Jelly Bean Day

Even though I'm not a huge fan of jelly beans, I'm pretty excited that today is Jelly Bean Day!

A fun way you can celebrate Jelly Bean Day is by playing Bean Boozled - the awesome/kind of terrifying game from Jelly Belly where there are two different flavors, one good and one bad, that are the same color and you have to hope that you pick the better of the two. My friend Faith and I played this game last month for my YouTube channel, and my friend Emily and I played it today on our radio show.

In honor of the holiday, the Jelly Belly Candy Company announced their newest flavor, Pancakes & Maple Syrup. Plus, they had a pancake when they kicked off the new flavor this morning and the proceeds helped benefit an event for the American Diabetes Association (kind of ironic for a candy company...). You can read more about the new flavor over at the official Jelly Belly blog.

Whether you stuff your face with jelly beans or just watch my Bean Boozled challenge video on YouTube, make sure you celebrate Jelly Bean Day.

My Latest Creative Endeavor

For those of you who have been reading my posts for a while, you have probably realized that I'm not the most normal person. In fact, I tend to be far from it. After a lot of thinking, I have decided on a new way for me to share my weirdness with the world - vlogging!

I'll still be posting to here whenever I can, but I am going to try and post videos to YouTube at least once or twice a week. So, if you'd like to stay up to date with me via video, head on over to my YouTube channel.

My first video will take you just under a minute to watch, and it will take you even less time than that to like the video, share it with your friends, and subscribe to my channel.

My second video will hopefully be up sometime tomorrow or by Tuesday at the latest. I had originally planned on filming and editing it today, but I am very sick and my voice sounds even stranger than normal.

Thanks for reading and taking the time to support me in all of my creative endeavors! Also, don't forget to follow me on Twitter and Instagram if you aren't already.

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpEgpRBeqKAvhra1lJssYxg
First Vlog:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AafOC2npW1c
Twitter: @jessica_paige5
Instagram: @jesspaige5

No More Best Friends

I know it's been over a month since I've last posted, but I've been super busy with Christmas, work, and school, and am just now finding the time to post.

Disclaimer: I've been thinking about the statements in this post a lot and the entire thing really comes from my heart. This post is not meant to insult any of my friends, present or former. I'm just writing about my personal thoughts and feelings.
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Life is hard. Especially when you account for all of the weird drama that can arise from having friends. Specifically, best friends.

Throughout my life, I've had several different "best friends". We all have. That one friend to whom you devote most of your time and energy and feel as if you can share anything and everything with. Of course, as we get older, these friendships become significantly more complex, paralleling our ever-growing problems.

For me, these "best friend" relationships have never really lasted too long. It always seems that when I open up and become really close with one friend, after a little while they slowly start to ignore me or push me away, until I am eventually cut off.

At first, I thought that I was flawed and incapable of having close friends, but then I started to realize that I resent the concept of a "best friend".

Sometime during my freshman year of high school, I decided that it was easier to have several somewhat close friendships that just one or two "best friends". That's when I become the "floater" of my extended friend group.

I was, and still am, part of a group of about fifteen or so friends that would all collectively hang out often. Of course, there were a couple different smaller cliques within the group, and, being the floater, I never knew when, or if, I would be invited to a certain gathering or activity of a specific clique.

Being the floater, I did miss out on a lot. The main downside was that I would sometimes just feel alone because I didn't have one specific friend that I could open up to or always spend time with, and I still feel that way a lot, even with having a different friend group in college.

In the long run, I feel like it's better, at least for me, to devote my time to more people, as evenly as I can, than to spend all my energy on one or two specific friends, who are likely to end up not being there for me in the end.

I've kind of started to stray away from this philosophy the past few months or so, but I feel like it's something I need to focus on more, especially as I get older and accept the fact that I probably won't be in close contact with any of my current friends in a few years.

At this point in my life, I feel like it's more important to build several friendships that aren't as deep or exclusive as a "best friend" relationship, than to focus on just building one or two overly strong friendships.

Black Friday Haul

I know it's a little late, but I wanted to do a post about Black Friday. I had so much fun shopping until almost four in the morning with my sisters and cousins. In fact, we had so much fun that one of my sisters and I went back to the mall during the day on Friday to shop even more. 

Since I absolutely love Black Friday and I also love telling people about all the great deals I got, I decided I would do a Black Friday haul post. I bought a really nice DSLR camera bundle online before I even left my house on Thanksgiving, so that isn't being included in the list below. Also, I did buy a majority of the stuff for myself, but I have been working on my Christmas shopping since the beginning of the summer, so I was almost done by the time Black Friday rolled around.

Target: 

$22 for $45 worth of DVDs- Neighbors, Divergent (a gift for my sister), Bad Grandpa, and Rise of the Planet of the Apes

$15 for a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Nintendo 3DS game (not pictured- gift for my brother), originally priced $29.99

Kohl's: $3.22 total for a $39.99 Big One throw blanket and a $16 v-neck shirt

Hollister: $19.97 for a really nice flannel that was originally $39.95

Hot Topic: $10 for an Ed Sheeran shirt that was originally $20.50

Forever21: $8.49 for a sweater (gift for one of my friends) that was originally $24.80

Tilly's: This was one of the deals I was the most excited about. I got two pairs of Vans (bringing my collection up to 23 pairs) for a total of $29.96. One pair was originally $39.97 on sale for $17.48, and the other pair was only $12.48 marked down from $34.97

Bath & Body Works: $20 for $72.50 worth of lotion- 12 small lotions plus 1 full size. Everything in the store was buy 3, get 3 free, plus I had a coupon for $10 off a $30 purchase as well as one for a free item with any purchase over $10. 

My grand total ended up being $128.64 for $364.20 worth of merchandise, which was a 64.7% savings. Overall, I'd say it was a great Black Friday.  

Spreading Christmas Cheer

Christmas is quickly approaching, which means final exams are approaching even quicker. With finals starting in just two days, everyone all over campus has been studying like crazy and finishing all the papers and other assignments they procrastinated on the rest of the semester. 

Thursday night, I was feeling the holiday spirit and decided to spread some Christmas cheer. And by that, I mean I put on my elf costume - yes, I have an elf costume - and grabbed three dozen candy canes and some Bath & Body Works lotion I got for some of my friends on black Friday (I'll post more about black Friday later). 

I actually had decided late Wednesday night that I was going to pass out the gifts the following night, and I also had the GENIUS idea to plan a Cereal and Christmas Party (taking place this evening), which includes an array of cereals, some hot chocolate, the classic claymation Christmas movie "Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town" (one of my absolute favorites), and "sleighfuls of fun" (yes, I actually put that on the invitations). 

So, I went around to all of my friends' apartments all over campus, accompanied by two of my other friends who were both wearing penguin sweaters, and handed out candy canes, lotion, party invitations, and happiness. 

I think with all the craziness that comes along with the end of the semester, everyone needed a little laugh and some Christmas cheer this week, and I'm happy I could  help make that happen. 

 

Floating Lanterns of Death

My Thanksgiving break was filled with food, fun, family, and friends. One night that I spent with my friends resulted in a rather interesting experience. I technically did something that was on my bucket list, but it kind of went awry.

This past Saturday, some of us went out to eat to celebrate the birthday of one of our friends. Afterwards, we all went back to that friend's house because she had a surprise for us - floating lanterns. We were all really excited, so we quickly went outside and tried to send them off. That's where things got interesting. 

We couldn't get the lanterns to light with the lighter, so we made a torch with a paper plate and then tried to light the lanterns. The lanterns all just kept catching on fire and burning up before we could send them off. After four or so tries, we finally got one to fill up with enough air to let it go, so we sent in up into the sky. When it was about twenty or thirty feet in the air, someone in our group exclaimed how beautiful it was, and then a split second later it went up in flames.

We all immediately started freaking out about the flying ball of fire that was now swaying back and forth across the sky above our heads. We kept nervously waiting for it to land on one of the dozen cars that were parked up and down either side of the street, or to burn someone's yard or house. After dancing across the sky for what felt like forever, but in all reality was probably less than thirty seconds, the flaming remnants of the once beautiful lantern finally fell to the ground halfway down the street. Clearly, we sent the guys to go stomp out the flames while we all laughed and tried to process what had just happened. 

Even though the floating lanterns didn't work quite as planned, they definitely made for a memorable night and a great story. 

Mac & Cheese Pizza

 Oh, the joy that ends when the living nightmare of the two weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas break begins. While I am not looking forward to the chaos of the next few days, I am extremely thankful for the short break I had. Among all the places I had to go and stuff I had to do, I still found some time to relax. And also completely avoid any schoolwork whatsoever, which I'm slightly regretting at this moment...
One of the nights I was home, I was able to finally make some macaroni and cheese pizza. I absolutely loved this kind of pizza when they had it at Cici's, but all of the restaurants near me are closed now. Needless to say, I have been craving this pizza for a VERY long time. I have seen several recipes all over Pinterest and decided I would go ahead and try to make one for myself. And I think it turned out great!

If you want to try to make your own, you'll need a pizza crust, half a box of squiggly noodles (their proper name is "cavatappi") and a jar of cheese pasta sauce. Follow the directions below:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
2.  Boil the half box of squiggly noodles according to the directions on the box
3. Drain the noodles while warming the cheese sauce over low to medium heat
4. Cover the pizza crust with a layer of the cheese sauce
5. Stir the rest of the cheese sauce into the noodles
6. Cover the pizza crust with the macaroni and cheese (you'll have a small bowl of mac & cheese leftover)
7. Bake the pizza for approximately 17 minutes or until the crust is crispy
8. Enjoy the magnificent mac & cheese pizza you just made!