Every Day

Hey y'all! Hope you had a wonderful eating fest yesterday! I went up to visit my grandparents and family in the nort' woods. Its cold and theres lots of snow... Thanksgiving for our family means eating a lot of food, then waiting an hour and bringing out the PIE! This year we had 9 different pies for 13 people! All of the pie was gluten and dairy-free for all of our various diets. We cut a piece from each pie and had a "tasting" station so you could taste all of them and pick which piece you wanted to take. Pie for breakfast Pie for lunch Pie for snack Pie for dinner Pie for dessert So. Much. Pie.

So, last night my mom is boiling cranberries for the cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving. It starts to bubble up and almost over. She takes the pot off of the heat but its still boiling.  “How do I make it stop boiling!?” She asks. So I do what Ive learned in the past which is to blow on the bubbles to make the bubbliness go down. Only I lean over the open flame to do this and its HOT. I lean up and realize that I smell burning… and it was my hair that was singed. My bangs were all snagly and crusty. Well… I don't burn food in the kitchen, just my hair. So its a good thing that I cut hair cause I was able to give myself a nice trim. Needed to get my bangs cut anyway, I guess. They look nice. Speaking of cutting hair, anyone need a haircut while Im in town?!

This morning I went to the gym to do my morning exercising. I started off with yoga at 8 and then decided to bike for an hour until my core class at 10. I was just going to do a slow bike while reading but then got distracted the the little touch screen mechanism. Apparently you can do "bike tours" in France. Alright, why not? I had decided  to do an hour bike through  Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur and Roussillion in southern France. Even though it was all on a computer screen, the sights were beautiful and made me feel like I was there. At one point the camera panned past a group of people, some of whom waved and I brought my hand up to wave back but caught myself in time to play it off as a scratch, laughing at myself in the process. I was so enthralled! Facts also popped up on the screen to tell me about the area I was biking in. It was pretty neat. Now Im sore and that core class is a half hour of death. Hopefully I will get my abs back before I head back down to

We currently live in a world where people look to movie stars and musicians as their role models. This is what it is doing to our society: We focus on the superficial We worry about who's dating who We become more concerned about our looks then what really matters We know more about Kim Kardashian then simple math We knock others down to bring ourselves up We aren't thinking... Our younger generation is being blinded by lights to what truly matters in life: Learning, growing and loving. Once our role models change, we will see a change in our nation. What about Pope Francis? He spreads acceptance and love. What about Neil DeGrasse Tyson? He speaks with amazing knowledge. What about Bill Nye? The science guy? Have you known anyone who has made a difference who says their role model was Nicki Minaj? I just hope that people will learn to move on. Think about what really matters in the world. Move past hate, grudges and lies to open-mindedness, being present an

For the first time in awhile, I had friends over at my parents house for a movie and games. It was just a few of us and we hung out in the basement all curled up on the couch watching "A Knights Tale". After the first 20 or so minutes, I heard movement upstairs and assumed it was my parents who just got home but I was wrong and rewarded by the sight of my best friend walking down the basement stairs. "Wheres a pizza stone?" He asked. Our oven wasn't working so I went upstairs to help him out. He had brought over dinner to make. It felt like high school again! We put the pizza in the pizza oven and put the fries in the oven on broiler setting to see if that'd work. 15 minutes later, he went upstairs to check on the food and moments later I hear the smoke detector going off from down stairs so I run up to see whats going on. As I go up the stairs I hear the words "Its on fire!"... I make it to the kitchen and theres smoke everywhere. The frie

While eating my Turbana banana this morning, the little sticker thingy told me to "discover the origin". Since I do not have a smart device to scan the QR code, I decided to do some research on the good ole interwebs and this is what I found: The first link that came up on my google search was "Turbana brings consumers back to the farm". There has been a movement to 'know where your food comes from'. When asking many of the kids that I work with, they tend to answer "the grocery store" or "a farm" but they don't know much beyond that. Neither do a majority of American adults. There is such a huge disconnect between what we put into our bodies and where it comes from. This just doesn't seem right. I want to know that what Im eating and what Im spending money on is ok for my body and eases my mind. So, after clicking on this link and reading the article listed above, along with a search of Turbana's website, I was very impre

This would be me. Im a horrible person, indeed. Dad Films 6 Minutes of Kids Slipping on Ice with Running Commentary: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/19/alan-andersen-bacontfm-ice-slip_n_4816325.html Also, it is WAY too cold outside, It makes me want to head down to the USVI, like, now. Im cold except when Im exercising. Not cool WI, not cool. Or rather... Too cool WI, too cool.

I swear that I have the best friends on the planet and I know everyone is jealous. But Ill share them! Last night I went to Milwaukee to see a friends band play on Water St. It took a lot of energy to leave the house. Oh, how I wanted an early evening and to cuddle up in bed with a good book. We all know that those end up being the best nights out, when it was hard to get out in the first place! There ended up being a huge group of us. Ive always wanted a large group of friends and now Ive got it. And even more friends around the world. I can't believe how awesome that is and how awesome they all are! Anyway... We pretty much took over the dance floor with our crazy moves. It was so fun! I got a text from my mom saying that I should just stay in Milwaukee considering the bad roads after the first snowfall. I didn't argue. On the hike back to the apartment after the show, there was snow everywhere and it was cooold. Thank goodness my friends are so great and threw snowba

What a perfect time to start my blog!    ...after Im mostly done with my fall travels. But don't fret! Each day my life is an adventure and I hope to be having many more traveling adventures to come. Before I get started there are a few things you should know about me. 1) I LOVE to travel and explore new places. This may mean exploring the new restaurant around the corner, being a tourist in my hometown or going to far away places. Each new place is an adventure. 2) I get asked for directions everywhere. I will be walking around for the first time in a new city and someone will ask for directions... I don't even have any idea where I am, much less where you want to go. But when I can help someone out, it makes me feel like a local. And when you're a local, you can get away with a lot, like not getting pick-pocketed in the pick-pocket capital of the world! 3) I very much like being alone. I love to wander the streets of a city alone so that my feet can take me to