Spicy Party Pretzels

In October, my cousin threw a birthday party for her little boy, and at the party she had out these yummy, spicy pretzels to nosh on. I couldn't stop eating them, and my mom really liked them too. We hatched a plan to make batches of them to give to our co-workers for Christmas, because the recipe is crazy easy and makes a ton at once. We put handfuls of the pretzels into pretty holiday containers from Dollar Tree, and voila...cute, tasty gifts! They were a hit! I can't tell you how many giftees sent texts asking for the recipe. And I may or may not have whipped up another batch for myself today.

Sugar, Spice, & Everything Nice

Today I finished reading Anna Kendrick's gem of a memoir/essay collection, Scrappy Little Nobody. As expected, her book was filled with witty stories about life as a budding movie star. What I didn't expect was how relatable and wise Anna would turn out to be. This little passage struck a chord with me:

"I gave up on being Nice. I started putting more value on other qualities instead: passion, bravery, intelligence, practicality, humor, patience, fairness, sensitivity. Those last three might seem like they are covered by 'nice,' but make no mistake, they are not. A person who smiles a lot and remembers everyone's birthday can turn out to be undercover crazy, a compulsive thief, and boring to boot. I don't put a lot of stock in nice. I'd prefer to be around people who have any of the above qualities over 'niceness,' and I'd prefer it if that applied to me, too. I'm also okay if the most accurate description of me is nervous, and a little salty. But at least I know what I want to strive for."

I feel like I get the Nice label a lot. "You're a nice teacher." "You're way too nice to actually say that." "You are soooo nice!" Don't get me wrong...all of that is (ahem) nice to hear. But maybe it's time to make like the cast of The Real World and stop being being polite. It's time to start getting real.

Part of the trap I fall into as a teacher is wanting my students to like me. I'm finally starting to learn that Niceness isn't the only part of the likability equation. It goes back to what Anna says; other qualities are important too. Here's to being more passionate, brave, intelligent, practical, humorous, patient, fair, and sensitive in 2017. And a little bit meaner.

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My bookshelves have always been crowded, but throughout 2016, they became even more crowded. In fact, I bought a new bookshelf in the summer that has already reached overflowing status. Even my Kindle shelves seem more stuffed than usual. Between my Book Of The Month subscription, trips to Goodwill, Kindle deal purchases, and other miscellaneous book aquisitions, my personal library is getting out of control. And when I really stop to take stock of what I've got, the unread list is much, much longer than the read list. So, in 2017, I'm determined to flip the script with the help of a reading challenge or two.

The challenge I'm most committed to and the one that's going to help me knock a ton of titles off my To Be Read List is the Litsy A To Z Challenge. (Litsy, btw, is a wonderful social media platform for book lovers.) The criteria of the challenge is to simply read one book for each letter of the alphabet. The choices can be based on the first letter of the first word of the title (excluding articles, of course) or the first letter of the author's last name. Drumroll, please...here's the list I put together for the challenge: