C is for COOKIES

C is for Cookie and I made enough for me :).

Well I have found I have had a bit of time on my hands due to one thing and another lately and I've had a craving for chocolate chip cookies for a long time now. Before you ask no I'm not pregnant I just don't get cookies very often :).

So I had a look at my limited supplies in my pantry and then had a look at my cookbook which didn't have the answers. Good old Google though helped me find a cookie recipe that fitted in with what i had available and I came up with 2 recipes that I have tried. One is for normal Sugar Cookies which I just added chocolate chips to and the other is for Brown Sugar Cookies, this was good as we had lots of brown sugar in the cupboard.

Thought I would share these with you :).

Sugar Cookies (This is the one I added Chocolate Chips to).
1 1/2 cups of butter softened.
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
5 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt.

• Put into a large bowl sugar and butter and cream them together until smooth. Beat in Eggs and Vanilla. Stir in the Flour, baking powder and salt. Cover and chill dough for at least 1 hour (or overnight).
  
• Preheat oven to 200 and put cookie dough in lots on baking paper.
  
• Cook for 6 - 8 minutes and then leave to cool. Depending on how you like your cookies. I like mine on the soft side in the middle so mine were in there towards the 6 min mark :).
  
• This recipe makes lots (Didn't count them sorry)

Brown Sugar Cookies
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 cup brown sugar (packed)
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
If you want spice cookies add in 2x teaspoons cinnamon, 1 teaspoon nutmeg and 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves (I did not add spices when I made them)

Preheat oven at 200
Mix butter, brown sugar and egg till smooth.
Add vanilla, baking powder and salt and mix.
Mix in flour in slowly so mixture doesn't go lumpy.
Add spices now if required.

Bake till light brown (10 - 12 mins)

I managed to get 14 cookies out of this recipe but this does depend on how big you like your cookies

Have made this recipe 2x this week and this is a photo of last cookie standing lol

My imagination and other such rubbish

Right so with the other Blog under way now I feel it's probably time to explain my little adventures here and there.

So here goes :)
Mostly I blog because it's my way of talking about whatever is going through my mind at the time.

In my little world of my blog I imagine people care what I have to say about stuff. They don't particularly care that my writing style is pretty much just me writing the first things that come into my head.
I do try and remember the things that I was taught in English but half the time I write what I think and how it would sound if I said it out loud. I realise sometimes this comes across as poor English but I'm OK with that :).

My little imagination runs away on me and likes to pretend I'm talking to the masses (which going by my stats for both blogs isn't that many people lol).
Now for those who know personally are probably having a good giggle at the bit about the masses. I don't do public speaking at all. i'll avoid it like the plague.
I get nervous talking to a room of 5 people when I'm doing training at work. I did horribly when it came to speeches at school. The content may of been OK but nerves kicked in and I'd rattle on at 90 mile a second, even if I'd timed a speech to the perfect time, standing up in front of people my speech would never be as long as it was meant to be.

I also get a bit of anxiety attacks so chances are I've run through 50 million scenarios about whats going to go wrong and how much of a idiot I'm going to look before I've even got anywhere near to opening my mouth :). So the chances of me actually speaking to a large group of people are pretty non existent as far as I'm concerned.

I guess what I'm trying to say is this little part of the internet for me is a way to voice my opinions about general rubbish that I am either going through or have a strong opinion about. I don't expect everyone to agree with half of what I have to say but it's nice to know people value you or at very least nosey enough to read it :).

Also with these little projects I have going it does seem to help with regards to work.
I work for a website company.I do the content entering and the training for our clients so they can update their websites themselves. I've found having my general play around with the likes of Blogger and Twitter and Facebook have helped with when clients ask about Social Media. Having used some of the products out there for this blog like Google Analytics has helped with regards to being able to answer questions and also occasionally pointing people in the right direction.

So that's it from me for the moment. I'm sure there'll be more stuff to write about shortly. I have a very vivid imagination and this space here lets it run wild with my ramblings which could be dangerous :).

What happens if you know them?

Pinterest has been a interesting topic in my household as of late.
I had thought about not posting about this but thought about what if I'm offending other people and thought I'd open the floor for discussion and get how everyone feels about it as I don't want to step on toes

Basically a week or so ago it was pointed out to me in a rather not nice email that I'd stolen Miss Midgets birthday cake idea off someone who I had considered a friend. They had obviously taken offence to it and told me so.

Now it wasn't as if I'd gone out of my to deliberately upset this person. I had thought everyone is sharing ideas on Pinterest then the ideas were for lack of better terminology fair game for anyone to try in the DIY section. Had I realised it was going to cause this much drama I probably would of thought twice about using it. To me it was a cool cake I'd found on Pinterest via a friends board and since I'm not a expert baker or anything and it looked simple enough I thought "well even I could do something like that".

So all this drama has got me thinking, how does everyone else feel about ideas and how they are shared and when is it good form to ask if it's ok to use the idea and when is it fair game?

To me and I've said this before Pinterest is a place for all your virtual cork boards where you can find these awesome ideas and share them with your friends and also with strangers.
How do you guys feel about someone you know using ideas that you found first?

For me if your following me on Pinterest and you like one of my ideas sweet then go for it. Use it and tell me how it turned out so when I eventually give it a go then I can either follow your example or learn from your mistakes.

To me if the ideas means a lot to me, I won't post it until after I have made it whether it be here, Facebook or on Pinterest.

On Pinterest's Etiquette page - http://pinterest.com/about/etiquette/

It mentions nothing about maybe asking people before using their ideas and at this stage you can't make boards for your use only and or block people from seeing your ideas. It's public or nothing at all. To me though why bother with a social networking site that is all about sharing ideas with people (hence the reason you can follow people and people can follow you) if your going to get upset if someone uses a idea? I don't understand but I have a feeling Social Network and Privacy are for another post.

Basically with this post I just want to gage everyones feelings on the subject to avoid making the same mistake twice.

I value my friendships and want to make sure I'm on the same page as the rest of my friends.

Miss Midgets Birthday Cake

People and their Opinions

So had a comment put on one of my pins on Pinterest today

"Bad language shows a lack of vocabulary and no class!"

I was a little gobsmacked by it. In my head I'm thinking "Thats fine lady, You can think that but why go to the effort to post it on my pin?" 
What did she really hope to achieve? That I was see the error of my potty mouth and take it down?


I thought about it for awhile and then posted along the lines "Thats fine that you think that, You are entitled to your opinion. Just like I am entitled to delete your comment. Have a nice day:)"

It really does baffle me why people choose to push their opinions on to others. I really don't get it. My picture wasn't harming anyone and in MY OPINION I found it quite funny. 
I'm also a bit surprised as I didn't think this sort of thing happened on Pinterest. I thought it was sort of a "You can take it or leave it thing". Didn't even think that someone would go to that much effort. Why not just go look at a pin of something else that you are interested in?

Oh well small rant over with :).
I'll leave you with one of my favourite sayings 

"Just because your offended, doesn't mean you're in the right"

Guess that works both ways though to huh, each to their own and so on :).

Quietly thinking

So have been thinking about my dear old blog here.

Am in two minds on whether "The Weeklies" should stay or not? Not sure if anyone actually reads them or not or whether its just me bleating on. In saying that this whole blog is really just me bleating on huh lol.

In all honesty the reason I have this thing is so I get thoughts out of my head and I guess pretend that I have a whole audience to talk to. Yes I can hear some of you now and I thank you family and friends that actually read this blog, It's nice to know people care enough to read it and support me :).

Again it comes back down to where to go from here though. I'm quite happy with writing down my random thoughts and opinions about things I find etc and I guess at the very least 30 of you are happy to read it (Well at least thats the average the stats are telling me. Random fact, the most read post on this blog was my one about "Dear Photograph". It has had 80 so far).

So what do you think? Any thoughts/suggestions. Likes or dislikes? Honesty is always welcome :).

Don't want to bore you

Ok so I'm not going to bore you with a "I'm a sook and I don't like winter" post. This will be my only whinge about the weather - It's been COLD!. Don't worry I knew winter was coming and it's not as if its a surprise but still don't like it  and yes I'll get over it :).


So things that have been happening? Well we're over our nasty tummy bug - YAY.
Miss Midget is pretty much back to normal with regards to eating and behavior. Still getting tired in the afternoons but thats to be expected I guess.
I haven't had a chance really to do anymore unpacking. There are some things that need to go up in the roof for storage before I can really carry on with it as some of the stuff waiting to be unpacked needs to live in the spare room which is quite full at the moment :).

So I swear there is a single bed in there......somewhere.

Other than that not a lot has been happening.
I did manage to have a nice conversation with one of the team behind Snap Guide the other day which was nice. They sent me a message just thanking me for my guides I'd and asked me if I was enjoying it.
Told them about my blog post I'd done at the start of the month and they were pretty stoked that I'd been with them pretty much since day one and had gone to a bit of effort for them :).

Have been working on a few birthday present ideas for a couple of mates. Hopefully have that sorted this week. Will post something after I've given the presents to them so as not to ruin the surprise :).


Alrighty. Will try and put The Weeklies out a little later tonight to :).


Have a good one :).

The Weeklies Number 4 (Technically Fortnightly)

This Week - 14/04/12 till 28/04/12
Well I don't know about you but I'm a tad tired. It's been a full on 2 weeks of fun with the V8's and moving house plus having work and Miss Midget.
My highlight of the week was - Definitely the V8's and INXS, as you saw from my previous post about my petrol head weekend we had lots of fun.
My low point of the week was - Packing boxes :( and Miss Midget getting a tad out of whack due to all the changes. Getting better though. having a quiet weekend to get a routine going now.


My favourite time wasting device or application was - Haven't really had a chance to time waste lately with everything thats been happening :(


My favourite website this week was - No stand out favourites this fortnight. Haven't had time to go exploring :(.
My favouritte article this fortnight goes to this beauty - Nanny Pam you'll love this one :)


My favourite song this week - Ok so I'm admitting to it I liked Carly Rae Jepsen's song "Call Me Baby", I got it stuck in my head and can't get it out :(


My favourite photo - This one was taken back March by our lovely childcare lady Nanny Pam. I stuck it on Instagram the other day and had a play with the filters and this is what I came up with. Pretty cool I thought :)

My favourite saying -
 

Things to look forward to in the week to come - Being able to get settled again properly. Yay to having space again :).

Well thats that. Done and dusted for another week :)


Feel free to tell me what you think, Anything you would recommend and stuff like that.

The Weeklies Number 3

This Week - 07/04/12 till 13/04/12

Well it's that time again.

My highlight of the week was - Playing with the Bubble Snake Maker with Miss Midget over the long weekend. Lots of fun seeing the different ways we could squish the bubbles. She seemed to enjoy when both myself and her would jump on one end of the bubbles each and squish them in our toes :).
Also car passing a warrant on Wednesday was pretty good

My low point of the week was - Trying to figure out when I'm moving and when I can give me car up and doing a over all juggling act.

My favourite time wasting device or application was - Still stuck on DragonVale. In saying that i have found it interesting to go back and check my guide on Snapguide and see how many likes and views I've had - 405 views and 57 people like the guide :).


My favourite website this week was - I actually haven't spent that much time on the internet this week. I haven't been home trawling the web like I normally would :).
This week I decided to pick Twitter. I have lots of fun on this site. Especially on Wednesday nights when watching Almighty Johnsons on TV3. This is fun for a few reason - 1) because if you use twitter right you can end up in a conversation with lots of people watching the same thing. It's like being with your mates, everyone quoting one liners from the show and just generally enjoying the show.
2) I follow some of the stars and the Producer/Director of the show as well as a few behind the scenes info which is really cool. You can end up in a conversation with them as well which is always funny to. My little buzz from a couple of weeks ago was when Simon Bennett (The Producer) started following me back :).

Ok I can hear you all now thinking "God your a geek" - Well yes I am and anyone who has spent anytime with me will know that I'm good with useless information and even more so  with useless information about TV and Movies so to have Simon following me is rather cool and to be able to repeat some of the info from the Almighty Johnson Twitter Sessions is pretty cool to lol.

My favourite song this week (New) - Babysittesr Circus - Everythings gonna be alright :) Click here to watch the video. It's such a awesome song and I really like the way they have done the video :) - The making of it is pretty cool to (click here to watch that)

My favourite photo -

I think this photo speaks for itsef :)

Saying of the week -

 Things to look forward to in the week to come (New) - So next weekend I'm heading down to Hamilton to the V8 Super Cars. Should be a good weekend. It's also a Miss Midget free weekend as she will be with her Nanny J so watch out Waikato :).
Oh and also INXS are playing as part of the weekends festivities so fully looking forward that as well :). Awesome cars, Good Music and fingers crossed for fine weather. Which brings me to Next Weeks "Weeklies" may either be early as in on Thursday or extremely late and on the Monday. We'll see how we go. We also having moving day in there somewhere. So if you don't hear from me don't worry I promise I'll be back at the very latest by the 27th (Could make the next "Weeklies" a one off "Fortnight-lies"

Well thats that. Done and dusted for another week :)

Feel free to tell me what you think, Anything you would recommend and stuff like that.

So will post something later on but till then have a good weekend :)

The Weeklies - Number 2

This Week - 31/03/12 till 06/04/12

Well it's that time again.

My highlight of the week was - Doing puzzles on my bed with Miss Midget. She's rather cleaver at doing them to and continuously surprises me when it comes to completing them :).

Also a added bonus this week of Friday being cleverly disguised as Saturday.

My low point of the week was - Waking up at 5:30am on Monday thinking it was close to get up time - Stupid daylights savings stuffing up my body clock and Miss Midgets

My favourite time wasting device or application was - Ok so I have been playing games this week, Favourite Games are DragonVale and Slotomania. will post links to them at some stage soon :).
My favourite website this week was - Ok so not so much the whole website (As I haven't had a chance to go through it properly yet but this section - Bad Baby Products is hilarious. I especially like the ChocoHead Edible Baby Helmet.
I have also stumbled upon this link which I think is rather hilarious I found these links through this blog

My favourite photo -

This photo is gorgeous. Another pinterest find.

This also leads me to wonder whether Blue Roses actually exist or whether people are just really good at photoshopping them :)

Saying of the week -

Well thats that. Done and dusted for another week :)

Feel free to tell me what you think, Anything you would recommend and stuff like that.

So will post something later on but till then have a good weekend :)

Ok so I'm getting carried away tonight

I know I've already posted a website tonight and I know I'll probably need to find another one by Friday but this site is pretty cool and appears to be my find of the weekend.
www.snapguide.com - This site I discovered on Saturday which I thought was handy as it'd give me the whole week to play with it, that is until I decided to post about it tonight :)

I was flicking through the Apple App Store featured apps yesterday on my phone and came across this, downloaded the app and then figured out it had a website from there.

It's pretty cool. Basically it's a place to find how to guides. So if you arts and crafts etc this could end up being the reference site for you. It works like this - You get your idea. Take photos step by step and then put the pictures and the steps in the website. Another simple yet pretty cool concept.

It to begin with reminded me a little of Pinterest but this doesn't take you through to the source website as all the instructions are right there. You can however link your "Guide" back to Pinterest and Twitter and Facebook which is pretty cool.

I was picking that its a pretty new site and read on just before that it only went live just over 24hrs ago so yeah as I said theres not a lot on there but this site in my opinion is going to be one to keep an eye on :).

So far I have found what looks like a really yummy recipe for cookies and cream cookies , Will keep you posted on any other gems I find :)

Dear Photograph

Ok so I know I have done my favourite website of the week and it's really to early to do it again for next week but oh what does it matter huh :).
I'm not sure if any of you remember this but I think I may of mentioned it last year or something.

This website Dear Photograph is awesome!!!.
Basically the concept goes like this. You pick a old photo from when you were little or an old photo of someone special and go to the same place that photo was taken and hold it up and take a photo of the photo, They then submit this photo to the website with a caption to go with it. Make sense?

I did it with a photo of Miss Midget a little while ago. I haven't gotten around to submitting it. I am hoping to print out a better photo of the one I used (My ink in my printer was going a bit funny as you can see).

Any way check it out. The guy who came up with this brilliant idea has a book of all of these coming out in May. It's a very cool concept and if they sell it in NZ I'll definitely be buying one :).

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The Weeklies - Number 1

This Week - 24/03/12 till 30/03/12

Welcome to the first of "The Weeklies" :)
So here we go :)

My highlight of the week was - Lying down with Miss Midget on her bed reading stories before bed was pretty cool this week. We are very lucky Missy enjoys reading and her books :).

My low point of the week was - Being exhausted wasn't fun. Almost fell asleep on the couch yesterday afternoon :(.

My favourite time wasting device or application was - Star View And Star View Free - awesome application and actually educational :). Basically it works by using your phone/ipod/ipad whatever as the telescope. You point it round the sky and it will tell you what the planets and stars are called. The paid for App shows a few more statelites and shows you the planets. I'm dying to take it camping with me as it shows you the constellations and things as well. Yes I know this app is very nerdy but it's pretty cool all the same lol.




My favourite website this week was - Stuff.co.nz - This is one of my favourite news sites. It is one of my must reads in the mornings. Normally scan the headlines, national news and entertainment sections. Have been reading the technology section to (Yeah I really am a big geek huh, this does explain rather a lot about my high school experience but thats a whole different story lol).

So go check it out. The Oddstuff section can be quite amusing to :).

My favourite photo -

I'm loving this photo at the moment. Yeah I know it was more for last week than it was this week (Yay for good weather this week).



Saying of the week - So my saying of this week has been :)

Well thats it. Feel free to tell me what you think, Anything you would recommend and stuff like that.

So will post something later on but till then have a good weekend :)

You can stick your opinion where............

OK So I'm going to try and not inundate you with my ramblings to much but this has been bugging me for a couple of months now so I thought I'd just put it out there :)

So as some of you may know I kind of disappeared from the World Wide Web for a little while (a least on a personal level).
Well during this time it was brought to my attention that some people thought I had a problem with social networking and an addiction.
Now to me this is absurd. While everyone is entitled to their own opinion on what is acceptable use of the Internet and I try and keep a open mind as to everyone's views on usage etc I am baffled as to why people would
A) think that and B) feel the need to comment on it.
So this blog post is for you (whomever you are. Drives me nuts I don't know as it means I have so called friends who don't have a enough guts to come and talk to me to my face).
OK yes in the past I have spent quite a bit of time on the Internet for work and out of boredom.
Yes the past few months I haven't been on so much partially because I have lost interest with updating people on my every move and partially I am hurt with regards to this opinion.
Let me fill you in on my situation and that might clarify things for you.
I work for a website company. I am on the computer at least 5hrs of every working day. If I feel the need to it's sometimes more depending on whether I have something of interest to look up or somethings happening.
My partner works for a company where he does shift work. 4 days on shift and 4 days off. During his 4 days on he works 2 day shifts and 2 night shifts, each shift is 12hrs long. So as you can imagine I spend a bit of time by myself.
I had been using Twitter and Facebook and Tumblr as a way of venting etc. I always tried to make sure that if I wasn't on the computer for work related and my daughter wanted to play with me that I did so. I always made and will continue to make sure all her needs where I can are met and will always take priority over the Internet.
To me social networking is a hobby. It's something to do that's interactive and can be fun to play with. Whether it be online games or a blog like this. It is also a way of me being able to have adult conversation when it is not always possible to leave my house or have people come visit.
It is also a way for me to keep up with whats happening with everyone and for my family and friends to see what is happening with me when they live over in Aussie or somewhere else in the world.

So thats basically it.

So to those of you out there that think or have thought I have a problem. You can stick it. You are obviously nosey enough to be reading my blog now and obviously follow me and my whereabouts on the Internet.

If you don't have enough guts to say to me you that you think I have a problem or even just talking to me about it then keep you opinions to yourself.

On that note. I hope everyone has had a good day and we'll catch you all again later :)