Holy Crap - Quarter Life Crisis Attack!

Is there some kind of middle ground between being a kid and growing up? Oh yeah, I think so, and its called being 24.

I thought being 15 was the most horrible time of my life. I thought I knew everything, but I actually knew nothing, I couldn't legally drive yet, so I had no way of truly escaping, I was awkward, bitchy, and constantly grounded.

So basically, nothing has changed in ten years except for the fact that I have real, grown up responsibilities like paying bills, having a job, and having some sense of direction. Now this really pisses me off. I feel like I've been cheated. My whole life I've been anticipating being an adult and when I was a kid, all the adults in my life always told me, "Don't wish away your childhood, Jade!" And I'll be damned if they weren't all right. Son of a bitch. Foiled again.

I think I've hit my quarter life crisis. I'm at the point where I'm longing for my lost childhood. The pleasure of being able to spend the day doing whatever the hell I want and not feeling guilty for it. The thing is, I feel like as adults, we would all be happier if we focused on being more like children. If you look around you, children are the only real happy people out there. There has got to be a happy medium between being a boring, unhappy grown-up and being a carefree, happy child. And dammit, I'm going to find it.

I look back at some of the accomplishments I've made so far in my life, and while yes, they might not be as amazing or glorious as my elders planned out for me, I'm pretty proud of myself. So why can't I shake this feeling that I'm not doing what I'm supposed to do? Why do I constantly feel guilty that I don't want to live the life of a wage slave in a job that I hate doing whats necessary just to live a life that somebody else says is the "right way to live"? I mean, what is the right way, anyway? To me, the "right way" is probably just doing what feels right to you, and making it work.

As I approach 25 and being to realize that my days of doing foolish things and getting away with them for the sake of just being young and stupid are nearing an end, I'm faced with the harsh reality that life may really be as boring as it appears to be. This cannot be.

You know, once upon a time, my life goal was to have so much money that I could do anything I wanted. Now, my life goal is to live on the beach in Costa Rica with my husband and children, pick some fruit, and drink gin and tonics in the sand while listening to Paul Simon.

Maybe its a wrong fantasy to have, but I really don't think so.

Are you ready for some flavored vegan butter?!?!

The other day I was in the grocery store and I noticed the dairy section, they have all these niftly little packets of flavored butter for the omnis, but nothing for vegans.

Vegans need flavored butter, too, man. And in the good DIY spirit, I decided that instead of sitting around bitching about it, I'm going to make it myself. And I think you should, too.

So, first of all - remember that this is totally up to you as far as flavoring. I have made a few flavor combos that I use regularly, which are: brown sugar and cinnamon butter and roasted garlic and shallot butter.

Here are the steps for doing this:

Dump a package, half package, or however much flavored butter you want to make into a bowl. Make sure its at room temperature. Then, mix up your flavorings. For the roasted garlic and shallot butter, I roasted about 4 or 5 garlic cloves and 1 shallot until they were mushy as hell. Then I mashed them up and threw them in the butter once they cooled. Then, just mash it all up with a fork and make sure everything is nice and blended. If you have a hand blender, this works beautifully. For the brown sugar cinnamon butter, I just mixed some brown sugar and cinnamon together and stirred it up with a fork in the butter.

Once you've mix it up, tasted it, and you're happy with the finished product - put the butter into a little plastic tub with a lid and stick it in the fridge. It will harden back up on its own.

My brown sugar cinnamon butter is DELISH on toast and the garlic shallot butter is my new favorite thing to make with pasta. Yum Yum YUM!

I hope you guys enjoy this!

xoxo

Bollywood Dance and E.L.F. Cosmetics - Two of My New Favorite Things

Well, as you all know, I have a ton of favorite things. In fact, the list of things I love far exceeds the list of things I hate. Sometimes.

Last week, I did something I rarely ever do = I opened a spam email. It was just sitting there, with a subject line that read: jade.pleming@gmail.com, we've got a free gift for you. It was asking for it. I love free gifts! So I read it. It was some email crap from a company called e.l.f. (eyes, lips, and face) cosmetics - and they were going to GIVE me a free bronzing powder.

Well, holy shit. I love bronzing powder. So I browsed the website to see if I could find anything I wanted to order so that I could claim this free gift. (By the way, yes, I realize that nothing in this world is free and the whole point of getting something "free" when you have to buy something to get it is a little ridiculous, but I got caught up in the moment.)

I realized that all of the cosmetics on this site were only one dollar each! Now, I was wondering; are they trial sizes? Crap makeup? Somebody's idea of sick joke? So I started reading reviews and found out that they are legit, the quality is so-so, and a lot of people are happy with them. So I ordered 4 products: mascara, eye-liner, pressed powder, and nail polish. I received my order within 2 days. The only unfortunate part is that since I'm in the UK right now, I had to order off the UK site, which was not offering the free bronzer with purchase. Lets just ignore that, though.

So for something like 8 pounds, I received some pretty badass makeup delivered to my door in 2 days. NICE.

Second thing on my awesome list is Bollywood dancing. My fiance ordered a Bollywood dance workout dvd from amazon a few days ago and that just came in, too. I couldn't start it on the day it arrived because my period was RAGING and my cramps were just about fucking unbearable, but I started it today and I gotta say: its fun, but it ain't easy.

I give props to all you Bollywood chicks out there who can shimmy like rockstarts while maintaining that seductive eye contact and keeping your fat rolls from jiggling too much. Kuuuuudos!

Practice makes perfect, though. The instructor lady's name is Hemalayaa something or other and she's pretty good. I enjoyed it enough that I'll probably do it again tomorrow.

Now if you'll excuse me, the sun is shining in Britain, which is a rare occurance, so I've got to go soak up some rays and pretend I'm on the beach in Greece - which is always where I'd rather be.
For those of you who would like to check out the makeup site - here you go: www.eyeslipsface.com.

Syonara, suckers!