Hola Kats & Kittens! Well, I’ve never done a food recipe post here but I am constantly posting pics of all my homemade recipes on Instagram (instagram.com/awkwardgirlla) and thought that I should post a quick, budget friendly, and easy date night meal that will totally impress your date! I guarantee you will end your night with a hardcore make-out session, or just end up in bed having the most amazing love making session ever.
Okay, okay, I can’t in all honesty 100% guarantee that due to legal reasons, but I will say that I highly recommend that you make this meal and it will kinda, maybe, probably, most likely, in all ways, sorta happen. Now let me also state that I recently took a trip to the 99 cent store to buy cleaning products-as we all do-and found Silicone Baking Cups! If you are not a foodie or baker than let me explain how rad that is. Silicone baking cups are amazeballs! They prevent your cupcakes from sticking, are reusable and help to distribute heat evenly when you bake, so basically they are a win-win for everyone involved! So, high-tail your cute little selves over to the 99 cent store where you can not only pick up the baking cups but can also purchase other ingredients for both of these recipes as well. Let’s make some Tortilla Soup and Chocolate Cupcakes!
Dating is not cheap, and if you’re like me-and never get asked out on dates-I mean, if you’re like me, sometimes you have to date on a budget. I as you all know am an L.A. native born and raised, and after my friend asked me where her and her husband could celebrate their anniversary for $100, I came up with these five ideas that I thought I should share with you! Los Angeles is filled with really expensive restaurants, bars, cars, handbags, dogs, shoes and people, but not all of us can spend $200 per week on a date right? Wait, now I’m wondering if a guy has ever spent $200 on a date with me…ummm…Netflix is like $10 a month right? Let’s just move on. While there is nothing wrong with a Netflix date my friends, I do strongly suggest you hold off on the Netflix date for the first few weeks. Whether you’re an L.A. native, transport or just visiting, why not try these five suggestions for under $100?!
Date Spot #1) Perch LA: 448 South Hill St.
There are so many reasons to fall in love at this place! Both of the pictures in this post were taken by me at this establishment. Not only can you literally dine on the edge of one of downtown’s most amazing rooftops (located on the 15th floor of the Hill building), but they also have not one but two bars, with one being located on the first floor of the bar, and the other on the rooftop outside. There is also this mysterious and sexy entrance, yes I typed entrance, that you take just to get up there…one elevator takes you to another elevator that has an actual Silver Bird for the button to press that will guide your elevator to Perch. Very sexy! Did I also mention that they have a live jazz band, an insane Happy Hour (4-6pm), and hello the views are to die for!
At Perch you and you date will have a 360 degree view of downtown Los Angeles that is just as spectacular by sunset as it is in the morning (hello, brunch date). The menu is fantastic and I am partial to their Grilled Caesar Salad with Chicken. The chicken melts in your mouth and is cooked to tender perfection, and the salad is literally grilled, a half of romaine is grilled and topped with creamy goodness that is such a hearty portion, you could share it with your date.
I am a huge dessert aficionado and their White Chocolate Bread Pudding is drenched in a Bourbon glaze and served with fresh fruit. Do I really need to say more? The menu options are fancy (that’s an SAT word hahahah) but, like I said one portion can feed two, so it’s a win-win for your wallet and your romance meter will be at like, ten thousand percent. Just be prepared to get super romantic, kissy, loving and score huge points with your date! Thank me later.
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I dated a nice guy once. He was the sweetest guy ever and I dumped him. Let me set the scene…it was fourth grade, the year was 1990, and Billy, my boyfriend at school was not really the guy I liked the best, but he liked me the most. For Halloween he had a trick-or-treat party and his parents said they liked me. Being that I was one of two black girls in the school and there son was white and we were ten…they were pretty cool about it!
Billy was very attentive and would always hang out with me during recess, sit next to me in class or stare at me all googly-eyed throughout the day. Then…it ended. He went on a family vacation to Hawaii and brought me back a few gifts; a necklace and a box of chocolate covered macadamia nuts. That was it. The last straw. I decided Billy was smothering me, and dumped him. I remember sitting in class and he did not sit next to me. He stared at me with a broken heart and puppy dog eyes, and after the resident “bad boy” of our grade named Ryan, that I liked rejected me yet again, I instantly regretted breaking up with Billy.
Here’s the thing about “Nice Guys”…they get a bad rap. They are usually the dorky sidekick in a film or the band geek hiring someone to be their girlfriend in a movie. They almost always are portrayed as bad dressers, glasses wearers, and nasal voice having guys with no chest hair. They are always way into a girl that’s “too pretty” or “too cool” to go out with them so they pine after her as they watch her make-out with the “Bad Boy” in town.
The “Bad Boy” on the other hand is dope! He has an insane amount of swagger, is typically the best dressed, the most liked, and has mad bass in his voice. The “Bad Boy” is always spurning the advances of girls and women who literally swoon and catch the vapors as he walks by finger pointing and winking his eye at the same time (all Bad Boys must know how to perform this simultaneous action).
The “Bad Boy” always smells good, has like ten girlfriends at once, who all fight over him, and never gets pimples. He is desirable because he seems so unattainable. He is raw, sexual and mesmerizing. The “Bad Boy” has that…that…sexy something that makes you want to throw your panties at him every-damn-time-you-see-him. Even when he does the finger point/wink combo! Continue reading
One day in 2009, Halloween to be exact, my mom and I went shopping at the mall and began looking for wedding dresses. Let me set the scene; my ex-boyfriend and I had been together over one year and he wanted us to move in together. I did not. I have written about him before…he’s the jerk I lived with and broke up with me over text message. Yes, that happened. Anyway we moved in together after all, and things were going well…and when he told me he wants to marry me I said, sure.
The conversation pretty much went like this: Him: We should get married…maybe next summer? Me: Okay, maybe we can go to Jamaica. So…ummm…yes that’s how the conversation went. I mentioned it to my mom a few months later and here we were in the mall on Halloween and decided to go look at wedding dresses. First we went to Saks. My mom wanted to buy me one of those ten thousand dollar wedding dresses, and I thought that was the craziest idea ever, because who the hell really needs a dress that costs that much? I had the brilliant, (but not highly favored by her), idea to go over to the David’s Bridal store across the mall parking lot and just well, grab something.
Listen, all of these insane, never going to happen, literally not based on anything but one fact in common like, ‘You both like dogs!’, Match.com matches are absolutely ridiculous! Week four has felt like a complete waste of time. During weeks 1-3 I figured I had to give it time, and see if the Match system could work in my favor…damn that, this site is absurd. Why my anger? Those super fake Match.com commercials that air all day. This is why they annoy me:
#1) Match.com asks you to sign up to be a featured member, which will include being in a Match commercial.
#2) The people in the commercial literally look perfect.
#3) The daters in the commercial all have these “Oh so busy lives”, like running marathons, working in fashion, etc. and just have not one minute in their day to try and find someone new.
Leading a busy life is real. Working an amazing job is real. Going on a date with a perfect looking man/woman is real. What is also real is that Match does not in any way try to actually Match you with…well, your Match! I’ve already explained how their system works in weeks 1-3 posts so I won’t re-hash all of the semantics. What I will discuss or type, or bitch about is the lack of effort from this company and the overstated claims they preach about in these commercials. Continue reading
Dating sucks. First dates especially suck. It’s like you’re interviewing someone to decide whether or not they will play a role in your life and, let’s be frank, gain access to your lady parts. So, you meet a guy (or girl), exchange numbers, text for a few days, talk on the phone and decide you are interested, then comes the first date. Excitement at this point is at an all time high. For me it’s a mix of excitement and nausea, but I digress. No matter what you’re feeling there is always a hope that this person will become your “person”.
The first date goes really well and you end up talking for hours, he kisses you goodnight and tells you he had a great time…Cut to three days later and you still haven’t heard from him, so you think that he’s probably just playing it cool and send him a quick text to let him know you had a great time. Here it is two weeks later and it’s been total radio silence. You can’t help but wonder what the hell happened right? Did my breath stink, was my game off, what did I do?! Here are three reasons that may have played a part:
Reason #1) Expectations: Listen, having expectations is totally normal. I have expectations about everything in my life: I expect my hair to always look good, I expect my outfits to always make me look like a model, I expect to be a millionaire and I expect to be liked when I like someone. Does all of this sound rational? Perhaps not. Here is the thing about having high expectations…they are YOUR expectations. No one is making you feel anything. You have to own the fact that these expectations are your own and you are choosing to project them onto someone else.
You are not a princess, he is not a prince. You do not live in a castle. You are not friends with talking animals that help brush your hair in the morning. Expecting to find Mr or Mrs Right after date one may be a stretch, and expecting to have someone come into your life and all of a sudden make everything rainbows and roses is not fair to the person you’re on the date with. Expect to be treated with respect, expect to be appreciated for who you are, and expect to have a good time. Do not expect to be rescued, salvaged, saved, or given a tiara because it’s not going to happen. And, you don’t need it to! You are beautiful, smart, amazing and should have enough love for yourself that you don’t need to be rescued, but instead want to share your love with someone who deserves it. Crown your own self.
Reason #2) You Were Not Authentic: Being ourselves, and I mean our true selves can at times be scary. Here is what I mean by that…I am a total nerd, I watch a lot of Family Guy, Scooby Doo and The Regular Show. I unabashedly love cartoons, and 80’s music, especially Hall & Oats. Watching vintage films makes me happy, and so does riding my beach cruiser that I spray painted pink and covered with sparkles. These are just a few of the things that make me who I am and they can be just a tad embarrassing to reveal about yourself on a first date.
I know absolutely nothing about football nor do I care to know anything about it, but how many of us have pretended to be into it because the person we like is? We have all been there and why? Why pretend to be interested in something to please someone else? Then what happens is you come across as a liar because you will definitely be questioned about the subject you just pretended to be knowledgeable in and you will try to BS your way through an answer or have to lie to cover up for the fact that you lied initially!
The key to being yourself is not to be afraid to be yourself. On my next date if a guy asks me what I like to do I will let him know I am a writer, actress, avid reader…and I love cartoons, own a pink sparkly beach cruiser and listen to a lot of Hall & Oats. If he doesn’t like me for those reasons then he has to go. Be you, no matter what because in the end that is who this man (or woman) will have to love. Continue reading
Confession time: I push people away, I find a fault or create one and use that as an excuse to run away from whoever I am dating at the time. I haven’t always been this way…or maybe I have, but I am really trying to change my ways. There was one person in particular-I will refer to him as Mr. J-yes that moniker is completely unoriginal, but I am 98% sure he does not read my posts so using that lame moniker is totally okay in this instance.