Haiku Wednesday

I look forward to
my afternoon cup of tea.
Sweet and steaming hot.

Is it possible
to be addicted to tea?
Because I might be...

My favorite mug.
(Even though it's a Valentine's Day mug)

XOLily

Miss Blog

Quite a bit of blogging happening lately...

This quarter, I have been named the blogger for The Clipper, Everett Community College's student run newspaper. The Clog, which could use a little tender love and care, has become my responsibility and I intend to post once a day, whether it's an article written by me or by another staff member.

Today's post is about a Humanities lecture
 I attended on enlightenment.

Not only have I become the Clipper blogger (the Clogger?) but I am also taking a Multimedia journalism class in which we have to create blogs using the Wordpress interface.

It's exciting to be doing all of this blogging, and learning a lot of new techniques.

I'm hoping to apply all of these new ideas for when I am studying in Paris next year, where I will be blogging about all of my adventures.

Lois, blogger for She Must Assemble (and also my sister) created a seperate blog for when she spent a quarter in London.

I'm thinking of using this blog for my adventures á Paris, but I haven't decided yet.

Any suggestions?

XOTheBloggingQueen

The Daughters of Cecil

A woman named Cecil had three daughters. Those daughters had daughters, who had daughters, who had daughters.

And now, there are four generations of Cecil, and occasionally the daughters and their daughters and their daughters and their daughters all gather in one place for a couple of days.

Daughters of a daughter's daughter.

Babies, toddlers, girls, teenagers, young ladies, old ladies, middle aged ladies. Twins, sisters, cousins, aunts, nieces, great-aunts, grammies, grand-daughters, great-nieces, and one gigi.

This weekend it was Cama Beach, on Camano Island. The Daughters of Cecil came, played, laughed, talked, cried, and ate delicious food.

Our lives are dynamic, just like the characters in books. They're messy, sometimes sad, occasionally angry, mostly chaotic, and sometimes absolutely perfect.

But we are Daughters of Cecil.
We keep going.

And we laugh as much as we can along the way.  So much that our jaws start to hurt and our ears ring.

(And we paint our nails.

With a party nail to show our wild side.)

 

A compilation of some footage I took over the weekend. 

Mostly ocean, some babies.

XOLily

Happy Easter

I love Easter because it's usually sunny and it marks the beginning of spring and the countdown until summer.

Tomorrow I go back to school for my very last quarter before graduation. Next year I will be celebrating Easter in Paris.

Lemon and strawberry macarons for the Easter family party.

My favorite colors. Skirt and sweater from J. Crew.

A manicure to match my outfit. 

Pink Easter eggs!

PEEPS.

Lois and me at the Easter Sunday service. 

Hope everyone has a lovely Easter!

XOLily

Five Things

1. Doing the Big Climb for the third year in a row with Em.

2. Going on motorcycle rides with my dad.

3. Home-made chocolate peanut butter cups. They were delicious!

4. My new motorcycle helmet: a reward for getting my motorcycle permit.

5. Doctor Who Season 7 Part 2!!! (I already love the Clara Oswin Oswald, she's FAB)

XOLily

Haiku Wednesday: Supernatural Edition

An ode to my newest favorite TV series:

Today was well spent
watching Supernatural,
eating macarons.

This show is so fab.
I'm only on Season Three.
There are eight seasons...

I cannot decide
which Winchester I like best:
sweet Sam or brave Dean?

They are both lovely
and you can probably see
that I am obsessed.

(Well, maybe not obsessed, more just fangirl status)

XOLily

PS: I still haven't finished Season 5 of Merlin, I have watched every episode except for the last two becuase I don't want Arthur to die! :(

Macaron Madness Day Two

My second try at making macarons was a huge improvement. Learning from the mistakes I made yesterday, I quickly perfected my technique and the macarons turned out lovely.

I changed the quantities I used on ingredients based on this recipe from Pop Sugar and I bought some plastic pastry bags from JoAnn's to help make the macarons into more perfect circles.

The crucial step: add the flour mixture a little bit at a time and fold to incorporate. 

The batter was a lot more smooth this time because I used less almond meal and I sifted it twice after putting it through the food processor. This helped to create the shiny texture of the batter.

Much better looking than yesterday!

I'm not very skilled at using pastry bags: next time I'll
remember that all of the batter does not fit into one bag!

Now that I've tried, I realized that making macarons really isn't that difficult, it just takes a little practise.

Maybe later this week I will try a different flavor. (The pistachio macarons I had in Paris were wonderful!)

The little ruffle around the bottom is called
the "pied" which is "foot" in French.

A little strawberry buttercream in the middle and voila!
The perfect macaron.

Not only did I make perfect macarons today, I also
made my own peanut butter cups! YUM.

 






















All in all, today's baking experience was a success. And now I have some delicious snacks for the Supernatural Marathon I am having tomorrow with my friend Liz!


XOLily