earth to victoria

Homemade Rock Candy, you will need: 1/2 cup water 3/4 cup light corn syrup 2 cups granulated sugar 2 teaspoons flavoring extract blue gel food coloring candy thermometer Instructions: Line sheet pan with foil, and spray the foil with nonstick cooking spray/spray butter. In a saucepan combine the water, corn syrup, and granulated sugar. Place the pan over medium-high heat, and stir until the sugar dissolves.  Bring the mixture to a boil, then stop stirring.  Insert a candy thermometer. Continue to cook the candy without stirring until it reads 285°F on the thermometer. Do not overcook it, or it will start to take on a caramel color. Once at 285°F, take the pan off the heat and let it sit for a few moments, until bubbles stop breaking on the surface. Add the flavoring, I used raspberry extract and food coloring, I used Neon blue by McCormick, and stir everything together. Pour the candy onto the prepared baking sheet; tilt the sheet pan back and fo...

So I know it's not yet fall, but why wait only once a year to have pumpkin?  Especially when it's amazingly delicious, and one of my personal favorites. These muffins were a huge hit; gone in two days from my family and Dunkin Donut employees.   All the feedback I got on these were they are super moist and very chocolaty.  These muffins came out heavenly.  My little brother and Jake claim they don't like pumpkin, but even they enjoyed these muffins. Ingredients: 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1 tsp. baking soda 1/2 tsp. cinnamon 1/4 cup cocoa powder 1 cup pumpkin pure 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted 2 eggs 1/2 cup brown sugar 1/2 cup milk chocolate chips 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips Nutella Instructions: Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.   In a bowl whisk together all the dry ingredients; flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and cocoa powder.  Set aside. Melt butter on medium heat on stove, stirring constantly, wait until b...

Last Sunday Jake and I went to Gillette Castle to go hiking. Gillette Castle was the beautiful home to William Gillette and his wife.   Gillette was an actor and was most famous for playing Sherlock Holmes.  Him and his wife lived in East Haddam, Connecticut and their house is currently a state park open to anyone, with tours of the castle costing just six dollars. Jake and I live so close to here, about twenty minutes away, and I have no idea why we don't come here more often because it's absolutely stunning!  And I swear it gets prettier every time I come. There's all kind of hiking spots on the castle grounds and you can even go down to The Connecticut River. I took this picture of myself when I was trying to check my hair before we went shopping after leaving the castle.  I ended up thinking it was kind of cool and keeping it.   No dumb artificial sun filter needed on a day like today!

So since I've got a lot of questions about my nails I decided to make a post about what I used and how I did them. To start off, I used a kit.  It was called Nail Rocks and it was just randomly in the nail polish section at Walgreens . It was real easy to use, the directions were super simple.  All you do is paint two coats of nail polish that comes in the kit, and right after your second coat, dip your nail in the tube of beads or "nail rocks".  Then you lightly press on your nails and you're done.   They look great.  Except when you go to bed and wake up, then your nails look awful.  So I redid them in the morning and by the end of the day, my nails looked awful again.  Not as bad from when I woke up, but still not good. I suggest only using these on special occasions, where you don't expect your nails to look good for a long periods of time. Ratings: Difficulty : 1/10 (10 being very difficult, 1 being easy.) Cost : 6/10 (1 be...

Fall is my absolute favorite season, I can't say that enough, and this year I really want to try to make as many fall themed recipes as I possibly can.  Starting with pumpkin french toast.   I got this recipe from thelowercaseh !  Ingredients: 1/2 cup canned pumpkin 4 eggs 1/2 cup milk 2 Tablespoons brown sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 1/4 teaspoon salt a pinch of orange zest about 10 slices of bread butter, for cooking Mix the pumpkin, eggs, milk, brown sugar, vanilla, spices, salt, and zest together until they're well combined. Soak both sides of bread in batter.  Battered bread can be cooked immediately or refrigerated overnight. Cook battered bread over medium heat in a lightly buttered skillet until golden brown on both sides. Serve with maple syrup.

My friend Nathan showed me the coolest blog link.  It's a page full of obscure Wikipedia pages.  The original link is here , but I'm going to post some of my favorites on the blog.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunny_Man http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_pass_accident http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marfa_lights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roanoke_Colony http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Jersey_Devil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete-Encased_High_School_Girl_Murder_Case http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatwoods_monster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loveland_Frog http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midgetville#Vienna.2C_Virginia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gef_the_talking_mongoose http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allagash_Abductions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mokele-mbembe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melonheads http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Vacher http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_de_Rais http://e...

Ingredients: 4 Tablespoons butter 1/2 Cup Sugar 1 Pint Strawberry Ice Cream 4 Cups Water 1 Cup Chocolate Chips 1 Tablespoon Chocolate Sprinkles Cool Whip Melt chocolate and dip the rim of each mug into it.  Set aside until later. Mix butter, sugar, and strawberry ice cream over medium heat on the stove.  Whisk water, a cup at a time, until the desired texture is reached.  Remember, this is hot chocolate not a milkshake. Pour into chocolate rimmed mugs and decorate with whipped cream and sprinkles.  I added a chocolate chip cookie! My boyfriend surprised me by having my favorite sandwich from my favorite Italian deli ready for me when I got out of work.  Afterward though I was really in the mood for something sweet.  We were thinking about going to get frozen yogurt, but traffic was super bad and it was getting late so we stopped at the local grocery store instead and picked up a few items.  This is what we made.  This ...