Feelin' French

This past weekend has been such a blur for me. I've not been home (and awake) for more than two hour periods and I don't know how to feel.

I'm naturally a very introverted person, and it was a shock to have to so many plans lined up in a row. I love people, but so much interaction is tiring beyond compare. Anyways....

On friday I rode the bus home to my friend, Beth's, with another friend, Grace, who I have mentioned prior in a previous post. We came and spent about an hour ranting about all the problems of the world, typical of course. But then to lighten the mood we decided to bake MACAROONS!

While we've been planning to this since summer of last year, I was still beyond excited, because who doesn't love these french delicacies. We decided on making, chocolate macaroons with a Nutella ganache filling.

I never realized how long it actually takes to make these little cookies, its no wonder why they're so expensive everywhere, it took us about three hours if not more!

We had to actually measure out all the ingredients in grams prior. Once we had the cookie "mix" made, we all took a turn at piping! Here is what the cookies looked like pre-baking

Beth piping :)

All done!

We didn't do them outside hahaha

While we waited for the cookies to stop being sticky and put into the oven we prepared the ganache. Also ganache is way to fancy of a word for the melted chocolate mixture hahaha

Anyways the ganache was the easiest, and tastiest part, of the whole baking process, besides the actual cookies haha

After we baked the cookie part of the macaroon we were all set to begin assembling them, right?
NOPE, instead the ganache was not thick enough and we had to try SO many things to remedy this until we finally gave up and used the semi-thick ganache for the cookies, and guess what?
They still tasted just as good hahah

Later on we came back to finish one last batch and the ganache was prefect, turns out all we had to do was keep it out instead of cooling it hahaha

My first EVER homemade macaroon

Our babes 😛

Sorry for the crappy photography oops but yeah this is how I spent the first part of my whirlwind weekend!

With love,
Ksen

#instagramlessksen

This post was actually Sabrina's idea, but anyways...

I'm Christian and this year I decided that for Lent I would give up Instagram and Tumblr, and really any other distracting social media I had. So far its been about a month since I gave it up, and I've been doing pretty good so far!

I'll be honest I've peaked at my insta a few times, but not nearly as much as I would if I actually had the app haha. 

For those of you who don't really know what Lent is, check out this wiki article that sums it up pretty well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lent

Lent began on February 10 (Ash Wednesday) and will be ending on March 24th (Good Friday)...

So I have a couple more weeks left before I can download all my social media again and get back to the gram.

I'm an avid instagrammer, when I had it I would check it all the time, mostly out of sheer boredom, but a lot nonetheless. 

Being off instagram turned out to not be as great of a struggle as I thought it would be, I'm actually debating whether to even get it back or not again. 

The real reason I gave up all this social media is because I believed it would distract me less and help me focus more. Instead I found other things to fill the time and continue on the distraction, mainly Netflix 

But giving up Insta, Tumblr, etc. did actually get me closer to God, the point of Lent, because one of the things that I filled my time up with is reading the Bible, even if it was just the verse of the day. Or praying and just really becoming in tune with what it means to be Christian. I'm not trying to advertise that you should be Christian, but for me its been a great year for faith.

I don't want to bore you with my faith story, because first its extremely personal and second very weird hahah so moving on...

But I guess more than anything, my take from the last few weeks has been that social media is just a time waster and merely a way to feel connected into the lives of others. The first week that I didn't have insta I felt out of the loop, out of touch, and really weird, but in the weeks that followed I found out who my true friends are. Outside the deceiving realm of social media, I saw who texted me or made an effort, not just like this picture or tag me in a post every once in a while. SO in the past few weeks, I have really become grateful for the people in my life, and I hope these people will continue to stay beyond my high school years.

The other day I actually texted a few of those friends I'm truly happy to have and every response was different but all gave me a sense of belonging, which I've not had for a while....

ANYWAYS

To wrap up this very random post, I just wanted to make this point clear - Spend time with those who you love (in person) and don't let the deceit of social media fool you. Social media is a great way to stay connected, but make sure that connection continues in real life!!

On an ending note, its Sabrina's Birthday sooooo HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRINA BABE!!!

Much love, Ksen

Dog Days

I think this is going to become a trend. One where I constantly have no idea what to post. The most exciting thing that's happened in my life lately is the welcoming of a new dog into our family, which is pretty exciting.

He's a 6 month old Border Collie/Australian Shepherd mix and he's just a bit of a handful. With so much energy, he needs plenty of exercise. Lucky for me, I have a couple of amazing friends who are happy to walk him with me.

Yesterday, I walked down to my friend Sarah's house with my two dogs (Riley and Milo) so she could walk them with me. We picked up our friend Leah and her two dogs, who protested the journey the whole time, along the way. We must've left around 4 o'clock and didn't get back until 6:30. 

Our destination was a park near our neighborhood, which was no short walk. We crossed more than one busy road, which with four dogs and three girls was no easy task. The number of strange looks our pack got seemed to be infinite, but what did it matter if we were having fun? 

At the park, we sat down at a little pavilion and, of course, I pulled out my camera. We spent the next hour or so taking pictures surrounded by puppies. 

Leah, surrounded by all four dogs

Both of my friends took a liking to Riley, who was in no way opposed to the extra attention.

Sarah, the dog lover without a dog

I got a couple of cute pictures with my boys.

Did I mention I got my hair cut?

Riley spent our time at the park trying to get Leah's two older dogs to play with him. They weren't having it, and instead he only succeeded in tangling up his leash around people, dog legs, and other leashes. By the end of our time there, he was pretty tired.

It was definitely a perfect day and an even better way to put off my homework. In fact, I think the only way it could have been better was if I hadn't stepped in mud, but that's a small price to pay for time spent with my best friends. 

With love, 

Brina