baking – Imaginary Sunshine

Winter Break (Finally!)

Michelle — Sat, 14 Dec 2013 17:30:03 +0000

I finished final exams for my third term of nursing school on Thursday and I couldn’t be more happier! This means that I’m officially halfway through the program! I’m that much closer to becoming a registered nurse and I’m still excited about my future career – this is how I know that I made the right decision with this program/profession/career choice. It was this or actually, you know, using my first degree. But then I’d be working in a lab or something for the rest of my life, and that’d just make me sad.

But you guys – I’m that much closer to becoming an RN. This is the dream. Next term, I’ll be on a medical or surgical ward. Then I’ll be in community or public health in August-December. And then come January 2015? My last term of nursing school. I get to have a say in what kind of ward(s) I’ll be on and, even better, I get paid to do it. Real money! Income! My income may be higher than my expenses for the first time since my first university experience! This is awesome! I’m likely to request my preceptorships to be in: surgical (post-operative), emergency or… pediatrics. I fell in love with pediatrics during my rotation. Sick babies, toddlers, young kids, teenagers. It’s such a different feeling and I loved it. But I only get two different preceptorship spots, so I’m likely going to choose surgical and emergency. This is because pediatrics is a specialty (more so than the others, although emergency/trauma is one too…) and I’d lose some of the skills that I could develop early on in a medical or surgical ward.

The last few weeks have been full of knitting, jewellery making and studying. Oh, and drinking Chai tea lattes. I’m honestly half-convinced that I am made of Chai tea at times. I’ve recently made the switch at home from regular tea (typically a green tea or Orange Pekoe) to hot chocolate, which also meant that I had to make the switch from my usual mug to this one:

Why yes, my snowman mug that wants you to believe in the magic of Christmas does have a hat for a cover! It’s the most awesome thing ever. I only use it in the month of December. You know, to preserve the magic of the holidays. And because it holds a decent amount of hot chocolate.

My plans for the holidays include a lot of baking (shortbread, sugar cookies – iced and uniced, (cup)cakes, and possibly a pie or two. I love holiday baking! As well as some reading (for fun), knitting and crocheting (holiday gifts) and possibly making some more jewellery. I actually made quite a bit during the term (21 pairs of earrings and 1 bracelet), so I may not. But my holiday plans do not include going shopping for presents as I already finished that. Back in November. Last year I didn’t do any present shopping until I was done finals and it was just awful. This year I learned from that mistake and got it done early.

Hopefully I’ll be better at blogging during my break, fingers crossed!

Baking, Christmas, Boxing Day

Michelle — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 02:48:40 +0000

I did some more baking recently (sugar cookies and chocolate chip & oatmeal cookies). I made another batch of sugar cookies, but because I used smaller cookie cutters (the dinosaur ones are about double the size of my Christmas-themed cutters), I got almost 11 dozen cookies out of one batch of dough. The recipe is really for half of that (if you use cutters in the size it calls for). Nom nom, cookies are delicious. Too bad I don’t get to eat as much as I’d like – nobody in my family helps with baking or decorating, but they insist on giving them away. “Oh, Michelle baked cookies. Good, I need to bring cookies for a pot luck” or “Oh good! You baked! I need to give something to someone for Christmas!”.

I also did some knitting. I’ve been spending some time watching some favourite movies that I hadn’t seen in a while (the entire trilogy of The Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of Black Pearl, The Princess Bride) and then some tv shows (The Big Bang Theory, Grey’s Anatomy). Good fun all around. I’m getting quite a bit of knitting done – here’s what I did on the 18th:

And here is what I had on December 25th (yesterday):

Christmas was primarily uneventful in my house! My family isn’t the kind to go all out. Yes, we generally have an artificial tree up (this year we didn’t because I was the only one willing to put it up!), and I do a all the baking. Which is fitting as I was the one who received baking goodies for Christmas this year! I got 2 Wilton cookie sheets (or pans, whatever you want to call them) and 2 Wilton mini muffin/cupcake tins (in total I can made 2 dozen mini muffins). I am going to have to buy mini muffin liners, but I’m excited for that. I also got the Wilton 3-in-1 cake caddy. Which was great fun!

There were a lot of great sales today. My personal favourite purchases from today included a Monster High doll (Venus McFlytrap) that was 50% off ($14.99) and some adorable prints ($3.99 for the cupcakes and $2.79 for the castle). Oh! Also the four-pack of Kinder Surprise – $2.67 for the 4 when it was also $0.89/ea. (Did you know there’s pink Kinder Surprise eggs now? Pink because all the toys inside are “Just for girls!”)

My online Boxing “Day” shopping was taken care of on December 24th. My parents paid for a new laptop for me (!) as mine (a 5 year old HP DV6000-series laptop) is currently dying… I’ve experienced Blue Screens lately that haven’t entirely rendered me unable to restart the computer, but still – Blue Screens (of Death) are not good when I haven’t made any hardware or software changes (and my anti-virus isn’t being triggered by anything). I’ll be getting an ASUS S series ultrabook (running Windows 8) – it’s only 2 kg – 4.4lbs. My current laptop is ~7.5lbs (it has an extended battery – 12 cells). I also ordered myself a 16gb micro SD card for my phone as I currently have a 2gb card in there. The great thing about shopping online is that they can send it directly from the warehouse to the closest store and you just go and pick it up! Overall it’s been a good couple of days.

Finishing term 1 of Nursing School & Winter Holidays!

Michelle — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 00:50:32 +0000

It’s been so long since I last blogged and I apologize! I’ve been super busy with school and then finals (which ended last Thursday!). Since the last time I blogged, I had:

Written my last pathophysiology midterm
Completed & got my professional portfolio back (93%)
Did my presentation on MRSA[1. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus]
Handed in and got my last paper back (95%)
Completed clinical (and passed – it’s a pass-fail course)
Attended pharmacology seminars (so boring…)
Wrote five finals

I’ve waiting on my final grades to come back, but I had done a little bit of math work and if I had gotten 0% on all my finals, I’d still be sitting at a 65% GPA so… I’m not entirely too worried about passing or not! It’s nice to finally get a decently long break (just over three weeks) of doing nothingness. Or rather, doing nothing related to nursing and nursing school!

My first day off from school, I went to the mall at 9:30am and was out by about 11:00am. I got almost all of my shopping done in one day, didn’t spend as much as I thought I was going to (always a good thing!). The last bit of shopping I needed to do (I needed candy canes) was done at the dollar store near my house. Of course I ended up buying more than a $1 box of candy canes… I also bought holiday-themed cupcake liners, translucent gift bags (for cookie gifting) and Christmas-themed and Angry Birds colouring books (not for myself…). I love the dollar store by my house though, the ladies that work there know me by face now so we chat a bit whenever I’m at the register or poking around the store.

Because it’s the holidays, I’ve been doing a lot of baking, which is both good and bad. I somehow got roped into doing a cookie exchange at my summer work place (where my mom works), so I got to bake 6 dozen cookies and I get 6 dozen cookies back, each dozen is made by someone different. So today I got a bunch of delicious things. Some had chocolates and marshmallows, some you could just smell the ginger. Delicious! I’m quite pleased, although I did notice that I had the best presentation overall. I made dinosaur and dinosaur print sugar cookies:

The recipe is from Betty Crocker’s The Big Book of Cookies that I got for my birthday back in November but I did adjust it a bit (taking out some ingredients because I didn’t have them on hand) and they still turned out pretty good. The icing is just royal icing (alternatively, you can buy premade icing that comes in containers that look like school glue bottles). I was originally going to individually ice the cookies and then flood them to give them the nice icing layer, but I added a wee bit too much water to my powdered sugar, so it was too watery. So instead, I just picked up each cookie, lightly dip the surface into the icing and then let any excess drip off before putting them onto the wax paper to dry. It worked out well and was a lot faster than individually icing and flooding 6 dozen cookies.

In other baking news, I’ve also made 2 dozen shortbread (will make more!) and have also made one and a half dozen chocolate fudge cupcakes. So much baking! I love baking though, and I don’t often get the chance (or have the time!) to do it during the school year. Especially not with nursing school.

I’ve also spent some time this past weekend with a lovely group of ladies who also share a love of dollies. We had fun exchanging Santa Swap presents. I got a new mug and a bunch of lovely miniature ornaments, chocolates and stationary. I gave a box of chocolates, some handmade things for the dolls, a cute toque with a pompom, a miniature art easel and a Littlest Pet Shop Teensies set that was very well received! I just love shopping for other people, it’s a lot more fun (and easier to spend money!) when it’s not for me.

But today Value Village was having a 50% off clothing (and some other departments) sale for those who have membership cards (and of course, I have one). I went with my sister, who was going to look for pants. I went through housewares, crafts and toys before making my way to the clothing section. I ended up getting 4 cardigans (some looked like they’d never been worn – two still had original store price tags) and 1 sweater for $17 before taxes. My sister got a pair of Guess jeans for $3 (remnants of the original paper tag were still on the jeans, they didn’t look worn at all!). There’ll be other 50% off days – last time there was one, I focused only on pants and it’s a good thing too because I find myself getting overwhelmed if I go and really look through more than one clothing section. There’s just too much stuff everywhere!

Overall it was a good shopping day at VV. The only sweater I bought today is a fairly thin one (100% cotton, probably more meant for spring or summer) that’s light green and from Banana Republic – I generally don’t find Banana Republic at low prices at VV or in good condition, but this one fit the bill as it was originally $4.99 (so down to $2.50) and it was in great condition with no pilling whatsoever. One of my cardigans is 100% cream-coloured lambswool from Great Britain and it was my most expensive buy today at $5 (down from $9.99). I love cardigans, but I’ve had to get rid of some recently due to them being too threadbare and really well-loved. I’ll have photos of what I bought after everything’s gone through the wash!

Lastly that’s new is that I actually redeemed some points! I think most credit cards attached to banks have this, but whenever I use my credit card, I got a point for every dollar that I spend. I’ve had my credit card since I was 19 (and could have my own), but I hadn’t used any points at all. There were bonus points for the first month that I had it, bonus for my first transaction, etc. I ended up redeeming for gift cards (none of the merchandise options seemed good). I ended up redeeming for a $100 gift card for Sears (as my half of my joint present to my mom for Christmas – my sister is chipping in $100 cash as my mom wants to buy a new vacuum cleaner) and a $50 gift card for La Vie en Rose (for me!) and I still have points left over. I’m pretty sure I’ll end up redeeming more points late for more gift cards for myself (I really want to get an e-reader and I’ve been eyeing the Kobo Glo but I don’t have enough in gift cards just yet), alternatively I’d redeem for “financial rewards” and just get it in cash for general shopping purposes. It’s kind of like getting “free money” – which is nice considering I never leave a balance on my card so they’ve never gotten any interest from me. Always very nice to be responsible!

Oh, and I did my nails for the first time since August (when I started school). It’s nice being able to keep nail polish on for more than 5 days (seeing as how I can’t have polish on my nails at the hospital). Very nice indeed!

An Obligatory Post-Christmas Entry

Michelle — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 04:10:13 +0000

Work last week went well. I may have enjoyed the fact that people were bringing in cookies and chocolates and the fact that there was a steady supply of decent hot chocolate right there a little bit too much. But, well, it’s just a little sugar? I did do some Christmas baking last week – shortbread and sugar cookies. I’d brought the shortbread into work to share with people, and they seemed to like it (I went home with an empty box) and some people came by my desk for seconds (or thirds, for some people). What’s interesting about going to work during the winter (as opposed to the summer) is that people have a very different dynamic that what I’m used to. They honestly act differently during winter than they do in the summer. It was very difficult to put my finger on it at first, and then I figured out that people act differently. I don’t know, it was just some weird observation that I had. But what was really nice was actually being able to go in and say Merry Christmas to people and get to bring in the cookies I made for people at work myself (I generally send a plate or box with my mom and she’ll relay the comments to me later).

Overall, Christmas was the same as always. My parents spent hours arguing (normal), my father gave me an I.O.U. (expected) and we changed boxes of chocolate with our neighbours (oddly enough, we gave them a box of hedgehogs, they gave us a box of hedgehogs – first year we’ve ever given the same thing, right down to the brand!). I don’t know why I expect things to change (mainly referring to the arguing part of my Christmas), but I do.

And what post-Christmas blog post would this be if I didn’t talk about what kind of loot I got?

Chocolates (hedgehogs and Lindt – the double-milk chocolate bar)
Cookies
Beads
Glass tank (as a new enclosure for my pet)
Cash (always useful)
An I.O.U. that stated that I was owed one Christmas gift (I also got a similarly worded piece of paper for my birthday)

For Boxing Day, I ventured out to go shopping. Oddly enough, one of the malls I went to wasn’t particularly crowded at all. And there was actual parking spots available, many of them! My Boxing Day loot is as follows:

Cosmetics, 4 nail polishes, 1 lipstick – $0.99/each
Bear plush, wearing a scarf (approx. 9″ in height, maybe?) – $1
Clothes, 4 shirts – there was a buy one, get one free promotion (1 that could essentially double as a bustier or just a fancy top, one that’s super pretty with a little flower print and works well as a work/office or formal-setting shirt) and 2 were on clearance (a tank top and a V-neck tee) – $30 (BOGO portion was $20 by itself)
Santa Hat ($3.50)
Chocolate, discounted because it came in a clear tree-shaped box – deliciousness at only $3
Tall snowflake mug/cup/thing – $0.50 (I’m going to use it to hold yarn needles)

Overall, Boxing Day was a win because I was a) out of the house, b) did a little retail therapy, c) got a gorgeous top on sale and d) got discounted holiday-themed chocolate. It tastes just the same as non-holiday-themed chocolate, honest. And it doesn’t even expire until 2012… Not that it would last that long anyways!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas weekend! I, for one, a looking forward to a bit nicer weather so I can set up my glass tank. I also have 2 days of work this week (Wednesday and Thursday) and then another four-day weekend before I start school again on the Tuesday of next week. I’m mostly looking forward to spending some time with my boyfriend than spending time at home, hehe.

twenty + one = twenty-one

Michelle — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 03:31:12 +0000

So uhh, I turned twenty-one years old recently. I can now legally drink in the United States of America… Not that I’m in the States very often. But I could legally drink in the States. Although I’ve been able to legally drink in Canada since I was 19. Oh, and now I’m sure you’re all concerned about my pending alcoholism. I can reassure you that I don’t drink very often. Generally it’s a social thing, or just a glass of wine while knitting or crocheting.

But yay, I’m older. *throws confetti*

I had a few of my friends over, I made dinner without burning the house down (whoot!)… although I did manage to burn the popcorn? Even though I stopped the microwave when it told me to stop it (when there’s more than 1-2 seconds between pops) but it still got burnt. Boo. But we did watch one of my favourite movies of all time – Casablanca! Complete with a lot of junk food and me biting the heads off of gummi bears. Because, you know, it’s what I do when I get a year older.

I’ve recently gotten all of the midterms back that I did mid-to-late October. I did well in ecology and entomology and good in animal mechanics and an ‘ehhhh’ in oceanography. Luckily (for me!) they adjusted the total a little bit, so my grade was bumped up a whole 8%. But I have one more oceanography midterm to deal with (I’m aware that there is only one middle-of-term, my oceanography professors are unaware that there is only one middle to something) so I’m going to be studying a lot for that, seeing as it’s the last midterm and it’s only one midterm – not one surrounded by a million (read: three) other tests.

I’m doing some baking tonight… Lava cakes with raspberries and white chocolate sauce… Yum.

Happy birthday to me?

Better late than never!

Michelle — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 01:27:43 +0000

The dentist loves me. Mostly because I go so darn often. Heh, not as often as my sister though! I went today for my regular cleaning. My dentist poked around at the spots where I got my wisdom teeth extracted (by him) and my mouth is sore in the back right now because of it. Apparently he was checking that they were healing well by poking at them. Absolutely stupid logic in my opinion. The hygienist that I got today liked me because I a) got my wisdom teeth pulled (so he didn’t have to clean those) and b) I got 4 adult molars taken out when I was younger (so even less teeth to clean, yay?). Plus, it’s okay, because I ended up with a pretty green toothbrush and I got to watch most of Up while I was getting my teeth cleaned.

Oh! My sister D finally gave me my 2009 Christmas present! I got two silicone cupcake/muffin trays! There’s 6 cupcakes/muffins per tray, so I can bake a full dozen. Love! And they’re even red! I’m still on the lookout for silicone mini muffin trays – I’ve been looking for decently priced ones that have enough spots for a dozen (and then I’d buy 2 so I can use up the majority of one batch of batter). Which would be fabulous, but I do love the fact that I finally got my 2009 Christmas present from my sister! Plus, it is exactly what I asked for and exactly what she said she was going to get for me – she just took a while to get around to it.

I’ve also been working (still!) on a new crochet pattern for an infant/toddler/child hat (three different sizes… you best believe I asked three coworkers with appropriately-aged children if I could borrow their children’s heads briefly just for sizing and to get some feedback!). I plan on making the pattern for sale soon… After I’m done doing my prototype hats and getting them out there and tried on! It’s going to be a paid pattern (first one!) on my crafts site – chelle-chelle.com (which also has a few free crochet patterns too!). I do have a few other crochet patterns that I’m working on for the site – there will be a few more free ones coming out this summer along with a few more ones for sale that I’m going to be working on after the current hat pattern, yay. So excited to be working on so many new things though, keeps me busy (aside from work, yay!).

Questions for you:

What’s something new that’s going on in your life? And on your blog/website(s)?
What is your favourite recipe (baking!)? Any that you would recommend?
What is something that a family member did to you that was hurtful? Did they bother apologizing for it?

Happy Mother’s Day

Michelle — Mon, 10 May 2010 04:06:29 +0000

Nothing quite says “I love you, mommy” like baking cupcakes for her. Plain white cupcakes as she couldn’t decide on a recipe that she liked, plus buttercream frosting with a little bit of red gel colouring.

(Oh, I also got new pastry tips… and was experimenting with them with my sisters, J and D… which is why they all look like a small child decorated them – because one did, hah ;))

Smile! My sister J was changing tips all the time and decided that it looked like my mom (lol!). My dad agreed (two eyes, one nose, one smile and hair).

Heart (by my sister, D) and… something?? (by my sister, J)

Flower (decorated by me) and a snail (by my sister, D).

It looks like Christmas is coming!

Michelle — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 23:44:46 +0000

Day two of my winter holidays! I only stepped out of the house to go to the bank (yay, monies!) and to the store (to buy sprinkles, guess who was running out of red?). Once I got back, I started doing some baking. I made 4 dozen shortbread cookies were made today… Granted, my first batch don’t look that great (heh), but I had two (so right now it’s really just 46 cookies, rather than 48…) that didn’t look that great, and they taste awesome. I’ve decided to make sugar cookies tomorrow, because I don’t feel like washing the mixer so many times today (have I mentioned that although I love baking, I’m rather lazy?). Most of these will be sent with my mom to work tomorrow, hopefully there will be enough for everyone that’s going to be there. And what kind of person would I be if I didn’t share a cookie photo? Awful, that’s what. So here’s a photo of my ‘good’ batch of shortbread (the ones that didn’t look funny, haha):

Yeah… Shortbread. Such a staple for the winter holidays, at least in my house (or, at the very least, for me!). And remember when I mentioned how no one in my family wanted to help me out with setting up the tree? Yeah… About that… So over the past weekend, while I was busily studying for an exam, and essentially locked myself in my room to get away from my family (who can be so disruptive when I want to study!) and then they set up the tree. There’s even a colour theme (silver and white, besides the lights). Here are some pictures of the decorations on the tree:

We have a set of ornaments that have each of the ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’ in these beautiful porcelain figurines. Here are the two turtle doves.

When we bought a new angel for the top of the tree, my mom bought a set of ornaments from the same company where there are mini angels that we can hook up to the lights so the ‘candle’ light that they’re holding can light up as well.

One of my favourites… A glass hummingbird with gold accents.

Unproductive?

Michelle — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 06:09:42 +0000

Felt so unproductive today. =( However, I worked on my notes for psychology (we know what is roughly on the final: terms from all the chapters that we’ve had to read in the textbook, plus 8 potential essay topics with 2 of them showing up) – I read all the chapters from since the midterm and started on the terms that I need to know for the final. Essay topics will be worked on and hopefully finished on by Friday… Hopefully. I’d like to have all my study preparations done before the weekend, that way I can just go over my notes all day on Monday before my badly timed exam (in the flipping evening). So, working away on all of those things while doing other things as well.

For instance, I made cookies. The recipe is from Kraft, as it was from the label on the jar of peanut butter that I have. They call them “Super-Easy Peanut Butter Cookies” and the recipe makes 24 cookies. I kinda mushed mine around so they don’t look very much like peanut butter cookies (… I didn’t use a fork to flatten mine, I used a spoon because I had one out, hah). All you need is a cup of peanut butter, 1 egg and half a cup of sugar. And yes, the nutritional info is listed on the side (Michelle made cookies with how much fat/sugar/sodium/calories per cookie?!). One thing that I would have done differently would have been to use the food processor to mix everything rather than tossing it all into a bowl and mixing it with my spoon – does not work out well unless you’re really wanting some exercise for your arm. Delicious, but if you want them not to look like crap, I’d suggest using a fork to flatten them, rather than a spoon (lest they look like the weird cookies I ended up with!). Next few days shall be consumed with the baking of shortbread and sugar cookies… So excited, I got new Christmas-themed cookie cutters last Boxing Day that I’m finally going to use (yes, I get excited over new toys for baking). On that note…

Dear Santa, I’d like a KitchenAid stand mixer this Christmas… I’m sure your elves could make me one, right?

And I also knit something today. I’ve gotten back into knitting (yay), but now I’ve been depleting the yarn stash that I (sort of) have shared custody with my sister (to be fair, pretty much 80% of the yarn was purchased with her money – I happen to have visitation and occasional usage rights, provided I clear it with her prior to using yarn in one of the bins, the other bin is fair game). But it’s slow going, because I keep on dropping stitches (this is what I get for trying to knit while there’s the tv on, such a distraction).

But anyways… time to get back to writing out definitions on words that I won’t be caring much about, after my psychology final.

Hope everyone had a fabulous Tuesday!

Would you give a child cough drops for Christmas?

Michelle — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 00:27:18 +0000

So, I found my sister’s Christmas gift (16 squares/side non-Rubik’s Cube Rubik’s Cube)… Granted, because of when she let me know what she wanted, and when I ordered (the day that she told me what she wanted for Christmas), it is likely to not arrive before the 25th. Which means that on Christmas, she’ll be opening a lovely wrapped box that just has an image of what she’s getting. And probably some crumbled newspapers.

Not to worry, it’s not the first time that someone in my family has received a box with just the picture of the gift-to-come in it. For instance, one year I opened a present from my parents and it just had the cut out advertisement of the mp3 player that I wanted (Creative Zen Vision: M, in white!) because I wasn’t getting it until Boxing Day (… it was on sale plus there was an extra $50 mail-in rebate… I don’t blame my parents for wanting to wait out on that one!). We were in and out of the store in 15 minutes, after we got in.

Today has been spent… studying, and eating (I baked shortbread, yum!), and more studying and more going ‘why the %$#* is my school’s server being as slow as a snail today?!’. I printed off practice finals, I’m working away on my last few organic chem assignments and wrapping up work on my ‘reference sheet’ for my plant biology final (Tuesday 7pm! Cripes, that’s soon!). I’ve also realized how badly I’m studying while at home, good thing I plan on being at school tomorrow (probably about 8am-3pm) and then most of the day on Tuesday (from 8am until I’m done my plant biology final). Then Tuesday, I’ll be getting home and crashing (since I’ll probably get home at ~11pm). Then Wednesday will be spent on campus, studying/learning what I never knew about organic chemistry. Same with most of Thursday (8am until I’m done my organic chem final, which should be at or around 6pm). It’s going to be a fun few days!

Curiosity is annoying, but what is the worst gift that you have ever received for Christmas or any other holiday (birthdays included!). Here are some of the ones that I remember getting:

A chocolate Christmas advent calendar… for Christmas (opened on Christmas) – this was from one of my parents’ friends
A small tin of lemon cough drops for Christmas (another gem from one of my parents’ friends)
A workbook for grade 5-level math. I still have this one, actually, somewhere in my room. It’s probably in the box with all my Chinese school textbooks… I got it for Christmas, from yet another parents’ friend, when I was in grade 7.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Sunday… And to everyone who has finals coming up, best of luck.