Category Archives: Lifestyle

At War with the Squirrels

At War With the Squirrels |Thoughts&Daisies

It seems that there is a theme among college campuses where the squirrels there are just weird. Here in Ohio, we have a TON of squirrels on campus and they can really be strange. Such as being seen eating Takis out of the trash or jumping on your window.

(actual photo of the squirrel that jumped on my window)

I now have begun a war with them. But not in the way you would have thought.

The squirrels’ problem with me is as follows… I have been taking all of their acorns. I know a very strange sentence for someone to be uttering but there is a story behind it.

My mom likes to decorate the household for all and any event. Fourth of July? Red white and blue everywhere. Halloween? There will be photos of Halloween’s past covering the mantel and pumpkins on the dining room table. So for fall, there is obviously also some sort of decor going up. Craft store leaves and candle holders and this year… she wants acorns.

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And since there are not readily available acorns falling from the sky in southern California I have been tasked with shipping them back from Ohio.

The actual conversation went more like…

Mom: “It is too early for fall decor even though it is 100degrees here? I’ve gotta find acorns and pinecones”

Me: “There are a million on the ground in the OHIO”

Mom: “Send them to me I’m on a budget”

Me: “I’ll have to fight the squirrels”

Mom: *ignoring the fighting with the squirrels* “I need a gallon size bag full please!”

And there the war was initiated. Thanks to my mom. I am now the girl who randomly has acorns filling the inside pocket of her backpack. The one taking the time to grab handfuls from the ground. The one who the squirrels stare at with their acorns in their mouths and are not at all happy that some are being stolen.

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While I did not fill the gallon bag what I have better be good enough. Now both my homes will be ready for fall. Though I am beginning to be doubtful that either one will actually experience fall. (Come on Ohio don’t skip straight to winter again I can’t take it!)

Does anyone else decorate their homes for fall? Have you thought to use acorns?

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Trying Escargot

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I’m not one to shy away from trying most foods, but something I never thought sounded very appetizing was escargot.

For anyone who doesn’t know escargot is a snail.

Despite my “I’m not going to eat snail” way of life the weekend before school started, things changed.

The fall of my freshman year my mom and uncle came to visit and we had wanted to go to a french place in Cleveland for brunch, but the line was too long. So after 2 years of waiting, we finally went.

Le Petit Triangle Cafe is a french restaurant located in the Ohio City neighborhood outside of Cleveland. It is very popular and always busy for brunch.

For an appetizer, my uncle ordered us the Escargot. They were covered in a parsley and garlic butter sauce with some baguette on the side.

The best way to eat it is to first dip the bread in the sauce and then put the snail on top. To me, it tastes a little bit like mushrooms.

I was pleasantly surprised. I would for sure eat it again.

As my entree, I ordered the ratatouille crepe and added ham.

Anytime I think of ratatouille I think of the Disney movie and how I always had thought ratatouille was thinly sliced meats like salami. Until I realized it was actually vegetables.

It includes béchamel sauce which I had never had but found to be delicious.

The vegetables were the best part of this crepe and kind of wish that I hadn’t added ham to it. I assumed it would be a few cut up pieces of ham but instead, there was more ham in the crepe than anything else which made it overpowering.

All in all, brunch at Le Petit Triangle was yummy and I would go there again, Even if just to order some more escargot.

Have you ever had escargot? What are your thoughts?

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An Ode to Summer

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By the time this is up I’ll be 10,000 ft in the air on my way back to Ohio for the next few months. Which means school back to the land of reality and homework and the impending doom of winter.

I had a good summer and a MUCH needed break from school and work.

My roommate visited for a week and I showed her some sites of SoCal like Disneyland and Balboa Park.

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I got to see The Lightning Thief Musical when it toured in San Jose. Now the musical is headed to Broadway next month with the entire original touring cast! Read my spoiler-free review HERE.

Much to the surprise of everyone I went golfing at 6am but could have used a Troy Bolton there to teach me how to not suck at it.

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Foodie Adventures happened which is always one of my favorite days. I could really go for an octopus taco right about now…

The music released these past few months have been totally great and perfect Summer Sounds for all of my summer music needs.

With all the downtime I had, I was able to catch up on books from my reading list like Alice in Wonderland and Bridge of Clay. Just to name a few.

But summer as I know it is officially over and I will just have to hold tight to the last few moments of Ohio sun while it lasts. Though every time I close my eyes I’ll be dreaming of the seemingly never-ending California sunshine and missing the smell of ocean breeze more than I ever do the rest of the year.

While it never feels long enough it wouldn’t be as special if it never-ending. As it goes with all good things.

The summer dresses and shorts will begin to be put away and the coats will be put in their place. And the temperatures will start to cool but we will always have that fleeting memory of summer.

So here’s to the summer breezes, the beach days, the pool floaties, and all the refreshing foods and drinks.

Here’s to sleeping in and those days when you can bum around by the pool all day because you have no responsibilities.

Summer always feels fleeting and once it’s gone you can only dream about the next year.

Thank you summer for the memories. See you next year.

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Foodie Adventures

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Foodie Adventures |Thoughts&Daisies One of my favorite things to do is go on food adventures. My uncle loves to take me and my brother to the places he has found. This time our food theme was Mexican, but we wanted seafood and my uncle said he knew just the place.

One of my favorite things to do is go on food adventures. My uncle loves to take me and my brother to the places he has found. This time our food theme was Mexican, but we wanted seafood and my uncle said he knew just the place. So we headed out to San Diego to visit the Tj Oyster Bar.

My uncle ordered a half plate of oysters which I did not partake in but my brother loves. There are very few things I don’t like and slimy oysters are one of them.

Instead, I ate tacos.

Foodie Adventures |Thoughts&Daisies One of my favorite things to do is go on food adventures.

I ordered an octopus taco and a smoked tuna with cheese. Surprisingly adding the cheese made the tuna even better, though I shouldn’t be surprised because I am a cheese connoisseur and will add extra cheese to everything I can.

The octopus was delicious too and it is one of my favorite types of seafood so there was really nothing that could go wrong with this meal for me.

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After lunch, we headed out to get some dessert and sticking with our theme walked down the street to Holy Paleta. Now this place is cool. They have water based and milk based paletas that you can add toppings too. From anything from yogurt and fruit to cereal and chocolate.

Foodie Adventures |Thoughts&Daisies One of my favorite things to do is go on food adventures.

I ended up getting an Horchata paleta dipped in white chocolate topped with cinnamon toast crunch cereal. It was amazing. The white chocolate went incredibly well with the horchata and the crunch from the cereal brought it all together. Now I really want to go back and try some of their other flavors.

I have to say our food adventure day was a success and be sure to check out my uncles food instagram @follow.my.fork to get some restaurant recommendations.

What is your favorite type of taco?

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Adventures in Golfing

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5am. A time of still darkness, ignoring the world and continued sleep.

5am is too early to be a functioning human being, except for 2 very specific reasons: 1 is going to Disneyland and 2 it is Christmas. Other than that there is never really a good reason to be up at 5am… unless I am being forced to get up.

This fourth of July turned out to be one of those forced 5am days.

Read about my adventures last year on the Fourth >here<

My grandparent’s community has a golf course and my brother was adamant that we should go golfing. I had never been actual golfing but I thought “sure, why not.”

1st mistake.

My brother is very particular with times and I should have known that his idea of the perfect golf time was the 6am tee time.

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So there we were at the golf course getting our cart by 6:10am, the sun not yet having come above the clouds, and I was missing my bed.

It took us just about 2 hours to play 9 holes and overall it was pretty successful. Because we both are extremely mediocre golfers instead of writing down the number of strokes it took us we kept track of the number of balls we lost. 12 for my brother and only 1 for me. Though I was sad when I lost my ball because I had been doing so good. Thanks for nothing duck pond for stealing my ball.

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Hole 2 and 3 were probably my best holes because everything went downhill after that when real golfers caught up to us and we couldn’t golf fast enough.

Meaning the rest of our game was a combination of speed golfing and chucking our balls as far down the green as we could because we were not hitting well. At all.

Something I have learned about myself is that I do NOT do good under pressure. By the 7th hole, I could hit nothing. The ball was there in front of me and I was swinging into the air. It would take me like 15x to actually hit the ball and it went like 9 feet. Meanwhile, my brother could only get better and it made for an interesting time of sprinting down the green to avoid the golfers behind us getting mad.

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Not to mention all of the added “water obstacles” (sprinklers) that were on because of how early it was. Though I will say it was fun to run through the sprinklers and over the hills, especially when I started singing and performing “Bet on It” for my brother from High School Musical. Since what would even be the point of being on a golf course if I didn’t recreate Troy Bolton’s choreography.

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All in all golfing was a lot of fun though I do not think we could have done the full 18 holes and I really want the entire course to myself so I can attempt to golf correctly. The plan is to go again sometime but I do think the next stop should be the driving range to actually learn how to hit the ball…

How did you spend your Fourth of July?

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