houston, we have a winner.

in keeping with the latest charlie sheen inspired craze of "winning," i'd like to share with you my winning experience.  and shock of all shocks, it came in the KITCHEN.  i know, the very beast i complained about previously and will complain about in the future gave me a W just now.

inspired by a friend of mine who always bakes delicious cookies, i decided to yet again procrastinate my homework and try my hand at baking cupcakes.  even though my hamburger helper was a major bust last night (and again for lunch today when i tried it one more time in hopes that the fridge would have worked some magic), i was drawn back to the kitchen like a moth to a flame. or a ladybug to my window sill.  or edward to bella.  or me to justin bieber.

maybe i really am a masochist.  maybe i just like failing at things.  maybe i hate my homework so much that i'm willing to try anything.  or maybe, just maybe, i'm so stinking stubborn that i refuse to believe that an oven/stove can stop me.  whatever the motivation, i took to the kitchen and tried my hand at cupcakes.

i followed the recipe just as i should, put the 24 little experiments into the oven, and said a silent prayer to the cooking gods to please not set off my fire alarm.  the neighbors do that enough and as i was reminded by my cookie-baking-friend, it'd be the worst type of karma for me to set off the alarm tonight.

the icing step will come next. wish me luck!

when the timer on my microwave (my oven is lame and doesn't have a timer so i use my microwave's) went off 18ish minutes later, i hesitantly crept towards the kitchen, noting mainly that it wasn't filled with smoke and it didn't smell like ruined cake mix.  much to my delight, i opened the oven door and saw 24 beautiful little cupcakes looking back at me, begging to be taken out of the cooking machine.  i gladly obliged and only burned my hand briefly as i used a dish towel to pull them out instead of an oven mitt. apparently dish towels are not as thick.

i am happy to report that while i'm far from being rachel ray, i definitely won tonight.  the score might be stove - 1, megan - 0, but so far i'm one up on the oven.  i can't promise that the cupcakes taste good since as soon as i saw them i came to brag about it via blog, but hey - they look pretty and that has to count for something, right?