Next Bev Up: Lemonade

In case you haven't noticed, I've been on a beverage kick lately. I know it's really important to make sure you drink a good amount of water every day, but sometimes water just gets boring. So I need to change it up. Granted, my alternatives do tend to be a little unhealthier than water, but I can't help it. Plus, I still make sure I drink at least 5 cups of just water every day (yes, I know. That's nowhere close to enough water, but I'm working on it).

Today, in the midst of spring, the weather here in New Jersey is actually cooler than I'd like. In fact, some parts of New Jersey got snow the other day! In April! I'm not a fan of cold weather, so I keep my fingers crossed for this cold weather nonsense to end. I added to my self-delusion today by making myself a nice cold glass of lemonade. (Actually, it's still in the process of getting made as I type up this blog, but I decided to write about it anyway).

So here's what I did:

INGREDIENTS:

1 lemon
2 Tbsp. honey
2 Tbsp. brown sugar (or white sugar, if you prefer)
1 cup + 8 tbsp. water (the 8 tbsp. will be for the syrup)

PROCEDURE:

1. On the stove, heat up the honey, sugar, and 8 tablespoons of water in a small skillet. It doesn't need to come to a boil; it just needs to be warm enough to dissolve the sugar completely. Give it a couple stirs at the end to really make sure the water's dissolved.

2. Put the syrup in the fridge to chill.

3. While the syrup is chilling, cut a lemon and squeeze the juice into a cup. I personally like my lemonade to be very lemony, so one whole lemon is a good amount  for me. However, if you don't like your lemonade as lemony, you can use a little less. Adjust according to your taste.

4. Check on the syrup. For me, the syrup wasn't done chilling yet, so I spent some time cleaning up the kitchen and stuff. Then I wet a paper towel with cold water, wrapped the wet paper towel around the cup, and then stuck that in the fridge too. I know there's not really anything in the cup other than the juice of the lemon, but I really like my lemonade cold, so I figured, the colder the cup, the better I'll enjoy it.

5. Once the syrup is chilled enough for your liking, take it out of the fridge. I also took the cup with lemon juice out of the fridge and filled it up with water. Add a bit of syrup to the lemonade. WARNING: The syrup is very sweet. Don't be too tempted to just dump the whole thing in at once without trying it little by little first. You can always save any leftover syrup for the next cup of lemonade.

6 Enjoy your lemonade! :)

X

Today's Breakfast Beverage: Chocolate Milk!

Am I the only one who still gets pretty excited about making my own chocolate milk? I mean, here I am, a grown woman, and the second my mom buys a big thing of unsweetened cocoa powder, the first thing I want to do is make a tall glass of chocolate milk.

I mentioned in my previous blog post that I recently found a way to make extremely delicious coffee with cocoa in it. Well, this morning, I made some tasty chocolate milk. The first time I tried to make chocolate milk, it was a bit of a failure. The cocoa powder floated to the surface in clumps and made the whole experience pretty dissatisfying. So today, I mixed some cocoa with some sugar and then slowed down the whole "add milk" process. The result: chocolate milk that I gulped down within five minutes! It was so great I just had to take to the internet and share.

Ingredients:

1 cup  milk
1 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp brown sugar

Procedure:

1. Mix the cocoa powder and brown sugar together. You can use white sugar instead, but my family has been on a health kick and my mom is convinced that switching from white to brown sugar will be the solution to our unhealthy sweet tooth habits.

2. Pour about a quarter cup of milk into the cocoa-sugar mixture. Really stir that mixture. I'm talking stir it hard. You might see floating clumps; I did. So I zapped it in the microwave for 10 seconds, just long enough to warm it up a bit but not long enough to make the milk uncomfortably hot.

3. Continue stirring until most or all of the clumps are gone. When that happens, pour in the rest of your milk. Stir again, and you should have a relatively clump-free glass of chocolate milk. You may still have a little clump or two in your glass, but because it's been mixed with sugar, it's actually not so bad.

4. Enjoy your chocolate milk and maybe reminisce about the good ol' days when you raced into the kitchen every morning to a glass of chocolate milk that your parents made for you.

Chocolate Coffee Recipe (AKA Delicious Way to Get Up In The Morning)

Like many people, I start pretty much all of my mornings -- particularly work day mornings -- with a nice cup of coffee. Generally, I brew my cup of coffee, add a little bit of sugar and milk, and I'm good to go. But recently, my mom bought a big container of unsweetened cocoa (the Hershey's brand) from Sam's Club, and that got me thinking. Sure, I'm sure I could use the cocoa powder for baking (which I still plan on doing this weekend), but I wondered what would happen if I put the cocoa powder in my daily cup of coffee.

It was a bit of trial and error. The first morning, I put half a tablespoon of the cocoa powder in my cup of coffee. Unfortunately, I forgot that it was unsweetened cocoa powder, so my coffee was a little hard to finish that morning. But then this morning, I found my cocoa coffee sweet spot. Let me share my discovery with you.

Ingredients:

1 cup brewed coffee (to your liking)
1/4 cup of milk (I like my coffee a little more milky than others. Feel free to adjust according to your taste)
1 tbsp. brown sugar
1/2 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder

Procedure:

1. Brew your coffee.
2. Add sugar, cocoa powder, and milk to your coffee. Stir thoroughly until all ingredients are mixed.
3. Enjoy!

Of course, feel free to add/decrease the amount of cocoa, sugar, or milk so that it suits the way you like it. I might go with a little less sugar next time, but at least I know I'm on the right track. I hope this has helped you find your coffee sweet spot, too!

Valentine's Day Affordable Gift Idea

Valentine's Day is just around the corner, and as a recent college grad with some serious student loans, I really have to watch how much I spend on gifts and other luxuries. Don't get me wrong; I absolutely love spoiling my boyfriend to pieces -- after all, he does the same for me all the time! But sometimes we all have to face facts, and in my case, the fact is that I simply cannot afford to shell out a lot of cash for a Valentine's Day gift.

But the thing is, you don't have to spend that much to show your loved one that you care! I don't know about you, but I don't believe that the amount of money spent equates to how much you love your significant other. So I've managed to put together a cute little Valentine's Day gift for under $20!

(Besides, Valentine's Day is pretty low on our 'holidays to celebrate love' list. Examples of days that come before V-Day are anniversaries, birthdays, and, of course, Christmas)

First place I scoured: my local Dollar Tree. They're usually pretty good about putting out stuff for every upcoming holiday (St. Patty's, Easter, etc.), and they didn't let me down: they had a whole section of Valentine's stuff! I managed to find everything I needed.

Here's my Dollar Tree haul:

- A cute Valentine's bear gift bag kit
- Those Valentines that you used to pass out to your classmates in elementary school
- A bunch of miscellaneous toys (a magnet, a jump rope, a ruler, a tea candle, among others)
- Sweetheart candies
- Valentine's Day gift bags

I'm making my s.o a bag o' puns!

I tied a cute pink/red tags to each of the toys with ribbon. Some examples of the puns I included:

- I'm so ATTRACTED to you (magnet)
- You RULE, babe! (ruler)
- You make me JUMP for joy! (jump rope)
- You are the SPARKLE I need in my life (bottle of glitter)
- I only have EYES for you (googly eyes glued to little pom poms)

Cute, cheesy, and affordable. Just my cup of tea. I'm sure the boyfriend will love it too.

X

DIY Peter Pan's Escaped Shadow Costume

Hey all!

With Halloween creeping up so close and me being the world's biggest procrastinator, you can imagine how stressful it was for me to come up with a costume. Since I'm a teacher, I figured it's an unwritten requirement for me to dress up for my kiddos. I wanted something easy to put together, cost me as little as possible, and comfortable to wear (New Jersey is getting cold around this time of year, y'all). I came up with Peter Pan's escaped shadow.

I looked online for some ideas, but everything I looked for involved a morph suit, and as much fun as that would be, I feel like it's pretty important for my students to be able to see my face. So I tweaked it as I went, and I have to say, I am very happy with the final product. So here's a super easy, no sew DIY Peter Pan's shadow costume. It took me all of an hour to make, and that was at a pretty leisurely pace.

What you'll need:
- Black XL t shirt
- Black tights or leggings
- Black belt or rope (to cinch the waist)
- Black feather (or a colored feather that you'll have to paint black)
- Two sheets of black felt
- Hot glue gun (plus the glue sticks, of course)
- Scissors

Since I already had most of the materials, all I really needed to get were the pieces of felt and the feathers, which cost me a whopping $5 from Walmart. I guess my thrifty broke-college-student ways haven't quite left me yet.

Here's how to put your costume together:

1. Take your pair of scissors and cut triangle shapes on the bottom of your XL t shirt and sleeves. It's okay if the cuts aren't perfect. I think that actually gives it a more authentic feel. There's no set amount of triangles for you to cut. Cut out however many you want, but make sure the sizes of the triangles aren't too big or too small; we're trying to recreate the look of Peter Pan's tunic.

That's the bottom hem of my shirt. As you can see, my triangles were  very rough and jagged, but ultimately, it gave my costume a good look.

That's one of my sleeves. Like I said, it's not really a professional-looking cut, but it gets the job done. I was a little pressed for time and didn't have time to make everything perfect.

2. Now for the hat. It's really a lot easier than I thought it would be. If you have sewing skills and can power sew in a pinch, kudos. But I chose the no-sew route, so my hot glue gun was my best friend. I found a Peter Pan hat pattern online and traced it on my pieces of felt. I taped the two pieces of felt together during this part so I wouldn't have to worry about ending up with two uneven patterns.

* Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures as I was making the hat, so I don't have any process pictures to share for this part*

3. Once I was done tracing the pattern on the felt, I cut the shapes out and hot glued the two top edges together. Make sure you don't glue the longest side together; that's the part that will go on your head. I chose to not glue the flat back part during this step; it made the next step much easier to do.

4. Once the two top sides were glued and dried, I folded the brim up and hot glued it to the body of the hat. It was almost like making those paper boats when I was a kid. When I glued the brim up, the front was too pointy for my liking, so I just folded it down and glued it in place.

5. Now for the feather. I couldn't find a black feather, so I used a purple one and painted it black with plain old acrylic paint. Once that dried, I glued the feather to the hat, tucking the "stick" end of it into the brim.

Wait for the hat to dry and you're done! Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

I wore my t shirt over a pair of fleece-lined leggings (which were seriously the most comfortable things I have ever worn). Because it's getting a little chilly out, I wore a long sleeve black shirt under my t shirt. The hat didn't fit in a way that would stay on my head without me constantly holding onto it, so I bobby pinned it on the sides and I was good to go. I also added a dagger to my costume by cutting it out of a cardboard and painting it black.

And there you have it! An easy, cheap, and totally comfortable way to go out for Halloween this year!

This whole patriarchal society thing going on? Yeah, it's gotta stop

I'm a feminist.

Even if you don't know me at all, even if I'm no more than an online stranger to you, those three words are enough for you to make an opinion of me, and a negative one at that. Because I'm a feminist, suddenly I'm this man-hating woman who believes that women are better than men. But that's not the case. As a feminist, I believe that women are equal to men, not better than them. For some reason, people have a really hard time wrapping their head around that idea.

In addition, women can't seem to win in the sex game. If a female says no to sex, then she is a close-minded stuck-up prude who thinks she's too good for men. If the same woman says yes to sex, then she is a slut, a whore, and will more often than not be slut shamed. However, if a man says yes to sex, then he is praised and congratulated. Men can freely brag about their string of one-night stands without worrying about negative judgments from the rest of society. They might strike out with women looking for committed long-term relationships, but other than that, they are generally in a good spot whether or not they say yes to sex.

Too often women are taught to dress modestly, as if covering themselves up will lessen their chances of getting sexually assaulted and/or raped. If a women reveals just a little bit of cleavage or an inch of her thigh, then she is dressing provocatively and is 'just asking for it.' Because that's what every girl dreams of, to be raped for wearing clothes that make her feel and look good. Women are taught to be careful at bars, to not get too drunk because getting drunk will increase their chances of getting raped. Women are taught to act sober so that men won't take advantage of them. Women are taught not to go anywhere after dark alone because that makes them more vulnerable to sexual assault. Women are taught to take catcalls as compliments. Women are taught to walk quickly in public, especially when they're alone, to decrease chances of violence, sexual or otherwise. Women are taught to do so many things so that they won't be raped or assaulted. But what are men taught? They're just vaguely and generally taught to be good people, but there are no repercussions for not following those rules. In fact,they are often congratulated for breaking those rules. Instead of telling women how to behave in order to not get raped, why not teach the men in our society to just not rape or sexually assault a woman? Guess that would be asking for too much, wouldn't it?

Two stories recently came out in the news. One is of Alyssa Funke, who agreed to sex and accepted payment to film it and to masturbate on video as well. Since the video was made with the intention for others to watch and enjoy (and she was aware of this), it was only a matter of time before her friends and other people on the internet saw the video.She was immediately harassed and slut-shamed to death, literally. She committed suicide because that was a better solution than tolerating all the harassment and slut-shaming that the internet found appropriate. But her suicide wasn't enough. Twitter users tweeted posts celebrating her death, calling her a whore and saying that she got what she deserved. Many of these users admitted (though I think a better word would be 'boasted') that they even masturbated to her video. It was just one big joke to them, just another woman to be called a whore even though they had tortured and agonized her to the point when suicide just seemed like the best solution. How about we make a rule that says that if you enjoy a pornographic video so much that you masturbated to it, you can't call any of the people in the video bad names? If what the person/people in the video is/are doing gives you that much sexual pleasure, why do you feel that it is appropriate to shame those same people for doing what they're doing? No one deserves to die because of their sexuality. Ever.

The second story that came out recently was that of Elliot Rodgers. Son of the director of the Hunger Games movies, he couldn't get laid. Poor guy, right? No girl would sleep with him. What was wrong with these women? (If the sarcasm wasn't clear, I'm making it clear now). So, as revenge for starving him of sex, Rodgers went ahead and killed a few girls before committing suicide. But wait; there's more. Rodgers also had an entire plan written out for retribution of the women who denied him sex. He believed that the women who rejected him were stupid and selfish for rejecting such a gentleman like himself, since he is better than everyone else. After Rodgers' suicide, people didn't call him names and harass him online like they did to Alyssa Funke. Instead, people praised him and even went so far as to call him a role model. The women who rejected him were blamed for his death. They honestly believed that it was the women's fault for saying no to sex, that they could have saved his and the other girls' lives if they had just consented to sex. While Rodgers was a hero, Funke was a villain. A society that honestly believes that is one that needs a major makeover.

It's always the women's fault. Always. That's why our society today sickens me. It's completely male-dominated and treats women as second-class citizens. It victimizes women and glorifies men, regardless of their actions and behaviors. Patriarchal society, please either fix yourself or go away completely. I don't want to give birth to a daughter who will grow up and live in a society that seems to only get worse and worse for women.

I need my family right now

I'm old enough to start looking for my own place to live, but I don't think it's possible to ever outgrow the need for family, especially when you start going through some emotionally trying times.

I need my family because they are the only ones who are going to listen to me and let my problems be completely and totally mine. I need my family because I'm tired of being emotionally manipulated and abused, and I need someone (or someones) to provide relief of that horrible sinking feeling. I need my family because no matter how old I am, they will always tend to the hurt little girl that comes out sometimes during stressful situations. 

I've been going through a pretty nasty sick spell, and I'd just told my mother that I was "a bit sick, probably with the allergies" about three days ago. Yesterday, I received a phone call/voice mail from her because she was concerned about my health and wanted to know if I'd gotten any better. That's the kind of attention I need and want right now. I'm not being selfish; I refuse to see looking after my own mental and physical health as selfish. I need the kind of attention that realizes that I'm part of this world, too, and that I'm capable of suffering just like anyone else. I need the kind of attention that looks out for me the way I look out for others. I need the kind of attention that I've only gotten from my family. I miss them so much. 

I'm trying to be a big girl about it and trying to deal with it on my own. But the truth is that I can't. No one should have to go through any kind of stressing or trying situation alone. Everyone needs support 100% of the time. It's about time I go find mine.