Simple jam filled cake

A couple of days ago I wanted to bake something and decided on a cake.I didn't want to make anything to difficult or time consuming, so I kept it simple.

The cake itself turned out pretty good, but not very high. I'm still working on finding the best cake base recipe.

Ingrediënts:
250 gr self raising flower
200 gr sugar
250 gr butter
4 eggs

How I made it:
I put the flower in a bowl and added the sugar. I melted the butter a little so that it was easy to mash it through the other ingrediënts. Then I added the eggs and made sure that the batter had a smooth consistency. I put the batter in a baking tin and baked it for 30 minutes at 160 degrees C.

When it came out of the oven I let it cool down and sliced the cake open. I filled it with strawberry- rhubarb jam and I spread buttercream on top. I decorated it with casting sugar and sprinkels.

Eventhough the cake wasn't very high it tasted great!

Finally some new clothes!

 After a couple of months of not making any clothes I finally made this top. It was a good project to start with after such a long time, because it was quick and easy. It only cost me two hours to make it. I have so many unfinished projects lying in my room, I should really try to finish them. I did finally finish a skirt that I started making almost a year ago. I only needed to sew about 2 cm. Sometimes I can be so lazy, haha! (By the way; don't mind the not so pretty shoes in the picture. Their my mom's and I 'borrow' them all the time).

Couch to 5k

Last weekend I bought my first pair of running shoes. I realised that it was a good idea to use a schedule for my running, and that is how I stumbled upon the Couch to 5k program. In nine weeks you should be able to run 5 kilometers without previous running experience. I decided for myself to go running monday, wednesday and friday. So far I'm doing good, but this is only week one!

Hopefully I'll be able to complete the program and then I plan to sign up for a competition!

Plot in a jar

Lately my writing has occupied most of my thoughts. I constantly go from having a lot of inspiration to having none and back. When I don't have inspiration for the story I'm working on, I still want to write something else to get better. I've created this Plot in a jar so that I will have a start for a short story and go from there.

How to make a Plot in a jar

Take 3 jars (or more if you want more seperate ones) and paint 'Who', 'What' and 'When-Where-How' on the lids (or whatever you want). Cut a lot little pieces of paper and write characters, actions, places and moments or conditions on them. I will give a few examples:

Characters
A king with no land
A masked barber
A retired circusmember
A crawling todler
etc.

Actions
fel out of a tree
bought an unreliable timemachine
joined the circus
entered an other world
met a long-lost family member
befriended a vampire
got arrested

Places
in a cave
in a hospital in the jungle
under a giant christmas tree 
at a masquerade
in an underwater world

Moments
on christmas eve
right before marrying the wrong person
during a pottery course
when he/she heard a family member had died
on the opening night of his/her restaurant
after just having an accident

Conditions
like he/she had expected
because his/her mom said so
like he/she had had a vision about
because his/her loved one asked him/her to
because he/she was sure it was a dream

Put the pieces of paper in the right jars and your finished! Whenever you need a simple plot idea to start writing a story you can just randomly take a piece of paper out of each jar and start from there!

Music Monday #26

Rock music was never my favorite (except for R.E.M.), but The Script made me change my opinion. I've listened enlessly to their cd and know quite a lot of lyrics from their songs. One my favortite songs is probably If you could see me now, it's such an emotional and beautiful song.

The Script - If you could see me now



The Script - Hall of Fame ft. will.i.am

First day of the year

Today almost all universities in the Netherlands started their academic year. I however, won't be participating because I have chosen to take a gap year. It feels awesome and scary at the same time, but the awesomeness probably prevailes. It feels great that I don't have to do anything this year. Ofcourse that doesn't mean that I am going to do nothing (I actually have a lot of plans), but I'm free to do only the things I want to do and I can choose when to do them. Usually I'm a big planner. I always have some sort of plan so it's very different to not know what the year will bring.

When I was 17 I had to do an internship for school. I really wanted to go abroad but I was also scared. I went anyway and it turned out amazing. It was my first time being in an other country on my own. I got sick, my phone died and I got stuck in an other city for about a day, but everything turned out just fine! I was proud of myself for not freaking out and finally doing something that I wouldn't have done before.

New things are sometimes scary, but when you have done it, you will feel so good about it!

This is the first day of my gap year and I've already done something new. A couple of days ago I went running for the first time with my friend Sophie. We ended up mainly walking and talking and we ran very little, but I realized that starting to run woudn't actually have to be that hard. So today I bought running pants and went for my first real run! Furthermore I signed up for a Coursera course called A brief history of Humankind

Music Monday #25

Anna Kendrick - Cups (Pitch Perfect's 'When I'm gone')