The day I met Stephen Chbosky

So, let's just not talk about the fact that I haven't blogged at all for like a month and just focus on the fact that I met Stephen Chbosky.

For those of you that may not know, Stephen Chbosky is the author of the novel "The Perks of Being a Wallflower", he also wrote the screenplay for the movie and directed it, and he wrote the screenplay for "Rent"(which I love, love, love), and since April 2nd, 2014 he is one of my favorite humans on earth.

This story starts on April 1st (April's fool) when my husband got an email from his University that said he would be on campus that Wednesday giving a talk and signing books. And my husband just said it like it was the most unimpressive news of all time....

"Today I read a lot of things for my paper, and I think the guy that wrote "The Perks of being a Wallflower" is going to be here and on Friday I'm playing tennis with my friend..." he said
"...What did you say?"
"...mmm... What?" He looked confused
"We are going to meet him. You are taking me to that."
"Okay, sure."

So, Wednesday comes around, we go to the place where he is going to talk, and is so full of people! at least 300 people. In a tiny auditorium.

So, he comes in, right on time (that's a plus for me, always), and he talks about his life, he makes jokes, he answered questions and he is just perfect. He really is.

Here is a list of things I learned about him that made me love him even more:

1. He goes to Target all the time :)
2. He watches the Kardashians and knows all the names (Of which he is ashamed hahah)
3. The tunnel scene was his favorite to film.
4. He casted Emma Watson before he finished the screenplay
5. He casted Mae Whitman because he likes Arrested Development (Her...?)
6. When he talked about Logan Lerman auditioning he said: Who would have thunk it, right? Percy Jackson!
7. He also told us how would he end the sequel IF he ever wrote one. Which is so sweet I can't even handle...

After, the talk and the Q&A we waited in line for over 2 hours! but we made it! :) He was super nice and friendly and just one of the most approachable person ever! Of course he is famous and rich and lives in Hollywood, so you'd think he would act differently. He is just lovely! and funny! and nice! and... and.. and... I loved him :) I'm so happy I got to meet him and heard him talk :) 

Also, can we just talk about how AWESOME his inscription is?!

I love snow, do you?

The sun has come out a couple of times now in the last few days, for my husband that means he can go outside with less layers of clothes, for my friends it means we can get together more often, for the world it means Spring it's on its way... For me it means saying good bye to the snow...

That actually makes me sad.... I love cold days (when you can stay inside, of course), I love the feeling that I can stay in my bed a few extra minutes to enjoy the warmth of it, I love the fact that when I'm finally ready to come out of my bed, a beautiful scenary is waitng for me, I'll look outside my window and see everything is covered in white. I love watching snow fall, I enjoy watching it float in the winter's sky.... But winter is coming to an end soon, and I'll have to say good bye to those magical mornings when you could see nothing but fresh fallen snow. Little did I know I would have one last magical morning to enjoy. As if the snow knew we needed one last time to say good bye. So, on a beautiful, sunny morning in the middle of march, we said our good byes.

My mom is visiting us for a couple of weeks and I'm so happy she got to see snow!!

Bye, Snow! See you next winter! :)

Yummy Oatmeal Cookies!!

I disappeared again!! I'm so bad at keeping my resolutions.... but I'm back!! That's something, right??

I baked some more yummy stuff :) I was invited to my friend's house the other day to have Afternoon Tea! so, I decided to bake some cookies to take with me.

Yummy Oatmeal Cookies!!

3/4 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
3 cups rolled oats (I just use Quick Oats because that's what I have around but rolled oats have better texture)

First things first! Always preheat the oven before you start, this time preheat it at 375 degrees F.

Then, put the butter (at room temperature) and both sugars and put them in a large bowl, beat them with a hand mixer until they are throughly combined. Add the eggs, one at the time, and the vanilla.

After that just add the flour, baking powder and baking soda and combine. If you do this in two batches you might find it easier to do so.

Last but not least, add the oats one cup at the time. Since this mixture is so dry, each cup of oats will be harder to add to the mix than the last, but just keep at it! You can do it!
You can also add just 2 cups of oats if you prefer, I do 3 because I like it with lots of oats in them!

Once the cookie mix is done, grab a cookie sheet and spread some butter on it and then a thin layer of flour on top. That's just the way I do it, you can do your own method here, the important bit here is to make sure the cookies won't stick to the cookie sheet.

With a 1/2 tbsp measuring spoon scoop some cookie mix from the bowl, then with your hand roll them to a ball, place it on the cookie sheet and flatten it just a bit. Keep scooping and moulding until the sheet is full, place the cookies two inches apart from each other.

It's time to put them in the oven!
Bake them for 8 to 10 minutes, until they're golden on the bottom, just lift one with a spatula to make sure. Let them cool for a bit before you take them from the cookie sheet so they won't break.

Scoop more mixture and repeat until you have bake it all! or you can freeze whatever you feel like you want to save for another day.

This recipe will be enough to make around 48 cookies on a good day!

You can also scoop the cookie mix with a tablespoon to make them bigger, with a teaspoon to make them smaller, or make them the size you prefer!

Hope you like this recipe!

See you soon! (I promise :P)

Bye Bye~!!

Banana Cupcakes!!

Hello~~!!

I got sick last week. Just a plain, old, boring cold. But I was in bed for a whole week!!

Now that I'm back on my feet (and my energy is back too) I couldn't wait to bake something! and since I had a couple of ripe bananas, this recipe was perfect!

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 stick of butter, softened
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup sour cream
2 ripe bananas, peeled and mashed
3/4 cup chopped walnuts


Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (or 180 celsius) and line a 12 cup cupcake tin with paper cupcake liners.

First, In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking power, baking soda and salt. You can use a small whisk to combine thoroughly. Set aside for now.

Then, in a large bowl, add the butter and granulated sugar and with a handheld mixer (Or any type you prefer) beat until combined. Next, add the sour cream and vanilla (In the picture I used vanilla powder, that I got as a present, but you can use vanilla extract).

Add the eggs one at the time.

Incorporate the first mixture to this bowl in two batches and combine thoroughly each time.

And now, being careful not to over-mix, add the bananas and the chopped walnuts. (If you have a peaky eater in your house like my husband is, you can skip the walnuts or just add them to half the mixture like I did)

Now, it's time to fill the cupcakes liners! For this I love using an ice cream scoop but you can use whatever is more comfortable.

Just fill them 3/4 of the way full.

Bake them for 20 minutes or until the tops are golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cupcake comes out clean.

The cupcakes will be to soft to remove from the tin, so just let them cool in there for a few minutes.

I love these cupcakes without any frosting but you can use any frosting you want. I'd recommend something with a light flavor so you can taste the banana in the cupcake. And you can decorate them with some banana slices on top of the frosting!

And once they've cooled down you can enjoy a cupcake with a nice cup of tea, and I get to celebrate that my cold is gone! yay~!

Let me know if you try this recipe and if you like it! See you next time!

Lights On!!

Hello!!

Hey, Internet, are you proud of me?? I've come back at the time I said I would!! *Pat my own shoulder* :)!

On today's episode of "Improving our home bit by bit" I present "Putting lights on my closet".

Here's a picture of my closet, which I absolutely love to pieces!!. It's big enough for all my things and then some, and I love the fact that it's a walk-in. I also love the fact that my husband has another one just for himself, which means this one it's all for me~~!! yay~!! :D

What I hate it's that there's no light inside of it... which becomes a daily struggle because that's where I do my makeup. And, as you may know, doing your makeup on the dark it's never fun.

Lucky for me, I had a set of lights I had bought around Christmas time (On Sale if I may add *Pats on shoulder again*) that were going around my house. I had bought them specifically for a craft project that you can see on the picture below.

I did finish this project a while back but never fell in love with it after it was done, plus it was a real pain trying to hang it up on the wall 'cause it was sooo heavy! So, the lights were never used again.

So I thought "I might as well used them in my closet, then!"

I know it's not the fanciest of light fixtures but I quite like the way it looks, it does it's purpose and it makes my husband jealous because unlike him, I can actually see what I'm looking from my closet at night time hehehe... so, mission accomplished :)   

See you again soon, Internet!!

Bye-Bye~

Hello there, Internet!

This is my first offiial post on this blog! I'm excited! are you? no? I'll just keep writting...
One the things that I was really excited about 2014 was that I realy wanted to start a blog. I was suppose to start writting on January 1st.... well, that didn't happen.... what a fail to start the year with huh? I'll try to do better from now on, promise :)

So, first things first, English is not my firts language, unfortunately. I do love it though, that's one of the reasons I'm writting this blog in it, some other reasons include the fact that I'm now living in the US so I kinda need to practice any way that I can. And since all of my English studies include years of  "basic" English in school, reading tons and tons of books, watching movies and TV shows, and listen to music, I'm bound to get things wrong sometimes, or maybe most of the time, grammatically and using all kind of words I haven't really used before. I apologize for all the mistake I'll make in the future, but to learn you have to practice right?

Secondly, (I have no idea if I used that word corrctly haha) what is this blog going to be about you ask?? Well, everything and nothing at the same time :) I do a lot of stuff an then at the same time I do noting at all, so I tought I would write about that! I have a lot of different interests and I don't have a job so I have a lot of time in my hands :)
So you should expect to see a lot of me learning to take awesome photographs, DIY crafts projects, sewing projects, mentions and/or reviews of all the books, movies and TV shows that I watch (told you I have a lot of free time in my hands), a lot of baking and decoratiing (I'm a baker by the way, so yeah, expect a lot of recipes and stuff...), reflexions about things that are going on in my life, thoughts about life and funny things like that. So, yeah... a lot about nothing really, but I hope you find interesting and/or amusing.

And, that's it I think :) Hopefully I'll write again soon!!

Bye-Bye!

Hello!!