Homemade Late For Your ChaiVia Stash Tea As far as I’m concerned, as long as there’s still snow on the ground, it’s still winter. And as long as it’s winter, there is no reason why I should stop drinking my all-time favorite drink, chai tea laté. If you're a chai tea lover like me, you’re aware of its deliciously addicting effects. But why spend $3.25 on a Tall Chai Tea Laté from Starbucks when you can make one twice as good and in the comfort of your own kitchen? As much as I adore Starbucks' all-too-sweet chai tea, I can promise you that, bias as I am, the homemade version is so much better and much better for you (I actually can’t promise that last part…) So, to begin, you will need a chai tea mix. To make it easier for myself, I went to Fairway and picked up the Stash Double Spice Chai Black Tea. I figured the “double spice” would mean double the flavor, but I’m sure any brand of chai tea would taste just the same (there goes those sneaky marketing tactics again.) You can also go the old fashioned route and make your mix from scratch. Next, you will heat up a pot of water. To make this a chai tea LATÉ, it would make sense to add milk. I like to use the Trader Joe’s almond milk. Actually, any kind will work, this is just what happened to be in my fridge at the time I was writing this. If you don’t drink almond milk, stop what you’re doing and buy some because this stuff is totally awesome . Would I take a swig of it with nothing else added? No way – I hate almonds. But I love to drink the milk with tea, hot chocolate, or even added in my cereal. Then it tastes good. Never alone. Never. If the thought of mixing milk and water grosses you out, just use one or the other. To each his own, right? Once you have your hot water or hot milk or hot water/milk, add the mix in and let it seep for as long as your little heart desires. Add half a spoonful of honey and a SMALL drop of vanilla extract. This stuff goes a long way, ladies and gentlemen. Do not abuse it. As a measurement tactic, I’ll often pour an amount equal to the size of the nail of my pinky into the cap, and then into the tea mug. Finally, a “dash” of cinnamon (whatever that means) or whatever other spice you like for your tea. And voila! A homemade better-than-Starbucks Chai Tea Laté! Alas, I do not have a picture to share with you, so I encourage you to use your imagination of what your über delish drink is going to look like (you can use the above picture for reference). I can, however, show you what you will most often catch me drinking my tea in… Thanks to my friend Ashley for the kick-ass mug. You're the best. And incase you were confused, yes, I am the world's best mom. If you know me, you will understand this. Stay Classy Valley,
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Why The Hell Don't I Have a Date? Sometimes, as I lay in my bed thinking and over thinking and racking my brain for possible answers to all the unanswerable questions I have, my brain slows to one single thought. Today, upon stepping out of the shower, I was hit with that thought: prom. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked about who I was going with. Me, Myself, and I ? Beyonce couldn’t have said it any better with her fourth consecutive US top five single. Did you know it remained on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 24 weeks? Me neither. Thanks, Wikipedia . I have my dress already. It’s pink and it has lace and I love it dearly. So at least I've figured out one piece of the puzzle. However, I’ve grown weary of the race to find a prom date. Actually, I’ve been tired of it since the beginning of the junior year. As all my friends gathered ‘round to express their sorrows about whether someone would ask them, I sat and thought really hard to about the possibility. Will someone ask me? As quickly as the interest took hold of me, I found myself equally uninterested, and ultimately stopped caring until March came around, aka, prom season. And now, with prom being in less than a week, I am taking a stand against the belief that girls (and guys) must go to prom with a date. Perhaps it is easier for a girl to go with girlfriends than a guy to go with a bunch of guys (social norms and all, but we’ll save that discussion for another day). However, this idea that prom is the end-all of high school and not having a date will leave you ultimately screwed or some sort of “loser” absolutely boggles my mind. It’s like all the talk of feminism and individualism and being able to do things on your own have fallen completely down the drain. Girls (and guys, although I’m pretty sure no guys read this,) I urge you to look at yourself in the mirror, or do what I do and just stare at the ceiling. Either way, do something that makes you reflect upon your own self, not some version of yourself. Really think about whether having a date to prom will, in the end, make your life any better than it already is now. Because if you do get yourself a date, you’ll have the pictures to show off to your friends, right? (#instagramnation?) Or, because in 20 years, you'll stand next to the person you love the most and say boy, I’m so glad I went to prom with what’s-his-face even though it has absolutely nothing to do with you. It. Doesn’t. Matter. Prom to me is a time to celebrate high school and the years we have before we enter the adult world filled with jobs and drama and real life consequences. Right now, we are teenagers in some of the best years of our lives. I know it isn't easy, so don't think this is all coming from a place of ignorance. We work hard and we get stressed and it sucks a lot of the time, but why sulk at something that is being thrown to celebrate all the bridges we've built and crossed? Who we go or don’t go to prom with doesn’t really impact that. So to all my single ladies, put your hands up. Get ready to dance. Get ready to have a great time, and stop thinking about what people expect you to do and start thinking about what you expect of yourself. And keep in mind that as pro-dateless as I am, I am not anti-date. However you will be attending prom, just surround yourself with people you like and have fun. Stop stressing. The end. Stay Classy Valley,
The Cutest Little Mugs That You Ever A mug for your tea? Yes please! Check out these adorable mugs for the next time you're craving a hot cup of tea during the blistery winter weather! Stay Classy Valley,
All The Places You'll GoOur world is a magnificent place filled with giant trees and pink lakes and beautiful people. Today, we are going to share some of that beauty with you, so kick back, put on your favorite jams , and whisk yourself away into a breathtaking journey throughout the world's wonders. Antelope Canyon The Navajo named for Upper Antelpe Canyon is Tsé bighánílínì, or, "the place where water runs through rocks." Located on Navajo lands near Page, Arizona, Antelope Canyons attracts many tourists and photographers because of its immense natural beauty The Maldives The Maldives are an island nation located in the Indian-Arabian Sea. Next to the Equator, southwest of Sri Lanka, this beautiful country is full of character and culture; a geographical marvel. Strasbourg Stasbourg is located right on the border of France and Germany, and the capitol city of the Alsace region. From personal experience, Strasbourg is unlike any city I've ever visited, filled with vibrant colors and busy cafés and an interested mix of German and French cultures. The Northern Lights Also known as the Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights are one of the most admired sights in Northern Norway. Explore it's beauties through snowmobile safaris, cross-country skiing, and even dog sledding! Cinque Terre Cinque Terre is a beautifully lazy city located along the Italian Riviera with lots of charm due to the lack of corporate development. It's all sand, sun and scenery. Where will you be going?
Feeling stressed? Take a Spa Day! What you'll need: Some good tunes Comfy clothes Candles 3 Avocados 2 lemons, sliced in half Lemon Juice (or just one extra lemon) Exfoliating wipes 1 Cucumber Mugs filled with water (cucumber/lemon water!) Facial Wash Facial Cream Hand Cream Any junk food you want Other spa-treatment materials of your choice (pre-made scrubs, tea-tree oil, etc..) *Ingredients were made for the use of 5 girls! Change them up to fit your needs What to do: Slip on those socks and crank up those tunes! We used Spotify's Yoga and Meditation. So relaxing! Get everything ready! First: Exfoliate your face with wipes. We used Burt’s Bees but you could just as easily use another brand. Second: Take the halved lemons and cover them in sugar. Then, gently rub it all over your face. Leave it on for about 10 minutes, and then gently wash off with warm water. Third: Once you have washed everything off, it's time to break into the avocado. It'll be gross at first, but we promise, the outcome is so worth it! Rub this stuff all over your face. Once done, crank up that meditation music, dim the lights, place two cucumbers over your eyes, and relax for roughly half an hour (but trust us, you'll never want to get up.) The cucumbers are pleasantly cooling and the music makes it really relaxing. Use this as a time to reflect on your thoughts or just clear your mind. Once finished, rinse the mask off with warm water. Your skin should be super smooth. Then, wash your face using a gentle cleanser and then immediately moisturize. But you're not done yet... Remember when we told you to take out other spa materials you had? Time to experiment! On hand, we had some awesome hand scrubs from Trader Joe’s and they smelled amazing. Lastly, take all the extra brown sugar you have a mix it with a little bit of olive oil and a small squeeze of lemon for a quick n' easy lip scrub. Benefits of main ingredients used... Avocado: Avocado contains antioxidants, vitamis E, C, B, A, K, B2, and B1. It holds a ton of skin-friendly fatty acids that help tone face muscles, eliminate whiteheads, acne, and other skin imperfections. Avocado also helps promote (literally) glowing skin because it contains folic acid. Lemon: Not only are they a mild exfoliant when applied to the skin, but they are also antibacterial and so contain cleansing properties that allow pores to prevent future breakouts. Lemon juice also has the power to lighten dark spots and scars. Brown Sugar: Softer than other salt scrubs, it is still strong enough to scrub away dead cells and make way for healthier skin to grow. Brown sugar also contains glycolic acid, which fights bacteria. Brown sugar absorbs moisture from your environment and deposits it into your skin, keeping it hydrated and conditioned (and it tastes great). We hope this inspires you to plan your own kick-back and relax spa day! Thank you to Talia, Caroline, Olivia, and Brianne for helping me with this! Stay Classy Valley,
Last-Minute Gifts! Happy Holidays! But is it really that happy? Pressures to buy gifts, whether for family or all those secret santa groups you (regretfully) joined at the beginning of the year, gifts can make the holidays much more stressful than needed. That's why we at the Valley Gal want to help: here are a list of some wonderful, creative (and easy) last-minute gifts to get before the holiday season ends! For book-lovers: Ebook or magazine subscription! Whether for a month of for a year, a reading subscription is the perfect gift for any bookworm. Check out Amazon’s list of magazines and Oyster, the new Netflix for books! On the flip side, why not buy a Netflix subscription for your movie-loving friends! Or, surprise your friend with an Amazon Prime subscription (discounted for students!) For the fashionistas: Lucky for you guys, we have this covered already: check out our "student perks" article to find stores that with give you discounts, and definitely stop into Westwood's Ludovica for some super trendy new clothes that everyone will love! For candy lovers: Check out Amazon’s Best-Sellers for candies and chocolates! Wanna get creative? A mixed music CD is a great way to give someone a personalized gift! We hope this helped to take some of the pressure off! Need something close by? Stop into TJ Maxx for great discounted gifts or Mindy’s Munchies! Happy Holidays!
Stop Falling AsleepFalling asleep in the middle of the day has become a norm for many of us in high school. Whether is was the pounds of homework, "just one more episode" on Netflix, or the endless thoughts swarming around our heads at night, our constant inability to sleep is getting the best of us, and it's becoming hazardous to our health. Not sleeping is making us fat When we don't sleep enough, our metabolism slows down to conserve energy. This, in turn, triggers the release of the hormone cortisol, which increases your appetite. Sleep loss also causes our bodies to release more ghrelin, another hormone that signals hunger, and less leptin, the hormone that tells your body when it's full. Aside from causing off-kilter hormones, being awake later simply give you more time to snack, which can also contribute to weight-gain. Sleep enables us to understand better When we sleep, we take what we learned during the day and process it, form connections, draw inferences, and help ourselves better understand things for the next day. Trying to study for a test? Don't bother cramming if it's too late at night - you will not only not remember it the next day, but your brain won't have enough time to process the information. You'll have better luck in the morning once you've rested up. Essentially, the more you learn, the more sleep you need. "A loss of one hour of sleep is equivalent to [the loss of] two years of cognitive maturation and development." Sleep contributes to depression? It's no secret that as high schoolers, we get less sleep than we did when we were younger. However, this often causes our quality of life to decrease. One study at the University of Kentucky, which analyzed how decreased sleep effects teens, found that with each year of high school, not only will the amount you sleep decrease, but your so will your mood. "In their first year, 60% of kids got at least eight hours on average. By the second year, that was down to 30%. Right alongside this decline went their moods; dropping below eight hours doubled the rate of clinical-level depression."
So, you want to sleep better? Here are some tips: 1) Keep a regular sleep schedule: this will enable your circadian rhythms, or, internal body clock, to keep at a steady rhythm, allowing you to wake up and go to bed at a regular time. 2) Cut down on caffeine after 2 pm: it stays in your system for up to 8 hours 3) Stay away from bright lights at night, wake up to bright lights in the morning: light is a powerful signal to your brain for awareness - constant exposure to it will keep you awake 4) Before bedtime snack? Make it crackers and cheese - foods that contain carbs and calcium or protein contain the amino acid tryptophan, which will boost serotonin, a naturally concurring chemical that helps your brain feel calm. Other ideas include whole grain toast with cheese or turkey, banana with peanut butter, whole grain cereal, fruit and low-fat yogurt. I hope this was a real wake up call for all you late night netflix watchers and homework-doers. Sleep is important and it's important that we don't sacrifice it. Thanks for reading, guys! The quotes used in this article can be found in the full article "The Lost Hour" here
You Are Strong and Beautiful Special announcement! The Pascack Valley softball team is selling amazing shirts for $20. Not only will they go towards funding for the team, but they will also go on to support an incredibly worthy cause. Coach Sachs was kind enough to provide us with some background on how you can make a positive impact by buying one of these super-awesome shirts. "Personally, I lost a former student that I really cared about to suicide this past summer. It motivated me to do more to help those in need. I combined that with all my softball fundraising efforts and decided that a portion of our proceeds are to be donated to a Mental Health charity (I will have the specific one named very soon--I'm waiting to hear back from the child's family so they can choose the charity). Every dollar donated is a dollar more than they have." There are two shirts: one that says beautiful and one that says strong. However, the words will be backwards! "The overall message is positive affirmation. The words are written in reflection so when one looks into the mirror, they read the word correctly. I think this happens a lot in life; we have skewed perceptions of ourselves. Sometimes we just need a little push to rewire our thoughts :-)" "I chose the words strong and beautiful because they can mean (so many) things. I'm thinking beyond vanity; it's the emotional and mental significance that matters. The idea behind the words is what is important and that's what we're 'selling.' We all need to feel self-worth and I think Pascack Valley is a supportive community and we can all get 'on board' with the 'Strong and Beautiful' movement." If you want to support this worthy cause, you can purchase a shirt from myself or anyone else on the softball team! Use #strong&beautiful on your social networks to help spread awareness. Always remember! <-- Stay Classy Valley,
Student PerksHey Valley! We know that being a student doesn’t come cheap, nor is it easy with the huge workload that can lead to more stress. However, we’re here to tell about why being a student isn’t all so bad - with the use of your student ID, many stores will offer awesome student discounts! Check them out! JCrew Show your college student ID at any J.Crew store, and you’ll get 15% off all full prices items Topshop Topshop 10% off online and in store with Topshop (this does not apply to the Topshop section in Nordstrom) Banana Republic Take 15% off your full-priced purchases at Banana Republic stores with your valid ID Juicy Couture Many students report that with your ID, you can get 15% off at Juicy Couture stores Madewell Students can get 15% off at Madewell just for sharing their ID Kate Spade Kate Spade shares a 15% discount when you show your student ID in stores Apple If you shop the Apple Store for Education, you can save up to $200 on a new Mac and up to $20 on a new Ipad Sony You can save up to 10% or more at the Sony Education Store Microsoft Save up to 10% or more on Microsoft PCs and up to $194 on the Surface Pro 3 Amazon Students get six months of Amazon Prime for free, which normally costs about $70. This allows them to get free two-day shipping and one-day shipping for $3.99 on all orders. Here is a great website to discover many other deals (including travel)! What will you do with your student ID? Stay Classy Valley,
Why Aren't I Good at Math and Other In a society where math and sciences are held to the utmost importance, those of us who have trouble understanding our basic 2+2's often feel left in the dust. My struggle with math began way back when in the first grade where we were given waxy white papers with red counting dots on them. Soon, these dots taught us to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. My head was spinning with the abundance of numbers being thrown at my face and I often ended my nights in screaming sessions with my mother, arguing, "No! That is NOT how they taught us! NO, I can’t remember how they taught us but that’s NOT IT!" My little first-grade mind stubbornly would not see any other way to solve the problem, although looking back, I would have made my life a lot easier by not using the useless and often over-complicated "tricks" my teachers taught us and just listening to my mom. This only marked the beginning of a never-ending and often stressful battle with math. Throughout the rest of elementary and middle school, I would endlessly visit teachers for extra help, try to gain insight from tutors, and drive myself crazy for not seeing any results. As I got older, I became increasingly dispirited when I realized how important people made math out to be, and why being good at it was even more important. The high-paying jobs it could get you, the colleges that would want you, and the teachers and peers that would praise you all became increasingly troublesome to think about. Luckily, high school gives many options for people who need certain requirements to help them achieve the end result, which is, ultimately, being able to understand what is being taught. We take classes based on our brain’s ability to keep up with the information. When it comes to math, my brain functions a little slower, so these options give me the chance to learn at my own pace. However, this wasn’t always apparent to me. I would constantly compare myself to my peers, which often magnified my frustration with math, as well as decrease my confidence in my own abilities. I come from a group of friends who (to me, at least) have appeared seemingly successful with just about everything they do. By comparing myself to them and their own achievements (something I know we’re all guilty of), I increasingly felt more ashamed of myself. Why couldn’t I be more like them? What took me all too long to realize was that I had answered my own question long ago - I am not like my friends. In fact, I am not like anyone else. Neither are you. That is why we are unique. There is only one of you in the whole entire world, and everything that you are interested in and love doing, that you value, that you enjoy; it makes you who you are. I don’t think we give ourselves and our abilities enough credit. We like to compare ourselves to other people, but in doing this, we are being unfair to ourselves because comparing yourself to another person is like comparing apples to oranges. You're both different, and that's OK. You are amazing. You may not be good at everything, but who is? I’m still getting over the fact that I will probably never be good at math. However, we all have interests, values, and things we love to do, which make up for the things we’re not so great at. You may love a class you’re taking, or a sport you play. You may love watching movies, that new Essie color, or an author whose new book you’ve been dying to read. You may say that these loves and interests are not important because they are not what is normally ranked as important, but know this; people don’t like you because you fit the norm. They like you and respect you for your individuality. So here is my advice to you: if you have not already done so, start marching to the beat of your own drum. Pursue things that interest you, laugh a lot, don’t take anything too seriously, and if you lose track a little, ask yourself this: will all of this be important five years from now? Remember, there are no other yous out there. I am perfectly imperfect. Are you? Respond @TheValleyGal using #perfectlyimperfect on twitter! Stay classy Valley,
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