kreutzmarie

Why do I always end up baking scones, pies, cookies, and other assorted sweets at weird hours of the night? Anyways, tonight's project:

Earl Grey Shortbread Cookies

( Oh, look, tea leaves have somehow fallen into my food processor... )

The 'log' of dough is currently doing its 30 minutes in my fridge. I'll post a pic of the finished cookies later on. If there are any left to photograph.

I'm using Tazo Earl Grey (from the nifty nylon mesh bags they have at Starbucks. Friends are awesome.), but really want to give it another try later on with some Republic of Tea Cinnamon Plum that I have stashed in my pantry.

ETA:

Okay, these cookies are amazing. Tazo has a rep for being quite strongly flavored, so the Earl Grey-ness is quite prominent.

Also, I'd suggest grinding the tea leaves separately, and quite fine, before chucking them into the dry ingredients. The food processor just can't get them down fine enough amidst all of the flour, so you're left with a few larger bits that randomly go 'crunch' when you bite into the cookie. Not good times. And the recipe only makes 2 dozen. Sad day.

( They're really pretty to look at, too. )

Go forth and bake, my friends!!

OMG, the apartment smells like shortbread and Earl Grey. I want to bottle this smell. Hardcore. *sniffs some more*

Happy Birthday, strangevisitor7 !!!



1. 74.365 - Party Time!, 2. Untitled, 3. Poker Night in the Library (Explore), 4. people who take a nap. #1

Killing a little time before I crash for the evening. Genked from gritsinmisery :

Your result for The 3 Variable Funny Test...

the Wit

Take The 3 Variable Funny Test at HelloQuizzy

I guess that's pretty accurate. I do have a bit of a dark sense of humor, but OTOH, I AM the one who actually pulls pranks when motivated...such as one back in high school that involved a friend's car's door handles and some extra crunchy peanut butter... Also, I don't like The Office.

I wish I didn't have to teach in the morning. *pout*

It's a rainy Sunday afternoon (yay!) and I don't have anything pressing or urgent to do, so meme time it is:

 

( Pop Culture Archetypal Personality Quiz )

</div>
The only thing that makes me go "Ummm...no." is the last paragraph.

Anyways, water's boiling!

*edit*  Russian Rosetta Stone finished installing!!! *bounces around* Yeah, I'm kindof obsessed with my ideas for doctoral work in Russian musical literature. And by 'kindof' I mean 'completely'. Doesn't help that I've had a bit of a thing for Russia and its culture since 5th grade. *g*

Here are the rules:

1. Comment to this and I will give you 3 people.
2. Label which you would marry, shag, and throw off a cliff.
3. Provide pictures of the 3 people.
4. Post this meme with your answers.

strangevisitor7  gave me Dean Winchester, Cap'n Jack Harkness, and the Tenth Doctor:

( Marry )

( Shag )

( Cliff )

I kept getting distracted during my search for pictures of the pretties. This meme ate a couple hours of my life. *headdesk*

( Original recipe )
___________

FYI - Any form of milk works. It just depends on how heavy you want them to be. I've used anything from heavy whipping cream to skim extra (I had nothing else available. So sue me.), so that's up to your own judgment. Sugar is variable as well. Also, I tend to use a bit more cream than it asks for, otherwise they end up a bit on the dry side for my liking. Have fun and experiment!

For starters, here are the ways I've tweaked the ingredients (use common sense for what was replaced):

( Lemon-Blueberry )
_____

( Double Chocolate )

It's now 4 am and I just had one of the most hilarious round-about compliments ever.

I sent my roommate (who was out clubbing) a text message saying "It's 2:30 am. Why the hell am I baking?"

My scones (I'm drinking tea. It was the only logical choice.) hadn't been out of the oven for 10 minutes when he and two other guys walked into the apartment demanding 'the goods'. Apparently Brad has been bragging about the food that appears in our kitchen, so when they saw that the kitchen light was on, Brad's two friends told him "We're coming in! We want baked goods, bitch!"

Our apartment has been declared an official stop for post-Martha's Vineyard nights, so now I'm the official baker for half of the club's drag queens. *sigh* How ever shall I cope?

Jenked from xebgoc :

I would like to know 33 things about you. It doesn't matter if we never talk or if we already know everything about each other.

Short and sweet is fine...

1. Can you cook?
2. What was your dream growing up?
3. What talent do you wish you had?
4. Favourite place?
5. Favourite vegetable?
6. What was the last book you read?
7. What zodiac sign are you ?
8. Any Tattoos and/or Piercings?
9. Worst Habit?
10. Do we know each other outside of lj?
11. What is your favourite sport?
12. Negative or Optimistic attitude?
13. What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator with me?
14. Worst thing to ever happen to you?
15. Tell me one weird fact about you:
16. Do you have any pets?
17. Do you know how to do the Macarena?
18. What time is it where you are now?
19. Do you think clowns are cute or scary?
20. If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be?
21. Would you be my crime partner or my conscience?
22. What colour eyes do you have?
23. Ever been arrested?
24. Bottle or Draft?
25. If you won $10,000 dollars today, what would you do with it?
26. What kind of bubble gum do you prefer to chew?
27. What 's your favourite bar to hang at?
28. Do you believe in ghosts?
29. Favourite thing to do in your spare time?
30. Do you swear a lot?
31. Biggest pet peeve?
32. In one word, how would you describe yourself?
33. Will you repost this so I can fill it out and do the same for you?

It's only the first Sunday and I have already:

Steam-cleaned our front rooms, gone to 2 "Let's drink ourselves into oblivion!" parties, figured out how we need to fix the drier, and taken Arthur in to be adjusted.

Due to my first hangover in 3 years, I've decided alcohol will be out of the question for the rest of break. We'll see how that goes.

I rediscovered my henna stash up in the freezer when rummaging around for lunch, so I've spent the past hour doodling around on my feet while watching Graham Norton. The stuff curls around to my heel on the outsides of my feet, too.

( I have the anti-ADD )

Vinny has nearly died once already in the past fifteen minutes by pulling a "I love you, mom! *plop*" near my feet. I must remain vigilant. *shifty eyes*

If anyone has any movie or tv recommendations, this would be the time to throw them at me. I need something to replace my normal I-am-srs-musician time for the next 2-3 days. Knitting just ain't gonna cut it, folks.

*edit*

I found a torrent for The Tomorrow People (New Series) on thebox.bz! *happy dance* Yeah, I was one of THOSE 90s scifi kids.

Yoinked fromgritsinmisery :

BASICS
001. Name:
002. Birthday:
003. Place of residence:
004. What makes you happy:
005. What are you listening to now/have listened to last:
006. Do you read my LJ:
007. If you do, what is particularly good/bad about it:
008. An interesting fact about you:
009. Are you in love/have a crush at the moment:
010. Favourite place to be:
011. Favourite lyric:
012. Best time of the year:
013. Any pets?

RECOMMEND
001. A film:
002. A book:
003. A band, a song and an album:
004. A LJ friend you think I'd get along with:

PLUS
001. One thing you like about me:
002. Two things you like about yourself:
003. A picture of yourself! (optional, of course):
004. Put this in your LJ so I can tell you what I think of you.

I'm playing flute, piccolo, AND alto flute on our next Winds concert, so I've been walking into rehearsal carrying my auxiliary flute stand, 3 instruments, folder, and other implements for the past two weeks. The tubas and general low brass have been impressed.

Also, xebgoc  pointed me in the direction of some composer figurines. I need to acquire these so that I can take photos of them in various nefarious situations for my grad recital fliers next semester. Maybe an extra Beethoven to duct tape to our musicology prof's door. (his dissertation is over the Ninth's 4th movement)

My roommate decided to tell me today that he's bailing on being my ride to the municipal court building in the morning. My lil 'uns are coming through for me once again. And the unknown time I'm leaving court is making me a bit stressed.

( Why tomorrow sucks and I'm drinking tonight )

I'm performing the concerto Friday morning, then the finale from Francaix's Divertimento Saturday afternoon for the masterclass. Yeah, my teacher thinks I'm crazy.

In some "OMG you are INSANE" news, my piccolo player from orchestra missed rehearsal today due to hospitalization. She left a voicemail during my lesson stating that she'd been bitten 8 TIMES by a BROWN RECLUSE SPIDER two nights ago, but didn't realize what it was until she woke up this morning with each of the bites (4 on her neck, 3 chest, and 1 lip) having a tiny black dot in the middle where her FLESH WAS DYING. Her call (in tears) was asking for my opinion on whether she should come to rehearsal or not. *headdesk*

Anyways, I'm off to teach a lesson, work with my accompanist, and then go out for 1/2 off martinis and bar food. *cheers*

What does it say about my life that the highlight of my Valentine's Day was spending 2 hours at our recital hall recording myself?

Granted, it IS a very pretty recital hall:

( Clicky for pic. )

There's an organ console hidden over on the right and a grand piano over on the left. The two clarinetists on the right are two of my past lil' un's in Mu Phi. McPoofy-Head (blue shirt) was my duo partner for 3 1/2 years, too. This is one of the places I've been known to appear at 2am.

Anyways, the vodka's partly for celebrating a mostly well-done job tonight and partly to help my knee forget that I was standing and hobbling around on it for a good 4 hours today. If it wasn't for that and my neck, I probably could have done a couple more takes on two of my pieces.

( My car, for the curious. )

Why, yes, those are white tiger-print seat covers. 16th birthday present from my dad.

Anyways, I hope you all have had a good Valentine's Day. *hugs you all*

I was in a car wreck on Wednesday night. In the process of trying to not get rear-ended, I wound up rear-ending someone else.

Why the love of my insurance company?

1. I have a $250 deductible and my insurance is less than $80/month. (INVALUABLE to a po' grad student)

2. Even people at corporate are v. nice, and a guy is supposed to be here on Tues to give me an estimate and write a check to me.

3. Due to my sterling record, my wreck is being completely forgiven. They're not raising my insurance.

First off, the girl I hit (who's my age) is fine (although she apparently went to the hospital for tests, x-rays and such for her neck later on) and her rear bumper looks like someone walked up to it with a ball-peen hammer on one corner, so she only filed a claim for medical.

My grille's gone, my hood is crumpled up, my bumper's slightly mussed, and my radiator's cracked. My headlights are still peachy keen, engine is okay, and my car drives perfectly well. Also, I only got a ticket for the wreck (not even a CID) and the v. nice police officers didn't give me a ticket for my expired insurance card (for some reason, State Farm doesn't quite understand that my apartment is not my brother's home 100 miles away).

My only injuries are a really sore neck/shoulders and a messed up knee from getting slammed into my dashboard while standing on the brakes. Doesn't help that it's the one I hyper-extended in soccer back in the day.

Some of my friends made sure to haul me to their place and feed me booze (Smirnoff's pomegranate cosmo with sprite is AMAZING) until I didn't care about my pains and let me have the comfy couch to prop my leg up with ice. All the while we watched The Dresden Files and Bones. Goes to prove I corrupted raised my Mu Phi lil' un's correctly.

To top it off, I had a great orchestra concert last night. Now I'm just hoping that my recording session goes well tomorrow night.

My friends, I give you The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain performing the theme from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly:



Crazy-good interpretation.

It's so good that I'm laughing my ass off with tears streaming down my face.

The UPS Fairy came today and dropped off the $200 worth of sheet music (only 6 pieces) I ordered earlier this week. Thank god I can write it off on my taxes as school expenses.

It got even better when Dr. H said "Oh, hey go ahead and work up the last movement of the Francaix for the NFA (National Flute Association) masterclass competition. Recordings are due Feb. 1st." Sure. Learn the crazy-ass hard finale of a piece I just got a half hour ago in 2 weeks and memorize the rest of the 11-page Khachaturian concerto for another competition. Thanks Dr. H. *headdesk*

Also in the mail was the music for the all-collegiate group, so I can finally work on the music I have to perform in less than 2 weeks at state convention. Playing on two seperate concerts for the state Missouri Music Educators Association convention. Double trouble. *thumbs up*

Better news: Scholarship and GA money finally came in. I'm celebrating by going to the Drunken Monkeys meeting tonight. Yeah, I'm in a knitting group that meets at a local bar. So what of it? Which reminds me, I need to eat something before going to that. I kindof forgot to eat lunch. Heh. Funny how that happens.

I meant to mention something about the music I was listening to while posting this morning. This arrangement of And So It Goes took me by surprise the first time I heard it and ended up in tears. Not sobbing, mind you, but the kind where I came back to myself at the end of the piece and found my face was wet from tears.

Anyways, all 6 of these guys are from Concert Chorale (our top ensemble), and David, our chorister, is an AMAZING arranger.

This is my response to robling_t "What it's all about" post/challenge.

( Rearrange your atomic structure. )
Also, Republic of Tea's cinnamon plum black tea w/ milk and sugar is winter in a cup. Mmmm...

4.0 for the semester! I was worried about my paper for 600, but I ended up getting a 94 on it, which gave me an A for the class. Huge relief.

My old roomie squealed when I gave her her Christmas and birthday presents (an 8-cup french press and the chocolate beaded lace shawl). I got a Starbucks gift card and the Highlander: The Best of the Best dvd set. We went out with some other friends for sushi and drinks before migrating back up here for coffee. We finally have a 24/7 coffee house downtown, so we got there at 3AM and left around 6:30AM. Good times.

I'm making some mulled apple cider at the moment, simply because I'm craving it like burning. I think knitting and Highlander will accompany it. Maybe Being Human (hee! Icon! *points*) as well.

Spent 1-6:30pm today at the yarn shop. One of our regulars is a nurse in the nic-u at one of our city's hospital. She has taught 30 of her coworkers, including 3 doctors, how to knit. To help make sure the yarn store stays in business (the past 2 years have been rough with the economy) she asks them to meet her there for help with projects and stuff. Anyways, she has been knitting baby hats (non-pastel stuff) and keeping them stashed at the nic-u. Whenever a baby leaves the hospital, she sends a hat home with them. Unfortunately, several of the babies go home with foster parents.

Today, a bunch of us got together at the yarn store and had a baby hat knitting party. The girls' hats had a little flower sewn onto the side. I brought more snickerdoodles and one of the ladies had a pot of mulled cider. About 10ish of us (number varied as people came and went) knitted 25 hats to donate to the nic-u. The thought that these babies are left at the hospital with noone to love them, save the staff, kills me. That they can leave the hospital with a knitted hat that someone has taken the time to sit down and make, with them specifically in mind as a token of love, is the least we can do.

*applauds fellow knitters*