Ceramics Inspiration

Guess what?? I get to take a ceramics class next quarter!! I'm super excited!! I'm definitely expecting a steep learning curve (those kick wheels look intimidating!), but I think it's going to be lots of fun once I get the hang of it, and it's something completely new that I've never tried before! And since I'm moving out of the dorms and into an apartment next year, it will be so fun to have some handmade dishes to fill the shelves!

The first thing I do when I'm feeling creatively inspired is, of course, make a Pinterest board! I started a ceramics board a few weeks ago and have been loving all of the gorgeous ceramics out there! I thought I'd make this little collage of inspiration to share here. My absolute favorite piece in this collage has to be that little planter guy (top left). He's so adorable! I cannot get over him. Looking back on this collage, I also found that I am really into gold accents. I'm not sure if I'll have access to gold paint as part of this class, but if I do, I'm definitely going to add it to basically everything.

Two projects that would be fun to start out with are those ring dishes (bottom left) or some tea bag rests. They're practical and look pretty simple to make (whether they actually are or not is a different story!).

I've tried to tag as many sources as I could below, so feel free to check them out! You can even buy some of the ceramics pictured above (I've typed those in bold), so if you love ceramics, but want to skip the DIY bit, there you go!

Sources (from top to bottom, left to right)
planter (??) // ring dishes // mixing bowls // pink and gold plates // light blue-green mugs // green and white mugs // dark blue mugs // black and white mugs with gold handles (??) // navy and coral mugs // large mixing bowl // cactus ring dish

Recent Reads

So I was planning to write another catch-up post (like this one), where I talk about what I've been reading, listening to, watching, eating, etc., and I practically wrote the entire thing, but as I neared the end, I started to realize how much of it was about books. So, as I struggled to come with anything interesting that I've been doing lately besides reading books, I decided to just start over, admit my life is boring, and give in to the temptation to write a whole post solely about books. Also, since I'm in the midst of finals week, I didn't have too much time to put into this post, so I had to settle for this picture I took last summer, when I was reading The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah, which is still one of my all-time favorite books, by the way.

I never before realized just how much I liked reading until this year. I mean, I knew I liked reading, but suddenly I'm super into it. I always thought I was a slow reader, but that's just because I didn't read enough. I think it's mostly because high school was way more stressful for me than college (go figure). Now that I have more mental energy, it's easier to find enough focus to read instead of mindlessly watch TV. So I'm trying to take advantage of this relatively less stressful season in my life to read as much as possible. Whenever I go to the library or Barnes and Noble, I always tell myself, "You need to read more! Look at all these books there are to read!!" After all, my to-read list on Goodreads has 72 books on it... So now I'm making an effort to read as much as possible so I can get to as many as I can!

Banana Berry Smoothie

Spring is in the air! The weather this week has been so incredibly nice, even reaching the lower 70s for the first time in ages! I went to a wedding yesterday and the day was so gorgeous!! The past few days have made me realize just how much I've missed the nice weather!

Just as tea is more enjoyable in the winter, smoothies are so much better in the spring and summer. So this morning, I whipped up this smoothie to celebrate these early spring days!

This smoothie has a secret ingredient that I've actually never tried before in a smoothie: green tea! Who would have guessed? Green tea is so good for you, so its a great alternative to adding plain water as your smoothie base. It has loads of antioxidants and nutrients. A quick Google search will tell you all you need to know and more if you want to read up on the benefits of green tea in detail.

In addition to green tea, this smoothie has a whole banana, mixed berries, and chia seeds! So basically it's really good for you, and it tastes good! (That's probably thanks to the maple syrup, but life is all about a balance!)

Banana Berry Smoothie with Green Tea

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup green tea*
• 1/3 cup vanilla almond milk
• 1 frozen banana
• 2/3 cup frozen mixed berries
• 1/3 cup nonfat Greek yogurt
• 1 tbsp maple syrup
• 1/2 tbsp chia seeds

Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Enjoy in a Mason jar with a fun straw! Makes about 2 servings.

*I used my favorite green tea, Kirkland Matcha Blend Green Tea from Costco. After brewing 2/3 cups, I added an ice cube to cool it down a bit before adding it to the blender.

SECOND BLOGIVERSARY!

It's March 8th today, which means that this blog just turned two!! Remember my first blogiversary? Well, I've kept up my little cake-baking tradition. I love baking cakes, but I never have a good reason to do so. But for this occasion, I baked chocolate cake and yellow cake and used this checkerboard cake tutorial from Brit + Co. I think it turned out pretty good and would use it again!

Like I said, I never have an occasion to bake layer cakes, so I'm a bit of a beginner when it comes to making and assembling them. I was supposed to cut off the rounded tops of each layer so that they were flat and the layers stacked neatly, but I couldn't bring myself to waste all that cake! So, the cake may be shaped a bit oddly, but there's nothing that rainbow sprinkles can't fix!

I've been playing around with the idea of changing the blog up a little bit, either by redesigning the website or renaming it, or both. It's sort of like when you first get a new lock screen for your phone, and its fun and you notice it every time you turn your phone on. But after a while, it gets sort of old and boring. That's why I want to shake things up a bit. We'll see what I come up with, but for now I just wanted to pop onto the blog real quick and celebrate my second year of blogging!

Hope your week is going well! I'm in the middle of the ninth week of winter quarter, so finals are coming up soon, then I'll be off on spring break! I'm looking forward to having a bit of time off before returning for my last quarter of freshman year.

So here we are. I've already had this blog for two years and I've already almost completed my first year in college! As Gretchen Rubin said in The Happiness Project, "The days are long, but the years are short." I couldn't agree more!

19

Gosh, I've never ever procrastinated so much on a blog post before!! But I have also never missed a Sunday, so here I am, cranking out today's post before the day ends! I think I have an okay excuse. My 19th birthday was last Thursday and my family and I spent this weekend celebrating both mine and my mom's (we share the same birthday!). So basically, I've been too busy having fun to sit down and write this post! But I finally opened up my laptop, poured myself a cup of tea, and sat down on my bean bag chair to write it.

As a fun birthday-themed post, I thought I'd share 19 random things about me, since it's my 19th birthday. It was actually really fun to put together this list. I love answering fun questions, like picking a favorite ice cream flavor or choosing what you would spend a million dollars on. This post kind of felt like that! So here goes: