Why Does My Oven Hate Me?

I am rather angry with my oven. Around the holidays I was having problems baking my cookies. They weren't cooking all the way through. To give you an idea, my Nutella cookies normally take 11 minutes (9 after the pan gets hot) at 350. When I was doing holiday baking, I had to watch them like a hawk, sometimes for 20 minutes, only to have the edges burnt and the center slightly gooey. I let them completely cool and sent them anyway, but I was not a happy girl. I assumed it was because I used tub butter, but then there was today...

So Gaia and I were making Nutella cookies for a friend of mine. My friend, Kat, had just discovered Nutella and was hooked so I've been promising her some cookies for a few weeks now. So we're mixing the dough, and I reach in the fridge to grab an egg when I realize there are none. Perfect. No big deal, I think, because I use applesauce in cakes all the time for vegan friends' birthdays. So I just scoop some applesauce. Bam. I also have no chocolate chips (my kitchen is broken today), so I use M&M's leftover from Christmas and some pecans. I am still under the assumption everything will turn out perfectly in the end. I am wrong.

I go to pull out the first batch (of two) and they are a mixture of uncooked cookie dough lumps and slightly burnt, hardened puddles of rejection. This is when I call my mother, desperate for some advice as to what I did wrong. After whining about how I'm apparently a cookie failure, she tells me to remove the baking stone. (Duh, Shary.) So I do this, add some more flour to the dough (because Nutella + Applesauce = liquidy dough) and make the rest of the cookies. They turned out better, but still ugly. They are edible this time, and since four-year-olds don't care about aesthetics they're already gone.

I called my mom back and we have a long discussion about what I could be doing wrong. She thinks that an element, or whatever, is broken and so my oven is having a hard time staying the appropriate temperature. Tomorrow I'm going to call the landlord and get a maintenance man out here to look at it. I really hope it is my oven because I can not deal with being a cookie failure. It makes me very sad to not be able to simply bake cookies without having to watch and worry if they'll turn out normal.

In other news, I got my packages today. I ordered some things a couple weeks ago off eBay. I love eBay, but it seems every time I score a deal the seller lives in China and it takes damn near 3 weeks to get my packages. (I'm not really mad about that, by the way... just still worked up about the oven.)

Anyway, check it:

I'll be installing some extensions tomorrow, and maybe even giving a couple away. I'll let you know what I think. The lady at my gas station has them and they're pretty cute. I just can't decide what colors I should do and if I should do just one on one side, or a couple on both sides... I need to Pinterest and Google image some ideas. Also, nail dotting tool! Horray for no more toothpick frustration!

Heart Heat Pack Tutorial

I keep seeing these tutorials around, and since I'm on my period and have cramps from hell I decided to make my own and provide my own tutorial here for you guys!

I'm not new to heat packs. They are pretty fun and two Christmases ago I made everyone a neck wrap heat pack to go along with my brown sugar scrub and beer shampoo. (Hand made gift baskets are my favorite!) They are really simple and so useful.

So, here we go. If you click the pictures they will open up bigger. You can actually view the entire tutorial in the pop-up without having to scroll down and read the entire post. Nifty, huh?

You don't really need a sewing machine. I didn't get a sewing machine until the birthday after Gaia was born, and so while I was nesting I hand sewed everything. Depending on what size you choose to make your heat pack, you could probably just whip it up during an episode of "How I Met Your Mother."

I chose two fabric scraps (one for each side). I actually still have enough scraps to do something else, so you might get sick of the tiny hearts. Just a warning. :)

I don't claim to be a professional... I do what I want.

If you don't have rice, you can also use beans, buckwheat, barley, feed corn, or flax seed. You can also mix herbs, spices, or essential oils to the rice (or whatever) if you want it to smell pretty.

And there you have it! Cute and easy, huh? Action shot:

Working its magic.

Gaia is lazing around being a bum today and decided she needed the heat pack for her belly. I couldn't resist the cuteness.

I hope everyone is having a great week thus far!

 

Day of Rest

I am kind of a nerd. And so, of course, I have nerdy friends. My friend Ashley of the etsy store Fancy Sauce is celebrating her birthday today and shared this adorable animation in celebration:

I absolutely died laughing. You should check out her awesome artwork. She paints really cool stuff. I have one she did and I show it off in my little craft/computer nook.

I recently found St. Vincent on last.fm. I am pretty sure I've heard it before, just been brought back to the surface through my radio station preference. You should look St. Vincent up if you don't already know of their existence.

Today was nail day for Gaia and me. She chose orange and pink nails and I decided to go white with blue polka dots:

I hate taking photos of my nails because I can never get the pictures to look all that great. For the record, I've only been into playing with my nails for about six months or so. I'm still learning stuff like painting my right hand. Impossible, I swear. I also did these dots with toothpicks because the professional dotting tool I scored for 99 cents + free shipping on eBay a month ago (I know, right!) is being shipped from China. I need a new top coat, too. I'm using Rimmel PRO right now and it's not too pro, that's for sure.>

Hop >>>   <<< DIY

Weekend Blog Hop & Humanities Day

Hi to anyone new who may be coming this way from the blog hop! My blog is quite new, but I think you should follow or something because it is going to be fabulous. I hope everyone is planning a super fun weekend. My weekends are always a bit refreshing. Right now I am enjoying a cup of coffee and reading my blog subscriptions before class.

Saturdays are Humanities Day this semester. Three hours of intense Enlightenment and Romanticism. Last weekend our first paper was due and I was nervous to see what I got on my interpretation of The Hallucinogenic Toreador (the painting by Salvador Dali). It is Post-Modern art to be accurate, but as it was our first paper the instructor was kind enough to let us write on whatever we wanted to get a feel for his grading system. Thank god for that... I wound up getting a 93, which at my school is an A!

You know, I've always been a morning person. Even if I only get a few hours of sleep, I much prefer to be up in the morning to experience the day beginning. I feel like I can accomplish so much being awake early. I just love the color of the sky coming to life and the feel of the moist grass. I like to watch people hustle into whatever plans they have for the day, imagining they have something grand on the horizon.

Today I plan to finish a bag I started last week. I was simply waiting for the opportunity to pick up a fastener from JoAnn's to complete it as a hip pack, but I've decided to just extend the strap and sew it as an over the shoulder bag instead. The ruffles are adorable, but it just looks funny on my hip the way I planned it out in my original idea. My inspiration came from this etsy listing for the ruffle hip pack by Kines, and I hope to offer a tutorial soon on how to make your own without spending $40! It is cheating, but so worth the shame.

There's this void...

I've had a Livejournal account ever since I can remember. It was an outlet for me to vent about things that bothered me, share things I loved, and post excessive photos of my baby as she grew into the child I love so much today. I began blogging in high school, but somewhere in the last couple of years I stopped. I can not tell you exactly why but my life had taken a series of turns and it was hard enough for me to keep up, let alone a posse of internet acquaintances. I tried to stay connected to the internet world through a public blog when I owned my own domain, but that too did not work out as the audience was so huge that I felt it limited me to the things I could post about. I gave up the habit altogether thinking I would never find a happy medium.

I recently decided I needed somewhere to post about things I cared about. I miss the world of blogging. Although being public does put a limit on what I should post, there are lots of things I want to share with anyone caring to read. I am starting this blog in hopes to reconnect to old friends, make new ones through common ground, and hopefully share some of the joys I gather throughout life.

I am not entirely sure what will come of this. I would like to post D.I.Y. tutorials, favorite recipes complete with personal kitchen adventures, and maybe little snippets of everyday adventures with my daughter. I may or may not post my individual opinions on issues related to politics, maternity care, and parenting. I am asking you now (because a majority of you who will see this first post are friends and family), to not take anything I do say personal. I am just an average girl writing about my average life.

I hope you subscribe (you can get my RSS fed through Livejournal guys!), follow, and/or check back. I am really excited about posting more soon and editing these pages to better suit my needs. I think it could be lovely.