Black pepper is not found in the produce aisle.

It was my turn to make family dinner for my roommates, so I decided I would go all out and make my mom's super secret, award-winning Cincinnati chili recipe.

A quick side note about Cincinnati chili for those who have never had it before: It's unlike any chili you've ever eaten. There are no beans in it and you eat it on noodles. When I announced to my roommates I would be making chili, the response was along the lines of, 'I don't like chili.' Except everyone loved it.

Anyway, this was the first time I'd ever made this chili and I'd never watched my mom make it so all I really had was the recipe to follow. And my phone to call my mom. I'm at the grocery store buying all the ingredients, which include ground beef, red pepper, black pepper and a bunch of spices. Using my superior grocery store knowledge, I walk into the produce section and find myself a red pepper. Then I start looking everywhere for a black pepper.

I have this fear of asking stupid questions in the grocery store (completely justifiable, too), so after getting all the other ingredients and still missing this black pepper, I call up my mom. I tell her I found a red pepper, but WHERE are the black peppers?? She just laughs at me and explains that black pepper is a spice (like, the pepper that's in a pepper shaker) and that the red pepper is also a spice, so put that bell pepper back.

Whooooooops! So I put the bell pepper back, grab the right peppers and go home and make the chili. Which turned out delicious. Then, months later, as I'm visiting home for the holidays, my mom brings up this whole situation again. I try to defend myself with a, "how was I supposed to know?!" My mom's argument is that she has failed as a mother because I never watched her cook or went to the store with her to know that black pepper is a spice.

Then she started saying something about a Home Ec class or something... sorry mom, too busy taking math and science classes for that!

Pouring an entire bottle of mint extract in something will make it taste like toothpaste.

My roommate and I decided to have a baking night one night, so I turned to Pinterest to find a delicious recipe. One of the very first pins on my feed was for these chocolate peppermint patty cupcakes. YUM. So I made them.

The recipe was simple and pretty easy to follow, and I would recommend it! The cupcake part was super easy, but where I ran into problems was when I had to make the icing.

The recipe said to just use Cool Whip for icing and mix in a little bit of mint extract to make it taste minty and a little bit of green food coloring to make it look minty. I did that and I thought it needed to be more green, so I reached for the green food coloring to add more in.

Turns out I actually grabbed the bottle of mint extract and poured nearly the entire thing into the icing mix. The bottles are very similar in that they are both small, have green on them, and have the same twisty top. Easy mistake to make, really.

The icing ended up tasting like toothpaste and whole kitchen smelled like mint. I still put it on the cupcakes, though, because it was really pretty. The actual cupcake part turned out great, so you just have to scrape off all of the icing before you eat it. My current theory, though, is if you do eat the icing it's actually good for your teeth, since it tastes like toothpaste.

Cookie cutters work better when sprayed with nonstick spray.

One day I was on Pinterest just wasting some time when I stumbled across this pin for hot pink chocolate chip cookies. Hot pink! It's basically just chocolate chip cookies with food coloring added to the cookie dough. Genius! How have I never thought of this before?! I decided to try out the recipe, except one up it and make my cookies orange.

The recipe from the original website was excellent! What it doesn't say, though, is that this is for a serving of about 50 regular sized cookies. Also it doesn't tell you how long to bake for, so for those of you who are like me and aren't super cooking experts, try approximately 16 minutes at 375 degrees (definitely burnt my first batch, oops).

As if orange cookies aren't already magical enough, I decided to add to the magic with this really cool cookie cutter I bought on Amazon. I was online shopping shortly after Christmas, spending my Christmas money, and I was going to buy a bunch of really cool stuff, like a Lazy Susan for the kitchen, an orange case and keyboard cover for my laptop, an orange case for my phone, and screen protector for my phone (long overdue). While I was at it, I decided to just throw in a unicorn cookie cutter.

It was probably one of the best purchases I've ever made. My cookies became orange unicorns and 100% magical. The only problem was the horn (corn?), legs and tail of this cookie cutter were pretty small and the cookie dough kept getting stuck and making deformed unicorns. I busted out the nonstick cooking spray and the problem was solved!

Unfortunately, all the unicorns got really fat in the oven and in the end I made 40 delicious, orange unicorns (that resembled rhinoceroses).

Always keep a pair of gloves in the car.

I woke up one normal winter day, went to the gym, ate breakfastlunch and then headed off to work. The sun was shining and the temperature was pretty average for the season (somewhere around 35-40 degrees). The extent of my outside time was pretty much 20 steps from home to car and then 20 more steps from car to work, so I only wore my light heavy jacket.

Heaviness of my jacket depends on the season. I have a light jacket for temperatures in the 60-range, a heavy light jacket for temperatures a little cooler in the 50-range, a light heavy jacket for temperatures falling into the 40-range, a heavy jacket for temperatures falling to freezing, and anything below that usually calls for two or more jackets. It's a science.

Anyway, I went to work and did my job. During my shift, though, some snow storm just rolls through. It started out as ice then turned into snow and it got super cold. After my shift, I went out to my car and this is what awaited me:

It was pretty cool because no one had left yet so it was all freshly fallen snow. This would have been totally fine except under all this snow was a layer of ice.

My car was completely frozen. Literally. I couldn't even open it because it was frozen. I had to ask one of the guys I was working with to come help me pry open my door. Once I got it open I had to figure out where my ice scraper was. Usually I keep it in my backseat but it wasn't there. For a minute I thought I had lost it, but it was just in the trunk. The next challenge was scraping off the ice. It's already pretty much the worst thing ever, but it's even worse when you're not bundled up and you have no gloves.

It took a really long time to get all the ice off. The whole time snow was falling all over my hands so when it was finally clear enough to drive my hands were basically frozen and I couldn't really hold the steering wheel. The next day I put a pair of gloves in the glove box (haha, punny!) so I will always be prepared to scrape ice off my car.

There is a difference between 'i.e.' and 'e.g.'

I'm in the computer lab at school typing up a document when, for the first time ever, I find myself in a situation where I need to use 'i.e.' or 'e.g.' I'm not really an 'i.e.' or 'e.g.' person which is mostly because I had no idea what the difference between them is and I do not want to use them wrong and look stupid.

But it was extremely appropriate to use them in this situation and there was no substitute. So I looked it up.

Both are abbreviations for Latin terms. According to quickanddirtytips.com, i.e stands for id est which means 'that is,' and e.g. stands for exempli gratia which means 'for example.'

You might be thinking to yourself that they mean pretty much the same thing and can probably be used interchangeably. No. There's a difference. Refer to the following trick from quickanddirtytips.com:

Forget about i.e. standing for "that is" or whatever it really means in Latin. From now on, i.e., which starts with i, means “in other words,” and e.g., which starts with e, means “for example.” I = in other words. E= example.

E.g. is used to introduce examples and i.e. is used for further clarification.

FOR EXAMPLE:
I like sugary foods (e.g., cookies, pie and cake).
I hate almost all fruit with only a few exceptions (i.e., apples, bananas and watermelon).

My sugary foods list is not comprehensive, I like many more sugary foods in addition to cookies, pie and cake (examples). My fruit list is all inclusive. The only fruits I like are apples, bananas and watermelon (further clarification).

Also, AP style calls for a comma after the last period in both e.g. and i.e.

If you can't use them right, don't use them at all!

When painting, invest in the slightly more expensive paint.

I've recently gotten into crafting the things I see on Pinterest. There's some really cool stuff on there and it's so much more fun than doing homework or studying. Someone pinned a picture for instructions on how to make photo canvases, where you basically Mod-Podge photos onto canvases. They looked super cool and relatively easy, and since I recently moved in my walls were pretty bare, so it was perfect!

How to make them:

1. Unless your picture is as big as or bigger than your canvas you need to paint the borders in whatever color you think is appropriate.
2. Cut up scrapbook paper and Mod-Podge it to the side edges of the photo canvas. This gives it a more 3D frame look.

3. Mod-Podge (matte, not glossy) the photo onto the the canvas and paint several layers of Mod-Podge over the photo on the canvas to make it look like it's actually printed on the canvas.

For these photos, as you can see, I used black paint for the border. I spent awhile at the store staring at all the different types of paint I could use for this project before finally settling on the super cheap $2 bottle. It was definitely not worth it because I ended up having to paint like five layers to make the border look solid black. It took several days because I had to wait for each coat to fully dry and it was super annoying.

I'm making another set of these with my mom's pictures from Hawaii for her birthday. I switched it up from a black border to a pretty turquoise border, so I had to get more paint. This time I went for the slightly more expensive acrylic paint, and I only had to do two coats. It took approximately 20 minutes to finish up all of them and it looked great. This acrylic paint was only a few dollars more expensive, so I'd say it was worth it.

Note: The photo will cover most of the canvas so it isn't necessary to paint the entire canvas.

I used pretty turquoise scrapbook paper to match and I'm waiting for it to fully dry before I Mod-Podge the photos on!

The dentist is the epitome of evil.

This story goes way back to the year 2007. I was a sophomore in high school and I went to the dentist for my regularly scheduled teeth cleaning. Back then I still lived at home and my mother was able to force me to go to the dentist for these cleanings twice a year, as recommended. This particular appointment went great and they said my teeth looked fine and sent me on my way.

But then, two days later, I got a terrible toothache and had to go back. Turns out, I needed a root canal. Awesome. Thanks Dr. Dentist for catching that the first time around. I'm convinced he put something in my mouth and caused this to happen. They referred me over to Dr. Root Canal and he confirmed I was in need of a root canal. So he drills up my teeth and the whole thing was pretty miserable.

All was well until the end of this summer as I was saying my goodbyes to the wonderful city of London. I only had three days left of my fabulous study abroad experience and I got the worst toothache ever. At first I just thought it was a cavity, but then it got really bad and the pain consumed my every thought. My mom called the dentist who told her it was probably an infection, so my last day in London was spent in agony in the urgent care center as I waited for antibiotics.

To give you an idea of how much pain I was in, just think about the worst pain you've ever experienced and multiply that by 10. I'm surprised I didn't overdose on Excedrin. The pain meds I got from the London doctor helped, but it was still the worst pain I've ever experienced. Once I got back to the States I went to Dr. Dentist who confirmed this was an infection and referred me back to Dr. Root Canal.