Ahhh, there's nothing quite like lounging on my big red comfy couch. I'm just glad the craziness of the last 24 hours has finally calmed down!
Does anyone else feel like labeling a day as "bad" automatically makes it worse? Between the passport situation, the emergency hair appointment and my mom's forgotten wallet fiasco, today certainly wasn't easy, but by late afternoon I found myself in a seriously sour mood. So sour, in fact, that I almost threw a bitch fit in the middle of the supermarket when every single blueberry container looked wrinkly and moldy. "Well, there's something else to make this a bad day!"
The thing is that on a "good" day, I wouldn't even bat an eyelash at moldy blueberries (how silly does that sound?). Once you classify a day as "bad," it means that every single thing that didn't go as you'd planned only reinforces the "badness." Get cut off in traffic? Cell phone freezes? Long cashier line? Suddenly, little every day annoyances become a big deal. There's no denying that some days are just better than others, but the days that are actually bad enough to get really upset over rarely happen.
One thing that I've really found helps kill a bad mood is to ask myself whether this will matter in a year. 99 out of 100 times, I probably won't even remember what happened. It really helps to put things into perspective. So, that's exactly what I did once I'd gotten home and unloaded my non-moldy blackberries. I took a deep breath, went for a quick walk with Maggie, and heated up something I knew I'd like for dinner.
Since I liked the last Tandoori Chef meal I had (which was in a post that Blogger deleted), this evening I opted to try a different flavor: the chana masala. Again, good ingredients and stats:
After heating it up, I plopped it onto a bed of spring mix for some extra veggies.
I was actually surprised at how spicy it was! I'm used to super-wimpy spice in most prepackaged "Indian" foods, and while this wasn't quite as hot as I usually like, it wasn't in the least bit bland. 2 for 2 with Tandoori Chef!
I also had the last of the New Jersey strawberries:
Plus the last peanut butter chocolate chip cookie and about a third of a coconut-berry muffin my mom brought home from some random cafe yesterday.
After dinner, I was in the mood to bake something (making sweets is one of my favorite ways to unwind). Last night Mike and I were talking about the dark chocolate peanut butter cups I always used to make, so they were the first thing that came to mind!
The recipe for these Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Peanut Butter Cups is super easy:
- 1 bag good-quality semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used Ghirardelli)
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 1/4 - 1/2 cup natural chunky peanut butter, refrigerated
- roasted salted peanuts, for garnish
First, I lined two mini muffin tins (24 muffins) with cupcake wrappers. I poured the chocolate chips into a microwave-safe bowl and melted them by microwaving twice at 50% power for 90 seconds, adding the sea salt and stirring once in between. Using two spoons, I put about a tablespoon of chocolate into each of the muffin tins, then put them in the freezer for a few minutes to solidify. Next, I rolled teaspoon-sized chunks of peanut butter into balls with my fingers, then put them on top of the chocolate base before adding another spoonful of chocolate to cover them. I quickly added a the peanuts for garnish, popped them back into the freezer for a few minutes, and voila!
Really easy, and I think everyone in the world loves them. The peanut toppers make them look way more gourmet than they really are!
Lying low and getting some sleep tonight. Maggie needs some cuddles!
Do you agree that negative thoughts tend to snowball if you let them? How to you change a bad attitude?
