Sweet & Salty Sensation : New Chex Mix Popped

If you didn't know like I did, you quickly learn that when you have men in the house you always have to keep a generous amount of snack food on hand. At grocery shopping time, this usually leads to arguments between the boyfriend and I as he likes the sweeter of the snack foods and I have a little more salty taste buds. Because of this, it almost cracked me up to see the new Chex Mix Popped Sweet & Salty at the store during my last trip. I had to get it for him as a surprise, and who knows? I might even like it.

At first I didn't have high hopes for this snack as I'm a huge stickler on my salty & sweet not mixing but Chex surprised me. Both my boyfriend and I loved it! The sweet & salty seem to compliment each other, despite my expectations, and paired with the buttery popcorn it makes for a great night time treat. I can say though that I didn't get to try to much of it as he quickly took it back into the room to eat while he played football on our TV. Oh well, at least I found something we both can enjoy.

Read more about this sweet & salty sensation at:

www.chex.com

“Disclosure:The information and prize pack have been provided by General Mills through Platefull Co-Op.”

Caffeine Extreme

It doesn't matter who you are, nearly everyone starts to feel exhaustion set in after driving on the road for 14 hours with nothing but the same trees passing by you after every mile. So when I stopped at a little gas station in Missouri, I was definitely starting to feel my eyelids droop.

I headed over to the coffee maker to grab a pick-me-up when I spotted a flavor at the far end of the machine. Next to names like "French Vanilla" and "Hot Chocolate" was a flavor that was handwritten in sharpie spelling, "Caffeine Extreme" and below it was scribbled "6x more powerful than a regular cup of coffee".

I still had 7-8 hours left on my drive and it was nearing midnight, so I thought I'd give it ago. I filled up my cup, paid and drove off a few minutes later. It only took me about 15 minutes to finish the entire cup and what came shortly after is a slightly hazy night that I will never forget. Word to the wise - When you have had nothing to eat all day and have already had two cups of coffee, more caffeine may not be the answer.

Within 45 minutes of finishing my cup, I recall rolling down the windows and screaming "Here's to never growing up" with the radio blasting as I sped down the interstate going  95 miles per hour. I had so much caffeine pumping through my system that I was actually waving my arms sporadically as I was driving to release the antsy, itchy feeling that I was getting. I felt like I just needed to RUN.

That single cup of coffee kept me awake (with a slight eye twitch) all the way from Missouri to Texas. By the time I neared Dallas, I could feel exhaustion wearing down on me but the caffeine seemed to glue my eyes open. I remember telling my Grandparents when I arrived "I'm not tired at all - I don't even feel a thing!" shortly before passing out in my dad's childhood room.

I had weird Star Wars dreams for the rest of the day.

Beware the "Caffeine Extreme"!

There and Back Again...

Besides my shoulder spasming painfully and the awful feeling of nausea from an earlier coffee overdose, it's almost impossible to remember that only a few hours ago I was on my third twelve hour drive this month. I'm exhausted and possibly sick, but despite this I'm glad I got to go on this trip.

So for those of you who haven't been following my crazy adventure, during the month of September 2014 I drove a total of 2,100 miles in 38 hours from Florida to Illinois, Illinois to Texas and then Texas back to Florida. I just arrived at my house safely a few hours ago, and besides a very messy car, we made it out alright. (Although I'm going to have some major "cleaning out" time with the car tomorrow)

I made it home just in time for my 21st birthday, which is in a week. On this trip I have gotten lost in Nashville (Tennessee), Somewhere in Kentucky, St. Louis (Missouri) and Mobile (Alabama). My car has seen three mechanics, one for an oil change and then two due to bad, watered down gas messing up technical bits in my car. I've drank 11 cups of coffee (One called "Caffeine Extreme" which actually counted as 6 cups of coffee on its own) and I've traveled through more states than I can count.

I guess you could say I've seen the Midwest.

But I'll tell you all about it more tomorrow after I've gotten some rest. I'm exhausted and I'm sure tomorrow I'll have to go back over this and fix things I spelled or said wrong. 

Until tomorrow ~

Baking with Pillsbury and the kids!

Today I just got sent a coupon for "Pillsbury Melts Cookies". I never tried them before but they looked delish, so I headed off to Walmart to grab some. When I got there, I probably spent twenty minutes in the baking and cake mixes aisle trying to find the right kind. There were other cookies from Pillsbury but not the kind I was looking for. At first I thought that my small-town grocery store didn't care them but funnily enough, they're actually in the refrigerated section.

By the time I got home, my friend's daughter (who was going to help me bake) decided she wanted to make one batch of each kind for her mom who was just getting out of surgery. We heated up the oven, got out two cookie sheets and laid a piece of wax paper over both. The thing I love about these cookies is how easy they are to bake! Literally they're already pre-cut so you just pop them out of the package and put them on a cookie sheet!

Within 15 minutes we had two batches of steaming, gooey cookies. My friend's daughter helped me drizzle chocolate over them, which came in the package, and then we waited for them to cool.

They were a huge hit! We had them out on a plate for probably less time than it took to cook them. (Which is really fast!) Everyone loved the gooey vanilla and fudge centers and they were awesome with milk!

I'm definitely getting these again when Christmas rolls around. Every year I battle with my cooking supplies and make a huge mess in the kitchen because I want to make cookies for all my friend's families. I think this will make things so much easier and tastier. Now if only they made cake pops!

Someone already stole a few ;)

Find more gooey goodness at:

http://www.pillsbury.com/products/cookies/ready-to-bake-cookies/melts-molten-fudge-filled-cookies

http://www.pillsbury.com/products/cookies/ready-to-bake-cookies/melts-smore-sensation-filled-cookies

http://www.pillsbury.com/products/cookies/ready-to-bake-cookies/

https://www.facebook.com/Pillsbury 

Disclosure: The information and prize pack have been provided by General Mills through Platefull Co-Op.

Paws in the Park

Yesterday Tobi and I got to go to the 11th annual festival in Greensville, IL called "Paws in the Park". There were dogs EVERYWHERE! My little dachshund is very friendly and not to long after we arrived, he was tugging me every which way trying to say hello.

Sadly we got there shortly after they stopped taking registrations for the contests, but we still had fun. (I still think Tobi would've won "Best Kisser") I took my friend's kids to get their faces painted, Tobi got a $10 nail clipping and they even gave Tobi a tattoo on his butt! He was scared at first because the spray they used to put on the tattoo reminded him of his squirt bottle at home, but with a little encouragement from the kids, he was loving it!

I think it turned out awesome!~

Afterwards I took my friend's kids to Edwardsville, IL to go lazer tagging and wander around the shopping mall with their friends before heading home. All in all, I say it was a successful outing.

Shattering

I'm just going to let this video do all the talking - It's absolutely gorgeous. Great Job Lindsey Stirling, you did it again! :)

My Would-Be Amazon Review

Yesterday I read a really cute book called "What Did the Cat See?" and so, as I do with most books, I went to leave a nice review. This was my first review...

My daughter is going through the age where she is obsessed with all things feline so I thought this would be the perfect book for her. I've now had to read it to her 5 times this week and I'm almost positive that this is her new favorite book. Great Job Angela Yuriko Smith and keep up the good work!

I get an email from Amazon a few minutes later letting me know that my review was in violation of their guidelines and couldn't be posted. ...Okay? I re-read my review and Amazon's guidelines before deciding to try again, this time removing the Author's name so my review was only about the book.

My daughter is going through the age where she is obsessed with all things feline so I thought this would be the perfect book for her. I've now had to read it to her 5 times this week and I'm almost positive that this is her new favorite book.

I get the same email again a few minutes later...

A little frustrated, I completely dumb-down my review so there was no possible thing that could be violating their guidelines.

My daughter loved it. Keep up the good work!

Again I get an email... so now determined to leave a review - I try yet again, this time completely re-writing my review so that it's more like a mini-synopsis of the book rather than a review.

What a wonderful story! "What Did the Cat See?" is a walk alongside a curious cat that will have you looking at things in a whole new perspective. The pictures were really cute and my daughter absolutely loved it. I highly recommend this book.

Another email - Maybe they just have something against my daughter as if I was reading a children's book to myself?

What a wonderful story! "What Did the Cat See?" is a walk alongside a curious cat that will have you looking at things in a whole new perspective. The pictures were really cute - I highly recommend this book.

By the next email, I had given up. Sorry Angela Yuriko Smith that I can't tell you what I think of your book because somehow every review that I try to leave is inappropriate in some way.

So here is my review - What Did the Cat See is an awesome book listed on a very annoying site and not just that - Right now it's free! I really enjoyed reading this book to my daughter and it's probably her new favorite. Thank you so much and keep up the great work. You deserve every star that I would give you if my reviews weren't so scandalous.