Thin Mint Milkshakes

Seth and I sometimes eat like we're kids whose parents have left for the evening and we now have full reign of the kitchen. We abandon all responsible choices aka anything that resembles a well-balanced meal, and we settle in for French fries and shakes. The combination is too delicious not to just enjoy those two things. I wanted to let you in on a little secret - the thing that makes our shakes better than any homemade shakes I've had before.

The secret: we don't add milk to the shakes. Most of my life I have been putting ice cream in a blender, pouring in the amount of milk that will give me the texture I want, and calling it a yummy day. I'd like to say that Seth and I consciously decided that milk dilutes our ice creamy goodness, but genius is typically born of not having what you need....in this case, milk. Our solution that night many moons ago - put a little ice cream in the microwave and then add that as our liquid to the ice cream in the blender. I promise, once you do it, you'll never go back. The shakes really are that much better.

As for the Thin Mints for a Thin Mint milkshake (versus the vanilla ones we almost always have), just add Girl Scout Thin Mints until you reach the level of minty wonderfulness that you were hoping for. I keep a box of Thin Mints in the freezer just for this purpose.

Happy summer!

Counting the Seconds - Part Two

I always think it's worth noting how different reality can be from what we envision. Don't get me wrong, I had a delightful Friday night with Seth, but it was a little different from what I wrote would happen yesterday. We did make macaroni salad. We did watch Friends, but we didn't quite make it to shakes and a movie. Don't think we got up to anything too saucy or dramatic. Somewhere in the third episode when Phoebe was choosing between the fireman and the teacher, the week took its toll, and Seth fell asleep. He was out - I, at first, was just curled next to him thinking he'd wake up soon. No, no. He was dead asleep. So I reached the other remote with my foot and turned on Top Chef courtesy of Huluplus. Two episodes later, Seth came back to life. There was laughing and silliness, and then we both fell asleep. That is a hot Friday night. ;)

Counting the Seconds

I've never really thought of myself as one of those girls who waits around for a boy, but here it's late Friday afternoon and I am counting down to when Seth gets here and Friday night begins. We have typical Friday night plans - we'll make dinner (macaroni salad out of his mom's Betty Crocker cookbook that seems to be straight out of the Arnold family kitchen in The Wonder Years) and a delicious snack (tonight it's thin mint milkshakes). We'll watch a movie and maybe a couple Friends episodes. No need to go out when it's been a tiring week, and tomorrow night's date is dinner in Carmel at the wonder that is Mundaka. Better go pretend to read or keep adding to the list of what I want to cook this year....Happy Friday!!

For the record, Mrs. Norma Arnold aka Alley Mills also played Majorie Quinn on Dr. Quinn. Can't say that everything in life is a Dr. Quinn reference the way it's a Friends or Gilmore Girls reference, but you'd be surprised how I often I can come up with one. Don't judge...too much.

To Continue or Not To Continue

I used to love signing into blogger and writing whatever randomness came to mind. And truth be told, I still love to write, but I don't make time for it any more. Instead I scan instagram far too often and look for any excuse to text Seth. I also hardly read blogs anymore despite actually wanting to read the musings of some really fantastic people. The decision then becomes, to keep writing here or just let it go (that phrase ps and by the way has been taken hostage by Disney characters and I haven't found a substitute yet).

I am actually journaling daily now - as in I, the person who always had an excuse about my journal, write at least a couple sentences each day. It's not overly profound or even a perfect chronicle of day-to-day events, but it is a record that I can look back on. And yet, it's not the same as sitting down and typing here. So maybe, just maybe, I am going to give this another go. I'll attempt to write once a week for the second half of 2014 and see if I can rekindle the blogging love affair that was going so strong a few years ago.

Bear with me as I ramble and perhaps repost what appears elsewhere. Now it's time to give my full attention back to the U.S. - Belgium soccer game. I'm supposed to say I believe the U.S. can win, but at minute 70, I just don't know. Fingers crossed!

Happier at Home

Happier at Home: Kiss More, Jump More, Abandon a Project, Read Samuel Johnson, and My Other Experiments in the Practice of Everyday Life by Gretchen Rubin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I started this book ages ago, but in approaching my summer decided it was time to finally finish. Rubin's ideas speak to me. I know some of them aren't relatable to my day-to-day life, but the idea of setting themes and goals for a month matches my style of wanting to be more but often having a short attention span or so many goals I can't just pick one. The first Happiness Project probably deserved a 4.5 star rating from me and then one a 3.5, but Goodreads doesn't do half stars and this book's ideas stay with me. I love that. I love that at random moments I think about who I want to be and get inspired by Rubin's writing even when I haven't picked up the actual book. Her main idea is simple - we can be happier. We just have to actively seek that happiness. There's no pill or magic bullet to get us there. Happiness often takes work or doing things that are unsettling, but in the end, we feel more satisfied, more at peace, and ultimately more happy.

I originally borrowed this book from my friend Megan, and just couldn't bring myself to send it back. I want to reread it and Rubin's first book whenever I need reminding that it is up to me to create the life I want for myself. And let's be honest, how can I resist encouragement to kiss more, to aside time for the things I'm passionate about, and to be more organized?!

Happy reading and happy living!

To All The Boys I've Loved Before

To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I really wanted to like this book partially because a friend who doesn't often recommend books to me suggested it, because it has a great title, and because the narrator was Asian-American - perhaps that seems like an odd distinction, but so few protagonists in teen fiction are minorities and my student body is mostly made up of minorities. Unfortunately the drama was too contrived and a couple of the "twists" were so obvious from the beginning that the seemingly intelligent Lara Jean would have figured them out much sooner. Perhaps I'm less in love too with this book because I liked a different boy for this infamous Song girl, but I am proud of a book for portraying culture in an authentic way - not calling out and saying "hey I have Korean pride", but instead including those little details that would make up the day-to-day life of Korean-American teenager.

I can't say I would recommend this book to my peers, but I would consider recommending it to my quieter freshmen and sophomore girls. I think they would identify with the unrequited love story lines and the simple wish to be seen.

As always, happy reading!

Maus

Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Every once in a while a book comes along and does something no book has done before. Maus is like that for me. Perhaps it's because it's only my second graphic novel. Or perhaps it's because I had low expectations because I didn't expect a book told in graphic form could illicit the type of emotion that comes from prose. Either way, Spielgman's Maus tells a story of the Holocaust in a way that is relatable and poignant. The choice to make the Jews mice and the Nazis cats while also choosing to have story be delivered in a narrative from a father to a son made it eerily like a horrifying bedtime story - the type where you are hoping there is a happy ending that is coming rather than a perpetual unfolding of despair and tragedy. Alas, there are no happy endings when millions were killed simply for clinging to faith or for being born with characteristics they had no control over. This is storytelling at its finest.