890. See the Ice Sculptures at the PAC

I heard once that the Milwaukee PAC had a display of awesome ice sculptures every winter. Well.. apparently I keep missing the memo and can never find any information about the ice sculptures at the PAC in Milwaukee. However, Appleton has a PAC as well and they have some ice sculptures out front every winter too as part of downtown Appleton's Winter Gala. Well it's a PAC and there are ice sculptures therefore it counts according to my sources.

With that in mind, when Appleton finally got around to having their Winter Gala this year I knew I had to go check out the ice sculptures. Danielle and Gavin tagged along too.

Honestly I wasn't overly impressed. Some of them were really artistic and others were just advertising.

As we strolled College Avenue, I began to wonder if there was a penguin theme this year because there were a lot of penguins.

There were several I liked but I think my favorite was the Eiffel Tower in front of the PAC. It was perfect for the upcoming show of "An American in Paris."

Danielle like the child catching snowflakes.

There was also some ice sculptures for the Community Vow Renewal in honor of Valentine's Day including an ice cake.

A few of my other favorites

We may have missed a few of the sculptures since it was a bit chilly outside.

All of the ice sculptures were very well done. I thought the advertising was a bit pretentious and it turned me off even though I get they were sponsors of the event. If you want to advertise your building or are a sponsor of the event turn it into a really cool ice sculpture and not just a logo. I want to see art.

Hopefully one day I will get to see the ice sculptures in Milwaukee until then I will keep enjoying the ones in Appleton. 

2nd Saturday Library Fun

My local libraries are always coming up with fun and exciting programs and activities that are fun for the whole family. There are crafts, concerts, and even theme nights. Kimberly-Little Chute has taken this one step further and have started Second Saturdays. According to their website, "Second Saturdays are all about casual convo, coffee, puzzles, art making, music and more.".  There is some art projects and you are encouraged to bring your own. They have taken  it one step further and added Yoga in the Stacks beforehand. 

You can always just finish a puzzle

Yoga in the Stacks is exactly that -- yoga in between book shelves before the library even opens. It starts at 8 AM -- which is a bit early on a Saturday for me but since I have always wanted to do yoga, I dragged myself out of bed to go to the library for yoga in the stacks. Jessica from Yoga Story led us in basic yoga for an hour. Everybody is at a different level and she always lets us know of adaptions if the pose is too hard. Even I, who just does yoga with my app when I remember, can handle most of the poses. I think this month the hardest one we had to do was Tree Pose -- last month was Warrior III. The whole balance thing is tricky for me... and breathing not so good at the whole yoga breathing thing. Despite the early start time, I have greatly enjoyed Yoga in the Stacks and hopefully they will continue it or at least bring it back in fall. 

Photo Courtesy of Yoga Story and Kimberly-Little Chute 

Library Facebook page

I stuck around after Yoga to partake in some of the Second Saturday Fun. My initial plan was to stick around for an hour or so but I ended up picking up some overtime at work so I had about 20 minutes to enjoy the second Saturday activities. Luckily they started the activities at 9 instead of 10 so it worked out for me. 

This month's activities all centered around bookmarks. 

There were bookmarks to color

Bookmarks to paint with watercolors. This was so much fun. I learned a great new art technique that I might actually be able to do at home and make it look good. The secret is in the box of Crayola crayons :)

Paper clips to bend into book marks

Origami book marks -- I made it to step 2 before giving up. I didn't even know the kind of fold they were talking about... It has some weird animal name. Apparently I wasn't the only one struggling because I saw Stephanie, one of the librarians, posted on Instagram that she couldn't finish it either. 

Too bad I had to rush through everything. I would have liked to finish coloring my bookmark. Maybe I would have figured out what a rabbit ear fold was. Maybe I would have found the box of paper clips and actually had time to make a really cool bookmark out of it. 

I am sad that I won't be able to attend Second Saturday next month.. I'll somewhere in Oklahoma or Texas. Hopefully they will continue this fun and I will be able drop in another Saturday but I encourage you to go get your craft on during the Second Saturday or during whatever fun event your local library has to offer. The best part -- it's usually free.

6398. Make a cake from scratch

It's been a boring, stay inside kind of winter. I've not done anything fun besides a couple of regular library things. I finally started to get cabin fever and need something to do while the hubby was racking up the miles on the basketball court. I literally went through the bucket list trying to do something indoors that was budget friendly. The one thing that stood out that could be done without much planning was bake a cake from scratch.

Off to Pinterest I went. I have a whole board dedicated to cakes. You think I could find an easy cake made from scratch that didn't require a trip to the store out of 100+ pins. I had little luck -- either the cake was a cake mix cake or it required something I didn't have.

After a little searching, I found one that was perfect. It was chocolate, from scratch, and I had all the ingredients on hand. It was called Chocolate Crazy Cake. The cake had no eggs, milk, or butter in it which would be great for all my dairy-free/vegan friends.

Besides being dairy free, it also was nearly mess free. It was mixed in the same pan that you baked it in. When I was done, I told the hubby to look at the mess in the kitchen and he thought I cleaned it up already and I was like no that's the only mess this cake made.

Add the dry ingredients

Add the wet ingredients in wells

Pour water all over it

Stir

Bake

Frost and enjoy

It was moist but dense. I may have over mixed it. I kind of reminded me of red velvet cake without the red velvet. I did enjoy the cake but the hubby thought it was dry. He did have the cake a day or two after I baked it. It did seem to dry out quickly but that might have been how I stored it. I would definitely make this cake again especially since it made a small cake.

Maybe one day I will branch out and try to make a more complicated homemade cake but for now I may stick with Betty Crocker or the Pilsbury Dough Boy helping me out.