Day 28: Hot Cocoa

Hey Guys! Today was an especially brisk day for this fall, so I decided to indulge in a simple pleasure. Hot Cocoa! Originally I was going to make some Hot Chocolate mix that I bought from a coffee shop a few weeks ago, but I've been kind of avoiding making it. Eventually I realized that it was because I knew it was so bad for you! The calories alone pretty frightening at 160 calories per cup! So I decided to try something new and just make Hot Cocoa myself. I've never made hot cocoa before, but I've been really interested in learning how to use simple ingredient to make the foods I like, as opposed to buying frozen and pre packaged foods. Making the cocoa was amazingly easy! I actually just followed the instructions on the back of the container: 1 tbs of Cocoa and 2 tbs of sugar per cup of hot milk.

It turned out to be super delicious! I think next time I may actually use only 1 tablespoon of sugar per cup as it was really really sweet. I was really pleasantly surprised with how well this turned out, and considering I only used cocoa, sugar, and skim milk, I'm thinking it can't have been that bad for me either! I think this will be a regular treat for me in the coming winter.

Day 14: Decorating with Household Items

So, this probably seems pretty obvious to most people, but when I think of decorating a space I usually gravitate towards cute nicknacks, candles, and vases. I was thinking today about how I have so little space, and don't really want to be cluttering it with a ton of little things; I would rather just have a nice looking usable space. This got me thinking about what a useable space was to me. Being that it is fall, going into winter, I like to have people over a lot and hope that they will feel free to help themselves to a nice cup of tea! Unfortunately I have all my tea stuff in like, three different cupboards, so it's not really easy for guests to just quickly make themselves tea. Because of this I decided to make a little tea area on the counter.

It's kind of nice having all the tea stuff set up and ready to go for me too, because it will also be a lot easier for me to make a cup of tea, and I think it looks nice on the counter.

I'll probably end up changing around the set up a little bit with time, but for now I really like it, and it was a really easy way to add some interest to my kitchen without buying anything! I just decorated with some household things that I already had.

Some things I for sure eventually want to add is a better way to organize the tea, like, maybe getting a little basket for the tea pouches. I'll probably also get a canister for the teas I buy a lot of at once, like orange pekoe. I'm really excited for this new little space in my kitchen, and I'm really excited about the idea of making different places around my home look a lot more finished, while also making them more functional!

Thanks for reading!

Day 13: Make Your House a Home - With Houseplants!

Hi Guys! Lately I have been looking into different affordable ways to kinda dress up my home, and to create some more finished looking spaces. Being that I can't paint or put anything on the walls, I decided to try getting some plants! We don't have a very long summer where I am, and I think bringing green into the house will really cheer me up during the winter months.

I was planning on getting some plants for my house in the hopefully near future, and have spent quite a bit of time looking up which house plants are hard to kill good for plant beginners and there are actually quite a few to choose from! One that I was really interested in was a Peace Lily. I think they are quite popular house plants, and maybe aren't super original? I was really drawn to them because they are so pretty, and they are also really low maintenance! They just need a shady spot, and to be watered once a week. Sounds easy enough to me!

While I meant to wait for a little while to get a plant, only because I wasn't in a huge rush, sometimes things just don't work out that way! I happened to be in the grocery store last night, and they happened to have a stand of all kinds of lovely houseplants for very reasonable prices. Needless to say I spent FAR too long considering each and every single plant, but I ended up coming home with two that I'm really happy with!

So this is my Peace Lily, which is keeping my little Owl Oil Burner company. I think the Peace Lily really completes this space as my little owl was looking pretty lonely on that end table all on it's own. 

Owl Closeup!!

And then this is the other plant that I bought. It's a little Calla Lily! I'm really excited about it and, even though it wasn't listed on the easy to keep plant lists I found, hope that I'll be able to keep it alive for a long time. And it's pink! I always think of Calla Lilies as being white, so I'm really excited to see this one come into full bloom. 

After getting these plants I was super excited to go out and buy several other plants to put all around my home, but I think I'm just going to start with these as my green thumb is barely even in training. I still need to get new planters for them, and will likely find myself moving them around to see how I like them in different rooms of my home, but I am just excited to have them! Who would have thought that spending $11 on two plants would be so exciting?

Day 6: Use What You Have

Hey Guys! So lately I've been getting so excited about everything fall. I've been drinking all kinds of teas and coffees and have been burning candles every day, the works. One thing that I like to change up quite a bit for the season is nail polish. I like looking into the new collections for that year from all the different nail polish brands and pick out a bunch that I want to get and everything... and then usually realize that I can't actually afford a whole ton of nail polish. I mean, even 4 nail polishes is between like 24-32 dollars, which is fine, I just don't have it for nail polish all the time.

Then I realized, I actually do have a fair few bottles of nail polish, and I'm sure some of them would be good for fall. So these are my nail polish picks for fall, just from what I already had. =)

Left to Right: China Glaze 'Champagne Bubbles', China Glaze 'Fast Track', OPI 'Chicago Champagne Toast', OPI 'You Don't Know Jacques', Sephora by OPI 'Pushing Your Luck', ORLY 'Rage'

Left to Right: China Glaze 'First Mate', China Glaze 'Watermelon Rind', OPI 'Don't Mess With OPI', OPI 'Ski Teal We Drop', OPI 'Get in the Espresso Lane'

I was so surprised with how many nail polishes I liked for fall, that I ALREADY HAD!! A lot of these colors were also kind of pushed to the back of my collection and forgotten because I really wasn't using them for spring or summer, so I kind of got to rediscover these polishes, which was a lot of fun, still really exciting, and FREE!

I think mostly I was excited about this discovery because it was kind of a baby step in the right direction for me. Yeah, maybe it was just nail polish, but I actually did managed to realize that I don't need to be able to afford every little thing. There are lots of things that I already have in my life to be happy about.