Experiments

Lately I have been sleeping on the opposite end of my bed. My bed is set at a corner with two windows on either wall, and there's an awful draft at night that I can't escape. I read somewhere that sleeping on the unconventional end of a bed is bad feng shui, but I have been experiencing otherwise. First of all, I'm not freezing at night anymore. Secondly, my dreams are more pleasant. Actually, I don't really remember them much. Wait, did I even dream last night?

For the last month or so I always woke up feeling empty somehow. Like feeling really weighed down. And then I would remember my dreams. My weird ass dreams of running toward something, trying to find something, or losing something. It's the worst when you wake up with a clouded conscience like that. But now, with my feet where my busy brain use to lie, I have dreamless nights. Or if I had been dreaming, it was pleasant, calming, and somehow reassuring. Bad feng shui or not, I feel lighter and that's good enough for me.

Pilates

...is not yoga, but it is one hell of a work out. April showers bring May flowers. Gotta get ready for bikini season.

Mmmbop

I feel like every relationship tends to have its own soundtrack. There are just certain songs that connect me to a feeling I once felt with another person. Por ejemplo, listening to "Chasing Pavements" by Adele always reminds me of my good friends Val, Quyen, and Tom. The song "Love Song" by Sara Bareilles brings me back to my bottom bunk bed with my freshman year roommates. Pinback and Broken Social Scene, a time when everything was new and the nights were long. The Strokes, days when all you want to do is lie in bed and talk about dreams.

The music you share with the different people in your life, I kinda think of them as the bastard children of the relationship. You smile when they play on shuffle, you sing along because you know the words, you suggest them to others because you've laid claim to them; they belong to you. But once the relationship fades, you can't help but be drawn back to what the songs remind you of... can't help but realize the song wasn't yours in the first place. You hate it, but you can't hate the music. Especially because you know it's not the music's fault that you feel that way. You felt that way long before, and those songs, well... they just provide the soundtrack to what was once great.

Do the dansing!

Or do the chilling. I had my fill of the dancing last night during a TYTE Girltalk show at Soma. Now all I want to do is chillax with a rainy day playlist for rainy evenings of rain.

Drip drop

1. Daft Punk - Something About Us
2. Bon Iver - Skinny Love
3. El Ten Eleven - Sorry About Your Irony
4. Bent - Moonbeams
5. Feist - Past in Present
6. Phoenix - North
7. Carla Bruni - L'amour
8. The Morning Benders - Lovefool 
9. Real Estate - Out of Tune
10. Little Joy - Next Time Around 

Addicted maybe?

I baked again...

...I might have developed a problem here.

My sister and I wanted to be ultra domestic during the rainy weekend so while she was preparing a storm of delish Vietnamese spring rolls, I took over her pantry and made more oatmeal cookies and her world famous banana bread. Don't the cookies look pretty all lined up in a row?

Unfortunately, expectations don't always match up to reality. I didn't add enough oats and as a result, we baked a giant pizookie-like cookie. But hey, still good! My brother-in-law thought so at least. He devoured about half of it.

The banana bread, however, exceeded expectations. The bananas were super ripe and my sister was spot on with the oven timing. She even said it was the best loaf that ever came out of her kitchen! Considering how this is her own recipe, I take great pride in that compliment. Teehee :)

What's better than hanging out and making good food?

This face!!

And this one!! :)

Grandma Sturm's oatmeal cookies, taken from my Dollar Tree quick oats container:
- 3/4 cup vegetable shortening
- 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup water
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 3 cups oats (or 2 cups if you want to recreate my pizookie)
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat together shortening, sugars, egg, water and vanilla until creamy. Add combined remaining dry ingredients. Mix well and drop by rounded teaspoons onto greased cookie sheet. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes. For variety, add chopped nuts, raisins, or chocolate chips. (I added dried cranberries and white chocolate chips to this batch, yum.) Makes about 5 dozen cookies or one giant one.

And sorry, I can't divulge my sister's secret banana bread recipe. Trust me though, if you had some of it you'd want to keep it a secret, too. Have a good week!

Theories

Happy belated St. Patty's. My work hosted a potluck yesterday with a wonderful array of emerald goodies. I, on the other hand, decided to try out a coffee cake recipe that I bookmarked a few weeks ago. The idea was to make an Irish cream glaze to match the theme, but I was too lazy to invest in a bottle of Baileys. That would have been handy to have last night actually.... Anyway, coffee cake!

You know, when you really think about it, coffee cake is a rather appropriate dish for St. Patrick's Day. Coffee has caffeine, caffeine is known to stunt growth, and leprechauns are short! See the correlation? It might even be causation.

Also, coffee cake has layers. Streusel, batter, streusel, batter. Like an onion. You know who else has onion-like layers? Ogres. And what color is our favorite ogre of all time?

Point proven, case closed. Coffee cake is a natural St. Patrick's Day dessert. It's a clear representation of the leprechaun diet and green in Shrek theory.

Gotta try this recipe again with the glaze. Note to future self: prepare to eat immediately after! Or else it gets really doughy and tough. Til next time!

Speechless

My heart goes out to everyone affected by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Every time I open a new browser my heart drops at all the photos and videos of the aftermath. The destruction is so devastating.

I have been at a loss for words since the news hit Friday morning, but today was so much harder for some reason. I just sat at work staring blankly at my computer screen, realizing how small we all are. How every moment is just a moment, nothing more. And how easily that moment can change your life. It's a shame that these things have to happen in order for me to really appreciate everything I have. Treasure every second of life. It is so precious and fragile. So unpredictable and fleeting.

My prayers are endless.

Lazy Sunday

What do you do when you're an hour behind and don't feel like thinking or worrying or stressing out about anything pertaining to potential life plans?

You make monster oatmeal cookies.

Inspired by Julia's batch from last Friday, these bad boys are the evil twin to her healthy version. They're gigantor and loaded with chopped almonds and chocolate nibs.

Literally the size of my hand.

You know what they say about big cookies.

Big scoops of ice cream, of course! Happy Daylight Savings!

Pondering

What I love about dance and yoga is the fact that both concentrate on self control and awareness. I honestly believe that is the oh-so-difficult-to-attain key to living a balanced life. Once you master yourself, everything appears so easy and natural. I would think it's very peaceful when you are conscious and accepting of where you are, wherever that place may be.

I took an improvisation dance class today and the theme was taking the leap. We had to let go of choreography and stay within the present perspective for about 20 seconds. I did my best but in the end, I failed to connect to anything around me. Eric said that seeing is in itself a skill. Once you open your eyes and look around, you find so many new ways to move.

Maybe I've just had my eyes closed since graduation. I really haven't been able to see any of the possibilities or opportunities available to me. I guess I'm just scared of the uncertainty. Afraid of taking the leap.

Scratch that

I consider myself a maker when it comes to kitchen creations. I buy staple ingredients and invent whatever edible mesh of food comes to mind. Experimenting is applauded and adding this and that from last week's leftovers is quite acceptable. Good ingredients make good food, simple as that. Baking, on the other hand, requires diligence and precision--basically following directions. Sure, you can improvise a bit, but there's a higher chance things can go wrong. And for beginning bakers like me, that's kinda scary.

I'm not closing any doors to home-cooked food though, made or baked. So when I went home for my mom's birthday this weekend I decided to try my hand at some dessert. And while I was at it, I figured what the heck, let's do this from scratch!

Surprisingly I found all the necessary supplies at the neighborhood Dollar Tree. From all-purpose flour to a complete set of measuring cups, I only paid a buck a piece for everything up there. What a steal! I couldn't help but snag a box of green tea either.

Unfortunately I didn't find everything on my list at Dollar Tree, which is okay because I didn't want to buy cheap vanilla extract. Bakers are investors, too, so I went with the higher priced bourbon vanilla extract ($5.99 from Fresh & Easy). I also couldn't resist the appeal of the bourbon aspect. It just sounds so fancy.

After a whole lot of messing up the kitchen with measuring, mixing, and whisking (by hand!), the cupcakes were ready after 25 minutes in the oven. The initial recipe idea was to pipe the cream cheese into the center of each cupcake so it creates a filling. But since it was a spur of the moment decision to bake in the first place, I didn't have my piping set with me. What a shame, it would have been really fun to finally use them!

Thus, my black-bottom cupcakes had a nice layer of cream cheese that was slightly toasted around the edges. Moist and not too sweet, I think they turned out rather delicious. Here is where I found the recipe and inspiration for baking these tiny morsels of yummy.

Happy birthday Mom!

Twinkle

Today I felt my heart twinkle. Have you felt that before? When you're simply minding your own business and for some reason you suddenly get a little excited? There's no definite reason why, but you just feel a surge of lightness. And then you're all caught up in such a short and fleeting moment. But you know, you're actually in the moment.

There it is.

A tiny flutter.

A slight quicken of the heartbeat.

A twinkle.

I'm definitely running around that part of my neighborhood again.