Resting period

I spent the all of 2007+2008 devoting my life to Label Tulip.
Having a full time job and a business to run was no easy task. At times, I felt that I was being unfair to both and my personal life was completely left on the back burner.
One day I realized that something had to change. I started the company because I wanted to do something that I loved, for a change, but now I found myself constantly asking if this is something I truly enjoyed.
At the beginning of 2009, I had officially stepped down.

2009 was a resting year for me, for my mind and body. I spent the year only doing what I wanted to do, other than my 9-5 job, whether that was lounging around watching TV, browsing flickr endlessly, or hanging out with the bf. When people ask me 'what have you been doing' I was happy to say "I've seriously been doing NOTHING." It felt good to not work till 4-5am in the morning only to wake up at 9am to go to work the next morning. It felt good to not have to sleep till 3pm on the weekends due to my lack of sleep during the week. Finally, I was able to somewhat enjoy my life again.

Now that we're nearing 2010, I think I've had enough time to rest. :)
I'm ready for what 2010 will bring.
I'm ready to follow my passion again, whatever that may be...

Who am I kidding?

I often think about writing a post here but it never makes it onto paper (or the internet in this case) in fear of being judged.

I'm not that witty when it comes to words and a lot of the times, I find it hard to put my thoughts into the perfect words. Writing has never been my forte and have yet to find my voice and the thought of someone reading my blog and judging me makes me uncomfortable.

But really, does it matter? Yes, I'm the girl who wears her heart on her sleeve but shouldn't I try to get over that?! Anyway, is anyone even reading this thing? That's what I try to tell myself on a daily basis, so that I can get up the nerve to put up a post just as my outlet, a paragraph, a sentence, or even just a pretty picture.. Just for me.

Lesson learned.

It all started last Thursday when one of my friends came over to bake our bf's some cookies for valentines day.
Just so all of you guys know, I'm not a big cooker, and although I occasionally cook and bake, I'm no master of such things but I can mimick fairly well, or so I thought, ha!
So when I read the very simple recipe, I thought, no-biggie!
It all seemed simple, maybe too simple.
Till everything went wrong.
But after 4 different batches and 7 hours later, we somehow managed to pull it off, lol! and beautifully if I may add. :)
Here's a glimpse of our chaos! (all the photos below were taken with my camera phone so please excuse the horrible quality.)


And the final product! My bf hates anything too sweet so I made him the plain heart shaped butter cookies while my friend's bf got the pretty ones with strawberry jam center!

Viewfinder frame by Paislee Press

To sum up the experience, here's what I learned about baking through this insane baking experience. I'm no patissier but I guess this is a good lesson learned. :)

-Read and FOLLOW directions carefully STEP BY STEP. Just because everything will end up being mixed together at the end, it doesn't mean that you can just mix them up together all at once! There is a reason why you should mix certain ingredients first so FOLLOW the directions!
-Be sure to not mistake 1/4 teaspoon of salt for 1/4 cup of salt or you'll end up with one salty batch of cookies!
-Make sure to double check if you have enough sugar and flour cause you'll most likely need more than what you have in your cupboard.
-Use a wax paper under your dough when cutting with a cookie cutter so it won't get stuck!
-If you don't know what you're doing, search google or watch some baking videios on youtube.

Other than that, my valentine's day with the bf was fabulous, the best v-day so far; it involved rose petals, candles, a new steak house, wine, heart shaped meat balls made by my bf, and my new 66" friend! :)
(Okay, I'm not normally the stuff animal type of gal but Patrick has been an exception as long as I can remember! )


In other news, I picked up my camera on Sunday and it's in working condition, (yay!) so no more crappy photos in my future blog posts, lol!!

I'm all smiles today because of this..

When it rains, it pours..

It's raining today which makes me want to bust out my camera to take some rainy photos but...
my camera is still in the shop.
This totally sucks. :(