today. was rather fun!

i started the day spending an hour in school writing (no actually, typing) my letter to sharon. it's really nice and long and it LOOKS very pretty and hopefully sharon will not only like its neatness but also the content. :D

movie appreciation was... interesting!

then i went shopping for flour and caster sugar and baking powder and i went home and baked cookies from scratch on my own for the first time in my life.

it was an experience!- well i wanted to test the recipe i'd wanted to use tomorrow if i bake with aaron, and the result was :( my cookies taste flour-y!

what i've learnt from this baking-from-scratch experience:

1) precise-ness in measurements are very important.

like today, the reason my cookies taste flour-y is because i happily dumped a lot of butter into the mix, thinking more wouldn't do any harm. and i stupidly went to add 2 tablespoons of water some more. then my mixture was very watery and falling apart so i had to use a lot more flour than i was supposed to, resulting in my flour-y cookies.

2) never use a small sieve to sift 300g+ of flour.

it's crazy i tell you! my kitchen with its limited baking tools has this small sieve that was the biggest one i could find, sadly. so i thought, okay i'll use it, should be no problem! GUESS WHAT IT TOOK ME 20 MINS TO SIFT ALL THE FLOUR. only 300g+ and that was only half the recipe! can you imagine if i sift 700g!

3) don't trust every internet recipe.

this one turned out :(((

4) use a mixer if it's required and don't act smart and pretend you can be one.

my kitchen with its limited baking tools has no mixer so i tried pretend i was a very cool mixer on high speed and so i used all my arm muscles (which have mostly turned to fats) to cream the butter and sugar together. i think i didn't cream the mixture enough (as a mixer would have!) and so it was pretty watery. sigh.

5) i have no brilliant baking skills contrary to what you think, aaron.

cookie mix is still my best bet. (:

this thing turned out to be a total flop. now i have very pretty star-shaped cookies with a rather plain taste because i added too much flour!

6) cleaning up the kitchen is no easy task!

DON'T REMIND ME THAT I NEED TO CLEAN UP EEK. D: so sticky and messy and flour-y.

cookie mix is so much more clean.

still it was a good experience, and just now when daddy and mummy and me went shopping i actually bought more flour (because i used up most of what i bought today!); i want to try baking from scratch againnn! (:

next round i will try:

1) apple pie!

2) chocolate chip & nestum cookies (following my trusty school's recipe which was very good when i baked them last year in school)

(:

gym today was okay i guess.

one thing i've learnt about myself is that the more i'm scared of something, the more i must face up to it and practise it because only then can i conquer my fear and do it well. (:

like my backsomer!

the more i do it, the less scared i am of it.

and the more i don't mind going for gym. (:

today i'm happy to say that she was so much nicer than when she came last week. i have a feeling that last week thursday it was her first time seeing us and our routines that she was so appalled that she just kept at it.

but today i think she was a lot nicer.

she's not a bad person really. i think i'm starting to like her, a bit!

p.s. diane how's your grandma? i'm praying for her! (: