Bread pudding is one of those wonderful things in life. It's like french toast, pudding, and cake made a delicious baby and you get to eat it. What more could you possibly want in a dessert than bread, cream, butter, and cinnamon? Except maybe fruit but there are plenty of ways you can use fruit in or with bread pudding. Because it rocks like that!

Recently my boyfriend and I have been on a bread pudding mission. There's a bakery near my apartment and since I'm moving next month, we knew we needed to try the bakery's bread pudding before I moved. A series of unfortunate events occurred and we tried for weeks to get a hold of a piece of the bakery's bread pudding to no avail. Yesterday, though, we FINALLY completed our mission. Chef Lou's bread pudding is a little different than normal with a bit of lemon and rum mixed in with all the typical goodies but it was delicious and we each got two pieces so we could save one to savor the next day. I just finished my piece and I am already sad that it's gone.

So here's to bread pudding! May you continue to be bready, sweet, and delicious!

I'm sure many of you just looked at this picture and sneezed. Despite my own allergies, I love flowering trees. They are a very visual signal that Spring has come and they are also just gorgeous! Trees are many colors: green, yellow, red, etc; but flowering trees are the rare and delicate pinks and whites that our minds really crave when Spring is in the air.

Flowering trees are rare and only last for a few weeks. Dogwoods may bloom for a little longer than a few weeks but the cherry blossoms and Bartlett pears are only around for a little while. So get out there, appreciate them while they are out, and love that Spring!

Despite their reputation, I think road trips are awesome. My dad's side of the family lives in Ohio so we always had long road trips to visit family for Easter, Fourth of July, or Thanksgiving. It's an 8-hour drive so we would get up really, really early (3am!) and get a head start before all of the traffic. Being a kid, I would just sleep through most of those awful early hours. My brother never liked sitting still so road trips were a little harder for him but I enjoyed looking out the windows and seeing familiar landmarks along the way. We have our own stories of making pit stops at certain areas and those are memories I'll always have.

Now that I'm not 8 years old, I still really enjoy road trips. In high school, my mom, brother, and I went on a two-week long road trip to Colorado and back. That was a blast--we saw so much! A few years later we drove up to Nova Scotia which was also a great trip. Now I have a friend who is planning a cross-country trip to California and I am so jealous. I wish I was going along, seeing new places, staying in bizarre motels on the side of the road, and just seeing more of this weird-yet-beautiful country we live in. I may not always love the people, but I think I will always love the land.

In any case, it's perfect weather out there so hop in the car, fasten your seat-belts, get out the map, and let's go!