With a Cheerleader in the Trunk and Some Change in My Pocket

If at first you can't make a decision, ask your kid.

"Alexis, should we test drive a Dodge Durango, a Caravan, or a Dart?" I asked.

She picked the Dart. She's a smart, smart girl.

But here's the problem -- after going to the Dodge dealership to test drive a car, so I could write this post for BlogHer and Dodge, now I want the car. Seriously. I WANT A DART IN OUR DRIVEWAY.

There are lots of reasons. Let's start with this one:

While the Dodge Dart is considered a compact car, it's the biggest compact car I've ever seen. The trunk alone has enough space for AT LEAST eight little cheerleaders. Possibly nine. You can try and tell me that there's no reason to stuff that many cheerleaders in a trunk, but have you seen how much stuff those cheerleaders carry around? There's plenty of space for pom-poms and posters and megaphones and all of the stuff Alexis tries to drag everywhere.

And then there's this:

That's the passenger side front seat. REALLY. It flips up for storage, and there's enough space there for my camera bag in there. Partner that with the glove box that was seriously big enough to hold my laptop, and suddenly the Dodge Dart is a compact car that is big enough to hide all of my favorite things.

As a matter of fact, yes, I am impressed by storage space. Always. I'm not used to seeing it in a car, so it's extra impressive in my head.

So. The test drive. I should probably tell you about that.

Both the husband and I took a turn driving the Dodge Dart. We didn't drive a special model or anything -- we actually drove one that we would consider buying because it gets 39 mpg but costs under $20,000.  Yet, even with that gas mileage and price, we found it to be a very suitable car. It's certainly not the zippiest thing ever, but HELLO, GOOD GAS MILEAGE MATTERS MORE.

The dash and controls made sense and were legitimately nice, the cup holders were in the exact right place, and I was able to figure out the radio in no time at all thanks to the large (8.4") touchscreen right in the middle of the dash.

That touchscreen switches to a video display when the car is in reverse, by the way.

I have the same sort of thing in my current SUV, but this one was better. It's bigger and easier to see, with a guide overlay that makes it very easy to figure out if you are OK to back up another four inches or not. If you've never had a backup camera, let me just tell you that they are FANTASTIC in parking garages and when parallel parking.

I will never have a car that doesn't have one again. Ever.

I'm also one of those people who insists on a solid safety rating for a car. The Dodge Dart passes my test. It has ten airbags, blind spot monitoring, and all sorts of other things that helped it to earn a 5-star rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

And it's available in orange. Have I ever mentioned how much I love orange cars? Because I really, really do.

Alexis wants gray. She's boring.

The long and the short of it is that we will be looking for a compact car that gets crazy good gas mileage next year. We always have one of those around. We have kicked the Dodge Dart to the top of our list because it has the nicest interior I've ever seen in a car at this price range, because it has storage that goes on for days, and because I'm pretty sure Alexis will never forgive us if we don't buy one.

She was sold at the trunk, for what it's worth. She has talked about how cool that trunk is for days.

To celebrate the release of the Dodge Dart (it was new for 2013!), Dodge and BlogHer have teamed up to give you a chance to win a $100 Shell gas gift card. To win, all you have to do is tell me which car you would have picked if asked to test drive something -- a Caravan, a Dart, or a Durango.

Sweepstakes Rules:
No duplicate comments.

You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:

Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post

Tweet (public message) about this promotion; including exactly the following unique term in your tweet message: “#SweepstakesEntry”; and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post

Blog about this promotion, including a disclosure that you are receiving a sweepstakes entry in exchange for writing the blog post, and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post

For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winner  will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.

The Official Rules are available here.

This sweepstakes runs from 12/10/13 - 12/31/13.

Be sure to visit the Dodge Brand Page on BlogHer.com where you can read other bloggers’ reviews and find more chances to win!

I Can't Even

I'm not sure if everybody has the same level of joy in their life, but I have a way of engaging in conversations that lead to people saying really dumb things to me. I like to consider it a skill that I bring out the dumb, but like I said, it may be more common than I know. Maybe everyone is capable of such magic.

I could give you a million examples, but I think a decent one was when someone said to me, "Are you sure you're only 16 weeks? You're showing an awful lot."

That. That right there is what "saying dumb things" looks like.

Another example includes telling me jokes about things "trailer trash" do. That is ALWAYS a fun one because I tend to respond with, "Hi. I grew up in a trailer park. I guess that makes me trailer trash?" I can't really laugh at a joke that's not funny, so I might as well make everyone as comfortable as I am in that moment. It's kind of crazy how often people make jokes about trailer parks around me, honestly.

But my new favorite ... it's a whole other brand of crazy.

It hasn't been all that long since I was last asked why Alexis is an only child. That was a recurring theme for a very long time, right up until the moment we discovered she is on track for big sisterhood. If you haven't done the math, she will be 8 years old when everything goes down. So. So ... she will be old. Almost halfway to moving out. Enough older for there to be like three or four kids in the middle there.

Eight years is a HUGE gap in time.

Apparently it's a big enough gap for people to now REPEATEDLY tell me, "Whoops? I bet you thought you were done with diapers and such!" or "Oh! Found yourself with a little surprise, did you?" and my personal favorite "You know there are things you can do to prevent that sort of thing!"

Just don't, y'all. Just don't speculate on why there's an 8-year gap between them. It can't lead to anything good for any of us.

White Chocolate Mint M&M Cookies

You know those mint M&Ms that magically appear this time of the year? You should buy some. Really. They are a spectacular little invention with the perfect balance of mint and chocolate. Oh, and you can use them to make fun cookies.

This is the second year I've made these. They are just as good as I remembered. A little mint, a little white chocolate, a little more mint. It's a happy mix.

This is a really basic chocolate chip cookie recipe, except that I subbed in white chocolate for milk chocolate. And then I added some crushed candy canes because of course I did. I also threw in the mint M&Ms because I'm trying not to eat ten bags of them all by themselves. If they're in baked goods, the calories don't count. It says so right under the nutrition information on the bag.

One thing I want to point out about these cookies is that they aren't going to all turn out perfect and round. If a little bit of candy cane is on the edge of the cookie, it will melt weird and do something like this:

It doesn't mean you did something wrong. It just is a fact of making cookies with candy in them, in my opinion. If you carefully cut off the goopy part while the cookies are still warm, you can mostly recover. Or, you can decide that any cookies that aren't beautiful will have to be destroyed in an unselfish act of eating them. Taking one for the team is always encouraged.

One last thing -- these freeze well. I'm a big fan of all Christmas cookies that can be made well in advance.

White Chocolate Mint M&M Cookies

3 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup butter (2 sticks), softened
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla or peppermint extract (it depends on if you REALLY like mint or just like mint)
1 package candy canes, crushed
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 bag Holiday Mint M&Ms

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two-three cookie sheets with parchment paper. You're making approximately 4 dozen cookies, by the way.

2. To crush the candy canes, unwrap each of them and put them in a large Ziploc bag. Close it up, set the bag on top of a cutting board, and start whacking them with a garlic press or a hammer or whatever you have that works. You want to crush them into small pieces, but you don't have to turn them into dust. A happy medium of some dust and some chunks is good.

3. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, salt, and baking soda. Whisk them a second.

4. In a large bowl, mix the butter and sugars at low/medium speed until creamy.

5. Add the egg and mix some more.

6. Add the vanilla or mint extract and mix some more.

7. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until everything is happy and well combined.

8. Pour the white chocolate chips, crushed candy canes, and about half the bag of M&Ms in the bowl. Stir until well mixed.

9. Use a tablespoon to grab a scoop of cookie dough. Roll it into a ball (about 1") and place it on the cookie sheet. Do that until your cookie sheet is full. Smoosh the cookies with your palm so that you have flat circles.

10. Use the remaining M&Ms to pretty up the cookies. I pressed 2-3 on the top of each cookie.

11. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-11 minutes.

12. Allow to cool on the cookie sheet for a few minutes, and then use a spatula to transfer them to a cooling rack until you're ready to package them up.