M to the I to the A

No, I'm not talking about South Beach. Or LeBron James. Don't get me started about LeBron James.

I'm talking about the fact that I've clearly been absent from the personal blogosphere for the better part of six months. But I'm back... not in black, but in my awesome new red Wonder Woman shirt. She's my favorite superhero. As soon as I hit my goal weight, that's my Halloween costume. Wig and all!

But I digress!

Be prepared for some massive musings about nail polish. I found a TON of the OPI Designer Series polishes on clearance for $3.97 at Harmons. For those of you who are OPI DS virgins, these polishes retail for upwards of $14 and are filled with microglitter that create a holographic effect. While there are a few exceptions to the rule of holos, it is a fantastic (and expensive) collection. To make a super long story short, I know own 14 of them.

And on top of that... Zoya, which is an environmentally-friendly brand of designer polish, had a giveaway of three free polishes for the cost of shipping. So $6.95 later, I'm checking my mailbox every day.

I'm working on some cool new nail designs, as well as learning how to do gradient nails. We'll see how it works out!

Speak to you all soon!

Two Point Pina Coladas!

Independence Day is just around the corner and so are the barbecues that come with it. Unfortunately, that also means indulging in the food that comes with it. For those of you who can drink, nothing spells an unhappy scale like a frozen cocktail. Margaritas, Pina Coladas, and Mudslides, just to name a few, are high in sugar and contain alcohol, which is never great for your health. Even if you drink it without the booze, the damage is still pretty intense.

But thanks to Hungry Girl, you can actually drink a Pina Colada with rum and not hope the sun sweats off the weight for you! Being a non-drinker, I have altered the recipe so that the alcohol is replaced and the drink retains its flavor.

Hungry Girl's Recipe:

* 1 oz. light rum
* 1.5 oz. Torani Sugar Free Coconut Syrup
* 1/4 cup Breyer's Double Churn Fat Free Ice Cream, Creamy Vanilla
* 1 tbsp. crushed pineapple in its own juice
* 3/4 cup crushed ice
* 1 packet Splenda (or another no-calorie sweetener)

Danielle's Virgin Pina Colada Recipe:

* 1 oz. cold water
* 1.5 oz. Torani CLASSIC Coconut Syrup
* 1/4 cup Breyer's Double Churn Fat Free Ice Cream, Creamy Vanilla
* 1 tbsp. crushed pineapple in its own juice
* 3/4 cup crushed ice

In replacing the sugar-free syrup with the regular syrup, you're swapping out the calories of the rum for the full calorie syrup and eliminating the need for another artificial sweetener. I find I like this taste better. However, for those of you who cannot consume sugar, you can use Hungry Girl's recipe and swap out the rum for the same amount of pineapple juice.

Blend all of your ingredients for around thirty seconds... pour your drink into a nice glass, find a nice sunny spot by your pool, and relax! Enjoy your own mini Caribbean getaway!

Two Point Blueberry Crepes!

My favorite fruit in the world is the blueberry, but most of the dessert recipes I love it in are far from healthy. So when I stumbled upon this recipe, care of Skinny Taste's Gina, I was overjoyed. The crepes themselves are one point (and will remain one point, even if you use all white flour) and the blueberry compote is also one point. You can obviously use both for other recipes.


Here is the ingredients list for the crepes (Serving = 1 crepe):

* 1/2 cup white flour
* 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
* 1 1/2 cups 1% milk
* 1/3 cup egg whites (or 2 large egg whites)
* 1 whole egg
* 1 tsp oil
* Butter flavored spray
* Powdered sugar

Blueberry compote (Serving = 2 TBSP):

* 2 cups fresh blueberries
* 1/4 cup sugar
* 3 tbsp water

In a blender, pulse the blueberries, water and sugar. Add to a small sauce pan and heat on medium-low for about 10-12 minutes until it becomes thick and sticks to the spoon. Turn heat down to low.

In a medium bowl, whisk flour, milk, eggs and oil until smooth using a wire whisk or you can put in the blender. Heat a large nonstick pan on medium-low flame. When hot, spray with buttered flavored spray to coat bottom of skillet. Pour about 1/4 cup crepe mixture into pan, swirling pan slightly to make crepe thin and smooth. Cook for 1 to 2 minutes or until bottom of crepe is light golden brown. Flip; cook 30 seconds to 1 minute or until light golden brown. Repeat with remaining buttered flavored spray and crepe mixture.

You can use the compote as a dipping sauce or filling for the crepe. Enjoy!

I'm going to try something new...

When I'm home for the summer, I tend to cook for myself. It's not that I don't enjoy my Mom's cooking because I do, but a lot of it, like most delicious food, is high in salt/fat/sugar/etc. And as it is, I do a lot of crappy eating at school, although I'm definitely cutting down on that. So I try to make healthy recipes in either single or double portions, with the other half becoming leftovers for the next day.

I'm also trying to broaden my food horizons and use ingredients I don't use that often or have never used before. For instance, I'm more of a dried spices person. I don't exactly sit and finely chop up fresh basil or parsley. But while I have the time to do so, and the budget to do it, I'm going to cook with as quality of ingredients as I can.

With my mom and sister taking a trip with some of our cousins to Hershey Park, my dad and I are on our own for meals. Sometimes, my mom goes to birthday parties with my sister or other school functions and we're left to our own devices for dinner. But our usual methodology involves a trip to Applebees.

However, with three days worth of meals ahead, I've decided to experiment with healthy recipes from a bunch of different places. However, I'm only going to choose meals that are pretty easy to cook for the average person, even though I will admit to being a better than average chef. Apparently, my roommates and friends at school say I'm notorious for making slightly complicated meals... and will openly admit to texting me just to see if there's going to be any extra food to go around.

So I hope you enjoy some of the recipes that I make. I'm going to blog about them as I make them and take photos. Maybe I'll even get you to try some of it yourself! I will warn you though... there are going to be a lot of desserts!

Bon apetit!
Danielle

Allow me to tell you a story of texting gone wrong...

It is no secret that I bleed orange and blue for the New York Mets, but back in 2008, I pretty much bled a week's worth of green for David Wright.

As the annual All Star Game voting push comes around Major League Baseball, I'm reminded of the 2008 season and my ignorance at the time.

In 2008, the Mets were coming off a total failure of a season, fresh off the heels of a historic collapse that has only begun to exit the back of our minds in wake of their recent success. Of course, my passion for the team absolutely had exploded on a new level in that year, rather unfortunately. I had turned eighteen in April, attended my first Mets Spring Training the month before that, and was now permitted by my parents to head into Flushing with friends (and without a parent, mind you) for games. It was also the last season that Shea Stadium would be around, due to be torn down in the shadow of Citi Field at the end of the year. So of course I took advantage of my freedom as much as I could that summer, fueled by all of the memories of Shea Stadium I had cataloged as a kid, and spent as much time possible at good ole Shea.

My adoration for David Wright, who I had the chance to meet and get the autograph of in Spring Training, also skyrocketed and I created my now popular fansite, The-Wright-Stuff.com, which would later help me receive a job offer from the team I'd loved all my life. So with the site newly-launched and David on the cusp of failing to make the team for the first time since he became eligible, I had to take action.

In the end, I trying to garner as many ballots as possible to help procure the wild card spot on the roster for David. For those of you who aren't big MLB fans, there are two men voted in for each position in each league. One is the starter and one is the backup, who will eventually get some time in the game, but not have his glory during the announcement of the starting lineup. However, one spot is reserved on the roster for what is essentially the wild card spot, meaning a player of any position can be voted onto the team. That year, Pat Burrell, Corey Hart, and David were vying for that last minute honor in the NL, with Jason Giambi, Evan Longoria, and Jermaine Dye. Worst of all, the game would be taking place at Yankee Stadium and without Wright there, Billy Wagner would have been the lone Mets representative in the Bronx.

I took all of the relatively obvious routes, I voted online as much as I could, posted banners and links to the online voting, and tried to strike deals with members of other teams' fandom to try and push David over the top. To this day, when ASG voting comes around, Mets fans can count on the members of the Tampa Bay Rays message boards to help vote our boys in, especially over the Phillies, as a result of our deal to squeeze Evan Longoria in for the AL at the 11th hour.

I even went as far as to offer prizes for the person who created the best, and most-publicized, banner in David's honor. Had I tried the same tactic this year, I'd be waiting to see a submission on a billboard somewhere.

But at some point along the line, I'd picked up the brilliant notion that I should just text bomb voting in the last 24 hours. It was pretty easy to do. All I had to do was continually resend the message, a task that took the pressing of a total of three buttons. Within ten minutes of starting (with two hours left before the deadline window closed), I could resend the text without even looking at my clamshell cell phone. Shortly thereafter, I had grown so skilled at text bombing, I was able to watch TV while doing it.

Hours later, I was disappointed to find out that Corey Hart of the Milwaukee Brewers was selected as the final addition to the team and while it was quelled the following day by Rockies manager Clint Hurdles decision to replace the injured Alfonso Soriano (OF- Chicago Cubs) with David, it still wasn't the same as being voted in. However, I'd take it.

A little over a week went by and the All Star Game arrived. I watched the Home Run Derby with mild interest, only enough to ensure that Chase Utley was eliminated, and was glued to the TV screen during my perennial favorite, the Legends and Celebrity Softball Match, which is so ridiculous at times, it can't be anything BUT funny.

David had played incredibly well in the game itself, which ran for fifteen innings and featured an at bat of Wright versus Scott Kazmir, who by all rights, should have been his teammate instead. Hurdle was due to run out of National League pitchers following the fifteenth and Wright was his intended choice for the bottom of the sixteenth. He was even getting ready in the bullpen, having picked up tips on the bench from the likes of Tim Lincecum and Dan Haren. But the American League wound up winning in the fifteenth inning and my fangirl moment was postponed indefinitely.

Flash forward two weeks later, when the season is back in full swing, and the phone bill arrives at my house. Looking at the bill, I proudly boasted that over the course of two hours, I had managed to vote approximately 3,524 times. Apparently, I had neglected to realize that since the text voting was sponsored and recorded by Cingular (now AT&T again), standard messaging rates of $.10 per text applied ("so that's what that means..."). I wound up owing my parents $352.40 for my voting initiative and I hadn't even gotten Wright into the game on votes.

Luckily, they took pity on a soon-to-be college freshman and split the texting bill with me. But I won't make that mistake again, reading the fine print of everything nowadays... and as I lurk on the message boards of the New York Mets and get emails from teenage girls who frequent my site, assuring me they're going to text MLB and vote David in as much as possible, I fight back my urge to ask who their wireless carriers are

Perhaps if David can earn the starting bid this year and these girls get a good reality check in the form of a valuable lesson... it'll be worth the money.

B-More!

Just got back from the first Mets road trip of the year: Baltimore.

It took me all of five minutes to figure out why I hadn't noticed Maryland's penchant for hotter weather than New Jersey when I traveled to Charm City last year...

I drove down with my friend, Andrew, and a few of his friends at one in the afternoon. We got to the ballpark at 4. We then sat through BP and watched our friend, Simon, catch a Sheffield BP ball barehanded in the bleachers . Finally, we looked on as the Mets beat the Orioles from the hours of 7pm to 10:30pm.

AND THEN WE TURNED AROUND AND CAME THE HELL HOME!

More to come from our successful trip to Baltimore tomorrow, when I don't feel like trying to contort my way into the freezer like I'm a circus freak.

And my inaugural Supernatural post is...

Jensen Ackles is going to be directing Episode 4 of the upcoming Season 6 of Supernatural!

You don't know it quite yet, but there's a good chance that I will be talking nonstop about the man on the left, as well as his alter-ego Dean Winchester, from July-on.

He's one half of the badass duo known as the Winchester Brothers on the CW television show, Supernatural. The younger brother, Sam, is played by Gilmore Girls alum, Jared Padalecki. Ironically enough, Jared played a character named Dean on that show.

I consider Jensen to be the superior actor of the pair, but that's not to say that Jared isn't excellent on the show and if you DO watch the show, you'll understand why I say this. Well, especially with the Season 5 finale being considered.

Anyhoo... brace yourselves. Because there's going to be a lot of talk regarding Dean/Jensen and Sam/my beloved Sammyface/Jared in the coming months.

"Where there is love, there is life" - Ghandi