So we just got back from our vacation to a beach condo in Destin FL in the U.S. Of course I took a ton of photos of the place before we moved in, while it was still clean and before we added all our clutter to it.
We stayed at The Silver Beach Towers in Destin FL. We found our condo via VRBO. This isn’t an affiliate link at all, I’m just describing to you what we did.
The condo was truly lovely and impressive. We needed the large kitchen too because we planned to eat “at home” for every meal. We only went “out” to eat one time during the whole vacation. Lol, which actually is the opposite of what I prefer to do while on vacation but we were being mindful of all the covid pre-cautions.
The one time we left the condo to go out to eat, we went to The Back Porch, a seafood and oyster house, which was actually within walking distance and it was a very pleasant and comfortable walk to get there.
I wish I could just live there permanently instead of just a few days. I hope you don’t mind a post full of photos of our beach condo in Destin FL, but here you go…
Living room pics…
Beach Condo in Destin FL USA / Image Source: Pepper V.Beach Condo in Destin FL USA / Image Source: Pepper V.Beach Condo in Destin FL USA / Image Source: Pepper V.Beach Condo in Destin FL USA / Image Source: Pepper V.
Dining Room and Kitchen pics…
Beach Condo, Destin FL USA / Image Source: Pepper V.Beach Condo, Destin FL USA / Image Source: Pepper V.Beach Condo, Destin FL USA / Image Source: Pepper V.Beach Condo, Destin FL USA / Image Source: Pepper V.
Extra Living Area pic…
Beach Condo, Destin FL USA / Image Source: Pepper V.
The Bedrooms…
Beach Condo, Destin FL USA / Image Source: Pepper V.Beach Condo, Destin FL USA / Image Source: Pepper V.Beach Condo, Destin FL USA / Image Source: Pepper V.Beach Condo, Destin FL USA / Image Source: Pepper V.
And most importantly, the View from the Balcony…
Beach Condo, Destin FL USA / Image Source: Pepper V.
Since Halloween is the theme of the month, I found pics from one of my favorite costumes ever. My daughter and I dressed in Jem and The Holograms Costumes one year.
What is “Jem and the Holograms”?
Not alot of folks are familiar with “Jem and The Holograms”. It was only the greatest 80’s cartoon series of all time, so you truly missed out if didn’t watch. Don’t fight me. 🙂
But just in case you don’t believe me that it’s a real show that actually happened, you can check out all the scoop on Wikipedia. 🙂
Image Source: Google
Not alot of people remember this cartoon TV series, which makes me sad. It was on during the 80s and definitely targeted the young girl crowd, and I was hooked ever since. I was mostly addicted to the music, as Jem was a rockstar/popstar and had the catchiest songs and the most outrageous fashion.
She was also a real-life person with a real-life job and real-life responsibilities raising foster kids. Her real-life persona was Jerrica, and she had to keep her rockstar persona a secret from everyone.
Holy smokes. Kinda like me with this blog. I’m using the alias Pepper Valentine here (lol, my rockstar name), and I am keeping this blog a secret from everyone in my real-life so I can be uncensored and unedited here, and have no real-life consequences for being myself.
Anyhow, the reason she had to keep her identity such a secret was because she had a secret supercomputer (in the 80s!) that created all the music and all the fashion via holograms that looked real to everyone else. And she thought that if that supercomputer was discovered, that it could be used for evil purposes. She was using it simply to be a rockstar.
So that’s a quick summary as to why I am a “Jem and the Holograms” fan. I’m a bit obsessed with the series still, and I have fun creating projects that are inspired by Jem, like these Halloween costumes for myself and my daughter. My daughter even had a Jem and the Holograms birthday party theme one year and I saved those pics on another post here. I’m happy to be able to share these pics even though it’s all over and in the past. I hope you like it too…
My Photos – Jem and the Holograms Costume
So one year myself and my daughter dressed as the main characters, Jem and Pizzazz, and we had a great time. Lol, how’d we do though? We look just like them, right?
Jem and the Holograms Costume / Image Source: Pepper V.Jem and the Holograms Costume / Image Source: Pepper V.Jem and the Holograms Costume / Image Source: Pepper V.Jem and the Holograms Costume / Image Source: Pepper V.Jem and the Holograms Costume / Image Source: Pepper V.
Jem and the Holograms Costume / Image Source: Pepper V.
Jem and the Holograms Costume – Shopping Links
[Disclosure: the following links are affiliate links where I may earn a commission on any resulting purchase, at no additional cost to you.]
Halloween is definitely my favorite holiday of all time! My daughter loves it too and dressed up in The Descendants Mal costume one year.
I enjoy the costumes, and getting to dress-up, and being able to PRETEND to be someone else for a few hours.
And I’m a weirdo and I usually start planning and gathering everything I need for costumes in the summer. Mostly because I hate the annual Halloween pop-up stores – they’re too crowded, over-priced, nothing will fit correctly right off the shelf, and everything is handled and picked-through. Not my fave.
So I usually start prepping WAY in advance, but the prices are better and it gives me alot more time to make sure I’m happy with it and overall it’s a much less stressful experience for me.
Anyhow… I personally don’t dress up as much anymore since I’m usually focused on my daughter and her costume instead. She has an epic one planned for this year, and we’re all prepped and ready to go. I’ll keep it a secret until the big day but I can’t wait to share it with you all!
But in the meantime… I can post some pics of past costumes for you. The rest of this post is dedicated to the Descendants Mal costume, but if you would like more costume ideas for girls, I have a separate post located here: 11 Costume Ideas for Girls, which includes my daughter’s costumes as Britney Spears, Ariana Grande, Cruella DeVil, Jem and the Holograms, Ariel the Little Mermaid, Wonder Woman, and others…
The Descendants Mal Costume – The Look
Here’s a pic of my daughter dressed as Mal from Disney’s “The Descendants” movie.
This costume is quite easy to put together because you can buy mostly everything you need online. The only extra effort besides shopping is the makeup. And I only needed 2 specific makeup items for this look. Just the lipstick and the eyeshadow. I used the lipstick for both the lips and the heavy eyeliner. Then the eyeshadow just to shade the rest of her eyelids. But overall, very easy!
The Descendants Mal Costume / Image Source: Pepper V.
If you haven’t seen this movie yet, I recommend it as it was very cute with a GREAT soundtrack. I found myself listening to the music even outside of the movie itself since the tracks were so catchy. And the premise was interesting too – it centered around the teenage children of the famous Disney villians, and those teenage children had to share a high school with the children of the famous Disney heros. And it was entertaining seeing them interact with each other.
So if you haven’t seen it yet, I definitely recommend it.
The Descendants Mal Costume – Shopping Links
[Disclosure: the following links are affiliate links where I may earn a commission on any resulting purchase, at no additional cost to you.]
Some links that might help you put together this Descendants Mal costume can be found below. Just make sure that you order well-enough in advance that any shipping delays won’t cause you the extra stress of a last-minute costume change.
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I hope you all enjoyed this Descendants Mal costume and the photo of my daughter!
Make sure to subscribe below so you won’t miss out when I add more costume ideas for girls to my blog in the future, or other mom-related posts. I don’t spam. My usual cadence is a quarterly email newsletter to keep everyone updated.
I finally got time this weekend to try to fix up some things that have been bugging me on my blog. I was stumped about how to create blog menus in WordPress, as well as how to use categories to feed posts to specific pages. So once I figured it out, I decided to document it here and share in case it can help anyone else with the same problem.
I also had an issue with my default posts not showing up correctly on my home page. Only the 2 latest posts would ever appear, regardless of the number of posts settings I had saved. The solution for that specific issue is at the end of this post.
I am on WordPress.com so these tips would be applicable to that platform specifically.
I figured out how to create a new page and feed certain posts to it. This one was tricky and took ALOT of Googling to figure out, and even more trial-and-error. But I finally made it work using Categories.
If you’re a newbie like me, then Categories can be difficult to figure out. There are basically 3 locations you need to make Categories feed certain posts to a specific page. All 3 locations are in your WordPress Dashboard. You can access your Dashboard by going to “My Site” > “WP Admin”.
Image Source: Me
Once you are in your Dashboard…
Dashboard > Posts > Categories
This is where you create your Category and describe it
Image Source: Me
Dashboard > Pages
This is where you create your new Page
I used “Use Blank Layout” for mine and it worked ok
If you’d like to Copy an existing Page, be sure to use the “Copy” link available
Image Source: Me
Dashboard > Appearance > Menus
This is where you assign a Category to a Page, so that certain posts (labelled with that specific Category) will automatically feed to that Page.
You use the “Add Menu Item” section, and double-check that when your Page gets added to the “Menu Structure” section, that it is labelled as “Category” instead of “Page”.
Image Source: Me
I have a sneaking suspicion that different templates can react differently to this, so just keep double-checking on your live site that you’re happy with it.
One problem I ran into that took an extreme amount of Googling to resolve, was my issue with my Home page not displaying more than 2 of my latest posts, despite all my settings everywhere setting it to 10 posts per page.
The solution was a weird one, but it worked! So I’m sharing it here as well in case anyone else is having a similar problem.
Dashboard > Appearance > Menus
In the “Add Menu Items” section, you will expand the option for “Custom Links”
Enter “/” (right slash) into the “URL” field
Enter “Home” into the “Link Text” field
Select the “Add to Menu” button
You will notice that a new “Home” item appear in the “Menu Structure” section with “Custom Link” as it’s type. Drag it to the correct order where you’d like it.
Then, in the same “Menu Structure” section, and you will remove the original “Home” item that appears there as a “Page”.
Chicken Rotel Spaghetti is one of my favorite comfort meals. And it makes a ton so it’ll either serve a large crowd of people, or the leftovers will serve you well the next day too. I love it.
Chicken Rotel Spaghetti / Image Source: Pepper V.Chicken Rotel Spaghetti / Image Source: Pepper V. To
Try it and let me know what you think! I’m open for suggestions on how to make it even tastier. 😁
Ingredients
1.5 lb Cooked Chicken
1 can Cream of Chicken Soup
1 can Cream of Mushroom Soup
1 pound Velvetta Cheese, cubed
1 can Rotel, do not drain
1 large white onion, diced
1 package Spaghetti (16 oz)
Butter or olive oil
Garlic powder, optional
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Shred chicken and set aside.
Cook spaghetti to the package instructions. I like cutting up the cooked spaghetti for easier mixing into the sauce later, but that’s up to you.
Sautee the onions lightly, in either a small dab of butter or olive oil.
Place the cream of chicken soup, cream of mushroom soup, velvetta cheese, sauteed onions, and rotel in a large pan or pot over LOW heat until the cheese is melted. Stir frequently.
Optionally, add garlic powder to the sauce per your taste.
Add the cooked spaghetti to the sauce. Then add the shredded chicken to the sauce. Combine well, and move everything to a baking dish.
Bake for 20 minutes.
Eat and be happy!
If you prefer to pin the recipe to your Pinterest, it’s here: https://pin.it/2h3hThs
Ugh. I’m definitely not someone to fuss over a headache. I’ve had headaches all my life. From stress, from decreasing my caffeine intake, from hangovers, from migraines, from eyestrain, etc…
But THIS particular headache I am fussing about because it is so UNLIKE any other I’ve had before. This one is very localized – the lower right backside of my head. It occasionally gives off a cooling sensation (weird). And the pain resembles labor contractions (super weird) – intense pain for a few seconds, then nothing for a few minutes, then the intense pain for a few seconds, then nothing again for a few minutes…. Over and over again for DAYS.
I’ve never experienced anything like this before.
And nothing will relieve it. I’ve tried every drug over the counter. I’ve tried resting and sleeping. I can feel this pain in my sleep even! I’ve tried massage and heatpacks. I even looked up some “old wives tales” / home remedies on the internet and drank some white vinegar if you want to know how desperate I was for relief. It was gross and didn’t work, btw.
So I have a doctor’s appointment today at 3. I hope they can fix me.
So I’ve been having this weird headache in the back of my head, close to my neck. It’s not throbbing, but constant. Nothing relieves it – not caffeine, not pain meds, not sleep. I could actually still feel it while I was asleep! How is that even possible?! And it’s lasted an entire week.
I’ve never had a headache like this before. A “normal” headache for me is a throbbing pain in the front of my head, close to my eyes. It’s usually caused by stress and/or high blood pressure. And I can relieve it numerous ways.
I’m actually all better today (finally!) and I’m stumped as to what happened and why. And I’d love to prevent it from ever happening again.
I actually had an appointment with my doctor today. I made the appointment on Tues when I was feeling unwell. But the soonest they could see me was today and I woke up perfectly fine. Lol, figures.
They ran labs on me and everything came back normal. My blood, my blood pressure, and my urine all were within normal range.
So… I have no answers today folks. Doctor says if it happens again that I can get a brain scan. Wow, that seems intense but ok. Hopefully it won’t happen again.
Have you guys experienced a mystery headache like this before? Low, back of the head, persistent, etc… What resolution did you get?
