Surviving the Holiday

Now that the semester (and Christmas) is over, I finally have some time to myself. Due to my busy schedule, my sister had to take over much of the annual cookie frenzy. In fact, I only made two batches this year (which she make the dough for). Since I only contributed a little, I had to really make them count.

 I think they came out much better than last year. The ninja cookies are adorable, but such a pain to frost (and package). Oh man, I think I will just stick to round cookies next year. I suppose I could stick to your standard Christmas cookie shape, but where is the fun in that?

 

Who wants trees or candy-canes when you can have ghost skulls?!

I really can't tell you how much I am enjoying the break away from school/work. I forgot how nice it is to sleep in and have nothing to do all day. Some sort of celebration is in order because I managed to get a 4.0 GPA for this semester! Woo! Hopefully it will finally raise my cumulative up to a 3.0.

  **happy dance**

So despite this month being especially stressful, I think it went well. I sort of got all my gifts together in time and I conquered my finals. Like a champ. And as much as I dislike Christmas (I'm thinking of replacing the idea of Santa with a dragon), seeing my little niece's face light up was totally worth all the trouble.

 I'm sure she smiled at some point...

December Already?

It's December.

It's almost finals.

I haven't started making anyone's Christmas presents.

And my brain has decided to go on vacation.

So instead of being productive and starting any of my various projects due in the next two weeks, I am writing this blog post and obsessing over this self portrait for my Into to Art class.

I really need to stop trying to "fix" it.

It is probably the only thing I've created in that class that I like. Usually I just do the minimum required to turn  in an assignment. I know that sounds terrible, but I have struggled creatively in that class from day one. Something about the environment is uninspiring; it could be the teacher. It's amazing the difference it makes in your performance when you like/dislike a teacher.

Anyway, I rather like this piece and my mom has already claimed it for her collection. I haven't a clue where she is going to find space for it.

Hopefully the next two weeks will go smoothly. I need my brain to start working again; there is a 5-page essay and two final art projects that are due at the end of next week.

Maybe I fried it during NaNoWriMo. Even the measly 14,075 words I squeezed out were fairly tiresome. So I guess three is not my lucky number after all. I'm thinking I will try one of the summer writing sessions; November is always a busy month. July would be much less stressful to attempt a novel.

This comic adequately sums up the experience:

http://thepunchlineismachismo.com/archives/1301

On a lighter note, it is almost cookie frenzy! I can't wait to make my gingerdead men again.

This year they will be even better. 

Waiting for the Holidays

Well, I am muddling along slowly in this years attempt at National Novel Writing Month. While my progress has been steady, it is still quite a bit behind schedule. About 20,000 words behind schedule. Nevertheless, I am proud of being able to fit writing into my busy life.

Tonight, I will pass the 10,000 word mark! Woo!

Let me tell you, I am ready for Thanksgiving weekend. The three day weekend for Veterans Day was a tease for the holidays to come. I am so excited to have four days to spend with family and get some extra writing in. It seems that I come up with ideas when I'm focusing on other things. For instance, when I went to see Mr. Gnome last on the 6th.

It was at a tiny little venue called Thee Parkside. I love small venues, it gives a sense of intimacy that stadiums lack. Plus, you get to chitchat with the musicians before the show.

The bar. 

Light on the patio. 

Mr. Gnome. Best show I've been to in a while. 

Last week I tired a new recipe. I was inspired by mini pies I found on The Cake Bar, but after talking with the wife, we decided to go more savory instead of sweet. We came up with the idea of mini pot pies, and then tweaked it. 

Behold, cheesy biscuits filled with veggies! (oh, and more cheese of course)

Puff pastry crust, filled with potatoes, carrots and broccoli.

So delicious. 

Yup, I am so ready for Thanksgiving. 

Third Time The Charm?

It's that time again, boys and girls. Novel Writing Month!

Even though this year is strikingly similar to the previous ones, what with the starting off behind schedule, I have a good feeling about it. It could be my blind enthusiasm, or maybe this year is the year I reach the 50k word mark. Let's hope for the latter.

Of course, this is also the busiest year I'll have participated. I am a full-time student and work part-time (which is proving to require more brain-power than anticipated). This week alone I have a book review, an art project and a print for photography due. Finding time to write should be interesting. Maybe during the holiday?

Or, you know, now...

If I can find time to make fancy Halloween cupcakes, I'm sure I can crank out at least a thousand words a night.

Look how adorable!

I ran out of food dye for the frosting, so I had to improvise with jello. The color wasn't as vibrant as I wanted, but the cupcakes became chocolate orange and vanilla lime, which was delicious. I even got frosting-hating Johnny to enjoy them!

Between writing my novel (working title: Delirium) and the book review, I have been spending quite a bit of time trapped in front of my computer screen. Sunday was wonderfully sunny for November (it still feels like summer...) so I decided to do my figure drawing homework in the sunshine.

I think being outside improved my skills.

I also applied for SF State over the weekend...

Wish me luck! **fingers crossed**

October, Again

I wasn't so excited about my birthday month this year.

However, my beloved family and friends carried on with the celebration whether I was excited or not. This worked out rather well, since it ended up dragging out my birthday over half the month. It actually will bleed into November, since one of my presents is to go see Mr Gnome in the city on the sixth.

This is Mr Gnome if you don't know. They are awesome.

October is my favorite month. Even with sort of a slow start that included a rough week of migraines and a pinched nerve in my neck, it has turned out to be a pretty great.

Awesome gifts from the wife.

Lily's first pumpkin patch adventure.

 And a Shark Hat!

I'm not sure why we didn't buy this. 

Now that midterms are over, I will hopefully start updating regularly again. I did so well last month! 

In case you don't know or forgot (or just don't think about it) November is Novel Writing Month. Yes, I will be participating again. This year, my story will be include a dream world, psychedelic drugs, searching for family members and lots of regret. 

I really don't know how to write happy stories. Yeah...

Here's a preview of next week's post!

Baking Halloween Treats!

Operation Homemade Sushi

The best kinds of adventures are the impulsive ones.

The family decided to make sushi yesterday, which was exciting for a couple of reasons. One, sushi is delicious (obviously). The second reason was the fact that we would get to go to an Asian mart. If you have never been to one of these magical stores, I highly suggest it.

Rice hats!

Strange and colorful desserts!

Ordinary things in foreign languages!

This particular one (cleverly named...Asia Mart) isn't quite as fantastic as the 24-hr Korean Mart in Los Angeles, but it did have Durian fruit and balut. Seriously, walking into an asian mart is like walking into another country. 

Once we lugged our treasure back home, we realized we had gotten a little carried away. It might have been the squid jerky or matching rice hats for Dom and Lily (they are now Sushi hats). 

The sushi hat is serious business. 

So the trick to sushi is the perfect sushi rice. Sushi rice is short-medium grain rice with a su (sauce or vinegar) folded in. The recipe we used was this:

4 cups rice (rinsed, then cooked in a rice cooker)

1 cup rice wine vinegar

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup sake (we used unfiltered)

The result should be rice that is shiny, with a sweet/tangy taste and not mushy. Ours turned out really well, but I might use less of the su next time. 

I think Operation Homemade Sushi was a success. We definitely appreciate the art of sushi-making more and will probably be more picky about how fresh our fish is. 

Also, we realized that three pounds of fish is definitely too much for only four people. 

Nigiri, Temaki, Uramaki, and Poke

Sushi is the most attractive of foods~

Learning Overload

Konnichiwa!

I started learning Japanese (or nihongo) this week. I know, what better time than during a full semester load and starting a new job? What can I say? When I get motivated, I get stuff done. So far I can do basic greetings and count to ten.

Ichi, ni, san, shi, go, roku, nanna, hachi, kyu, gyu!

This has been an ongoing project for, well, since I first started watching anime. So I am guessing at least six years. I have made half-hearted attempts here and there over the years. I enrolled in a class for half a semester, I signed up for a free online tutorial, etc. But this time it is for real!

ii tenki desu ne (nice weather, isn't it?)

See? I have a knack for it. Plus, I really want to visit Japan. So, you know, learning the language is a pretty important part of that.

In other news, I think the painstaking efforts in figure drawing are starting to pay off.

Degas on the right, mine on the left. 

 It might just be that I am drawing more often, so my skill level in general is increasing. Either way, I am getting more confident in my art, which is really exciting. 

All I draw is naked people these days.

I also made my first cheese cake last night. Originally, I was supposed to make it for my roommates birthday, but I am about two weeks late. He enjoyed it despite how belated it was.

This recipe was for a no-bake cheese cake (which is super easy). I'm not sure what is with me and boozy desserts, but I found myself making a Bailey's Irish Cream cheese cake. You can find the recipe here.

 

Mmmm...cheese cake.

Mine was not as pretty as the pictures on the blog, but it was delicious. Next time I will line the bottom of the pan so the cookie crust doesn't stick. Also, I either need a smaller pan or double the cookie crust because there definitely wasn't enough of it.

Now if I can only figure out a way to combine this recipe with the Guinness Chocolate cake I made...

Posting Instead of Homework

It has been a while.

Oops.

I don't really have much of an excuse, especially since school only started two weeks ago. I guess I'm just not adjusting too well to a busier life. I have  time, not as much as I had in Los Angeles, but some.

I definitely still have time to make cupcakes. There is always time for cupcakes.

Vanilla, Lemon and Chocolate Peanut-butter.

(Please excuse the crappy cell phone picture)

Well Summer is officially over. After a three(?!) year break, I am back at the local Junior College. The plan was to just take the English class I need to transfer. Of course, that would be too easy. Due to all those lovely budget cuts and my lack of priority, I was unable to sign up for any English class. So I did what anyone would do and signed up for all the classes I wanted to take, but never got around to.

Those classes are:
Figure Drawing (aka drawing naked people)
Intro to Art & Design
B&W Photography (film cameras, remember those?)

Art classes! Woo!
Oh, and the History of God

I'm even starting to dress like an Art student

I figured I might as well make my re-entry into college as enjoyable as possible. So far, it's working. I am loving school, even if it means being there 9-4 for most of the week. It's like having a full-time job, really. If you include the time spent on homework. Homework I am definitely putting off right now...

I promise I will finish my reading assignment after this.

But first, look what I made! 

First attempt at a bento lunch.

The sandwich cutter was a present from Yano (who knows me so well) and I picked up another food stamp in Japantown last weekend. If you don't know what bento lunches are, they are Japanese box lunches. If you know anything about Japan, you know they go all out. 

Seriously, look up bento lunches. 

Usually they include onigiri (rice balls), but I started simple with sandwiches and veggies. More elaborate bentos will come soon. 

I still can't get over how cute the radish stars are. 

Summer Things

Nature.

It really gets taken it for granted when it is all around you. Once I moved to Los Angeles, I yearned for green hills and trees. Every time I went back home, I would breathe deeply and savor the crisp air that wasn't laden with smog. Don't get me wrong, I love southern California. I just realized how much I missed all the beautiful landscapes of Sonoma County.

In fact, once I moved back home, the whole first week I kept freaking out about how green everything was. Also, there seems to be an influx of GIANT bugs. I'm not kidding; twice now I have seen monster-sized moths.

It was as big as my hand!

On the fourth, we drove up to Calistoga for scenery and good food. For those who don't know of this little place, it is tucked up in the hills towards Mt. Saint Helena. We followed the winding roads past the Pepperwood Preserve and the Worlds Largest Petrified Forest; all the while listening to Mom's stories of her more adventurous days. 

I love little towns. They are always filled with local shops and restaurants. In Calistoga, there is a little strip of shops housed in railroad cars. We wandered past the office for hot air balloon rides, peeked through the windows of novelty shops and discovered the Sugar Train at the end. 

I don't think I need to remind you how much I love candy shops. 

The best thing about this particular shop were the homemade frozen juice bars of every flavor imaginable. After a quite a bit of deliberation, I decided to go with the Jamaican Hibiscus. Oh man, it was delicious. Next time I want to try the kiwi flavor.

Speaking of delicious, I made my brother-in-law thirty-one cupcakes for his thirty-first birthday. Well, I made forty-eight and then just only set out about thirty-one. I didn't make them from scratch, but I marbled chocolate and yellow cake together, which was a lot of fun. 

                        

They turned out well and I think I'm getting better at decorating. Now I just need to remember not to decorate when the frosting has started to melt...

                                     

Oh Internet, How I Miss Thee

First, I need to express my intense love for a new comic series: Locke & Key.

I heard about this series a while ago, but never got around to finding it. My brother-in-law is an avid comic book collector, so I sent him on the mission to locate it. Thankfully, he accepted and completed this mission with haste. We both have found a new obsession (the first being Chew).

Boiled down, it is about a mysterious house that has various supernatural keys and the family that is tied to them. It's bloody, it's exciting and the artwork is amazing. I just finished volume four and am anxiously waiting to get my hands on the fifth. 

Okay, now that is out of the way...

I've been staying with my grandmother while she recovers from her (second) knee replacement surgery for the past week and had to leave the video games at home. This, I'm sure, delights my little brother since my gaming consoles have become the main source of entertainment. So I decided to pick up reading again since the xbox and computer seem to suck up all my time.

My family is really into the HBO series, Game of Thrones. I have not jumped on the bandwagon and have only seen a couple episodes. However, my mom has the books that the series is based off, so I figured I'd give them a try. 

Oh man, I forgot how much I enjoy reading. I am about halfway through the book; which is the most intricate and heartbreaking story I've read in a while. From what I hear, it only gets more so. I can't wait to find out. 

So, I've exchanged Diablo III for Game of Thrones, and the infinite scroll of Tumblr for stories of when my grandmother was young. All in all, it has been a good week.

Sometimes I get trapped in technology and forget how much fun a good story can be; whether it be written or told at the dinning table. As an aspiring writer, I need to remember to absorb the stories around me and step away from the screen more often. I also need to do more writing...

Whimsy

I've been sick for three days now. Tonsillitis. It sounds so dramatic, doesn't it? I feel like a kid again; having Mom make me noodle soup and staying indoors all day, wistful of the beautiful weather outside. Let me tell you, this is not a summer-friendly illness. All home remedies say to drink tea and gargle warm salt water, which is pretty miserable when it's eighty degrees outside.

It makes me long for all the adventures I've had in the past few weeks. Some days my roommate will have an unexpected day off and whisk me off to the beach. We ran up and down sand dunes, almost got trapped on the wrong side of the beach by the incoming tide and had our very first adventure with just the two of us.

Sand surfing: better in theory than in practice. 

Other days I go on bike rides to Sebastopol for sandwiches or ice cream. The local ice cream shop, Screamin' Mimi's, has a ginger flavor. It is heavenly. The horrible tummy-ache I got after (I'm lactose intolerant) was not. I've also been trying to walk my mom's dog at least once a week. She really enjoys going for walks and doesn't get much exercise in the day. Plus, I could use the exercise as well.

Jade is the best.

June is birthday month. I've already made two birthday cakes (one was for combined birthday), which really allows me to show off my baking skills. The first one was a Guinness chocolate cake (pictures and recipe will come in future posts) and the second was lemon with strawberries and whipped cream cheese frosting.

I used the same recipe as my Lemon Cupcakes and added heavy whipping cream to the frosting. I also layered the center with fresh strawberries. This time, however, I used actual buttermilk and lemon extract. The cake was moist and super light, almost like an Angelfood cake. This may have been the best cake I've ever made. I know my sister loved it.

I even decorated it! 

It has been a good first month back in my home town. I am loving the weather and  being around my loved ones.

I do miss my brother though.