The Struggle is Real

{All day, every day}

Post-Spring Break Struggles. I could definitely write a book on that. Instead, I shall take the next fifteen minutes to ramble. 

Spring break is an amazing week, and I am utterly convinced I could not make it through an eighteen week semester without this one lovely chunk of time in the middle to take a break and decompress. HOWEVER, this is the end of my first week back at school, and I'm still struggling to get back into the swing of things with good study habits. It's kind of like running {for myself, at least, I don't know about all you professional runners out there...}. Once I start running, I like to continue running for the duration of whatever distance I have set myself because if I stop to take a walking break it is excruciatingly difficult to get the motivation to start running again. It's mostly a mental thing, I know. Isn't psychology interesting? 

So, here I am, trying to work up the motivation to run again. I definitely wanted to turn off my alarm this morning and curl back into my fluffy blankets without giving a thought to the quiz on Linear approximations, Differentials, and Hyperbolic functions, I had in calculus at 9am. Alas, I really do care about my grades, so I rolled out of bed, did some quick studying before leaving the house, then made my way over to school. 

This morning I was particularly unexcited about life because....

*Grumbles*

1) I did not feel prepared for the math quiz, and I hate feeling unprepared

2) I've been exhausted this entire week, and had a rather large sleep deficit this morning

3) I had to drive up to Santa Rosa, immediately after math class for something I thought was a waste of time and gas

4) Did I mention exhaustion? 

5-8) I was definitely sleepy and tired

As I was walking from my car to my classroom, my phone pinged with an email. It was the daily email that a friend of mine sends out with an encouraging Bible verse: "Behold, the Lord's hand is not so short that it cannot save; nor is His ear so dull that it cannot hear." (Isaiah 59:1) Reading this verse helped me to pause the whining voice I had going on in my head, calm down, and refocus. I said a quick prayer for alertness before sitting down to take the quiz, and I felt 1000x times better, just from this simple motion. 

*Blessings* 

1) I got 100% on the math quiz, which I really did not deserve because as I mentioned, my study habits have been lacking focus this week

2) The meeting I had in Santa Rosa was a much more profitable use of my time than I had anticipated AND I was able to make it on time because a car pulled out right in front of me before I had been looking more than two minutes for a parking spot. {Note: It can literally take forever to find a parking spot at the SRJC campus. This is huge.}

3) My Spanish class was exciting enough to keep me awake, and I ended up loving today's activities

4) I definitely got home and crashed. I usually don't nap... But when I do, it's for 2.5 hours.

So, my day went a million times better than it really ought to have gone, thank God {literally}. And I think I'll be able to get enough rest over this weekend to get back into the swing of things. No promises. 

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

• My room redecoration is almost completely finished! I am so close. I shall do a before/after post on it soon because I'm in love with my new set up. 

• I have decided to give up sugar for the remainder of Lent because I have not been feeling as healthy as I would like. So! I'll let you know how it goes. I'm already craving chocolate. This is the right decision, I just know it. Okay, so actually I just realized that this literally means I cannot have chocolate for over three weeks. WHAT HAVE I DONE. 

Ciao&Xx,

PS this took longer than 15 minutes to write

In Which Gluten-Free Cupcakes are Created {St. Patrick's Day Special}

{Step Two: Gather Ingredients}

I do believe that I promised a special post as soon as Ali and I baked gluten-free cupcakes {See Friendship on Monday, if you don't remember!}. So pin on your aprons, grab your raw, whole-milk, and don't get too concerned because my laptop battery is at 30% and it's 12:44 AM,  and I'm ready to wow you with my incredible baking prowess and then get some sleep.

Step One: Arrange Baking Date 
Obviously, the fun of baking is exponentially increased by doing it with a friend, especially when you're not the most competent baker in the world {me}, and really just need someone to make sure you don't put in tablespoons instead of teaspoons. As mentioned, Ali and I have been planning this gluten-free, cupcake baking extravaganza since February 23rd.

Step Two: Gather Ingredients 
I want the world to know that it is indeed more difficult to bake gluten-free red velvet cupcakes than regular cupcakes because the ingredients are just not as mainstream. Thankfully, Ali  and I managed to find all of the ingredients necessary without even a single grocery store run! We mixed almond flour and white rice flour, among other things...

Step Three: Mix Ingredients

This is where we really had fun. We definitely took turns measuring and pouring the ingredients in because, let's face it, it is SO much fun to push the flour off the measuring cup and make a perfectly level cup of flour, then pour the cup into a mixing bowl and watch the flour go *plop* in a perfect little circle. Everything was going smoothly, but then Ali told me to put in the butter. Now, I'm not entirely sure what she said, but my brain translated, "put in 3/4 of a cup of butter." I did this. As I began cutting the butter up inside the bowl, which already had flour and sugar and coco powder inside, Ali looked over and mentioned, "Wow, that does look like a lot of butter...." We then discovered that it was supposed to be *3/4 of a STICK of butter* which is half the amount that I had put it. Being the resourceful bakers that we are, we pulled out half of the butter, and washed it off for use in the frosting, later to come.

{Our poor, coco and sugar-coated butter}

{Butter-washing. It's a thing.}

Step Four: Make Sure Ingredients Are Actually Mixed 
So the thing is, I'm housesitting, so I don't know where every single baking utensil is in this house.... We couldn't find the plug ins for the electric mixer, and so our two separate bowls of red and green colored cupcake mixes were looking a mite butter-flecked, if you know what I mean. I mentioned the resourceful bakers? Ali and I improvised! And out of our improvisation I do believe we have actually invented the fine art of Butter-Mashing. We got down and dirty with that cupcake mix, and mashed.that.butter.

Butter-Mashing!}

{The fine art of....

 Step Five: Preheat the Oven because You Forgot to do this Earlier
The title of this step is basically this step. So enjoy the picture...

Step Six: Fill Cupcake Tins. Bake Cupcakes. 
Our green cupcake mix definitely looked a bit like some sort of alternative Kale-flavored mash, but we heroically carried on the operation and got our dozen cupcakes into the oven without further ado.

Step Seven: Make Cream Cheese Frosting 
It was at this point in our cupcake creating process that Ali and I discovered to our great amusement that we did NOT need the one cup of milk that Ali had told me to bring. To this very moment, no one knows why she told me to bring milk. It was extraneous.
Anyway, we pulled out the cream cheese from the refrigerator, rejoicing that we had not had to go out and buy cream cheese, we poured the powdered sugar on top of the frosting, when suddenly I exclaimed, "ALI! I don't think this is cream cheese...."

{This is Neufchatel Cheese. Not Cream Cheese. Oops.}

But can I really be blamed? Honestly. This box looks just like a cream cheese box. Unfortunately, it turns out that is in fact a cream cheese substitute. We made due, but are quite convinced our next frosting will taste more correct.







Step Eight: Pull Baked Cupcakes out of Oven and Cool in the Bathroom 
So, there are two very hungry dogs at the house I'm staying at. We decided to be safe and put the cupcakes in the bathroom with the door shut while they cooled off. I'm not saying this step is absolutely necessary. I'm just saying--it totally worked.

Step Nine: Frost Cupcakes. Take Pictures
We frosted those cupcakes with knives! They looked perhaps not quite as perfect as they could have looked. Our spirits undampened, we smiled with pride, and posed for a multitude of pictures, futuring *drumrollplease* Gluten-Free, Red {and green} Velvet Cupcakes!

Step Ten: Watch Copious Amounts of Television While Eating
Basically, we watched four and a half episodes of Call the Midwife, became addicted to the show {British TV, I tell you...}, ate two cupcakes each, consumed the milk that we hadn't used for baking purposes, drank two cups of tea, and each devoured a lime flavored popsicle.

Also, we took more pictures than I even put on this post, believe it or not. So enjoy one more picture of the two most competent, hipster, classy bakers you will ever find anywhere. Probably. Maybe not. I make no promises....

I hope you enjoyed the Cupcake Adventure. Go bake some right now. It will be worth it.

Xxx,

Hello, Spring Break

{Spring Break has begun! The weather is balmy, amazing, delicious} Well, guess what? This blog did not drop off the face of the earth forever. That's what. Take a moment to breathe that in. Perhaps perform a dance of rejoicing, or something... It really has been a while, but I think my crazy past two weeks are a pretty solid excuse of stressful, busy, stress-filled, hectic, {did I mention stress yet?} life. This is a perfect segue into a topic near and dear to my heart--stress. Of course. This is an emotion that I struggle with constantly, as I am constantly feeling pressure from one project or another, and becoming worried about it. My life can be pretty crazy at times, yes. But I have been coming to terms with the fact that I am prone to extreme stress because of the way I think and react to things. Part of my life, especially since starting junior college full-time, has been spent coming to terms with the fact that I do indeed get ridiculously stressed out about things. The last few weeks have been spent realizing that "stress" is actually something that I should not be "coming to terms" with. Stress is something that I should actually be getting rid of. Now, this certainly not one of those posts, where I talk about how people with crazy lives should trim down their schedules and make some ME time. No. There is a time and a place for such a post, but that's not what I'm driving at here. A dear friend of mine brought on this reflection, as she was reminding me that stress is worry. As a Christian, I'm supposed to be trusting in God--If I truly believe that He is in control of my life, than how and where does worry fit into the picture? I should not be embracing and coming to terms with stress in my life. I should be running to God in faith, trusting that He has a plan for me. If I have done my best with homework, my schedule, whatever it is that I feel concerned about, then I need to accept that I've done everything in *my* power, and allow myself to let go of the worry and feel God's peace. All of this is much easier to write about than to live out. That is 100% certifiably a fact of my life. But getting these thoughts organized is the first step to letting go of the stress. I have to say, spring break came just in time. One advantage of a crazy schedule however, is that when you get a break {such as spring break}, the extreme difference in emotions just feels amazing. After I finished my last midterm this past Wednesday, I felt like laughing the entire day. In fact {don't tell anyone}, I definitely burst into giggles for absolutely no reason in my car on the way home from school. The relief, excitement, and feeling that I could relax for the first time in fourteen days just completely overwhelmed me with joy. It's such an incredible feeling to be overwhelmed with joy. Anyway, Spring Break has started out propitiously. I'm looking forward to a week of dates with friends, many hours of movie watching, while vegetating on the couch, and also operation Redecorate Katherine's Room. I'm sure I'll do a post about the redecorating process if it goes well. That is a rather big "if" isn't it? I hope your weekend is absolutely wonderful! I have enough joy to share right now. So if you need some, I'll send you a bottle, Express Mail. Ciao&Xx, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." John 14:27