Am I a Baking Blogger?

Yes, but I don't have a baking blog (officially). I do talk about baking whenever I do it though. And I did lots of baking last month. It was great. I made mini churros, chai-spiced tea cakes, peppermint bark, sugar cookies with royal icing, and the capstone dessert: the gingerbread train. All of you who read this blog have already seen these, but, you have to do it for the blog so here we are.

I'm particularly pleased with how the gingerbread train turned out. I was skeptical about the support system and how the cars would stand on the wheels. It was a struggle to get the engine standing but I eventually got it with some extra hidden support (made of gingerbread of course). Unfortunately, the wheels started collapsing after two days, I imagine because of the humidity and heat in the house with all the people. I took it as a sign to start eating the gingerbread ;) The train had minimal candy on it compared to my previous gingerbread houses. This was because I was trying to go for a cleaner appearance overall. But I missed the candy, so I think next year's creation will feature more candy.

Christmas was great, if busy. We had 13 people at our house for Christmas dinner! Lots of good gifts, two of which are card games that I really like: Sushi Go and The Struggle for Catan.
The other thing I occupied my time with was a t-shirt quilt for a friend, which I got finished in time(!). She really likes it, which I'm glad of.
Having been inspired by finishing that t-shirt quilt, I decided I would start working on my own t-shirt quilt with my Forest Cliff Camp shirts (of which I have many). I started working on it just before New Years Eve, and almost completely finished the top of the quilt before I came back to Stratford yesterday. I've never moved through a quilt so quickly before. The main reason for that is because a lot of supplies I need to make quilts are at the church sewing group, so I was limited to 3hrs of sewing a week. But I recently received a cutting board and ruler which are the big things I needed. So now I can sew to my heart's desire at home! Now the only thing stopping me is not understanding a quilt pattern. Margaret often helps me a lot in guiding me through the steps of making a quilt.

I made up the pattern for the t-shirt quilts since you can't really fit the t-shirts to an existing pattern. I had been planning on bringing my sewing stuff to Stratford so that I could keep working on my quilt while at school but I ended up getting so much of it done that I didn't bother. I'll be able to finish the top within a couple hours the next time I go home. Then the first quilt of 2017 will be done!
The creativity continues in Stratford with a card for a friend's birthday later this week. We're hoping to go trampolining to celebrate :)
My new year's resolution is to make a new recipe each week. The hope is that I'll become more confident in trying new recipes, increase the number of go-to meals I can make, and learn how to pair foods better. This week is a chicken and spinach salad.

Let it Be Christmas Already

Here I am again, not as stressed as everyone else. I'm just about done my ePortfolio, just waiting to hear back from some people for feedback. You can take a look too if you like: heatherwoo.com.
The SSC will be hosting another potluck on Thursday, this one is a dessert potluck. I'm very much looking forward to it. Unfortunately, two of my closer friends won't be around to come, but we had to go with the date that worked for the most people overall. I bought a gingerbread house for people to decorate, since that was something that people liked last year when it happened on campus (although I died a little inside, since I haven't bought/used a store bought gingerbread house in 4 years). Right now it looks like we're going to have a good turn out. It's a fine line though. Obviously we want as many people to come as possible, but we also don't have a ton of space in our apartment. And we can't really use our 'sunroom' off the back this time because it is not insulated. So we'll see how it goes. Might have to do some rearranging of the furniture.
Thanks to Black Friday and the magic of the internet, I've completed all of my Christmas shopping except for one gift. This is definitely a record for me, having it done so early. My mom messages me on a semi-regular basis saying "Another package arrived today," since I'm having them sent to London. Although I think they've all arrived by now. I am very excited to wrap the gifts. I love gift wrapping. (If you want me to come over and wrap your gifts for you, I'd love to. Seriously).
Not a whole lot else going on. I only have one more week of classes, and then I'm free! I've been making Christmas cards and I have to say I'm quite happy with how they are turning out. I'm really looking forward to being at home over December. I can't wait to do Christmas-y things. I'm also excited to get back into sewing.
I made dinner tonight for Marissa and Michelle. I made dill meatballs, which is one of my favourite meals. I made it for them at some point last year, and they both really enjoyed it as well. So now I try and invite them over to eat with me whenever I have it. Michelle and I played Mario Kart after. It was fun to just hang out with her for a while; she's often very busy and is never around on the weekends.

Another Weekend Gone

This weekend was incredibly lazy, interspersed with moments of activity. I baked some cupcakes, which I had intended to send some home with my family when they came up on Saturday, but found out that they had made cupcakes themselves as well. So I have all the cupcakes now. I'll probably take them into school tomorrow. I've been doing a lot of baking and giving it away recently. Not necessarily because I set out to be generous, but because I'm bored, so I bake. And then I have tons of baked goods that I can't consume on my own, so I give them away. Rice Krispies have been made multiple times already this year.
As I mentioned before, my family (minus my dad) came up to Stratford on Saturday to see a showing of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. It was well done; I especially liked how they did Aslan. The legs had a very realistic movement, which I appreciated.

While at the theatre, I ran into the Dyck family, which is the family I lived with over the summer. Boy was I surprised to see them. I ended up hanging out with them after the show and getting dinner with them. We went to about 6 restaurants before giving up and getting Wendy's. A rookie mistake: if you want to eat a meal immediately before or after a show in Stratford, you need to have a reservation. Even Swiss Chalet didn't have room for us. 

This morning a group of us when to an arts and crafts show at the Rotary Complex. It took us about 40mins to walk there because it's way out on the edge of Stratford. It was fun to go though. There was over 100 vendors. There was a raffle to win this massive gingerbread house. It was like the ones you see on TV in the competitions. My favourite part was that they had left the back corner open so you could see inside the house, where they had done the entire interior as well, complete with mini gingerbread people. I was freaking out over it, and somebody from the Stratford Gazette asked if they could use my picture. I said yes, obviously, so now I'll have to keep an eye out for my picture in the paper. I managed to get some things, including a butter alternative that is primarily composed of garlic. It's basically garlic butter but healthier. I'm going to start making myself garlic bread all the time. And might even put it on my sandwiches. We decided to get a cab back, since we didn't fancy walking all the way back. 

I had trouble falling asleep last night, so spent the afternoon in bed lounging around. I watched an episode of The Crown on Netflix. It's about Queen Elizabeth II, starting with her marriage to Prince Philip. I'm loving this series. And it's also surprisingly accurate in terms of what actually happened. I've been doing lots of research into the Royal Family because of it. I'm also starting to manage wrapping my head around the Royal Family tree. I've tried to do that before, and struggled. It's basically a history lesson that's also entertaining. 

This evening I went out skating again, and set a new record with my Misfit (and officially this time, since there was no time change nonsense). 2030 points :D The skate costs $5, which is a bit much to go skating for an hour and a half, but I'm calling it an investment in my health, since the Wii Fit, while motivating, I'm not exactly sure can be called a 'workout'. 

In other news, I'm counting down the days till the term is done. Not even particularly because I'm desperate for school to be over, but because I have so many ideas planned for what I can do during my break. I'm especially excited to be able to sew again. I'm going to try and pump out two quilts in one month, which I've never done before. Heck, I haven't done one quilt in a month before. And of course, Christmas baking. Big plans :)

QOTD

371. Have you ever looked down on someone because you thought your religious views were superior?

Not knowingly, although I'm sure I've done it subconsciously. I know that when people mention that they don't believe in God that I make note of it and generally try and steer conversation away from religion, but I don't look down on them. 

Christmas Countdown

In case you don't follow me on other social media, I recently discovered that there are exactly 100 days between my birthday and Christmas. As I have a fondness of counting down the days to Christmas, I was A) happily surprised by the coincidence and B) shocked that it took me 21 years to figure that little connection out. (In case you were wondering, there are 71 days till Christmas.)
I don't have any exams this term, so I'm going to be done school on December 5th. I'll have almost exactly a month off, and I'm quite looking forward to it. I have many plans, most of which involve some form of creativity. I'm hoping to work on two quilts. My friend asked me to make a quilt out of t-shirts she doesn't want to throw out, but doesn't want to wear. The other is a quilt that I've been putting off for about 5 years, for a lady at church. That quilt will be much more time consuming and difficult than the t-shirt quilt (hence why I've been putting it off).
And of course, I'll continue my tradition of making a gingerbread house from scratch. I'm thinking of doing a gingerbread train this year. I feel like there's a lot of potential with things that you can put in the carriages of the train.
Back to reality, I had 6hrs of class today. This was particularly harsh because I usually have Fridays off. The timetable this week was messed up because of two 'reading week days'. I'm not feeling too stressed about schoolwork this term so far. It definitely helps that I'm only taking two courses. One course is worth 4 credits, so I have the workload of 5 courses. But only having to worry about assignments, groups, and due dates for two courses instead of five is making it easier.
I am hoping to get some 3D printing done this weekend. I'm currently printing 3D tiles for the board game Settlers of Catan. I've done one so far and it turned out really well, so I'm hoping to print one for each resource by the end of the term. I'm also tweaking a keychain I made last year. Interestingly enough, a friend asked if I would print some #GBDA keychains for her this weekend - she wants 6! I'm happy to do it, but you can only print one thing at a time and 3D printing is a long process (a Settlers of Catan tile takes ~3hrs). So we'll see how it goes. At least once you've started the printing, you don't have to do anything till it's done. I might be spending a lot of time on campus this weekend. But to be honest, I don't mind it. There's hardly ever anyone there on the weekend, so you basically have the building to yourself. And now that they have massive beanbag chairs, it can even be comfortable :) I'll set my laptop up and watch the last couple episodes of Stranger Things.
Until next time!

369. You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?
Ever since Emily went to New Zealand, I've been wanting to go! So New Zealand. #screwschool

Hello, can you hear me?

title taken from Adele's new single, "Hello"

A friend just told me about Mark Manson (specifically this and this article). I really enjoyed them both. And it made me think about what my passion is. Truth is, I don't really know. What I do know is that two days I really wanted to do something creative. More specifically, I wanted to create a font. Ever since I got my drawing tablet and found a website that lets you create your own font, I have had a bit of a thing for typography.

On the letters that I send out every week, I like to try and make the envelope a little more interesting than just a name, address, and stamp. This usually results in me putting a lot of effort into writing out their name (and then realizing I didn't leave a lot of room for the address, and therefore have to write it really tiny, but that's not the point). The past couple of letters I've done a geometric type font, and I was fond of it. I decided that I wanted to make the whole font.

When I actually went about creating this font, I realized that I didn't have my sketchbooks with me. I own 5, and I hadn't brought a single one with me to Stratford. Neither did I have my drawing pencils, nor my paints. Anything, really. (I do have some markers and colouring pencils with me). The sad part is that I distinctly remember packing for Stratford and thinking I wouldn't want to be creative, that I wouldn't need any of my tools. And that is where I limited myself. It's true that I don't often have the desire to paint or draw or create fonts. But when they do come around, it really sucks when you don't have the tools to do so.

I got my drawing tablet out (ok, so apparently I do have creative tools with me, just not the right ones) and tried drawing some letters straight into my computer. It didn't go to well. There were two reasons for that: 1) I used Illustrator, which I've only used a handful of times and am not completely aware of how to use properly and 2) it's hard to create a font when you've never done it before. I looked at some articles online about typography and creating fonts, which were enlightening.

But what I really wanted was my sketchbook and a pencil and eraser. Because that was how I wanted to be creative. "Being creative" is such a vague term and I'm lucky that I have so many different ways that I can be creative. Just not the right way, apparently.

After my disappointing first failed attempt at creating a font, I made some origami lotus flowers like the ones in an episode of Sherlock. It took me multiple tries to get it right. I could get all of the folds, but the last step is to invert the petals so they stand up, and it's a lot harder than Sherlock makes it out to me. My main issue is that the paper would rip because it was so thin. I eventually used some tape to reinforce the spot where it always tended to rip, despite the fact that I despise using tape, glue, or scissors in origami. Hopefully one day I can make one without the tape (and no rips).

I've been thinking recently about my term abroad. I am definitely going to blog while I'm away, and it will probably be the main way I tell people in general how I'm doing and what I'm up to. But I can't decide if I want to use this blog or create a new one. If I create a new one, well, I'd have two blogs. And I don't like the idea of having two blogs. It's like one person having two cars. Why do you need two? You can only drive one at a time. It doesn't make sense.

On the other hand, if I use this one, then I run into a bit of a situation. I want more people than the people who know about this blog to be able to hear about my adventures in England. But do I want those people to be able to read everything I've written here over the past 4 years? Because if they're anything like me, I know that they'd go through and read every single post. And I'm pretty sure I don't want that. Also, I'm pretty sure some people (really, just one person that I am thinking of) would get mad at me that I hadn't told them I had a blog.

Fortunately, I have 3 months to think about this. But I don't think the way I stand on either side is going to change over that time, and thus it really isn't that fortunate at all.

(I don't want to toot my own horn here or anything, and I know I've said this before, but I am proud of my writing skills. And I know that sometimes the way sentences sound in my head doesn't always make it to the keyboard, but I could probably be a writer for something. Like a blog that has a purpose, DIY Central or Recipes From Home, not just a personal blog. I think I have a good mastery of the English language, and know how to make it sound good. And using big words is fun. Although I have a tendency to overuse commas. I love 'em :) That's all I have to say).

366. What is your superpower of choice?
Those of Elastigirl, from the Incredibles.