It's been a rather shitty day for the mind and emotions today. But stepping out from 2,5 hours of dancing I feel at peace again, even though the top of my foot hurts a lot after a bad landing on it.
And today at the second class a girl offered to go with me on a diagonal when noticing that I was the odd one out, it felt so nice to be seen in a group that seem to know eachother from before.
Next week will be a new song, but for the last three weeks this has been my music: Dermot Kennedy - Shelter
days to remember
24.9.18
Step Inside
14.7.18
2.12.17
Chocolate Factory - The Experiment
After 4,9kg of chocolate last weekend, I felt like I never wanted to see chocolate again. Never ever would I make a single more praline. Never again will I temperate chocolate.
Well... It's a week later and I really wanted to make a lime-filling and salted caramel. Is this how women feel when they decide to get a second child?
And also... I did not follow the rules, so lets see how my experiment last night went.
No cream in the ganasch. The recipe calls for cream, but I don't have milk products at home only vegetable based substitute (environmental reasons). So instead of cream I used Oatley "imat" which isn't even a cream substitute, but a substitute for low fat cream used in cooking. Think it went badly? Well, actually not too bad at all. Taste was fine, I really think that Oat-cream doesn't taste anything when you start mixing it with other things. However the filling didn't really want to thicken up the way normal ganasch thickens, but that's most likely because I mixed in a lot of lime in my filling which thins out the filling. Should probably have added some starch to it, something to remember for next time.
Having a runny filling made it of course a little bit more difficult to put lids on the praline. Put there's a trick I've seen on Youtube, where you spread out the chocolate on a cooking sheet and then put it on top of the pralines.
200g of chocolate. That's was all I used, for a recipe that called for 255g+30g. How did that affect the result? Well I didn't get any chokladbräck obliviously but I also didn't have enough chocolate to fill up the whole mold. Solved that with a a spoon and scooping over chocolate from filled shapes to some that needed more. It went really well except that my chocolate was a bit too cold so some of the shapes got stuck with chunks of chocolate in them. But that's okay, I just didn't put any filling in them and the chocolate can still be reused. Even though I only used 200g of chocolate I did end up with some leftovers.
No big bowls? Tipping out the chocolate when making shells is a messy business. Perhaps even more messy when you don't have a big enough plastic bowl to tip it all out in. Instead I used a reusable teflon baking sheet. And it was very effective. Once the chocolate had cold down on the sheet I could easily get it off as it didn't stick to the sheet, and it also felt nice not throwing tons of paper away, yay for the environment.
All and all I'd say that it went very well yesterday and I'm ready for making some salted caramel tonight, already cooked the filling (so much work cooking a can of sweetened condensed milk for two hours...).
5.11.17
Preparing for a New Year
3.11.17
NaNoWriMo
I used to write lots of poems back in my teenage-time and on my drive there's lots of unfinished stories that I really want to write on. And there's one story in particular that I want to write. So I signed up for this challenge and three days in I'm already struggling to keep up, hurrah. But It's been great non the less. And it is fun doing something creative besides drawing.
There's a whole community and all attached to this challenge. If you sign up you can track your progress and get badges. I'm a sucker for achievements.
The story I'm writing is rather difficult to describe, mostly because it's very personal. It could be described as a biography inspired by my teenage-years but written from other peoples points of view as a reflection on the relationship they had to this teenage-girl. It's very much a fiction however, with few resembles from actual reality. I only have about 20 chapters planned which might be a bit short as I'm currently trying to write one chapter every day and that will probably not reach 50.000, but I'm sure I will figure something out along the road. And it's not like this is going to be published or anything, so it is totally okay if it falls short.
Good luck to everyone that's writing this month!
Inktober
13.10.17
Australia booked
Baby Blanket - update
12.9.17
Going home from Art Class
Guess what. I didn't get thrown out.
The class was a little bit awkward, because out of nine students only three showed up, including me. But we might get to join with an earlier group, so that there will be a little bit more lively.
This evening we only worked with charcoal, which I haven't touched in ages. Was messy and fun trying to just focus on colour values and not so much the end result.
I will now end the evening with some tea and working on the baby blanket.
Heading to Art Class
For the first time since high school I'm heading back to a painting class. I've done lots of art studies after high school, but this is the first time I'll be in a classroom where you'll get help and feedback from a teacher, which I hope will teach me stuff that I probably forgot during the years when I didn't paint.
I'm hoping to improve my colour theory/colour mixing, blending technics and finally to just get inspiration and force myself to paint more often. Without practice one does not improve.
Heading to this class I'm having lots of anxiety. What if I don't have the right supplies, what if the others are better, what if I get tossed out for not being good enough. You know, the usual panics when we try something new... I'll get back with an update telling you all about how they tossed me out on the raining streets and how the tram didn't let me on because my paint stained clothes made me look like a hobo.
10.9.17
Baby blanket
The best party
I'm on my way home after a wonderful weekend in Stockholm. First on Friday was a crayfish party, a Swedish specialty, with lots of relatives. It was nice with lots of loud singing.
On Saturday was a full day of party at Linnéa's, celebrating her big birthday. We were welcomed by big balloons with horses on them, a fitting theme indeed. It was an absolutely wonderful day, filled with tasty food, wine, boardgames and good friends.
A little bittersweet as it made me miss having that kind of social life. Gothenburg is rather lonely and during my time there I haven't really had people over for boardgames or days of fun.
Sunday was a calmer day, with drop coffee and ice cream in the park before Rhys, the kitties and I had to start our journeys home.
7.9.17
Magical Birthday
I recently had the honors of having my Birthday. The day itself wasn't much to brag about, as it was just me, the kitties and Ben&Jerrys. But I had an amazing weekend to make up for that.
When I arrived the day after to Stockholm I got pancake dinner and a frozen chocolate mousse cake, accompanied by birthday singing from my parents.
At 5 AM on Friday I had to drag myself to the airport and to London, with a new found cold. But the day got a lot better when meeting up with Rhys, who had stolen cookies from Ben just for me. We left the airport, had lunch at out favorite Lebanese place Comptoir Libanais before checking in at this hotel where we got to choose between two different room. One had a big bed and the other had smaller bed but a shower in the room. We chose the shower, and I'm so sad for not having a picture of this room as it was rather funny looking with a freestanding shower in a corner of the room.
After a few cookies and some rest it was time for a big adventure that I had no clue about what it could be. Rhys kept on giving me clues, laughing a bit at my slow mathskills, as we headed out of the city center. I got the theme quite quickly, but had no idea what activity it could be with said theme. It's an understatement to say that I got excited when we arrived to the adventure. Warner Bros Studio Tour of the Harry Potter set. Holy smoly was it a fantastic day, fever aside. I remember being told in the beginning of things that would appear, but I forgot them quickly and every time I turned a corner I was amazed. We walked around for 6 hours and I filled my phone with photos and a few silly videos showing me displaying some behavior society might not seem fit of a 29 year old woman. However, I will restrain myself from sharing these things here, as I know of a certain someone reading this blog might want to experience this magical adventure for herself.
Thank you sweetie for this wonderful surprise <3 p="">
On the Saturday we started out a bit slow, perhaps it had something to do with me having a rather big cold. But after popping some paracetamol combined with caffeine we could get some adventures done. We decided very spontaneous to go and watch King Lear at the Globe which was really nice even though I didn't understand everything right away (someone had to explain a lot during the break). After the theater we went out for dinner, sadly not the Wine cellar bar we had planned and someone was filled with paracetamol. Instead we went to Pizza East in Portobello (it is so much better than the Shoreditch one) and had a lovely pizza night, so much yummy.
Sunday was a calm day mostly spent at Lush, whoops I might have bought some make up, and at Foyles, a wonderful and huge bookstore. We had a quick Meze platter at Comptoir Libanais before heading out to the airport.
And that's how my last 20-something birthday was celebrated. I've now started the countdown for the big birthday next year. Not stressed out about turning 30, but more stressed out by my 30-before-30-list of which I've only completed 10 task over the years I've had this list. But heck. I think I should be able to complete it all in the next 300-something days that are left.3>
28.8.17
Halfway
Woho, I have finished the backside of my knitted sweater. I have hopes of finishing the whole sweater before the end of the year.
This little thing is part of my 30 before 30 list, which I have 1 year left on and more than half of it left to finish, I'm good with procrastinating.
27.8.17
Project 333 / Capsule Wardrobe - The Purge
Yes, I'm a dork and proud of it