Black Pepper Cookies!

Hello my dear readers,
pepper cookies... it doesn't really sound that appetizing, does it? You might think it just sounds flat out strange. That is what I thought when I first heard about pepper cookies. But really, they're delicious. My mom told me a story about how my great-great-great grandma used to make black pepper cookies, because
pepper was what was available to her. She didn't have the spices we have now. It was salt, pepper, and whatever they could grow. As no one ever wrote her recipe down, mom just told me what she heard from her mom, my grandmother, about the cookies, and asked me if I thought I could recreate them. I searched the internet for a recipe, but I couldn't find a recipe I liked. So I just used the basic proportions for cookies to make a new recipe.
Here it is:

2 1/4 cups of flour,
1/4 cup white sugar,
1 packed cup brown sugar,
1 teaspoon baking soda,
1 cup of softened butter,
1 large egg,
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract,
2 teaspoons ground black pepper,
Sugar or other sweetener to dip cup in (I used Splenda),

Beat butter for 30 seconds. Add sugars and beat until fluffy. Add egg and vanilla and beat until well combined. Add flour, soda, and pepper. Mix, just be careful not to mix it too fast or else everything will go poof into your face.

Make balls of about one teaspoon, and put on a greased cookie sheet. You'll make about three sheets of cookies. Dip the bottom of a glass in sugar, then press the dough down, dipping back into the sugar between cookies. And you really do need to use the sugar. If you don't, the dough will stick to the glass.

Bake the cookies for 10 minutes (our oven is really slow. If you have a fast oven, try 8) at 350 degrees. Move the cookies onto a rack to cool.

I hope you like them!

Love,
Veelacat

I Created A Monster.

I apologize, for I have sewn the Petticoat-Which-Ate-San-Francisco. 

It's big.

Really big.

Almost too fluffy to fit under the skirt I made to wear specially with it. When I was sewing it, I thought that I couldn't make the petticoat too fluffy. Boy oh boy was I wrong (I seem to be wrong quite a lot lately). This thing is huge... I still need to trim it, 'cause it's too long, but other then that, it's done. 

I'm much too lazy to go onto Photoshop and make this right-side-up, so it's going to stay sideways.

And this is the edge of the skirt. Very exciting, I know.

Farewell,

Veela

Hello!

Hi.
This is Angela. Valerie left her blogger account thing open to create a new post in this blog.

WRITE ALL THE BLOG POSTS.

I'll tell you this.
Valerie is awesome. And I love her a lot. And she's cool. AND YOU SHOULD ALWAYS READ HER BLOG BECAUSE SHE'S FUNNY.
Actually, I think she's funnier than I am.
:hides:
But yeah. I really like my sister. She's beautiful and sweet and smart and she has such a unique way of looking at the world.
Which is why I lvoe her.
Partly.
:)
I also love her because she's one of my best friends. For ever and ever and EVER.
:D

Angela out.
~Angela

Fluffles!

First off I just want to say congratulations to my best friend Eva (you can find her blog here) for doing better than fabulous on her showcase. You were amazing!!!! Next off to the subject of this post; fluffles!

In my family, if you don't know how to do something, you figure out how to do it. I need lots of fluffy cupcake poof for my Halloween costume (and for those days when I wake up and feel like being poofy), so guess what I'm going to be doing today. If you guessed writing my paper for history, you're so wrong it'll probably be a year before you're right about ANYTHING*. No, no, I'm going to be attempting to sew a petticoat. From a picture. I have no pattern or anything. Hey, how hard can it be? 

xx

Veela

*This is a reference from a kids' book. Something like Completely and Totally the Messiest. 

Uninspired.

Hello there,
Some days you might say you have "writer's block" if you're a writer (most authors I've talked to however argue that this is non existent), or you just can't see what shape that lump of clay should take. It doesn't matter what your media or instrument is, whether words or water colors, we all have days when, to put it simply, we're just not inspired. For me those days are pretty random. I wake up and my 5 year old sister can draw better then me, my violin sounds like a dying cat. When I feel like my art is pointless and bad I drink orange juice. It makes me feel more inspired for some reason. I don't know what it is about it, but I always feel better after drinking orange juice. Maybe it is kinda stupid. I don't really care, it's what makes me feel better.

This looks... like a cup of orange juice. Duh.

 If I think my music is going nowhere, I listen to someone else playing.



If I think my art is lacking, I look at someone else's art.

Fortitude, by Sandro Botticelli.

Haha I'll never be able to draw like that...

xx
Veela

Pie

Hello,
Do you like pie? I really like pie. Not as much as my sisters, but I do like pie. My sisters like different type of pie.

This is the type of pi Angela likes.

This is the type Christina likes.

When Thanksgiving comes around, my grandma makes pie. And then hides the pie from Christina. She has a lot of fun searching/ransacking grandma's house for pie. It's really quite funny when Chris smells the air in the hope she can sniff out where the pies are hiding (we're still waiting for the day when she finally accomplishes this).

xx
Veelacat

Costumes!

Hello!
I'm so excited- it's time to start making Halloween costumes! As the queen of indecision, I've already made up my mind as what I want to go as and changed it several times, but I think the winner is Alice, from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Of course I want to dress my 18 month old brother as the White Rabbit as well (keeping the bunny ears on him will take some serious skills, but I'm 100% sure he will be adorable). We might make it a bit more authentic because I probably will be chasing him around all night.
xx
Veelacat