Spring is eggsellent.

Spring has sprung forth several springy happenings this week. The biggest news item (aside from 70-degree+ weather!) is that I've been offered a job. And I accepted. Work! You heard me right... WORK! I'll be working at a small textbook publisher in Plymouth, joining a team of six other managing editors, where I'll be responsible for, well, managing the production of a variety of course-specific textbooks and lab manuals. It still hasn't totally sunk in yet... WORK! After 14 months off. It's kind of a mixed bag of emotions... Work, yeah! But work... boo! HA! Will keep you posted on how that plays out. :) In related news, Mr. Church has been accepted to the Michigan State weekend MBA program! Go hubby!

To celebrate our good news, and, again, the beautiful weather, we joined the Zs for some Dominick's time last night.

Yes, I drank all that.
Yes, I paid for my debaucherous ways.

After mostly recovering this morning, I decided to whip up the Cadbury egg muffins I wrote about a while back.

The wet ingredients were mocking me!

It's a pretty simple and straightforward recipe. I plopped in the Cadbury eggs and threw them into the oven in no time.

Once they were in the oven, I went to the fridge to start my next project, and guess what I found?

That's right... The butter I'd melted and set in the fridge to chill. I totally put a dozen muffins in the oven... without any butter! I chalk this up to sangria brain.

They came out looking ok...

But would they taste ok?? Good news.... They taste just fine! And now have fewer calories -- ha ha ha!!! I took a few over for Sarah and Mike, and Sarah pointed out that the butter may have made them a little less dense (they are pretty dense), but otherwise you don't even really notice. How weird is that!? Anyway, I was very pleased that I didn't ruin an entire batch of sweets (and 12 precious mini eggs!).

So, like I said, I had a second project to prepare before I could head over to Sarah's to hand out my treats. Time to hard boil eggs! Lisa recently sent me her surefire method, so I felt confident I could tackle this, sangria brain and all. (And yes, it is incredibly silly that I have never hard boiled eggs before.) In case you are an egg dummy, too, here are Lisa's instructions:

Put cold eggs in a pot with a lid and fill till covering about 2" w/ cold water. Also add 1 tbsp of vinegar. I just use white distilled, but you could also use apple cider or whatever you have on hand. Then put that pot on the stove top on high till the eggs are at a rapid boil. Once they've reached rapid boil for at least 1 minute, pull the whole pot off the stove top, and let sit for exactly 11 minutes. Peel & eat. Perfecto!

I probably wasn't supposed to remove the lid during rapid boil, but I love watching stuff happen! (My lid also doesn't totally fit my pot, so I figured if there was damage to be done, it had already happened.) Luckily, they DID turn out perfecto!

That might be the most beautiful egg I have ever seen. I'm so glad that at some point over the past 10 years I've realized how much I like eggs in all forms. It was so warm and soft and just gosh darn amazing -- I want to eat these every day of my life! Alas, I had a purpose for these eggs, and eating them (at least just yet) was not the plan. So I grabbed my eggs and headed over to Sarah's for.... Easter egg dying! Woo!

Bloody vein egg.

What a fun idea! I was so pleased when Sarah proposed an afternoon of egg craftiness, and it was great fun. I say let's do this every year! And here's to lots more great spring memories. Happy sunshine, everyone!