August | 2011 | jenojoon

Aug 31 2011

Talents

I have a lot of things that I’m ‘good’ at but I’ve never felt that I’m truly exceptional at any one thing. I came across a blog post from Skunkboy Creatures that hit so close to home. I read it and thought, “Yes! That is what I need! I just need to keep trying things”! I loved the post and it got me thinking about my ‘talents’. And then I had an ‘a ha’ moment. Could it be that my greatest talent is excitement? I’m really great at getting super excited about things! (and I love to use exclamation points so that proves it, right??!)

So I continued to explore this line of thinking- about whether or not a feeling or emotion could be a talent. I looked up the definition of talent and found this definition: Natural aptitude or skill and this one: Natural endowment or ability of a superior quality. So I decided that, yes, feeling exceptionally excited about things could qualify as a talent. Yay!

Now, being excited does not mean that I am exceptionally perky (luckily) and it does not mean that I’m as positive as I’d always like to be. But it does mean that if you need someone to get on your bandwagon or fight for your cause- I’m your girl!

And, like any talent, this talent needs to be nurtured. I need to practice harnessing my excitement and channeling it towards my various projects. If I can stoke the excitement and keep it going I can finish projects. I can start to see my efforts come to life. The talent of excitement can grow other talents- like baking and leading motivating fitness classes (exclamation point!)!

This is my BFF Joe and me being excited at the White House!

Aug 26 2011

3 Comments

baked treats, fun, vegan food

Sugar Part 1

I love cookies. Almost every kind. I LOVE oatmeal raisin. It is probably my favorite in general. But my favorite that I make and that would be my first choice if I could always be the one providing the cookies is SUGAR! With BUTTERCREAM frosting! And I’ve been tweaking my buttercream frosting recipe for a long time. I don’t generally use really exact measurements- I’ve been making it long enough to just eyeball. And I don’t always sift the powdered sugar- it depends on how much energy I have or if I’m planning to share the cookies with anyone besides David. And I have two versions- regular and coconut.

Recently I was craving those super soft vanilla sugar cookies you can get at grocery store bakeries. They usually have a thick layer of pink frosting on them and maybe some sprinkles. I guess they are often called Lofthouse or something similar? So I started perusing the internet for a recipe. I found something very similar that was super easy to veganize. I’ve since made a few batches, adjusting the cooking time to get them cooked all the way thru but soft enough to resemble the Lofthouse-style. They’re not exact matches to the grocery store brand, but they are SO GOOD. So good that I eat too many and get a tummy ache when I bake them. Here is a link to the recipe I adapted:

www.squidoo.com/soft-sugar-cookie-recipe

I used Earth Balance instead of butter and used Ener-G Egg Replacer instead of the eggs. Also, I omitted the nutmeg completely. I used a wide mouth mason jar lid ring for a cookie cutter because I wanted BIG, THICK, ROUND cookies. For my oven, about seven minutes was the maximum these needed to bake to avoid getting too brown on the bottom. I used my own frosting recipe which I will share in a later post (it’s going on my coconut cake for the county fair!). I didn’t have any food coloring but I did have sparkly pink sprinkles! So that’s what I used. I think I like them better with this pink glitter instead of boring old pink frosting! If you like sugar cookies you should really make these!

Aug 25 2011

4 Comments

fun, thankful thursday

Thankful Thursday

Inspired by my good friend (online, but someday soon we will meet in real life!), LJ (@veganliciousLJ on twitter, check out her rad blog- the link is over there to the right), I’m starting a Thankful Thursday post series.

I have so, so much to be thankful for in my life, but today I thought it would be appropriate to be extra thankful for my twitter, facebook, and bloggy friends. Meeting new friends online is totally the norm now and I love it! I feel really close to so many of my virtual friends and I often interact with them more than I do with my real life friends!

One of the things I’m super grateful for is the community of vegans I have found online. See, I don’t have one single real life vegan friend. I have a vegan(ish) coworker and my mom is vegetarian (almost vegan), but otherwise, I’m on my own. Now, being vegan is easy, especially because I love to cook, and my husband is totally supportive and always makes sure we go to places that offer vegan or adaptable options, but it is still fun to have people that ‘get’ the jokes and understand where you’re coming from. I get this support from my online friends and I wouldn’t change that for the world (unless everyone wants to move to Bakersfield- I’m totally down with that!)

When I first joined Twitter I was a little lonely there. I didn’t really know what to do or how to get started. I guess I just started following some of the bloggers I read and then following their followers and then reacting to people’s tweets and the conversation just evolved. Now anytime I want to talk to someone or ask a question I just click the little birdie button on my phone and I have 300 or so of my ‘closest’ friends right there waiting for me!

I am thankful for technology. I am thankful I can afford a nice phone and a computer on which to use this technology. And I’m mostly thankful for the fabulous humans all over the world that are ready and willing to share their lives with me.

Thank you interwebs!

Also, I am thankful for guacamole:

guacamole!

Aug 24 2011

13 Comments

baked treats, crafts, danish, fair, fitness, fun, sewing, vegan food

Testing 1, 2, 3

Hello friends!I’ve had a few blogs in the past- one about vegan food (when I first became vegan), one about beauty products and such, and one that was going to be about yoga but I only wrote, like, one post. I lost interest in them partly because I’m what you might call a dilettante. I dabble. I jump from interest to interest. So I decided I needed a blog to: a) Keep my projects organized and in the front of my mind, and b) Write about whatever the heck I want without feeling confined to a specific topic.

So this is the first post on ‘jenonoon, the art of fun’. Please click on the ‘about’ page to read a little more about me.

Some of the topics I’m planning to cover in the coming posts are:

My quest to become a Certified Group Exercise Instructor. My exam is Sept. 11, 2011. I’ve been studying for a few months now. I’m excited and nervous. I don’t look like a typical ‘aerobics teacher’ so I’m wondering what the other people taking the exam with me will be like. The certification process consists of a full day workshop, written exam and then a practical exam in front of everyone! I eventually hope to teach crazy, sweaty, fun, NON-intimidating cardio classes to people of all shapes, sizes, and levels of coordination.

The week after my exam I’m entering my ‘famous’ (haha) coconut cake in the county fair. I finally made the registration deadline this year! This should be fun! (how rad would it be for a vegan cake to take first prize?!)

I’m setting up a sewing/crafting studio in my home office/hobby room. I’m going to take a sewing e-course and teach myself. My mom is going to help me (she’s really good at sewing).

David and I are planning to learn to speak Danish via Rosetta Stone. David’s family is from Denmark and he knows just a little bit. We think it would be really fun to be able to speak in a sort of ‘code’ to each other.

So those are some of the things I’m going to talk about in the future. I hope that if those things seem interesting to you that you’ll follow along and maybe leave a comment or two!Thank you for reading!

xoxo jenojoon