Semi-Annual

Today Bethany and I made our semi-annual trip to Squirrel Hill. We love to go shopping/dining there, but never seem to make it more than twice a year! The biggest attractions for us in this trendy, yet established village are Little's Shoe store and Ten Thousand Villages.

Ten Thousand Villages is a destination in and of itself. It is a craft shop, but the key is, the crafts are made around the world, and all of the money is fed back into the country from which it originates. You will find handmade items from India, Guatemala, Peru, Haiti, Mexico, El Salvador.....the list is endless! The store itself is non-profit and exists to aid these countries. Some of the items that can be found there---jewelry, purses, pottery, scarves, toys, note cards...again, the list is endless. The items are not grouped by country. Therefore, we went on a treasure hunt of sorts, looking for items that were made in Honduras. Lucky for us, the clerks can run a search on their computer and tell you what items in the store are from a certain destination, making it a little easier to look for them. Today it turns out the only things from Honduras were candles.

Probably the best treasures they had today were nativity sets. Handcarved and handpainted, there were some precious ones and some grand ones. I was very tempted, but did not purchase.

On to Littles. Bethany loves boots. It is almost an obsession with her. I thought it would be great to start my Christmas shopping by purchasing her a pair. But the black, tall, slouchy pair she picked, she wanted NOW, not a month from now, so she bought them for herself. FIGURES.

Our third stop was at a bakery that has been getting a lot of positive buzz in Pittsburgh. Dozen has stores on the South Side, downtown, Lawrenceville, at the Andy Warhol museum, and this one in Squirrel Hill. Billed as "the country's best cupcakes" by MSN City guide, they daily have a selection of flavored cupcakes from which to choose. Today there was one called Asteroids that had Cocoa Puffs on top of the icing. There was also a vegan chocolate with buttercream icing, vanilla on vanilla, turtle, milk chocolate, and coffee.

The coffee cupcake was actually a chocolate cupcake with coffe icing, topped by a coffee bean. Bethany and I split this, and I have to say, not a fan. And I am a lover of all things sweet. So perhaps I need to give it another try on another day with another flavor. Their website is beautiful to look at, so if you're interested, it is dozenbakeshop.com.

Squirrel Hill is definitely worth at least a semi-annual trip!