Cashew Chicken Or How I Learned That I Can Really Cook

In keeping with new year and new things, I'm definitely making more of an attempt to eat healthy and cook proper dinners. Awhile back I posted smoothie recipes on here and that was also when I was trying my hand at a fit lifestyle. I realized then, I need food. Don't get me wrong, juicing and smoothies are wonderful, but I can't live off fruits and veg alone! I need more and I need it to taste good! So the other day I took a good hard look at all my pinterest boards and made a real grocery list and planned out a couple meals.

Without further ado, here is Homemade Cashew Chicken. All credit for the recipe goes to blog The Art Of Doing Stuff, thanks!!

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 Large Chicken Breasts

• 1 Tbsp Cornstarch
• 6 Small Garlic Cloves (minced)
• 8 Green Onions
• 1/4 Cup Hoisin Sauce
• 1/4 Cup Rice Vinegar (unseasoned)
• 1/4 Cup Water
• 1 Cup Cashews (toasted over medium/low heat in pan)
• 1 Can of Mandarin Oranges or 1 Sumo Orange (optional)
• Salt & Pepper
• Olive Oil
• However Much Rice You Need, i.e: One Half Cup Per Person

To begin, I would chop everything (onions, oranges, chicken, garlic) and start your rice cooking. There was a lot more chopping than I was used to and I honestly extra toasted my cashews. They were still delicious, but a bit blackened :(. Separate your white parts from the green parts on the onions and chop all into about 1/2" to 1" pieces. Chop your orange segments in half. Cube your chicken. Mince that garlic!

Once you've cubed your chicken, go ahead and put it in a tupperware or plastic bag with the cornstarch, salt & pepper. Shake it up! Set aside. 

Then take the white part of your onions and garlic and begin to saute in the olive oil for a few minutes before adding your chicken. Fry the chicken for about 5 minutes or so, until all traces of pink are gone.

On medium high heat, add the rice vinegar and cook until it is evaporated. Then add Hoisin sauce and water. Stir in cashews as well. Remove from heat once sauce is thoroughly covering all and add in the green parts of the onion. Give that a quick stir and then serve on a bed of rice. Top with mandarin oranges and ENJOY! 

This was delicious and I was super proud of myself for adulting so well. Make this for yourself! Make it for your friends! You'll thank me! :)

Keep on, Keepin' on y'all!

M.

If Plant Lady Is The New Cat Lady, I'm Here For It!

Spring is right around the corner, finally! I say this even though yesterday it was a lovely 78 on Thursday and now yesterday and today have brought a chill back into our world. But it's still a good day and that's what you've got to keep telling yourself.

I work in retail and the store I work at has a junior's department with cute and ~quirky~ items for sale. We are having a serious 90's revival and one of the things we have are all these packs of patches. One pack:

The little patch in the upper right is where my post title came from. And I am definitely embracing it! I have a little succulent/cactus garden set up and then yesterday I added a lily whilst at Lowe's looking for a fern. I bought the lily to get somewhat of a start on my "goth garden". If you search on Pinterest you will find so many awesome pictures of black/white/purple/blood red flowers. It's my new goal. I'm glad I've finally dug up the gardening gene from my mom! 

Here's my little garden so far! Enjoy:

Happy (soon) Spring!

Keep on, keepin' on,

M.

Oh Wait, How Did We Get Here?

It's already into 2017 and I am still accidentally writing 2016 on everything. This new year is a time for clean ups and clean slates. I recently tidied up my own office space (again) and its looking much more eclectic and cozy:

I put effort into cleaning it so that I will actually write.

*******RECORD SCRATCH*******

I started writing this damn post on January 19th. It is February 7th and I am finally dragging myself back to it. I had so many aspirations to write blogs/chapters/mini books whilst on vacation during the first month and I honestly did zero of those things. I had great times relaxing and seeing my friends and family and it was an excellent vacation, BUT I keep beating myself up for not writing. I've talked to peers and looked up how to be a better writer and bookmarked the best tips for myself and dang it I'm gonna use them starting now!

*Write everyday for at least an hour. Y'all may not see all of the fruits of that on here but surely some of my writings will be the posts on here.

*Start making "To-Done" lists. I've seen this used by so many people lately and I like that you're low-key congratulating yourself at the end of the day to say, hey I did this! Instead of Oh..I have to do that?! 

*Read more. I spend a lot of my time on the internet and though it is obviously beneficial in certain aspects of my life, I miss just relaxing with a good book and giving my mind some exercise. 

Here's to 2017!

Keep on, keepin' on,

M.

Retail Rants Part Deux!

Ah hello my friends, we are now in the full swing of the holiday season! December has arrived, trees are up, Santa is in the mall, people are yelling at sales associates! TIS THE SEASON Y'ALL.

Ok so I was sort of hoping this series would not continue but as I've been in retail for 12 years now, I should have known better. As I said in my first rant, the easiest thing to do during the holidays or literally anytime is to be KIND, it's the best four letter word you could pick! And it's absolutely free!

At the mall we are now into extended hours, 9am til 10pm on weekdays and 11pm on weekends, and we are a bit short staffed at the moment so everyone is tired and working double what we ought to. That's not trying to say we need any excuses, but we aren't maybe at our best, but still pretty great. The thing is that whether or not we were at 50, 100 or 1000% I'm certain people would still mess with us. I have 3 mini scenarios  for you:

First, shoplifters need to for real get their lives right. We had an incident where 4 stores were getting hit all at once! We had a manager run over from her store to tell us that people were stealing. That's so outrageous and it isn't like we don't pay attention to shady folks, cause we see you, we are everywhere and we have a pretty good eye for faces. To me shoplifting is so pointless and so rude and whenever we catch someone they want to fight us. So we see you swiping something and walking out and when we inquire about it because you set off an alarm, you want to cause a scene? No, just stop all of this.

Second, I have said this so many times I feel like a broken record but I will say it again for the people in the back: CASHIERS AND SALESPEOPLE DO NOT SET THE RULES/PRICES/SALES. We have a whole set of head honchos and big-wig assistants who set up our whole store. They tell us when to put on a sale, what to put on sale, what to sell those things for and how much of a discount, if any, we can give you for a defect. Say you pick up a shirt and it is $15 and it has a small hole in the seam. We have a set amount (%) we can discount you and a follow up rule to make that item now a final sale item, meaning you can not return it. I will explain this to you as I am ringing you up, thus you will be able to make the choice on if you want to take the discount/item before you walk out of the store and spend money. The rules that I tell you are specific to my store and so when you tell me that the other store down the way would do this for you, well cool, you aren't in that store.....so I guess go there because I just laid out the rules for you, here in the store you are currently standing in.

Third, holy crap stop yelling at us and giving us an attitude when you don't exactly get your way. That gets you even less than what you might have gotten to begin with. Didn't any of your mothers tell you that you attract more flies with honey than vinegar?? Because honestly I will go above and beyond for you if you are a nice person. It's that simple and goes along with the kindness vibe.


We are at 2 weeks before Christmas, about to hit super Saturday and then Christmas Eve the following Saturday. I'm sure something wild will happen and I'll fill you in when it does. Until then however....

Keep on, Keepin' on!

M.

Clean Slates

It's not quite the new year yet but I have been thinking about the reset that we are about to have. I bought a dry erase calendar over the summer and it is always very nice at the beginning of every month to wipe it clean and start over:

You see it as a new month, a new chance to get you goals in. To really take charge of you career, your life, your world. Sometimes I write goals out on the side and the are carried over from the previous month, knowing that I didn't get to them. I should get to them, I might still not, but I've definitely made an effort in writing them out.

Here's my November, it looks towards Christmas and has repeat goals of things I would really like to earnestly have come to fruition in 2017. I already gave you a preview of my untitled Great American Novel....I will give you a preview of the children's book too. Whether it will be an excerpt or a character drawing.....only time will tell.

Here's to a new month! Here's to a little clean slate in this crazy world!

Keep on, keepin' on,

M.

Retail Rants

Yes two blogs in one day! They aren't related so they get separate posts. I now give you a new segment on this little corner I have carved out on the internet: RETAIL RANTS. I have been in the mall world for nearly 12 years and whew lawd has it been a time. I have more stories about humans and their disgusting ways than you will ever fathom and all true, even if they sound far-fetched...trust me I wish some were! So for the introduction to this ongoing series I will prepare you and my brethren in sales for the holiday season.

It is almost Halloween and I could not be more excited. However in the retail world this means that the ramp-up to the holiday spending season has begun. Pumpkins share space on shelves with reindeer and pilgrims. Everything is overwhelming, everything is super colorful (but like only in various shades of red, gold, silver, black & green), everything is somehow covered in glitter, it's a lot. I feel bad for Thanksgiving honestly, it's a big friends & family holiday on it's own but it's completely overshadowed by both Halloween and Christmas in the stores. Christmas is already in full force and it is only October 19th....settle down Santa. Like when you think about it Easter has it the best: After Easter has passed the next major decorating holiday is the Fourth of July, which is two to three months away, you don't get gifts and your main concern is where you are going to light off all your fireworks. The long lull of summer gives way afterwards and everyone just chills out until October 1st when, in seasonally appropriate climates, Autumn has arrived and literally I'm pretty sure everyone loses their damn minds. I already know that I will actually be off on Thanksgiving because A) I work for a nice company and B) This is how flipping early we need to start preparing for Black Friday. Now, like yesterday, I'm 85% sure our schedule is mocked up somewhere in the office because this is how important retail has made shopping and the holidays. I love the holidays, don't get me wrong, I really love how cozy the nights are around the bonfire with my friends and how everyone's families get together and come to town, it's wonderful. Working during this time is a shenanigan show of complete unpredictability.  The people I have met/helped over the years have run the gamut from sweet as pie to the actual devil spawn. You never know exactly what you will get, I had my very first customer one Black Friday afternoon yell at me for the pricing that was out of my control. She was SO mad about the fact that we had advertised certain pricing for the early birds and then didn't carry that over to the people strolling in at 3pm....Ma'am I didn't choose this. I've also had an amazing customer that I helped find all their Office Christmas party gifts (he was the CEO) in one swoop.

My main rant for today is a focus of pure human decency. I understand that the holiday season is stressful, I understand that so many people are pressed for time, I understand that money is tight in most cases. I GET IT, I'M WITH YOU. So in turn....very simply....Please don't treat sales people like shit. Honestly. We all have families and friends that we want to be with, that we are also shopping for when we are able and when we are on the clock we are there to help you 100%. I have zero control over any of my companies signs/promotions/pricing/item allotments. I do not make any decisions about what they put out into the world. I just work there. I can help you in only the perimeters of which are set forth by a team of people who work very far from where you and I stand. Please try and remember this when you cop an attitude with a cashier because the price that rang up was the price on the item and not whatever you assumed it might be. Ask us a million questions, that is what I am there for! I can provide so much information, I can get you any size, I can offer opinions on what to wear to the event and if this matches these shoes you have. I love doing that! I will personal shop for you all day. At the end of the day we are all humans just trying to get through this weird and wild world, the easiest thing to do is Just Be Kind.

The rants will continue through this crazy 2K16 holiday jam we are about to dive into...so stay tuned for all the storytimes!

Keep on, Keepin' on,

M.

Mini Halloween Update!

The time for indecision has ran out! I will still be Minnie Mouse for actual Halloween and for any other weekend party times I am going to be a spooky skeleton. I know it isn't that original but listen 2016 has kicked mine and everyone else's ass and so I'm just here for the good times that I can make. Skeletons are essentially Halloween and so I will make mine the best she can be. Stay tuned for photographic evidence later this month!

Keep on, Keepin' on,

M.