Fall-o-ween!

Growing up my parents choice to not celebrate Halloween with us kids, and they still do not with Jack and Chloe. It was a struggle growing up being asked "What are you for Halloween?" and having to respond that you do not celebrate Halloween. Or your friends coming to school the next with mounds and mound of candy from Trick-or-Treating while you have none. I'm not going to lie I hated it.


On the contrary now, I'm not a fan of Halloween. Despite that fact that it is fun to dress up as something you could never be on any other day, it's another commercialize, money sucking holiday. And honestly it is not a holiday. What are we honoring/ celebrating here? I'll leave it up to your interpretation, but my thought on the matter is its showcasing the darkness of our world today.  


Are we throwing ourselves into this too much? What are we subjecting ourselves to? And are we wasting our money? According to Get Rich Slowly, "those celebrating are expected to spend an average of $72.31 on decorations, costumes, and candy, up from $66.28 in 2010. Total spending is expected to reach $6.86 billion. "  OUCH. 


In spite of my anti-halloweeness, the season surrounding Halloween is my favorite. Everything about Fall is amazing. Pumpkins, colorful leaves, wearing scarfs, apple picking, caramel apples, corn mazes, candy corn, etc, etc.  Just because I don't dress up as a sexy cop like every other college student on campus doesn't mean I cant enjoy fall. Truthfully, I may even enjoy it more than them considering some of them wont even remember what happened Halloween night the morning after. 


Since the boys I watch celebrate Halloween, (which is totally ok), and I  more or less celebrate the season of fall coming, I felt it the perfect opportunity to partake in fall-o-weenish actvities, like carving pumpkins, jumping in the leaves, making caramel apples and popcorn and roasting pumpkin seeds!

They were out of school yesterday so we started with Pumpkin carving. They had only carved once before and had never cleaned out a pumpkin (which is my favorite part) so it was fun! 

Afterwards we, more like I, made caramel for caramel apples. I tried out a new recipe for a Honey Caramel. While I am not the biggest honey fan, this was one of the best caramels I ever had. It may have been because of the freshness and lack of ingredients that turned me onto it thought. 3 simple ingredients: honey, whipping cream, salt. I will be posting the recipe tomorrow for all you go-getters who are up for trying something new. 

The boys had a fabulous time decorating their apples!

I used the left over caramel and popped some natural slightly salted popcorn  and drizzled the caramel on top. It turned out a-maz-ing. 

At the end of the day, I raked up all the leave in the yard while the boys played football. I asked them if they wanted to jump in the leaves and you would have though I just told them we were going to Disneyland. LOL. 

Ahhhh, now that's what I like to call Fall-o-ween. 

Happy Fall everyone! 

Until Next Time,

Jasmine 

Magic Carpet Bag

Do you remember watching Mary Poppins as a kid and thinking how the heck she pulled lamps and plants and other ridiculous things out of her bag? I did. I wanted one of those bags so bad. I wanted to be able to pull out a pet bunny or cherry dipped ice cream cone.

I've never really like carrying around bags. Depending on size they can get big and bulky, or they fall off your shoulder. So I went in search, for a very long time, to find the perfect shoulder sling bag with lot of pockets and looked like the really expensive messenger bags from Urban Outfitters. Apparently, those bags don't really exist, just like the Mary Poppins bag, not for cheap anyways. At least I thought... then I found this brilliantly perfect bag at a garage sale this summer.

Guess how much it cost me.. NOTHING. Not a penny. The strap was broken but just had to be tied up. I have been using it ever since. And here is where my lovely bag resides every day..

This bag is my magic carpet bag. I can hold everything I need during the day at work, on the road, on the town and probably stuff that has no purpose. And I mean everything..

You know they say that you can tell a lot about a woman by the contents of their purse, who they are, what they do. Look and see if you can tell who I am. 

Front Pockets

Ipod and Headphones

Sunglasses

Spare Change

Tootsie Roll Wrapper

Sample Tea

ID card

Fortune Cookie Fortune 

Some Frightmear thing from school

Hai rtie 

Phone 

Moister Lock Chapstick 

Inside Pocket

First Aid tote: Lotion, Lactacid, Bandaids, Tide2Go

Pencils 

Movie Ticket stub 

Chapstick 

Large Pocket

Mac Book 

Recipe Book 

Homework 

Reading Book 

Bible 

UNO

Colored Pencils 

Wallet exploding with receipts

Charger 

Keys 

Camera ( not shown)

I wonder to myself how I fit all of it in there sometimes. I can just keep pulling things out of my bag for any situation. ( Except when someone needs something useful like a tissue instead of a card game..) But by my bag you know me You can  tell I am a student, I work with kids, I like to read, I like chapstick, I'm cautious, I'm lactose intolerant, I'm a Christian, I'm a Photographer, I'm a Mac lover, and on and on and on. 

I'm curious to know what all of you have stashed in your bags and what each item says about you. You might surprise yourself with something you find, I was:) 

Until Next Time,

Jasmine 

It's Tea Season

I have never liked tea. I thought it was a bland and a drink that British old ladies drank and dipped their  crumpets in. Something changed last year though. All of a sudden I craved tea constantly even preferred it over hot chocolate. I'm still not the type to drink it straight or with out some exotic flavor; I still dump in the spoonful(s) of sugar or agave.  With the weather changing here in Denver it's time for me to brake out my tea. And in perfect timing Nutrition Society ( a club I am involved in here at JWU) was planning a tour to Celestial Seasonings. If you haven't heard of them, they are one of the biggest tea manufacturers in the world. Their one and only production site happens to be in Boulder about 30 minutes away.

Hailey and I, in our quest to become more involved in school, volunteered to make the posters advertising our trip. We made them look like teabags and tried to copy the Celestial Seasonings Logo.

..not sure what's happening here..

The tour is pretty cool, I had been once before last year and couldn't pass up going again. They give you packets of tea as your ticket into the tour and a free tea tasting before. They allow you to taste anything they sell. It's pretty cool!

Dress made from teabags!

The tour lasted about an hour. We were forced to wear these super stylist hair nets too.

They walked us though the whole process but we unfortunately couldn't take pictures inside the building. There is a room called the Mint Room that holds all the peppermint and spearmint. They have the room on lock down so the smell doesn't seep into the other teas. As so as you walk in your lungs are filled with the potent scent. It's awesome! And even though pictures are forbidden, we are rule brakers and Emily got a picture of Jordan and I in the Mint Room. 

At the end I bought like 5 boxes of tea! Yum!

Later that day, Jordan and I took a walk in the surrounding neighborhood and I snapped some pictures of Autumn. I am in love with these colors; they are so vibrant and alive. I think fall is my new favorite season.

Until Next Time,

Jasmine