Unique Seasonal Baby Names

Hello friends! I have a bonus post this week, and I thought that with the seasons changing, I would write all about unique seasonal baby names. I think there's nothing cuter than paying homage to when your baby was born by giving him or her a seasonal name, and these are slightly more unique than Summer for a summer baby or Nicholas for a Christmas baby. I have 80 names in total, girls' names listed first (although many are gender-neutral, it's just how I prefer them, and followed by meaning), so let's get started!

Winter:

• Noelle (Christmas) // Noel (Christmas)
• Aspen (aspen tree) // Frost (frost)
• Holly (holly berry) // Olwen (white footprint)
• Lumi (snow) // Colden (dark valley)
• Iclyn (compassionate) // Aubin (white)
• Alaska (great land) // Crispin (curly-haired)
• Eira (AY-ra: snow) // Oakley (oak tree)
• Wren (small songbird) // Aster (star)
• January (first month) // Tannon (fir tree)
• Neva (snow) // Holmes (holly)

Spring:

• Flora (flower) // Attwell (lives by the spring)
• Arizona (little spring) // Denver (green valley)
• Maelyn (May) // Caldwell (from the cold spring)
• Maia (May) // Wilton (from the farm by the spring)
• Leilani (heavenly flower) // Lark (songbird)
• Fleur (flower) // Rowan (rowan tree)
• Mailee (May) // Holden (from the hollow in the valley)
• Nova (new) // Knox (round hill)
• Zara (dawn) // Ryland (from the rye fields)
• Kalina (kalina flower) // Pax (peace)

Summer:

• July (youth) // August (great)
• Ruby (gemstone) // Phoenix (deep red)
• Electra (fiery sun) // Orion (son of fire)
• Mira (of the sea) // Tide (ocean movement)
• Waverly (from the quaking aspen meadow) // Beckett (bee cottage)
• Isla (island) // Dax (water)
• Kyra (sun) // Leo (lion)
• Idalia (beyond the sun) // Bay (auburn-haired)
• Marina (of the sea) // Reed (redhead)
• Vega (eternal laws) // Arnett (little eagle)

Fall:

• Fauna (young deer) // Fox (fox)
• Peregrine (wanderer) // Barrett (mighty as a bear)
• Sage (wise one) // Forrester (keeps the forest)
• Scarlett (scarlet red) // Crimson (crimson red)
• Rhea (goddess of fertility) // Radley (red meadow)
• Eve (to live) // Fletcher (arrow maker)
• Ginger (ginger root) // Saffron (saffron spice)
• Sparrow (sparrow) // Sawyer (cuts timber)
• Maize (MAY-zee: corn) // Lennox (elm tree)
• Aurelia (golden) // Birch (birch tree)

I wish you all the best,
Erin

Stuff I Love Summer 2016

Hello friends! It's been a long time since I've done a favorites post, simply because I don't accumulate enough stuff to love within a month. I do love a good favorites post, though, so from here on out I'll be doing seasonal favorites. I'll be keeping track of my loves throughout the season, and write up a post when the season ends, and certainly without specific categories and limits like I had before. So here we go, Stuff I Love Summer 2016.

• Baking - If you've seen anything consistent on this mess of a blog, it's baking posts. Baking is what I absolutely love to do; I love making people happy and bringing them together over something simply and tasty. My dream is to open a bakery exactly for those reasons, so I'm getting all the practice in that I can before that time comes.

• Food Network - I'll be the first to call myself out and say I'm more like a 50's housewife than a young millennial. Because I love everything food, Food Network is like my kryptonite. I can't ever get enough; I have it on in the background all the time, I try the recipes, I cook like I'm talking to a camera... It's just the perfect thing for a foodie like me.
• Dunkin Donuts App - I may have mentioned coffee on here once or twice (or a billion times), and, plain and simple, this app feeds the addict in my like no other. It's a way to pay digitally, so that's good, but I also get points every time I go in and those points get me free drinks. I also always have other perks and rewards waiting for me, so really everybody wins.
• Iced Coffee - Hey look, more coffee! I went from being a no-coffee-ever girl to a two-to-three-cup-a-day girl in a matter of weeks, so this should be no surprise.

• Textured Ponytails - Midwest summers are the creation of Lucifer himself. From mid-May to mid-October, it's hot and sticky and buggy and just gross, and there are only so many socially acceptable ways to keep cool while looking nice. Enter textured ponytails to solve all my problems: I put my hair in French braids after I shower at night, and then wake up with insane texture. I do a little poof at the top of my head, pull the rest back, and then tease for volume and spray with sea salt spray to keep that texture. I finish by pulling out some pieces to frame my face, and then I'm good to go. The humidity will never again claim my straight hair as its victim.
• Harry Potter Weekend - Freeform (formerly ABC Family) does Harry Potter Weekend about four times a year, and I live for it. That said, I'm the biggest baby and can't watch anything after Goblet of Fire because they all give me nightmares, but gosh darn it, I try every time to make it through. It's a life goal. Sad? Nah.
• Wedges - I'll be starting a Story Time series sharing my embarrassing stories and "Why me?" moments shortly after this goes up, but I'll give a sneak peek here: I'm so ungraceful it pains me. Which means walking in heels is actually a huge hurtle for me. Can't do it. However, wedges are a different story. I love wedges, and summer is definitely wedge season. Added bonus: I'm fairly tall, so wedges make me feel like a giant ready to conquer anything. It doesn't get better than that.
• Hairspray - No, not the hair product, but the musical. Specifically the 2007 movie version. It's been my summer soundtrack and the thing I watch when I've run out of videos on YouTube and don't want to restart Friends for the zillionth time on Netflix.
• Summer Dresses - I've never been a dress wearer. Never. Well, maybe before I started dressing myself, but that doesn't count. I've been missing out! I wear them to work all the time, and it's the best thing because dressing for work is the most stressful kind of dressing. I throw it on and I instantly look 1000x more presentable than I did before.

• Colorado - If you ask anyone I've spoken to in the last few weeks, they will tell you that my favorite thing is Colorado because I just won't shut up about it. I miss is every day, and I've already started scouting out the best place to move there when I'm done with school. If I could go back now, I absolutely would.

• Name Videos - I have a slight obsession with names. Maybe a bit more than "slight." Like, I have lists and sibling sets and follow Instagram name accounts, but my favorites are YouTube name vloggers. It's just so interesting learning about names and hoping for the future, hearing other people's choices and learning their tastes. I'm hooked.
• Everything Bagels - Confession time: Until about six months ago, I was convinced that everything bagels are called everything bagels because they're good for everything, toasting, sandwiches, etc. It was only when I said that that my mom looked at me and said, "Are you serious? It's because they put everything on them, like the seeds and the onion and everything." Regardless, I still think they're good for everything, hence I eat them all the time.

Let me know if you have any suggestions on posts you'd like to see in the future, and also be sure to find me on Instagram as streamers.of.consciousness

I wish you all the best,
Erin

Sweet Spot: Red Velvet Cookies

Hello friends! I have another dessert recipe to share with you, that being red velvet cookies. This is a recipe I kind of threw together myself after looking at so many others in an attempt to find one I liked, and this is what I came up with.

The Lineup:
     1 1/2 cups flour
     2 1/2 tbsp. cocoa powder
     1 tsp. baking powder
     1/4 tsp. salt
     1/2 cup butter, softened
     2/3 cup brown sugar
     1/4 cup sugar
     1 egg
     2 tbsp. Greek yogurt
     1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
     1 1/2 tsp. red food color gel
     2/3 cup white chocolate chips (optional)

The Play-by-Play:
1. Mix flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt together in a small bowl, set aside.
2. Cream together butter and sugars. In a small bowl or ramekin, mix together yogurt,
    vanilla, and food color gel, add to butter and sugar. Add egg, mix well.
3. Slowly add flour mix to butter mix in 2 stages, mix until combined. Mix in 1/3 cup
    white chocolate chips.
4. Refrigerate dough at least 30 minutes before rolling into balls. Place remaining
    chocolate chips on top before baking. Depending on size, bake approximately 10
    minutes at 350 degrees.5. Let cool on pans about 2 minutes before transferring to cooling racks. Enjoy!

Alternates & Quick Play:

• Try using things other than white chocolate - dark or milk chocolate, walnuts, etc.
• I used about 1/2 tbsp. of dough per cookie, but more dough will require more cooking time.
• You can also place the remaining chocolate chips on top of the cookies as soon as they come out of the oven to avoiding the browning on top.

I wish you all the best,
Erin

Colorado Road Trip 2016

Hello friends! As some of you may know, I was recently in Colorado with my family (as vaguely detailed in my "Planning an Epic Summer Road Trip" post from May), so here's the whole big post about the trip that I promised those many months ago.

So let's start with the plan: we had a vague one. We knew we were driving to Glenwood Springs, CO. We knew we were splitting it up into two days. We knew that at some point we would do about the same to come home. Plan set.

Saturday/Sunday - We decided to leave Saturday morning and drive to Kearney, NE (how exciting!), stay overnight, and continue our drive to CO on Sunday. Saturday went off without a hitch: we drove, saw a whole lot of gross gas station bathrooms, saw a lot of corn (Mid America at its finest), and were subjected to the opinions on feral kittens by a woman at Cracker Barrel. We got to the hotel, watched the fourth Harry Potter movie, and got up bright and early to finish the drive. We drove through a lot more nothing, past a manure farm (I still have nightmares), and finally, BAM! mountains. We decided to extend our suffering (jokes) and drive an extra two hours through Estes Park in the mountains, which was both beautiful and terrifying. We finally got to the house in one piece, settled, and went to dinner for my brother's birthday, commemorated by mostly sitting in close proximity to his favorite sister.

Monday - Monday was our settling day/figure out what to do with the next week day. We got up, had a lovely picturesque morning of news and coffee (the only thing we had in the house - priorities), and went shopping. We decided that, because we rented a house for seven adults, it made the most sense to plan on eating most days at the house to save big on food, which can be pretty costly. I had planned meals in advance and made my list, so four of us headed to Target and City Market (one of the grocery chains in CO), one went to the gym, and the kids (not really - 16 and 17 are pretty self-sufficient) explored downtown Glenwood. I did a bit of meal prep for that night (chicken fried rice - yum!), and we decided to go to an amusement park on top of a mountain, aptly names Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park, for the afternoon. We drove the five minutes over, and took the gondolas up to the top. We started with a cavern tour, and then our four most adventurous people went on a ride that swings erratically over a cliff. I don't do rides, so I took pictures and laughed a lot (so. much. screaming.), and then they did a few more rides, like the roller coaster, zip ride, mountain cars, and we did a quick game of laser tag when it rained (and got snacks in a restaurant with an awesome view). We finished in the giant maze, and headed back for dinner and board games. The park wasn't that big, but perfect for an afternoon of fun.

Tuesday - Tuesday was our early day, as we were hiking up to Hanging Lake. Everyone told us to get to the lot by eight because it fills up quickly, and they were right. So we all loaded into the van with our pre-prepped breakfast burritos and headed off. It was nice and cool when we arrived and we were all ready and confident on the trail to the mountain, but that quickly ended. This hike is pretty much a vertical incline, and we rested about every 30  feet, not because we're all unhealthy, but because MOUNTAIN AIR IS THINNER THAN TISSUE PAPER. It was so hard to breathe, especially coming from the Midwest, where you drink air like a milkshake because it's so thick. It took us about an hour and a half to climb up the 1.3 mile trail, which is about average. The view was incredible, but I didn't last very long because I have a squirrel bladder and staying hydrated takes its toll on me. So I just about ran back down, but it was beautiful. (I highly recommend going early though, because it gets really hot really quickly. And beware of critters. I don't know what I was expecting, but we saw lots of chipmunks and a snake.) When we got back to the house, we had lunch, showered, and then some went to the Iron Mountain Hot Springs, which are a series of pools with water pumped in from the natural hot springs at varying temperatures, and they smell like rotting eggs because of the sulfur. I opted out of this, mainly because I don't like hot tubs or rotting eggs, but also because Bachelor in Paradise  was on. As per usual, the night ended with dinner (crockpot Italian sausage) and games.

Wednesday - Wednesday morning was very relaxed because we were set to go rafting that afternoon. We took our time getting ready, eating baked French toast, watching Lilo & Stitch, and then we went for ice cream around lunch because it was near the rafting shop. Unfortunately, my cousin was sick this day, so we rebooked the rafting for the next day and went to Aspen instead. My mom wanted to go to the John Denver Sanctuary, so we did that, and then walked around downtown. There were lots of dogs and lots of fancy people not working on a Wednesday afternoon. We went home, had dinner, and played the most uncomfortable round of "Cards Against Humanity" I've ever played.

Thursday - Rafting was the thing I was most excited and most nervous for. We had an earlier time slot, which was good, but it was raining, which was also good but not great, because then it was cold. We went through Glenwood Adventure Company, and they ask that you arrive at their store to get fitted with lifejackets, helmets, etc. and hour before your raft time. We did, and then we went through the whole safety lecture and were assigned to our guides. No one in our group had ever rafted before, which was fine, and we were on an intermediate trip, which was also fine. But no one asked my 17 year old cousin and me if we were okay with having the cutest Scottish guide at the company while we looked like weenies in our helmets. It was not fine, but we managed. We boarded a bus to the launch point about 10 miles up the Colorado River. We launched in the rain and drifted a bit, practicing our paddling and following our guide's calls. Not long after, we hit the rapids, and I was immediately soaked and cold. That shock lasted all of 20 seconds before we hit more rapids, and I think that's when we were all hooked. It was the most fun I've had in a long time, and I highly recommend it. We were on the river for about two and a half hours, and we stopped at the real hot springs when we were almost done. They had a photographer stationed in the mountains as we went through the rapids, which calmed down after the first hour or so, and we were able to buy the pictures, which were hilarious. We pulled our raft out of the river at then end and rode back to the store, and then reality set in that we were cold and wet and had to walk back to the house. We ran. Everyone showered, and we got ready for birthday dinner number two of the trip, for my cousin's dad. We did a little souvenir shopping on the way home, and faced the sad reality of packing for the long drive home. (Note: for the photo, I've blurred out everyone except me, only because I don't know if my family wants to be on the Internet in this way, and I will not be making that decision for them. I want you to get a feel for what we did, I just need to respect their privacy in doing so.)

Friday/Saturday - Friday morning, we packed up, and went to Sweet ColoraDough for breakfast (the best sandwiches and donuts I've ever had). We all sadly loaded up and drove 13 hours (you can imagine our pain) to Kansas City, KS to stay the night. Saturday morning, we got up, and headed to the WWI museum in Kansas City. The monuments and displays were very interesting, but honestly, at this point, everyone was done and just wanted to get home. We had about eight hours to home, so we did just that. We arrived home Saturday night, and I've been missing CO ever since. I'll definitely be moving there after school, and we've already decided to go back in 2018.

Until then, CO, I wish you all the best,
Erin

Dear Ex-Best Friend

Hey.

You probably have a lot of questions about why I stopped talking to you. That's understandable, but I ask that you be just as understanding when I explain why. It's been a rough process, and I'm finally ready to tell my half of this story.

When I left for school, I was worried about everything. But one of my biggest fears was losing you. We were so close, and I told you everything. We were like sisters, and I didn't want that to change. And you promised me that it wouldn't. And somehow I never learn not to trust people for their words. That was my first mistake.

I never wanted to tell you how miserable I was, especially because I didn't want to ruin your senior year. Partially my fault, but you know I'm the "don't ask, don't tell" type. I didn't want to bother you; I knew how busy you'd be, and I never wanted to bug you with my little problems. And apparently you never wanted to hear them anyway.

You called me once in the four months I was gone, and texted me a handful of times. I wasn't far, but you never visited me even though you said you wanted to. Distance and little communication became the new normal.

Just after Christmas, you went away for a week. You only talked to me when you needed me, when living with other people was too much. Sound familiar? When you came back, I was at our high school for an event and wanted to meet you to give you your Christmas present. You blew me off. I still have it.

We didn't talk for months after that. The occasional text from you would send me into panic attack. You've seen me in the midst of panic attacks, so my not responding shouldn't be a surprise. Any time I would post pictures with my family or other friends, you would comment things like "I see how it is" or "ouch", and, frankly, it made me feel like crap. I don't need that negativity in my life, and that was the final straw.

Maybe you noticed how weird I was acting when I ran into you at the hair salon. Again, seeing you sent me straight into a panic attack. You accused me of ignoring your texts, which I can imagine only came in the form of group chats when you needed something. You're not totally wrong; I blocked you. I can't live in that panic forever.

Changing is absolutely normal, and we both have. But that change has separated us, and I don't think we can ever go back to the way we were. I don't regret our time spent together, I just don't want to relive it.

"Will you take a moment, promise me this: that you'll stand by me forever, but if, God forbid, fate should step in, and force us into a goodbye, if you have children someday, when they point to the pictures, please tell them my name."

It's been a good run, dear friend, but it's best we left it someplace where it can still be good when we look back on it.

I wish you all the best,
Your Ex-Best Friend