favorite shop friday: la belle fairy

I've just finished reading some books written in a Victorian fashion with much talk of cravats and petticoats and waistcoats and corsets and so I've been in a lady-like Victorian kind of mood and began eyeing what corsets could be found on Etsy. I've found the funnest shop filled with pretty corsets prefect for when I'm in these period piece kind of moods!

La Belle Fairy is your one-stop shopping for all your cinching, boning, lacing, flattering figure needs!



Such pretty shapes...



Such soft satins...



Such romance and femininity...



So much fun!

And don't worry about fit...these corsets are custom made in Canada to fit your figure!

Of course you need a corset! Find your perfect figure at http://labellefairy.etsy.com/!

my sister, the cupcake baker

Man, have I ever been neglectful!

Sorry for the lack of posts the past couple of weeks...I've been getting settled here: getting over jet-lag, sprucing up my resume for job-hunting, hanging out with family and trying to get used to being in America again. I'm missing Germany something awful but I'm seeing a lot of perks to being back in Texas...like the yummy Texas food and spending more time with my family than I've had for the past two years (or more!).

One thing I've been especially enjoying that combines food I can't get in Germany and my family is my sister's new cupcake business! She started up a cupcake baking business, Seriously Cupcakes, this past year and I've been dying to taste her work for months, espeically since Germans don't make cupcakes...but now I'm cursing her evilness because I'm surrounded with cupcakes I can't stop eating!

Susan seriously makes a good cupcake! I'm deeply impressed at how good she can make a simple vanilla cupcake with vanilla frosting (but it's probably the vanilla sugar, vanilla bean and Madegascar vanilla extract she uses in both the cake and cream cheese frosting...not to mention the obscene amount of butter). Just when I thought I was starting to get tired of eating such rich little cakes, she brings over some coconut cupcakes with coconut cream cheese frosting (a total of 6 sticks of butter went into these little bits of heaven) and I'm hooked again.

If you're in the Houston area and are interested in getting addicted to some amazingly good cupcakes, you can contact my sister, Susan, through her cupcake-y blog, No Seriously, No...Seriously.

americans!

And so...we are back in America.

Our long traveling went smoothly. But we're feeling a little more European than American right now with all the streets feeling too wide, the cars too big, the city too sprawling, and the east Texas air too humid. We're going to have to do some adjusting! So let's make this an All-American post today! And what's more American than Chuck Norris!?

Are you familiar with Chuck Norris' 1986 cartoon, Chuck Norris Karate Kommando? It is horribly made, kind of strange, and hilarious.

This is one of my favorite clips from the few episodes that got made. I find it strangely poignant.

Is Chuck trying to tell us something about American culture? Discuss.