I am mourning the loss of sleeping in, eating hordes of baked goods,  being able to read the books I wanted instead of ones that were assigned, and being able to watch hours on end of How I Met Your Mother. 


In order to fuel my mourning session I am making homemade angel food cake and chocolate cupcakes (although I am giving away the cupcakes). I ended up having 12 egg whites left over from making a birthday cake, which I did not post about because it was quite the failure. It was somehow bitter, didn’t rise enough, and was not that flavorful. 

Once I am done baking (and kicking myself for completely forgetting about an appointment that I had this morning), I will not only move on from my pathetic attempt to hold on to the wonders of Christmas Break, but I will also share an interesting article for anyone hoping to shed some holiday pounds, sustainably of course. 

After hearing so many people talking about their New Years resolutions, I decided I should share my list of resolutions great ideas for the next year. I refuse to call them resolutions mostly because I do not want to have that irritating commitment that you then fail to accomplish and by March have completely forgotten. Instead I will have a list of things that would be great if I could stick to, but when I can’t keep them up, it won’t be so bad. 

After Christmas (and before) I had little inspiration for wrapping a birthday present. Thankfully my mom bought a pair of shoes that came in an amazing box  – it was visually interesting, and it didn’t need anything else. I wonder how many other interesting boxes I have thrown out that could have been reused in one of many ways. 

I am always exhausted and worn out after major holidays, especially Christmas. The hours of baking, onslaught of company, and what seems to be an endless amount of dishes after each and every meal leaves me tired for days afterward. Yesterday I finally gained some strength and patience to clean the entire house. It feels better to have everything back in it’s place and the mess of the baking and everything else taken care of.

Due to my dismal, tired state, I won’t post anything magnificent today. But in the near future I will post some green cleaning tips that work amazingly in the dorm, or any other living space. I also read a great book, one that I will tell you all about tomorrow, that has inspired me to put in more effort to cook for myself this coming quarter.

Right before Christmas I had that awful realization that break was more than halfway over. It was horrid. But with that realization comes the nagging in the back of my mind that I should start crossing things off my list of everything I need to do before school starts. 

Last year I got my wisdom teeth removed a week before Christmas. On Christmas day I still could not eat solid food, and I missed the chance to eat all of the amazing holiday treats. To make up for my missed chances last year, we made a lot of cookies and peppermint bark. The snowflake cookies above are drizzled in chocolate and topped with crushed candy cane that was left over from our peppermint bark. We made them on a whim, but they turned out great. 

With plans to do some massive holiday baking and cooking tomorrow, my mom and I headed off to our local market. I was entertaining myself in the cleaning aisle (I know, I know, that’s weird. But I’m a clean freak), while my mom shopped for some form of meat (she only buys meat for dad and brother on major holidays and their birthday’s when requested. It makes me nauseous just looking at it, hence the cleaning aisle). While I was passing the time I came across a detergent bottle made out of cardboard instead of the typical plastic.

I had read an article about how Seventh Generation was going to unveil their new, cardboard bottle last year, but this was the first time I had witnessed one in person, and I have to say I was pretty impressed. Although I am disappointed it is not 100 percent plastic free (even though I completely understand why it isn’t), I still appreciate the major progress made. The company claims that the bottle uses 66 percent less plastic overall, and it appears to be much easier to recycle than the previous plastic solution. For more information about the lifecycle of the bottle, go here. 


I hope more companies, and Seventh Generation especially, will continue to innovate new, sustainable packaging until it is all that is used. Good bye plastic, I won’t miss you.