small discoveries
At some point there will be enough hours and I’ll know it, but for now Photoshop is like sliding down a rabbit hole into an alternate reality where everything reacts and responds in arbitrary, brilliant, and unexpected ways.
I spent the whole day occupied in this way, siting at my long white desk, sheaves of paper sketches spread around me like snow, making images, digital and graphite both.
Outside the weather has turned decidedly autumn like, and today the sky was the kind of gray that makes me moody, and it’s that time of the month where everything seems blunt or sharp depending on the circumstance, and chocolate really is the only solution.
It takes more effort to dig out of my own head space on days like these: to inhabit family life without the residual layers of mood and intellectual momentum. Still, there were lovely moments: French toast with maple syrup from our neighbors, cuddling with the boys on the floor, taking a walk down the road with Sprout in the wagon, Bean holding my hand, T's arm wrapped around my waist. Every single day I fall in love with my boys more. All three of them.
Today I wanted to share a new mix of music I’ve been absolutely crushing on: A soundtrack for making things.
Also into this project: Love 146. And this awesome, awesome site: Arbutus Yarns I love, love, love discovering your sources of inspiration. What are you crushing on lately?
August 2::Monday
Today: crushing on Leonard. (Really, it's a forever crush.) Makes me want to re-read Cities of the Interior. For some reason the two always go together in my head.
Today: a storm came crashing through; rain so hard the sills were wet in seconds. Thunder above the maples; sky the color of whipped wet ash. I always feel giddy in storms: equal parts anxious and delighted. After, the air was cool and the sky such a beautiful blue. Already evening comes sooner. Summer's ending.
Today: my very dearest friend in the whole world just booked a flight out to see me. This week. I am over the moon.
Today in no particular order: the best piece of writing on the web right now; the sweetest peach of summer; these photos; and this quote (from here):
Z is for Zoometry: Originally a term from zoology (pronounced zo-ology, in case you were curious), zoometry is the science of instigating and learning from change. This is the revolution of our time, the biggest one in history, and it's not just about silly videos on Youtube. One by one, industry by industry, the world is being remade again and again, and the agents of change are the winners.
Fishing at home
I discovered a blog this past week that I am absolutely smitten with, that has made all the difference this week in terms surviving summer and having some fun while we’re at it. It’s by a dad, Joel, who is also a designer, artist, crafter, and kid-toy-making genius.
Using Joel’s design as inspiration I sent my husband and Bean out to the garage one morning (while Sprout napped and I snatched an hour or two of writing time) to make a pole using one of the many sticks he has managed to collect.
Side note: have you noticed this about boys? How they seem to have a perpetual thing for sticks. How it’s almost innate, the desire to pick up sticks and wield them about as swords or javelins or flags or walking sticks? Also rocks. My boys, both of them, have this inherent love of gathering rocks, throwing rocks in water, collecting them, kicking them, stowing them in pockets (alas, so many end up in my washer.)...more.
A weekend away and the photos I did not take
The lilacs are fat; my boys cheeks are sticky with apricots; the lawn is overgrown. Today T. wraps his arms around me at the table. We sit side by side, plotting our next moves while our boys escape out the front door and head to the sand box together. We can see them from the window. They sit side by side in the sand; hair blowing back in the dandelion-down strewn wind. They giggle together, and seeing them this way makes everything worth it. They’ll always have this. I went to NCY for the weekend with a lovely friend whose sister has an apartment on the Upper West Side. I haven’t been to the city since Bean was tiny; and my camera battery died before I could foray out to take many pictures. So instead I offer this:
The pictures I did not take.
The green Central Park lawn strewn with picnic blankets, and above it two bright yellow balloons lifting up; floating beyond the buildings at the tree line and into the blue and cloud flecked sky.
The two girls with red hair ribbons tied around pigtails, running among the picnickers with a pink and blue kite on a short string; feet bare, knees skinned, the littler one stopping to just stare for a while at the bobbing improbable flight of the kite in air lifted by the sheer momentum of her sister’s strong brown legs.
The desiccated crumpled body of the baby blue jay on the sidewalk beneath a tree, legs drawn up, blue-gray feathers crushed into the cement; and the look of revulsion that the lady had, in her enormous black Prada sunglasses, dark skinny jeans and ballet flats, her skin pearly, her hair frosted, her stroller a Bugaboo Frog. She skirted the bird and shuddered, then walked quickly on.
My friend’s face; beaming with emotion that mirrored the sun yellow of his fleece, the two of us seeing each other for the first time in ten years (except in photographs). His profile against the backdrop of the dancing fountain at Lincoln square: curly eyelashes, dreads pulled back, a smile playing on his dark lips,
The view from 230 Fifth at night; an indigo sky and lights scattered like a diamonds in a jewelry box. The Empire State building right there, smack-dab, lit in green and yellow; potted palms, crowds, champagne. Hair blowing in the wind.
+++
I wore a wicked dress, you guys, and I looked amazing. Super heels, a tiny chocolaty shoulder bag, smouldery eyes. I had a few twenty-five year old boys in a state of euphoria and then shock when I spoke to them, then offered up my wedding band as proof. To further the short circuit in their minds I murmured this: “I’m a mom, too.” Best expression ever. Utter disbelief painted over sheer attraction. I couldn’t stop grinning and thanked them after they docilely hailed us a cab.
I needed this. I needed to encounter a part of myself I haven’t seen much of since becoming a mother. Wine, French food, a hot dress, crowds parting just so I could pass. Who doesn’t need a day like this to remind them of what they are?
As though everything that I am is contained in a composite shell of moments hauled about to contain the soft-bodied hermit crab soul that is mine. Right now it feels like I’ve clambered into some new place. Inside a Fibonacci spiral, the sound of the city comes rushing back. It’s endless traffic and hubbub and movement thrums in my eardrums still. Be still my restless heart. Still I am happy to be home.
An ending & a beginning
+++
This weekend big things are happening. A Field Guide To Now on Kickstarter is ending tomorrow. 28 hours left. (Become a backer if you haven’t. This is IT!)
I’m leaving on a weekend adventure today with my camera and some pretty shoes in tow. I won’t be here when the project time runs out, but I want to tell you how grateful I am. I am astounded, joyful, terrified, delighted, eager. This is such a big deal… and YOU made it happen.
xxxo!
The way things go + some current crushes
Hi! I have so many things I want to share with you today. First, some crushes:
These luminous folder icons have completely revamped my desktop and seriously upped both my cool factor and organization.
These fabulous planers are also rocking my organizational world. I am so not an organized girl when it comes to creative projects. I see BIG PICTURE and details sometimes get sidelined. This in particular has really helped me to narrow my focus and get things done.
And I've been wanting to share this glorious camera bag that arrived in the mail a few weeks ago (I was the Shutter Sister's giveaway winner) and oh man... I can't even begin to tell you how lovely and awesome it is. It's big enough to fit my camera and everything else I schlep around, and pretty enough to make me look put together even when I'm not. (THANK YOU Maile!!)
These photos (swoon) and this blog.
Some news:
I was interviewed here and here this past week by two of the most amazing, inspiring women in the blogosphere.
Last night I put some new prints up in my little shop!
And at this moment: the weather is all over the map still. Rain, sun, wind, rain.
Everything is exuberantly green in the same way that kids color the grass in their pictures: GREEN EVERYWHERE. And while I love what green stands for (summertime picnics, gardening, bike rides, bonfires) I wish the apple blossoms could stay longer. In a single afternoon they exploded into full bloom with bees everywhere, each tree its own secret universe of pollen and petals, and then today, just a few days later, there are already as many petals on the grass as on the trees. So fleeting. So fleeting. Everything is this.
We hung out with the very first friend we made here last night. He was sitting on the porch across from our new apartment as we backed over the curb repeatedly with an enormous moving truck. I remember feeling utterly out of place among the scads of college kids with 7 month old Bean in tow and actual real furniture instead of futons, but M. walked over and said hello, and Bean thought he was the coolest person ever and we've been friends since. Now Bean is five and M. is moving to Austria for an unbelievably awesome job, and wow. Time. There it went.
There is no more of a tangible way to notice time's passing than to watch a child grow. This, and then this. SO FAST. I'm carrying on about this today because I get it this time. I get that these moments right now are the ones I'm going to look back on and say, oh, that was when it started. That's when we had no idea. (Sprout is still small-ish, but the next time I stop to think about it he'll likely be riding a bike. )
I've gotten the most wonderful emails from some of you about being at similar points of transition--and I so love them. I think it is incredibly helpful to tell each other these stories about how things begin. About the moments before beginning when all we're doing is imagining and waiting and things feel scary and at large (because they kind of are.)I want to hear more about these moments in your lives. What is beginning right now? What are you on the brink of?
An open doorway
At this very moment, I want you to share a dream that you want to see happen. If you could open a door and walk through it into any possibility, what would it be? One specific thing. Go!
the blue yonder
My last post sounded pretty dire, didn't it? I didn't mean for it to. It was the result of too many days back to back of intense writing until 2AM in combination with a massive to-do list and a heap of uncertainty that brought out my most fragile, anxious self. But the truth is: this is a really exciting time for us! We're poised on the brink of reinvention, and neither of us really know what that will look like, but it will most certainly will include adventure, and learning new things, and redefining what matters, and the prospect of this makes me joyful.
In so many ways we've done things backwards from our friends and peers. We had kids first and made this place home before we we were thirty. Now we've got these two awesome kids and a whole universe of possibility and zero money and a heap of adventures just waiting to be had. I"m not just saying this. I am really (finally) at a place of throwing my arms wide open to the universe, ready to leap into the wild blue yonder; full of hope and abundance.
It's been an interesting process getting to here. When we first found this house, I was terrified of making a Home. Terrified of putting down roots and having something stake a claim on my soul the way I knew this place would. I've always said: what else? What if? When? I've always wanted the option of going, of travel, of doing something different. I've always, at the end of the day been a girl with a wanderlust affliction.
Now that I know who my kids are, and what they're like as little people in the world....I can imagine living other places with them. We're a pretty cool family unit, the four of us. T and I (despite his laundry neglect) work as a team almost seamlessly, and I've never had any one in my life who is more of a champion of my writing or a bigger fan of my art than he is.... We don't require a lot when it's all said and done, and if there is one thing that's true, it's our shared love for learning new things.
So.
Maybe.
Maybe anything at all. Maybe we'll stay here. Maybe we'll head to somewhere else. T. is excited by the prospect of different work in a way I could never have imagined him to be. It's like a weight has been lifted from him: and he's full of determination and enthusiasm, and we're all keeping our fingers crossed. (Cross your fingers too, will you?) Have you ever reinvented yourself? Changed an outlook, a job, a lifestyle, a location.
Also: A Field Guide To Now is becoming it's own adventure. It's SO CLOSE. Please help to make the funding happen (remember, it's all or nothing). I have a question for you about the book: what would you be drawn to more? A straight-up illustrated essay collection, or a book that also offers some little invitations to you about ways to be an explorer in the moments of your life, right now as it is? It would be so helpful to hear your thoughts about this!
the journey
"Every day is a journey,
and the journey itself is home."
--Matsuo Basho (Check out the entire set on Flickr.)
A Handmade Writer e-Course GIVEAWAY* UPDATED!
I am so excited about this giveaway! Amy Spencer is the wildly talented and creative force behind the blog, Bring Yourself and the author of The Crafter Culture Handbook and DIY: The Rise of Lo-Fi Culture. Her first novel, London Clay, is due to be published in 2011.
Amy is also an experienced workshop leader and crafter, and she's teaching an e-course called the Handmade Writer.
Here's a little sneak peak at the course: "The Handmade Writer e-course will help you gather together material from every source imaginable. You will learn about the craft of writing and how to sew these fragments together to build your own pieces of creative writing. This e-course has been inspired by the strength of craft communities as well as the impulse to transform everyday finds into something amazing."
The best part? She's giving away a spot to one of you.
This is a chance for you to make the leap, claim creative space for yourself in your life and take your writing a bit more seriously (even if you don't think of yourself writer!)
Read the whole course description here. It begins Monday 12th April 2010
* Givewaway rules: This giveaway is tiny bit different in that Amy offered this giveaway to me as a way to give you all a gentle, encouraging, nudge to go support A Field Guide To Now... so here's how it will work:
* To enter, make pledge there... and leave a comment here. * Comments can be just one word (say hello!) and pledges can be just 1$. * The winner will be chosen at random by Sprout. * Comments will be closed Saturday, March 6th at 5mEST.
The winner will be announced Saturday evening.
The winner (chosen randomly by SPROUT, who snatched at itty bitty snippets of paper with your names on them) is: Sonrie! Please email me & I'll put you in touch with the incredibly talented Amy.
Timing is everything, as usual.
ARGH!
So I left my laptop power cord at work this afternoon which means that my laptop has run out of battery juice and I'm left stranded in an all-PC household unable to finish the video component of the Kickstarter project I so very much wanted to launch tonight. I work almost 45 minutes away from where I live, so there wasn't really an option of clocking an additional 90 minutes (which ironically is about all the "free" time I have anyway)... and I called a friend who lives just a few minutes away but his Mac is older than my little Airbook and our power cables don't speak the same language. So alas, it will have to wait, and I'm going to have to settle for doing some non-screen time things including a run on the treadmill tonight, and revising the paper draft of the first three chapters of my novel that should have been sent to my mentor for revision two weeks ago. A tip I learned doing Nanowrimo this winter: email yourself a copy of your entire manuscript every so often. Or get a Dropbox account (aren't they cool? I don't have one yet, but am tempted, esp. after tonight!
That said, I'm going to clunk away on DH's keyboard for a few more minutes (it seems so HUGE compared to my laptop. I have no idea where to put my fingers. Kinesthetic memory is so interesting...) and share some things that have caught my eye lately.
First off, if you live in New England, I just discovered the best (almost local) tomatoes (second only to true back yard garden tomatoes in the summer!) They taste like actual tomatoes with that lovely biting, viney fragrance. Which is a dream in the middle of winter here... And because I'm pretty committed to local & non-GMO food, I emailed them to see how they grow their tomatoes, and got a prompt (and very awesome) next day email from Tim Cunniff:
"We do not use ANY GMO seeds, they are all done through traditional hybrid methods, cross breeding various varieties. We use an integrated Pest Management system that replicates a balance between beneficial insects like lady bugs and wasps to control white fly population."
Also agricultural: I just finished this book about a year in the life of this farm, and I loved how honest and detailed and raw the description was. I came away from it inspired to really put in a garden this year. And to figure out composting.
And now all kinds of random: Gorgeous photographs. An interesting take on digital media and all things literary and current. This whimsical and mysterious take on reviving paper mail. This way of thinking about the future...And this series about how to write a novel.
Off to do that now.
PS--I loved your links & replies from yesterday.
What if there is no emergency?
From The Sound of Paper by Julia Cameron
... "Most of us live with a continual sense of emergency. We have a fear that we are too late and not enough to wrestle a happy destiny from the hands of the gods. What if there is no emergency? What if there is no need to wrestle? What if our only need is receptivity and a gentle openness to guidance? What if, like the Arabian horses grazing outside my window, we are simply able to trust.
When we trust ourselves, we become both more humble and more daring. When we trust ourselves, we move surely. There is no unnecessary strain in our grasp as we reach out to meet life. There is no snatching at people and events, trying to force them to give us what we think we want. We become what we are meant to be. It is that simple. We become what we are, and we do it by being who we are, not who we strive to be.
We are right-sized. We are who and what we are meant to be. All that we need, all that we require, is coming toward us. We need only meet life, not combat it. We need only encounter each day's questions, not raise a fist at the heavens over the question of tomorrow." ...
(Thank you Cheryl for sending this to me.)
Also: I have a project I cannot wait to tell you about. I'm not quite ready to yet, but it is the most exciting, most daring, most bold thing I can imagine and it makes me giddy. It's all about reaching out and taking hold of this moment. This one right now. It's going to be awesome.
Thanksgiving
Hi. Today I am writing. All week I've been writing. Hence the absence here.... which makes me sad/happy, as usual. I am stopping in though to say: thank you, thank you. What you give to me with your comments, your friendships here, your encouragement is something I cherish.
Today I am wondering (as I prepare for a kind of anticlimactic day tomorrow, now that both sets of friends who were coming to dinner have canceled due to the flu...) how do you celebrate Thanksgiving? Is it a holiday that you love? What makes it special? What ritual or tradition do you have that doesn't, maybe, entirely, focus on an enormous meal? I'm so looking forward to reading your replies as I feel like I really want to change this holiday up around here. I'm hoping for inspiration.
Weekly Crushes
It seems like it was just a couple of weeks ago that I was clipping Bean into his ski boot bindings for the first time and sending him down the driveway. Now the first leaves are already golden and orange. Where has the summer gone?
The crickets know that snow is on its way. In the garden, fat pumpkins with girths rounder than Bean's hugs. My Bean, who has started a mixed-aged (Waldorf) kindergarten program, and comes home singing. My Bean who tells us about the enormous imaginary kangaroo that lives upstairs. My Bean, suddenly a big-little kid. Four and a half. Mischief around every turn. He is my favorite forever.
And then my baby boy, my little Sprout, coming up on 7 months old, impossibly. He is a chunk. Pure love. Grins always. He's been surfing the floor the past week or so, trying to crawl. In between attempts he's pleased as peas to sit in the center of a circle of pots and spoons, banging things and grinning. He's always cracking himself up. There are so many times throughout the day where I'll look over at him and feel my heart catch and then expand. He'll be smiling at me, watching me from across the room as I do things in the kitchen or fold laundry or type. He is my little Buddha. My reminder to be right here, now, in this precious, precious moment. He is my favorite always.
Also, some weekly blog crushes to share:
2 or 3 Things, Bliss, Le Love (can't help going here and smiling), listing quirks over at Cupcakes & Cashmere...(a quirk DH pointed out tonight while we rocked it in the basement gym---3 miles in 24:15 minutes---is that I love to watch bull riding. Really.)
Also, these houses (still brooding over treehouse plans, as you can tell.) This gorgeous little party. This amazing installation. It's how my heart feels, sometimes, lately. Overflowing, made of feathers, of air, of fragile things.
What are some of your crushes right now? Share please. Also~ what are you looking forward to this week?
September Crushes
I adore September, and little boys hanging out in tree forts; back-to-school, back to routine. I love the newly sharpened pencils, newly picked apples, earlier bedtimes, scrambled eggs & toast for breakfast, new sneakers, and watching the pumpkins grow fat
Hand monsters.
September is perhaps my favorite month of the year, especially here in New England where everything is golden and lingering and lovely.
I kissed my husband for the first time 10 years ago on September 5th, and that continues to be what I consider one of the best decisions I ever made. (Have I mentioned recently how hot he is? Ever so. He's like a good wine: keeps getting better with age).
Bean starts school on Thursday. He's excited. Right now we're in the backyard lolling in the sun. He's lying on a quilt in his new tree fort (a post coming on that soon!) and we're both eating plums and I'm thinking of stacking the final cord of wood, although a run might be on the docket.
Some recent crushes start off your week:
Sunday Suppers~such gorgeous food, I want to lick my screen.
thoughtful friday, oh hello friend, and kate neckel are some new blogs I am loving. And this post. Every bit true. Also this advice. *** What are you browsing, considering & doing today?
Monday crushes
Zoom!That was just the entire month of August flying by. I cannot believe how quickly it has gone. One week until September. Already there are fallen leaves on the lawn.
I wanted to share a few things I have been crushing on today:
This darling little clock project.
This glorious sketchbook series and this lovely inspiration wall.
And this list of stories. Good to listen to while doing the dishes.
The past week has been a blur of copy-edit days. Every scrap of time spent close to the thesaurus and the delete key. I miss my book. I miss talking to my characters in my head in the shower. I hope they're waiting. It terrifies me that maybe they have slipped away. A page of events and scenes languishes in the top drawer of my desk. It cracks me up that I professed big plans for this story by the end of the month and here I am at end of the month. And I am not even close.
But there is something to this that I've been learning and learning again this summer. Things come and go---and really, you can't hold on to anything too tightly.
I'm starting to get that it's okay to just ride the waves. To be greedy with sleep and joy and creativity when they find you---and to sink into work and fast-paced days and tiredness on the days that those things hit hard. Each will return, and leave, and return again. There is something in this of faith, I think.
Whatever today is, tomorrow will be different. Yet there is a thread that loops through the fabric of both with its promise. Continuity somewhere. Balance, eventually.
It's scary though to feel a surge of creativity, only to have it plundered by more practical things. There are moments where it feels like having a blindfold yanked down over my eyes, and I'm just bumping into things, fingering the shape of each moment with hands as unknowing as the blind eyes of potatoes.
Are you doing the life you want daily?
Hmm.
Inspiration & such
The rain falls hard, shaken from the heavy air, in spite of the sun. Rivulets run down my arms, the thin cotton of my t-shirt immediately soaked. Even though it has rained all summer I love storms like these. Flat-out rain. The sky impossibly blue overhead, clouds ripped apart like pillows after a bedroom romp.
I’m listening to Penguin Café this afternoon. Trying to mow through the heap of things that has accumulated this week. Filling out forms for kindergarten (Bean starts in a multi-age classroom in a couple of weeks), running to the post office for stamps and to mail packages, copy-editing, writing. Always that.
Of course the very day, yes, the EXACT SAME DAY, I posted about my enormous writing goals for this month, an unbelievably awesome freelance copy editing/writing job fell into my lap. I am beyond grateful. And excited. And happy and such things. But now of course there is really no way I’ll meet my 80K goal by the end of the month. Things are competing for my time. Big time.
I’m thinking 40K will be more reasonable. But I’m also discovering things about the writing process that I didn’t know before—straight up novel writing is so different than short story writing or memoir writing or anything else I have ever done. I’m learning how I can be effective with small chunks of time: to map out future sections—to think in terms of events and scenes. To get notes down on paper no matter what.
Speaking of organizing, on Tuesday I tried out putting a couple of my favorite images I’ve ripped out of magazines together, inspired by this blog.
It was fun. And I had the idea of clipping each successive page one on top of the other on the cork board by my desk—that way I’ll gradually accumulate a whole stack of images that speak to me, and one day, maybe, I’ll get back around to painting and drawing again, and I’ll have them all in one place, rather than in piles on shelves and in boxes.
Now, some lovely things for Wednesday:
A pretty little card.
These summertime pics, and these foodie pics.
Also, this movie. Meryl Streep is glorious, as always. And it’s a story that makes you want to grab hold of the things you love and want, and to pursue them tenaciously and with conviction. Julia Child was told repeatedly that she was a terrible cook and would never have any kind of successful career. It reminded me to not get to bent out of shape about rejections.
And finally, though this has no connection whatsoever to anything else in this post, what is your favorite salad dressing recipe? Please share.
Monday, Monday
Hi Monday. What are you up to today?
There was 91% humidity when I woke up this morning. Clouds heavy and thick, threatening thunderstorms, then sun. A trip to the river is in the forecast today, for sure.
This weekend was all about out-of-town friends, hanging out around the bonfire in the back yard, roasting marshmallows and sipping summer beer. We spent the evening talking about heady, esoteric things like love and the evolution of technology.
I love conversations like these that loop and spiral and press at the edges of what we know. We talked a lot about the state of the world, about the future, and about power. I am very interested in the idea of power right now. It's a theme that keeps coming up in my new novel, unbidden and determined to be there on the page.
What do you think it means to have power (and how is this different than to have money)?
This gorgeous daily record by the author of Lobster & Swan. Isn't it a great idea? I think I may steal it, and try it out in my moleskine this week. I always see images I love, and never end up doing anything with them. Nothing some paste & a date stamp can't fix, apparently. In a similar vein, this 'savings account' of daily inspiration is also absolutely lovely and full of goodness.
Monday's inspiration + a question
Today: a run, reading a story or two, taking Sprout for his 5 month check up*, transplanting a peony bush, and quite possibly some baking. Also writing. Always, always that.
Here are a few links I found this weekend that I am crushing on:
These photos of the Holland Flower Auction that almost make me want to weep. I'd give a lot for an armful of roses right now, or tulips.
This Joy + Ride. A gorgeous little journal with interviews featuring artists and writers and all kinds of delight.
And this delightfully terse blog with beautiful photos.
(* An update to come on my beautiful, sweet Sprout.)
***
Now an question for you (that will help me enormously on a story I'm writing): What were you like as a teenager? If you share, I will. And maybe I'll even post a pic or two.
Thunder cupcakes
Make these. They are the perfect accompaniment for thunderstorms, especially when made and eaten with little boys.
* 1 8-ounce package cream cheese * 1 large egg * 2 tablespoons sugar * 1/2 teaspoon salt * 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract * 1/4 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips
* 1 cup all purpose flour * 3 tablespoons sifted unsweetened cocoa powder * 3/4 teaspoon baking powder * 1/2 teaspoon coarse kosher salt * 1/8 teaspoon baking soda * 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar * 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature * 2 large eggs * 1 teaspoon vanilla extract * 3 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped, melted, warm * 1/2 cup whole milk
Beat cream cheese in medium bowl. Add egg, sugar, salt, and vanilla and beat until almost smooth. Fold in chocolate chips (I was generous with these!)
Preheat oven to 350°F. Line standard muffin pan with 12 paper liners. Mix wet ingredients together then add dry. Fill cups 1/3 full. Then plunk a heaping spoonful of the cream cheese + chocolate chip mixture into the middle of each cup.
Bake cupcakes until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Cool in the pan, then in the fridge~ I think these cupcakes actually taste better cold than warm...though some might beg to differ.
* Recipe originally from here.
Also, I am just loving these beautiful photographs.