Choc Chip Cookies!

I felt like doing a little baking today, with a massive craving for something sweet and delicious. I was watching an old episode of How I Met Your Mother and Lily was sent a box of cookies from Marshall's mom. So I decided to take a quick trip to Woolies, buy a few ingredients and bake some classic choc chip cookies. I've had a few adventures in cooking, baking and especially with choc chip cookies, but I've always had trouble finding a decent recipe. I Googled "best choc chip cookies" and stumbled across a blog (a seemingly popular one) and decided to try it out. Simultaneously, reading this little blog post, made me want to write one of my own, so here it goes.

 I tried to follow the recipe as best I could but I always have problems with accuracy and patience. This is my (slightly adapted) version.

Ingredients:

• One cup of butter (I used an olive oil based butter - it's all I had)
• One packed cup brown sugar
• One cup of white sugar 
• Two eggs
• One tsp vanilla essence
• Two and a half cups of plain flour 
• Half tsp salt 
• One tsp baking powder 
• One and a half cup of Cadbury Baking Milk Chocolate Chips (add more if possible!)

Instructions:

• Cream the brown sugar, white sugar and butter in a bowl 
• Add eggs, one at a time, making sure each egg is fully incorporated first
• Add vanilla 
• Whisk flour, baking powder and salt together, then add to the wet mixture 
• Fold in chocolate chips
• Place 1 tbsp balls of dough on baking tray - allow lots of room for expanding! 
• Bake in 160 deg. Celcius oven for 9-10mins, depending on how soft/crunchy you like your cookies. Mine didn't colour so much on the top, but it did a little on the bottom.

This is a link to the original blog post/recipe. http://suziethefoodie.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/janes-subway-chocolate-chip-cookies.html

<3 S

NEW BLOG

Hi guys,

Sorry for abandoning this one, but I'm starting up a new blog.

TheSPlan.wordpress.com 

Please check it out, leave comments and share! I will be posting regularly there.

<3 S

Three months.

So it's been 3 months since the last time I posted. Ooops.

A lot has happened since the last time I posted. A lot has changed. And yet, some days I feel exactly the same as I did 3 months ago.

Most days, I'm definitely happier. I work harder, I push myself more and even end up surprising myself with how far I have come. I have learnt a lot and discovered a lot and realised a lot. I feel like I'm finally becoming an adult. And about time too. Having been "legally" and adult for over 3 years now, and with graduation around the corner, life as I know it, will be over.

Unfortunately, I've always been last to mature mentally. But I'm finally starting to learn that growing up means loss, rejection, pain, regret. It means never stopping, never relaxing and never taking your eye off the ball. It means leaving behind a world of comfort and pushing yourself out to the edge just to prove your worth, just to make a life for yourself, just to survive. And yeah, I've learnt that it sucks.

I'm the kind of person who likes to rewatch old TV episodes, old movies that I've watched a million times. Because I always know that everything worked out in the end, and exactly how it worked out. I've always envied older people in the same way. These people have the satisfaction of knowing that they survived, knowing that they got through it, knowing what they gained and what they lost on the way. I know its weak, and I know its not how the world works, but some days I wish I could have just a glimpse of what my future will be. I wish I could just know the ending so I can relax and enjoy the ride.

But, like I said, life doesn't work that way. And instead of brooding over the impossible, I've adopted a new way of thinking. I've learnt that planning gets me absolutely nowhere. I've spent my life pre-determining what to do with my life. And now, I'm giving that up. All this planning only leads to disappointment and pain, anticipation and anxiety. Nothing ever works out the way you plan it to, so why waste the time doing it? Instead, all I'm doing is putting myself out there. Working as hard as I can, doing the best I can and putting myself out there and seeing what comes back. If it doesn't come back, then it wasn't meant to be. But if it does, its an exciting new journey.

I love listening to other people talk about their life stories. And the thing I've noticed is that no-one ever says, "Oh, I planned on being a teacher, and now I'm a teacher." That's never the end of it. I find it always starts with something differently entirely and leading up to that moment in time. And I'm just so tired of planning ahead, and having nothing work out the way I planned it. So, with 3 months left of my degree, all I can do now is put myself out there, work hard, and hopefully something will open up for me and help me find the next chapter of my life.

I'm excited to see what happens next.

<3 S

Unbound.

I heard about this great website a couple of weeks ago, and I just remembered to have a look at the site.

I have previously had a look or two on publishing, how to get a book published with a big publishing house like Penguin, or McGraw Hill etc, and while some of them have great campaigns for new and aspiring authors, most of these focus on the bigger, previously successful authors, so its difficult to get a break. And then there are other smaller sites, in which you pay to have your book published, I think one of them published 100 books for you, and distribute it for a really great price. But what this lacks the support you need to know that your work is good. There are no bossy editors, pushing you to do your best, and who believe in your book.

That's what is so great about this new site. Its a UK based site, Unbound. The gist of it is this: authors pitch their book ideas to you, the reader. The reader then decides to pledge to the book, and will fund money for the publishing of this book. Funds start at 10 pounds, and go up to 250 pounds. Each "level" of funding provides you with different levels of access, support and communication with the author. Once the author reaches a "target," the book will be published. However, if the target is not reached, the money will be refunded to you in full.

I love this idea that its not just about pushy editors and publishing houses only publishing what they need to make more money. I love that it is honest and is truly about what the readers want. I also love that its more than just picking up a book and reading it, its about providing support and really being able to show an author that their work, their art matters and that its something great to believe in.

Anyways, if you're an author hoping to be published, check it out.

<3 S

P.S. Here's a little video on the site: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=de9CQA7G6vk 

Ageing.

It's no secret that the older you get, the more you learn, the more experiences you add to your repetoire and the wiser you become. But they don't tell you about the pain, the suffering, the hardships you gotta get through to become that way.

Don't get me wrong, I know how lucky I am to be alive and to have lived 21 years of life. Some people get flushed out with the morning after pill, a day after conception. Some don't even make it out of the womb alive. Then there are those who will never see the first day of school, or graduate college, those who will never fall in love or experience parenthood or grandparenthood.

But entering the twenties, I always had an idea of what life would be like. Happiness, freedom, money... But I never thought about things that I've lost, things I left behind, memories, regrets. And it truth, my life is only just beginning. Up until this point, I have been lucky not to have suffered great loss or endured great pain. When you're younger, you can't wait to be an adult; to live on your own, the freedom of going and coming, the freedom to eat chocolate cookies for dinner and nothing else. But as you get older, as you become an adult, you learn that with age comes pain, loss, regret. You start to miss who you were, what you had and where you used to be. And of course, you can always move forward, but there will always be a wandering eye that looks back and brings on the sadness, and the obvious truth of what you have lost. There's those sayings about not allowing yourself to look back, because you can't change it. While that may be true, for me, its also because looking back brings on a crippling pain that makes it impossible to move forward.

Give me innocence, inexperience and ignorance, any day.

One Tree Hill. One Last Time.

After nearly two months of putting it off, I finally watched the final episode ever of One Tree Hill. I guess I kept putting it off because I wasn't ready for it to be over. I wasn't ready for the stories to end and I wasn't ready to let go. And for a show that started out with strong characters, storylines and music, it did lose its way a few times (especially after losing Lucas and Peyton), was the end of it really going to do its justice to the core of the show?

I remember what One Tree Hill meant to me back in 2003. It aired on channel 10, but I never found too much interest in it. To me, it was that show with the hot Chad Michael Murray, a curly haired blonde and that extremely sexual brunette girl. A show about sex, drugs, teenagers and high school drama. So in short, I wasn't interested.

A few years ago, they began airing random episodes of OTH again on channel 10, this time, on Saturday mornings to fill in the time between Video Hits and the news. That was also the time when I used to actually watch TV, I'd spend most of the day on the couch constantly flipping through channels. So I sat and watched a few minutes here and there of OTH as it played over these Saturdays, and I got the gist of the show pretty quickly. One particular episode that caught me was back in season 6 (ep 18) where Jamie Scott asked his grandfather, Dan Scott, about who killed his great-uncle Keith. And in this, Dan admits to murdering his brother. Shocked and curious, I decided to start from the beginning and watch the entire show. As I watched it, I learned that it wasn't a show purely about teenagers, sex and alcohol. It was about growing up, learning what's important, learning right from wrong and following your heart and your dreams. And yeah, that summary makes it sound lame and cheesy and it probably is. But I'm a lame and cheesy person and I love all things lame and I love all things cheesy.

So I fell in love. I fell in love with the show, the characters, the music, the settings, the places, the journeys and most of all, I fell in love with the words. There are some great moments in OTH. Moments that make you cry, that break your heart, that fill you with joy and hope, and most of these are carried out in the form of words, whether narrated or spoken as part of a dialogue. There is something so beautiful in the way words were written for that show. That a certain combination of letters and words can translate and communicate thoughts, feelings, emotions in such an artful way.

I found that when others talk about what the show meant to them, a lot of people say it was a guide for them. The characters and the viewers, all young and lost, grew up together and found their way together. Unfortunately I didn't have OTH growing up. But it doesn't change the fact that I've learnt so much from it. My view on certain issues changed, my needs and wants changed, my mind matured and it got me through the day when I was at my worst. So much of my life has changed in the last couple of years, my world changed, I changed, but having this constant in my life is a comfort.

I'm glad I discovered OTH. I grew up with disconnected, distant judgmental parents (whom I still love very much) but they never taught me anything about hopes or dreams or what it means to be in love. I wasn't allowed to be lost, I wasn't allowed to be creative and so I learnt all the things I missed from them from this show.

I'm always going to be grateful for this show. It seems so silly that my life would change because of a show, based in a fictional world full of fictional characters, but it did.

As for the final episode, I was worried that they would ruin it. They admittedly did quite bad after Lucas and Peyton left and the end of season 8 was a mess. I think the producers weren't quite sure they would be signed on for another season so they tried to wrap up as much as they could.

But the final episode, I think was pretty good. It would've been amazing to have brought back Lucas and Peyton, but they did add so much to the end that really tied it all together. Like the importance of Dan's death, the ultimate sacrifice he made for his son. Brooke being given all the things she's ever wanted and deserved: love, two generations of a family, and a family home, Nathan and Haley lasting the entire 9 seasons (minus half of season 3), and the idea of a TV show based on OTH. This is probably my favourite of all. OTH originally was a movie script called Ravens, but they decided that the script would be better told as a TV show. So they made the TV show and Lucas wrote a book about it, tried to make a movie and failed and in the end it became a TV show. A bit Inception-like but bringing it full circle. I'm saddened by the end of it all. I'm sad that there won't be more stories, that the lives of these fictional characters have ended. I feel like there's so much more to tell. Will there be more kids for Brooke, Haley, Millie or Quinn? How does Lydia grow up? What kind of predictions does Jamie make? Does Jamie grow up to be a basketball player? And dammit James Lafferty got really hot when he started bulking up. Sexy.

One Tree Hill. One Last Time.

Pushing.

I've been watching How I Met Your Mother a lot lately, but in all the seven seasons that have aired, I have only one favourite from Ted's many, many, many conquests. Victoria. aka Buttercup aka the baking lady aka the lady that Ted met at the wedding in season 1, ep 12/13/14.

I will always be vouching for Victoria and Ted to end up together, and even though I know there's no possibility of that happening now, (sometime in a later season, she comes back and she's engaged), there's a tiny part of me that still hopes.

Why? Why do I invest so much hope in a fictional character finding love and a happy ending with another fictional character? Partly because I have no life of my own. But mostly, its because she's epitomises the kind of woman I'd like to be. Creative, fun, spontaneous, mysterious, baking delicious cupcakes and finding the most sweetest, purest, most romantic of loves.

Anyways the title of this post is "pushing" not "Victoria", even though it was inspired by her and Ted's storyline. We all chase this idea of happy ever after, but often we end up pushing ourselves until we reach breaking point. And something that started so sweet, and pure, like Victoria and Ted's relationship, eventually breaks down.

So how do we know? How do we know when to quit? When is the optimal time to stay in a certain place before all hell breaks loose and it all becomes irreparable? There's that saying "quit while you're ahead," but that's the trick of good things. Good things are good, and hence you want more and more of it but the more you ask for it, the more you push and the closer you get to ruining it and losing it all.

But knowing this, why don't we stop? If we know that all things will eventually go bad, why don't we stop? Because we hope. We hope things won't go bad, we hope the happiness, the joy, the success will last forever, and we hope that it'll all work out.

 What are we, without hope?

Relationship Changes

 People change. They grow, they mature. It's a fact of life.

We all go through stages in our lifetimes. Primary school. High school. College. Adulthood. Parenthood.

Along the way, we collect new friends, family. And, if we're lucky, at some stage, we find someone to fall in love with and someone to love us back. But we never stop growing, we never stop moving through the stages. Maybe we slow down, maybe we breeze through it. But we all grow, we move through the stages, we change.

So what happens when that person you  loved changed? What if the person you were changed?

One of those break-up cliches people use is that You/I have changed. We're not the same people anymore. Does that mean that if we want to hold onto someone we love, we're not allowed to change? Anyone who says yes to that, is, frankly, an idiot. You expect someone not to change, to be the same person they were six months ago, or even sixty years ago? But can you guarantee that in that time, you, yourself, have not changed? You haven't lost interest in your favourite t-shirt, or forget the songs that you used to play on repeat? No, of course not. You've changed.

But change isn't a bad thing. It isn't about pretending that you're okay with these changes in yourself and in that other person. All it means is that the love, the relationship, the dynamics have to change too. All it means is that you need to re-evaluate yourself, your life and see them for who they are now and not what you saw in them before and not what you think they should be. See the changes you've made in yourself, and see their changes and accept them. All change means is that its time to change the way you love them. Let the new you, love the new them.

P.S. This kept popping into my head while writing: As we mature, the relationship matures with us. HIMYM