Chinese New Year

Here are some videos I took of Chinese New Year 2012

Here are some fire works that were being lit off outside of my boyfriend's house.

Here is a super loud firecracker that someone set off. You can barely hear afterwards!

Sunday Bath Time

I have gotten into the habit of taking a nice long bath once a week on Sunday. It is really great for relaxing and pampering myself and getting some relaxation time in preperation for a new week.



 Here are the things I use on bath day:
- Shower cap (can be found at almost any hotel or dollar store.)
- Aroma therapy oil and bubble bath (I bought that brown colored bottle at walmart for about 5$
- A foot exfoilator (it kind of looks like a cheese grater but works great for getting dead skin off of your feet)
- Scented bath salts (can be found at pretty much any dollar store)
- A good regular conditioner and a leave in conditioner
- A body exfoiliating scrub
- A face scrub (It has honey in it but I bought it before going vegan and decided I might as well use it up)
- A body wash
-Some olive oil

To begin I fill up my bath with nice warm/hot water. As it is filling up ,I add the bath salts, aroma therapy oil and the olive oil. Olive oil is great for softening and moisterizing your skin while you soak in the bath and makes it easier to exfoiliate.
Before I get in I like to put on some music to listen to while I take my bath :).
After I get in, I wet my hair and add the conditioner. Add only a small amount to the top of your head; then divide your hair into two parts (one on each side of your neck) and gently comb the conditioner through your hair with your fingers. After your hair is fully covered in conditioner, put it into the shower cap to let it sit. This is really good for conditioning and moisterizing your hair, expesially to heal it from damage caused by blow drying, curling, straightening or dying it. If your hair gets greasy easily, it would be better if you did not apply any to the hair around the scalp and used a plastic hair clip to clip your hair to your head instead of putting it into the shower cap.
Next I shave; if you usually wax I would recommend doing that before the bath because the warm water can help reduce redness. After shaving, I use the foot exfoilator to get all the rough dead skin off of the bottom of my feet.  Next I use the body exfoiliater to gently scrub off dead skin on my body. Doing this is really good for your skin and keeping it fresh, clean and smooth; it can also help prevent ingrown hairs. After this, I use a wash cloth to wash myself with the body wash; I have always loved scented body washes but to be completely honest most of them don't have a very large effect on how your skin smells =/ but any kind of body wash will do.
After this, I usually soak for a while then drain the bathtub and use the shower hose just to rinse out my hair.

It is good to apply lotion after a shower to lock in moisture and prevent your skin from drying out. I usually lightly dry my skin off before applying. The lotion in the picture is available at either target or walmart. I am kind of frugal and it lasts me a long time. So as long as you don't use tooo much of this stuff it will last you quite a while :).


This bath day is really good for your skin and hair as well as having some nice time to relax so I would definetely recommend trying it!

Pancakes

On Sundays I occasionally like to do something different for my breakfast. Lately, I haven't really felt like it, but today decided I might as well since I will not be cooking anything else to put up here until tomorrow.

 Pancakes

Ingredients

- 2 cups milk (any kind works but will slightly change calorie amount depending on the kind you choose)     -2 tbsp. sugar (preferably raw)   -1 tsp. cinnamon  -1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour  -1/2 cup oatmeal  -2 tsp. baking powder  -2 tbsp. oil   -1/4 tsp. salt  -1 tbsp. vanilla

Instructions:

-Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl and scoop scant ¼ cup scoops onto lightly greased pan (i use pam no stick spray).

-When pancake starts to bubble flip over and check frequently until browned.

Makes 12 pancakes

1 pancake is app. 90 calories

These pancakes are quite good, but not very sweet, because I don't like them super sweet and I didn't see the point when most people eat them covered in syrup anyways. If; however, you do like sweeter pancakes just go ahead and add more sugar.

My Chinese Apartment View

I live in Yunnan Provence, China on the 15th floor of an apartment so i thought i would put up a few pictures of the view. 

                           View from front balcony

View from other balcony

     Court Yard (pretty much all chinese apartment complexes have these)

Chocolate Chip Cookies!

It is kind of ironic that my first recipe is an unhealthy dessert! haha but my stove stopped working and I will just be going to go out and eat for dinner so I decided to make some vegan chocolate chip cookies. They turned out to be delicious! They are nice soft cookies and you will not believe how long it has taken me to make a cookie that didn't have the texture of a muffin!  Obviously cookies aren't healthy but eating healthy 100% of the time gets boring ;).

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

-1 cup of sugar  – 2 ½ cups whole wheat or white flour (you can also do half and half. the whole wheat will make the texture slightly grainier) -3/4 tsp. baking soda -1/2 tsp. salt  -1 tsp. baking powder  -1 cup chocolate chips or chocolate cut into small pieces -1 apple blended with ¼ cup of water  -1/2 cup of oil  -1/4 cup of water -2 tsp. vanilla

Instructions

You can use chocolate chips or cut a bar of your favorite chocolate into pieces. The size is completely up to you!

-First, add all of the dry ingredients to a bowl and mix well.
-Combine all remaining ingredients and stir well.

-Preheat an oven to 150 degrees Celsius or 302 degrees Fahrenheit.
-Scoop out 2 tbsp. of the cookie dough at a time and place onto greased cookie pan, flatten with fingers.
-Space cookies at least an inch and a half apart and bake for 10 minutes.

Makes 23 cookies

1 cookie is app. 120 calories

One of the great things about these cookies is even if you leave them out for a long time they will stay nice and soft :). I hate cookies that go rock hard after they have cooled off!  Well anyways, enjoy!

New Apron

The new apron I bought off of amazon.

Oatmeal :)

     I decided to start out with what I usually start my day out with: Oatmeal. I eat oatmeal pretty much EVERY day. It is really good for you, can be made so many different ways, tastes good if you put the right stuff with it, and it is pretty cheap.

I like to combine half regular plain instant oats with half rolled oats. That makes it slightly chewy :).

Next I add soy milk until it covers the oatmeal completely (any milk would be fine but my favorite is soy). I like my oatmeal a bit more soupy than thick. Also adding a little bit of coconut milk will make it really creamy!

 

Next I get everything that I am going to add ready. You can really add just about whatever you want but this is the way i have always liked it. I cut up about a quarter of an apple, a few raisins, banana slices, almonds and sunflower seeds. These taste really great together! Especially when you eat a soft banana slice with a crunchy almond.

Here is the finished product that I eat pretty much EVERY morning! Pretty much any fruit would work and it is so easy to experiment with different seasonings and if you want add sugar :).