Cupcakes!

I found this recipe on BestRecipes.com and had a lot of people saying they want this recipe too, so thought I might share it on my blog seeing as it's a good place of record. They were definitely the best home-made cupcakes I've ever made from scratch. ^_^

(Cupcakes I baked for a baby-shower, take credit for the icing too =D)

Ingredients
1/2 cup custard powder
1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
3/4 cup caster sugar
125g butter, softened
3 eggs (I used 2)
1/4 cup milk (I accidentally put in about 1/2 but it made up for the egg I didn't put in)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (vanilla paste is good also)

Method - Line patty pans with paper cases (I used reasonably good sized cupcake cases in a muffin tray).
- Sift dry ingredients
- Combine all ingredients with electric mixer and beat until changed colour.
- Fill patty cases approximately 1/2-3/4 full with mixture.
- Bake at 180°C for 15-18 minutes or until skewer comes out clean.

And I also made about half the quantity of this recipe for Butter Cream Icing.


Ingredients
165 grams butter, softened
4 cups icing sugar
40 ml milk 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
4 drops of food colouring

Method
- Place butter in microwave for a few seconds if it is not very soft.
- In a medium bowl cream the butter, icing sugar and milk until it is light and fluffy. This may take up to 5 minutes.
- Add the vanilla and food colouring, and beat until well combined. Fill piping bag with icing, and decorate your creations.
- Any leftover icing will keep in a tightly closed container for a few days, simply melt it in the microwave before use, or let it reach room temperature on the kitchen bench.

Love is the movement.

"Hey Guys.

Each week, Lindsay from our team sends an email to the entire TWLOHA team. When we open this email, it's a time to reflect on some of the messages and emails that have come in over the last few days. Some of the messages are heavy and hard to read. Others are full of hope and encouragement. Life is both and everything in between.

Lindsay sends these messages to remind us of our mission, the heart of the matter. Each week, as we read the messages she includes, we're reminded where this started and we're reminded why we do what we do.

Today, "TWLOHA Day", is one that our team didn't come up with. We don't know a lot about it, to be honest - not sure where it came from or how it spread to so many people. But perhaps that's been true for much of our story - we've seen the best of passion and communication. We've seen people share and build something beautiful together.

With today in mind, i want to share one of the messages that Lindsay sent to us yesterday:

"My name is Taylor and I am 22 years old. I have been an addict for the past six years of my life and have been looking at getting into rehab for awhile now. I should be checking in sometime this week I am just waiting for my federal aid to come in. I wanted to thank you guys for doing what you do and being there. I haven't personally ever talked to anyone with your organization but my sister heard about it somehow. My sister is 18 years old and has never used a day in her life. Ever since I started using I haven't been there for her and we kind of live two completely seperate lives. We haven't gotten along. Today my sister picked me up from my house and said she had a surprise for me. We went and got love tattooed on our arms. She has never had a tattoo so this was a big step for her. She started crying, I haven't seen real emotion from my sister in a long long time. She told me what you guys were about and expressed what she has felt about my use and the way I have made her feel. I made a promise to her to stay clean, something I have never said to anyone. Every time I look down at my arm it will remind me of what a commitment my sister has made to me and to helping me stay clean. I just wanted to thank you guys for helping her understand and helping her accept me and not frown upon me. Your organization has really made an impact on both of our lives and I really wanted to express my gratitude."

Thank you so much for what you guys do everyday and what your organization will continue to do for so many people, you guys really do save lifes.

Thank you so much.

All the love and respect in the world."

If you decide to write the word "love" on your arm today, please remember the heart of the matter. The goals were never "cute" or "fashion". Our title, "to write love on her arms", was born as a goal and it remains a goal. We're inviting people to fight for their lives and for the lives of their friends. We're inviting people to believe better things.

If you want to help us spread the word about hope and help, we would be honored. If you want to tell people that they need other people, that every story matters - again, we would be honored. We say these things because we believe them to be true, and because too many people live alone under other lies.

Let's continue to fight to figure out what this word "love" means. Let's aim for how it looks and how it sounds - maybe something like humility and confidence and kindness, maybe honesty and compassion...

We're in all these things together. It's bigger than cute and louder than fashion.

Thanks always for your support.

You matter very much.

jamie and the entire TWLOHA team"

I think, what concerns me, is that probably more than half of the people wearing 'love' on their arms wasn't even aware what it was actually for. I have nothing against it, in fact I also wore love on my arm yesterday. My issue is that you should take a step back to look at something before deciding upon doing it.

I chose to write 'love' on my arm, because it reminded me that there are millions upon millions of people who probably don't get enough love. They NEED to be loved, to be rescued from their situation, to gather enough courage to change themselves, to have a positive outlook on their life.

It doesn't just stop after 13th of November, I think it is vitally important we continue to love those who feel like they aren't loved enough.

If you've got a spare couple of minutes, I don't think it'd go astray if you gave the story behind To Write Love On Her Arms a read. It might change your whole perspective of the word 'love'. http://www.twloha.com/vision/

Books

I currently have no employment or school work at the moment, so I've thought I might make a list of books to read before the end of the year is out. I'd rather be somewhat proactive than wasting time fiddling around with Facebook FarmVille trying to level up. Hahah.

Currently I have...

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L'engle
HP & the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Eragon by Christopher Paolini
Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Notebook by Nicholas Sparks
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Ps, I Love You by Ahern
What's So Amazing About Grace? by Phillip Yancey
The Rescue by Nicholas Sparks
Black by Ted Dekker

Any books you could suggest?

I will keep an update to check off books that I've read and possibly give reviews on each book as I go, so keep an eye on this page. ;)

Wake Me Up When Sept- wait...

September already?

Time has sure flown by since I blogged last, I honestly thought it wasn't that long ago. My life seems to change a fair bit even in the sparse of just four months.

Change is such a frightening thing, yet such a wonderful and amazing adventure that is life. To tell the honest truth I am glad to be where I am right here and now. To be in freedom again, with no university to worry about while I defer for a year, with the prospects of Elliott moving to Adelaide in a little over nine days and with my hair just a few inches longer.

With my newly found freedom I've had a lot more time to spend reading books (Time Quartet series by Madeleine L'engle), watching The Office season 2 and possibly start walking again.
I've also had more time for friends and family, which is a very positive bonus for me in my period of freedom. But it also means I am consuming just that little bit more of coffee weekly and digging into my parents pockets in this time I don't have a job.

I've dug up one of my old passions from home ec high school days, baking sweet things. In the past few weeks I have baked 2 batches of muffins (the first one was about 25), 2 batches of scones (with dates and the other with sultanas) and it's getting more progressive as the days roll on.

Being through all of this has made me come out a person with a more positive outlook on life, I know at times it won't be as easy, and even in this time of great change I have had struggle, but I will just persevere.

Two Thousand and Nine

Gosh, well I'm sorry for the American travels blog that got cut short. I guess I sort of ran out of time and was having too much fun in the states and then pretty much the day after I got home it was Christmas (quite literally, I rocked up at Adelaide aiport at around 8pm on Christmas Eve). So I was considerably tired on that Christmas day, although enjoyed being back to a familiar place again where I didn't get charged extra at the checkout, drive on the wrong side of the road or deal with a very different climate.

Nonetheless my time in America was excellent, my highlights were Orlando in Florida, where I spent a few days by myself just wandering through Disney World and Universal Studios and braving the biggest rollercoasters I've ever been on in my entire life. Before that I was in Alabama, in a pretty little city called Huntsville. I experienced foods of different varieties throughout my whole trip including Red Robin (massive burgers with a generous serving of chips that they refill for free if you eat them all :o), Outback Steakhouse (which was a hilarious experience for me btw) and various other take out places. My trip from Huntsville to Orlando couldn't have been any more nerve-wracking, with my flight to Atlanta that had to turn back to Huntsville half way through because of a storm in Atlanta, had to get my flight changed to leave from Huntsville to Washington DC (which is completely the opposite direction from Atlanta and Orlando) and then to Orlando from DC. It was a good adventure though, because at least I can say I've been to the city with the White House.. even though I spent approximately an hour there, only just enough time to find out how to get to my terminal (the airport was excessively huge, there was a train shuttle running between terminals!) and grab some food.

Anyway, so here I am back home and I think I'm ready to go back there again in winter of 2010 for a few months!

A lot has happened between now and then...

I started uni (Foundation Studies) at UniSA which has been quite a journey, I'm almost at half way mark and haven't dropped out yet (good sign). Seem to be getting along pretty well in my study, for a majority of my assignments I have been getting distinctions or credits (with the exception of a couple of high distinctions and one pass 1).

Over a month ago I started a relationship with a boy named Elliott from Queensland, after meeting him officially at Easterfest Music Festival in Toowoomba. Already I am planning to live in his town for a couple of months from August of this year and then hopefully he is moving here in Adelaide permanently as from December. So things with him have been coming along exellently.

Haven't been working since I quit my job at Brumby's before leaving for America late last year. It's been quite a challenge for me, surviving on the little amount of youth allowance I get. Infact, so small that it's not even worth budgeting for. But leaning towards some sort of employment before the year is out, just so I can start some sort of savings towards the future.

That's about as updated as I can get.

=]

Greetings From America!

It's now been my 11th day in the states and I am having the time of my life!

First I spent 4 days in Hawaii, where the weather was pure craziness. When I got there at 6:30am it was extra warm and humid, really gross overall. I was feeling fairly overwhelmed emotionally and physically. Just everything felt so weird coming straight from Adelaide where it had not even been one day since my Poppa had passed away, direct to Honolulu where I was all by myself and very tired. I spent the whole day wondering around in Ala Moana Centre whilst waiting for check-in time at my resort where I had left my luggage with the bell-boy. It had not even been three hours when I crashed extremely early for the night which inconviently lead me to awake at 4:30 in the AM.

Pretty much the whole of Saturday was soaked through with rain, so I decided to catch a bus to the Waikele Premium Outlets about an hour out of Honolulu. There wasn't a whole lot of fascinating stores there but I managed to buy two tshirts and a fresh water pearl earrings and necklace for a reasonable price. I spent another quiet night by myself that evening before crashing a bit later and getting up bright and early on a beautiful Sunday morn'.

I visited one of the New Hope Baptist Churches for the morning service. Spent a lovely afternoon talking to some friendly locals at the church lunch before a couple offered me a lift back to my resort. Meanwhile the whole weekend I had not gone swimming at some of the most beautiful beaches on earth (the jellyfish signs scared me), so I walked along the beach in the arvo and ended of the evening with a wonderous sunset as an encore.

The Monday was mostly spent packing and cleaning up, before then catching a shuttle bus to the airport and getting myself on my plane heading to Atlanta in Georgia on the mainland. The airflight had a little less turbulence than my flight from Sydney to Honolulu but it was still enough to keep me up all night. After getting off the plane bright and early in the AM in Atlanta I decided that I really and truly dislike flying on planes.

My first day in Atlanta consisted of mostly feeling of being a zombie and laughing hysterically at my friend Jeremy's jokes in the food court at Mall of Georgia and consuming Chik-fil-A. I crashed for three hours in the arvo, got up to have some dinner and then crashed for another 12 hours. It's evident that I was INSANELY exhausted and tired.

The next day Heather, Jeremy's girlfriend, came (she was staying the week too) and so we spent the day at CNN HQ food court (where I got to experience Taco Bell!) and the Georgia Aquarium. The Aquarium is just massive, I've never seen anything like it, the actual aquarium inside is the size of an American football field and there's hundreds of kinds of fish and all sea-life. From as little as a Seahorse to as big as a Whale Shark. I had an absolute ball.

The Thursday me, Heather and Jeremy's family went to his aunt and uncle's house north of Atlanta for Thanksgiving lunch. It was hmm.... interesting to say the least! Interesting in a good way. There I tried all kinds of traditional foods like Sweet Potato Casserole (which is now my favourite at the moment) and watched Jeremy's brother and dad play with rockets. Then in the evening me, Heather and Jeremy drover to Lake Lanier where they had the 'Magical Nights of Lights'. Basically thousands of Christmas light and decorations, it was uber pretty. Went to the little park fair at the end, rode on the ferris wheel and another fun ride and consumed some cooked marshmallows.

'Black Friday' was then there right at us like a hurricane. Black Friday is basically the day after Thanksgiving where all the stores and shops have huge sales and it's just utter madness, although we were lucky that it wasn't entirely busy because some people are starting to cut down over here. We drove and shopped a bit before getting my stuff and having a very entertaining and eventful drive to Columbus. We were supposed to meet my friend Josh who was picking me up in Lumpkin but there is NOTHING in Lumpkin. Like, you could blink and then literally you'll be passing the sign that says 'You are now leaving Lumpkin'. And Josh kinda got there super early, waaay before we even started driving there. So they decided on meeting in Columbus after hiking a bit in Lumpkin. Then we had to find where to meet in Columbus since it's quite a big place with sooo many fast food chain resturants. Josh and his friend decided on Sonic, but then there was our task of trying to find which Sonic since there was at least 10 in and around Columbus. So, fortunately for us Jeremy had a GPS. We turned down a random road to fill up on petrol and then discovered that it was the road that the Sonic Josh and his friend were at. We found them, had some dinner at Sonic (which has the weirdest park-and-order thingys) and I was off with Josh and his friend. I was very worried that we might get lost, seeing as it was night time, SO foggy and we turned down at least 3 or 4 wrong roads along the way. BUT we made it to Panama City (in Florida). YAY!

The weekend was spent mostly being lazy, eating traditional southern-style foods (which there are still leftovers of) and going to Josh's church.

Yesterday me and Josh enjoyed most of the day at Coconut Creek which has 2 putt putt courses with huge plastica animals and all sorts of interesting things and also a huge maze. He bet me at all of it. Which is the way it goes I suppose? :P Then we hung out at Panera Bread (which is a FANTASTIC little place, I wish we had them in Australia) and shopped a little bit. I bought a really nice woolen sweater from Aerostopale for around 20US$.

Today I've helped his older sister teach her 5th grade class. I talked to the class about Australia and they asked me hundreds of questions, including a few silly ones like "are there computers in Australia?" HAHA. Then me and Josh are supposed to be going back to Coconut Creek and then heading to Bonefish for dinner because it's Josh's birthday today. :)

Anyway that's about as much up-to-date I can think of and I hope to post again at the end of this week!

I Love You... Tomorrow.

It's only a day away!

Indeed, YES! Tomorrow I will be on a plane heading towards USA.

I have got much of my suitcase packed (hopefully not too much, I'm only allowed 20kg =\ ) and I have a few things left before I leave in the morning. Plans are to stay up all night, or at least most of it, and that way I still have plenty of time to do all things I need to do around here. Just like Christmas eve, excitement will most likely keep me up so I will have no problem in accomplishing that. But I know that by the time I get to the airport I will regret it SO MUCH. I CAN HAS COFFEE?

I have set up a blogging application on my iPhone, called Shozu, so blogging won't be a problem whilst being deprived of a computer while over there. Photos will be put up on my Facebook, for all of you who are my friend already, if not... you know what to do. ;)

I think that's all I need to say.

Wish me luck for my plane flights, I'm feeling considerably nervous about flying over the North/South Pacific Oceans!

<3