Tag: sad

Baking, Celtic Thunder

Chaos and Insanity

Emerald Thunder

My first week of the semester wasn’t quite what I expected. For starters, I didn’t think it would only entail two days of classes. You have to hand it to Mother Nature for making my school close down on the day I have three classes. Kudos to her, but missing classes means the course work has to be made up somehow, which brings me to my main complaint. I just had to rework the days that I would hand in assignments in one class, and it did not make me happy one bit, especially the fact that a paper due date was moved to the same day as for another paper. This semester is going to test my abilities to stay on task more than ever before, which means I need to learn how to NOT PROCRASTINATE. I have so many assignments in all of my classes that there is absolutely no wiggle room whatsoever. If I don’t stay on top of everything, it’s going to be disastrous, and I wish that was just an exaggeration.

In preparation of this week, I decided to not honor my decision to avoid baking for a little while and made some blueberry muffins to eat for breakfast as I’m going out the door in the morning. I made the To Die For Blueberry Muffins on Allrecipes.com, and I must say that they really are “to die for.” This also marked the inaugural use of my new muffin tin.

I made some of my own alterations to the recipe, and they turned out wonderfully. I did not use the cinnamon/sugar/butter topping the recipe suggested, but I did sprinkle a tiny bit of sugar on top before I put them in the oven. I also subbed in a half cup of whole wheat flour, and I couldn’t even notice that I did that. Next time around I will probably use half all purpose flour and half whole wheat flour, just to make them a bit healthier and more filling. I didn’t have it at the time, but I’ll also use applesauce in place of the vegetable oil, just because.

Unfortunately, the recipe only yielded 11 muffins, probably because I tried to fill the cups too high. I also wish they could have had a more golden coloring, but I didn’t want to leave them in the oven, for fear of drying out. I’m not sure how long I left them in, but any longer and I would not have been happy because they would have been dried out. I took them out at the perfect time to obtain maximum moisture, so in the end the coloring is just an aesthetic thing.

This snow day also yielded additional unfortunate news, beyond the changing due dates. I went to check on Fishy this afternoon to find him floating immobile on his side. He had a good long life, for a little fish, but I will miss him swimming around in his bowl on my desk, blowing bubbles up at the surface along the sides and then popping them. RIP Fishy, May 2010-January 2011.

After today, I really want nothing more than to listen to some Celtic Thunder and bake up some Best Cocoa Brownies, which I think I’ll do as soon as my suitemates clear out.

Baking, Celtic Thunder

Such a Spooky Halloween . . . BOO!!

Emerald Thunder

Where is my Halloween Spirit this year? Oh, I know, it got replaced with Christmas Spirit, thanks to the CT Christmas album that I’ve been listening to in rotation with Ryan’s. Needless to say, I haven’t made any cute Halloween decorations, bought any candy, or watched the 13 Nights of Halloween. Alas. But I did make a spooky ghost cake tonight, since it’ll be my only time with the kitchen for the next couple of days. Oh the joys of living with four other people and their social lives. . . .

I tried out a new recipe for this cake. The title led me to believe dark chocolate would be involved, but it only called for cocoa powder for some reason, and no melted chocolate at all, dark or otherwise. I baked it up in a 9×13 pan and then I attempted to cut it into a cute little ghost shape. It’s somewhat wonky, but cute nonetheless. I just wish I hadn’t accidentally added too much milk to the buttercream–it’s not nearly fluffy or set up enough for my taste; it ran right off the sides and down into the pan. If only I hadn’t run out of powdered sugar. I knew I should have bought more at Trader Joe’s when I went two weeks ago. Oh well, there’s nothing I can do about that now.

Isn’t it a spooky little ghosty?

2:30AM EDIT: Oh yeah, gotta love the joys of living with suitemates with too active and rather disrespectful/unreasonable social lives. At least I already decided I was going to stay up late . . . because it looks like I’m not going to be able to sleep anytime in the near future. . . . It’s not like I was at work from 8am-7pm or anything and wanted to sleep by 3am. . . .

Baking, Celtic Thunder

New Home!! . . . And an Increasingly Depressing Post. . . .

Emerald Thunder

I finally had enough with not being able to post pictures on LiveJournal, so I decided to change it up a bit and join WordPress. With this site, I was able to import all of my old LJ posts, so nothing is lost and forgotten. I don’t even know where to begin in posting about everything I’ve been unable to post about, so I guess I’ll start with the most recent. I made my second batch of chocolate chip cookies of the semester, and I must say, they are better by leaps and bounds than my first batch. I think I finally have the correct timing for keeping them in the oven, as all three trays were perfect, and the remaining cookies are still super soft and wonderful.

Edit: Soon after posting, I found Keith’s new Twitter photo, and boy was I not expecting THAT. I knew he got a haircut and it looked really different, but I wasn’t fully prepared for the reality of seeing it, even though I was actively searching for an elusive picture of him but a few hours ago. I just keep looking at it and thinking “This isn’t Keith, at least not MY Keith.” And I also can’t help but think he got his teeth fixed, because he doesn’t seem to have that adorable crooked front tooth anymore. . . . 😦 So many things are changing that I’m starting to lose count.

Edit #2: Dear God this night keeps getting worse and worse. My sound won’t play on my Celtic Thunder: The Show file, I remembered Neil shaved his goatee, AND I missed Sephira performing like EIGHT times in Grand Central Station over the past few days *goes to a corner to sob*. And here I thought September was my GOOD month. What’s happening to it? Ever since yesterday it’s been going down, down, down hill VERY quickly. Okay, I’m ready for October to start, like, NOW, please.

Uncategorized

Come on LiveJournal

Emerald Thunder

It’s becoming increasingly irritating that I can’t upload any photos to my entries, because what’s the point of the entry if I can’t show off what it’s about? I want to know what’s wrong with this feature and when it’s going to be up and running again, because I actually have stuff I want to post about, but can’t at the moment. How else am I supposed to legitimately put off all of the reading I have to do, even if it’s just for a short time? At the moment, I’m waiting to post about 1 updated Keroppi, 1 dessert, 1 breakfast, and 1 super sad CT fan that can’t go to the show taping this Friday night even though it’s less than two hours away by Metro-North. *sigh*, Such is the life of a broke college student. If only I could find a decent way to survive without needing to buy groceries or spend money on food, then I would be able to afford the ticket and I wouldn’t care about having to stay in Poughkeepsie until 4:40am when the train would arrive to take me home. I could have sworn that I said to myself that I was going to the next taping, no matter what, but I guess things changed a bit since last October. I guess I’ll just have to wait two and a half weeks for the first of three shows I’m going to. At least nothing’s stopping me from hanging around Radio City alllllllll day long that Friday. If I manage to snag some face time with Keith and Damo to speak some Irish with them, I guess I’ll be okay. Haha.

Baking, Celtic Thunder, Crafting

The End of the Summer

Emerald Thunder

Classes officially start tomorrow, meaning I don’t know how much crafting will get done during this semester. I do know, however, that with my Celtic Thunder concerts less than a month away, that there will certainly be posts chronicling those adventures, starting with my reactions to seeing them on QVC this Wednesday. I’m also going to try to bake up a storm on Sundays, so hopefully I’ll be able to post roughly once a week, although that may be stretching it a tad bit. In any event, I’m sad to be losing what crafting time I had this summer, because I’m sure as soon as my schedule becomes endlessly hectic, I’m going to get the urge to make something to relieve the stress (and to procrastinate). Oh well. But this semester should be a blast, so I’m not as sad as I might be if I wasn’t looking forward to two of my four classes (let’s face it, my two lit courses are just going to kill me no matter how hard I try or how on top of my assignments I stay, so what’s to look forward to with those). I wish I had an amigurumi to post about tonight, but the past few days have been rather busy–a nice preview of what is to come. Once I finally get the remainder of my kitchen things in the mail, I’m planning on making cinnamon rolls and muffins, so that’s something else to look forward to.