I Feel My Best When

28. I Feel My Best When

I feel my best when I have gotten tons of sleep. And I mean a good 9 - 10 hours of the stuff. You can never have too much sleep.

I feel my best when I am not at work. (Seriously, this place drives me absolutely insane.)

I feel my best when I am snuggling with my family, including the dogs.

I feel my best when I am listening to some really good music.

I feel my best when I am surrounded by love. <3

You want me to feed you too?

27. Go To Meals/Recipes When I Have Guests

This list assumes you actually have people over to your house. We almost never have guests. My daughter occasionally has a friend over for dinner but, most of the time, it is just us. We have a ton of animals in our house and it just isn't very easy to have people over. So, we don't really have a "go to" recipe for guests. Instead of giving you a "go to" meal, I will give you the recipe for my husband's "go to" dessert.

My husband makes chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes. Basically, these are cupcakes with a chunk of chocolate chip cookie dough in the center. He makes these for almost every event. Now. You can make these with any type of cupcake you want. However, we have found that the best combination is vanilla cupcake with the chocolate chip cookie dough center and a buttercream chocolate frosting. We did try a chocolate cupcake but it didn't taste nearly as good.

Please note that you will be making chocolate chip cookie dough and then freezing it for two hours before you make the cupcakes. Take this into account when you are deciding if you want to make them.

Here are the directions:

Ingredients: 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1/4 teaspoon baking soda 1/4 teaspoon sea salt 1/2 cup butter, softened 1/4 cup white sugar 1/2 cup brown sugar 1 egg 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips 1 (18.25 ounce) box yellow cake mix 1 1/3 cups water 1/3 cup canola oil 3 eggs

Directions: 1. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and sea salt; set aside. Beat the butter, white sugar, and brown sugar with an electric mixer in a large bowl until smooth. Add 1 egg and the vanilla extract and beat until smooth. Mix in the flour mixture until just incorporated. Fold in the chocolate chips; mixing just enough to evenly combine. Form the dough into tablespoon-sized balls; place onto a baking sheet, and freeze until solid, about 2 hours. 2. Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line 24 muffin cups with paper liners. 3. Beat 3 eggs in a large bowl with an electric mixer to break up. Add the cake mix, water, and canola oil; continue beating for 2 minutes on medium speed. Spoon into the prepared cupcake liners, filling each 2/3 full. Place a frozen cookie dough ball on the top center of each cupcake. 4. Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the cake portion of the cupcake (not the cookie dough ball) comes clean, about 20 minutes. Cool in the pans for 10 minutes before removing to cool completely on a wire rack.

Enjoy!

Holiday! Celebrate!

26. Make Up Your Own Holidays

First, I would like to nominate my birthday, November 23, as a holiday. Unfortunately, it usually falls quite close to Thanksgiving so it gets overlooked a lot. We all know I hate the cold and making my birthday a holiday would brighten my spirits.

What other holidays would be good? There should be a National Nap Day. It doesn't necessarily mean you get the day off from work but you have to at least be able to take a nap during the day.

Maybe we can make Tabletop Day, a day of playing board and card games, more well-known. There are tons of people that love playing games but they don't even know Tabletop Day exists. (For the record, it's Saturday, April 5 this year.) It should definitely be a real holiday.

Finally, there should be a National Pet Adoption Day. You don't have to go adopt a pet but this would be aimed at getting people to stop buying puppy mill animals and showing them that adopting from shelters would be better. There wouldn't be a lame Sarah McLaughlin commercial or anything like that. It would be a fun family day. People shouldn't be guilted into adopting pets from shelters. It's an awful form of advertising. Oh, and the adoption agencies would also be a little more lenient on their policies. (When my family moved into our house, we had trouble adopting a dog because we had a cat. We ended up having to buy Bella from a breeder before we were able to adopt from a shelter.) It's a day to make pet adoption easier, not more difficult.

Review: Crest Chocolate Toothpaste

My daughter chose to purchase Crest's Mint Chocolate toothpaste when her regular fruit-flavored toothpaste ran out. We were skeptical about a chocolate toothpaste but we gave it a try. chocolatetoothpaste

Be Adventurous! The toothpaste itself is tinted green and contains tiny brown flecks. Considering the toothpaste ended up tasting like mint chocolate chip ice cream, I am assuming those brown flecks are the chocolate part. I was really quite surprised at how tasty the toothpaste was. Admittedly, it was strange brushing with mint chocolate chip flavored paste as opposed to peppermint or even cinnamon. However, once you get over the weirdness, it is rather awesome.

I'm not sure why society has decided that toothpaste must be minty (even the cinnamon flavors can be difficult to find sometimes) but this was a very welcome change. Children's toothpastes tend to be fruit or bubblegum flavored. There's no reason that adults can't have the same indulgence in their hygiene routine. After all, there is some mintiness there. It's just swirled with chocolate goodness. I'm looking forward to trying the other two flavors in the line - Lime Spearmint and Vanilla Mint. I can only hope those are as good as the mint chocolate one.

I am a rockstar!

25. Songs I'll Record For My Album

This one is interesting since I used to sing in an online cover group. We'd pick songs and record our lines to email to the mixer. Once the mixer was finished mixing everyone's lines with the background music, all of the songs would be released as an album. I haven't done a lot of solo singing though. Let's see....what would I put on a solo album....

Glamorous Sky by Nakashima Mika as Nana (her VEVO account only has short versions of her songs for some reason) Love Addict by Nakashima Mika I'll Remember by Madonna (her music company likes to make everyone disable the audio on her videos so I don't have a link for it) Dark Horse by Katy Perry (the radio version without the rap)

Hm. I really don't know what else. My husband is supposed to be fixing a laptop for me so I can record some more stuff so maybe one day I'll have an album. That would be cool.

Show Me The Love!

24. Best Ways To Show Love

I think the best way to show love is to just be engaged with the person you are with. And I don't be "about to be married" engaged. I mean, take an interest in what your partner likes. For example, my husband enjoys video games. If he's playing a game that I think looks interesting, I'll sit with him and watch him play. Meanwhile, my husband has taken a few trips out to help me at my craft show tables. We both have our own separate hobbies but, at the same time, we know that it's not all about the "Me."

The same theory runs true with my daughter. Sometimes I'll sit and watch TV with her or we'll play games together. She also helps me make jewelry and helps out at my craft show tables when she can.

I don't really think that you have to be gushy with the displays of affection or anything. Just be with someone when you are with them. Put down the phone or iPad for awhile and just be together. Simple as that.

It's Time For

23. It's Time For...

Well, today is Sunday. That means it's time for laundry. After the laundry, it will be time for the dishes. (Due to the setup in our house, I can't run the washing machine and the dishwasher at the same time. It is annoying.) At some point, it will be time for grocery shopping. Sunday is almost always time for chores.

According to my dogs, it is time for a nap. But they always think it is time for a nap.

According to my husband, it is time for video games. He is currently playing Titanfall.

And, according to my daughter, it is time for hanging out with friends. She hasn't been home since Friday afternoon. Soon, it will be time for coming home.

Please Don't Stop The Music

22. This Week's Playlist

I don't really have a playlist, per se. So here are the songs I currently like:

Dark Horse - Katy Perry Burn - Ellie Goulding Say Something - A Great Big World & Christina Aguilera Best Day of My Life - American Authors Applause - Lady Gaga Brave - Sara Bareilles

I love music so it's kinda hard for me to just pick a handful that I love but this is a good place to start.

Perfection!

21. The Perfect [Blank] Involves [Blank]

The perfect day involves lots of naps The perfect home involves lots of love The perfect vacation involves a stroll on the beach The perfect day trip involves roller coasters The perfect sandwich involves cheese

I don't really have a lot of standards for "perfection." A nice, relaxing day on the beach with some naps and grilled cheese sandwiches thrown in. That would be nice.