Snow Day Baking

 

Living in New England, snow days are a norm! During the blizzard last week, I made these cookies and they were so good! A perfect mixture of chocolate and peanut butter!

 

Ingredients

• 1 box brownie mix
• 4 oz softened cream cheese
• ¼ cup softened butter (1/2 stick)
• 1 egg
• 2 TBS flour

For the Peanut Butter Topping:

• ½ cup peanut butter
• ½ cup powdered sugar

For the Chocolate Topping:

• ½ cup chocolate chips
• ½ TBS coconut oil

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine your brownie mix, cream cheese, butter, egg and flour in a large bowl. (Batter will be sticky)
3. Roll batter into balls that are about 1½ TBS each.
4. Place each cookie ball onto a lined baking sheet. Slightly press down the balls to flatten.
5. Bake brownie cookies in your oven for 12-14 minutes until the tops are crinkly.
6. Meanwhile combine your peanut butter and powdered sugar in a medium sized bowl.
7. Divide peanut butter mixture into about 24 small balls and slightly flatten.
8. Remove cookies from oven and remove from cooking sheet onto a cooling rack.
9. Top with peanut butter balls, slightly pressing them into the cookie.
10. Combine your chocolate chips and coconut oil in a small bowl and microwave for 30 seconds, stir a little then another 30 seconds. Stir till combined and chocolate is smooth.
11. Drizzle chocolate over the top of peanut butter and cookies.
12. Allow to set until chocolate hardens.

I got this recipe off of http://lmld.org/2014/09/18/buckeye-brownie-cookies/. 

 

What do you like to make on Snow Days? Whats your favorite type of dessert? 

 

 

Book Review- Its Kind of A Funny Story

Recently, I started reading the book, Its Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini. It is about a boy who is pulled down by the pressure and stress’ of  his life. He struggles with depression and anxiety because he attends a very prestigious high school in New York City. His near death experience gets him checked into a mental hospital. He can no longer be in the teenage unit so he is thrown in with the adults. His roommates include, Mudtada and President Armelio. The patients on his floor come from all different backgrounds but they are all drawn together by their illnesses. The major goal is to, someday, get out and live in the real world. Here he learns the power of love, forgiveness and trust. Ned Vizzini, the author, spent time in a mental hospital as well; putting personal experiences into his book. 5 days spent there is squeezed into this 444 page book.

It took me a whole weekend to read. It was so easy! The chapters are so short.  As a teenager, I could really relate to it because of the stress related to school. We all want to get into the best college, and get the best job. No longer is  93 good enough.. We want those 100s. We want to be able to compete in the competitive world. At school, I am beginning to pick classes for next year. It doesn’t matter what I want to do. All the matters is what looks good to colleges. To Standout. Pilling AP classes on AP classes.. No longer do we have a social life. The main character, Craig Gilner feels the same stress.

Its Kind of a Funny Story is now a major-motion picture. I had the chance to watch it and was very disappointed. The book is much better!

Now onto reading the next…

 

Look Up

What We Can Learn From Our Elders

We look at the man at the grocery store with pity. We look at him as if he’s old and cant do anything. As if he is useless. But our elders are smart and have seen the world like we have not. Elders of this generation have gone thorough WWII, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Great Depression and many more things. They have seen the country through times of despair, violence and have grown from it. They are not just old, look into their eyes. Once they were running through a field with their family. They were young, they went though all that you are.

From my volunteering at my local hospital, on the cancer unit, I have seen despair but seen love come from it. One time, a man with Alzheimer’s was sitting in the hall, and I didn’t know why. Most patients were in their rooms with their families. I asked the nurses and they told me that he was in the hall because he continued to get out of bed and was falling and getting hurt. So he was at the nurse’s station so they could keep an eye on him. He called me over and I could see pain in his eyes. A longing for something better than this hospital. A longing to leave, through the doors, or in the morgue. He asked if I could help him get out of here. That he had “places to go and people to see”… But he didn’t. I later learned that his family had abandoned him at a nursing home. I told him that the nurses wanted him here and that when it was time to go he would leave. A smile crept up onto his face. I made his day, just by being there and listening.

“I am missing out on important stuff.. When I’m here, I am not in the real world” he complained. And I understood the pain. He was seeing all the nurses hustling around him; life going on. And he was stuck.  But, I realized that there was nothing I could do. I comforted him and told him he would leave soon.

I met him on my first day, and he was there for the following two weeks. I have never seen him again. I knew he had cancer but it never infected his attitude or happiness.

He had no family, nowhere to go, but he was happy with the small things in life. Not the kind of happy you get when you get the latest technology, not the happiness you get when you get an A, but a happiness that you are living life to the fullest. He was not stuck on yesterday. He was living on today. He was happy with the chocolate I gave him, and the card he received. It was the small things that made his day. He realized that he did not have a lot of time left, and chose to make it good. That’s something that most of us can’t do…

We are pre-occupied on our job, social media, or TV to notice life flying by. We blink and it’s been 10 years. When you are nearing your end, you live for the minute. You cherish the moments with your family and friends. Elders are calm and content with the life that they live. We are not like that.

We are a generation of worry.

We worry that we wont get good grades. We WORRY that wont get into a good college. We WORRY that we wont get a good job.

We need to look upon our elders, and learn. Learn what it is like to be happy with the now. Be happy with what we have.

70th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz

Hi Guys~

Yesterday marked the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Auschwitz was a nazi death camp where over 1.6 million people were murdered. Among them, 90% were jews. When the camp was liberated, only 7,000 people were still alive.

This summer I had the amazing opportunity to go to Poland and visit Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. I went because for most of my life, I had great interest in the Holocaust. I could not wrap my head around the horror and violence that took place. I have read many books about it but never thought it could actually happen. Thats why, this summer, my Mom and I took a trip to Krakow, Poland and one of our day trips was to the death camp. Visiting the death camp gave me a new perspective on life. I was standing at a place of death. I was standing at a place where families were split up, and never seen again.

(Above) This is the train station where new arrivals would come in and be processed. This is Auschwitz II, later built for the sole purpose of mass extermination. When people arrived here, they thought they were taking a shower. Their fate was decided by the direction they were pointed in. Left was safety, and right was death.

Imagine if your mother went the left, and you were going to the right. What would you do?

“Hope, is the only thing stronger than fear” -Unknown

This cart is what they used to transport prisoners to different camps. More than 100 people were stuffed into a cart like this for days. Disease, famine and death were big problems during transportation.

(Above) The barracks where people slept. Nowadays, one person would sleep per bunk and it would still not be comfortable. Here, 3 or 4 people would sleep per bunk.  You could be with two other strangers trying to sleep.

Everyone wants a name for themselves. Everyone wants to be remembered by their success and failures. People at the camp, were no different. They didn’t want to be remembered as Prisoner 116678. The picture above, a person scratched it into a building.

The Soviet Union liberated Auschwitz on January 27, 1945. When they entered the camp, they found emaciated people who were scared to live.

May we not forget the 6 million people who died from the Holocaust.

 

My First Post

Hi Guys~

This is my first blog ever! I am really excited to write one. The idea of writing a blog has been an idea but I have never sat down and done it. When thinking about writing one, I thought what can a small-town girl possibly write about? But, I thought about it and realized that I could write about my passions. My passions include, cooking, traveling, running, hiking, skiing and helping others.

The main focus of this blog is going to be spreading happiness, baking and just about my life.

I am going to try and update once a week.

I am going to leave you with this quote. It is never too late to start something new!

Cheers,

Zoe