Hey guys!
Happy weekend to all of you! I hope you guys are enjoying the last weekend before school starts. Summer just flew by! I know I say that every summer, but this summer went by way, WAY too fast.
Anyway, I have about a million and nine things to do before I leave in 2 hours and only got a few hours of sleep, but I thought that all of you lovely followers deserve a post. :)
It doesn't feel real that I'm actually leaving. It feels like I'm going on a trip for a week or so and will be back soon. I feel like I'm a senior again at my high school. I feel like this is all a dream. But it's not. I'm going to be a freshman in college, in another state, 4 hours away, and know no one. I'm really on my own. (I don't want that to sound like a pity-party, because that's the opposite (and trust me, I know how to throw a proper pity-party); it's a realization that this is actually happening.)
It hasn't really set in that I'm leaving and won't be back home for a few months. After a really great year (the full 12 months), I'm not ready for it to end. As much as I hate change, I need it. We all need it. It's healthy for us to do something new. It allows us to try different stuff and see how far we can really push ourselves. The truth is that if I stay here, then I'm holding myself back. (Oh my goodness, I sound like the girl from the If I Stay movie/book. Which, by the way, DON'T READ OR SEE THE MOVIE.)
I am excited, scared out of my mind, but excited nonetheless. :)
So I have so much to do and I know that this post is really short and really scrappy, but what I really wanted to tell all of you is that I'm leaving my home, my friends, my comfort zone to begin a new chapter in my life.
Send me good vibes please! I'm gonna need it.
Love,
Katie
P.S. I just saw my Welcome Week schedule...Oh, Lordy. That's gonna be the death of me.
Saturday, August 30, 2014
Monday, August 11, 2014
Snickerdoodle Bars
Hello (imaginary) friends!
Happy Monday to all of you lovely people. I hope that your weekend was fantastic! :)
Anyway, I have a new recipe for you. Yay! They're called Snickerdoodle Bars! (Now, for those of you who are not Minnesotan, you may be wondering what a "bar" is. A bar is a traditional dessert and there are a variety of recipes. You have lemon bars, raspberry bars, cookie bars, etc. It's a lot easier than making cookies or something that has to be made individually. So, long story short, a bar is a dessert that is put in a large pan to cook and then cut into squares to be served. They're delicious.)
I found this recipe and it's really yummy, but way, WAY too sweet for my taste (and I have a huge sweet-tooth). So I had to do some adjusting to it. I'm hoping that this works for ya, so keep me posted about how it goes and any suggestions you would make to it.
Ingredients
Bar
Topping
Directions
Bar
Topping
Notes
Happy Monday to all of you lovely people. I hope that your weekend was fantastic! :)
Anyway, I have a new recipe for you. Yay! They're called Snickerdoodle Bars! (Now, for those of you who are not Minnesotan, you may be wondering what a "bar" is. A bar is a traditional dessert and there are a variety of recipes. You have lemon bars, raspberry bars, cookie bars, etc. It's a lot easier than making cookies or something that has to be made individually. So, long story short, a bar is a dessert that is put in a large pan to cook and then cut into squares to be served. They're delicious.)
I found this recipe and it's really yummy, but way, WAY too sweet for my taste (and I have a huge sweet-tooth). So I had to do some adjusting to it. I'm hoping that this works for ya, so keep me posted about how it goes and any suggestions you would make to it.
Ingredients
Bar
- 1 1/2 cups of butter (softened)
- 1 cup of brown sugar
- 1/2 cup of white sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
- 2 teaspoons of baking powder
- 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon of nutmeg (optional)
- 2 2/3 cups of flour
Topping
- 1/8 cup of white sugar
- 2 teaspoons of cinnamon
Directions
Bar
- Cream butter and sugars in a large mixing bowl.
- Add eggs, salt, vanilla, and nutmeg into the bowl and mix well.
- Add in the baking powder and mix.
- Gently add in the flour, a little at a time and continue to mix well.
- Put dough in a 9x13 greased pan. (You may have to spread it out with your spoon and/or hands to make sure that it covers the entire pan. Don't be afraid to press it down as well if that means that it'll be even.)
- Sprinkle the sugar mixture over the bars.
- Put them into the oven at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes.
- Le them cool before cutting them.
Topping
- Put both sugar and cinnamon into a Tupperware container (with a lid) and shake it. This makes combining the two together a whole lot easier.
- Sprinkle over the bars before they go into the oven. (You may have to shake the pan in order to get a nice, even coating, too.)
Notes
- If you do enjoy the subtle nutmeg flavor in your snickerdoodle cookies, feel free to add it to the bars. I didn't put any in the bars I made because I forgot...Ooooppps.
- I accidentally used baking SODA instead of baking POWDER. My bars ended up raising in the oven and I had a slight panic attack, but then they fell when cooled down. The result was that it was a little more fluffy than the bar I was expecting and had more of a cake texture to it rather than a cookie.
- One thing I want to try to do is put some of the topping mixture onto the bottom of greased pan. It would make it more like a traditional snickerdoodle.
That's all I got for you, friends! Lemme know what you think! Enjoy!
Love,
Katie
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
Fear
Guys!
Guess what?!?!?! I got my new laptop! Her name is Loretta 2.0 and she is amazing! (Granted, I don't really know how to use her much and I still need to customize her to make her look pretty, but other than that, she's great!) Sometimes I press something and a totally new screen or something will come up or a new function will happen and I'll have to figure what I did exactly...And, as you know, I'm not really good at technology at all, but I am determined to understand her without any help (Yes, I don't think that I'll last very long either...). There are so many features on her and I'm so excited to goof around and see everything she does, but I wanna keep her looking nice and pretty, too.
Now that I'm done bragging about Loretta, let's talk about something we all have: fear. Now, c'mon, be honest here; we all have fears. It could be fear of needles, sharks, feet, you name it. It's natural for us to have them. Why? I believe it's to remind us that we are not invincible.
Anyway, I believe that there are 2 (okay, technically 3) kinds of fears. The one that causes curl-up in a ball, punches us in the gut, and forces us to scream, cry, yell, puke, etc. when we even think about facing it.Then there's the one that's not really a fear, more of a strong dislike of something...And then there's the fear that really limits us. We're not scared of it necessarily, we're scared of the outcomes it may bring; scared of the unknown.
Fear limits us. When we're scared, we don't allow ourselves to do the things we want to because we're afraid of the obstacles ahead of us. I can't tell you how many opportunities I've missed or ducked out on because I'm scared of what could happen. I create all of these insane scenarios that aren't accurate in the slightest. And ya know what happens when we do stuff like that? We miss out.
For me, I'm super afraid of needles. Like, DEATHLY afraid of them. If I see a needle, hear stories about needles, or anything that involves needles, I get really freaked out. And going to the doctor to get shots...SUCKS! When I know I'm about to get a shot, I start hyper-ventilating, usually end up sobbing, and blurt out anything and everything that comes to mind to try to get me out of getting a shot. It's bad.
And you're probably thinking, "But, Katie? How does your fear of needles limit you? (Minus the obvious.)" Well, you see, trusty reader, I want a tattoo. (It's crazy, I know.) But-one day-I would like to get a white ichthus on my ankle. (And maybe get "Happy" on the back of my shoulder. But that's a different story.) But besides the tattoo(s), I'd also like to give blood. I've been told on more than one occasion that I have good veins to give blood (uhhhh...thank you...?). But because I turn into a blob of jello every time I see a needle, this dream crashes and burns very quickly.
I'm working on eliminating my fears, but it's easier said than done. When I was trying to make up my mind for college, I kept letting my fear get the better of me. I had two options for school. I had my dream school in South Dakota and my other dream school close to home. I could go to South Dakota and know absolutely no one, or I could stay close to everyone I knew. I was scared of not knowing anyone and being so far away; I nearly let my fear win. But, by some miracle, I looked at my fear rationally (because, believe it or not, I have a tendency to be a tad over dramatic when I get scared, stressed out, anxious, etc. (I know, this shocked me, too)), accepted it, and decided to take this leap of faith and go to South Dakota for college.
(Jeez, I apologize for that rant. Where on earth did that come from anyway?) But, long story short: fear limits us. It limits our possibilities, opportunities, dreams. It forces us to stay in our comfort zone. Fear isn't all bad, either. It allows us to see how far we can push ourselves; it makes us see how strong we truly are.
So, my beloved readers, if there is one thing I want you to take away from this ranty post, it's this: don't let fear control your life. Do one thing that scares you and see what happens.
Love,
Katie
Guess what?!?!?! I got my new laptop! Her name is Loretta 2.0 and she is amazing! (Granted, I don't really know how to use her much and I still need to customize her to make her look pretty, but other than that, she's great!) Sometimes I press something and a totally new screen or something will come up or a new function will happen and I'll have to figure what I did exactly...And, as you know, I'm not really good at technology at all, but I am determined to understand her without any help (Yes, I don't think that I'll last very long either...). There are so many features on her and I'm so excited to goof around and see everything she does, but I wanna keep her looking nice and pretty, too.
Now that I'm done bragging about Loretta, let's talk about something we all have: fear. Now, c'mon, be honest here; we all have fears. It could be fear of needles, sharks, feet, you name it. It's natural for us to have them. Why? I believe it's to remind us that we are not invincible.
Anyway, I believe that there are 2 (okay, technically 3) kinds of fears. The one that causes curl-up in a ball, punches us in the gut, and forces us to scream, cry, yell, puke, etc. when we even think about facing it.Then there's the one that's not really a fear, more of a strong dislike of something...And then there's the fear that really limits us. We're not scared of it necessarily, we're scared of the outcomes it may bring; scared of the unknown.
Fear limits us. When we're scared, we don't allow ourselves to do the things we want to because we're afraid of the obstacles ahead of us. I can't tell you how many opportunities I've missed or ducked out on because I'm scared of what could happen. I create all of these insane scenarios that aren't accurate in the slightest. And ya know what happens when we do stuff like that? We miss out.
For me, I'm super afraid of needles. Like, DEATHLY afraid of them. If I see a needle, hear stories about needles, or anything that involves needles, I get really freaked out. And going to the doctor to get shots...SUCKS! When I know I'm about to get a shot, I start hyper-ventilating, usually end up sobbing, and blurt out anything and everything that comes to mind to try to get me out of getting a shot. It's bad.
And you're probably thinking, "But, Katie? How does your fear of needles limit you? (Minus the obvious.)" Well, you see, trusty reader, I want a tattoo. (It's crazy, I know.) But-one day-I would like to get a white ichthus on my ankle. (And maybe get "Happy" on the back of my shoulder. But that's a different story.) But besides the tattoo(s), I'd also like to give blood. I've been told on more than one occasion that I have good veins to give blood (uhhhh...thank you...?). But because I turn into a blob of jello every time I see a needle, this dream crashes and burns very quickly.
I'm working on eliminating my fears, but it's easier said than done. When I was trying to make up my mind for college, I kept letting my fear get the better of me. I had two options for school. I had my dream school in South Dakota and my other dream school close to home. I could go to South Dakota and know absolutely no one, or I could stay close to everyone I knew. I was scared of not knowing anyone and being so far away; I nearly let my fear win. But, by some miracle, I looked at my fear rationally (because, believe it or not, I have a tendency to be a tad over dramatic when I get scared, stressed out, anxious, etc. (I know, this shocked me, too)), accepted it, and decided to take this leap of faith and go to South Dakota for college.
(Jeez, I apologize for that rant. Where on earth did that come from anyway?) But, long story short: fear limits us. It limits our possibilities, opportunities, dreams. It forces us to stay in our comfort zone. Fear isn't all bad, either. It allows us to see how far we can push ourselves; it makes us see how strong we truly are.
So, my beloved readers, if there is one thing I want you to take away from this ranty post, it's this: don't let fear control your life. Do one thing that scares you and see what happens.
Love,
Katie
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