Root Beer Cookies

I know this may sound strange, but these are by far the best cookies I've ever made. A friend of mine gave me the recipe and I decided to try it out!

Ingredients:
-3/4 cup butter
-3/4 brown sugar
-1/4 cup sugar
-1 small box instant vanilla pudding mix (dry, do not prepare)
-2 eggs
-1 tsp root beer extract
-2 1/4 cup flour
-1 tsp baking soda
-1 cup white chocolate chips

Instructions:
1. Cream butter and sugars together.
2. Beat in instant vanilla pudding mix well.
3. Add eggs and root beer extract and beat until well incorporated.
4. Add flour and baking soda and beat until well incorporated.
5. Sit in white chocolate chips
6. Roll into 1" balls and place on greased cookie sheet
7. Bake at 350 degrees F. for 8-10 minutes. **
** I modified this a little: I found that they weren't thoroughly cooked after 10 minutes, so I would flatten them with a fork and put them in for another 5 minutes **

Root beer extract: I've been told you can find some at Walmart, in the same section as the vanilla extract, but I went to Bulk Barn and found tiny bottles that were 1 tsp each, so it worked out perfectly! (Also, extract and concentrate are the same thing, so don't get discouraged if it says concentrate instead.)

These cookies are absolutely delicious and they aren't overly sweet, so you can just keep on eating! I was also really surprised that the taste of root beer isn't as dominant as you'd think. They mostly taste like vanilla with a slight root beer after taste. Yummy! :)

Ode to a Sugar Cube

I am taking a creative writing class this year and the other day my prof gave us random objects with the instruction to write an ode to this object, the way Pablo Neruda does with tomatoes, clothes and ironing.
I was given a sugar cube, and in about 10 minutes, I wrote this little ode:

Ode to a Sugar Cube

They say that great things come in small packages,
You make my days brighter, 
My fondest memories of you come from my childhood;
You spice up my life in every way imaginable,

And my dear Sugar Cube, this is true for you.
You have been my companion for many years,
Always loyal and never changing.
As you add a bit of "oomph" to my otherwise mundane life.
Every morning, you greet me with a coffee,
Starting my day with joy at the sight of you and your sweet smile.
You, my best friend, my fellow adventurer,
You would bathe in juice, and I watched as you turned red or orange or purple,
And I giggled as you melted into my hands.
And Sugar Cube, my dear,
I would be nowhere without you.

Yes, I'm Still Alive!

I've been a bad blogger...
It's not that I've been too busy or have been hiding under a rock and literally have nothing to say, I've just been lazy. I haven't even been keeping up with anyone's blogs!
It's been summer and I wanted to do as much as I could and enjoy the "nice" weather while I could.
What have I been up to?
Well... Quite a bit, actually!
I ran three 5K runs: Color Me Rad, Mud Hero and Electric Donkey Run, which I've been too lazy to blog about... So here's a couple pictures of those last two runs!

Another big thing that happened over the last little while is that I got a new job! I will be working at the new Canadian Museum for Human Rights as a tour guide. It's really exciting because everyone in this city has been waiting for years for this museum to open and it's finally happening! I'm really looking forward to working there. I've been doing a lot of training, since there's just so much information to know. I will definitely be blogging about this later on, when I'm actually allowed to....

And the biggest thing? I just started my LAST year of university!!!!
It's going to be a craaaaazy year. I'm taking a full course load while working two part-time jobs. This term I'm taking three random classes (Nutrition, Intro to Geography, Intro to Creative Writing) and two film classes to complete my degree, and next term those two film classes continue, and I will be taking three german classes to finish the other part of my degree. It's going to be insane! This will be the year where I really learn to organize my time and well... actually do my homework....

This summer has been absolutely fantastic, and even though I'm not quite ready for winter yet, I'm so excited to be back at school and finishing university.

There's Beauty in Everything

Sometimes, you can look at the same thing every day and not see the beauty in it.

A couple of weeks ago, I went for a walk with a friend of mine with the sole purpose to take pictures of buildings. He's in an architecture class and this was his assignment. Downtown Winnipeg has some really cool buildings and façades so I went along with him and we took some pretty interesting pictures.
I used a Canon Powershot, which is a simple point-and-shoot type camera. You don't need a fancy DSLR to take some great pictures!