2022, here we come!

Welcome back! I hope you all have a lovely Christmas!

It's crazy to me that 2021 is over. Don't get me wrong, it's a welcome change of year. I know that the moment the clock hits midnight and it's officially 2022 where I am, nothing will change. Everything stays the same, but I think just starting a new year will be good.

So I wanted to reflect just a little bit on 2021. I won't go too into depth, but I just wanted to say a few things.

2021 was supposed to be a great year.

I remember this time last year, I was sitting in my living room with my boyfriend playing our favorite board game. We were both a bit drunk and doing our best to stay up until midnight so we could kiss in the new year.

The moment the clock hit midnight, I started crying. 2020 had been such a rough year for the world and also on a personal level, and I was ready for a new year. Little did I know...

For me, 2021 was a worse year than 2020. The year started with the cancellation of exciting plans on the 1st of January due to a medical issue with my boyfriend. It's not his fault, but we should have known based on that the year was going to be brutal.

The first bit of the year wasn't too terrible. Work was more stressful than usual, but I am fairly used to that.

But then my cat was diagnosed with renal failure in the spring. I had six weeks with him before it was time and we put him down. It ruined my year. I don't want to get into too much detail about it, but I can say that it was one of the worst things to happen to me. If you don't know me, you may not understand why it was so painful for me, but if you know me and know what he meant to me, then you might get it.

Binx dying turned the year into something I never thought it would. And from there, things just spiraled. 

My depression this year has been worse than ever before. Work has gotten even worse. Plans have been canceled.

The only thing that was good was getting the vaccine. 

I did learn a lot about myself over the course of 2021, but I learned it because of bad things that have happened.

I am ready for 2022. I don't have high hopes that it'll be better, but I am going into it hoping for the best. 

I know that may seem a bit pessimistic, but I have to be realistic. I was beaten down in 2021, and honestly, I am just grateful that I made it to 2022. I am doing the best I can, and that's all I can do. I'm surviving. I have a lot of good that happened in 2021, but it's weighed down by the bad. I have continued to move forward, and will continue to do so.

This post ended up being pretty sad, so my apologies about that. I am beyond ready for a new year. I am not going to make any new year resolutions because I don't believe in them, but I am going to keep trying. I'm going to keep working on bettering myself.

What are your goals or resolutions for 2022? How are you feeling about saying goodbye to 2021?

Okay, that's it for this one. I hope you all have a nice and SAFE new years! Let's welcome 2022 in!

Bye :)

 

Why can no one get vegan pepperoni pizza right??

Hello, everyone.

Welcome back!

I have tried, yet again, a vegan pepperoni pizza. After the debacle of the vegan pepperoni from Tattooed Chef, I saw the below Daiya pizza and had to give it a shot. 

Okay so let's break this down.

I'm not a big fan of the Daiya vegan cheese. I've purchased it several times, but I'm not a fan. The flavor just isn't what I like for my vegan cheeses. But more than anything, I just really wanted to try a different brand of vegan pepperoni. So a negative mark on the cheese because it was fine but not great.

I've never tried a gluten free crust. I was excited to try it. I was disappointed. Oh man, not good. It was severely crunchy, to the point where I could barely eat it. It tasted like cardboard. For vegan crusts, I'll just continue with the cauliflower crusts.

 Now for the pepperoni. The texture was wayyy better than the Tattooed Chef one. But the flavor was meh. I wasn't impressed with it. It was more like pepperoni, but didn't really taste very good.

So overall, I was really disappointed. I ended up eating about half of the pizza. The entire thing just tasted like cardboard. There was no redeeming quality to it.

I give it 1/10. Brutal, I know, but it just wasn't good. It was barely edible. I don't recommend it.

Okay, well that's it from me for this one.

Can you guys believe that tomorrow is the last day of 2021? I'm planning to stay inside and drink some wine and probably pass out before midnight. 

Bye, everyone. I'll see you on the next one!

Merry Christmas!!

 Welcome back, everyone, and Merry Christmas!!!!

Today's topic is one that is really close to my heart. MOVIES! Specifically, Christmas movies!

Now, before I get started, I want to make a disclaimer about my opinions on Christmas movies. Die Hard is not a Christmas movie. I don't care what anyone says... it's not a Christmas movie, and that is a hill I will die on.

Please also note that any of the Harry Potter movies are also NOT Christmas movies. 

Another little side note, I love most Christmas movies, but the ones on this list are my favorites that I watch each year. There are plenty of other movies I watch, as well, but these are my favorites.

I absolutely love The Holiday. It is such a fun and heartwarming movie. It isn't strictly Christmas, but I do tend to watch it around Christmas time, so that's why it's on this list. I just always have that warm feeling in my heart when I watch this movie.

Plus, the cast is amazing! I highly recommend! It's charming and funny and sweet. 

I know, I know.. a horror movie for Christmas? But I gotta say, it's such a fun movie! The female power is awesome, and I just have a fun time with this movie. It doesn't necessarily put me in the Christmas spirit, but I still enjoy watching it.

If you like horror movies, this one is a fun ride!

I mean, come on! How can Home Alone not be on this list???? It's a classic. What do I really need to say about it? It's just great!

And again, how could it not be on this list? I a lot of times prefer the second one. Not only does it have the same cast, it also has Tim Curry... and Tim Curry is the best.

This one makes me laugh even harder. I have to suspend my disbelief a bit on this one, but that's okay. It is just such a fun ride.

It's funny to me how much I love Elf. My parents absolutely hate it, but I just really love it. So much. I can't even explain why I love it, but I do. I highly recommend it!

Ignore the bits at the top of the photo.. I screenshotted this from Google and couldn't get them edited out with ruining the title.

White Christmas is one of the movies that I grew up with. Every Christmas Eve (for the most part), we would get curled up in the living room and watch White Chrismtas and one other movie on this list.

I adore Bing Crosby, but this movie is such a classic. There are some things that aren't exactly PC, but it was a different time, and I try to get past that. 

It's a musical and it's funny and sweet and romantic. I just love it!

It's a bit cheesy, but I love Daddy's Home 2. The first one is even better, but the first one isn't a Christmas movie. It's a fun movie. Ridiculous but fun!

Holiday Inn is the other movie along with White Christmas that we would watch as a family on Christmas Eve. This one is even less PC, but again, it was a different time. It doesn't make it okay, but I still love this movie. 

The music is wonderful, and I just really love Bing Crosby. This movie has my favorite version of the song White Christmas of all time.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE this movie. The Santa Clause is so fun! If you haven't seen it, you definitely should. 

And of course I had to have another one on this list. I skipped the second one because I personally think the third one is much better than the second one, just saying. You add Martin Short to anything and it just makes it wonderful.

Okay, so those are just a few of my favorite Christmas movies. I typically watch these at least once each year during the holiday season. So if you haven't seen any of these, you should look into them!

What are some of your favorite Christmas movies? And no, Die Hard especially is not a correct answer.

Okay, that's it for this one! I hope you all have a Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays!

Bye, everyone!

Pepperoni? More like Pepperphony!

Hey, guys. Welcome back!

As you know, I found a vegan pizza a while back and fell in love. It was the Tattooed Chef brand, and I was super jazzed because it was like a Totino's pizza but healthier.

So when I saw that Tattooed Chef also made a plant based pepperoni version, I had to try it. I've never had plant based pepperoni before, so I was really jazzed to give it a shot.

When I took the pizza out of the box, I was a bit shocked at how thick the "pepperoni" slices were, but didn't really know what to expect since I've never even seen it before.

The pizza smelled really good, and it looks decent, too. The pepperoni slices still looked a bit weird, but that's to be expected since it's not real meat.

I took my first bite and OMG! Probably one of the most disgusting things I've ever put in my mouth.

The pepperonis were mushy.... the way I described it was if someone over cooked black beans, put them in a food processor and then added gelatin. It literally was so gross.

Which is why, the pepperonis ended up like this:

On their own plate thinking about what they did.

And then ended up in the garbage....

I still ate the pizza without the pepperoni, but it wasn't nearly as good as the cheese pizza from the same brand. The pepperoni had one good aspect though, which was the spices. They added the seemingly correct spices to make the flavor similar ish to pepperoni.

But the pizza was already ruined. Because of what I assume is water content in the pepperonis, the pizza was soggy and bland because the pepperonis were supposed to do the heavy lifting. The cheese wasn't the same because it was just one kind of cheese instead of several. Just overall, sooo disappointing.

I have since had another one of the cheese pizzas to see if it was a fluke, and it wasn't. The cheese pizza is still bomb, so I'm even more disappointed at how bad this pepperoni pizza was.

Overall, I give it a 1/10. The only reason I even gave it one was because the pizza itself didn't do anything wrong. The pepperoni just ruined everything.

So there's that... suuuuper disappointing....

I'll see you all on the next one! Bye!

 

Smells like teen spinach

Welcome back, everyone.

Today, I am going to talk about another healthy ish hot pocket.

I already tried the plant based chicken one that I REALLY enjoyed. I tried that one first because I figured between the two flavors, the plant based chicken one would be more likely to be gross. I wanted to have realistic expectations.

This is the one that I was really excited about. I love spinach and artichoke together, so I was hopeful about this flavor.

Unfortunately, it didn't quite hold up to my expectations. The crust was fairly good, but the filling was dry and bland. There really wasn't much to it, to be honest. The flavor was fine, but it needed some sort of sauce (more than what I assume was already inside).

It wasn't bad necessarily, but not great either. I bought more of the plant based chicken ones, but I did not buy more of these because they were disappointing. 

So I guess I'll give it 2/10. I was pretty damn disappointed.

Okay well that's it for this one! See you all later!

Bye :D

 

Looks like a cold, cold winter

Welcome back, everyone, and happy Christmas time!!

If Christmas isn't your thing (for whatever reason), Happy Holidays!!

I grew up listening to a lot of Christmas music, and I still listen to it all the time now during the holiday season. 

Although I come across Christmas music a lot and enjoy certain ones, I do have my favorite albums that I go to for Christmas music. And I loooove them. So I thought I'd share some of my fave albums that you can go check out if you'd like.

White Christmas by Bing Crosby

If Bing Crosby doesn't put you in the holiday spirit, I don't know what will. Two of my favorite holiday movies are movies he stars in (I'll probably post again in the next couple weeks with that list), and I just love him. His voice calms me and makes me feel good.

I highly recommend checking this album out. This one specifically is live, which I love, but if it's not for you, I think he has other Christmas albums that aren't live, so you can go check those out, as well.

Christmas Portrait by the Carpenters

This is the album that I think of when I think of Christmas music. It is, in my opinion, the best Christmas album of all time. It is absolute perfection!!!!

I don't even know what to say about it other than you should go check it out. It's so wonderful!! If you look at my Apple Music most listened to, basically the entire album is on there. I listen to the album on repeat all holiday season.

If you don't check out anything else on this list, please check this one out!

Christmas by Mannheim Steamroller

Here's another album I grew up with. Mannheim Steamroller has a few options for Christmas albums, but this is my favorite. It's just such a good album. 

This is one of the four or five albums that would be on repeat at my parent's house while I was growing up. It invokes a lot of nostalgia for me along with the other two albums above this one. 

This album is a great one to have on if you're having a party or you're doing things around your house. There's no lyrics, so it's great as background music.

The final song on this album, Stille Nacht, is one of my favorite versions of that song of all time. When I used to be in church on Christmas Eve for the Christmas Eve evening service, this would be the last song played during the service. We would turn all the lights off and everyone would light a candle. The song would play and everyone would be silent. I know a few other churches that do similar things at the end of their service, and even if you're not religious, it's just really relaxing. I can't describe it as anything other than beautiful. 

So yeah, I have a lot of feelings associated with this album, and I recommend it.

Songs for the Season by Ingrid Michaelson

Ingrid Michaelson is my favorite artist. I own everything she's ever sung, and I was JAZZED AF when I heard she would be making a holiday album. And it's everything I needed it to be and more.

All I Want for Christmas Is You featuring Leslie Odom Jr is a masterpiece. It's by far the best song on the album and gives me chills when I listen to it. The first time I watched the music video, I cried. It's just incredible.

Ingrid wrote a few of the songs on the album, and then there are a few that are covers, and each of them are lovely. I can't say enough good things about this album. I love her, so I'm a tad biased, but I just really recommend listening to it.

Okay so that's it for this one. Look forward to at least one more holiday post (maybe more) coming soon!

I hope you all have a great weekend!!

Bye :D

 

Don't be a chicken, try plant based!

Hello again!

Today, I'm trying something that I was really surprised to see.

Healthy-ish hot pockets!

So Target had a couple different flavors, and I got them both because... why not? 

The other one doesn't have any sort of meat/protein, so I wanted to try this one first to set the expectations. I have tried plant based chicken a couple times over the last few years and have never been impressed, so I knew going into this that there was a chance I wouldn't like it. That's why I tried this one first.

I've never even heard of this brand to my recollection. So I was excited to give this brand a shot.

Okay so my thoughts on this seriously surprised me. I am actually a big fan. The texture and flavor of the plant based chicken were a lot like chicken, but I liked it. I don't like regular chicken (unless it's fried) mainly because of the specific texture that chicken has. 

And this plant based chicken has the texture of chicken I actually like... it's almost rubbery. I know that sounds gross, but the only time I like chicken that's not fried is when it's in a frozen meal because it's rubbery and tender. I'm weird, I know.

But this plant based chicken tastes a lot like actual chicken with the kind of texture I like. I'm soooo impressed by it. I'm not sure I'd like it if the plant based chicken were by itself, but inside the faux hot pocket, it's super tasty.

And the rosemary and garlic is strong, which is AWESOME! I've been burping garlic all damn day, and as gross as that is, it means there actually is garlic inside, and that makes me happy because I LOVE garlic with every fiber of my being.

The only thing I didn't care for was this sort of gooey texture inside. I assume it's just the sauce, but it was a bit odd. It tasted fine, but added a weird texture that I didn't super care for.

I am so very excited to try the other one, and I will post about it as soon as I do try it.

Even with the gooey bit inside, I give these a solid 8/10 mostly because of how impressed I am by the plant based chicken and just the overall flavor. I highly recommend!!

That's it for this post. Thanks for taking the time to read!!

Bye :)