Dresses, Camera, Chocolate, Ireland!

CONCERNING DRESSES...
My sis sent me a link to a really cool blog that this girl is doing! It's called New Dress A Day with the premise that the girl creates a new stylish dress, one every day, for 365 days straight, with a budget of $365 (most of the dresses come from DI I'm thinking). Check out the site! I literally just spent an hour looking at all her creations! SO inventive. :)

CONCERNING CAMERA...
SOooo... my silly little camera (that I wasn't too fond of from the get-go, Best Buy practically forced me into purchasing it...) decided to break. At first I thought, no biggie! My old camera will just have to come off the shelf. Well, my old cam came off the shelf alright, ALSO not working... so I suddenly find myself camera-less for the first time since 2004 when the only cameras I ever used were disposable! Remember these? They still exist.

CONCERNING CHOCOLATE...
The reason I bring this up now, approximately 1 week and 4 days since I realized my camera was busted, is because this evening there was an experiment/incident that I would have liked to take a picture of! On that website about the dresses there was a recipe for making cake in the microwave! Crazy and brilliant, I know... well, it seemed so easy, only 5 minutes start to finish, so I gave it a go! I'd just mixed all the dry ingredients and was about to add the egg when catastrophe! I managed to knock over the mixture and in a puff of cocoa power, sugar and flour, my counter, floor and left foot were covered in the mixture! I think I stood there for about ninety seconds thinking "this is unfortunate" while considering how I could remedy the situation and STILL be tasting chocolate cake in 5 minutes. Enter broom, stage right. This is the sad part, my perfect cocoa powder footprint could not be cataloged. The good news though is that within about 6 minutes I took a bite out of fresh microwave chocolate cake and it was strangely delicious! Doesn't replace the real thing mind you, but definitely a fab option if you're in a crunch and must have some chocolate cake satisfaction. Here is what it looked like (thanks to that website):
And here's the recipe!
5 MINUTE CHOCOLATE MUG CAKE
4 tablespoons flour
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)
A small splash of vanilla extract
1 large coffee mug (Microwave Safe)

Add dry ingredients to mug, and mix well. Add the egg and mix thoroughly before pouring in the milk and oil in. Keep mixing. Add the optional chocolate chips next (who makes that an option!) and vanilla extract, and mix again… Put your mug in the micro wave and cook for three minutes at 1000 watts. The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don’t be alarmed! Allow it to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired. Def enough for two.

CONCERNING IRELAND...
So my next step is searching for a new camera! Any suggestions? I want something a little better than basic because, if you haven't heard, I'M GOING TO IRELAND! Notice my handy countdown clock to the right. I'm pretty much so excited I can't stand it. :) It will be my first trip to Europe, and I'll be traveling with a good friend. We are going to have a blast.