Sugar Bagels

I made these sugar bagel diabetes ring bad boyz the other day - each family member of mine (myself not included) ate about five each and my little neighbours snagged the rest. I'd say it was a pretty successful batch. Deep frying is the pits though.

Dying To Come Alive

Being a human isn't easy. Trying to go through the motions of life on your own is  quite impossible. I'm rather glad that i've finally realised that. Life really is meaningless when you think that you are all sweet to do things with your own strength. Why? Because when you fail (and trust me, you will), you have nothing to fall into. For a long time, I thought that trusting Jesus was easy. It's not. It means that you have to die to yourself and your own expectations and desires and one-dimensional thinking. It means that you have to fall into Someone intangible, invisible and far beyond your own understanding. Sometimes, putting all your faith in God doesn't make sense. Sometimes it's a sacrifice, an inconvenience and simply not what you're expecting. It can be painful! But you know what? It's the crucifixion of your flesh. Through the painfulness and brutality of dying to yourself, you are cleaning up to live as Christ. Being a Christian isn't a job, it's actually a complete renovation of your entire spiritual being, really. I can't find the right words to explain everything that God has been revealing to me about this but there is a verse in the Word that says "to live is Christ but to die is gain." When you die to yourself, you have gained a new life in Christ and it is far better than what your could imagine. I'm honestly not done with this journey, infact I've only just taken the first steps. There is still a long way to go and so much to learn but this first step has been ridiculous so far. 

Cafes and Yummy Food Places That I Would Like To Try

I follow a bunch of food accounts on instagram from all over Brisbane and the Gold Coast and they are always posting such amazing-seeming meals, drinks and snacks that I've been dying to try. I'm that kind of person who says that they would really like to try/watch/go to something but never ends up doing it because of laziness, not enough time or money (or even anyone to go with). These are the places that I have heard only good things from, or just look flipping amazing. Brisbane, Gold Coast and everywhere else in the world/Australia.

Paddock Bakery (Gold Coast)

I swear I am the last human being on the planet who hasn't actually been there yet. I've heard that the nutella donuts are to die for, and for some reason I do not doubt that. The food there is apparently also quite reasonably-priced and decently sized! Definitely have to go someday.

Flour & Chocolate (Brisbane)

So after trying a peanut butter cronut from the Eat street food markets at Hamilton Wharf, it's safe to say that cronuts are the best thing to ever happen to pastry foods. Seriously. Its like magic taking place in your mouth. I found this cafe on instagram when looking through a food account blog and I would really love to try their cronuts! I saw a photo of a salted caramel cronut and it was love at first sight. I even tried to convince mum to drive me there today because they only do cronuts (or gonuts) on Thursdays. That didn't happen, as we live a freaking 40 minute drive from the nearest, civilised place. Someday, someday.

Scatter Bean (Brisbane)

My train passes by this little coffee shop every time I head to the city for uni and I'm quite intrigued by it. It just looks really cute in the corner of a street hehe. Im not a coffee snob so if I ever end up checking it out, i'll probably have a milkshake or something but it looks cuteeeee.

Harajuku Gyoza (Brisbane)

This is not a coffee shop but I saw it in my instagram feed on this food blog account and it looks amazing! Its a japanese cuisine restaurant with really interesting dishes (especially desserts), so i'd like to check it out one day.

Ben's Burgers (Brisbane)
I LOVE BURGERS.

Meil Burger Container (Brisbane)
I LOVE BURGERS PT. 2

Please Say Please (Adelaide)

Ok we are going a little interstate now, but this is a cafe that i've been following on instagram for a while now and they always have really interesting-flavoured macarons that I have never even dreamed of! I have a friend who as been there and he says it's not brilliant, but thats about the coffee (and like I said, I'm not a coffee person so quite frankly, I don't care!). I just want to try their macarons, that is aaaall.

The Tuckshop (Glenhaven - Sydney)

Yes, another interstate cafe! Ran into this one on the gram and they're pretty new but the aesthetics of the place are off the charts (according to the images i've seen). They also do shoestring cut fries (my weakness) so i'm all down for hitting this place up one day.

The Grounds of Alexandria (Sydney)

Heard too many good things about this place so when I head down to Sydney, I'll give it a shot! Thats all I really have to say about this.

Overpriced Tomato Sauce At The Tuckshop

When I first started writing this blog, I told myself that this is just for the light stuff, like what I did today and who my favourite current artists are. However, there are times where I just feel like to vent to no-one in particular but still leave my thoughts out there, vulnerable and.....just there. I'M NOT A WRITER. I JUST VENT AND RANT SOMETIMES AND IT FEELS NICE. I like to tell myself that I'm basically just talking to Jesus, and writing this all down in a blog lets me do that, along with allowing other randoms to be involved. I'm not sure if I'm going to look back at the URL in a few years and feel completely ashamed of my 17-year-old ranting, but I do know that it will be funny to look back on and laugh at how weird I was/am.

The people I feel closest to could be numbered off with one hand and even then, I barely see them because I live so far away. When you have a little too much time on your own, it gives you heaps of time to think and grow lonely. Again, yes I have Jesus but personally as an extrovert, I feel myself going slightly insane from the lack of interaction with my pals. My new friends at uni don't know me inside-out yet and at a lot of the time, there really isn't anyone to talk about deeper things with. Maybe I'm feeling this way because my three best friends have been overseas for the past three weeks and I've been all by myself haha. This all sounds ridiculous and petty but I r e a l l y j u s t m i s s m y f r i e n d s. I miss seeing everyone everyday at school without having to make any effort. I miss the oval and Sarah's tuna lunch. I miss the overpriced tuckshop that kept upping the price of tomato sauce by like 20 cents every year. I miss being excited for a class I had with a boy that I liked (THERE I SAID IT). I miss uniforms and bucket hats and kings socks and and the school bell. Far out, I even miss assemblies when Mrs Bevan would address the issue of vermin in the school. You would probably tell me to move on, and yes, that's what I'm doing but i guess it makes sense to miss the things you've been used to for so long. School is not a dungeon, a hell hole or a prison. When people say "you don't know what you've got til it's gone", they're spot on.  

DIY: Car Ornament

I got a car a few months ago and I'm that kind of person who can't stand not having something to jazz things up a little. I went through a pipe cleaner phase and whipped up this little pineapple car deco-thing to hang from my rear-view mirror and it still hangs there to this day! My friend suggested to post this DIY onto my blog like two months ago and I'm only getting around to doing this now because I was lazy hahaha (sorry sarah!). Here is the instructions >>>>

YOU'LL NEED

• pipecleaners (any colour - I used silver)
• scissors
• string

WHAT TO DO

It is a really simple project that pretty much just requires about 10 minutes of your time and a vacuum cleaner afterwards to clean up the little pieces of pipe cleaner. What I did was start bending the pipe cleaner in the desired shapes and wrapped the ends around each other. I found that I didn't really need to cut the pipe cleaner until i finished - just kept adding to the end of the pipe cleaner until my shape was done! To finish it off, I tied some string onto the top of the pineapple and just tied it off on my car :) Its good to hang from the mirror because it's light and you can see through it. I've been told that it is illegal to hang things from your rear-view mirror because its distracting, but this is nearly noticeable and light so it should be sweet. I don't think the authorities are too strict on that anyway. "214 we got a wild P-plater on the loose with a bedazzled object hanging from her rear-view mirror". yeahhhhhh nah. 

I Miss You

I have been told that "in life, people will disappoint you". This has never been so true. Sometimes, people who you thought would stick through and come out the winner end up being the ones who give in. It sucks to see this happen to some of my closest friends. As a recently graduated student who is still trying to find her feet and calling in life, I don't have many tight friends who are on the same page as me to be completely honest. Its a proven fact that you will really only see about 1% of your high school friends once you're out of school and its a lonely time. The only people I ever know are the ones who are at the same church as me, or at my uni. I have a few uni friends but they are from all different places and it's hard to find things in common when you don't really believe in the same thing. 

This all doesn't mean that I have stopped loving my drifting friends, or am judging them for their wrongs. I just miss the way they used to be when they were with Jesus and now i find it more and more difficult to relate to them because we're just not on the same page. Nonetheless, every single one of my friends who have taken different paths in life are still incredible people who have so much potential to change the world. It just sucks that these things get in the way of it.

I know that God knows whats going on with everything and that He would want me to trust His will. Its just hard when I feel quite alone (especially with my three best friends in Japan at the moment) and disconnected. I feel like more people in my life are floating away than coming in. Out of everything, I know that Jesus is my ultimate friend (ha lame, but true) and that He has and never will let me down. I guess we will just have to see where this life is headed.