As a young girl, my days from when I woke up until 4 or 5 when mom came home and my dad woke up to get ready for work were my own. I'm an only child, and my father worked (and still does) from the late night to the early morning so that my I could get picked up by my dad after school, not a babysitter. Even though I interrupted his sleeping schedule, I'm sure I was cute enough to be worth it.

So, in the summer I was completely dependent on myself for breakfast and lunch. I'd look forward to my lunchables and frozen kids meals, but my favorite frozen kid meal had to be the bagel pizza. I would even heat it up as a snack on the weekends. 

It's still kind of the same deal at my house now in the summer, except I can now drive myself to hang out with friends and to work and such. I was hungry for lunch one day but didn't want another protein pancake, yogurt, or sandwich. I was inspired to throwback to my childhood but keep it healthy. I was also craving beach pizza.. a lot.

So, I cooked up some clean bagel pizzas! This recipe is good for all ages, from adults who want to eat and remember the good days, and for moms that want their kids to eat healthy! My toppings and variety of cheese could really be any cheese or veggie, so you're welcome to play around all you want!

It seems like every website nowadays is making us describe ourselves in 300 characters or less. All of our little quirks, favorite books or movies, deepest thoughts, and aspirations are now being cut down from being sprawled out in our journals to being small enough to fit our twitter bios. Prime examples of this are Twitter bios. Just like any biography section on a social media account, they’re short, powerful, and have room for some humor. Mari Smith, a social media strategist and marketing expert kept hers more straightforward:

However some people, including Kevin Spacey, decided to make theirs more humorous:

Doing a once-over on these bios is like a first impression on the street: you only have one shot at them. Even if someone goes back and changes your bio, people will never forget the first time they saw it. Every aspect of this first impression is similar to a street glance: if someone is verified that they are an influential person, it’s like if they’re carrying a nice Prada bag; if someone has influential co-workers tagged in their bio, that’s the cool posse they’d be walking down the street with. In this way, first impressions in real life and in social media are now equally important. However, this is old news. This doesn’t mean added pressure; it means added growth. Having another place for people to define themselves, such as social media, may increase their self-worth and self-confidence, which may increase the quality of work they produce. This is very important for Millenials.

The Dailyesque stated, “being attached to social media is actually okay, and could even be better for you, because the most criticized aspect of Millennial culture is also the most important aspect for Millennial growth.” Dailyesque makes another point about adapting quickly. Think about the revolution of social media from the last fifteen years: Friendster to AIM to Myspace to Facebook to Twitter to Pinterest to Vine and more. If Milenials can adapt to this change, they might adapt to workplace change easier. . Dailyesque also states that by having to create shorter messages or bios, people are becoming better communicators. Words with more punch, less fluff!Social media are altogether empowering. People now have a channel to say what they want, when they want! People also have a place to “brand” themselves however they want. If there are people that disagree with their image, they can choose to address it or overlook it. That’s called freedom. They can paint a picture of what they really think they are deep down, and show others what they want them to have seen. That’s called growth and development.

I've talked about my experiences and sights from my London trip... however I haven't even talked about the most important part... my ootds! It was 60's and cloudy on Thursday, a bit better (70s) on Friday, and beautiful 80's on Saturday! That explains why it was tourist mania in central London Saturday. My handy dandy green jacket kept me warm and stylish during the cold days. I picked it up last weekend during the Old Navy sale!

Link-ups are a fabulous way in the bloggersphere for us bloggers to interact and mingle. It's like happy hour but with blog posts! This monday I thought I'd join in on Angie of mysocalledchaos.com's Music Monday link-up!

Every summer I make a new playlist. It can consist of songs that remind me of that summer, songs that I discovered that summer, and songs that just sound summer-y. For example "Summer" by Calvin Harris, duh! My music listening habits depend on who I see in concert. So far I've seen Paramore, Fall Out Boy, New Politics, The Front Bottoms, and Say Anything. I've been jamming to new and old Fall Out Boy and Paramore, and The Front Bottoms.

Here's a screenshot of my current Summer 2k14 playlist:

As you can see it's a mix of pop-punk, indie, folk, country, pop, and a favorite genre of mine I like to call "The Fault In Our Stars Soundtrack". 

However the link-up wants me to choose one song I'm feeling specifically.. ahh this is so hard. I choose....

Thunder Clatter by Wild Cub 

Stay tuned for a blog post about my trip to London!

I've been desperately trying to perfect my protein pancake mix. My protein pancakes have gone on their own little revolution throughout the years. I started off with Cassey Ho of Blogilates' one banana and two-egg mix. Then, I added tone it up Perfect Fit protein powder to it, however it made them gritty. Then, I started adding all-natural peanut butter to it and it was deeeeee-lish.

However, come my mother's birthday I bought her a new, powerful blender. With that old blender leaving so did the perfect consistency of my old protein pancakes and "nice" cream. So, I thought up a new pancake recipe with a bit more gusto. This recipe is clean, protein-filled, all-natural, and tasty! Try it topped with either greek yogurt, fresh bananas or blueberries, and/or agave nectar or honey! Talk about Breakfast at Nikki's!

RECIPE

• 1/2 cup oats
• 1/3 cup almond milk
• 2 tbsp. Wild Friend Sesame Cranberry Peanut Butter
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp greek yogurt (optional)

1. Mix all the ingredients in a blender until they make a pancake batter consistency.
2. Grill them on a heated pan or skillet that has been greased with extra virgin olive oil.
3. Flip every two minutes or so until both sides are brown.
4. Continue step 4 for all of the pancakes you make
5. Stack them. You can layer them with greek yogurt, or you can drizzle honey or agave nectar. Either way sliced strawberries are delectable on it!

Happy 4th of July, lovelies! #MERICA Am I right? Well, here in the northeaster or the whole east coast for that matter it may not be a sunny 4th. Instead of sunbathing and enjoying white wine spritzer's we'll be rain-watching and grilling inside. Sounds like a dream, right? I really hope it is all a dream so that the whole weekend doesn't get rained out. 

Even if the fireworks are postponed that doesn't mean our cute outfits have to be!