They share a birthday with a very special pup named Arlie Bean:

I did not know Arlie (seen above in August 2007) until three months after his birth. He weighed only three pounds, played with his reflection in mirrors and dug at the base of trees because he had yet to figure out squirrels ran up them, not under. He's an active animal, but has nothing but love for every person and animal he crosses. And last year for his birthday, I started my homemade dog treat habit by making him these pupcakes (which I replicated Wednesday evening).

While I was busy shredding these carrots, Arlie learned that he loved carrots in spite of years of denial. It may have been because I was using the cheese shredder and he did not recognize the difference.

My roommate's father has a hobby farm in Wisconsin. We are overflowing with tiny eggs from his fancy, free-range chickens. Since they were so small, I decided to use six instead of the instructed three.

Note: the above photo is the "before" baking and the below is the "after". Since the recipe lacks a leavener, like baking powder, the batter does not change much in appearance. Feel free to fill the cups up as full as you please. They will not overflow.

Now I made the mistake of adding too much applesauce to the cream cheese, so my icing was not as fluffy as I would prefer. Dogs don't really give two wags, so I suppressed my anxious drive for perfection. And just because you're slightly dying inside doesn't mean you can't add a little flare with dog food sprinkles or Cesar Filet Mignon Softies.

And what can I say, Arlie (and his sister Etta) devoured the birthday treat. Remember to remove the paper liners before you serve. Unlike what I absent-mindedly thought last year, dogs do not eat around them.

Birthday Pupcakes (Carrot Cake Dog Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing)
from Dog Treat Kitchen

Makes: 8

Ingredients

Cake
2 cups shredded carrots
3 eggs
1/2 cup applesauce, unsweetened
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup rolled oats
3 cups whole wheat flour

Icing
8 oz. low fat cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup applesauce, unsweetened

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Lightly spray cups of muffin tin (or use paper wrappers, but make sure to remove paper wrappers before feeding to pups).
3. In a large bowl stir together the carrots, eggs and applesauce. Set aside.
4. In another medium bowl whisk together the cinnamon, oats and flour.
5. Slowly mix in the dry ingredients. Stir until well blended.
6. Spoon mixture into muffin tin. The dough will be thick and will not rise very much, so don't worry about over filling the tin.
7. Bake for 25 minutes.
8. Cool completely on a wire rack before frosting or serving.
9. For icing, blend both ingredients with a hand mixer.

But Thursday night I needed to escape the house and for something more than just Punch Pizza (though that's usually a good enough reason to put on pants). I had never attempted a climbing wall beyond that one at Bunker Beach and that's not intimidating—10 feet tall and above a pool. These walls are 50-60 feet tall.

And after fumbling with the auto belay for what felt like 10 minutes, I was afraid to pull my toes off the rubber chunks. I looked back at Julie and asked if she thought I could do it, because that baby pool rock wall was harder than I want to admit. I frantically climbed ten feet without looking down. And then I did.

Julie, I'm afraid of heights. I kind of forgot about that.

Julie didn't care. She cheered me on and I suppressed the feeling of my heart trying to kill me before the fall could. And I almost made it to the top of that first wall.

The knobs at Vertical Endeavors take on many shapes, like turtles, Aztek shapes and cars. I felt a little sad when I looked down and saw this cute little guy, realizing I'd have to put my foot on his face.

Also, I was also very poor at repelling.

Thank you, Julie, for nagging me to go. I finished a few walls and went back to take on that first terror. It was a perfect reason to get out of the house.

We ran around. (Tess Haun starred in my very first animated gif)

We broke down walls. (Ross Phernetton, Stephanie Terhaar, Grant Eull and Andy Kass)

We had meetings. (Betsy Robson, Brook Lorntson and Eric Hansen)

We had meetings in hotel lobbies. Hotels we were not staying in. (Sean Lackey and Brad Go)

We photographed food. Very slowly.

We drank. (Stephanie Terhaar)

We had a great view.

We had temporary tattoos.

We bit off more than we could chew. (Eric Hansen and Jason Craig)

We had the lightrail.

Okay. So I won't have to miss the lightrail. I'm only moving one stop down. On Monday, I'm joining the team at Colle + McVoy. While I'll miss BBDO Proximity, I'm excited for the memories and work I have to make ahead of me.

Freak winter. Or at least it should still be winter. I can feel the polar ice caps crying—I mean—melting.

I returned from SXSWi on Wednesday prepared to wrap myself in my tweed winter jacket. I found myself shedding layers in the taxi and without a gift for the wonderful woman watching my beloved pups on her birthday. After three local boutiques provided me with even fewer ideas about what my mother would like/want/use, I decided to preheat the oven and make her a birthday cake. But no regular cake would do, I needed something that would take hours, new pans and an unfamiliar and risky technique. I needed to make her a cheesecake.

I finally made use of my tiny food processor that my mother had given me, oh, three apartments ago. I never had a use for it, I thought, until now. I also read in the instructions that it chops Baker's squares of chocolate, so no more melting chocolate chips like a lazy lame-o for me.

If you came here for a vegan solution like most typically do, back away slowly. There is two pounds of cream cheese in this bad boy (along with heavy whipping cream, sour cream, eggs, milk chocolate and malted milk powder).

While the recipe called for an hour and forty-five minutes, my cake realistically took closer to two hours and fifteen minutes. And the center wasn't very well done, though edible.

I also skipped the water bath technique. I didn't trust that my tin foil was heavy duty enough to hold back water from seeping into my hard work. So I put a pan of boiling water on the rack below the cake and still didn't witness any cracking on the top.

Despite all the troubles, it's a delicious cake. My mother enjoyed it and force me to take a quarter of it home with me. I reluctantly obliged. Next year, I'm thinking Dairy Queen Ice Cream Cake.

Malted Milk Chocolate Cheesecake
from epicurious

Makes: 1 9.5"-inch Cheesecake (12-14 Servings)

Ingredients

1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened

Cookie Crust
One 10-ounce package butter biscuits, wafers or shortbread cookies
1/3 cups walnuts
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
4 oz (8 tablespoons, 1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Cheesecake
12 oz milk chocolate, finely chopped
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup malted milk powder
2 pounds cream cheese, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
4 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup sour cream
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 quart boiling water

Preparation

1. Center a rack in the oven and preheat it to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Using a paper towel or your fingertips, generously butter the inside of the springform pan. Use a double layer of heavy-duty aluminum foil to wrap tightly around the bottom of the pan. This prevents any water from the water bath seeping into the pan. 

Cookie Crust

1. In the work bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade, combine the cookies, walnuts, and sugar and pulse until the cookies are finely ground, about 2 minutes.
2. Transfer the cookie crumb mixture to a medium bowl and add the butter. Use a rubber spatula or a spoon to toss the mixture together to moisten all of the cookie crumbs.
3. Transfer the crust to the prepared springform pan and use your fingertips to press it into the bottom and part way up the sides of the pan. Chill the crust while preparing the cheesecake batter.

Cheesecake

1. Place the milk chocolate in the top of a double boiler over low heat. Stir often with a rubber spatula to help melt evenly. Remove the top pan of the double boiler and wipe the bottom and sides very dry.
2. Place the cream in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Turn off the heat, add the malted milk powder, and whisk to distribute evenly. Cover the pan and let the mixture steep for 10 minutes, then strain the cream.
3. Place the cream cheese in the bowl of an electric stand mixer or in a large bowl. Use the flat beater attachment or a hand-held mixer to beat the cream cheese on medium speed until it's fluffy, about 2 minutes.
4. Add the sugar and cream together very well. Stop occasionally and scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula.
5. One at a time, add the eggs to the cream cheese mixture, beating well after each addition. At first the eggs will sit on top of the cream cheese mixture, but stop often to scrape down the sides and bottom of the mixing bowl with a rubber spatula. This will help the mixture to blend. The mixture may also look curdled as the eggs are added, but as you stop and scrape down the bowl, the mixture will smooth out.
6. Add the sour cream and vanilla to the cream cheese mixture and stir together to combine.
7. Add the strained cream to the batter and blend thoroughly, then add the melted milk chocolate and mix together.
8. Transfer the batter into the crust in the springform pan. Use a rubber spatula to smooth and even the top.
9. Place the springform pan in the larger cake pan or roasting pan and set the pan on the oven rack. Carefully pour the boiling water into the bottom pan until it reaches halfway up the side of the springform pan. Baking the cake in a water bath cushions it from the heat and adds extra moisture to the oven, which keeps the top of the cake from cracking.
10. Bake the cake for 1 hour and 45 minutes, until top is set, but jiggles slightly. Remove the pan from the oven ad transfer the cheesecake to a rack.
11. Remove the foil and let the cheesecake cool completely. Cover the top of the cheesecake with waxed paper and wrap the pan tightly with aluminum foil. Refrigerate the cake for at least 6 hours before serving. To unmold the cheesecake, dip a thin-bladed knife into hot water and dry, then run it around the inner edge of the pan. Release the clip on the rim of the pan and gently lift it off the cake.
    

The interactive conference gods were not working in my favor.

Back in September, I tried again. He said he would try to get us both there. There was only silence until two weeks ago. He came back with a plan. So our team built a website. A broadcast configuration. A robot and an infographic:

Click here to repin

So get ready kids! Tweet at the @Proxybot and tell us why you should be in control in Austin, TX during SXSWi. Twenty tweeters will get to guide the Proxybot around the conference. It'll go where you want it to go, see what you want to see and do whatever you want as long as it is legal in the state of Texas. All will be live streamed on our website FollowProxybot.com.

Phase one of FollowProxybot.com launched on Friday and this Thursday, I make my journey to Austin to help escort the Proxybot in its daily duties. Check back from March 9th – 13th to watch the live stream. In a lot of ways, it's like I am a part of that sixteenth season Real World cast. Bringing the SXSW experience to the masses from the comfort of their hipsterless homes.

I contemplated cancelling my trip to LA. I dissected the possibility of calling in to work, driving to Rochester and returning to MSP in time for my flight. It was pretty infeasible, so I spent my work day pushing pixels on the last few pages needed for a website while keeping one eye on my cell phone. Around 5 o'clock, my parents informed me Arlie had arthritis and they were getting pain killers to help him deal with the initial stage. All he could do is rest until he got better, so I might as well go on my trip.

Sometime during the afternoon of January 30th, I felt the urge to call my mother. They were leaving the vet, again. Arlie had attempted to follow my mother down the stairs and had hurt his back further.

I had originally planned to take Arlie and Etta back to Minneapolis this weekend, but an unexpected work trip this week has prolonged their stay at my parents' place. I felt horrible and decided to travel back to Rochester to spend the weekend comforting them and accompanying Arlie to his follow-up vet visit.

Arlie's crooked walk, arched back and whimpers of pain brought me to tears. My mother tried to reassure me, telling me he had improved greatly over the last week, but he seemed so much worse than Etta had been over the summer with the same injury. The vet who had initially visited with Arlie agreed with my mother and suggested that he spend the next week resting in his crate. While I plan on keeping him under the same plan the University of Minnesota made for Etta (a month in the crate), Arlie is quite a different dog. Unlike Etta, he naturally likes sitting in his crate and will remain there even if the doors are left open.

While I was in Los Angeles, I wanted to find a fancy dog-spoiling treat to help make up for my absence during this difficult time. Instead of artificially-flavored, pink-frosted doggy doughnuts, I bought The Doggy Bone Cookbook, which is filled with natural recipes for hounds, though poorly designed and art directed:

Once you get past the fact that the book has been updated five times since the nineties and no one has bothered to redo the horrid illustrations, you find the book is filled with several simple recipes containing very few ingredients.

I was wary about apples, unsure if the dogs would like them, but Miss Etta sat under foot, happily picking them off the ground as I accidentally dropped pieces. The recipe also claimed that it would make approximately two dozen biscuits with the included bone-shaped cookie cutter. I counted sixty after they came out of the oven.

My brother inquired if people could eat them. I reviewed the six short ingredient list and proclaimed they were edible for people. He took a bite. His face soured and he exclaimed they were not sweet. Well, duh. I tried some of his biscuit and handed the remaining third to my mother. They're deliciously savory.

Apple and Thyme Dog Biscuits (Thyme for a Treat)
from The Doggy Bone Cookbook

Makes: 2 Dozen (Actually Makes: 60 Biscuits)

Ingredients

2 cups whole wheat flour
2 tablespoons fresh chopped thyme
1/2 cup finely chopped apple
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup milk
1 egg

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Mix together flour, thyme and apple. In a separate dish stir together olive oil, milk and egg. Add to flour mixture. Knead until smooth.
3. Roll dough 1/4 inch thick and cut with cookie cutter.
4. Bake for 25 minutes.
   

Last week, I was on the opposite flight, but probably over the same point of the country by this time of the day. I was headed to Los Angeles, determined to trade in my tweed winter jacket for sunscreen. I dutifully answered work emails in between playing tourist at Venice Beach and trying to not look too young in front of a unexpectedly mature crowd at the Avengers/Dead Kennedys/X show at MOCA.

But several hundred feet off the shore of Dana Point, I felt it appropriate to give my ever faithful iPhone some most deserved rest. I was captivated by the wind, boats shifting anxiously against the ropes that held them securely to the dock and the bluffs, now fully visible from afar, hanging above the beaches. My untrained eyes were dry—determined not to blink and regret missing a fin poking out of the glittery ocean. Despite the regurgitated matter that appears when I think about being forced to watch Free Willy 1, 2 and 3 as a child, I was anxious to see an Orca whale. They are rare in Southern California, but sightings have been frequent recently.

Only fifteen minutes after departure we had our first sighting. A gray whale rose from the waters just in front of Sanden and me. After a group of sea lions and noisy water fowl had distracted our attention to the other side of the boat, our grey whale was joined by a friend.

We tracked the pair with the captain of the Dana Pride quickly rattling off the specifics of how baleen whales opportunely filter krill through their plates. I took rapid shots with my point-and-shoot, not removing my eyes away from the duo. But an hour into our journey, I'll admit, even I tired of their routine. They'd peek their backs out of the water and then dive back into the water for another five minutes. And repeat. I would make a horrible migrating sea mammal.

Sanden started framing shots for Instagram. I was tempted to do the same, but WAIT! Our usually well-rehearsed captain scrambled to point out something that would make anyone raised in front of a television turn their eyes away from a screen. The whales were mating. And he wasn't joking.

No, we didn't see anything graphic. Their dance was more of a rhythmic roll with a poignant fin poking precariously out of the water every few minutes. As if we were trapped in a nineties Lisa Frank illustration, a pod of dolphins swam through their proximity. I waited for a rainbow to frame the scene and stars to shoot across the cloudless sky. The whale love we witnessed lasted approximately fifteen minutes. I thought I'd do our male a favor and not time it exactly, but shortly after they returned to their instinctual migration, we set back for the shore.

But by this instant nature, they feel very temporary, because that photo never has to leave that iPhone to get where it's going to go. And while my Polaroid Super Shooter Land Camera produces a real product to satisfy this tangible desire, I really needed a more modern solution to solve my dissatisfaction with my blog imagery. Two friends have the Canon Powershot S90 and adore it (and so do the consumer report sites). And since Canon released the S100 model, the retail outlets put the S95 on sale, making it an affordable option to put on my Christmas list.

I needed to test my brand new toy. And I needed to get rid of these:

So I decided to bake my mother's famous banana bread with chocolate chips.

Using a recipe I found on epicurious instead of hers, because this one is on an iPad app and I'm that person now.

Look how fluffy that butter gets.

I needed two hands to get a shot with an iPhone, so this was nearly impossible before. Because this is a test run of the camera, I hope you'll forgive that my nail-polish is chipped. And my hands are so pale and chapped. It's December. In Minnesota.

I couldn't let this entire blog post go without some of my iPhone's charm. I hastily created an animated gif from Gif Shop to demonstrate the layering technique of this recipe.

This lovely baking dish is courtesy of my mother. Dancing vegetables are always winners.

A baking skill I've been strongly missing my entire life has been the buttering and flouring of the pan as evidenced here. When I tried to flip the bread onto the rack, only the top half followed orders. I tasted this specimen though and it was fantastic nonetheless.

Banana Bread with Chocolate Chips and Walnuts
from epicurious

Makes: 1 9-inch loaf

Ingredients

1-1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup walnuts, toasted, chopped
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup mashed ripe bananas
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter and flour 9x5x2 1/2-inch metal loaf pan.
2. Whisk first 4 ingredients in medium bowl to blend.
3. Combine chocolate chips and walnuts in small bowl; add 1 tablespoon flour mixture toss to coat.
4. Beat butter in large bowl until fluffy. Gradually add sugar, beating until well blended. Beat in eggs 1 at a time. Beat in mashed bananas, lemon juice and vanilla extract. Beat in flour mixture.
5. Spoon 1/3 of batter in prepared pan. Sprinkle half of nut mixture. Spoon 1/3 of batter over. Sprinkle with remaining nut mixture. Cover with remaining batter. Run knife through batter in zigzag pattern.
6. Bake bread until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 1 hour 5 minutes. Turn out onto rack and cool.
   

Joshua Tree, California — April 2011

A month after finding the camera, I flew to Los Angeles to visit my boyfriend. We took a vacation to the Mojave Desert and stayed at the famous Joshua Tree Inn & Motel. I brought along color and black and white film, only to find the black and white finicky. It only produced one nice photo at the very end of the pack.

Minneapolis, MN — May 2011

Sanden flew into Minneapolis for the wedding of Molly Bloom and Andy Ducett and little did we know hard winds were following. The day these photos were taken, I had brought Sanden to Art-a-Whirl to see my Artcrank poster. The clouds rolled in menacingly and we decided to head back to Uptown. While we fled Northeast Minneapolis, a violent tornado struck North Minneapolis, separated only by Highway 94. Unaware of the disaster just a few miles away, we played in the rain.

Memorial Day, Minneapolis, MN — May 2011

Memorial Day felt like a regular Monday this year. My savior after a hard holiday spent at work was a barbecue thrown by Jared A. May.

My Birthday — June 2011

I took these photos just before Etta jumped into my face and gave me a fat lip. And that happened just before my roommate ambushed me in our own apartment with a surprise party.

Rock the Garden, Minneapolis, MN — June 2011

I didn't have the stomach to take on Rock the Garden in its entirety this year, especially a rainy one. So we stood outside the fence and tapped our toes to what we could hear of Neko Case's set.

Strawberry Basket, Monticello, MN — June 2011

Strawberries make a popping noise when you pull them off the vine. I picked a pound more than I needed to make strawberry jams because of this discovery.

Gold Rush, Oronoco, MN – August 2011

Etta slipped a disc before the Bark at Art poster show and the next four weeks were spent trying to keep her comfortable while under medical treatment during a incessant heat wave. She did enjoy being carried around Gold Rush.

Casey Quinn's Memorial – August 2011

Casey's tribute was my first experiment with Flash Cubes. Like the goal to launch 34 lanterns for Casey's 34th birthday, the cubes proved to be rather unsuccessful. I ended up sharing the photography of Justin Mueller when I blogged about the event.

Minnesota State Fair – September 2011

These photos were suppose to be a part of a blog post about the Fair that never came intro fruition due to some scanner issues. But the highlights were the heat, the food, the group karaoke, the food and the glitter bombing.

Oktoberfest and Amery, Wisconsin – October 2011

Arlie raced in the St. Paul Dachshund Races and performed well above expectations. He also had the opportunity to meet the Kaiser, himself. After our Oktoberfest adventure we visited my cousin in Amery, Wisconsin, where I spent summers as a child.

Spoiler: If I'm giving you a gift this holiday, it's probably this.

Spoiler: The recipe only alludes these aren't very time consuming.

Spoiler: These do not spoil so I will probably cry myself into oncoming traffic if I come over and you don't have the ability to make me a cherry-infused cocktail.

In these bullets, I mentioned that the recipe seems like it isn't a time consuming project. True. But it was a royal pain-in-the-buttons to find this recipe originally from Bust Magazine alone. I lost my Oct/Nov copy about four weeks ago and it wasn't until Glue and Glitter wrote about it that my holiday plan was back on track.

The journey I set upon after was one of learning and traipsing around a frozen Minneapolis:

Mason jars are commonly found at grocery and hardware stores. Or at least that's what twitter informed me. I had to go to a combination of three before I found these (at Ace Hardware). They were unfortunately wide mouth, but still cute nonetheless.

I had no idea what a vanilla bean looks like. Turns out they're a little more like the string variety than a pinto. They are also expensive at The Wedge. You'll notice I included an entire star anise into each jar. I had misread the recipe and later fished them out with a spoon, returned a single pod and resealed the jars.

The recipe calls for a "handle" of bourbon. I had the entire staff of Lake Wine & Spirits in heated debate over the exact definition. A man with a pink mohawk came in and cleared it all up: it's the largest bottle (1.75 liter) that usually has a handle. Derrrrr.

I designed the labels with a little help from the talents of local typographic legend Chank Diesel. I used Quimby Mayoral and Condensed Milk to accompany my tiny bow illustration (made of a "J" and "F" for Jordan & Forest, my roommate who helped make these).

I was relying on FedEx to buy new Exacto blades for the purpose of cutting out all of my labels. Alas, that's just something they don't have anymore (sorry ad students). BUT, they do have these new copy machines that take a USB drive and print your stuff on your custom paper. Though, you still need that socially-anxious, hefty bearded man to guide you through the process and now he's ten times as sweaty because he has to jump from copier to copier.

Finally, I included a cherry manhattan recipe card to help stir one's imagination on how to use the bitters.

It takes a full two weeks for the bitters to be ready to consume, so you're out of luck if you want to make these in time for Christmas. But if you start today, you could definitely be enjoying by New Years.

Cherry Vanilla Bitters
from Glue and Glitter (adapted from Bust)

Makes: 12 5 oz. mason jars | Prep Time: 15 minutes | Total Time: 2 weeks

Ingredients

12 5 oz. mason jars
120 dried cherries
12 star anise pods
12 vanilla beans
1.75 liter of bourbon

Preparation

1. Equally divide the dried cherries, star anise pods and vanilla beans amongst the 12 mason jars.
2. Fill the jars with bourbon. Shake well.
3. Store the jars at room temperature. Shake every other day for two weeks.

Cherry Manhattan
from Glue and Glitter (adapted from GQ)

Makes: 1 drink

Ingredients

2 oz good rye whiskey
1 oz sweet vermouth
1 tsp cherry vanilla bitters
1 cherry

Preparation

1. In a cocktail shaker, shake the rye, vermouth and bitters with crushed ice.
2. Place the cherry into a rocks glass and strain the cocktail over the cherry.