•• DIY Sugar Scrub ••

Welcome back, friends! Today, I decided to post about one of my favorite products - sugar scrub! I absolutely love sugar scrub, mostly because it makes my skin feel crazy soft, and it's an entirely natural product. However, buying sugar scrub from the store really breaks my wallet. Buying sugar scrub from Lush costs $10.95, and that's only for 0.8oz! So naturally, I decided to make my own sugar scrub that was both cheap and used some of my favorite products - Doterra's Essential Oils. Here is my recipe for the easiest, cheapest, best sugar scrub:

What You Will Need:
- Coconut oil
- Sugar
- Doterra Essential Oil (whatever scent you want - I used Wild Orange because that's my husband's favorite scent)
- A jar or container that can hold up to 1 cup of product

Instructions:
1. Microwave 2 tablespoons of coconut oil - about 30 seconds should do it. You will want the oil to be completely melted.

2. Pour 1/2 a cup of sugar into the coconut oil and stir until well combined. It should look something like this:

3. Finally, add between 4-8 drops of Essential Oils to your mixture - feel free to choose whatever scent you want! I chose Wild Orange because it's my husband's favorite and it's a refreshing, summery scent.

4. After you have mixed together your sugar scrub, you will need to put it in a jar or container. I had an adorable candle from Target that I had burned down to the bottom so I just used that to hold my sugar scrub. Here's what it looked like:

5. Put the lid on and you are ready to use your brand new, homemade sugar scrub! I made a label out of scrapbook paper I had at home, which is the picture you can see at the top of this post.






There you have it! This is my recipe for easy, homemade sugar scrub...give it a try and let me know what you think of it and what scents you decided to use. Good luck!

The Truth About Adventure Time

Adventure Time is a brilliantly fantastic "children's" show (I say "children's" only because I'm 21 and I know a plethora of other adults that watch this show). Adventure Time is set in the Land of Ooo, which is a post-apocalyptic future that exists about one thousand years after a horrible nuclear war that the characters call the "Great Mushroom War". The farther you get into the show, the more of a story line you will gain - keep an eye out for Marceline and and the Ice King...they'll give you a lot of backstory. While some may consider this a children's show, I'm here to tell you that I believe that Adventure Time is one of the deepest, most emotional adult shows that deals with a multitude of  problems that people face every day. This, is the truth about Adventure Time.

Dating
Adventure Time, firstly, deals with the difficulty of dating. Finn the human (the main character of the show), deals with intense feelings regarding the women he loves. Since the first episode, it is apparent that Finn has a huge crush on Princess Bubblegum, who is a few years older than him and does not return his affections. He eventually comes to date Flame Princess, a young girl his own age who is made out of fire. During these romantic relationships, a few of the characters have to wrestle with the emotional risks of dating...the same risks we face every day.

 

Insecurity

Every single person suffers with some form of insecurity, and Adventure Time deals with this too. The particular character that wrestles with insecurity the most, is the Ice King. The Ice King feels the need to steal princesses because he is insecure about himself as a person; he's so insecure with who he is that a princess would naturally love him. In the same way, sometimes we feel the need to act a certain way, or dress like someone we're not, because we don't feel like we will be wanted or liked.

 

 


Heartbreak
Finn has carried a torch for Princess Bubblegum ever since he met her, and he continues to love her throughout a good chunk of the show. In one of the episodes, Finn finally confronts Princess Bubblegum about how she's been leading him on, and how hard this has been for him. I think it's safe to say that many of us have been led on and suffered a bad heartbreak because of it.

 

Overthinking
My husband suffers from chronic overthinking. It's one of his best and worst qualities. Adventure Time even deals with the difficulty of overthinking and the fear of the future. Jake the dog has an excellent quote about overthinking, and how focusing on problems that aren't real, are detrimental to one's well-being.

 

   

Finding the Light

In Adventure Time BMO talks about how life can be scary and dark, but that's why we need to concentrate on the light and the positives. I love this quote of BMO's...because I think often times, we get caught up in how scary life can be, and all of the problems we have instead of finding the light.

 

The Ability to be Alone

There's this one scene in Adventure Time where Banana Man comes to the realization that he's alone, but he's good at it. I think we all (in our season of not dating and singleness) have experienced this. We get good at being alone, and even though we may not always like it, we come to terms with it, and then we move on.

Confidence

Every once and a while, Adventure Time does genderbent episodes called Fiona and Cake - Fiona the human girl and Cake the cat. I love these episodes...I mean, girl power! But mostly, I love the confidence and self-assuredness that Fiona has. Just like Finn, Fiona has a huge crush on Prince Bubblegum (the male version of Princess Bubblegum), and she spends a lot of time trying to get his attention. But she comes to this realization that she doesn't need to wait to be noticed by him - she's her own person, and she loves herself. I think everyone could use this amount of confidence. Maybe it's time we listen to Fiona. 

Overall, Adventure Time is an epic show - children's cartoon or not. I hope you take the time to watch this cartoon, and if you already have watched it, I hope this article makes you love the show even more than you already do.

 

Tater Tot Casserole with a Kick

 

Hi friends! It's been a little while since I last posted, and a lot has recently been happening in my life! I recently got married (three weeks ago) and have been enjoying married life. We spent a week in Florida for our honeymoon where we took Harry Potter World and Universal Studios by storm (I plan on writing about some hacks for Universal Studios later) and had an absolute blast. But, that's not why I'm writing this post! I'm writing this post because I wanted to share a recipe I put together. My husband has been busy working two jobs (I know...isn't he such a hard worker?!), and I've had the privilege of getting to stay home and keep up house and hang out with our dog Bentley. So, naturally, I've been making him homemade dinners and lunches and breakfasts, and today, I wanted to share with you my new favorite recipe - and my husband's too - tater tot casserole with a kick! 

I want to start out by saying that I did steal the general tater tot casserole from the Duggar Family, but since both my husband and I are addicted to anything spicy, I thought I would add some new stuff to the recipe and make it more of my own. To quote Rosanna Pansino...let's get started!

You will need:

- 2 lbs of ground beef

- 3-2 lb bag of frozen tater tots

- 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup

- 2 cans of cream of chicken soup 

- 2 cans of evaporated milk

- 1 jar of tamed jalapenos 

- 1 packet of taco seasoning

- Salt and pepper to taste

- A small bag of Fritos

- An 11 cup casserole dish 

- Grated cheddar cheese

Instructions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 360 degrees

2. Brown meat in a pan; once browned, add taco seasoning, salt and pepper and stir

3. Pour meat into the bottom of the casserole dish

4. Cover the meat with the tots - feel free to go ham on the amount of tots you put in

5. In a large bowl, mix together the soups and milk

6. Pour the soups and milk over the tots and spread around to make sure all of the tots are covered

7. Sprinkle jalapenos over the top - feel free to add as many or as little jalapenos as you want; my husband and I LOVE spicy food so I added the entire jar

8. Bake in the oven at 360 degrees for one hour

9. Once the casserole is finished baking, take it out of the oven and sprinkle on as many Fritos as you want

10. Next, sprinkle on as much cheese as you like - feel free to grate the whole block and put it on there if you want!

11. Place back in the oven for 5 minutes, just to let the cheese melt

12. Let cool and enjoy!

This dish is super easy and delicious, and it takes hardly any effort to make...and even less effort to enjoy...trust me, my husband and I ate every last bit of that casserole over the last few days. Let me know what your experience is after you've made this dish and what you think about it. I know my brother suggested putting spicy Cheetos on top instead of Fritos, so maybe I'll have to try that next time.