Switching blog providers: do or do not?

So I'm thinking about switching blog providers, if that's the appropriate term. I've been looking into Tumblr and a lot of what it offers really appeals to me. I find that Blogger doesn't let me do some things easily, and I think I could share a lot more if I went to Tumblr. I don't want to go to Wordpress because it seems to require a lot more technical ability than I possess, and I want something that is simple and doesn't give me a headache or ask too much of me. Question is, though, can I import all my old posts to a Tumblr account? Hmmm.
Opinions wanted and appreciated. Thanks.

-Laur

Preparing

Yesterday after Sarah left the house with most of the remainder of her stuff (SURPRISE! My sister moved out! Cue huge sigh of relief) my mother and I cleaned out the upstairs linen closet, and then I went into my room and:

• took down all my posters
• removed most of the glow-in-the-dark starts and planets from my walls
• cleaned all the sticky-tack off the walls
• removed the white LED string lights from my window treatment
• consolidated my shotglass collection into two small boxes
• removed the pictures from all my standing frames, put them in albums, and stored the frames elsewhere
• was sad as I looked around my bedroom and realized that it looked like it only had half an identity

Now that the sibling has moved out again, Mom and I can seriously begin preparing the house for sale and then moving. We tackled the basement storage room two days ago and got rid of a tonne of stuff, and tonight when we get home from work we're going to clean out the laundry room, which is subsequently our furnace room, because we're getting the furnace and water heater replaced tomorrow. Everything is going to happen so quickly from hereon in, and I can't decide if I'm excited or full of dread. I can't imagine packing up my bedroom; even though I get rid of stuff every few months, I have so many possessions that I have no idea where they're all going to go when we move. I don't even know what my new bedroom will look like. What if it's smaller than what I have now? I already feel cramped as it is; a smaller space would be downright claustrophobic.
But I digress.
We're preparing the house for a move and right now there are garbage bags full of junk strewn all over the main floor that should probably go in the garage, but garbage collection (a double-up day, thank goodness! We're probably going to drop some bags in our neighbors' driveways, too) isn't until next week. We're going to amass more garbage before then, so I'll have to think of something creative to do with it.
One last thing; when I was shoveling snow last night I noticed that my side fence gate doesn't close properly anymore. It was swinging open and shut in the wind and making creepy creaking noises. It officially gave me the heebie jeebies. Just another thing on my to do list.

-Laur

Welcome to 2010

I don't have resolutions this year, as I find they set me up for disappointment. Instead, I have ideas

• I want to learn how to cook better than I do. I will choose and follow more recipes instead of making things up, and hone some of my weaker kitchen skills such as knife handling and pan-cooking (sauteeing, sweating, frying, browning, etc.)
• I need to get active again. My pants are getting tighter, something that hasn't happened in years, and my lung capacity is shrinking daily. I don't have enough money to rejoin the gym, so I will have to come up with a cheaper alternative.
  
• I want to be a kinder person. I'm terribly hard on some of the people in my life, and now that I know that most people aren't going to live up to my expectations, I need to stop beating them up (mentally) and beating myself up for putting them on a pedestal.
  
• I will abandon the idea of a best friend. It's an unattainable label to follow, and it winds up hurting me more than it comforts me. I read an article in Chatelaine that cleared a lot of my best-girl-friend misconceptions last month, and I feel a lot better now that I understand that best friends don't actually exist.
  

I will also try to post to this blog at LEAST once a week.
Happy New Year. Welcome to the next decade.

-Laur

Gingerpeople, to be politically correct

I don't personally like gingerbread that much. I find it a little bit bland, like it needs to be sweeter or something. It does, however, make excellent cutout shapes which is why I continue to make it year after year.
This year seems to be a defining year for me in terms of my design and execution skills; last year my decorating cookies were a hot mess, but this year? Excellence. My pumpkin carving skills seem to have undergone the same transformation, but that's another story for an unexpected and hilarious time.
On Tuesday night I decorated sugar cookies with my mother until my student came for tutoring, and then once all students had been dismissed and my mom had gone to bed, I hunkered down in front of the TV with a rack full of gingerbread men (people, persons, its?) and two squeeze bottles of royal icing (note to all cookie decorating enthusiasts: THIS WAS THE BEST DECISION EVER! I will continue to use squeeze bottles instead of icing bags for as long as I only need straight semi-thin lines), a glass of milk and both Home Alone 1 and 2, and off I went until 1:30 in the morning.

I didn't get all of them finished, but what I did get done I quite enjoyed. I'll either finish the rest when I get back from my weekend in Rochester, or leave it up to mom to finish. Regardless, enjoy my pictures. I'm becoming a more efficient cookie-roller, and had all the gingerbread men rolled, baked and cooled in just inside of an hour.

I'm going to go curl up in my warm bed now and settle down for a long winter's nap.

-Laur

Classic Gingerbread Cutouts:

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup molasses
2 eggs
4 cups all-purpose flour, divided
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar until smooth. Stir in the molasses and eggs. Combine 1 1/2 cups of the flour, baking soda, salt, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, and ginger; beat into the molasses mixture. Gradually stir in the remaining flour by hand to form a stiff dough.
3. Divide dough into 2 pieces. On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut into desired shapes using cookie cutters. Place cookies 1 inch apart onto ungreased cookie sheets.
4. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Cookie countdown

So here's my first round of cookies: blue snowflakes. I think they're really pretty, and they happen to taste really great, too. The cookie cutter set came with 8 shapes but three of them are weird little tiny things that aren't much use. The biggest one, top left, is about the size of my hand and very sturdy. I made up a batch of Royal Icing to decorate them with, but didn't finish the job; I'll be using white icing and pretty sugar to complete the effect.
Here's the recipe for the cookies:

Best Rolled Sugar Cookies by Jill Saunders

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups butter, softened
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
Directions
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.













And now for the Royal Icing recipe:

Royal Icing by Veronica

Ingredients
3 cups confectioners' sugar
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
2 egg whites, beaten
Directions
In a bowl, sift together confectioners' sugar and cream of tartar. Using electric mixer, beat in 2 beaten egg whites for about 5 minutes or until mixture is thick enough to hold its shape.
I think this post is going to look a little strange, but what can you do.
Do you like my little Christmas tree? Or Hanukkah bush? It's blue and white, but it's a tree, so I suppose it transcends the lines of holiday religion. I like it, anyhow.

Happy baking!

-Laur

Christmas time is here

It's December 1st. Well, it's almost over, but today was mostly December 1st. I've been ignoring my blog because of Nanowrimo, but that's over. I didn't win. I hated my book. Oh well, serves me right for not planning.
So today I decorated the house a little bit and baked half a batch of snowflake-shaped sugar cookies. They're really awesome snowflakes, and I'm going to bake and decorate the rest of them tomorrow. Mom and I also made the awesome centrepiece to your left, and we'll probably put it in the front vestibule to be festive and such. But only if I can find a table to put it on.
The other pictures are ones I doctored up with Picnik after my friend Samantha and I went to the Santa Clause Parade on November 15th. It was an almost balmy day and the parade was lovely and short, about 2 hours long, and we had a good spot right at St. George station across from the Bata Shoe Museum. We could see everything, and afterwards we went for a little window-shop in Yorkville.
I'm taking my holiday baking very seriously this year, and starting tomorrow I'm going to blog my cookie recipes and photos every time I bake a new kind.
Cheers!
-Laur

It's getting to be that time again...

Well, when the web badges are up you KNOW that it's on its way...National Novel Writing Month 2009, in its 11th proud year, will be starting at 12:01 am on November 1st, and though I will probably still be partying my grass off, I will definitely be plotting this year's masterpiece in a small, inebriated corner of my mind.
This year I want more of my creative friends to get involved; I have so many people in my life who are capable of such greatness, and few of them every try to achieve it.
Here is my hit list for people who should do Nanowrimo this year:
Aleks Sagan
Marisa Williams
Samantha Feder
Aaron Armstrong
Robert Hull
There are more, but I can't think of them right now. So, my friends, this is an open challenge: write your hearts out in November, and see what happens. It may be one of the most meaningful experiences you ever have. Go sign up at the Nanowrimo website and find me, Lolowin, so I can support you through one of the most challenging and rewarding months ever.

Can you dig it?

- Laur