the first time. pretty much they were old news at that point and i think i got lazy and cut a lot of corners.

big time shocker. me? losing interest? never.

so two people saved my day... betty crocker...

and my nate. look how cute he is in his apron. :) love me a man with a mixer. :)

it all turned out fine thankfully...the frosting is the star anyway. so what if it's a cake box cupcake.
and i got to eat here. which you know--- was just really hard... :)

and just in case you missed it last week -- let's take a little looksy at these babies again.

being brave has it's rewards. :)