I Cannot Remember Learning About This American History in School...

When I think about many of the atrocities that have occurred throughout history - the Holocaust, for example - I think the ones that have happened in the U.S. for some reason tend to be overlooked.

Case in point: the Japanese internment during WWII. I hardly remember a mention of this fact during U.S. History. Ed Wakayama, one of the people born in these internment camps, has been a very close friend of my family since I was a kid; here is his story.

And something I really do not remember ever being mentioned during history class, is how minority, low income, and other people declared "unfit to breed" were forcefully sterilized in our own country, not all that long ago. As in, some of these people are my parents' age. BBC News has a very interesting article on this topic of eugenics in the U.S. currently.

Take a look at this list from the BBC article of people that the North Carolina Eugenics Board was petitioned to sterilize in 1950 - only a few years before my parents were born!

• An 18-year-old girl, separated from her husband who had "manifested anti-social behaviour"
• A black 25-year-old rape victim who showed "abnormal sexual tendencies"
• A 16-year-old girl who had earlier been committed to a state institution for "sexual delinquency" and whose aunt "signed consent"
• A white married mother of three, whose family had been "finally dependent for many years" and has "a history of inter-marriage with Indian and Negro"
• A 15-year girl deemed "feebleminded"; parents reportedly consented

These facts just make me very sad to think about the history of injustice in my own country.  It makes me really upset to think about what the Chinese government has done to the Tibetan culture and people, or what the Nazis did to the Jews, Gypsies, and others, but we also have our own history to remember. We have a lot of work to do in our own country to try and make up for these injustices.

Minty!

So I just got back into something I used to use which is very exciting.

If you have never tried Mint.com, you really must. It's an amazing way to organize your financial life, and it's free! Basically, you sign up and very easily and quickly add information so that Mint can aggregate all of your banking, investment, and loan information into one place. It's the best and most effective way I have found of making a budget and sticking to it.

Mint provides you with trend information based on your monthly spending, income, etc. There is also an associated [free] iPhone app, so you can check your budget and expenses on the go. I've also set it up to send me e-mails to remind me when I have a credit card payment due or if an account goes below a certain balance.

So I will say that it's not perfect. For a while, my primary bank [USAA] was not functioning properly on the Mint website, and therefore it became basically unusable to me. That's the main reason why I just got back to using it again. I randomly decided to check my luck, and it's been working! The thing that really made me realize how valuable Mint is for me is that my budget has definitely been off track ever since I stopped using it. I have been creating my own financial/budget list using a spreadsheet, but Mint is so much better.

The Cupcake Challenge

After seeing so many nice foodie blogs, I decided to go ahead and try out my first recipe:
adapting the Rose Cake Tutorial to cupcakes.

Knowing myself as I do, I decided to make the actual baking part uber simple... otherwise I get fed up with the project before the actual work begins. I went with a Betty Crocker cake mix.

To make it even more fun, I found these really cute muffin liners at Target and prepared them for batter.

And here is my lovely stand mixer doing most of the work for me.

Baking the cups...

And after figuring out which tip was the appropriate one for making the roses, here is what I ended up with!

& I was able to use the new cake stand I got off of craigslist! If you are looking for a way to make cupcakes pretty without having to be overly creative, this is perfect.

U.S. Atlantic Seaboard at Night

U.S. Atlantic Seaboard at Night- Pretty cool!

So this is why I'm fat?

I'm not exactly sure how I feel about this... but it was strange enough that I wanted to share.
http://thisiswhyyourefat.tumblr.com
To be honest, I don't really find this spaghetti & meatballs cake to be all that appetizing.

Chocolate cake covered in spaghetti icing, with Ferrero Roche meatballs smothered with raspberry sauce.

Since It Is Bridal Season...

I guess it is somewhat appropriate to provide this helpful video so that all my newlywed friend can become perfectly domesticated! ;) On a more serious note, I always hated folding fitted sheets. This makes it so much easier.

Just Hungry

One of my favorite foodie blogs is Just Hungry. This is the perfect blog to visit if you have thought about trying to cook Japanese food but don't know where to start. The recipes are all very authentic and cover a huge variety of food types (from the Japanese food you're probably familiar with to things that you didn't even know existed). There are even guides to help you cook rice properly, make your own tofu, or understand the plethora of different types of rice.

Sukiyaki - One of my favorites!

A closely-related side project is Just Bento. I for one get board of packing a sandwich every day for lunch - and this is a great alternative to that. There are some great [healthy] ideas on the site, and not just for what you would assume to be specifically Japanese foods.

Spring vegetable bento with jumping fish - so cute!

And just in case you prefer actual cookbooks to online blogs, there is a Just Bento cookbook!