Putting Lessons to Good Use

I’ve been rather down lately. Not always and not dramatically – I’ve been through far worse. But I have noticed a continuing decline in my motivation, which is remarkably unhelpful right now. I am running two businesses, behind in what I need to do for both at the moment, behind in my volunteer work, my house needs a good clean…my laundry’s done and I had a full night’s sleep, that’s about all I’m caught up on. I’m still trying to get to my thesis, and several other summer projects. And I’m just…sluggish. It’s like being in drop sometimes. I know the cause, or at least some of the cause, and I made myself open up about that to the relevant parties and hopefully that will help.

But I also know that because my ‘to do’ list is so long that when I try to ‘big picture’ it and view everything, plan out my whole week, and then muck up one day, or even just try to get myself up and going because I have to get this stuff done today or the rest of my week will be rushed and awful…I overwhelm myself. Horribly. And then I want to crawl into bed and watch Breaking Bad and eat chips. Not good.

So after slipping into the indulgence cycle again, I’m pulling myself out of it. I made myself go for a walk last night, and that helped. I was tired when I got home and went to bed, and while I stayed in bed this morning too long, the full night’s sleep is a win. I prioritised Bible study better today, and I have got to start my day with that, my soul needs it, my mind needs it. I made sure I had coffee for work. And best of all, I have brought myself back to focusing on one thing at a time. That’s the whole point of a list, I don’t have to keep everything in my head, just the one thing I’m in the process of crossing off.

This has helped me feel less overwhelmed, and I am rewarding myself with reasonable rewards (not an entire season of Breaking Bad while eating chips and doing nothing else, for instance) whenever I finish one thing. And now I am cleaning my kitchen and going to bake up a storm. I have three recipes, minimum, I want to try to get done tonight. Four, if I can manage the freezer space. It’s part of my business, but it’s also a good stress release/meditation method for me. So my self-care currently looks like comfy clothes, several hours of baking, with 90s hits and a viewing of Space Jam – I don’t know why I am drawn to the 90s right now, but I’ve been craving it a fair bit lately. Might be a bit homesick, actually.

I need to do yoga today, I can feel my tension levels wreaking havoc on my back and shoulders (I actually experienced two back spasms this week, and that’s probably not a good sign). I need to eat real food, which is going to go in the oven while I mix up some cupcakes. I am in the process of drinking my water. And a shower. Heating up the apartment by having the oven on will actually help with that, because a cool shower afterward is wonderful.

I am attempting to achieve some balance. Last time I wrote, it was all about letting things go, and I swung that pendulum much too far and now need to get myself going properly. Another walk or something endorphin-inducing is probably in order too (not that, already tried that, to the point of making myself sore). I need to rearrange my priorities some too, I think. I’m struggling too much to get to what I need to do, and not getting to what I want to do long-term. So I’m making myself be accountable for my choices; choosing to lay in bed and watch TV is a choice, not that how I feel is not real or relevant, but I can watch TV and bake at the same time and actually take care of myself and cope with those emotions. I’ve also found that giving myself ‘a talking to’, scolding myself, reminding myself of everything I have to do, trying to essentially scare and/or stress myself into action is not helpful. I’ve been reading a bit on high-functioning anxiety, and while I don’t want to self-diagnose (read plenty on that too), I think I ought to at least heed some of the principles. Pressure, stress, fear…these things make me seek escape, usually in TV/movies or in naps, and it’s not a solution. So one thing at a time. Just that one. One step. Like Kimmy Schmidt says: “ten seconds at a time”.

I’ve been through worse, which means I can get through this. I can win this round. But I still have to give myself what I need to do it. And then actually do it. It still amazes me that there is this disconnect, and I see it in people I work with all the time, and at present quite vividly in myself. This disconnect where we seem to think that giving ourselves time means just chilling until we feel ready to do whatever needs doing. But that’s not entirely accurate. I have given myself time in some cases, but used that time to think something through, evaluate my emotions, allow my mind to adjust to the situation. I didn’t ignore the situation entirely and come back around when it felt ‘good’. It’s the same thing with playing piano – giving myself the time I need doesn’t mean not touching it ever, it means giving myself the practice time, so I can think, practice, explore, and learn. It’s the same thing here. I need time, but I need used time. I also need physical care, and to do the things that will help my mind, help me cope with the emotions rather than letting them dictate the rest of my life. My emotions are too easily influenced by circumstances to get to be in charge like that

Okay, enough rambling. I’ll just end with saying I hope everyone is well and that you all are giving yourselves what you need. You deserve it ❤

Everything I Have Learned About Sugar Cookies

Brief Intro:

I have a few things I’ve practiced baking/decorating a lot. And because it’s Christmastime, and sugar cookies have always been a staple of Christmas baking in my family, this is my gift to all of you lovely readers. My strategy for yummy and pretty sugar cookies.

I will not be one of those blogs that tells you the inane details of their day that no one cares about so you have to scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll until you finally get to the recipe you were searching for in Google and that puts all the ‘helpful tips’ scattered about in the 37 paragraphs above into a workable context. Logic shall win this day!

Recipes:

• 1 cup of butter (softened)
• 1.5 cups of granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 cups of flour + another 1-1.5 cups

1. Cream the butter and sugar together – you can do this with a mixer, but I prefer to soften my butter until it’s partially melted and then whisk the butter and sugar together.
2. Add the eggs one at a time, and then the vanilla.
3. Combine the dry ingredients, including the 3 cups of flour only, and then add to the wet ingredients and combine well. This is where a large, sturdy wooden spoon works best; I tend to use my hands for the last little bit of working. Mixer is fine if you have a fairly powerful one, because the cookie dough gets thick.
4. The dough is quite sticky at this point, particularly if you use the melted butter method. If you want quite cookies that expand and puff quite a bit in the oven, then chill the dough first, then you can roll it out on a floured counter and cut your cookies. Or:
5. If you prefer cookies that keep their shape (my preference) and spread minimally, then add another 1-1.5 cups of flour to your dough. It should be much less sticky, but not dry and crumbly. You don’t want to add so much flour that you end up with cracks when you roll it out. With this method you do not have to chill the dough, but still flour the counter.
6. Roll out the dough to desired thickness. I do fairly thick cookies unless I have a cutter that also makes impressions in the dough – then thick cookies don’t work so well. But otherwise, the commonly recommended 1/4″ thick cookies…no, thank you, ma’am. I’m not a fan of crunchy cookies, so I roll them thick (3/8″ roughly) and bake them carefully so they stay soft.
7. Bake the cookies at 350F. Baking time will vary based on elevation (I use this recipe in two different provinces, and it can shift up to 4 minutes) and thickness of cookies…so I can give you a range of approximately 8-14 minutes. Guess who doesn’t use a timer? Bake your cookies until they are done, and see Tips & Tricks below for more info.

Icing:

I have three different icings I use for sugar cookies: basic butter icing (which tastes the best, imho), glaze, and royal icing (I know, royal icing can be a pain and a disappointment, bear with me).

Butter Icing

For this, I use my wonderful KitchenAid mixer because it can whip icing like nobody’s business. Mix 1 cup of softened butter with 1 cup of icing sugar, then add a splash of vanilla, a tablespoon of milk, and another cup of icing sugar. Divide your icing and colour it as you please.

Then you get to mess with consistency. If you just want to spread it with a knife, then you may want to thin it out with a little more milk.

If you want to pipe it and keep its shape, then this should be about the right consistency for the icing to hold its shape. It will need to dry some to be stackable, and it will stay fairly soft, just fyi.

If you want to pipe nice, smooth lines (and have your icing be a little shiny) then I have had good results when I heat small amounts in the microwave for only 10 seconds at a time to avoid boiling the icing which will make it go rock hard and it becomes a useless mass. And then I put it in my piping bag, and ice until it cools off too much. It’s kind of messy, but it dries harder which is nice for stacking cookies.

Glaze

I started dipping the top of my cookies in glaze a few years ago, to give a nice, smooth layer of icing over which I could pipe (see picture above). The easiest way to make this glaze is icing sugar + milk, mixed together with a fork until it’s as thick as you’d like it. I like mine to be fairly thick (I like a good layer of icing), so it feels a little thicker than white glue. Then I dip the cookie in the icing, use my handy icing spatula to remove some of the excess, and then let the icing harden (I let it sit a solid hour or more) before piping on top. This is way faster than when I would do a layer of butter icing and then pipe on top.

Because I still like the taste of butter icing, I have made glaze with a little melted butter and vanilla mixed in. This glaze still hardens on top, but can stay soft underneath – which creates some logistical issues. If you want coloured glaze, I like this icing; for white glaze, skip the vanilla.

Royal Icing

Okay, I’m the first to admit, I’m not crazy about royal icing because it doesn’t taste like much. Butter icing is way better. So I in no way, shape, or form advocate using only royal icing unless you are making a gingerbread house that will not be eaten.

However.

This year, we had great results with this recipe from Sweetopia. Check out her tutorials on piping lines and dealing with icing consistency too, they were fantastic. I still do the above glaze, and then this icing worked great for piping, and hardened way more than the butter icing ever has. It doesn’t taste bad but I would never use it as a standalone icing. It hardens fast, fyi, so if you want to add sprinkles, sugar, or anything, do it right away.

Tips & Tricks:

1. When rolling out the dough, always roll from the middle to the edge, life is just easier that way.
2. If your dough becomes too dry, you can get away with working in a little water. But be aware that even this dough can become overworked and make a ‘tougher’ cookie.
3. Always, always, always flour a cutter that also makes impressions well so your cookie does not remain in the cutter. And if I’m not making any sense, I mean cutters like this.
4. Please make your life a happier one by lining your pans with parchment paper. Scraping the lovely cookies off of the &^%# @%$^#R%& ^%!*^&$@ pan is not a good time.
5. For soft cookies, I bake them until I can just see them browning around the base (about 12 minutes in the oven for thick cookies). If the tops start to brown, then that is the absolute longest I want to leave them in.
6. If you like crisp, crunchy cookies, no judgement; just bake them longer but do not change the oven temperature, and watch the tops as well as the base, as the base will likely brown faster than the tops.
7. Use butter not margarine in the cookies and the icing – margarine will make the cookies spread more, and your icing stay too soft to stack your cookies without them sticking a lot.
8. Icing spatulas are a gift from God.
9. I deal with icing consistency after colouring because I use the regular liquid food colouring (unless I need a really intense red or green, which I try to avoid because even gels can give the icing a weird taste) and for small amounts of icing that can already mess with the consistency and sometimes requires a correction of more icing sugar.
10. Sift your icing sugar. It’s a pain, but it’s less of a pain than dealing with lumpy icing that clogs your icing tips.
11. Use the saran wrap method of filling your icing bags. So much cleaner. If you are using a soft icing (like royal icing), line a small bowl with the piece of saran wrap, spoon your icing into it, then wrap and proceed as usual (the bowl keeps the icing from running all over the place while you wrap it).
12. Practice. Practice, practice, practice. Sometimes it’s nice to choose one or two cutters, make 4 dozen of them, and work on just a couple of designs. You can usually wipe piped icing off of a glazed cookie if you do it right away (with your finger works just fine, or a piece of paper towel), and start over. Or you can eat the evidence. Sometimes I need a break from eating my evidence, and then I resort to wiping and re-trying.
13. Freeze cookies that need to be stored longer than three days. Storing baking in the refrigerator will dry it out, but freezing cookies not only makes them last longer but can also help keep your butter icing looking nice.
14. For icing ideas, Pinterest. I work way better when I have a template in front of me, and I get pretty much all my ideas from Pinterest.
15. Sugar pearls are fantastic. Not hard little ball bearings like those silver things, they’re soft enough you can crush them between your thumb and forefinger. They are very pretty, and they just taste like…sugar.
16. Have milk on hand. Trust me on this.

 

Story of My Life as it Relates to Sugar Cookies for Those Still Reading:

I grew up baking these cookies with my Mom. Every year at Christmastime, we would bake two things for sure: sugar cookies and butter tarts. To this day, those are two of my most favourite things in the entire world.

Just getting out that same box of cookie cutters (Mom actually has this set of red cutters like the one I linked above, and I adore them even if they are tricky to use) and picking them up, the sight and feel of them triggering so many memories, is the most wonderful dose of Christmas spirit for me. I have my own cutters now too, but I still have to use at least a couple of my Mom’s.

I remember my Mom giving me and my siblings each a little ball of dough, and we’d select our cutters, and roll it out, make our cookies, being careful to flour everything from the little bowls of flour we were each assigned. I remember my brother knocking the ice cream pail of flour onto the floor one year too – which we always mention every time we bake these cookies. I remember icing them, in pink and green because we could never get the icing to quite go red.

And then somewhere during my university years I started working on my icing technique, and messing around with glazing them and using different icing tips, etc. I may have become mildly obsessed. Mom would wait to make sugar cookies, at least, until I could come home, and every year I’d try something a little different. I’d plan for weeks in advance usually, she and I coordinating ahead of time, and me leaving room to pack all of my decorating paraphernalia in my suitcase.

But the tradition has grown. One year my Dad’s wife asked for the recipe, and then asked me to bake them with her when I was out visiting. Since then it’s become a tradition to have a baking day there too. One year I even got my brother to help with cookies. His were zombies, but he was joining in on the tradition for the first time in years, and that was more than enough for me.

And now this year my sister-in-law is planning a baking day at her house. She and I first managed to bond over sugar cookies. We’ve had some rocky patches, nothing too horrible but holidays can be notably strained, so this baking day is already a little Christmas miracle that makes me so excited and hopeful that we can build a real friendship.

It’s not just the cookies. It’s being in that same kitchen I learned to make those cookies in. It’s the same house being filled with the smell of baking cookies, and listening to the same Christmas music as we bake and ice, it’s getting to spend time with the people I love. And getting to push myself and try new ideas. I cannot draw or paint or sculpt, but I can ice the daylights out of cookies.

So, I have had my baking weekend with my Mom (it’s morphed). I am looking forward to one, possibly two, more baking day with family back home. And I have a jug of milk and jar full of cookies, and Michael Buble and Twila Paris and Michael W. Smith, so my breakfasts over the next few weeks are going to be delightful.

 

Christmastime Is Here…

Oh boy, where to start…

My last ‘journal’ post was about how I’ve realised, thanks in large part to my significant other, that I have developed this horrible habit of using excuses to veer into self-pity for various reasons. This was a brutal realisation in many ways, although a markedly necessary one – see, I tend to hate excuses and self-pity and try to avoid both…and yet, here I am a recovering excuser and self-pitier.

That doesn’t mean that everything I’ve been saying/doing has been about excuses and self-pity. But I do go through phases of it where it’s more intense, regarding certain areas of my life. And this was, in fact, the key to that little indulgence vs. self love issue I was having. I would make excuses that would lead to indulgence; I would indulge in self-pity, rather than actually doing what I needed to do to deal with the things I didn’t like. This is such an insidious thought-pattern that I keep finding it attempting to creep back in; and thank God, I am learning to be more aware of such thought patterns and curb them early. So this is quite literally a ‘there but for the grace of God…’ situation. This doesn’t mean I don’t have real problems and real hurts either; it’s how I go about dealing with them. And I think for the moment that’s all I want to say about that.

I am much more productive overall now that I am aware of my excuses and can identify the self-pity attitudes. I am encouraged when I find I am more aware and not just carried along by these patterns of thinking; and my Dom has been a wonderful encouragement in this too. But. I am scared that I will slip. That I will fall back into it, that it will sneak up on me like it did before. I am scared that I will indulge one of those errant thoughts just a little too long before realising, and make a horrible mistake. I deeply hurt someone I care about very much because of this pattern of thinking, and I still am astounded that he chose to forgive me and that we’re good, but it was truly horrible knowing I’d hurt him like that the first time. I don’t know what I would do if did it again. And it’s one thing if I did it in full knowledge, but I feel like some of it was just…lack of awareness of the truth of the matter, and y’all ignorance is not bliss, it’s a recipe for disaster.

Stay in school, kids.

So I’m scared. And between yesterday and today I have been both randomly and not so randomly emotional (which I seriously hope is due to hormone fluctuations because that would explain a lot), which has been fun to deal with. My Dom has identified a key contributing factor, but I kind of suspect it’s a culmination of things.

I am getting better at dealing with people, and not being caught up in things that drain me, or at least not allowing the forced extroversion that is my life 6 days a week (lately 7) to suck all the ‘nice’ out of me. I am learning to take time for myself and say no to certain things and set more boundaries…much of this is in retrospect, but it’s like a day or two later not weeks or months later, so that’s progress. I am praying more, and finding it wonderfully effective. I am studying more, and enjoying it, and finding so many good things I will need several more posts to describe them all. Bible study has wrapped up for the year, resuming in January, so that’s lovely (although, they made us change groups and play an icebreaker game, which honestly, why? why do people still think this is a good idea? we are told to cultivate relationships and build trust and then you mix us up and have us spend 20 minutes doing one of the most hated activities of all time? is this a ploy to have us all bond over a common enemy? or a ‘misery loves company’ kinda deal?).

My Mom was wonderful this week, and she came over to help me get going on my Christmas decorations! So I finally have things going, my living room and kitchen are at least 50% done, my tree is up and lit, most decorations are sorted into the various areas of my apartment. I still have to deal with my bedroom and the spareroom and find my window stickers ASAP, but progress is being made! I have gotten to listen to a lot of Christmas music, which is also helping me pursue good thoughts, and unwind, and just take care of myself some more. My Mom and I baked a ton last weekend, so I have Christmas goodies too (need to have a baking post soon…). I got to wear my Santa hat all week, which is good because it’s cold and snowing!!!!!!!!!!!!! Which I also love, when I don’t have to drive in it. It was absolutely beautiful to wake up to the big fluffy flakes a few days ago, and then today everything is blanketed in white…

Almost made up for the very scary hill I nearly began sliding back down whilst in the motor vehicle that does not do well in slush. Good times.

I don’t exactly know what else to update people on. I’ve been avoiding writing because…I’m not sure. I think a lot of what’s going on in my head and my heart is tough to put into words, and I have to keep reminding myself the point of this blog was to not worry so much about being understood but to just write and process and get it out rather than bottling it in. Still very much in the middle of this learning curve, along with several others. I am having kind of a rough day between the emotionalness and now my Dom is unable to be in chat for the next few days (which is not his fault, it’s just circumstances, and I understand; it’s just hard when we want so much to share Christmassy things because this means a great deal to both of us, and I’m dealing with some melancholy there). The lights are pretty, and the music is lovely, and the snowstorm has not knocked out the power so I still have internet, and these are all things for which I am very thankful.

I still feel overwhelmed sometimes about how much I need to do and ought to do. But I am attempting to focus on finishing one thing, one single thing, each day, and that’s helped some. I’m still very behind, but I’m getting there. Slowly. And one more week of work now, and I’m done. A few days off, then a flight home to visit the rest of my family, and Christmas, and lots of good memories to be made, and I get to hug people I really miss hugging. I have a lot of good, so many bright spots, I get to look forward to.

See, gradually re-training my brain.

And now that I am pretty sure everyone else is asleep, as it is nearly three in the morning, I am going to head outside to make a snowman.