#my mom bought the wrong type of almond milk

[isthisjackie]

🙄.

[itsallwearecalledtodo]

I never posted my short story! It features two of my beloved OCs from something longer I’m working on. It’s kinda long, so it’s all under the cut.

Dez was waiting impatiently at the bus stop on a hot afternoon, her stomach rumbling. She glanced at her phone. The bus should have been here fifteen minutes ago. She had already been waiting for half an hour, and the Starbucks across the street with its promise of air conditioning and food was taunting her. After another five minutes, she gave in and begrudgingly crossed the street.

As Dez stood in line, scrolling through her phone, she noticed her friend, Henry, sitting nearby. She was just about to walk over and say hi when she noticed something out of the ordinary–a white mocha frap. A grande. With whipped cream. On the table at which Henry was sitting. Alone.

Dez’s eyes widened and a small smirk curled across her face. I knew it. She paid for her granola bar and left without saying hello.

***

The next day, Dez sat across the table from Henry at lunch, dropping her backpack irreverently onto the floor. Henry was drinking the same thing as always: black coffee. No sugar. No milk. It wasn’t good coffee either. Even though Henry was, in Dez’s mind, a coffee elitist, he never drank real, good-quality coffee. It was always some nasty generic brand shit that smelled like dirt. Whenever they went stargazing, he always brought a thermos, a pot of hot water, and Great Value™ instant (Instant?? Really???) coffee granules. Dez didn’t understand why, other than the fact that Henry was just dumb about stuff like that���the coffee he drank, the books he read, the camera he used, the movies he liked, the flannels and jean jackets he wore (even on a winter desert night when Dez would be wearing several layers of jackets and scarves). To her, it was just stupid and made absolutely no sense.

It took Henry a moment to look up from his book, an old sci-fi book with a battered 80’s style cover that no one reads anymore. Dez tapped her fingers on the table, impatient, waiting to get to the bottom of her new knowledge about her friend.

“Lots of homework so far?” He asked.

“Nah, thankfully. How’s AP lit going?”

“It’s not really going. None of the books are good. They’re all from like a hundred years ago about stuff no one cares about anymore.”

“So, I take it you’re reading Moby Dick?”

“Yeah…” Henry grimaced and took a gulp of his nasty coffee. “How was soccer practice yesterday?”

“Oh it ended way early. The bus was late. And I forgot my snack so I had to buy one. So . . . I guess not great? I dunno.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Henry continued reading, thinking their conversation was over.

Dez completely ignored Henry’s please stop talking to me I’m reading attitude and kept rambling, “Yeah I had to go to a Starbucks for like the first time in my life to get it, too. The vending machine near the soccer field was completely out of clif bars.”

“You? In a Starbucks?” Henry jerked up from his book and stared, his mouth agape. He knew that Dez thought all chain restaurants were just another form of colonialism and generally avoided them. To hear that she had even stepped foot in Starbucks, let alone had bought something from one, was as if he was hearing that

“I know it’s completely against principle,” Dez laughed (even though her face was stone cold at the mention of one of her least favorite coffee shops) and pulled out her phone. “I saw something weird, though.” A playful grin developed on her face as she squinted and searched for the incriminating photo. Henry stiffened and looked puzzled. Her smile grew even larger as she showed the picture to him.

“That’s not me.” He said after a quick glance, then returned his attention to his book as if he didn’t even see the picture.

Dez was persistent. “Yes, it is. You’re wearing the exact same flannel right now. That’s your face. Your computer. Your backpack. It’s you. Don’t deny it.”

“I’d never drink that, and you know it.”

“Sure…” Dez rolled her eyes, her playful grin starting to fade as her frustration grew. “I know you hate black coffee, Henry. Literally everyone hates it.”

“The only correct way to drink coffee is black. You know that’s my hard and fast opinion.”

“I think you’re lying to yourself. That is you, drinking something that actually tastes good. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“You don’t even like coffee, what would you know?”

Dez sighed. “I know that whatever the hell you drink everyday smells like dirt. I know the stuff my little sister drinks smells delicious. Smell is a good indicator of taste.”

“Not all the time—”

“Stop it. Stop. Just admit that’s you and that you really do hate black coffee and prefer to drink basically anything else.”

Henry sighed, defeated. “Do you know what would happen if I showed up to school with a white mocha frappuccino?”

“Literally nothing would happen.” Dez laughed again, rather annoyed.

“My whole aesthetic, my reputation, all would be lost.” Henry slumped back in his chair. They sat in silence for a few moments. “I’ll admit that’s me, but you can’t tell anyone, okay? This stays between you and me.”

“Sorry, can’t do that.”

Henry’s eyes widened in fear. “Who did you tell? I need to know.”

“Uhhh well I sent this to Emma as soon as I took it so…”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“It’s just Emma. She’s your friend.”

“Yeah and she’ll have told everyone by now. Thanks for that.” Henry picked up his coffee and backpack. “If I hear anything about this…”

Dez scoffed. “Emma would never betray you like that! You’re just mad I wounded your dumb aesthetic pride. Come on.”

“This is serious.” Henry looked hurt. “I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess.” He grabbed his backpack and thermos of disgusting black sludge, heading off to yearbook.

***

Several days passed until Dez ran into Henry again. It almost seemed like he was avoiding her. Finally, she cornered him in the hallway between classes. “Listen, Henry, it’s a new moon tonight and there’s supposed to be clear skies. Wanna go for a drive?”

She knew this was a perfect way to get Henry to talk to her. He didn’t have plans for the night and he wouldn’t say no to stargazing, especially with such perfect conditions. This would be the perfect way to get him to talk to her and for her to apologize (but only if he apologized for being a dick first).

“Uhh I guess so . . .” Henry looked up at the wall clock, trying to avoid Dez’s somewhat devious expression. “Um I gotta get to class. I’ll uh see you tonight.” Then he started hurrying down the hallway.

“I’ll pick you up at eight!” Dez yelled after him. I hope this works . . .

***

It was well past eight by the time Dez’s old station wagon pulled into Henry’s driveway. The sky was already speckled with millions of bright stars. The air was beginning to feel chilly, even though it was only late August. Henry began loading his photography equipment into the trunk while Dez figured out the quickest way to get to the middle of nowhere. Finally, all the gear was stowed haphazardly in the back. Henry swung himself into the front seat, carrying his typical grimy thermos.

But something wasn’t right. Dez leaned over the thermos and took in the wafting scent of–hazelnut? She cast an inquisitive look over at Henry, eyebrows raised. “What’s in the mug, Henry?”

“I put some . . . uhh . . . creamer in there. I think it’s hazelnut but I really just grabbed what my mom had in the fridge. It might be almond for all I care.”

Dez chuckled. “So is this an apology? Are you finally admitting that you don’t like black coffee? For real?”

“I mean, I guess?” Henry sputtered. “It’s okay? I mean I still like it but this,” he took a long drink from his thermos and let out a content sigh, “this is so much better.”

“I knew it.”

“You really can’t tell anyone though. This stays between us. We’re just that good of friends that I’m trusting you with this deep, dark, secret.”

“I won’t tell anyone. And I’m sorry for being rude earlier. It’s really none of my business what type of coffee you drink.”

“Nah it’s okay. You were just fooling around with me anyways. So, where are we going?”

“Oh there’s this small highway like, a half hour away maybe? Kinda in between our town and the next. Not a lot of traffic. There’s a couple spots we can pull over and you can set up your stuff.”

“Cool. Let’s get going then.”

They drove off into the crisp night, joking and laughing among the rich smell of creamy hazelnut coffee.

[the-expert-zone]

15 Awesome Keto Gifts You Can Order With Free 2-Day Shipping

Shopping for the perfect Keto gifts during the holidays can be exhausting. Don’t worry though — here’s a list of my favorite products that fit seamlessly into a low carb lifestyle.

Better yet, most of these products can be ordered with free 2-day shipping if you are a Prime member.

Dash Mini Waffle Iron

The Dash Mini Waffle Iron took over the Keto Instagram community by storm this past year! I personally use mine every single week.

These are great gifts for college students as well and couldn’t be easier to use.

Get it on Amazon

Veggie Spiralizer

This is a simple little cooking gadget that produces some AMAZING results! If you’ve ever seen noodles made from zucchini or carrots, they were probably made using a spiralizer.

When I first started Keto, I purchased one of the crank versions. It works great, but it is the biggest pain to clean.

This one is much easier, and they even provide the tools to clean it! You can’t beat that.

Get it on Amazon

Keto Cheat Sheet Magnets

The perfect gift for beginner’s of the ketogenic diet! These magnets take the guesswork out of one of the most common questions — “Is it Keto?”

Color coded and graphed by food type, use these visuals to help map your low carb meals.

Get it on Amazon

Beeswax Food Wrapper

How cute are these avocado patterned food wrappers? Better yet, they’re a good choice for the environment, too!

These reusable wraps are coated in beeswax and can be used multiple times to wrap and cover your foods.

You can get roughly 150 uses from each wrap, so these should last a while, too.

Get it on Amazon

Bacon Fat Strainer/Storage

This stainless steel oil strainer is a perfect gift for the Keto-er that is obsessed with bacon!

After preparing your bacon, simply pour the leftover fat through the mesh strainer and into the container. This will keep the delicious fat separated from any stray bits of bacon. The straining step is super important because the bits can go rancid and ruin all of your beloved bacon fat!

This is a high quality upgrade from the old Maxwell House coffee tin my mom used to keep in the kitchen, haha.

Get it on Amazon

Dash Egg Cooker

Eggs are a staple for many of us on the Keto diet. With this Dash Rapid Egg Cooker, you can easily prepare perfect poached, soft-boiled and hard-boiled eggs. You can also whip up scrambled eggs and omelets, as well!

When boiling eggs, the egg cooker does some sort of wizardry that makes the shell so easy to remove. I’ve never had eggs peel so effortlessly!

The egg cookers come in a variety of colors that will suit just about any kitchen!

Get it on Amazon

Insulated Shopping Bags

My mother-in-law bought us one of these insulated shopping bags last Christmas and I absolutely adore it!

First and foremost, they’re awesome for the environment. Instead of getting plastic bags, just pack up your items in these!

They also stand upright and stay put in the car while driving. Nothing is more cringe-worthy than when you’re rounding a corner and you hear the jar of Rao’s tomato sauce fly across your trunk.

These bags come in a two pack, making each one just $10! You can totally get two gifts out of one. If you want to take this a step further, you can fill the bag with some Keto staples like almond flour, erythritol, and maybe a few of Good Dee’s low carb dessert mixes!

Get it on Amazon

  Light & Phone Holder

If the Keto-er in your life is anything like me, they probably love taking photos of their food and sharing it across social media.

This contraption makes the process a lot easier and also provides a steady balance with minimal shaking. The lighting is also surprisingly good! This is perfect if you are just starting out as a blogger or social media influencer. It also makes a great stocking stuffer!

Life is too short for ugly food.

Get it on Amazon

Keto Krate

Keto Krate is available for $39.99 and shipping is free for both if you’re in the United States.

You can sign up for a monthly subscription or simply send a box as a one-time gift. It’s so simple and totally worth it!

I’ve been receiving a Keto Krate for years now, and it’s one of my absolute favorite things. Each month, I get a box of sugar free goodies shipped directly to my doorstep and it’s almost like having your birthday twelve times a year.

Keto Krate is also conscious of the ingredients in the products they send out. All contents are gluten free and you will never see ingredients like maltitol listed (it tends to give people explosive diarrhea).

Through Keto Krate, I’ve discovered some of my favorite products like Smart Cakes (Lemon is my personal favorite) and Keto Carne jerky.

You can save 25% on your Keto Krate order with Coupon Code: nobunplease

Order Keto Krate

Sweese Butter Dish

On the ketogenic diet, we tend to go through A LOT of butter. I like to keep a bar of Kerrygold on hand for when my dishes really need a boost of rich butter flavor (I can seriously eat it like cheese, too).

This butter dish is big enough to store an entire block of Kerrygold! If you are unfamiliar, Kerrygold is a butter produced from grassfed cows and the packages are about twice the width of a traditional stick of butter.

For those of us drinking bulletproof coffee (coffee + butter + coconut oil) or wanting spreadable butter, this is perfect. You can leave it out on the counter and use it whenever you need it. The cover also means that no bugs or pet hair will ever make it’s way into your butter!

Get it on Amazon

Cold Brew Pitcher

A cold brew pitcher is an excellent gift for the coffee lover in your life!

This pitcher makes it so easy to whip up a batch of cold brew at home. I use the 2 quart size, which means I only have to prepare one batch per week. The handle makes it super simple to pour straight from the fridge.

Ever since I’ve switched to cold brew, I find I can drink it black with nothing added. The result is a super smooth cold coffee at an affordable price! Score.

Get it on Amazon

Vava Electric Milk Frother

If a certain someone on your list is a coffee fan, you can’t go wrong with this milk frother as one of your Keto gifts! No need to go to a local shop when you can do it just as well in your own kitchen.

This electric milk frother produces A LOT of foam and you can use all sorts of bases like heavy whipping cream, coconut milk, and even almond milk. Pair it with a cute coffee mug and you’re set.

Now that’s the way to start the day!

Get it on Amazon

  Anova Sous Vide

Are you horrible at preparing meat? A sous vide might just be the perfect solution.

A sous vide is an electric device that gives you the ability to cook your food at a very precise temperature. Typically, you seal your food, submerge it in a container filled with water, and the device does all of the hard work.

This means that you can perfectly cook your steaks to ANY temperature and it will come out exactly how you like!

I’ve even seen some make a copycat version of the egg bites from Starbucks using a sous vide.

Get it on Amazon

  GoWISE Air Fryer

If you haven’t used an air fryer yet, you’re severely missing out! When I received one as a gift a couple years ago, I didn’t think much of it.

My first recipe was a small batch of chicken wings. This is all it took to convert me! Imagine the crispiest wings you could ever imagine, without the oily mess!

My air fryer has grown to be a staple in my kitchen and I legitimately use it every single day. Aside from wings, they’re great for reheating leftovers (the Blackened Tenders from Popeyes reheat beautifully), cooking burgers, making perfectly crispy bacon and tons more! According to the booklet that came with mine, you can even make a cake!

Get it on Amazon

Soda Stream

I use my Soda Stream every single day!

While marketed as an at-home soda machine, I actually use this almost exclusively for sparkling water.

This device makes it easy to control the amount of bubbles and you can even add your choice of your flavorings.

Soda Stream offer some sugar-free flavor concentrates (the Dr. Pepper alternative is quite yummy) and they’re so nice to have on hand.

Aside from the cost savings, it also means that I don’t have to carry or recycle a ton of plastic/glass from the grocery store.

Get it on Amazon

What are your favorite Keto gift ideas? Share them below!

This post contains affiliate links.

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[hprarepairnet]

silverskin

pairing: cormac mclaggen x pansy parkinson

setting: modern, non-magical, the cutting edge au; also, a spiritual continuation of the ice, ice, baby series

word count: 3,749 

alternate link: ao3

get to know our members challenge: favorite rare-pairs | (3/5) - andrea

Goalies have a short shelf life, is the thing.

Everyone’s always surprised when they find out that Cormac went to college.

Six semesters at Minnesota, two trips to the Frozen Four, and a solid enough GPA that he hadn’t even been that embarrassed when he was the only dude in his poetry seminar to nut up and declare for English Lit. But then he’d been drafted into the actual motherfucking NHL on a steady diet of Jane Eyre and Madame Bovary, and he’d barely had to make a choice. School was school, and he was okay at it, of course he was, he knew how to focus and he knew how to get shit done and he knew how to parse out the overarching narrative themes of a good gothic romance.

But hockey—hockey was everything.

And he fucking hates calling himself a drop-out, because that makes it sound like he’d quit, or something, and it wasn’t…he isn’t a quitter. He’s not. He commits to shit. That’s his trademark. He’d picked up a hockey stick when he was four years old, and he’d basically never put it down again. His loud roar of triumph after stopping the final puck in a championship shootout had resulted in a sick as hell nickname and an even sicker tattoo permanently inked across most of his upper body. He’d fallen in love with the smartest girl in the world when he was nineteen and too dumb to see all the ways she wasn’t going to love him back, and he’d been carrying around the admittedly pitiful remnants of that particular torch ever fucking since. He’s stubborn. He’s determined. He doesn’t fucking quit.

Which is why hockey—

Hockey was everything.

Hockey was forever.

Forever, it turns out, is approximately three and a half years.

Malfoy solemnly squints as he snaps his fingers next to Cormac’s ear.

“My peripheral vision’s gone, not my hearing,” Cormac says darkly, draining his pint of weak-ass Canadian beer. “You unbelievable fucking dick.”

Across the table, Potter winces, and then waves at the bartender for another round of drinks. “Nothing they can do about it?” he asks, because Potter’s a pretty solid dude, even if his taste in boyfriends is fucking horrifying. “There’s no, like, surgery, or anything?”

“Nah,” Cormac replies, directing a sleazy, mostly automatic grin at the waitress who delivers their tray of Jäger bombs. “Puck hit me at—uh, at a bad angle. One in a million, the doctor said. I’m done, man.”

Malfoy hiccups. “Okay, but, like, can you still skate? Or are you. Y’know. Broken. Permanently.”

Cormac drops his shot glass, watches the Jäger splash out and the Red Bull gently fizz, and he doesn’t really know how to respond. A fuck-ton of guys have it way worse than him, have ruptured Achilles and splintered orbital sockets and totally debilitating concussion symptoms that’ll never quite go away. But he’s only twenty-four. He’d wanted to keep hockey. He’d wanted to hold hockey’s hand and buy it a dozen red roses and take it home to meet his fucking mom during the off-season. Hockey just hadn’t wanted to stick around. Hockey hadn’t wanted him back.

“Yeah, I can still skate,” he says, wiping his hand over his mouth. “Why?”

Blaise Zabini is a retired ex-figure skater with two gold medals and the blankest, most dead-eyed serial killer shark stare that Cormac’s ever seen.

He sizes Cormac up like he’s a particularly questionable side of beef—and somehow, it makes sense to think of Zabini as a butcher with, like, unlimited access to a lot of sharp knives and bloody meat hooks and industrial cleaning supplies—but it only takes Zabini three or four minutes to finally crack a microscopic smile and turn his attention back to his Arnold Palmer.

“Good shoulders,” Zabini says, apropos of fucking nothing. “You’ll do.”

Cormac doesn’t go after girls like Hermione Granger anymore.

Girls with edges.

He picks up girls who are stacked and blonde and uncomplicated. Girls who laugh at his jokes and who smile at the appletinis he buys them and who don’t mind being fucked from behind because stacked and blonde and uncomplicated is actually really, really, really not his type, but the alternative isn’t an option, seriously, he’s not cut out for that level of self-flagellating masochistic bullshit.

And then he’s stepping inside the enormous private rink Zabini brings him to, gaping at the gorgeously polished cedar beams crisscrossing the ceiling, and he sees—he sees—

Pansy Parkinson is her name.

She swishes across the ice with the kind of grace that can only be taught—can only be bought—swift and serpentine and so, so sure, and Cormac’s hockey gear abruptly feels cumbersome and oddly heavy as he watches her move. Watches her glide.

He notices the rest of her in fragments.

Slight, small build. Slender arms, long legs, narrow waist. Glossy black hair, blunt-cut bangs and a sparkly purple headband. High cheekbones and ivory skin and scarlet lips. Emerald green leotard with a keyhole cutout between the wings of her collarbones, shimmery beige tights and boring white skates.

She comes to a halt next to where he’s standing with Zabini, icing them both pretty thoroughly, and, god, she barely even looks at Cormac, just props her hands on her hips and frowns at Zabini and jerks her chin towards Cormac before asking, in a tone that’s flat with derision—

“Who the fuck is he?”

She’s not even pleasant, Cormac thinks, helplessly dismayed by how much he already knows he doesn’t give a shit.

His palms are sweaty.

His mouth is dry.

His stomach is sinking.

He’s been here before.

Pansy Parkinson is not the smartest girl in the world.

She’s arrogant and she’s whiny and she’s entitled and she’s focused. She’s militant about being up before the sun rises, and she’s scathingly critical of everything from the calluses on his fingers to the lingering traces of middle-class Boston in his accent, and she’s unfailingly strict in her interpretation of her nutrition plan. She eats steel-cut oats steeped in flavorless raw almond milk for breakfast, piles leafy greens and grilled chicken and soft-boiled eggs onto her plate for lunch, and carefully weighs out her portion of whole-wheat pasta every night after they’ve studied the film Zabini seems to arbitrarily fucking choose for them.

She’s determined.

She’s competitive.

She’s carefully composed and hilariously self-absorbed and intensely, frustratingly enigmatic.

She listens to shitty pop music during their morning runs, and she flips through dog-eared back-issues of Vogue when they take their water breaks, and she carries herself like she’s simultaneously afraid of her own shadow and confident in her ability to take both him and Zabini in a fucking fist fight. She’s fascinating, and she’s clever, and she’s honestly kind of mean. She spends their first week together speaking very, very slowly, almost exclusively in monosyllables, and asking him if he’s absolutely certain he doesn’t need to keep wearing his hockey helmet.

“You’re lucky I’m not that sensitive,” Cormac tells her, twisting the cap off a bottle of lemon-lime Gatorade. He’s lying. He’s really fucking sensitive. He still cries every time he reads Emma. “Could give a guy a complex.”

“I doubt you need any help with that,” Pansy retorts sweetly.

She’s not wrong.

Skating to music is harder than Cormac thought it would be.

He’s been doing yoga and ballet and, like, jazzercise with Pansy every day, training his muscles to twitch and flex and stretch in ways they never really have before—but finding rhythm on the ice, in sleek black skates with unreliable laces and rickety little blades; it’s fucking rough.

“Jesus Christ,” Pansy hisses, shoving him backwards after he’s messed up some needlessly complicated footwork sequence for the fifth time in one day. “Count out loud if you have to, but get your shit together before you break your fucking ankle.”

“I’m a hockey player,” Cormac argues, annoyed by the defensive slant of his own posture. “There’s a learning curve, princess, we didn’t all grow up doing—whatever the fuck this—tap dancing Charlie Chaplin on ice bullshit is.”

“Yeah, well, there isn’t a learning curve at the Olympics,” she replies, coolly. “Which is where we’re going. Maybe. If you stop skating like a drunk toddler with an eye patch on.”

Cormac grits his teeth, unable to come up with a response that isn’t dumb and petulant and embarrassing, and the smirk that Pansy levels him with is as unimpressed as it is a challenge.

It’s then, though, that he registers a low-simmering onslaught of something—excitement and adrenaline and energy, cratering in his veins and punching at his sternum and reminding him, with vivid, vicious clarity, of suiting up before a game and reading the angle of a puck just right and winning. Being tackled into the boards by his team, by his brothers, after he’s managed another shutout. He’s fucking missed it. Missed this. And he doesn’t have a team anymore, but he does have Pansy. A partner. His partner.

“Again,” Cormac eventually says, holding Pansy’s gaze for a second too long. “Let’s do it again.”

A month into training, Cormac’s dick gets involved.

Zabini’s there, ostensibly to teach Cormac how to propel Pansy into some kind of spinning twirling death-defying lift that, yeah, okay, looks hella fucking rad on grainy Soviet-era film, but—gravity? Gravity’s a thing. Cormac went to college. He knows his shit.

“How,” Cormac starts, scratching at the back of neck.

Zabini gestures absently to Pansy’s thighs, not even bothering to look up from his phone. “Just pick her up.”

Cormac tilts his head to the side. “Uh. Just—where, exactly, am I touching her?” He clears his throat. Adds, again, deliberately plaintive, “Exactly?”

Pansy huffs, and then sighs, and then reaches for Cormac’s wrists, dragging his hands to the space between her thighs. And he just—

He freezes, thumbs and forefingers framing the cradle of her…pelvis? He doesn’t think it’s her pelvis. He’s, like, eighty percent sure, actually, that it isn’t.

But his brain’s not quite firing on all cylinders, and his chest is rippling tight and tense and hot like he’s been crosschecked into a fucking bonfire, and his hands look so fucking big like this, fingers long and thick, palms broad and callused, and she’s tiny, of course she’s tiny, he’s been aware of that—painfully, viscerally aware—since that very first day, that very first moment, except the way his gut is clenching and his skin is tingling and his pulse is racing—it’s new, and it’s familiar, and he aches with how badly he wants to move his hands. A little farther up. A little farther in. He wants to trace the center seam of her leggings with his fingernail, wants to tease her, get her wet, make her gasp, wants to flick his tongue out and swipe his fingers down and press an open-mouthed kiss to the mound of her cunt, grip her hips and hold her—

“—hold her up, man,” Zabini is drawling, sounding bored. “Gotta get used to her sense of balance.”

Cormac blinks.

He’s half-hard in his Under Armour, and it’s as jarring as it is mortifying to realize that touching Pansy like this—learning her body, memorizing the shape of it and the bend of it and the strength of it—this is his fucking job now. He’s here to win. To skate. To take ballet lessons and pack on a lot of unnecessary muscle and grope Pansy fucking Parkinson in exchange for an Olympic gold medal. Nothing else.

Still.

He glances up.

He meets Pansy’s eyes.

He doesn’t think he’s imagining the faint hint of pink that’s blossoming across her cheeks.

It gets worse, after that.

They suck at Worlds.

They suck hard.

Cormac trips over the fucking snaggletooth murder traps on the fronts of his skates, skids into the boards while the crescendo of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony echoes around the rafters of the rink, and he hasn’t eaten ice like that since he was twelve, training with Zabini notwithstanding, and he’s taken aback, almost, by how fucking infuriating it is.

To work and sweat and bleed and still not be good enough.

Somewhere, Hermione Granger is writing her fucking dissertation on emotional manipulation and fucking laughing at him.

Again.

But Pansy’s a professional, of course, and so she skates on, footwork beautiful and timing impeccable, but there’s a rigidity to her movements, a stiffness in her spine and a wariness clouding her jumps, that doesn’t translate well. And Cormac heaves himself up, hurries to join her, tries to get the counts right in his head, but he’s not used to this, still doesn’t hear the nuances of the music quite like he should, and he’s a visible half-beat behind her for the rest of their long program.

Pansy doesn’t look at him afterwards.

She lifts her chin, clutches his hand, pastes a smile on her face, graciously accepts the scattered flowers and the slightly subdued applause; but her lower lip is trembling, and her eyes are suspiciously glassy underneath the false lashes and the metric fuck-ton of glitter, and Cormac feels guilt, gross and thick and vaguely acidic, begin to eat at his insides. It’s shitty. He’s shitty.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts out when they get back to their dressing room.

Pansy yanks at the laces of her skates. “For what?”

Cormac hesitates. “For, uh, fucking that up? Like, the whole thing?”

She shrugs. Fiddles with the zipper on her Team USA jacket. Still doesn’t look at him. “It happens,” she says, shortly.

“Well, yeah,” he replies, tugging at the over-starched cuffs of his shirt. It’s an ugly fucking shirt, interlocking shades of grey superimposed by a ragged slash of purposely illegible graffiti. “But, like. I’m still—I’m sorry, I guess, that you’ll have to. You know. Find someone else to skate with.”

Pansy goes dangerously still, a travel pack of cucumber-scented exfoliating wipes crinkling between her fingertips. “Excuse me?”

“Uh,” he hedges, licking his lips, “I’m sorry? I just—this shit was a lot easier during practice, you know, and I’m really…there’s still a few months left before San Jose, you could probably find another dude to—”

“What the fuck?” she interrupts. “What are you talking about?”

“I—I’m just—isn’t that how this goes?” Cormac asks, cracking his knuckles. His forehead is itchy where his sweat’s dried, caking the thin layer of bronze powder the makeup artist had dusted all over his face. “You got rid of…your other partners, the ones before me, and I don’t really expect—I mean—I’m not even a figure skater, you know? You don’t have to. Keep me around, or whatever. It’s okay.”

“Right,” she exhales, and that’s—that’s anger, he can hear it now. Anger and consternation and just the tiniest bit of fear. She’s finally looking at him. “I’m only going to say this once.”

“Uh.”

“You are not expendable,” Pansy snaps, enunciating each word so, so clearly, so crisply, like she’s convinced that if she doesn’t—convinced that if she slurs, or if she stumbles, or if she stutters—he might not get it. It makes her sound frantic. It makes her sound fierce. And he wonders at that, at her, just for a second; has to, absolutely, because she’s the most rigidly self-contained person he’s ever met, and this is unprecedented. This is. This is. “One subpar performance isn’t—it happens, you know that, but you—you’re not going anywhere, you’re not—you’re not temporary. Okay?”

Cormac swallows. He feels a little wrung out, like his skin’s stretched too thin and his bones are too spongey. Like—he’s exposed. Nerves raw, tonsils scratchy. It isn’t bad. Not really. He thinks he could get used to it, actually, if she needed him to. Asked him to.

“Okay,” he murmurs. “Okay.”

On New Year’s Eve, they’re sitting cross-legged on his living room floor, three iPods and Zabini’s laptop and a wine-stained yellow legal pad spread out between them. Cormac’s never really had strong opinions about classical music before, but they’ve been arguing about this shit for three and a half hours, and he has a fucking headache. He deserves a drink. He deserves a Stanley Cup.

“I’ve got it,” he says, popping the cork on a bottle of Bollinger. “Def Leppard.”

Pansy chews on the inside of her mouth. “I know you think you’re joking, but that’s actually—that might not be a bad idea.”

Cormac skips the crystal stemware and grabs two custom black beer steins emblazoned with his old jersey number. “What, asking the Olympic Committee to install a stripper pole on the ice?”

“No, I meant—going rogue, with the music and the costumes and the—the routine, maybe, your technique is garbage, but—wait, what are you doing? What is that?”

“Champagne,” he says, holding out a mug for her.

She doesn’t take it. “I don’t drink.”

He rears back. “What? How do you live?”

“With excellent liver function and a spotless criminal record,” she simpers.

He pauses. “You read my Wikipedia page,” he says, kind of accusingly.

“You punched a math major.”

Cormac makes sure to gulp down most of his champagne before he deigns to answer.

Midnight comes and goes.

They give up on making a decision about the music for their short program, and Cormac turns on a holiday marathon of Love It or List It. Pansy scrunches her toes into the carpet, toys with the hem of her tank top, gradually shifts closer and closer and closer; and the minutes seem to grind to a slick, syrupy halt as the weight of this—the expectation—suddenly becomes realer. More tangible.

It’s not a surprise when their lips finally brush.

It is a surprise, though, that Pansy’s so tentative about it.

So uncertain.

She has her eyes squeezed shut, and her hands bunched into fists around the fabric of his henley, and the movement of her mouth against his is mechanical, slow and soft and wet, yeah, but almost like those are things that she’s mentally checking off a list. Commonly Accepted Attributes of a First Kiss. Lean in. Arch up. Meld. Melt. Tease. Her tongue flicks out, just once, and she tastes cold and tart, like lemon water and peppermint, and Cormac groans, threading his fingers through the ends of her hair, cupping the nape of her neck and tilting her head a little farther back and—she relaxes, slightly.

“Yeah?” he breathes.

Her nails scrape against his skin. “Yeah.”

Twenty minutes later, they’re upstairs.

Pansy’s naked, sitting on the end of his bed with her knees pressed together and her face flushed a seriously satisfying shade of pink. And Cormac’s trying to get his own clothes off, really, he is, but she’s leaning back on her elbows, right, and her tits are small, obviously, she’s small, but they’re round and firm and perfect and the movement sort of thrusts them forward, drawing his attention to the tight peachy-beige buds of her nipples, and they’re—she’s—distracting. He’s distracted.

“Jesus Christ, are you going to fuck me or not?” she demands.

Cormac yanks his boxers off so fast that his cock slaps against his lower abdomen. “Don’t worry,” he assures her when her eyebrows fly up, “it’ll fit.”

Pansy’s jaw goes slack, and then she’s snorting out a laugh that’s deep and throaty and remarkably genuine, actually, nothing at all like the audibly artificial giggling she’d done at their last presser. And Cormac—he doesn’t care, he decides, that this laugh had come at his expense. He doesn’t. He’d say awful, humiliating, utterly moronic shit for the rest of his life, probably, if it would get her to laugh like that again. Which is a problem. Definitely. That he’ll totally address. At some point. Definitely. In the far, far, far off future.

“Who have you been sleeping with?” she asks, sounding mystified.

“No one, lately,” he replies, maybe a little too honestly, before pushing her backwards, dragging his hands from her shoulders to her waist to her hips.

Her lashes flutter as she clamps her bottom lip between her teeth. “Oh,” she says, but then she’s flashing him a smile, small and subtle and pleased, and her knees are falling open, and she’s repeating, much more quietly, much more intimately—

“Oh.”

They’re waiting to board their charter to South Korea when she grabs his wrist.

“Cormac.”

“Hmm?” he answers, scowling at an email from Malfoy that contains an inexplicably snide lol and absolutely nothing else. “What?”

Pansy glances over at him, crossing and uncrossing her legs. She’s wearing leggings and an oversized cashmere sweater and fluffy brown Uggs with the tops folded down. She looks fucking ridiculous.

“So…are you…are we…?” she asks, sounding—not indifferent, exactly, but maybe like she’s trying incredibly hard to pretend that she is. “All in?”

And Cormac—

Cormac forgets, sometimes, that other people have feelings, too. Feelings like he does. He shies away from words like “inadequate” and “unremarkable”, hasn’t ever let himself go there, even in his own head, because that’s a slippery fucking slope and he’s a big believer in faking shit until he doesn’t have to anymore. Until he’s tricked himself into thinking that it’s real.

He’s never had to do that with Pansy.

Not once.

And he doesn’t want her to have to do that, either. Second-guess herself, or him, or his place in her life. She’d told him he wasn’t temporary, wasn’t expendable, and she’d meant it, she’d made sure that he knew she meant it, and all he’d done in return was give her orgasms. He could do better. He would do better. He’d get her a gold medal and he’d curate her fucking library and he’d teach her how to play hockey. He’d love her, eventually. He would.

For now, though, he just twists his wrist around, slides his hand up, presses the flat of his palm to the flat of Pansy’s, and he—he marvels for a second. At how tiny she is compared to him. How fragile, and how not fragile, and how much of a fundamental fucking contradiction she’s been all along.

He then laces their fingers together, and he feels her brief tremor of surprise. Feels how she stills, and how she steadies, and how she settles.

“All in,” he promises.

[armyhealth9-blog]

5 Things I Already Regret Buying In 2019

New year, new me, new budget. Right? Well…not exactly. The start of 2019 saw me update my budget using brighter colors, smaller fonts, and more fun bolds and italics where need be. I was eagerly on edge towards the end of December waiting until I could make my first purchase of the new year just to run home and record it on my spreadsheet.

As all new years begin with a glimmer of hope and a chance to change for the better, I told myself that I wasn’t going to do any unnecessary spending. But, alas, just as those goodhearted folk who went to the gym the first two weeks of January and then petered in their determination, I left my dreams of becoming a “smart spender” in the past. Here are five things I already regret buying in 2019.

1. A 3-Pack Of Those Spiral Hair Ties

Spiral hair ties made their debut this summer, and at first, I laughed them off. I already own a normal hair tie. What is this squiggly piece of rubber you expect me to wear in my hair? It looks like one of those coils that lifeguards put their whistles on and then leave high up on their bicep. Why would I want that?

Then I met the most stylish gal named Cydney who wore hers on her wrist and she looked SO. COOL. She had different colors — browns, clears, pastels — and I thought they made the cutest accessories to tie an outfit together. I imagined how it would look next to my gold Casio watch and decided it was worth it.

A pack of 3 was on sale for $7.99, and the regular price was so hidden I had to guess that this was maybe a good deal. When I put one on my wrist it felt very tight — more so than your average elastic. When I take it out of my hair, it often gets stuck and pulls hard. When I type at work, I have to take it off my wrist because it is so 3D I can’t rest my arm down properly. I was at Nordstrom Rack the other day and they had so many spiral elastics that were larger, in different colors, and MUCH CHEAPER than the ones I bought. I was not impressed with my original purchase. Also? I found a larger pastel pink one on the ground at my work the other day and I took it. (Don’t judge me. I watched it all day when I passed in that hallway and no one came back to pick it up.)

 2. An Instagrammable Brunch

An old friend and I decided to meet halfway between our homes in a cool part of town that I don’t often get to. I originally suggested to just get coffee because I didn’t want to spend too much money, but after searching all the restaurants in the area, I decided this could be a good time for both a delicious meal and a great food pic. Unfortunately, the little vegetarian spot we picked was less impressive in person than it looked online. The $20 meal was lackluster, something I could have easily made at home. The cafe was empty except for us and one other set of friends, and although the hostess had their choice of EVERY TABLE in the place to seat them, the two girls got sat directly beside us. In addition to overhearing each other’s conversations, these other girls made me feel self-conscious for wanting to be a typical millennial and Instagram my meal. What if they looked over, saw me take a pic, and judged me?

3. A 10-DOLLAR TURMERIC LATTE

I’m currently on a 4-week restricted diet that followed an eight-week naturopathic pill regime to eradicate a stubborn case of SIBO (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth). Because of this, it is very hard to eat out and my life right now is very bland and includes very strict meal-prepping.

A group of friends decided to meet for dinner at a trendy vegetarian/vegan spot downtown, and I pre-ate a dinner beforehand in the public library. When I got to the restaurant, I had no intention of buying anything, but eating with friends is one of my biggest joys and I wanted to feel like part of the group. After confirming with the waitress that the almond milk they use is unsweetened, I ordered a turmeric latte thinking I could sip it slowly while my friend chewed their delicious-looking meals. My latte came out before any of the food and it was in the SMALLEST cup I have ever seen. I was livid. Especially because I have the ingredients to make a turmeric latte at home if I really wanted one. But I didn’t even really want one! I just wanted to participate!

4. “Sleeper” Hoop Earrings

If it wasn’t obvious from the past few notes: I love a good trend! I’d been seeing lots of girls wearing little tiny hoop earrings that hug the lobe and look so precious. I wanted to look this minimalist and dainty, too! But all the cute earrings I was seeing on Etsy were a bit too expensive once you factored in shipping and tax. Instead, I went to a drugstore and bought some of their hypoallergenic “sleeper” hoops after I heard from a friend they would be small enough to achieve the look I was wanting. Sadly, I must have explained the look wrong to my friend because the moment I put the earrings on and reached up to feel, I found they were still much bigger than the tight baby hoops I imagined.

 5. “Mom’s Lasagna” Pizza

What comes to mind when you think of lasagna? Layers of ground beef, melty cheese, warm noodles, roasted veggies, ricotta, etc. Now imagine all of that on a pizza. Too good to be true, you say? Well, you’d be correct. “Mom’s Lasagna” was the specialty pizza at a classic pizza restaurant in my city, and I was so excited to eat two of my favorite foods in one. However, this establishment must have never seen a lasagna before, because this pizza was just cheddar cheese and ham. So. Much. Ham. If this is how mom made her lasagna, then someone should tell her she’s doing it wrong.

*****

Although it hasn’t been a perfect start to 2019, I think I’m able now to see that my fault when it comes to spending money is trying to fit in or to follow trends. What I need to do instead is start evaluating my purchases through a lens of “Will this make me happy?” and “Is this what I want?”. It’s all too easy to fall into a group-think mindset, but once you’re able to separate yourself from the zeitgeist, I believe that both your wallet and your sense of self will grow.

Hailey is a homebody. Follow her social medias @hailmast.

Image via Unsplash

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Source: https://thefinancialdiet.com/5-things-i-already-regret-buying-in-2019/

[nightrainlily]

DAY SEVEN: ART IN CROISSANTS, PERFUME, AND SCULPTURE

we’re old pros now. we woke up early and caught the train at three bridges to Victoria, then beelined to the Victoria tube line, took that to Green Park, then took the Piccadilly line to Leicester Square, then walked to Covent Garden. if you can keep up with all that, you’re a local.

we stopped for breakfast and finally coffee. we haven’t had coffee since we left Sweden, and we became really caffeine dependent on the dark, smooth Swedish blends during our stay there. going cold turkey was hard, and Joelle and I were feeling it. we each got our favorite drink (a latte for Jo, a cappuccino for my mother, and an americano for me), and were absolutely overjoyed when they arrived at the table. I had strong crema. I knew it was going to be a good day.

my breakfast was also delicious (I’m going to talk about food a whole lot in this post, so if that’s not your thing, you might want to skip to day eight). I had a broiled grapefruit and granola, which may sound simple but really was just so very satisfying. side note: some people say that almond milk tastes like dirty water and that it’s terrible, but honestly I could drink it by the gallon. it’s so creamy! and smooth! and delicious! Joelle had coconut yogurt with pistachios (we all agreed pistachios are a seriously underrated yogurt topping) and this croissant that I could actually hear flake when she bit it. Joelle loves croissants—she gets excited thinking about how good the croissants are going to be in France—and my mother and I are encouraging her to start a croissant blog, the content of which will be ratings of croissants by flake, butter content, taste, cost, pull value, size, golden brownness, etc. she tells me this one was an eight out of ten; too much pull and too little flake, but the coloring was a perfect buttery bronze. once our caffeine kicked in, we were in high, high spirits. way up there.

the three of us are fond of quieter, cleaner spaces, like Kensington and Covent Garden. we walked through tea shops, parfumeries, and chocolatiers. the rows of stalls of the jubilee market stand on the outskirts of the square, where artisans and merchants sell their wares. I bought a tiny stamp of an “a” in the art deco style to use on my letter seals. oh, the things I do for my pen pals.

back to the topic of perfume: the word itself is derived from latin which translates to “through smoke.” Romans, Persians, and Arabs each developed their own versions of the latin original. what we call perfume in the states is actually a range of products which include eau de cologne (seven percent concentration), eau de toilette (ten percent concentration), eau de parfum (fifteen to twenty percent concentration), and actual perfume (forty percent concentration). I gravitate towards clean but also spicy scents; the one I’m wearing the most right now is coipaba balsam, palo santo, and cyprus. I found three blends today that I liked: a bergamot, oudwood, and birchwood one; a bergamot, agar wood, and geranium one; and a lemon, camellia leaves, and iris one. I only recently started to appreciate perfume and the niceness of a scent. I’m a musician, so when I think about art, I most often think of sound, but of course visual art is the most prominent form, and performance as well. only recently have I realized that the sense of smell can also factor into artistic expression as well; in the same way that a chef crafts a sensory experience, someone who crafts smells is also an artist.

after we felt we’d fully explored the Covent Garden area, we walked to the British Museum. we sort of came around the side, and then suddenly it was looming over us, stretching on for city blocks. its architectural influences include the greek revival style, which manifests in huge portico with forty four columns overlooking the street. the entrance opens onto the great court, a circular space in the center of the museum that is five stories high, centered around the reading room. the light filtering in from the cloudy sky today gave the marble room a gray cast, which seemed to me perfect museum-viewing weather.

some of the British Museum’s most renowned pieces are from ancient Greece, which include The Thinker and remains of the Parthenon. the only other public viewing opportunity for the Parthenon is in Greece, where the rest of the pieces still remain. the figures especially are exquisite—the folds of dresses fluttering in the wind, the detail of facial hair, the realness of human anatomy and movement. the ability to turn stone into figures that feel truly alive is something to witness and appreciate, if you ever get the chance.

the other section where we spent the most time was the Asian exhibit. our highlights from those rooms were the Chinese pottery, incredibly well preserved and incredibly detailed, pieces from South Asia centered around Hinduism and Buddhism, and the life-size model of a Korean scholar’s home. whereas the Greek rooms were mostly white marble, the Asian art was vibrant in both design and coloration. I saw the sculpture of the god Shiva, dancing in a ring of flame which conveys the Hindu belief that time is cyclical. some postage stamps in the modern section of the room show Kazi Nazrul islam, a Indian poet during the Indian revolution. the special room of jade sculptures had pieces ranging in size and delicacy, but all were beautiful and reminded me of the small gifts my grandfather used to bring home from Korea.

I didn’t even talk about the Rosetta Stone, but you get the gist of that. it was amazing. I felt like I was in the presence of a god.

I keep a list of professions I would pursue if I could live infinitely and money were no object. it includes: florist, music producer, magazine editor, professor, and now, museum curator. I love organization and the process of finding beautiful or interesting things. my blog, I suppose, is a form of curation, and my playlists definitely scratch that itch as well. to become an expert on something, to know more about it than almost anyone in the world, is a gift which gives you the power to enrich peoples’ lives. in his book The Tipping Point Malcolm Gladwell discusses three types of people: connectors, mavens, and salesmen. I would like to think I’m a maven, because I so enjoy learning about things and then disseminating that information to specific outlets that will most appreciate it. I think I get it from my mom, who reads the newspaper and clips articles for the people she loves. I take that concept to the next level. and being a museum curator would be the next next level.

although we didn’t get through every room, or even every floor, of exhibits, the museum was set to close and we were dead on our feet. we set off towards a row of restaurants, and as I looked around on the map, I saw a By Chloe. I’ve wanted to eat at a By Chloe for literally years, but the locations in L.A. and New York never quite made it into the family vacation itinerary. by the time we got there we were so hungry we could hardly stand, but just seeing the menu rejuvenated me. a lot of people ask me if being vegan is hard because I miss certain foods, but restaurants like By Chloe really fill the gap. I ordered a spicy Thai salad (on brand much?) and a side of mac and cheese, because I feel like if you’re a vegan offered mac and cheese and you don’t take the opportunity to at least try it, you’re probably doing it wrong. my mother got the same salad as me and a cauliflower soup, and Joelle got a taco salad (also on brand. another side note: Joelle’s list of her favorite foods does not include any Mexican dishes, but she’s ordered it consistently when we’re out and says that’s what she’s missed most since leaving home. this girl loves her Mex). and we got sweet potato and regular fries. with beet ketchup. and chipotle aioli. basically, we were feasting and I was in heaven. I’m always grateful when my friends and family compromise and eat at vegan restaurants, so thanks for fulfilling my dreams, guys!

then we stopped for gelato, and although I didn’t get any I’m going to talk about it anyway because it looked really good: my mother got coffee and dark chocolate, and Joelle got cheesecake and dark chocolate (another one of Joelle’s favorite, most beloved foods: cheesecake). there are gelato shops, and good gelato too, on every corner in this city. we love that.

and although we were in an unfamiliar area, we walked a block or two and found an underground station, read the map, and took it home. the London underground is by far the easiest public transportation system I’ve ever used, and I so appreciate the frequent stops, clean trains, logical signage, and ease of access to other lines. we’ve been able to get around entirely on our own, without any major mishaps. like we haven’t even gotten lost once. I count that as a victory.

today was rich. I think I speak for all of us when I say we’re feeling full-up of art, culture, and good food.

signing off,

amaya

1. Dedicated to the One I Love - The Mamas and the Papas

2. But Not for Me - Chet Baker

3. Something Soon - Car Seat Headrest

[garyfcrosby1975-blog]

40 Yummy Gift Ideas Your Friends Will Love

When it comes to giving holiday gifts to friends, neighbors, or coworkers, you can't go wrong with a delicious homemade treat – especially when you pair them with cute & clever packaging ideas! It's a great way to show someone you care without the hassle and cost of finding a store-bought gift.

I love making and receiving homemade food gifts! It is generally MUCH more affordable, so you won't have to cross anyone off your list due to budget constraints. And depending on what recipe you're using, you may be able to make treats for everyone on your list in just a few hours!

Since Christmas is just around the corner, I thought I'd help you finish your gift list by sharing some great ideas for homemade treats…both sweet and savory. All you need to do is choose one to make, stock up on ingredients, and have one marathon treat-making session! These delicious edible delights are sure to spread plenty of Christmas cheer!

Looking for a way to label your homemade treats? Check out WorldLabel.com!

Fresh Tomato Sauce  –  James Beard

Homemade tomato sauce is a fantastic gift for anyone who likes to eat. It can be used in so many ways. Look for unusual bottles and jars to store the sauce. These can be gifts in and of themselves. Just make sure to thoroughly clean all containers with soap and hot water before filling with your homemade tomato sauce.

Homemade Ketchup  –  Savory Simple

Ketchup is something we use without thinking about and never really notice the flavor of. The great thing about homemade ketchup is it's not hard to make it better than almost any store-bought ketchup, and you can spice it up in any direction you like. Bring on the sweet potato fries!

Homemade Pesto  –  Taste of Home

Pesto is quite the versatile food. You can make sandwiches with it, use it in pasta and smother it on eggs. This recipe for homemade pesto sauce is easy and quick to make in a food processor or blender. Just a few ingredients and five simple steps add up to perfect pesto.

Homemade Pesto

Homemade Barbecue Sauce  –  Martha Stewart

This tangy, sweet and a little bit spicy homemade BBQ sauce is sure to make any grilled meal special. It's a gift your friends and family will love to use year-round.

Homemade Soup Mixes  –  Tried and Tasty

Homemade soup mixes are the perfect frugal holiday gift! Nothing warms the heart like a warm cup of soup. Give out mixes for different varieties, like Italian Barley and Five Bean, to your loved ones. Include instructions on the gift tag.

Vegetarian Five Bean Soup Mix

Spice Rub  –  Martha Stewart

If you don't want to give sweets for holiday gifts, homemade spice blends are a wonderful idea. Quick to pull together & cheap to make, homemade spice mixes are the perfect last minute gift for the foodie in your life.

All-Purpose Spice Rub

Homemade Herb Butter  –  A Zesty Bite

Flavoring butter is surprisingly easy, and it's a great way to dress up grilled veggies or steak (or mix into pasta!) Homemade compound butters are the perfect no-bake holiday gift. Add a homemade loaf of bread tied in a tea towel and you have one amazing gift!

Packaging idea:  Your Homebased Mom

Chocolate Chip Pancakes  –  The DIY Lighthouse

Easy, make-ahead pancake and waffle mixes come in handy on busy mornings. All you have to do is add water, eggs, and/or milk, and you've got breakfast! Label containers with the name and date to ensure freshness.

Chocolate Chip Pancake Mix

Homemade Jam  –  I Heart Naptime

Everyone loves homemade jam! It makes a perfect gift on its' own or in a gift basket. Simply bottle and accompany with the recipe, storing instructions, and some helpful serving ideas.

Homemade Strawberry Jam

Packaging ideas:  Good Housekeeping | BHG.com | Martha Stewart

Fresh Cookie Dough  –  No. 2 Pencil

Cookie dough makes a delicious and thoughtful gift, especially around the holidays. Deliver homemade frozen cookie dough in one of these cute packaging ideas and your friends and neighbors will love you.

Packaging ideas:  I Heart Naptime | Our Best Bites | Hello From The Natos

Bread and Butter – One Good Thing By Jillee

The combination of my homemade Honey Butter Ambrosia on this oh-so-simple-to-make English Muffin Bread is a great treat for anyone on your list!

Herb Infused Honey  –  A Spicy Perspective

You can use herbed-honey for baking, dressings, sauces, beverages, or simply drizzled over warm bread. Herb Infused Honey makes a wonderful edible gift to give to friends around the holidays!

Homemade Vanilla Extract  –  Don't Waste The Crumbs

Give the bakers in your life this homemade extract. All you need is vodka and vanilla beans.

Microwave Caramels  –  I Heart Naptime

These sticky, rich candies are the simplest caramels you'll ever make. Add sprinkles of sea salt for extra depth of flavor sure to please family and friends.

Microwave Caramels

Cookie Butter Puppy Chow (aka Sandy Buddies)  –  Shared Appetite

No, you can't feed this to your dog. But you can feed it to your friends, family, coworkers, neighbors, etc and they will be very happy! And if you want to go down as a legend this Christmas season, start bringing it to holiday parties.

Cookie Butter Puppy Chow

Gourmet Marshmallows  –  Sugar and Soul

Marshmallows are a wonderful homemade gift. Give them along with your favorite hot chocolate mix for an added surprise. I love how they look in clear plastic bags tied with some pretty ribbon.

Homemade Marshmallows

Packaging idea: White Gunpowder

Popcorn, Popcorn, Popcorn!

Marshmallow Popcorn  –  One Good Thing By Jillee

Cheddar Caramel Popcorn –  The Kitchn

Chicago-Style Popcorn

White Chocolate Popcorn  –  A Side of Sweet

White Chocolate Confetti Popcorn

Cinnamon Roll Caramel Corn  –  Damn Delicious

Cinnamon Roll Caramel Corn

Peppermint Bark Popcorn  –  Our Best Bites

Welcome to your new favorite holiday treat. Perfect for holiday parties and neighbor gifts! You can make one huge batch and have … Continue reading

Peppermint Bark Popcorn

Packaging idea: I Heart Naptime

Homemade Slow Cooker Granola  –  Barefeet In The Kitchen

Everyone loves homemade granola! Besides being a much healthier option than commercial breakfast cereals, homemade granola is the perfect topping for creamy treats like yogurt, oatmeal and ice cream. The popularity of homemade granola makes it a favorite go-to holiday gift. Keep some extra granola-filled jars on hand, so you'll always have a delicious gift ready for those unexpected gift “situations.”

Granola In The Crock-Pot

Packaging ideas:  Makr | Simply Recipes | annabelle breakey

Slow Cooker Dulce de Leche  –  Betty Crocker

Dulce de Leche is a thick caramel made with condensed milk. Try it on pancakes, waffles, fruit or ice cream, or spread on warm breads or toast for a delightful treat.

Slow-Cooker Dulce de Leche

Coffee Syrups  –  Heather Bullard

These recipes could not be easier. Even if you're not skilled in the kitchen, you will have success with these simple and fast syrups. And there's something so fun about making (and giving) your own homemade varieties!

Homemade Flavored Coffee Syrups

Homemade Soda Syrups  –  Nellie Bellie

Homemade Soda Syrups are perfect for the mixologist enthusiast in your life! Simply add a bit of carbonated water to your homemade soda syrups and have your own chemical-free and gourmet sodas. Makes a fun inexpensive gift.

Homemade Soda Syrup

Hot Chocolate Mix  –  Kleinworth & Co.

Hot Chocolate mix is one of the easiest things to make, but still a surefire way to please everyone. Don't forget the mini marshmallows.

Homemade Hot Chocolate Mix

Scones In A Jar  –  Simple Seasonal

So scrumptious it's hard to eat just one! After you're done packing jars for your loved ones, be sure to bake a batch for yourself and snuggle up with a hot cup of tea or coffee on a chilly winter day!

Chocolate Cherry Oat Scones

White Chocolate Haystacks  –  Betty Crocker

This festive spin on a classic no-bake treat is a special addition to your holidays. Chow mein noodles and salted peanuts are tossed with melted white chocolate chips, marshmallows and a surprise ingredient–vanilla frosting–and finished with holiday sprinkles. This recipe makes a large batch, perfect for gift-giving!

White Chocolate Haystacks

Candied Ginger  –  One Good Thing By Jillee

Candied ginger is very versatile! It can be used for taming tummy troubles (it's a very popular road trip snack for people who tend to get car sick,) and added to all sorts of baked goods, like muffins, brownies, and cakes, to add a warm and spicy flavor. A jar of candied ginger makes a wonderful holiday gift as well!

Homemade Candied Ginger

Salted Caramel Sauce  –  The Comfort Of Cooking

Homemade caramel sauce with sea salt and vanilla is perfect for giving as gifts, and out of this world spooned over your favorite ice cream (or in a Salted Caramel Milkshake!) You could also wrap a jar up with some apples for dipping.

Easy Salted Caramel Sauce

White Chocolate Chex Mix  –  Mom 4 Real

Once you have one bite, you can't stop eating it! Make an extra batch for yourself and share the rest with teachers, friends and family! Anyone who receives some of this yummy mix will be more than happy with it as a gift…it's that good!

Christmas Mix

Packaging ideas: One Good Thing By Jillee

Homemade Cookie Butter  –  A Beautiful Mess

Has anything ever sounded (or tasted) as delicious as cookie butter? The best part: You can make these using ANY type of cookie.

Cookie Butter (made with any cookie!)

Candied Almonds  –  Budget Bytes

Infused with cinnamon, these candied almonds are easy to make and taste so much better than the store-bought kind. Hand out jarfuls of them for a yummy holiday snack.

Candied Almonds

Packaging idea:  Jamie Oliver

Infused Vinegar  –  Food Network

Give the gift of good health and good taste with homemade infused vinegars. Infused vinegars add panache to salads, steamed vegetables, soups and sauces, and allow you to flavor dishes without salt or fat.

Rosemary-Infused Vinegar

DIY Hot Sauce  –  Life's Ambrosia

Add some to heat to the winter season with homemade bottled hot sauce. This easy condiment isn't for the faint of heart, but if you love hot sauce, you will love this recipe! And so will the spicy-hot food lovers on your list!

Habanero Hot Sauce

Fried Chicken Kit  –  BuzzFeed

Give the gift of the. best. fried. chicken. ever. One gift, two jars - one for brining and one for coating. Combine all the ingredients for the Brine in one jar and the Coating in a separate jar. Give with directions for frying chicken. A gift guaranteed to impress!

Fried Chicken Kit

Infused Olive Oil  –  Lauren Caris Cooks

Olive oil may seem like a basic gift, but not when it's infused with flavors like citrus, herb and chili. These cute little bottles are the ideal size for gifting.

Rosemary Garlic Oil and Chilli Oil

Homemade Salsa  –  I Heart Naptime

It's fun to give something other than desserts once in awhile. Make a big batch of this easy salsa recipe for family, friends and neighbors! Free printable gift tag included.

Homemade Salsa

Homemade Pickles  –  Martha Stewart

Quick pickles are an impressive gift that's easy to make. No canning required. Sure to please any foodie on your list! Any sturdy glass jar (new or reused) will work for brining. Just make sure they are clean and dry before using.

Fast Homemade Pickles

Packaging idea: Minted

Quick Cucumber Pickles

[lisabeatsyourmeat-blog]

I learned how to beat meat and SO CAN YOU!

My understanding of a blog is to impart my wisdom onto a reader, I would be incorrect in describing my life as perfect or something to model after. I am no expert on life, food, or organizing linen closets, especially as I just tried to spell model with an le instead of el, BUT a las I feel I do have some thoughts. As I sit hunched over on my bed cradling my 4 month old who probably shouldn’t be looking at a computer screen it occurs to me that maybe there’s another new mom with a baby in her arms thinking how can I live a vegan lifestyle? How do I get enough food to my baby and myself or family in a healthy, easy, sustainable manner? On this subject I can help. So to start my blog on “how to live like me” I’d really like to hammer out the point that I do not know what I am doing a lot of the times. I make mistakes often, and I sometimes do the wrong thing, But I learn, I make life changes and I continually am on a quest to “be the best me”. In my writing if there are ever quotations around something just read that in the most sarcastic voice you can think of. Not that I didn’t mean what I wrote just that I find most catchy phrases to be extremely corny and I have a hard to writing them without a sort of comic shield.

Being vegan is not what it used to be. We don’t hide in closets only to socialize in small numbers at Chinese restaurants (Because its always been easy to find options there!). Vegan has become a fad or a movement in recent years. My peanut butter even has Vegan written there right on the jar. And I’m sorry to offend anyone who thought that peanut butter actually had butter in it, but thanks for the heads up on letting me know that ground nuts had no dairy products in it. I thought this was rather obvious but I guess not to the trained eye. I even bought sunscreen that was labeling Vegan. Like what is that? What is going on in other sunscreens? Are they vegan? Do they have like cow eyeballs in it? Is my sunscreen being marketed as Vegan because they want to catch on the next big fad, or are sunscreens hiding secret animal products in them? Why did they need to confuse me now? I guess my point is if these labels are confusing me – a seasoned vegan veteran they would probably confuse someone new to the vegan world.

Let me guide you through the vegan and non vegan peanut butter.  Well see to start I am already eating my words. The spread nutella, which is a chocolate hazelnut spread does in fact have dairy in it. But that’s because it is mixed with milk chocolate. But for the most all peanut butters do not in fact have butter in them. If we do want to go deep into peanut butters off the bat let me indulge you on the depths of peanut butter ingredients. Peanut butter is supposed to be ground peanuts and that’s it. Almond butters, cashew butters, sunflower seed butters, macadamia nut butters, etc. all should be just the nut or seed ground up. Nuts and seeds have a significant amount of oil in them so they grind easily. When buying peanut butter always buy the “natural” type. The biggest mistake you can make in buying peanut butter is buying hydrogenated oil. In recent years the natural is more widely available, they used to be just in glass jars for hippies and those elite vegans who hung out in small groups at Chinese restaurants. But these days your local grocery stores carry the natural kind for reasonable prices. When I say reasonable I mean Kroger (the local store in Columbus Ohio) will have a sale on Natural PB for like a dollar. That’s my kind of reasonably priced peanut butter. Just so were on the same page to start you should get an idea of my financial base. I think I am a little cheap. This would probably be news to my parents, but the further you get away from your parents (and believe me its been a while for me) the more you appreciate your own money and how far it goes. There was a time I would go to Whole foods and buy the fresh ground honey roasted peanut butter. This was not on my parent’s dime but was wrong for multiple reasons. One, that shit was expensive. Two, there is a lot of sugar in honey roasted peanut butter. Not that I am a Nazi about sugar, there is a time and place for it. But in something that I eat daily I didn’t need added white refined sugar. Three, I would make special trips to Whole Foods to get this peanut butter, what kind of Diva did I think I could pull off?  I digress; a one-dollar jar of natural peanut butter is my kind of price and my kind of peanut butter.  

Lets talk about hydrogenated oils now. What it is and why is it bad? In laymen terms this type of oil. Hydrogenated oil turns a liquid into a partial solid. This is done to provide a longer shelf life for the peanut butter. That’s why the natural peanut butter has oil on top when you buy it. The hydrogenated peanut butter has that oil mixed in it. This process uses hydrogen to turn the oil into a partial solid. During this process trans fats are produced. When you eat trans fats they raise your bad cholesterol (LDL) and insult to injury they lower your good cholesterol (HDL). Note about cholesterol, only animals produce cholesterol. Good cholesterol is called HDL bad cholesterol is called LDL. Certain foods will raise both good and bad cholesterol. You can raise your bad cholesterol by eating animals because they obviously contain cholesterol. But then you can raise your good cholesterol by eating certain foods that will help your body produce the good HDL kind. Does that make sense? Okay I honestly was just trying to write and intro. Apparently I do have a lot to write about when it comes to food. I had some thoughts on peanut butter!

Although I was trying to keep this introduction brief I have a feeling it will be the opposite. But if I could bring it home I think the rolling lesson on peanut butter proves my point. Being vegan used to be just avoiding meat and dairy. I even avoided talking about it because it was embarrassing or took too long to explain to someone. Now that I am out of the closet I see that eating vegan or plant based or herbivore (I really like that description like were dinosaurs or something). I see this “diet” is much more. In avoiding certain foods you are forced to open your mind and mouth to foods that don’t just satisfy a craving but are to give you a long healthy life. I hope to give some guidance on how to adopt a vegan lifestyle. I’ve been at this for a while and know how to cook. Like I described before I’m not perfect and make mistakes all the time; currently every electronic I own is in the red on battery life; my computer, my phone, my baby monitor; but I believe I’ve got some stuff right and it starts with what you eat and better yet it’s not that hard! I’d like to show you how to eat healthy, workout minimally and feel like a champ inside and out. Side effects include less sickness, more energy, more money in your pocket and furthermore time to spend with the ones you love. When all is said and done being skinny, or eating a hamburger is not what is important and we all know this. Living a long healthy life spending time with our family and friends is what is important. Here’s to a long healthy life beating meat!