It's been too long...

Simple, but an excellent quote.

The World's Best Cookies

For as long as I can remember my mom has been making the best oatmeal cookies known to man. These are not some lumpy, so-so oatmeal raisin cookies; they are spicy, buttery, I-want-to-eat-all-four-dozen oatmeal cookies. As I have gotten older and done more baking on my own, these are always a favorite for me to make. After being away at college for four months with extremely limited baking ingredients and supplies and having to concede to making cookies from a boxed mix (although when I delivered Christmas sugar cookies to all of my friends during finals, no one complained about where they came from), I was thrilled to be home in a kitchen with real ingredients and an electric mixer over Christmas break. No more "beating" in an egg with a plastic fork. Hooray. I actually made these cookies twice this break, once as soon as I got home, and the other the night before I left, so I could bring them back to school to share with my friends. Part of me wanted to better their lives by exposing them to these delectable cookies, but there is also a vain part of me that wanted them to see my baking skills when I have access to more than just tupperware as mixing bowls and stolen milk from the servery.

Anyways, although I have always loved these cookies, they have always been rather flat. While the taste is excellent, we always felt they could be slightly chewier if only they wouldn't spread out so much while baking. The first batch I made at the beginning of break was the same as usual: delicious yet deflated. When I set out to make them the second time, I decided to experiment a little to combat this. The recipe calls for butter, and while I couldn't swap out all of the butter for shortening and risk losing the melt-in-your-mouth buttery undertones that the cookies have, I decided to try about half butter and half shortening. Success. My brother, who is two years older, lives in an apartment, and has been eating these same cookies for years without ever wanting to make them himself, ate one and immediately said he wanted the recipe. Considering he doesn't really bake, that's pretty high praise.

The recipe is just one my mom got off the box of a Quaker oats container years ago, but it's the best one I have ever tasted. Here's how I modified it for the best version yet:

Ingredients
3/4 c. butter
2/4 c. shortening*
1/2 c. granulated sugar
3/4 c. brown sugar
1 egg
1 tspn vanilla
1 1/2 c. flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
3 c. oats

*The original recipe just calls for 1 1/4 cups of butter or margarine, which I suggest trying if you don't mind slightly flat cookies (they're still delicious) because personally shortening just kind of freaks me out.

Cream together the butter, shortening, and sugars. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Put in the flour, baking soda, spices, and salt and stir in. Finally, stir in the oats. Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake in a 375 degree oven for 8 minutes. Cool for 1 minute on baking sheet, then transfer to wire rack. It should yield 4-5 dozen.

I hope you enjoy these as much as I always have! And perhaps they'll even convert an oatmeal cookie hater or two :)

Friends and Food

With Halloween coming up I wanted to do something festive with my friends, but it was a little difficult with our limited resources here at college and in dorms. Initially I wanted to organize a trip to a nearby pumpkin patch (this was dependent upon my two friends with cars wanting to attend), but with the only pumpkin patches being pretty far outside the city and finding a day that everyone had free, we quickly realized that was more hassle than it was worth. I then thought of caramel apples, which ended up being perfect! We have a bus that runs on Saturdays from campus to the grocery store, so I went and bought apples, caramel wraps, and other toppings. About ten of my friends and I gathered in our dorm kitchen and baked away. It was a great experience that yielded some delicious treats!


We had a sort of assembly line going with the various toppings. We had Nutella and peanut butter, both melted to make them a little runnier; M&Ms; mini chocolate chips; and crushed Hershey's Symphony Bar (it's a chocolate almond toffee bar; I wanted a Heath Bar but found this instead. It might be my new favorite chocolate).

We found that the caramel didn't get quite as sticky as was necessary for keeping the candies in place, so we all had to put on Nutella or peanut butter if we wanted extra toppings, but that wasn't a bad thing :)

Mine was a combination of everything, and it was delicious. It was so sweet I had to have a friend eat part of it because I couldn't finish it.

They were so easy to make, even in the dorm, and they were really fun, also! They are a great idea to make with limited resources, and they are a great way to get friends or family together, too!

Pinterest addiction

I took a little inspiration from Pinterest lately and decided to try doing something creative with my nails. I wanted them to be fall-like, so I decided to try an ombre effect with an orange nail polish and a brown glitter one.

First I painted my nails with two coats of the orange and let them sit for a day to ensure they were fully dry. Then I took a cosmetic sponge and painted on a strip of the glitter and a strip of the orange and dabbed this on my nail with the glitter on the end. At first I mostly just got a solid line because I just set the sponge on my nail and just put pressure on it repeatedly. This didn't make the sponge move at all, though, so no blending occurred. Then I discovered that the key is to be fully holding the sponge and just kind of blot your nail with it haphazardly, making sure that the sponge moves around on your nail. That's what blurs the straight line and gives you the ombre effect.

The glitter polish mostly just put the glitter on my nails while the brown was absorbed by the sponge. That might be a problem for trying this with two solid colors, but I actually really like how it worked for this look. While they're not perfect (as I mentioned I kind of learned along the way) I a quite pleased with how my nails turned out!

Curiosity

Something in the air

My favorite time of year is upon us: fall. As much as I love spring, it just can't compete with the crisp air and colorful leaves of autumn. Although Houston doesn't exactly experience these in full effect (the air is still humid and has no fall smell whatsoever, and only a few leaves have begun to change), there is something about knowing it is fall that is extremely comforting. There's a coziness about fall, the desire to put on sweaters and scarves and boots and sip a cup of warm tea. It makes me want to make applesauce and bake sweets. There is also a pretty significant secret to life that comes with autumn. It is a season that marks the coming of death, or even death itself, with the leaves slowly drying and falling from trees. But in this death is beauty. Looking down a tree-lined street in fall is a breathtaking sight, like looking through a kaleidoscope of reds, greens, yellows, oranges. If nature knows how to do anything, it's to go out with a bang. There simply is nothing like the hued foliage of autumn that comes as we say goodbye to the leaves of this year as they make room for the leaves of next. As Albert Camus put it, "Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower." The leaves' death is almost a rebirth of sorts, a last hurrah. They receive new beauty as they die away. There is also a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins that expresses the magnificence of the diverse world we live in, which I can't help but think of whenever I look at the widely ranging colors of fall leaves.

Pied Beauty 

Glory be to God for dappled things –

   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

      For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

   Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;

      And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

   Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

      With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

                                Praise him.

Quote of the Day

Two things I love, quotes and Yosemite (that's Upper Yosemite Falls in the background).

Independence Day

I have always enjoyed getting into the gimmicky side of holidays: I expend more effort than most in creating my Halloween costumes, my Christmas sweater and hand-knitted Santa hat are two of my most prized possessions, and I have been looking forward to the Fourth of July for weeks just to paint my nails and wear a cute patriotic outfit. Now that I have discovered Pinterest (greatest invention ever, right?) I have all sorts of themed ideas at my fingertips. Even though I haven't tried a lot of the specific things I see and pin, the many ideas on Pinterest inspire me to be more creative, especially when it comes to my nails. I experimented several days before to decide what I wanted to with my nails, and this is what I decided on. Now it's two days later, though, and I still have it on. There's nothing wrong with that, right?

Long time no see

I never was as good at keeping up with this as I meant to be, but I'm hoping to give it a shot again. As I head off to college and start that new adventure I kind of want to document it. We'll see how that goes.

Wonderful Feeling, Wonderful Day

I'm starting to feel like everything is falling into place. I just feel like everything is going wonderfully right right now. For starters, it's fall, which means trees are pretty colors, the air is fresh, and the light takes on a fairytale-like quality. Where I live it's not even that cold, with highs in the 60s-70. My grades are the highest they have ever been, and I've applied to one college, with my application ready for others, I'm just too scared to click "Submit." I'm not the closest I've ever been with my close friends, but I'm starting to be less attached to them and do things that I really want to do on my own, because that's what I want to do. I'm figuring out what's important to me and what I want to get out of life. While I'm not sure of all the specifics, I'm starting to lay out some dots that I just need to connect. I've become more confident with what I want to major in in college, and now I couldn't be more excited about it. I have this amazing feeling that everything is going to work out well, that my dandelion wishes will come true.

New Blog Name

I never really liked my old blog name or URL, but I couldn't think of anything better, but recently a friend reminded of a song we sang at camp in Yosemite, and I remembered how inspired I was by it. I feel like it's a much better title for my blog, and it actually really has meaning to it. If you've ever been to camp, you might know this song. It's called On the Loose, or On the Loose to Climb a Mountain. I haven't found a version I really like on YouTube, but I want to post the lyrics here for you to read.

This past April I went on a trip to Yosemite National Park. It was a bunch of sophomores and juniors from our area in Northern California, and we spent a week there. It was the best week of my life. There are so many amazing aspects of Yosemite, and if you've never been there, I highly encourage you to plan a trip there. It's absolutely beautiful there, I can't really even begin to describe it. It's also so huge that it's incredible humbling. I felt so free when I was there, and for some reason I can't explain, it gave me a sense of "I can go out and make a difference in the world." We sang this song on our last night there, around a campfire, of course. It really embodies everything I felt while I was there, and I hope you find some meaning in it, too.

Did you ever watch the sunrise turn the sky completely red,

Have you slept beneath the moon and stars, a pine bough for your bed
Did you sit and talk with friends, though a word was never said,
Then you’re just like me and you’ve been on the loose.

Chorus:

On the loose to climb a mountain,
On the loose where I am free.
On the loose to live my life, the way I think my life should be,
For I’ve only got a moment and a whole world yet to see.
I’ll be looking for tomorrow on the loose.

There’s a trail that I’ll be hiking just to see where it might go.

Many places yet to visit, many people yet to know,
For in following in my dreams, I will live and I will grow,
On a trail that’s waiting out there on the loose.

Chorus

So in search of love and laughter, I’ll be traveling cross this land

Never sure of where I’m going, for I haven’t got a plan,
So in time when you are ready, come and join me and take my hand,
And together we’ll share life out there on the loose.

Chorus

In this world that I am traveling, I will think of you this way,

Remembering your smile, for it seems like yesterday
When we slept beneath the stars, and we dreamed about this day
Now we have come together on the loose.

Chorus

Do the trees in the forest make you sit and think of love?

Does it take you twenty times or more to count the stars above?
For I’m here now and I like it and the hours melt away,
And if I want I’ll stay here another day.

Chorus

As I sit and watch the sunset and the daylight softly fades,

I am thinking of tomorrow and the friendships we have made.
I will value them for always and I hope you’ll do the same,
And forever we’ll explore life on the loose.

Chorus

Now the moon is softly glowing and the stars are twinkling bright

Our laughter and our friendship have cleared this cloudy night
Come and join our flickering campfire, come and sing our happy songs
And together we’ll share life out on the loose.

Chorus

Trick or Treat

I feel like I had some really good idea to write about, something actually somewhat important. But since I can't remember it, guess what? Halloween is coming up, which means I need a costume! I'm thinking of going as Amelia Earhart this year. I have this new tan faux leather bomber style jacket that I'm super excited about, so I'm thinking that will be my jumping off point. We've had the movie Amelia on our DVR for like 3 months, so I can watch that for inspiration. Right now I think the bottom half of my outfit will look kind of like a horseback riding outfit, but I feel like it kinda works? I have these grey skinny pants and my mom has some tight riding boots.
I love getting creative with my Halloween costumes. I don't think I've ever bought a store-bought one. Last year was my all-time favorite. I was the Morton salt girl. You know, on the black salt canisters, it's the girl in the yellow dress with the purple umbrella? I'll try to find a picture so you guys can see. What are some of your most creative Halloween costumes?

Straight Needle Hat

I knitted a hat! It is my second ever knitting project, and I am so excited about it. We have a new group at school that knits hats and donates them to shelters around town, and when we work on them at school we mostly just use hat looms. But when I got home from school yesterday it was grey and rainy out, so I was inspired to get out my knitting needles. I only have straight needles, so I wasn't sure how my hat would turn out. There are very few videos on YouTube for straight needle hats, and it's hard to find written instructions, too. Eventually through a combination of websites I found guidelines for size and when to combine stitches and whatnot. I think it turned out pretty well. It's small, so it'll be for a young girl, but I'm so excited about it! Here's how I made it:

1. Since I used fairly thick, fluffy yarn (it calls for size 10 needles) I cast on 50 stitches to get it to be about 18 inches in circumference (straight length right now)
2. I knitted 7 rows of regular stitches, then switched to purl one row, knit one row.
3. After I had about 4 inches of hat, I knitted 8, then knitted 2 together, repeating until the end of the row. I purled one row, and then knitted 7 then knitted 2 together. 
4. I repeated that until I had knitted 1, knitted 2 together. Then I just knitted 2 together for a whole row.
5. At this point I needed a yarn needle, but I didn't have one, so I got resourceful and used a dental floss threader I got back when I had braces (a bit flimsy, but it did the trick). I cut off the yarn, leaving at least three times the height of my had as a trail (although it was a bit much). I threaded the "needle" and carefully took my remaining stitches off of the knitting needle and pulled the yarn needle through the stitch loops.
6. From there I stitched the sides using a mattress stitch (I found a great video on YouTube for how to do it). You just take the yarn from where you pulled it through and start the mattress stitch. Voila! Hat!

My yarn had lots of little fuzzy bits that got in the way of my vision, so the mattress stitch didn't go perfectly, but  because of the fuzzy nature, you also can't really see my mistakes.

It's got a slight point, but it's cute

And this side has the seam. It goes right down the middle, but you mostly only see it at the top.

If anyone has any fairly basic patterns I'd love to hear them!

Don't put that kind of pressure on me

You know what's a terrifying decision to make? What to do with the rest of my life. I'm only seventeen years old, yet I'm expected to be able to choose a college to go to with a major in mind for a career that I will, in theory, stick with the rest of my life. How does being seventeen qualify me to make those kinds of decisions? I can barely decide what outfit to wear everyday (which, by the way, I quite enjoy doing, but maybe spend a little too much time doing). I mean I think I've finally figured out what I want to major in, at least I have it down to two somewhat related majors, but as I look at colleges that have both of these majors--linguistics and cognitive science--I'm realizing how few colleges actually do offer both degrees. This isn't a problem as long as I stick with one of those majors, but just a year ago I thought I wanted to do something with engineering, so who's to say that in another year I won't have moved on to English or some more obscure major? Why can't every college just offer everything? That would be nice.

I need help

It's Homecoming this week which means dress up days! Thursday is future day and I would love to dress up as Zenon Carr, from the Disney movie Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century (as well as Zenon: the Zequel and Zenon: Z3). Pretty much the only thing I have is a pair of brightish blue tights. Not exactly her colors, but the right idea. Any ideas on the where to find the types of other clothing I need? I don't really want to do a bunch of sewing :/ Thanks!

How could I forget?

Oh, and happy Constitution Day!

Where would I be without cheesy romantic movies?

My mom has discovered a new channel, called PixL. All it plays are slightly predictable yet cute romantic movies. So basically our DVR is going to be completely full in just a couple of days. My mom and I live for these kinds of movies. So what if you know how they're going to end? They're cute and happy :). We have our limits, though: nothing tooo cheesy.
We just got done watching one called Taste of Romance. It was sweet and not all mushy and sappy and terrible. There's this one scene, though, where a health inspector comes in to the lady's restaurant, and my mom and I swear it's a cameo appearance by Judd Nelson (you know, from the Brat Pack), but he's not mentioned anywhere online. Maybe you've found this blog by having the same idea as my mom and me and your search engine returned this post? If that's you, or if you're anyone else and you happen to have seen this movie, what are your thoughts? Is that Judd Nelson?

It's finally here

It's Friday! Are you as excited as I am? It's not that I actually have plans this weekend (social life? what?) it's just that I don't have school for two whole days. Which is the best feeling ever. I am getting my senior pictures taken tomorrow, but that's not a look-forward to thing. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm as vain as the rest of the girls my age and love the idea of acting like a model for a couple of hours, but it's not exactly a super exciting event. We actually don't even get senior pictures in our yearbook this year (big outrage) but my brother's friend's girlfriend has a start up photography business so she's pretty cheap, plus I'm paying for them and not my parents. They don't seem to see why I need them?

Anyways, I hope maybe someone will finally see this and the "you" will have an audience. In that case, what are  your big plans for the weekend? I hope they're more exciting than mine.

Pretty snazzy, huh?

Did you read that right? You have to be sure to get the "sch" sound in, so it's "schnazzy" and not plain old "snazzy." Anyways, so far pretty much no one has seen this blog, but if you happen to stumble upon it you might like to know that I just redid the design. Yeah, I know, super exciting. It just needed to be lightened up, made more carefree. As do my posts, which will be all kittens and unicorns from now on, with the occasional cotton candy fluff thrown in. Oh gosh, I'm sorry. I'll shut up now. Maybe you'll stay and look around? I promise I'll get better at this...

I have way too much free time...

Which is why I find out about websites like dearblankpleaseblank.com. I'm never going to get homework done ever again.