Tag: Lifestyle

Food Fails

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Nov. 7: What was your worst Thanksgiving food fail?

Being only 19, I’ve never really cooked a Thanksgiving meal. I have helped with vegetables and things of that nature, however never done a whole meal. So, this food fail I’m going to be talking about actually occurred around Thanksgiving but wasn’t technically Thanksgiving food.

My junior year of high school, I was on crutches for about 5 weeks because I had injured my knee (to this day my doctor, orthopedic surgeon, and physical therapist have no idea what actually happened to my knee but it persists in giving me occasional pain). In my high school, when you are on crutches, in a wheelchair,etc. You are allowed to leave 5 minutes early from class with a friend so you can avoid all the hallway traffic.

There are 7 periods in a day so I had 7 different people bringing me to and from classes. While they enjoyed getting out of class 5 minutes earlier, after a while it was annoying lugging around 2 backpacks.

Basically, I decided to be a nice cripple and make everyone chocolate chip cookies. Over Thanksgiving break, I was able to hobble myself into the kitchen, find the biggest bowl we had and start a heaping 4 batches of cookies. Due to this insane amount of cookies being produced, I had pre measured every ingredient out so I didn’t miscalculate something later.

As I had finished mixing the ingredients and was ready to put the first 24 cookies in the oven, I remarked at how the cookies seemed a little darker than normal. I decided to ignore that fact and put them straight in the over.

15 minutes or however long later, I pulled the cookies out of the oven and was shocked to see piles of chocolate chips surrounded by burnt sugar. I immediately called my mom in to see what I had done wrong. She said I must not have put enough flour in the dough mix.

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Looking around for a measuring cup to put the right amount of flour for the remaining cookies, I found the 8 cups of flour in the enormous measuring cup hidden behind my kitchen mixer.

I then asked my mom how many cups of flour I should put in the remaining mix. She had forgotten the amount I was baking and told me the amount I should put had I been making a normal amount of cookies. Not knowing this, I followed her instructions, put the flour in, and placed the next 24 cookies in the oven, hoping for better results.

After the next 15 minutes passed, I excitedly opened the oven to see perfect cookies! Just kidding, I saw the same as before only the burnt sugar was a mixture of  burnt sugar and a hint of flour.

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Completely defeated and not knowing how much flour I would have to put in now, I dumped out the cookie dough, washed my dishes, restocked my ingredients, and made an entire new batch. 4 hours and 3 tries later, I had 100 cookies ready for my friends, family, and myself of course to enjoy.

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P.S. It has been 3 years and I still have not lived this down.

 

Here are the prompts for this week if you are following along 🙂

Nov. 7: What was your worst Thanksgiving food fail?

Nov. 8: If you could redo one moment in your life, what would it be and why? How would it change who you are now?

Nov. 9: What do you want to say to Hillary Clinton today?

Nov. 10: Did you celebrate or commemorate your divorce or a significant breakup? Would you ever?

Nov. 11: What are five funny (but real) things your current relationship has taught you?

What happiness means to me

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To me, happiness is such an arbitrary term. It differs for everyone. To me, happiness is sitting alone in a coffee shop, typing away at my computer, letting the intoxicating aroma of the grounds fill my nostrils. Happiness is feeling a crisp autumn breeze blow against my face as the smells of cinnamon, vanilla, and pumpkin dance around me. Happiness is seeing goats. Happiness is receiving a package in the mail, just waiting to be unwrapped. Happiness is getting my nails painted a new color, and tapping my freshly painted fingers on every surface I find.Happiness is seeing a dog, its tail wagging as it rushes their owner to my side so it can sniff me as I pet its head, even just for a moment. Happiness is when I can perfectly apply my liquid lipstick… the first time. Happiness is a tattoo parlor. The wheels in my brain get to turning thinking of all of the ink I want on my skin. Happiness is seeing a band in concert, my cheeks flushing and my heart beating along with the amp as I realize that the people before my eyes are indeed real. This is happiness for me, what is it for you?

Brand New World

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Nov. 4: Which fall shows should totally be canceled already?

Ok, BlogHer, what the hell is this? With Netflix, hulu, on demand, and my DVR, how does anyone know which shows are fall shows anymore? I just record stuff and then watch it months later and go on with my life. So, I have no clue which fall shows there are and which ones should be cancelled. If I don’t like them… I don’t watch them… end of story.

Okay, good talk. Anyway, now I am going to talk about what I actually want to write about.

My dad’s co-worker is from Germany and she immigrated from Germany to the United States 30 ish years ago. Her niece is in town from Germany, and Heike (my dad’s coworker) asked me if I would take Neele, her niece, and show her Chicago and all of its glory. We went yesterday and it was really fun and while I was able to teach Neele about Chicago and American culture, I learned just as much about Germany and its culture. .

I drove with my dad to work (tbt to those working days at the factory) and Neele drove with Heike. We then took the train downtown from the station by their work. Neele was telling me that where she lives in Germany, and most of Europe, the tallest buildings are nowhere near as high as the skyscrapers littering the Chicago lakeshore. In her town, the tallest building is student living at the nearby university and it is only 8 stories tall. The Sears Tower… has 110 stories.

When you are on the train, for the most part you just drive through suburbs and see graffiti marking the path of the metra. However, on the final turn as we approach Union Station, the skyline is in perfect view. Every beautiful building that makes Chicago such a remarkable city is in sight and the Sears Tower sits above all the others, basking in all of its glory. Neele’s jaw drops and the only words she can get past her lips are “Oh my god.” A long list of oh my gods to be specific.

Growing up here, it’s just Chicago. The Sears Tower, the Hancock, the Lake, etc. It’s normal for me to have it at my fingertips. But for Neele to never having seen buildings like this, she was in awe.

Upon dodging commuters and their pre-coffee attitudes, we made our way out onto Wacker drive, the same Wacker Drive that the Sears Tower is placed. As Neele takes in her surroundings, I tell her to look up and once again she is speechless. Yes, the buildings look unimaginably tall when you’re far away but being right next to the tallest building on the Western Hemisphere is surreal.

After admiring all of the buildings I took her to the Shedd Aquarium and the Field Museum. They are right next to each other and complete tourist hubs. Unless of course you go on a weekend, then it’s field trip city (yes I know from experience).

The Shedd is very cool in that, the fish, amphibians, reptiles, etc. are sorted by their natural location on the world. As we walked through all of the exhibits to the Great Lakes region (Chicago and the midwest area) she was amazed that these creatures lived in the depths of lakes and so close to where she was staying. Upon seeing the alligator snapping turtle that could easily rip off a person’s hand with its bird of prey like beak, she once again was at a loss for words.

The Field museum was decent, we were pretty tired because she was jet lagged still and I got no sleep after the world Series win last night, so we sort of just glanced around and then visited a really cool exhibit about tattoos which we both enjoyed.

All in all, Neele is super sweet and I think we’ll take another trip downtown, explore a bit more and such. I also learned that people outside of America think that Americans are Trump-loving, Twinkie-eating, rednecks. Seriously. Neele’s friends instructed her that she had to bring twinkies back so everyone could try them. I think I have eaten a single twinkie in my entire life.

Until tomorrow,

Alicia

P.S. Normally I would have taken loads of pictures but we were so captivated by each other and all we had to say the only time I pulled my phone out was to get an uber and to have my dad pick us up from the train station.

 

Don’t bite your tongue

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Nov. 3: If you could be completely honest with no regrets, what would you say and to whom?

As I read this prompt, I really couldn’t think of all that many people. I mean, yeah I have had to bite my tongue on occasion instead of saying something I would regret later, but honestly, not that many. I have decided to write to a general population instead of just like my friend so and so or whatever. So yeah, let’s do this.

To Trump Supporters: You are all idiots. The fact that you want to elect this complete idiot for president is absurd and outrages me as not only an American citizen, but as a woman, as a Black Lives Matter Support, as an LGBTQ supporter, as a lower-middle-class citizen. A man who is going to court in the next few weeks for CHILD RAPE, a man who has said you can do anything to a woman, even “grabbing her by the pussy,” a man who is a complete racist asshole and A MAN WHO HAS EVEN SAID THAT REPUBLICANS ARE STUPID AND WILL LISTEN TO WHATEVER LIES ARE THROWN THEIR WAY… Yes he said that. While this election hasn’t changed my views on who can be president, it has changed the way I look at any human who has the audacity to publicly support this candidate.

To people who hate on other people for being ‘basic:’ Okay, I have been called a ‘basic bitch’ more times than I can count. Just because I like fall, and Starbucks, and I wear leggings, and listen to pop music doesn’t make me any less of a person than you. Fall is a cool season, so are all the other ones (not summer because humidity and hot). Starbucks is good, Dunkin is good, coffee and tea and frilly drinks are GOOD. LEGGINGS ARE COMFORTABLE. They’re like sweatpants but less ugly so while you talk shit about my leggings, I’ll leave all the fucks I give in the pocket of my jeans I don’t wear. I listen to pop music. I also listen to alternative music. It’s called pop because it’s popular. HATING THINGS OTHER PEOPLE DO DOESN’T MAKE YOU COOL. IT MAKES YOU AN ASSHOLE.

To every person that has ever been a bitch to me: I hate all three of you and I hope you rot in non-existent hell.

Until tomorrow,

Alicia

Bravery

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NaBloPoMo Day 2: When was the last time you did something brave? What happened?

For as long as I can remember, I have never been a quitter. I mean, I have quit things (who hasn’t) but not when quitting directly affects someone besides myself. My senior year, I quit water polo (due to my job and my knee) but it was out of my hands (the knee part) and I quit very early on in the season before anything was set in stone about starters and positions and things like that. It’s not that I have a problem saying no in general, per say, but once I am invested in something, I do tend to have a more difficult time getting the word “no” to leave my mouth.

If you’ve followed my blog for at least the past two weeks, you may have read my post about me quitting my nannying job. I feel like a broken record saying this but I feel me quitting was very brave of me, especially considering it is not something I do usually, or ever for that matter.

For the first time ever, I was able to stand up for myself when I wasn’t being treated properly and was able to make it out of a toxic environment before it got too crazy. Standing up for myself and being able to tell someone that enough I enough is not something I’m typically comfortable with and the fact that I did it shows great bravery, in my opinion.

While I am out of a job right now, getting away from that one is more important than the $13 an hour I was getting

Until tomorrow

Alicia

NaBloPoMo Day 1

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Nov 1st Prompt: When you’re having a bad day with your mental health, what do you do to help yourself?

This is actually a funny topic (not funny per say more like ironic) because I’ve actually been having a bad mental health couple of days recently and have done just about everything I know possible to help myself mentally.

Whenever I think of having a bad mental day, the only thing I want to do is curl up in a ball and sleep all day. That’s nice to do every once in awhile, but when you have bad mental days as often as I do, it’s just not realistic.

The first thing I do is shower, or take a bath. Whenever I have a bad mental day, I typically cannot feel anything. I am basically the embodiment of an emotional void and the only thing that helps is feeling the warmth on my skin as the water cascades down my body. The cool air as I step out of the shower, and the same cold yet soothing feeling as I soothe lotion all over my body.

Once I’m soft and clean, I put on my comfiest pair of pajamas, twist my hair in a bun, and write. I write about my emptiness, I write about how I want to feel, I write about things that make me feel, anything. I listen to classical music to keep me calm and get my creative juices flowing.

While I write, I prepare some tea (Earl Grey is my personal fave). While my body still can’t feel emotion, the scalding tea reminds me that I do in fact, exist, and I’m alive. Just simply holding the mug, and letting the heat radiate onto my fingers, reminds me to feel.

I sometimes do other things like bake, work out, etc, but what I mentioned above is the gist of what I do most often. See you tomorrow

Alicia

P.S. For everyone who wants to blog along… Here are the prompts for the week

Nov 1: When you’re having a bad day with your mental health, what do you do to help yourself?

Nov. 2: When was the last time you did something brave? What happened?

Nov. 3: If you could be completely honest with no regrets, what would you say and to whom?

Nov. 4: Which fall shows should totally be canceled already?

Nov 5: Free Write

Nov 6: Free Write

National Blog Posting Month

Published on by Alicia6 Comments

Hi everyone,

In an attempt to become more consistent in my posting and from seeing a ton of blogs do this last year, I am going to be participating in National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo).

For those of you who don’t know what that is, November is in fact National Blog Posting Month. A few years back, someone created the hashtag #NaBloPoMo and more recently, BlogHer took it over. BlogHer creates prompts for each weekday (weekends are free writes) to get people motivated to write every day during the month of November. You don’t have to use every prompt as they are there for just guidance and to get the writing juices flowing. The prompts will be posted every week (according to BlogHer’s twitter) so I will post them here as they become available or you can check out BlogHer’s website for the prompts.

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I encourage everone to join in on this with me as in the past, the prompts have been very versatile and it’s very interesting seeing each blog’s take on certain prompts.

Until tomorrow

Alicia

Happy 1st Blogiversary

Published on by Alicia20 Comments

Hi everyone. As you can probably understand from the title of this post, a year ago today I posted my first blog post on this blog. While this wasn’t my first blog by any means (I think this is actually my 4th), this is still a momentous occasion for me. Not only is this my one year blogiversary, but it is also my 100th post. 100 posts. To me that is a pretty huge milestone. Most blogs won’t make it to 100 posts, let alone a year, and I made it to both of them in one day. While looking back on this hectic year of blogging (and not blogging) I realized that this blog and I have been through a lot.

When I say this blog and I have been through a lot, I don’t mean the 5 URLs and over 30 blog headers, or the insane amount of hiatuses I took.

With my other blogs, I never really tried making blogger friends, I never bothered to read other blogs, and more often than not I never posted consistently. With this blog, however, I have made quite a few blogger friends, and even if we haven’t spoken, I have left and received comments by very sweet bloggers. I read the blogs I follow now and enjoy doing so. With the consistency thing… I definitely did have a few months in the past year that I hardly posted or I would post everyday for two weeks and then be gone for a month but life is life and I definitely post at least a smidge more consistently than I did on my other blogs.

This blog has also inspired me to talk. Not just to talk, but to speak out and freely about things I am passionate about. I have posted about mental health, physical health, money, college, and life in general without judgement. I now not only speak out on this medium of blogging, but also on other social medias and in person, something I never ever would have thought of doing prior to starting this blog.

This blog has given me a sense of confidence I never thought would be possible and I really want to thank everyone who follows, likes, and comments on my posts for continuing to let this confidence grow and this blog grow as well. I’m nowhere near a ‘popular’ blog but the blogs I follow and the people I have grown to know on wordpress make me feel like I have the best blog on the planet.

So thank you to all of my followers who have been there since the beginning and everyone who just followed me in the past week. You are all amazing.

So here’s to 100 more posts and many more blogging years to come.

Alicia