DON'T LEAVE YOUR ALARM ON

There are so many ways to wake up. SO MANY. 

But the worst way to possibly wake up has got to be the way I woke up this morning.

I have no issue with waking up early when I have to, but when I wake up early because of someone else, then IT'S A PROBLEM.

So I guess the girl who lives in the room above me (or maybe even the one who lives in the room below me, but most likely it's the girl above) had to wake up at 6:30 am. And set her alarm for 6:30 am. Problem is....she snoozed it, so it went off again a few minutes later. EXCEPT SHE DIDN'T TURN IT OFF FOR LIKE 15 MINUTES. I think she left to go shower and forgot to turn the alarm completely off. AND I COULD HEAR IT FROM MY ROOM. AT 6:30 AM. WHYYYYY.

I was sooooo mad. Literally, I can always hear her phone from my room. Like whenever it goes off during the day, or she gets a phone call or text, I can ALWAYS hear it. WHY IS HER PHONE SO LOUD?!?!?! I just don't get it. And I don't like it.

The Failed Prank

So this morning, we all woke up early to try and pull a prank. Only... it failed. HAHA.

It was supposed to be payback for throwing the nut or chocolate or whatever at us. I mean, all we did was try and give our neighbors some jellybeans. Isn't that nice of us?? Jellybeans?? YEAH. And they're delicious ones too. And then they sprayed us with water. (Hopefully it was water.)

SOOO we tried to do the tape on the door thing, except of course it failed because Dan was already up and could hear us putting the tape on. MAJOR FAIL. But just wait, because next time will be better. Muahahaha.

Moral of the story is: make sure nobody's awake yet when you try to put tape on their door.
Also, avoid party regret.

Super Simple Smoothie

This is the smoothie I made this morning. Anyone who knows me knows that I absolutely LOVE smoothies. Love love love love love them. They're sooo easy and quick to make. They taste delicious. You can put anything you want into them. In one smoothie, you can potentially put all your daily servings of fruits and/or veggies in case you don't have time to eat them that day.

The smoothie I made today only contained 3 ingredients. Raspberries, banana, and a touch of honey. It could have been a 2 ingredient all-fruit smoothie with just the raspberries and banana. But the raspberries were a little more tart today, so the honey cut down the tartness a little bit.

I'm a big big fan of fruit smoothies. Especially all-fruit ones. Vegetable smoothies, not so much. Blended up veggies?? No thank you. I can handle 98% fruit, 2% vegetable smoothies though. You know, the kind where you sneak just a little bit of spinach inside. Just a little bit though. But if you try adding beets or carrots, forget about it. I'm not on that level yet.

Also, I'm super loving this new little blender I got off Amazon. I didn't want to cart off my huge Ninja blender to SLO with me, so I got this little one. And it's perfect for helping me not make the perfect amount of smoothie, just about 1 tall glass, each time. Plus, it's also my favorite color :)

Nighttime Is When Weird People Come Out To Play

Today I realized, Fashion Valley mall is full of weird people at night. I normally only go there during the day, but whenever I do go there at night, I always meet the WEIRDEST people.

So when I went in the afternoon with Brittany and Tyler, everything was totally fine. We walked around, went to different stores, got some lemonade, Brittany got an awesome hat. Everything was totally normal and it was a fun day. We didn't meet anyone weird or creepy. Daytime is A-okay. 

Then I met up with Sharon for dinner. We tried beets for the first time in a salad! Andddd we discovered we just do not like beets. Like at all. And we kept trying to figure out what this other thing in the salad was...At first I thought it was peach. Then I thought it was mango. It actually turned out to be butternut squash when we asked the waiter (good guess Sharon!) who also had no idea what it was at first haha. 

And we got Pinkberry after dinner. Seriously though, vanilla latte is the best. I never tried that flavor before, but it was delicious. Too bad the humidity in the air caused our cones and waffle cookies to get really soggy really fast. But then while we were walking, some weirdo guy came up and asked if he could have a bite of my frozen yogurt. Ummm what??? Obviously I'm not going to share my froyo with you, stranger. First of all, is that even a real question you ask someone??? And secondly, WHO ARE YOU???? I clearly did not give him any of my froyo, but I did tell him that he could go to Pinkberry and get free samples haha.

Moral of this story: Don't talk to strangers who ask you for your dessert. They're just creepy. Also, go to malls during the daytime.

Movie Night & Homemade Popcorn

This past weekend, we had a movie night at Aunt Cherie and Uncle Yvan's house, where Trisha, Arianne, and I finally watched the masterpiece SILENCE OF THE LAMBS.

Of course, no movie night is complete without popcorn. But we decided to make it ourselves. 100% homemade and 100% delicious. Sure store bought bags of popcorn are easier, or even the kind you buy and stick in the microwave. But they're full of butter and sugars that you don't really need/want. Plus if you make it at home, you can create your own flavors and basically customize the whole thing. Popcorn is actually a pretty healthy snack, but we decided to splurge a little and make some chocolatey concoctions for the movie night. Of course, this would be just as delicious without the chocolate (believe me, we tested it!) haha.

We made 3 different flavors based on what everyone liked. We popped a whole bunch of the popcorn kernels in a little bit of oil, then mixed in the different toppings. We melted up some dark chocolate We didn't add any butter, and just a little sprinkle of salt.

Flavor 1: Dark chocolate (for Dylan who's allergic to nuts and doesn't like cinnamon)

Flavor 2: Dark chocolate with cinnamon (my favorite one!)

Flavor 3: Dark chocolate with chopped up Twix bars and crushed almonds (for the milk chocolate and caramel lovers)

The popcorn was delicious and so simple to make. So simple even Dylan and Kaia helped us make it!  This is probably one of my new favorite snacks to eat. Next time if I want a healthier version, I'll probably just make it plain with cinnamon. And the movie was really really good too. Suspenseful, kinda creepy, but I actually didn't find it to be scary at all. Probably because I can deal with scary movies that involve psychotic killers and gore, but I really cannot handle paranormal scary. I can never ever do paranormal scary. I literally can't sleep for weeks after watching one of those.

Caramel Apples, But Not.

I love apples, but I'm not always a fan of eating them if that makes sense. It kinda gets tiring eating a plain apple after a while. 

For breakfast this morning, I really wanted to eat apples though. But not plain apples. Oh no. 

So I made these apples, drizzled with lots of melty peanut butter and sprinkled with cinnamon--two of my favorite things ever. And I ate the whole plate without getting tired of it. Success! 

They kinda remind me of caramel apples, but healthier. And I don't like caramel that much anyways. Side note: these would also make a really delicious and easy snack too. This takes like 2 minutes to make, tops.

Friday Favorite | The Special Ratatouille Pasta Sauce

I love to make this sauce. It's sooo yummy. It's basically the recipe that my mom and aunts used to make spaghetti sauce when I was younger, but I added my own twists on it over the years. And somehow it became this sauce! It's a good pasta sauce for basically any type of pasta, or even if you love eating sauce alone (like me!) or with some French bread. My aunt and uncle say it's similar to a ratatouille, so now I'll just call it the Ratatouille Pasta sauce. I'll take that as a compliment because my uncle is French so he would know his French food. It's definitely not vegetarian like real ratatouille though because my family loves meat and really meaty meat sauces. The only issue I really have with making this sauce is that I ALWAYS make way too much because it's so hard to make only a little bit of sauce. But this is a good thing because the only thing better than this sauce when its fresh, is this sauce as leftovers for another meal or a snack.

The Ingredients:

Note 1: We like our sauce spicy and this sausage is definitely spicy, but you can use non-spicy sausage. You can actually use any type of meat you prefer: ground beef, ground turkey, etc. and then just add spice later if you like.

Note 2: You can add any vegetables you like into the sauce too. And any type of jar sauce. Basically this sauce can be tailored to suit anybody's taste buds.

Surprise! When I was cutting open the bellpepper, there was a mini little bellpepper inside. 

Cut everything up to around the same size!

Cook low and slow. The longer the better. I let this pot cook for just under 2 hours. If you need it done faster, it'll still taste good after 30 minutes. But it will taste even better if you leave it to cook for longer. 

AND IT'S DONE. 

Smoothie With A Spoon

This morning I felt a little adventurous and decided to make a smoothie. I put in banana, apple, dates, a big spoonful of peanut butter, and some ice. I didn't have any yogurt or juice, so it was just an all-fruit smoothie. With peanut butter haha. It ended up being a thicker smoothie. A smoothie you eat with a spoon. A smoothie with a spoon.

Taste-wise, the flavors went really well together. Texture-wise, I think I put too much apple in it because it reminded me a little bit of applesauce--and I don't like applesauce. This recipe is obviously still a work in progress. Next time, definitely less apple, more peanut butter (because I just love peanut butter), maybe add in some yogurt. We'll see how it goes.

Lesson learned.

Art Is Hard. Seriously.

DIY String Art: The Time We Tried To Be Artistic

So, since it's summer and we already played with bubbles... we decided to try another fun summer activity. And we settled on being artistic! Of course, Pinterest probably played a HUGE role in this decision. Basically we were like, why is everything on Pinterest so cute and crafty? Why can't we be cute and crafty?? Why can't we make cute and crafty things??? Challenge accepted.

After searching through the gazillions of cute DIY projects on Pinterest, we settled on string art. Some pins, a cork board, and string, and voila! How hard could that be? UH... REALLY HARD APPARENTLY.

Seriously, it turned out to be way harder than we thought. Pinning the pins took hours and hours (Like, were we doing it wrong? Is there an easier way to do it and we just don't know it??) And while we ended up with some nice looking projects--look how cute my elephant and giraffe are!--we also ended up with huge headaches and aching fingers. I will probably never try to be so Pinteresty again.

HALLELUJAH. FINISHED!

So moral of this story is, everyone on Pinterest probably lies about how long it took them to do their crafts because seriously this giraffe and elephant took 2 days to do. At least it turned out looking nice or I would have been so mad after spending so much time doing it. So Pinterest, can you please stop making all the crafts look so easy? Kay, thank you! Now I'm gonna go find an awesome place to hangout this piece of art. Just call me Picasso. Just kidding, please don't. 

Why Blowing Bubbles Is The Most Awkward Thing Ever

Bubbles are fun and magical. But also really really awkward. Like you just make the most awkward faces, and most awkward poses playing with bubbles. And if somebody drove by, they would probably think you're a crazy person jumping and running around with a stick in your hand. 

This week we found these bubbles on sale at the store. $1 bubbles??? YES PLEASE. 

And of course, we took SUPER awkward pictures while playing with them. But it's okay we're not embarrassed to look like fools. And Sydney is not ashamed to make little girls in the neighborhood jealous by yelling about her love for bubbles in front of them but then not sharing them. We just love bubbles. #sorrynotsorry.

Happy bubbling, ya'll!

How To Eat Breakfast Even When You're Too Tired

Sleeping Morning Breakfasts: Easy Edition

Truth: When I wake up in the morning, I'm grumpy and still tired. I'm hungry, don't feel like cooking, but I need to eat breakfast. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so I always start my day off with some kind of breakfast.

 This week, I made a run to the grocery store for some breakfast essentials and used them to make different breakfasts everyday. Each one took no more than 5 minutes to make--they were soo easy! 

What I bought: acai smoothie packs, a variety of fruit, wheat germ, plain Greek yogurt, slivered almonds, cacao nibs, and coconut shavings. I also already had honey and eggs at home. All it takes is combining different breakfast essentials to make different combinations. Even though it make seem a little pricey to buy all of those items, I didn't use them all up in a week and still have plenty left to make more breakfast this week. 

1. Acai Bowl

This was the first breakfast I made, so I went all out. The acai packs come sweetened or unsweetened, but I like to buy things unsweetened so I sweeten everything to my taste. I added strawberries and a banana, then blended it all together. I topped it with some more banana (I love bananas!) sliced on top, slivered almonds, coconut shavings, and cacao nibs. The cacao nibs are really bitter so I didn't add that many.

It's really delicious especially on hot summer mornings, and is even better if you freeze the fruit before you blend it all up so it's icy cold. I like to eat them in mugs.

2. Yogurt with "Granola" and Fruit

I love yogurt, but yogurt doesn't fill me up for very long on its own. So, on this day, I paired some yogurt with a fresh banana and a giant peach.

For the yogurt, I started with ~3/4 cup of plain Greek yogurt and drizzled in honey. Then I stirred it together really well because I don't like honey clumps in the yogurt. Instead of topping it with granola, I made my own "granola" using a couple spoonfuls of wheat germ, almonds, coconut shavings, and a few cacao nibs. So easy!

3. Hard Boiled Egg & Lots of Fresh Fruit

Hard boiled eggs are a definite breakfast essential for me. Make them in advance for the week and store them in the fridge. Plus, it's always really weird to boil just a single egg when you want to eat one, so you might as well just boil a few at the same time.

But a single egg is definitely not a filling enough breakfast. I was particularly lazy on this morning, so all I did was pair a hard boiled egg with a big bowl of cherries and fresh mangos. YES. This was the easiest breakfast of all to make because I really didn't make anything. Who ever said breakfast cheaters never prosper??

4. Breakfast Smoothie!

I absolutely loveeee smoothies. SOOO MUCH. I literally get brain freeze just about every time I have a smoothie because I try to drink them so fast, but they're totally worth it. This week I made a strawberry/banana/peach smoothie. I think that all smoothies should have a little bit of banana in them, or they just don't taste right or don't have the right consistency. But then again, not everybody loves bananas as much as I do.

First, I blended together a whole banana, a whole peach, a couple of strawberries, and a few ice cubes. I like to blend all of the fruit together first--before adding in yogurt--so I can see how much yogurt I want to put in depending on how much fruit there is. Then I add in some yogurt (usually about a couple of spoonfuls),  re-blend it, and it's ready to drink! It's also good to add the yogurt last in case you put in too much fruit, or else you'll end up with a whole gallon of smoothie if you're not careful! I almost always end up making more smoothie than I thought I would.

5. Strawberry Yogurt 

Last but not least, I made a big bowl of strawberry yogurt. I started with about a cup of plain Greek yogurt and mixed in a little bit of honey. Then I cut up a cup of strawberries into small chunks and smooshed them into the yogurt using a spoon until the yogurt turned pink. Some chunks of strawberry remained, which is perfect. I added a lot of strawberries because I love them, plus it fills me up. Then I mixed in a couple spoons of wheat germ, and topped with almonds and cacao nibs. 

Yogurt with fresh fruit mixed in is always more filling than plain yogurt with granola topping, like I did on the 2nd day. So this was actually already a filling enough breakfast. 

So that was my week of experimenting with easy breakfasts. If you can't already tell, I really do love strawberries and bananas. So that's why I pretty much used strawberries and bananas in everything. 

The hardest part of the whole process was probably the cleaning up part, because I HATE CLEANING. But the breakfasts were all delicious and didn't take a lot of time or energy to make, so all in all, it was a successful week of eating breakfast :)

Baking Shortcut: Funfetti Cookies

How To Make Cookies Really Really Fast 

I LOVE to bake. Cookies are one of the first things I learned to bake from scratch when I first started baking around age 11 or 12. Since then, I've continued to bake cookies from scratch. But, I've also discovered a really quick and easy way to make cookies. The secret is to start with store bought cake mix. Baking anything, whether it's cookies or cake or bread, starts with the same basic ingredients for the most part. So, it's really easy to turn a cake mix into cookies instead!

You can use any type of cake mix to make any type of cookies, but this week I decided to make Funfetti cookies. Baking usually involves exact measurements to make sure that the product turns out the way it's supposed to. But when I'm making cookies from cake mix, I don't measure as precisely and just use my judgment for how much of each ingredient to add. With practice, it gets easier to do. 

Side note: I like my Funfetti cookies to be more fluffy and puffy than when I make other cookies. So, I add a little bit of baking soda to the dough. This step is completely optional and can be left out if you prefer cookies that aren't as puffy. I've made the cookies with and without baking soda before, and both ways result in delicious tasting cookies.

Ingredients

1 box Funfetti cake mix (any brand will do!)

2 large eggs

3-4 tablespoons flour

1/4 heaping teaspoon baking powder (optional)

1/3 cup vegetable oil (not olive oil)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees before making the dough. The dough is really easy to make and you'll want the oven to be ready to pop the cookies in.

Step 1:

Wet ingredients: In a bowl, whisk together the 2 large eggs and 1/3 cup of vegetable oil.

Step 2:

Dry ingredients: In a second bowl, dump in the bag of cake mix. Whisk well to get rid of clumps. Add a heaping 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda (if desired) and whisk together.

Step 3:

 To the dry ingredients, add 3 loose tablespoons of flour (don't pat it down). Whisk well.

Step 4:

 Slowly add ~1/3 of the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and whisk together. Continue to add a little bit of the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients like so, and mix.

Step 5: 

When the mixture becomes too thick to mix with the whisk, take out the whisk and mix the rest by hand. The dough should start to come together and form into a lump. If not, add another tablespoon of flour (or more) until the dough all clumps together. The dough shouldn't be too wet (like cake batter) or too dry (like pizza dough).

Step 6:

 Using a mini ice cream scoop, or a regular spoon, form ~1 inch round balls of dough and place onto a greased cookie sheet. Leave around 2 inches of space between each ball.

Step 7:

Gently press down on each ball to flatten them. Dough should be slightly springy.

Step 8:

Bake the cookies at 325 degrees for around 11-13 minutes or until the cookies are slightly golden brown. I usually don't use timers, but I'll know that the cookies are almost done once I start to smell them.

Step 9:

Once the cookies are done, take them out of the oven and let them rest for a minute or so. Then place the cookies onto a cooling rack to finish cooling. And they're ready to eat!

So, the most important part to remember for this recipe is to not follow the directions listed on the cake mix box. Because remember, you're trying to make cookies, not cake! But whether you're making cookies or cake, your house will smell delicious for hours after you bake. And I think everyone agrees that the smell of freshly baked Funfetti is one of the best smells in the world. 

From Sickness to Health

When Life Gives You A Cold, It Sucks. 

I hate getting sick. It really sucks no matter if you have a little cold or the full blown flu. Your head pounds, you can't breathe, your throat hurts, you're freezing, you're too hot, etc. You just feel like death, then you take a bunch of medicine, and you get over it and feel good as new again. At least until the next time you get sick.

I've come to realize that every time I get sick, I kind of have an established routine for how I try to make myself better. Besides taking medicine (only when I really need it), I have a few essentials that I swear help me get well again. But I'm no doctor, so warning: it's probably just all a placebo effect.

1. Wearing comfy lounging clothes.

Nobody likes dressing up when they're sick. I pick my outfits everyday based on my mood in the mornings. So when I'm feeling sick (or just lazy), all I want to wear are fuzzy socks, leggings, yoga pants, sweats, and T-shirts. I just wanna feel warm and cozy. I don't have the energy to put on real pants or cute shirts. Being sick makes you feel gross, so wearing comfy clothes helps you feel a tiny bit better because you feel cozy and protected.

2. Water overdose.

I drink a ton of water on the daily, but when I'm sick, I drink a whole lot more because I think it helps "flush" out all the bad stuff in my body. Sometimes I feel like I'm a fish out of water--I literally feel like I'm drying out and getting dehydrated when I don't have anything to drink even for half an hour. I literally need the hydration or I feel like I'm dying in the Sahara Desert. When I'm sick, its a constant cycle of feeling dry, drinking water, going to pee, then feeling dry again. It just never ends.

3. Green Tea.

Besides water, I also like to drink a lot of green tea when I'm sick. If I don't have green tea, any other tea works too, but mostly it's the green. I'll drink it iced or hot, and I'll drink it all day long. It helps to sooth my throat when it sore or scratchy. I also like to think it has some ancient magical tea powers in it that's working to make me feel better.

4. Bananas.

I eat a banana pretty much every day. When I'm sick, I eat more than one banana. It's mostly just because I feel like fruit is healthy and eating healthy things when you're sick will help you get better. And since there are always bananas in my house (because they're my favorite), I end up eating them since they're right there. I probably eat 10x more bananas than any other fruit. And sometimes when there's a lot of fruit in the house, I'll blend it all up in to a jumbo smoothie. Because I also love smoothies. And fruit is good for you. And when you're sick, sometimes you're too tired to chew, so drinking a smoothie is perfect.

5. Watching Jimmy Fallon Videos on Youtube.

I don't know why, but binge-watching Jimmy Fallon clips on Youtube works miracles. I love watching them and they make always me laugh. Like they say, laughter is the best medicine right? So watching funny things is good for you when you're sick (and even when you're not sick). It's like you're laughing out all of the germs inside you.

So, those are basically the 5 things that I always do when I'm sick. There may or may not be actual science behind them, and they may or may not even actually work. But, if all of these fail, then there's always the final option of just getting someone I know sick. Because everyone knows that once you pass along the sickness, you suddenly make a full recovery. Weird.

A Curse and a Blessing

The Fountain of Youth Is Right Here

This is Aunt Cherie. Today she's dressed like this while drinking hot chocolate.

She kind of looks like a mix between a 12 year old and a cowboy. So, she's basically a 12 year old cowboy. Which would make it seem a little creepy if she wore this next to Uncle Yvan in public because he doesn't look like he's 12. But really, she's actually wayyy older than 12. Like by a lot.

Like a lot of other people in the world, especially a lot of Asians, she can pass for a lot younger. I've been asked before if I was 12. The other day someone asked if I was 16. It's definitely flattering, but can also be annoying sometimes.

The best parts of looking younger than you are:

1. You look younger than everyone else your age. So when they look old and wrinkly, you still look good.
2. You can still order off the kid's menu without looking like a weirdo.
3. You can pretend your kids are your siblings.
4. You make other people jealous by your youthfulness.
5. You can still shop in the juniors department.

The worst parts of looking younger than you are:

1. You always get carded. ALWAYS. And will continue to be carded for the rest of your life.
2. When you go into expensive stores, salespeople ignore you.
3. People think your ID is fake and that you aren't really you. But you really are you.
4. People are totally be jealous of your youthfulness.
5. You honestly look really weird when you try to dress more maturely.

There's pros and cons to looking young. It would be nice to look my actual age, but then again I don't want to look old and wrinkly when it's time for me to look old and wrinkly. 

The Lemonade Lesson

A Lesson From A Wise (Almost) 5 Year Old

This is Kaia aka Princess Kika. She's very happy. She LOVES lemonade. So now she's very happy because she sees that I have lemonade. 

"Can I have some of your lemonade?" 

But for some odd reason, she doesn't like lemons. This is her face when she realizes there's a lemon slice in my lemonade.

"Oh nevermind,  I don't like lemons."

One minute later, "Actually, can I have some please? Mm it's really good!"

While drinking the lemonade, she shares a few things that some of us may not have known (looking at you, Kurtis).

1. "Jackie, all lemonade has lemons in it right? That's what makes it lemonade!"  

2. "Pink lemonade is made from strawwwberries. That's what makes it pink." 

And last but not least,

3. "I love to eat ice. It's so yummy and cold!"

Mind. Blown. Yes Kurtis, pink lemonade really is made with strawberries.