"I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers."

Thanksgiving has come and gone. 

Christian and Blythe came up for the occasion, and we hosted Thanksgiving at our house for the 2nd year in a row. 

Seventeen of us and a baby gathered at our house on Sunday.

The feast generally starts at 2 and we eat and complain about our bursting stomachs late into the evening until we begin to feel comfortable again and we bring it out for a second round -- the rational of this isn't very sound. 

It never seems to stop us.

Turkey and a full stomach, makes you groggy, but we always drag ourselves out for a walk in between dinner and dessert, when the kitchen and the dining room is somewhat orderly again. 

Mom and I were in charge of the dessert again this year -- lets just say we over estimated the ratio of desserts to people a little bit, so ziploc goodie bags full of their favourites was definitely encouraged!

It was a good time. 

Always a good time with family.

Refuse to be average. Let your heart soar as it will.

Every once in awhile a get a desire to write, 

something both deep and meaningful as well as short and aloof. 

A cheeky little story with minute details that don't seem to make any sense when just read point blank, 

but when dissected, mean everything.


I love to read stories like this too, stories that will send a chill down your spine, 

stories that you marvel at and never really, truly, understand what it is they mean,

but mean just the right thing in that moment. 


After that initial inspiration, the motivation never follows through. 

An idea or concept just does not seem to come into fruition,

and maybe it's the lack of those two things.


It's in these times I really miss English.

Where you regularly exercise this writing "muscle"

Where your given a topic, an image, or a concept and your told to run with it.


You would think straight away what the generic thing was to write,

And soon everyone was writing based around that,

but it only took a little bit of extra effort and imagination to take a seemingly insignificant detail,

and make it the main attraction.


Opening up the possibilities from something so straightforward,

making it blossom into something complex,

and making you wonder how you didn't see it that way in the beginning.

One of those moods...

I've been going through quite the slump...graduation took up most of my thinking in August, we went to Edmonton and dropped off Blythe and Christian at university a week or more ago -- definitely shopped till I dropped -- but hey it was needed stuff like work clothes and...basics, mostly ;) 

Then after that little holiday it was back to work, Calder was back to school, all of my friends were off at Uni and I seemed to be just...left behind if you will. 

It's definitely an adjustment just having me and Calder at home but on top of that I just felt kind of mopey. 

I missed school, and writing, and my friends and the teachers, and my brother and sister. It was quite the shock, plus work can be pretty boring sometimes. 

I've been thinking of blogging a lot, and taking photos and maybe even incorporating some videos into whatever this is, but I just did not have the effort or what seemed to be the time.

My room is a mess, I haven't really been looking at blogs for a couple of months by now, reading a book is just out of the question. The only thing I seem to do everyday is go to work, go on Pinterest, instagram, Facebook, eat supper, go on youtube, perhaps go for a bike ride, make my lunch and go to bed. 

The days are getting shorter and shorter as well!! It's dark now at 9 o'clock and it's going to get worse! 

I'm also in one of those midseason slumps, where I want to be able to wear pants and sweaters and scarves etc. but it's been really hot lately! I just get in these moods I guess. 

And now I am rambling...it has been quite the weird day today as well, but I don't feel ready to share that quite yet.

One of the things I forgot to mention, I went to the Duchess Bakeshop and Provision Shop in Edmonton!! Wow, I felt like I was in a proper patisserie -- it was soooo....nice!

I bought Anna Olsen's "Back to Baking" book and I have been really in the mood to bake, but not really wanting all of this baking around -- I think it is a sickness and I caught it at the cafe in Edm! 

Anyway, I hope to do some more of these posts, I always feel like I can't do a blog post without proper pictures so I put off posts I want to write until I get pictures, and that doesn't always happen and/or I have the pictures but need to edit them! Either way I hope to be doing more of these.

Class of 2013

This Saturday was my graduation...it was both very exciting and nerve-racking at the same time. I found out on Monday afternoon that I was Valedictorian, my first reaction was dread, then anger (because I was contacted so late) and then fear. I am not a lover of public speaking, thankfully I am pretty gifted in the way of writing so I knew I just had to write something short, witty and inspirational and read it verbatim when the time came! 

I started off my day with a bike ride to get rid of some nervous energy/destress. It seemed to help a lot because I was much calmer after that. My only feeling was okay-lets-get-this-over-with-already. 
Because I attended a catholic school, before our ceremony, we had mass. I had planned during rehearsal that I would read one of the readings to sort of warm up to my own speech. It worked out really good because it helped prepare me and I was therefore more confident when it did come to my speech.

My brother was my escort, and he supported me with sympathetic smiles and goofy facial expressions in the front row, while i waited for my turn with the rest of the graduating class (a whopping 19). 
I received two awards during the ceremony, The Governor General’s Academic Award, as well as a ring for receiving the highest mark in my Social Studies 30-1 class. I was very grateful and kind of embarrassed at the same time! 

Before my speech, a guest speaker chosen by the grads (a former teacher) began hers, it was quite long and she started to quote part of Ashton Kutcher’s Teen Choice Awards acceptance speech, I probably sat there all deer-in-the-headlights wide-eyed. By this time she had already gone on for quite a while and was quoting it word for word, and I was like, “oh no, oh no please do not say the quote that I used for my speech, please stop, oh good grief what am I going to do...” Thankfully she was going a slightly different angle with it and did not say the quote/punch line that I used.

I started off my speech kind of shaky I imagine...I still wasn’t extremely confident and especially after that scare. I ended up having to say “One of the most influential men of this century, Steve Jobs, said it perfectly -- as well as Ashton Kutcher -- *nervous laugh*”

Needless to say it was not as bad as I had anticipated it being, nor was it quite so scary. After the ceremony and saying goodbyes to my friends, we came home and had a little garden party with some extended family -- my Auntie Sheila, Ray, Jessica, Ward -- and his new born son Steele, Auntie Roxy and Uncle James, grandma and grandpa and of course our family. It was really nice, we had appetizers and then hamburgers for supper and a light no bake cheesecake for dessert in tea cups!

I was super exhausted after that stressful/exciting day and also really hungry because I was too nervous to eat too much beforehand, however it was a great day :) 
I took some pictures with my polaroid and my sister took some pictures with her camera, so here are some of my favourite shots of hers from the day...



P.S. I am writing this on my very own Mac book Air!! :D

Pinterest Inspiration 7

1. World on a Fork 2. Unknown 3. Oh No They Didn't 4. ban.dō 5. Emerson Fly 6. Unknown 7. Peek of Perfection

1. Don't those look divine…that is the sort of dessert my grandpa would love…probably every night! Technically they are Swedish yeast rolls but they look like cream puffs to me ;)
2. "Comparison is the thief of joy," perhaps not joy, but definitely peace -- peace with yourself and who you are. Plus imagine that poster framed adding a pop of colour to a space!
3. Oh, Michelle, so classy! This is actually my outfit inspiration for part of my grad pictures -- semi spoiler alert!
4. Next Friday is my last cut to keep up my pixie, after that it's just going in to trim my growing "mullet" and hopefully in a couple of months it will look something like a bob and barrettes like these will be my best friend for saving bad hair days!
5. The weekend after my grad we are going out to the city to drop my sister off at uni and pants is on my list, classic fit and looks like this that can be worn both at work or on the weekend is a rare find.
6. I love the look of this picture, its very European looking  -- if the buildings in the background didn't give that away to you already ;) Plus it's a cute cut!
7. When I saw this pin, I was like "Yes. That is me in every sense." Whenever I am in a store -- I am usually pretty flustered so I tend to rush and just scan until I find something that catches my eye, stripes catch my every single time. Generally I have to talk my self out of buying another striped item, but sometimes I can't help it :)

I trust everyone will have a great weekend :) Coming off a four day week it should seem like it's been a short week but that doesn't seem to be the case, I am quite ready for the weekend and sleeping in and general laziness!

xo Bronté

A Birthday Cake

I saw this cake on Pinterest a while back and have always wanted to recreate it and I finally did on Mother's Day. It turned out amazingly and was such a light summery cake that when my mom's birthday came along we decided to make it again. I assembled the cake at my grandmas house on Mother's Day and forgot my camera and iPod so I wasn't able to take a picture of it, but this time I made sure to take get some good shots. I remember reading the recipe and getting the gyst of what was required for it and took it from there.
First you will need a really good/trusty sponge cake, the recipe I used was a double batch of the Lazy Daisy cake found in the Company's coming Cake recipe book. Poured into a 13" spring form pan and cut into three layers, I brushed each layer with a generous amount of simple syrup (equal parts sugar to water warmed up for a couple minutes in the microwave). I learned in my Sugar Baby recipe book by Gesine Bullock-Prado that bakeries brush simple syrup on all their cakes to help keep them moist! I would suggest letting that sit for a couple of hours (or overnight properly sealed up) so that it gets a chance to soak right through. The end result of the cake ends up being layers that consist of cake --fresh raspberry jam (for its tartness -- store bought black currant would be a good alternative) --whipped cream -- chopped pistachios -- blackberries (placed strategically around the edge so you can see them peeking through) -- and repeat for all three layers. For the top and around the edges I even sprinkled some purple rose petals on the one I made for Mother's Day.

I've also found that if you let the cake settle for a couple of hours before you cut it, it is much much easier -- this one was assembled before supper and eaten right after and it was quite the mess trying to get the pieces onto plates, the one we had for Mother's Day however was a breeze to cut but, it was sitting for awhile before we ate it.

This past week went by so fast I can't even believe it! I received my iPad mini on Monday which got me very excited to be able to be back on Instagram and twitter again - my iPod crapped out on me (it had gone through so much in the nearly 3 years I had it that it just had enough)! Anyways so that's one reason I kind of went MIA on the Internet the other is pure laziness I guess.
We have had quite the summer here, a mix of really warm muggy days and a generous amount of rain! I keep thinking I need to take a picture of the beautiful canola fields that surround our acreage before they are done flowering. They have been especially brilliant the past couple weeks it's been sunny with a few dark rain clouds so everything looks sort of gloomy but the sun shining on the fields makes the canola look as if it is glowing neon yellow -- quite the contrast to the dark grey sky! Perhaps that will be in my next post...
I hope everyone has a wonderful rest of the week and let me know if you try out the cake!

P.S. The blackberry-pistachio cupcakes I featured on here a couple of weeks ago was the cupcake version inspired by this cake!

Beach Days

Better late than never I guess! These are some pics from the Canada Day long weekend. We spent Sunday and Monday lounging on the beach, and thank goodness we did because was it ever hot!

 

These two rascals came out of the bush on Sunday just as we were packing up to go back home and ofcourse that created quite the sensation with these youngsters! The deer at Shaw's Point are pretty tame until they don't want to be anymore so you should be pretty careful (as someone warned them after I snapped this shot).

Some of our extended family joined us on Canada Day and we got to enjoy some ice cream sandwiches that I made! They were pretty tasty!  I got the recipe from Martha Stewart and they were really easy to make actually. My favourite was the vanilla ice cream, coated with candied almonds, the one above is just mint chocolate chip.

What a busy couple weeks it has been! I just started my full-time job at the cooperators on the 2nd so a lot of my time and energy has been devoted to that. It was quite the shock information wise!! I came home my first day with a splitting headache and a dread to go back to work, because how was I possibly supposed to remember all of that! Well I'm just starting my second week and it has already gotten a lot better, I am still being "trained" but I am finding my way around.

From now on I'm counting down the days till the weekend...that will be my life :P On the plus side I'm making money and can look forward to a possible Europe trip in the spring(!?)