A little something to get everyone over Hump Day… (Is it time for our vacation yet?) And speaking of Paris, here’s a little something else, too.
(via blaineroo)
Poof. It’s like magic. Well I don’t like magic. It’s weird.
It’s not too late to watch Guy Nottadadi talk about birth control. (But after today, June 17th, it will be too late to enter our Guy’s Guide sweepstakes to win a box of Sir Richard’s condoms. So, you know, get on it.)
Pool shark and sexpert, Guy Nottadadi.
Your mom is awesome. Don’t forget to grab her something special for Mother’s Day this Sunday. (And if you’re not ready to be a mom like your mom quite yet, make sure you’ve got your birth control covered.)
STD Awareness Month is drawing to a close, but there’s still time to get aware, get safer, and get your test if you haven’t already!
There’s also time to read the awesome comprehensive safer sex series The STD Project wrote for our tumblr, watch Veralyn Williams’ video on 5 Facts About STDs That You Should Know (and Probably Don’t), and learn more about birth control methods that prevent STIs over on Bedsider.org.
It’s College Week at Bedsider, a chance to highlight the efforts of our amazing campus ambassadors. Today’s spotlight is on our old friends in the Lone Star State, a.k.a. BedsiderATX.
Our favorite and most successful event this semester was with Texas Lassos at Recess Bar. Not only is it possibly one of the coolest bars on 6th Street, but there was so much activity—and so much interest in Bedsider! We got to answer a lot of awkward questions and take pictures at our photo booth—not to mention witnessing some seriously questionable (and rad!) dance moves. But we’ll let the pictures speak for themselves…
—BedsiderATX Ambassadors
College Week, Day 2: Bedsider ambassadors don’t give up on sex, birth control, or baking.
It’s College Week at Bedsider, a chance to highlight the efforts of our amazing campus ambassadors. Today’s “College Week spotlight” is on the always-spunky, super-enthusiastic, basically unstoppable University of Maryland (UMD) ambassadors. We knew our ambassadors were doing incredible things in the name of birth control education, but UMD’s Connor Davies took it to a new, delicious level by making…wait for it…birth control truffles.
Birth control truffles: Harder to make than you’d think.
When I first read the Bedsider slogan “You didn’t give up on sex, don’t give up on birth control,” I never thought that something as easy as birth control would need that much effort. That was until I tried to make birth control-themed candy and I thought about giving up around 30,076,431 times within the span of two days.
It all started on Pinterest, with a spark of inspiration. I could just see it—perfect chocolate-covered truffles dyed to match the color of birth control pills and arranged perfectly on a tray surrounded by strawberry lemonade to be devoured by knowledge-hungry Bedsider-event-goers.
Lemonade, the finishing touch.
Ingredients
- sugar cookie dough (pre-made or from scratch)
- 1 lemon
- 2 limes
- 12 oz of cream cheese at room temperature
- 2 bags of white chocolate chips
- food coloring (optional)
Directions
- Make sugar cookie mix according to the instructions (mine called for a stick of softened butter and 1 egg). Add in the juice of 1 lemon and 2 limes along with the zest.
- Spread cookie dough out in one flat sheet on a cookie sheet and bake until firm and just golden on top (I cooked mine at 350 degrees for 20 minutes).
- Take out cookie dough and let cool completely.
- Once cooled, break into small chunks and combine in stand mixer (or with hand mixer) with cream cheese.
- Roll cookie and cream cheese mixture into balls around 1/2 inch in diameter and let cool and firm in the freezer for 2 hours.
- After 2 hours, melt white chocolate chips in a double boiler or microwave (for best results follow the instructions on the back of your chocolate package)—the addition of 2-3 drops of food coloring will get that nice birth-control-pill color.
- Take frozen cookie balls out of the freezer and with a toothpick dip in chocolate leaving toothpick in to harden. After all truffles are dipped, return to the freezer to harden.
This all sounds nice and dandy, right? Well, you obviously haven’t met this particular Bedsider ambassador!
First, I forgot to add the lemon and lime juice to the cookie dough before it baked, which resulted in my grandmother taking out the half-baked dough and mixing it in. Then, I added the juice when I mixed the cream cheese…and almost had a conniption fit when I remembered that dairy curdles in acid. Luckily, that only resulted in a truffle mixture that was almost too mushy to turn into balls. Of course I made the balls too big, but grandma came to the rescue by cutting them in half.
At last all was good with the world, but then…
…the Mac Daddy of all truffle-making mishaps happened when I tried to melt the freaking chocolate. I started with 2 bags of top-of-the-Ghirardelli ‘white pieces,’ which I now realize don’t have chocolate listed anywhere in the ingredients. Fast forward two hours and 200 tears and I was sitting on the floor with a pot of brown powder instead of luscious, creamy, melted white chocolate.
Amid the panic and sorrow, I started to think. If I didn’t have the patience to read through and correctly execute a recipe with only 5 ingredients, how could I realistically expect the average 20-something to always use birth control correctly without some support?
The moral of the story? It might take a few tries to get everything right, and that’s okay. If we don’t give up on sex, we really shouldn’t give up on birth control…or melting chocolate.
So I didn’t give up. After two new bags of REAL white chocolate and more help from grandma, I finally had my truffles…and had learned a valuable lesson.
Not too shabby, eh?
Swoon. These photos are just one of the many ways our college ambassadors at University of Maryland (a.k.a. Bedsider UMD) are spreading the word about birth control on their campus. Here’s what they have to say about this particular (fantastic) project:
Birth Control LOVE at UMD is a photo project by Bedsider UMD to raise awareness of birth control use (and birth control love!) across the University of Maryland campus. Birth control continues to be something that almost all college students use, but is consistently left out of everyday conversation. Let’s let go of that stigma and let the world know we love, use, know someone who USES, or have a partner who USES some form of birth control—and we CAN talk about it!
And there’s much more where that came from. Visit Bedsider’s social channels during our very first “college week” (April 15th-19th—that means it starts tomorrow!) to learn more about the amazing things our Bedsider ambassadors are doing on their campuses.
Josephine Baker at Johann Strauss Theatre in Vienna, 1928
Women’s History Month may be coming to a close, but the story of Josephine Baker’s amazing life will continue to blow our minds all year round.
(via vanillaandlavender)
