Know Before You Go

I have been traveling A LOT this week, and it got me thinking about what a process it can be. Yes, seeing new places and people and things is always exciting; but it can also be frustrating, tiring, confusing, and potentially a bad experience if you're not prepared. So I decided to make a little list of things you can do before the trip to make sure it's more fun and less stressful. I give to you:

My Pre-Travel Checklist:

1. MAKE AN AWESOME PLAYLIST. This is especially important if you are driving to your destination. Having the right music can drastically improve your mood, and songs have the power to make a 2-hour drive either feel like half an hour, or 10-hours. Choose wisely.

2. RESEARCH BEFORE YOU GO. In the age of the smartphone, we may feel like we have any information we need any time at our finger tips. But I have caught myself in the "I'll just look it up later" mentality multiple times, and it has not ended well. Some websites are not mobile-compatible, and trying to find something on a smartphone could take a lot longer than if you were using a computer. So spend a few minutes browsing tourist sites/blogs/whatever information you can find about your destination BEFORE you leave.

4. MAP IT. Googlemaps is my best friend when planning a trip. I just plug in all the places I want to go, and it shows me how far they are from each other. This makes it much easier to plan out a timeline, and avoid driving around town wasting time, gas, and money.

3. TAKE NOTES. Once you've narrowed down where it is you want to go, check out their website. I find that it's helpful to jot down some notes about places on a memo pad for quick reference later. It's especially important to note if they are closed certain days, what their hours are, if there is a dress code, etc.

And last but not least:
4. REMEMBER that not everything goes exactly as planned. Have an open mind and some flexibility, and you will have a much better trip.

Kitchen Adventures: Chinese Chicken Salad

Recently, part of my focus in my "quest to adulthood" has been cooking for myself. I love baking, but cooking has always seemed like more of a nuisance. Then I got tired of eating the same thing every day. So I cracked open some cookbooks and discovered that it wasn't as intimidating as I'd thought.

One of the things I actually like about cooking is that it's much less strict than baking. If you're making a cake and don't measure everything exactly right, you could end up with a disaster. But you can make a bunch of changes when cooking and actually end up with something better than the original recipe.

Take, for example, the Chinese Chicken Salad Chop Cups recipe I found. The idea for these appetizers was to make individual salads using wonton wrappers. Well, I decided to modify it a bit since a) I did not want to buy/prepare wonton wrappers and b) I wanted to make something I could easily bring to work for lunch. So I just cut the wrappers out of the recipe and followed all the other directions. This is what I ended up with:

Chinese Chicken Salad

Not bad right? Normally I am not a salad person, but the "Asian Almonds" (made with soy sauce, sesame oil, cayenne, garlic powder, and ground ginger) add a lot of flavor; and the chicken makes it more filling but still healthy. By removing the 4 steps and 30 minutes it would take to add the wonton wrappers to this recipe, I made it much simpler and much easier to eat as a lunch.

Want to try it yourself? I totally recommend "Pretty Delicious" by Candice Kumai. I've made a bunch of recipes from her cookbook and all of them have turned out fabulous.

A Bright New Year

New Years Resolutions have always confused me a bit. People always make them, and they hardly ever keep them. My theory for this is that Resolutions aren't effective when make them just because it's a New Year.

In the past, one of my main New Years Resolutions has been to grow my nails. Every year, I thought "This will be the year. No more picking my nails". But I could never stick to that for more than a few weeks. When I got a promotion at work a few months ago, I decided it was as good a time as any to try that resolution again. I bought a manicure kit, some new nail polish, and all the accessories- top coat, base coat, moisturizer. Whenever my nails started looking rough, I pulled out my manicure kit and fixed them up. Keeping them looking nice made it so much less tempting to pick at them.

The even better part is that I've really gotten into color. I always thought my nails were too short for anything to look good, but I've discovered that having shorter nails is actually perfect for bright colors. And having them painted hides the imperfections that made me pick at them in the first place. I started by easing into it with a brighter pink than my normal baby pink. Having a brighter color on my nails even made my mood brighter!

For New Years Eve I decided I wanted to do something really bold. When I picked out a purple dress to wear, I thought pairing teal nails with it would be a total step outside my comfort zone. So I found this great color, "The Real Teal". I instantly fell in love. We were going to a Masquerade Ball, so I even added teal to the mask I designed to wear. I loved the mix of teal and purple.

Close-Up view of my nails

Hello! Bonjour! Hola! Buongiorno!

Welcome to my blog!

Here, you can expect to read about... pretty much everything. My main purpose with this blog is to break into another aspect of social media. You'll probably be reading a lot about my 4 main interests:

• Travel
• Photography
• Baking
• Organizing

(Organizing may seem like an odd interest, but trust me- it's one of my main skills and it can be applied to pretty much anything. It's really very useful.) I'm also planning on getting involved in some volunteer opportunities for local events; hopefully this will be a stepping stone to more professional Event Planning than I've previously done.

So, thanks for joining me on this journey. Enjoy!