Tag Archives: baking

03/29/12

{365.89} I Cry About Going to Bed Early

Snapped this while walking the dog earlier this evening! Who knew the skies over the back parking lot of the nearby Wal-Mart could look so inspiring, haha.

This is going to be a short entry because I have to go to bed. I mean, really, I HAVE TO GO TO BED. Because I have to wake up at 5:00am tomorrow morning. And then manage to stay awake and alert until probably this time tomorrow night, after the longest work day ever and my parents coming in from California afterwards. I would run by Starbucks before I went to work, but I have to be there by 6:30am and the ridiculous Starbucks on the corner here doesn’t have a drive-thru. Mystifying, I know. Why they decided not to have one, I will never know. Then again, that might be for the best, considering how much caffeine I might ingest if they did have one.

I had less cleaning to do today, so first thing in the morning I went to the library to grab the books that had come in on request (traded in a total of 1 book, then checked out 4 more… I am depraved). After this, I went to Target and picked up some things I needed, but of course totally forgot the paper towels I was supposed to remember to buy. I didn’t realize I’d forgotten them until I was working on baking a chocolate cake after dinner today and very gracefully dropped an egg on the floor. Lovely. I had a fairly hectic few hours between 7pm and 9pm when I was running around trying to get a bunch of things done before bedtime inevitably approached. I have a chocolate sheet cake baked and iced, my lunch is packed, the kitchen has been re-cleaned after all this craziness took place, I finally succeeded in ironing that obstinately wrinkled table cloth with one of our two obstinately uncooperative irons, I got my stuff ready for teaching tomorrow, and now I just want to collapse. I was totally battling the nap time urges this afternoon, btw, which was hilarious because I would force myself to get up, but then eventually gravitate back to the bed, curl up into a ball, and fall asleep for 5 minutes before repeating the process. Woe is me, I will never be any good at managing my unruly sleeping habits T-T

Anyway, I’m going to read some more of this book, and then I’m going to turn off the lights and go to bed. 5am will be here before I’m even kind of ready for it. SIGH.

03/11/12

{365.71} I Resurrect My Cookie Jar

YAY I HAVE A COOKIE JAR AGAIN!!! I promptly baked cookies to put in it. They’re chocolate chip and oh so delicious. They’re just as yummy now that they’ve cooled down as they were when we ate some fresh out of the oven yesterday evening (with milk, of course). Because of this, the contents of the jar have already been considerably depleted… haha.

Don’t come to my house if you have something against baked goods, because we have a LOT of those.

I spent a large part of my day trying to puzzle out four different tutorials for how to code my own WordPress theme, which was fairly frustrating. In the end, I had to flail my arms and ask Marjorie for help. (This always happens. Inevitably, I will start wanting to give up and go have a pity party for myself, which is when I start writing Marjorie an email.) I think my main problem is that there isn’t any one tutorial out there that best suits my learning style; this is why I have to cobble together four different ones just to get myself to understand properly. I mean, I don’t really want to just memorize where tags go, even though that seems like the most effective way to do it. The coding itself is adaptable and in the future, if I wanted to do a different style of theme, the code would adapt to it as well. There’s so many possibilities and I know that I’m not even beginning to scratch the surface there. But for now, I would like to understand how the tags work so that I can better remember where they go and why they go there. We’ll see how this goes… I made sure to just do a fresh WordPress install to test drive the theme on so that this blog doesn’t accidentally implode on itself if/when my attempts fail miserably.

In between pulling my hair out over WordPress, I updated my Goodreads account. Finally. I haven’t updated that since January, or maybe December. I used to do a reading challenge to read 50 books in 1 year, and I also had a blog for book reviews, but stopped keeping up with it in late 2010 and skipped the challenge entirely last year. Not that I wasn’t still reading, I mean there is hardly ever a time when I’m not; I just wasn’t blogging the books or keeping track of them. This year, however, I will be upping the challenge to 75 books. I haven’t decided if I’ll be doing any reviewing because I kind of feel like that would detract from focusing on my writing. But, Goodreads is easy to update and rate books between 1 and 5 stars, plus I have the iPhone app, so I will continue to maintain it there. I’m only at 4 books out of 75 this year, but I’ll catch up.

I’m sure it baffles some people that I read several books at once. At this time, I’m juggling three different ones. Why do I do this? Well, you know that phrase, “Your eyes were bigger than your stomach”? Okay, that’s how I am with books. I pile them up, and hoard them, because I want to read them all. This can’t take place through osmosis, as much as I would like it to. I start reading one book, and I’m enjoying myself immensely, but then I look over at my other books and think… you can’t be serious, it’s impossible for me to WAIT until I finish reading this one before I find out what happens in that other one. So, I find some kind of bookmark for my current book, open up a different book, and start reading that one too. Then the process repeats itself until I have anywhere between 2 and 5 books being read at the same time. I don’t have trouble keeping up, or starting and stopping. Some books are read best when I’m sitting and eating a snack. Some books are perfect for reading in bed. (As a result, I have books scattered everywhere. David scatters his shoes, the dog scatters his toys — I scatter my books.) I read them according to my mood. But then there are the books I own, and re-read. I’m always re-reading something I’ve already been through before, it’s just how I am. I seriously don’t know how to read just one book at a time. I like being able to drop in and out of them at will.

Okay, I’m ending this entry now because the time change has me all thrown off and I still have writing to do! Plus it’s Grocery Day tomorrow and I haven’t finished my list yet. UGH, Grocery Day. WHY.

02/6/12

{365.37} I Tell a Pointless Anecdote About a Cookie Jar

I was filling up one of these Ikea canisters that my mom got me for Christmas (she got me a bag full of random Ikea things for our apartment — then today she sent gift cards to IHOP and Pier 1 for our anniversary, which truly illustrates how familiar she is with which retail chains are most likely to bring joy into my life), and it made me truly wish my cookie jar hadn’t rolled out of the back of my car and shattered on the hotel parking lot in New Mexico as we were moving here. (Ignore how long that sentence was because of my penchant for using parentheses, btw.) (And look, I did it again! I really like parentheses.)

To elaborate on this, we were finally stopping after driving the last seven hours from Texas, and were staying at a hotel in Albuquerque (craziest spelling word ever). We turned into the parking lot, checked in, and began hauling stuff to our room so we could then order pizza and settle in for the night. Both of our cars were crammed to the ceiling with stuff. In David’s (tiny) car, we had all our leftover cleaning supplies and the vacuum from when we cleaned out our last apartment, plus our luggage, and both CPUs for our computers. Because we were paranoid and wanted to have them with us at all times. Computers are treasured in this household. LOL. In my SUV, we had a box of food, two giant storage tubs of computer accoutrements (keyboards, both monitors padded with pillows and blankets, wiring, et al etc), some remnants of David’s sword collection wrapped in a quilt (yes, this happened), the dog’s kennel, and the dog. Plus other things. I can’t even name them anymore. Suffice it to say that all of these myriad items were somehow carried from Texas to Nevada. Except, my poor cookie jar didn’t make it. When we unloaded things from my car, the cookie jar decided to leap into oblivion.

I was very unhappy about this, because 1) broken glass is never fun and 2) the cookie jar still had cookies in it!!! I picked up the pieces without mishap and disposed of them, but now I continuously think about my suicidal cookie jar because I miss its presence in my kitchen. It used to be perfect for drive-by snacking. I changed cookies from time to time, and it was always strangely gratifying to see the jar sitting on the counter. “Come have a cookie,” it would say. “I will always be here for you.” But now it isn’t, and I need a new damn cookie jar. My Ikea canisters are adorable and classy and all, but I like seeing the delicious baked goods through the glass. This is a bizarre psychological thing, I admit.

I read in a magazine a month or so ago that there are two types of organizers: revealers and concealers. I am a classic revealer — I like to put things on display. I line things up on shelves, I prefer containers that are clear so you can see what’s inside, and instead of carefully organized photo albums, I have ten billion picture frames.  I feel that this theory applies to my cookie jar. The cookies do not exist for me if they’re hidden. But in my glass jar, they were warm and welcoming, and yet still contained in an orderly fashion that satisfied my control freak-ness. In contrast, my husband is all about being organized but keeping your organized items hidden from view. We couldn’t agree on how to store our DVD collection because I wanted them on shelves, while he wanted them in a binder. He won out in the end, but I guess I like the idea of “plenty.” See the amount of items I have amassed in all their glory. See how I so neatly organize them in rows. These are the movies I like, peruse them and learn more about me. It just doesn’t feel like home to me if all my little nicknacks and possessions aren’t scattered here and there. And a cookie jar on the counter seems so much more cozy than a package of cookies in the pantry. It’s not that I like things to be cluttered, I guess I just like the place to look like I live here.

By the way, the Ikea canisters hold hot cocoa packets and strawberry wafer cookies. I still haven’t found anything to put in the smallest one. But if you want hot cocoa and/or a strawberry wafer cookie, please have some and say a small dedication to my defunct cookie jar.

…I was going to write a quick entry and get this out of the way so I could go back to my writing, and instead I rambled about kitchen containers for much longer than I should have. OH WELL LOL.

01/29/12

{365.29} More Muffins & More Paperwork

Baked a batch of cinnamon streusel muffins for David’s breakfast this week. Well, he actually likes to take them for lunch too. They’re pretty good, although the streusel tends to get everywhere.

This evening I filled out some paperwork and such for substitute teaching, and I have an interview with the school district on the 9th. It’s amazing how much they require just to sub in this district! I think I’m just shocked because in Wichita Falls, all you needed to do was fill out a form online and wait for them to mail you an orientation date to attend. Then, you went to the orientation for about an hour and a half, registered on their sub finder system, and voila~ Here, they require a separate “Substitute License” for the state of Nevada, an initial app used to determine if you qualify as a candidate, and then another longer application that you then bring to your interview. The interview is scheduled online and I guess it’s just so they make sure to talk to everyone being considered to sub. It’s nice that they’re so particular about the people they hire for classroom work, but boy are there lots of hoops to jump through. I will still need to get fingerprinted (TWICE, for the school district AND for the BOE state licensure requirements) but have my transcripts and forms pretty much ready to turn in. Hopefully they’ll allow me a license with provisions for PRAXIS testing. Fingers are crossed. If I can get myself on the list of substitutes, it would be great.

I’m a bit worried about how steady the work will be, although this district is about a billion times larger than the one I came from (Clark County has the 5th fastest growing district in the nation, apparently) so they would have a lot more schools and vacancies available than WFISD. Since they pay subs pretty well here, I could maybe get away with only working three days a week and still be able to pay my student loan bill monthly. FINGERS ARE CROSSED. The process of becoming a substitute is insane but will hopefully be worth it in the end T-T Even after this interview, I still need to meet all requirements for the license and then they make everyone bring proof that they aren’t positive for TB, as well. Which means another doctor’s appointment for me in the near future… ugh. But! But I need to get this wrapped up and start working. We get by on David’s income, but it would be much better if I had a job too. My student loan payment is ridiculous.

I hear stomping on the stairs outside… our idiot neighbors are home and probably about to turn their TV on to max volume. *yay*

01/12/12

{Project 365.12} I Have No Idea Where My Day Went

I’m pretty sure I totally lost track of time today. I woke up at 9am, walked the dog, did some dishes, and baked a cinnamon streusel coffee cake (yum) before sitting down and playing Sims 3 for a while… manipulating the lives of others always gives me a deep sense of enjoyment. LOL. Read a book for while, spent some time rejoicing over the ahhhhmazing $20 promo coupon that Shutterfly e-mailed me, and then before I knew it David had sent a text message that he was driving home from work. Since we didn’t have anywhere we had to go today, or any chores to really accomplish, we just spent the evening doing whatever. Now it’s almost midnight and I can’t believe the high degree of “absolutely nothing” that I did today. Wow. But, I do have a really eventful week coming up, so I guess I won’t begrudge myself some overly luxurious I-have-no-obligations time.

I may actually get to send my certification stuff in next week since the last of my transcripts finally arrived in the mail today. I’m pretty sure that’s all I was missing, but I’ll need to send my paperwork in by certified mail and then wait for however long it takes them to process it. I already feel like they’re just going to send a letter saying I need to take the Praxis exams, since I doubt they accept the Texas-specific certification tests I took and already passed. Of course not, that would be too easy! Blahhhh. Oh, wait, now that I’ve been thinking on the subject, I do still need to get fingerprint forms before I can send this in. DAMNIT LOL. I’m not entirely sure how that’s done here, the website just said the blue fingerprint forms are available at local police stations but not if the fingerprinting needs to also be done there. In Texas, I got my fingerprinting done at a participating agency, which happened to be at a chiropractor’s office. Soooo another mystery to solve/hurdle to cross/annoying thing to deal with. I have my fingers crossed that they cover the fingerprinting part at that seminar I’m going to on Tuesday.

David used one of his free days off (his reward for working 2pm-9pm at the simulator’s check-in desk the week leading up to Christmas) for tomorrow so he’ll have a ridiculous 4-day weekend. We’re going to have a Studio Ghibli marathon in our living room~~ And spaghetti for dinner tomorrow. We really aren’t the kind of couple who likes to go out on dates all the time, nor do we have a designated “date night” or anything. We mostly like to be at home, something that a lot of my friends think is hilarious. One of them asked me yesterday why I pretend to be so antisocial when I seem like such an outgoing person, to which I replied that it’s true; I’m outgoing and I don’t mind meeting new people or spending time with friends, but only if I really have to. Mostly I just like to be left alone. Hahahaha. Sort of paradoxical, but whatever. Home is where we’re happiest, and I see nothing wrong with that, honestly.

And now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to the kitchen to have a slice of that cinnamon streusel coffee cake I so graciously baked for us earlier~~

01/3/12

{Project 365.3} I Bake On Occasion

Last night after writing my blog entry, I e-mailed myself a list of things I felt needed to be done today. Classy, I know. Anyway, this extremely riveting list included activities such as remembering to change over some magazine subscriptions, dropping off the mail, folding neglected laundry, (finally) taking down our Christmas tree, and baking muffins. I am proud to say that I accomplished… three things on the list. LOL. I mean, it’s not that I was unproductive, it’s just that the things I worked on weren’t listed. Not an excuse, I swear! Our book club started its first reading selection this month so I spent practically my whole day working on the website and forums for our discussions since I’d committed myself to getting it done by Friday. I took a break to bake the muffins — evidence above! My husband loves blueberry muffins. I don’t make them from scratch because I’m neither a gifted baker nor insane, but I do switch out half a cup of water for half a cup of milk. They always turn out freaking amazing. Who cares if they come from a mix? (I can already hear myself saying this same phrase to my children in the future…)

Honestly though, I like baking a lot more than cooking. But if we really want to get technical, the weird thing about me is that I enjoy making food for people more than I like eating whatever I’ve made. It’s more fun to work on the presentation and watch intently to see if the food is being enjoyed. I’m also a picky eater, so the assortment of food that I eat isn’t varied in the slightest. I don’t mind putting together meals involving things I don’t like eating, though, as long as no one makes me eat it. I love cookbooks, The Food Network, and Cooking Mama because I like to watch food being cooked and I like, I suppose, the idea of food. Which is super bizarre, but whatever. LOL. Anyway, I definitely like baking and one day I hope I can find someone to rope into a Wilton cake decorating course with me. Or maybe I’ll go on my own. After some thought, I’ve decided that cake decorating, drawing on cookies, icing cupcakes, and arranging food on plates appeals to my artistic sense. Eating the food does not. Hahaha.

It’s already Tuesday and tomorrow is Wednesday! Since I’m not working, the weeks sort of just slip away. I have no obligations so sometimes I even lose track of what day it is. This is weird for me because I’m not usually like that at all. I guess when you work Monday through Friday, you always keep a finger on how close you are to Friday. I am, however, sort of dreading next Monday because I have a doctor’s appointment scheduled. Ugh! I hate going to the doctor. I hate making the appointment, I hate showing up for the appointment, I hate everything that happens DURING the appointment, and I hate waiting in line at the pharmacy after, if my visit results in some kind of prescription. I hate hospitals and clinics as much as I hate airports, for the shared reason that I hate possibly not knowing what I’m doing or where I’m going. I’m always afraid I won’t do something that I’m supposed to, or that I’ll check in wrong, or whatever. But anyway, I do have the rest of this week before I need to start bracing myself. Blah.

On a final note, I read this article about the Duke & Duchess of Cambridge, known more popularly as Prince William and Kate formerly-Middleton, AND IT CONTAINS MY NEW FAVORITE PICTURE EVER. I love Will+Kate. Especially Kate, who has amazing hair and amazing clothes and is something like an actual Disney princess. I have a fascination with the British monarchy and these two are my favorite royals, I don’t care what anyone might think of me for it~~