Did Someone Say Beyonce...?

Hi y'all!

To begin with, in the past few days a few exciting things have been happening:

Y'all have given me such a positive response to the launch of this blog, so THANK YOU! It means so much to me that you guys checked it out and let me know you liked it. No matter how much planning I put in to something, whether it be an academic endeavor or a personal project, I inevitably get stressed and nervous about it. I was totally freaking out on Wednesday about this project, which I literally (not even joking, you guys...) spent about 2 months of my life on what with planning and coding and writing and pulling out my hair and throwing crumpled paper in a trashcan and screaming into a pillow. I'm a *bit* of a perfectionist, and I knew I needed to get this blog just right before launching and it took me forever to be happy with it. But you guys are fanTASTIC and made all the hard work worth it!

Also, can we talk about how I was retweeted by EmpowerNU, the campaign for Northeastern University which aims to raise $1 billion by 2017!! The name is spot on, I'm feelin' pretty empowered by this:

I've provided the link to the Empower site, which provides all the details about the campaign (for those of you who don't know what it is). Go educate yourselves! Northeastern's doin' some pretty cool things out in the world today and this is just one of them. It means so so SO much to me that they took notice and are a fan of my blog (even with just one post on the site). So shout out to them, thank you thank you thank you *insert confetti emoji here*

Other cool things? I had people in Canada, Spain, the UK, and Germany reading my blog, so that was pretty awesome. Not sure how you found me but I'd love for you to stick with me! (Pros? I'm cute and have a love of guacamole! Cons? None???)

Y'all are incredible. That is all.

(I actually *do* have content for today that ISN'T just fangirling and thank you's, believe it or not.)

Today I'm taking some time to highlight something I mentioned last week, but more in depth. (Remember CoffeeBars?) 

One of my goals in college has been to improve myself in as many ways as I can. In high school, I never worked out and I didn't much care about what I put into my body. I've never been overweight, but for most of high school I constantly felt tired and run-down and basically, feeling that way doesn't fit into my lifestyle at ALL. I'm an on-the-go, constantly busy woman (did someone say Beyonce...?) who needs aaaaall the energy to go to classes, give campus tours, work 4-5 hours a day, socialize with friends, study my ass off, and still stay sane (and that's all in a NORMAL day....crazy, right?)

In fact, one of the main reasons I became a vegetarian was to boost my energy and feel better in general. Meat has the tendency to make me feel run-down and bloated, which I only discovered after coming to college! At home, I ate meat every night and when I was bloated all the time, I couldn't pinpoint the exact reason why. Here in Boston, I was eating meat much less often and the few times I did, I felt awful the day after. Problem. Solved.

I cut out meat and the rest is history! But now, I'm taking everything to the next level. Just "being vegetarian" doesn't make you inherently healthy; in fact, you need to very closely monitor what you eat in order to get the right amount of protein, since meat is typically the largest source of protein in one's diet. Things that also provide protein? Greek yogurt, nuts, eggs, quinoa, tofu, rice and beans, edamame, peanut butter, orrrr you could always make a morning smoothie with protein powder.

BUT WAIT.

What does all this have to do with CoffeeBars??

So like I said before, I'm making an effort to be healthier in many ways, not *just* by cutting meat out of my diet. As a college student, I'm living on a college budget, and can't afford a lot of things (read: anything), so what money I make while working in between classes goes to tuition and food. I've made as much room in my budget for food as possible, and have been trying to buy organic and natural foods whenever possible. I make a lot of veggie pasta dishes and am constantly having overnight oats or greek yogurt and fruit for breakfast. A lot of the ideas I have for food come from my beautiful friends Roxanne and Abby who are currently in the middle of #100daysofhealthy (I've linked their instas, go check out the food pics, they're perf). 

However, what with four 8 ams a week and my horrible sleep habits, there isn't always a lot of time for breakfast BEFORE class. I inevitably eat around 9:30, but getting through an 8 am with no energy is no fun. As you learned last week, I'm a coffee addict. Real talk though: who has time to make a cup of coffee when you wake up at 7:45 and need to run to class?? I certainly don't. I'm no wizard. (Probably why my owl never came.)

What better way to get my caffeine fix than to eat my coffee? How does one "eat coffee", you ask? In the form of CoffeeBars! These bars are phenomenal. Not only does each bar (which is about the size of a brownie) have a single shot of espresso in it (that's 102 mg of caffeine!) but they are also incredibly healthy and make a perfectly balanced breakfast! 

The bars contain cashews, almond butter, vegan/gluten-free chocolate chips, cinnamon, gluten-free oats, chia seeds, and dates in addition to the espresso (it literally just sounds healthy) and all ingredients are sourced organically (the coffee is fair-trade!) and manufacturing takes place here in the US. Not to mention, I've tasted a CoffeeBar by now and OMG I was BLOWN away by how good they are. 

The idea of having an energy bar that I can grab on the go and eat on the run which provides me with much needed caffeine but is still healthy and doesn't put any preservatives or unnatural products into my body is *heart eyes emoji*. 

The guys who created these *heart eyes emoji* bars launched a Kickstarter this past week and within 15 hours they had their goal of $10,000 to put towards packaging for the bars, BUT if you look at the 'Updates' page (*click here*) you'll see that they are hoping to get quite a bit more funding for some more amazing ventures! Among these ventures are sourcing their coffee ethically, developing more flavors, and then finally developing new products to launch off the New Grounds company platform they've launched. 

So go help them out! Take my word for it, the CoffeeBar is the next big thing. Donate $25 and they'll send you your first box of CoffeeBars in January once the packaging stage of production is complete. 

I'll try not to inundate y'all with this type of shameless promotion constantly, but this one I couldn't pass up. I am sooooo behind these that I'm about ready to declare CoffeeBars a separate food group. 

The one type of shameless promotion I'll probably always inundate you with though is social media! Go follow me on Twitter and Insta with the handle @jessieetrager.

That's it for today folks! Once again, thank you all so incredibly much for your support, and look for a new post concerning my attempts to join the YouTube community and what I stumbled into along the way coming your way soon \m/

Until then, love y'all, bye!