Why does it seem like everything I look for is in the last place I look?

Because after I find it, I stop looking! 

My life is sweet, here are some reasons why......

Because when I was sewing today my dog came in and sat on the floor next to the CD player and looked really cute.

Because I baked chocolate chip cookies.

Because I sewed on my shirt.

Because I finished my novel.

Because I get to fly on a plane for the first time this week!!!!!!

Because I read a good book.

Why is your life sweet?

 

That's all for now!

How my Sunday went.....

I had a family picnic yesterday! It was kind of supposed to be celebrating my sister's birthday, which was back in May, and kind of a good-bye for me and my brother because we'll be going on a nice long trip pretty soon, and kind of just for fun. And it was fun.

I took a lot of pictures. Unfortunately, I can only post a few of them because most of them have people in them.

Here are the pictures I took. Most of them are of food, but having a food blog, it's turned into a habit of mine to take pictures of that particular object. :)

The trees were very beautiful!

And, of course, the oh-so-common (and delicious) picnic food....

My family is very big on watermelon! You can't have a get together without it....

Strawberry shortcake!

More strawberry shortcake.... Recipe HERE.

Isn't the sky beautiful?

 WHIP CREAM!!!

We also played bocce ball! which is a favourite game in our family. Bocce ball is a very fun game where everyone tries to get their ball closest to the white ball. Sometimes it can be so hard to decide whose blal is closest....

Flowers, Caramels, and Waffles

Don't forget about my photography contest! I forget to set a deadline.

Deadline: July 1

Winners announced: July 1

My Grandma passed away a couple days ago. People have been very supportive, bringing us flowers and cards. And we've gotten lots of phone calls. I took some pictures of the flowers.

Here they are:

I made caramels the other day. They take a lot of work and dedication. You have to stir them for up to an hour, and you have to cut up pieces of waxed paper to wrap the caramels in, and you have to wrap each caramel up, individually.

I sat at the dining room table for quite a while cutting up squares of waxed paper to wrap the caramels in.



Here's the recipe for the caramels:

Old-Fashioned Caramels

1 cup butter

2 1/4 cups firmly packed yellow sugar

1 cup corn syrup

14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

In a heavy 3 quart saucepan, melt butter. Add sugar and mix until well blended. Stir in corn syrup; cook until sugar has dissolved; remove pan from heat. Stir in sweetened condensed milk; cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture reaches the soft ball stage (240), about 20 to 30 minutes of constant stirring. Add vanilla. Pour hot mixture into buttered 9"by13" inch pan.

Cut caramels; wrap individually in waxed paper.

Optional: Add 2/3 of a cup of nuts at the same time you add the vanilla. I used walnuts, and they definitely added. I definitely recommend that you use them.

I had waffles for dinner! Our waffle iron broke a little while ago, so I haven't had waffles for a very long time, except hotel waffles. :)

Here's the recipe:

Waffles

Ingredients:

2 cups flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoons salt
3 teaspoons baking powder
2 eggs, separated
1/4 cup melted shortening or oil
1 3/4 cups milk

Sift together first four ingredients. Set aside.

Beat egg whites until stiff, then beat yolks separately.

Combine shortening/oil and milk with egg yolks, and then stir into dry ingredients.

Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites last. Bake in hot waffle iron until lightly browned.

Yield: 10 to 12 waffles

Bon Appetit! :)

Contest Entry and a Contest of my own

Hello! I'll start with my contest, and then I'll move on to the entry for Emily's contest.

I'm having a photography contest! All you have to do is take a picture, post it on your blog, and leave a comment with a link to your post. It's that simple! So start entering!

Now, Emily (her blog) is having a hair contest. Here's my entry! The hair is done on my doll, Felicity.

1. Brush your hair until it's tangle free.

2. Part it in the middle and put it into two braids. Putting a hair elastic on the bottom is optional. As you can see, in the picture, I didn't.

3. Pin one braid across your head, be sure to use lots of bobby pins to make sure it's secure.

4. Pin the other braid across your head. Be sure to tuck in the ends so they don't stick out!

You might consider a headband. Here for a headband I have my doll's necklace pinned across her head with bobby pins. :)

The finished product.

I love my doll!!! :)

To Be Or Not To Be. This Is Not The Question.

I said that to my sister the other day. I don't think she was too happy with me.

I have been busy, busy, busy.

Not really.

Actually, I have.

Sort of.

I've been working on my novel. Which is going quite well, by the way. I think I'll have it finished this summer. It will be a short novel, but a novel, nonetheless. Here is the beginning......

Copyright by Book blogger 2011

Chapter one

“Would you keep that down up there?” my Mom yelled.

I sighed and laid my violin back in its case. No one in my family appreciated the mystery and the beauty of the violin. When I began to play, it seemed to have a story to tell.

Not like anyone in my family cared. My Mom was forever telling me to “keep it down.” My sister, Kitty, once actually ripped up my favourite sheet of music in exasperation with all my practicing, and my Dad was never home.

“Mo-om!” I called down the stairs. “I have to practice.”

“Not that much, you don’t,” my Mom snapped back. “Now come on down here and set the table for supper.”

I stormed down the stairs and jerked open the cupboard door, pulled out the plates, and setting them on the table with a crash.

“Something wrong, Miquette?” Mom looked up from the cookbook she was reading.

I glared at her. “I was practicing,” I said through gritted teeth. “Why couldn’t Kitty set the table? I’m the one who was actually doing something useful. All she’s doing is giggling on the phone about which boy said what to who.”

“To whom,” Mom correctly calmly.

“You know what I mean,” I spat back, ready to throw the salt container I was carrying at her.

Mom made a clicking sound with her tongue. “You’ll get no where with attitude like that, young lady.”

I was all ready with a sarcastic comment, but I decided against it. It would only make Mom angrier.

“Kitty! Come down to the table!” Mom called in a sing-song voice, ignoring my glare.

I could hear Kitty get off her bed and open her door. “Just a minute, Mom!”

The door closed.

I knew we would not be seeing Kitty anytime soon. She was probably on the phone with Sally, which meant they were talking about Sally’s engagement party, which meant that they would be on the phone all night.

“Can I please start, Mom?"'

"Go ahead."

Our argument was at a standstill, this happened often. I didn't like to fight with her, but she didn't realize how much playing the violin mean to me. I know, I know, that's no excuse.

I gulped down my dinner as fast as I could, before Kitty would come down and join me—although I knew it was unlikely she would get off the phone that soon. I was not in the mood to eat with Kitty, her insistent chatter and giggling got on my nerves. If you think I was overreacting with Mom, you should see me around Kitty.

Actually, check that. You probably don’t want to.

When I finished dinner, I went back up into my room and resumed my practicing.

“Can’t you give your violin a rest!” my mom yelled. It might sound like a question to you, but I know my Mom. It was most likely a command.

I set down my violin and took up my homework.

Well, what do you think?

Reality is a lovely place. I just wouldn't want to live there.

That's from Owl City.

Does anyone here ever do mad libs? They're really funny. My family and I did some last night. Usually they turn out pretty weird, but they're still funny. Here are the ones my family and I did. The underlined words are the ones that my family added. The blue words are the ones that I added. If you see a really weird one - that might not even be an actual word - then that is probably my brother's.

Concert Program

This evening the famous orchestra conductor, Miquette Peterson, will present a program of classical iron pryers at Carnegie book. He will conduct the Timbuktu Symphony Orchestra, which was formed in 1935. It is noted for its excellent string and flower magnet-wind sections, considered to be the world's most terrifical.

The program will begin with Deubussy's "Clair de Dragon," followed by Mendelssohn's "Funner Song" and Strauss's "Tales of the Vienna Electrical Cords." Then we will hear Rachmaninoff's oboe Concerto, Number one, but only the corde and gentile movements. After intermission, the second half of the program will be devoted to playing in its entirety Betthoven's "Fifth Fireplace." Tickets are on sale at Jaelport.

Jaelport is from Jill Williamson's books. Notice how uncreative my words are? :)

Attack of the Worm Monsters

A classic but little known horror film is called The Hungry Protons. It's about ordinary worms that turn into huge, chocolatey, frightening, blooding sucking ticks after a nuclear explosion. Well, right away these big worms begin to get hungry, and I get you chameleons to naan breads you can't guess what they wanted to eat. Well, okay, so you made a lucky guess. They especially wanted to eat adorable sneakers and cute dung beetles. These creatures started white water rafting up everything alive in town. People began to get really nervous and many moved to Seattle. The others all became butter chicken or eggplant souffle for the monsters. About this time I left the theater as I was sang to death and wanted to get home to hide under my anteater with a pillow over my neurons.

Like I said above, all the blue ones are all mine.

How to Study

Evil teachers always give out pus spewing assignments. But, as everyone knows, if you want to pass all your classes so you can go to a school and become president of a big, international monstrous nightmare like Capitol Records and have millions of fire alarms in the bank, you must do your homework and study lousily. If you just sit around and wash, you won't get ahead in life. You You must learn to pay attention to every flowery thing your teacher says. Do not interrupt or whisper to other green colored mirrors during class. Be sure to have a nice ginormous notebook in which you can write down anything the teachers says that seems homely. Then go home and memorize all of those frigid notes. And when your teachers gives you a surprise quiz, you will know all of the screwdrivers and will get a Y.

For those who are wondering, monstrous nightmares are dragons, I think. That word was my sister's. And no, teachers are not evil, but how was who ever said that word supposed to know what it would describe? :)

Has anyone here ever heard of flash mobs? I can't explain them. One sec...

Okay, here's Wikipedia's definition:

A flash mob is a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and sometimes seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment and/or satire.

Here are some video examples:




This one is so clever! I love it!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

I made cookies for my Grandma yesterday (she's not well). They are the BEST EVER!!!! How can you say no to peanut butter, chocolate chips, and oats all in one?

And even better, we happened to have a package of mini Reese's Pieces lying around, so instead of chocolate chips, I put those in those amazing little chocolate peanut butter cups that make people's mouth water!!!

(a.k.a. Reese's Pieces)

Here's my dough...

Here are my balls, all ready to go in the oven.

Out of the oven...

On the rack...

Finished...

Okay, and you'll probably think this is really weird (because it is), but here's a picture of my cookie in a glass of milk, soaking. :)

Can you see that little peanut butter cup on the top of the cookie? Waiting to be savoured... :)

Here's the recipe:

1 cup margarine
1 cup peanut butter
1\2 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar

Cream together thoroughly
............................................................................

2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 tbsp. water

Add, beating until fluffy

............................................................................

1 1\2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt

Sift together and add

.............................................................................

2 1\2 cups quick oatmeal
3\4 cup chocolate chips

Stir in
.............................................................................

Drop onto ungreased baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes.

Yield: about 6 dozen

And, in case you were wondering, those cookies are by now, completely gone - because as I said above, they are the BEST COOKIES EVER!!!!!! Here's a good quote for all of you to ad to your blogs:

Good food should never be around the next day.

~Anon.

Okay, I made that quote up.

Whatever.

Bye-bye for now!

I'm too lazy for a title today...

Wait... I did a title. So I guess I'm not too lazy. Who knew? :)

Hello all my beautiful followers!

School's out!

Anyone else here done school? I worked ahead this year so I could be done earlier, though I hope to do school through the summer if I'm not too busy.

As I sit here, my sister and I are watching Drive Through History Every heard of it?

The guy who does its name is Dave Stotts. He does an awesome job! He's so funny! The covers below are the two that we own, and they may be the only ones out. Though I believe a new one came out just recently, or not. My sister would know, not me. :)

(if you're thinking, "Why is this girl watching tv and blogging?" Technically, I'm not. I'm listening to the tv, and looking at the computer screen. Sad, isn't it?)

Here's the trailer to the Drive Through History series...

I'm reading a book called The Dead and the Gone, by Susan Beth Pfeffer. Wait a sec! A good part just came up on the movie! Okay, now I'm back. Back to the book.

At the moment when life as he had known it changed forever, Alex Morales was behind the counter at Joey’s Pizza, slicing a spinach pesto pie into eight roughly equal pieces.

When you hear the title, you probably think it's not a very pleasant book. Well.... until the end, it's not. It's a bit of a downer. I'm not done it yet, but so far it has been. My sister says it's gets a little more cheerful near the end.

Basically, the moon gets knocked out off orbit, and it causes volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, and other deadly things. Everyone goes crazy stocking up on food and getting all the things they know will soon disappear. Alex keeps hope though...

"Things'll work out," Alex said. "Give the scientists some time and they'll figure out what to do."

"This is too big for the scientists," Lorraine said. "Only God can save us now."

"Then He will," Alex said.

I just threw up. Yuck.

But fortunately for you, I decided to not take a picture of it. I can tell you though...

Breakfast is gone.

Okay, I felt kinda weird all morning. My eyes hurt, nose hurt, my face hurt (Wait, my face hurt? What's up with that?) Mom said I looked kind of white.

To quote my sister, "Ewww."

But let me tell you, that was satisfying. Right before I threw up, I told my sister, "I sure wish I could throw up right now."

So just a couple minutes ago, while you were enjoying your Saturday, I threw up. So now you can tell yourself, someone on the other side of the world just threw up (okay maybe hot the other side of the world...)

You heard it first from me.

Hmmm.....

Yesterday my sister put on the water to make a pot of hot chocolate. But by the time my family was done doing devotions, it was bedtime. I decided to not have hot chocolate that night.

Besides, drinking hot chocolate before bed makes me feel like throwing up. But it's so good I drink it anyway. Though for the past couple weeks I haven't even been able to make it even half way through the cup. I think I'm slightly allergic to chocolate. Eating it in concentrated doses makes me sneeze... a lot.

Back to the subject...

I put my hot chocolate in the fridge.

This morning I woke up and went to the fridge. When I opened it, I was greeted with a very interesting surprise.

My mug of hot chocolate was rather odd looking, with brown lumps on the top. It had definitely changed overnight.

But being the brave individual I am (not), I took a spoon, stirred it up, and drank it.

Mmmmmmmmm..... It was soooo good!!!!! It tasted just like chocolate milk. I'm definitely going to do that again!

Yesterday I cleaned up my room a bit (Scezzle: You'd be surprised!). I put together a bunch of toys and stuff to sell, all the money I make off them is going towards a desk and an organizer to go on the desk. In the next couple weeks, my room is going to be seeing big changes. I think I'm going to move my bed to the other side of the room.

By the way, I have a very small room. My bed takes up half of it. But I think now that I'm selling all my stuff there will be more walking space.

Okay, there is this really fun LEGO game, where you can walk around, talk to people, visit a coffee shop, and help make a movie. HERE's a link to it. If you don't have an account with them though, you can only play the first level.

Also, you have to watch these two videos, HERE and HERE. These people are amazing!


Wow! Almost thirty! Thanks for being such great followers everyone!

It's Summer!

It's summer! (yes I realize that summer officially starts on the twenty-first of June, or something like that)

Reasons why it's summer:

Today I am wearing capris and a camp t-shirt

It's too hot to sleep with a blanket

It's too hot for flannel pajamas

Oh, for sure, I'm going to miss Winter/Spring, but I like summer. A lot. I'm going to be pretty busy this summer, and busy summers are the best kind! Though I do know some people who might not agree with me on that.

Yesterday I made grapejuice popsicles (Note to Scezzle: Yes, I realize that you can't stand grape juice. You have made that clear countless times whenever we have breakfast together and grape juice is all I have :).

I was in a hurry when I took the pictures, though, so they're not that good. You're probably thinking, Yikes! This girl takes pictures of everything! And, well, you're right.

Here they are, ready to go in the freezer.

All done! I have to tell you, though, that we had quite a lot of trouble getting them out.

Random Question: What juice do you like best? And why?

I love how bright and cheerful grape juice looks, maybe that's one reason I drink it so much. Orange juice looks kind of... I don't know... boring? Grape juice, as I said above, is colourful and cheerful, it makes you want to drink it. :)

Yes, I know that's weird.

So, what are you doing this summer?