Christmas Puppy Chow

Christmas baking has officially begun! It may be early, but a few of my friends at college and I decided to do our Christmas gift exchange early this year. For this first time we decided this years gift would be entirely homemade. Homemade gifts, in my opinion, are the best kind of gifts because they come from the heart. My friends love sweets so I put a spin on an old time favorite, puppy chow.

You will need:

• 9 cups any kind chex 
• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 12 ounces chocolate baking chips
• 12 ounces M&M's
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup promise butter
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1 gallon Ziploc Bag
• 5 one quart Mason Jars

Measure out the chex cereal and put it in the Ziploc bag.

In a microwave safe mixing bowl add chocolate baking chips, promise butter, peanut butter, and vanilla extract. Microwave for one minute, take out stir, then microwave for thirty seconds, take out stir again making sure all ingredients are thoroughly combined. Microwave for an additional thirty seconds.

Then take contents of mixing bowl and pour into Ziploc bag. Seal Ziploc bag, double check to make sure the bag is tightly sealed, then shake! Shake for one to two minutes until all the chex cereal is coated in the liquid mixture. 

After all the chex is coated in the liquid chocolate and peanut butter mixture, open the Ziploc bag and pour in the powdered sugar. Seal the bag back up and shake! Shake hard, not too hard to break open the bag, but hard enough to coat all the cereal with the powdered sugar. Rotating the bag around helps distribute the powdered sugar around.

Once all the chex is coated in powdered sugar pour the puppy chow onto a lined baking sheet to cool. Allow puppy chow to cool for three hours. Once the puppy chow is cool mix in the M&M's. Do not add the M&M's in while the puppy chow is warm or the M&M's will melt. The grocery store I went to was out of red and green M&M's which is why I got stuck with patriotic M&M's.

Finally fill mason jars with puppy chow. Before or after mason jars are filled decorate with tags, bows, ribbons, stickers, or anything to make the jars more festive. 

Mason jars filled with puppy chow make the perfect gift for family, friends, coworkers, or any sweet lover in your life! It's never too early to spread some Christmas cheer!

Thinking Out Loud #12: Thanksgiving Edition

Happy Thanksgiving! I can't believe Thanksgiving is already upon us, it seems like the month of November has been flying by. I really need to buckle down and get some Christmas shopping done, but I have already started so that's a new record for me. 

Even though today is Thanksgiving I still wanted to share a quick thinking out loud. Of course it's totally random (as always) but there's a new song I definitely think you should check out! 

1. If you haven't heard John Mayer's new singer Love on the Weekend you seriously need to! It's SO.GOOD. It reminds me of classic John Mayer like Your Body is a Wonderland and Slow Dancing in a Burning Room. I may have had it on repeat since it came out but seriously it's so good. Go listen to it, I promise it won't be a disappointment. 

2. I swear only in Michigan does the weather change at the drop of a hat. Last Friday the temp reached 73F degrees, Cora and I spent the day outside soaking up every ounce of sunshine and beautiful weather. Come Saturday it was 32F degrees and snowing. We had actual accumulation, but thankfully it melted later on. Beautiful weather please come back. I'm not prepared for the cold weather or snow😭

3. The tradition of Chipotle date night continues. My boyfriend had a really rough week last week so I drove down Saturday night and got Chipotle to cheer him up. It wasn't anything fancy but it took his mind off school for a little bit and I got to see him so it was nice. I did feel bad though because the guy who wrapped his burrito was new and was clearly riding the struggle bus trying to wrap the burrito, poor guy. 

4. I MADE IT OUT OF TARGET WITH ONLY THE ITEMS ON MY LIST!! That totally deserved all caps because that literally never happens. I even wandered around the store, looked at the home decor section (my weakness) and all the Christmas decor and walked out without purchasing any unnecessary items. It's incredibly sad but that store is just so fun. I did get a kick out of some of the Christmas ornaments but nothing really caught my eye, so I walked out a happy camper because I still had money left.

5. My lifting buddy has been off work all week so all week the lifts have been intense. We definitely push each other to lift heavier but we keep it fun. He is the only person I can lift with. I'm just not into workout buddies, but we always joke that we are each others therapists because we will rant to each other about whatever is going on in our lives. There isn't a better destresser than lifting weights💪 but seriously I am so sore. It feels really good because I'm lifting heavy but holy smokes I thought my arms were going to fall off the other day.

6. I am so not a fan of daylight savings time because it gets dark WAY too early. However, the one good thing is it gets lighter earlier so I have gotten to enjoy some seriously beautiful sunrises. Despite it being absolutly freezing outside Cora and I have been going out for a little bit every morning to enjoy the solitude and beautiful skies. A little fresh air and gorgeous skies do the soul good first thing in the morning.

I'll cut things short and end at six today because it's Thanksgiving and I'm ready to dive in to my mom's homemade cranberry sauce😍 here's the recipe for her cranberry sauce if you're interested, you only need three ingredients to make it and it comes together really quick (AKA last minute side dish). Happy Thanksgiving!!

Confidence Is Sexy

Confidence is something I have always struggled with. I was bullied in middle school so I know that was part of the problem, but a big part of the problem was I never taught to be confident. Some kids are just graced with natural confidence, but I was not one of those kids. 

I think there's a lot that goes in to being confident. To me being confident is not just feeling good about how you look, but that is definitely part of it. I was never comfortable with how I looked, even today I sometimes find myself playing the comparison game. Social media makes it so easy to compare our looks and lives to someone else's lives when in reality we know NOTHING about that person. Someone can have a seemingly "perfect" body or life on instagram but struggle with an eating disorder or depression or other issues that no one knows about. 

I went through a rather toxic relationship a number of years ago where I was regularly degraded. That relationship totally shattered the little confidence I had left in myself. Looking back I am totally ashamed that I let myself be devalued on a daily basis, but on the flip side I also learned a lot from it and I am completely different person now (thankfully). When the relationship ended I was incredibly hurt but I took time to work on myself. I began to invest time into things that made me happy- fitness, nutrition, reporting, etc. and slowly I began to build confidence in myself. 

A professor once told me that confidence is like a muscle, the more you use it the stronger it gets. As I began to invest time in myself and do things that I genuinely loved I began to gain confidence in myself. Reporting was (and is) my passion, but it became a space where I was able to gain a lot of confidence. I had no problem stepping in front of a camera on location or in studio to deliver news. I love chasing down a story, conducting interviews, and asking the hard questions that people want or need to know. The confidence I gained reporting carried over into other areas of my life as well. 

I've learned to accept gaining confidence is a process. It's not something where you go to bed and wake up in the morning more confident, I wish it worked like that but it doesn't. I spent much of college working to better myself. You see there was always a sassy, confident, speak her mind kind of girl inside of me, but I didn't know how to channel that. Now I have no qualms about speaking my mind, in fact a lot of times I speak my mind when others don't care to hear it (I blame the reporter inside of me).

The woman I am now would like to go back and shake my younger self, but in a lot of ways I think if I had not gone through that horrible relationship I wouldn't be where I am today. I was able to pull myself up by my bootstraps and get going again. I learned to stand on my own two feet, to say NO, how to love myself, and most importantly that I am worthy of love. The person I am today would never put up with the kind of stuff I did back then and I certainly would never let a man, or anyone for that matter, talk to me the way he did. I am worthy of respect and I am worthy of love and if you can't handle that, then you have no place in my life. 

That's not to say that I don't struggle with confidence anymore because I do. There are still aspects of that unhealthy relationship that I struggle with. I think it's impossible to escape an unhealthy relationship unscathed. I still find it incredibly difficult to talk about that relationship because I'm ashamed of it. While I know that I would never allow myself to be in that situation now there are things that happened in that relationship that have left scars. Luckily, my boyfriend is a very patient person and any issues that have come up we have worked through together. 

Confidence is about so much more than how you look. There's nothing wrong with being confident. Some people may dismiss you as arrogant, but so what? I'm proud that I am confident enough to stand up to someone and say no. I'm also proud that I'm confident enough to look like a total bum (sweatpants, hoodie, messy bun) in front of my boyfriend because the old me would never have thought about letting a guy see me like that. Guess what? My boyfriend doesn't love me any less for bumming it up on movie nights. I don't dress like that all the time because I do love dressing up and looking nice, but I do it for myself not to impress anyone else. 

Of course I still have days, and will have days in the future, where I don't feel good enough, or beautiful enough, or smart enough, or fill in the blank enough. Remember that you are enough. Period. End of discussion. Don't let anyone degrade you or tell you that you are anything less. Be confident in who you are. Own your personality. I love the fact that I'm naturally inclined to ask a zillion questions because it makes me a better reporter. I love that I'm not afraid to laugh and have fun with people even if I look silly. I have gotten more confident as I have gotten older, but part of that process has just been embracing who I am. 

I truly think confidence is sexy. There's a saying that the best makeup a girl can wear is a smile, but I think the best thing a girl (or anyone) can do is be confident. Be confident in who you are. Everyone is so different and so unique and its amazing! The world would be such a boring place if we were all alike. Embrace your differences and your uniqueness because those things make you YOU. Be confident about them because people notice confident people and people want to be around confident people. Be confident in who you are because who you are is pretty dang awesome. Don't ever let anyone tell you differently.