Grateful Thursdays #2

Hello there, I hope your Thursday is going well, if not hey it's almost over!! And that means we are closer to Friday!

1) Twinings English Breakfast tea: it's delicious and I highly recommend it if you want a good decaf tea.
2) mint gum: chopping on gum is a great way to get out your anger 
3) music: I'm trying to broden my music horizons and I'm writing out all the songs I want to purchase
4) sweatshirts: it's (unfortunately) still freezing outside. The 20 degree weather definately has made me fall in love with crew neck sweatshirts even more
5) great books, I've downloaded the "good reads" app and love it so much. I can organize the books I've read, the ones I want to read and finally I can explore all different genres of books.

Again, have a great Thursday everyone!!

Twitter: @thebabyperks
Instagram: @thebabyperks

YouTube Talk: Fame vs. Success, Friends

This has become more prevalent in the YouTube community lately, and yes I consider myself a part of the YouTube community. A lot of people have joined YouTube to get "famous" which in the end most likely not work. If you're not doing what you love you won't be successful. If you're putting in all that time and effort to become "famous" you're wasting your time.

I create YouTube videos because I love it. I honestly love filming videos and editing, and I wish I had more time to create more than one video a week. Would I like for my channel to grow? Of course, I spend a lot of time on the videos! When I see twenty views or even five it shows me that the time I spent was worth it.

I want to be successful with YouTube. I want to be able to reach out and inspire people, whether that be with my 24 subscribers or more. I want to inspire people through Christ and just create a time of positivity in others lives. For me, YouTube was my escape from the world and I want to do that for others.

Another thing YouTube provides is great opportunities. There are so many different "YouTube communities" and with that I feel like I will be able to do great things through my "personal" life and through my videos. I want to have that close group of YouTube friends that are depicted through others videos. For example the "Fab Five": Anthony, Jack, Rebecca, Jenn and Andrew, seem like the coolest people ever. Another example, the O2L boys, I want a close group of friends like that. Furthermore the British YouTubers/Australia/LA group: Zoe, Alfie, Marcus, Louis, Joe, Troye, Caspar, Jim and Tanya, Dan, Phil, Tyler, Jon and more. All these people have had such great impacts on my life and there are so many more.

Probably the most inspirational to me is Louis Cole. He creates daily vlogs, and when I say daily, he doesn't miss a day. I've heard his story (through his draw my life video) and once I saw what he's done, my life has completely changed. He revamped my love for traveling and that's what I really want to do when I get older. He put aside a "traditional" job to change so many people's lives and really do some great charity work all while seeing the world.

Okay, I'll stop for tonight! I'll try to create some more specific posts about certain YouTubers impact on me if that's cool with you guys. If you've gotten to this part, thanks for reading my ramblings. I do this quite often if you couldn't tell but it's nice to get it all of my chest.

My mid-week YouTube video consisting of me recognizing my bad habits: this amazing video ;)

Of course go check out my Twitter and Instagram for even more of my ramblings: Twitter and Instagram

Identity

I posted a new video on my YouTube channel about Identity. This was inspired from Savannah Brown's video, which I'll link down below, along with mine. I only covered a few of the words that defined me because I was so nervous and didn't want to make it too lengthy. So here we go, I am:

-coffee addict
- tea enthusiast
- magazine lover
- reality t.v. watcher (judge me...)
- selfie-taker
- terrible nail painter
- athlete
- baker
- a person who attempts to be artistic and fails but does it anyway ;)
- travel blogger obsessed
- food blogger obsessed
- YouTube addict
- tumblr fan
- fan fiction reader

Okay obviously these are the "lesser" important words to describe me. My serious words to describe me are in my YouTube video. If you could go give it a big thumbs up and comment that you came from my blog. It would make my day. Again, thank you all so much and if you really want to, subscribe while you're there too!!

Click below for my video: 
My Video
Savannah's Video

Twitter: @thebabyperks
Instagram: @thebabyperks
Tumblr: thebabyperks

Grateful Thursday

In my Human Relations class we had to record 5 things we're grateful for for 7 days. My teacher challenged us to continue with recognizing the positive in our lives. I decided to start a "Grateful Thursday" where I list 5 things every Thursday of what's been good in my week. 
1) I went to small group for the first time in 2 weeks (snow days aren't cooperating!!)
2) It was 50 outside today
3) My swim team stress is gone
4) I've started running again
5) I was able to sleep in for an extra 5 minutes the past two days (trust me that makes all the difference!)

I want you to think more positive too! Comment things your grateful for or anything positive!! 

Book Review: Hate List

via www.jenniferbrownya.com
Hate List by Jennifer Brown has got to be my favorite book, and if not my favorite, it is definitely in my top ten. 

It covers a kind of shamed upon subject, a school shooting. The story is from Valerie's perspective, her boyfriend was the one that open fired on the school. However, she also jumped in front of someone trying to stop Nick (her boyfriend) from shooting anyone else. In the process, Valerie got shot before Nick turned the gun on himself. The book covers the recovery of Valerie while she, and the community, try to figure out if she is a victim or a villain. 

Why would she be a villain? She would list out all the people she hated in the now-infamous "Hate List". When Nick found out, he too added people to the list. However Valerie never knew he would take it to the measure of killing people. 

The story of Valerie is one of finding ones self when everything else is chaos. It's told from an honest prospective, making the reader toy with what they would do in the situation. Jennifer Brown is able to capture the reader into a world of trauma, grief, and in the end what length love extends to.
 
 
 
 
 
 



Sluttier than Slutty Brownies

I know I promised this would be up sooner but I had GACs for swimming and it was an overall stressful week. Also, I went to Florida with my grandma for the weekend and was away from my computer, iPad, etc, for a while and when I was on them the wifi was going in and out. Anyway, on Monday we had a pasta party which means food, food and more food. One of my swim coaches gave me the recipe and insisted I make it, I willingly complied. 

You can mak everything from scratch or like me just buy mixes and such. This cuts the prep time in half and saves a lot of mess and cleaning. 

What you'll need:
Brownie mix (and whatever is needed to make the batter)
Roll of refrigerated cookie dough 
Package of Oreos
Around 6oz Carmel sauce or enough to ones liking 
8x8 pan
Tin foil

Instructions:
1) wrap the tin foil around the pan and spray with cooking spray and preheat oven to 350 F


2) prepare the brownie batter and set aside. Press the cookie dough into the pan

3) press Oreos into the cookie dough
4) warm up the Carmel sauce for 15-20 seconds and pour over Oreos 
5) use the prepared batter and pour over everything
6) bake in the oven for 30 minutes. 

** after I pulled it out the brownie seemed pretty done. A problem a lot of people encounter is over baking the cookie dough, so around 30 minutes enough. The next day when I cut into it, the batter sunk to the bottom worrying me I didn't bake it enough but it seemed fine. 

Biscuits

I wasn't planning on baking these because I'm baking a lot tomorrow but I ended up doing so. I got this from allrecipes, so nothing too fancy. They are officially called J.P's Big Daddy Biscuits. I learned that I rolled out my dough too thin so don't do that!!

Ingredients:
2 c. Flour
1 Tbsp. Baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. White sugar
1/3 c. Shortening 
1 c. Milk 

Directions:
1) preheat the oven to 425 F
2) in a large bowl, whisk the flour, salt, baking powder and sugar together ( I hand whisked because I didn't want to clean my mixer after). 
3) cut in the shortening until the mix starts to get crumbly (I just used two knives to cut in my shortening)
4) slowly add milk
5) on a floured surface, roll out dough to desired thickness and cut with a cutter or just a glass. Place on ungreased baking sheer.
6) bake for 13 minutes


 
 **TIP: roll out dough on a floured cutting board to eliminate cleaning up the excess flour

Hopefully your biscuits turned out as great as mine did. On the original recipe, it only made six biscuits but because mine were smaller, it doubled the batch.




Check out my social media:
Twitter, Instagram, tumblr and YouTube channel:  @thebabyperks

My Thoughts on Justin Bieber


                                                    

via fanpop.com

 


 



Don't we all remember this sweet innocent kid? That hair flick though... Now before we get started, I'm stating my opinion, which you don't have to agree with, I'm simply stating my thoughts on him, hence the title. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!!

I believe that Justin Bieber is extremely hard working. He started around age 12 performing and eventually getting noticed, right? I'm not denying his work ethic because he had to work extremely hard over the past few years to get where he is. However I believe he isn't handling the spotlight right. I'm not saying it's easy, we've all seen countless child stars slip into a dark path.

I believe that Justin Bieber has more money than he knows what to do with and at such a young age that leads to irresponsibility. He already has everything he'll ever need in the world and if he needs it he can buy it. He never had that time of growing up, he was placed in the spotlight at such a young age. He had so many expectations of what he needed to be for so long that he's finally been established and can have some freedom. He's come through a rough patch and I'm honestly sorry for him because he obviously needs some people in his life who can sit him down and be like "you're seriously going to regret this and you look totally stupid." You would think after so many incidents that he'd learn but again he has the fame. It seems like once you get the fame you handle it one of two ways, not let it affect how you live or take it to drastic measures. Bieber needs a reality check, that you can't just continuously get away with bad choices because of who you are. Really what he needs is someone to steer him back in the right direction. Yes he's growing up but there is a difference between experimenting and producing a DUI while drag racing. Or smoking so much weed with your dad that the pilot of your jet has to put on a mask to breath. Haven't heard that one? It's the newest revelation, Bieber and his dad smoked so much that the pilot couldn't breathe and they harassed the flight attendant (apparently really badly). When the police raided the plane all the drugs were gone because they smoked it all but the smell was obvious. 

My last thoughts are that he figures out what's best for him and that in the end he's happy because it's his life not mine.

Well, there's a lot more I could say but I decided to stick to the basics. I hope no one took too much offense to this. I'm really enjoying writing about pop culture so I'll be doing that more often so hopefully you enjoy that. BUT: I will be posting a baking tutorial very soon so check back over the weekend for that. Also, my weekly YouTube video will be up tomorrow (Saturday) and it's me reading my old journal from middle school. You'll definitely want to watch that.


Social media:
Twitter: thebabyperks
Instagram: thebabyperks
YouTube: thebabyperks
Tumblr: thebabyperks



Music Rant

As I've been stuck at home sick, including missing school today, I've had a lot of time to think. This thinking has turned into a ramble that I'm going to share with everyone. Feel free to ignore if you don't care, I mean you can do that whenever you're on my blog. Okay, never mind, just if you want to read further go ahead, if not well...

I understand not everyone likes the same music and I respect that. Music means something different to everyone and you don't know everyone's stories like you might think. No one has the right to judge someone by their music taste. You like EDM, awesome, you like country, cool, you like alternative, great. I like a little of all of those genres. Now of course many of you know I fall into the pop category of music. I love One Direction and I pretty much enjoy every song on any pop station. However, just because I enjoy a boy band doesn't mean you should hate me for that. You're music means something to you, mine means something to me. Those five boys have truly changed my life, and even though they haven't saved me from something like self harm, they started to bring me back from the depression-like state I was in. You know what, One Direction have saved a lot of people from a lot of things and so have members of a lot of (your) other bands as well as singers and actors.You personally might not like a music style and that's fine but at least respect it. In the end we should all be able to listen to whatever makes us happy.

Now onto my privacy rant. Celebrities are PEOPLE, every actor/actress, athlete, singer, dancer, performer, etc is a person. They have actual feelings and emotions, I know shocker right?? Nothing annoys me more when people (fans) don't give them space or let them live their lives. These people are in the spotlight 24/7 and some might say "well they knew that going into it" and yes they did but that also doesn't mean they shouldn't get any down time. I'm going to use One Direction again because I see this time and time again. The boys performed around 131 shows from February 23 to November 3. The boys can finally go home and see their families and do whatever THEY want instead of being on a rigorous schedule. No. Girls, countless girls flock their homes and wherever they go. Don't get me wrong I love One Direction but I would NEVER go sit out front of their homes. It is THEIR home with THEIR family that they haven't seen in how long!!?? People can't give them one day to themselves. It just drives me crazy because those boys, those five boys have sacrificed so much of their lives to perform and yet when they can finally go home they can't get 5 minutes to themselves. The thing is too, they are constantly working, they wrote the third album while on tour. I can't even fathom, I went to their concert in July and they put out an amazing performance. You could tell they were exhausted, how could you not be? The fact that they were writing music on top of all of that, it just proves how hard working they are.
Yes I realize they aren't going to be around forever and want to do as much as they can with the years they have but no one can deny that those boys have worked extremely hard.

Okay, end rant!!


Check out my social media below to check out the latest "stuff" going on in my life:
Twitter
Instagram
Tumblr

My latest YouTube video:
Ten Things To Do While You're Sick

The Flappy Bird Addiction

Many people have heard of the game flappy bird. At first I was skeptical because the candy crash phase of apps was stupid to me, I don't like the game at all. After so many people talked about flappy bird I decided to give it a shot. Now I'm addicted, especially when you've been sick for the past three days and need something to do. My high score is a mind blowing 12 but for the longest time I couldn't beat 8. those people that get past 100 I'm in awe of because it seems impossible. I don't know how people maintain that finger tapping stamina, maybe it's from Instagram? So anyway, that's my little flappy bird saga. I'm still sick with a fever over 100 but as soon as I get better I'll bake some great food!!

Also check me out on social media (Twitter and Instagram and tumblr) @thebabyperks
My YouTube channel: thebabyperks

Oh and tell me about your flappy bird (or any app) addiction below