Boo Boo the Chihuahua

Ok, seriously, this photo cracks me up.  I cannot possibly look at it without smiling, because this little pup is TOO CUTE!  He is Boo Boo the Chihuahua, recently named by the Guinness Book of World Records as world's smallest dog.  He weighs 1.5 pounds!  And he's only 4 inches tall and 6.5 inches long.  

You can read more here:  http://www.aolnews.com/weird-news/article/chihuahua-boo-boo-worlds-smallest-dog-meets-worlds-tallest-dog-great-dane-giant-george/19635291

But really, the picture is the best part.  It has totally made my day.  :) 

photo from wireimage

Chocolat!

This morning, at 9 a.m. sharp, a friend and I reported for chocolate making class.  We went to a class at Cacao, in Brentwood, MD.  Interestingly, the chocolatier, Jacques Poulain, just opened up his second shop right down the street from my house in Cleveland Park.  Mr. Poulain has an impressive resume, including having been the head pastry chef at the Ritz-Carlton, Kapalua Maui.  

When you go to a chocolate making class at 9 a.m., it means... chocolate for breakfast!  We were sampling different varieties of chocolate within minutes of walking through the door (once we had our hair nets on, that is).  Mr. Poulain was very entertaining - he demonstrated how to make a dark chocolate ganache and a caramel mango passionfruit ganache, both of which were delicious!  I learned lots of interesting facts about chocolate, including the fact that removing air bubbles from chocolate extends the shelf life by 3-4 weeks (from 1 week).  Pretty amazing.  He also demonstrated how they "paint" chocolates, which really has nothing to do with painting.  They screen print the images and transfer them to the chocolates.  Who knew?

The best part of the class came when we were set loose to make our very own dark chocolate flowers and white chocolate caramel mango passionfruit truffles (whew!).  My favorite was the flower. To make the chocolate flowers, we used spatulas to hand form the differently sized petals on strips of parchment paper.  The trick is to move quickly enough that you can put your strips of petals into a mold to curve them before they harden.  But the petals also need to be the right thickness, width, etc.  Oh, and you can't pretty down too hard with the spatula.  Got all that??

The center of the flower is a dark chocolate circle with a white chocolate truffle in the middle.  Once our petals had hardened sufficiently, we used warm (tempered) chocolate to assemble our flowers.  It was so much fun!!  

Hiking at Seneca Creek State Park

Hiking is a huge love of mine.  One of the things I dislike most about DC is how little hiking I do here.  But a friend and I decided to try more hiking in this area, and one of our first stops was Seneca Creek State Park.

Seneca Creek State Park is in Maryland, only about a half hour from DC.  We did the 3.5 mile lake view loop hike, and it was gorgeous!  The lake is technically called Clopper Lake, but someone had enough sense not to name this place Clopper Park.  There's quite a bit of hiking in the park, but we also discovered that you can rent kayaks, canoes, and paddleboats at the boat house!  The hike itself was pretty easy - no real elevation gain and a well-maintained trail.  There were some trees down, with at least one blocking the trail, but this was easy enough to climb over.  Well, easy enough for the humans - Violet needed some assistance.  :)  We got there early, so the trail was pretty quiet.  Later in the morning we saw more people going in the opposite direction around the loop.  

We saw quite a few different types of birds, including a great blue heron that was really stunning.  We also saw several turtles and . . . a snake.  Violet had actually stepped over the snake before I even noticed it, giving me a small heart attack when I nearly stepped on it.  I am NOT a snake person.  I had no choice but to step over it since Violet was on the other side, but I was not a happy camper about it! Clopper Lake is also home to a prodigious family of beavers, as evidenced by the many piles of woodchips, gnawed trees, and felled logs that we saw in various locations around the lake.  

Overall, I really enjoyed this hike.  I love hiking along water, and this hike was the perfect length for an early morning hike in the summer before the day gets too hot.  

Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake.  ~Wallace Stevens

A quote for the weekend...

I have collected quotes for many years, since I was a kid.  I have journals full of them, most either witty or inspirational or thought-provoking in some other way.  I think this quote is particularly apt for a fledgling blog...  :)  

Mighty things from small beginnings grow.  

                                                                             ~John Dryden

My blog header...

Someone asked me why I chose the photos on my blog header.  The tiny dog is Violet.  She is the sweetest dog on the planet, and I am lucky enough to be her human (I'd say she's my dog, but anyone who knows Violet knows who runs the show).  She's proudly wearing her pink snuggie and, dare I say it, smiling at the camera.  She not only makes me laugh every day, but she epitomizes optimism.  She is ever hopeful that table scraps are hers, that something will fall from the kitchen counter while I'm cooking, or that we are only seconds away from going for a W-A-L-K.  Plus, no matter how many times she doesn't catch a squirrel or bird, she is always certain the next one will be hers.

The second photo was taken from New Hampshire's Cannon Mountain during a hike with my brother and some friends.  I chose it for several reasons.  First, it's pretty and brings back happy memories of that hike.  Second, I  LOVE to hike and the feeling you get from having reached a summit and getting to enjoy the view (and take some photos).  Third, I grew up in New Hampshire and miss it horribly!!

I hope to post some more photos soon... I love to take photos!  I'm not super talented, but it's a fun hobby.

Every day is a fresh beginning, every morn is the world made new...

The Fall has always been my favorite time of year for a lot of reasons. The cooler temps, fall foliage, shopping for school supplies, Halloween, apple picking... And I've always thought the new year should start in the Fall, not in the dead of Winter. Because my new year is here (nevermind that it's 90 today in DC), I've decided to do something I've always wanted to do and start a blog!  I have to credit my friend Tiffany, as her blog is what finally pushed me to take the plunge and start my own.  :)
Choosing a title was tough, and not just because most of my ideas were already taken. I wanted the title to convey something about myself, but also be an idea I could take in a lot of different directions. I settled on the theme of optimism not only because I consider myself an optimist, but also because I work every day at being optimistic. I've always been a "glass half full" kind of person (though I admit to many less than perfect moments and even days), but recently spent a lot of time with someone who is undoubtedly the most negative person I know. Now, this person isn't a bad person, but it is true what they say: pessimism is contagious! And I am pretty sure I caught a bad case of the negatives. But I like to think that if pessimism is contagious, optimism can be, too!  My goal here is to refocus my energy on being positive by writing as often as possible about fun, happy, positive, optimistic topics. So stay tuned...

Every day is a fresh beginning, every morn is the world made new. . .  -Sarah Chauncey Woolsey