Author: essieofwho

The Closure of Sprinkles Cupcakes and How I Feel About It

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If you haven’t heard, Sprinkles Cupcakes immediately closed all store locations and their cupcake ATMs. The last day all stores and cupcake ATMs were open was on December 31, 2025. You can read a news article about the closure of Sprinkles Cupcakes here. (The article is from ABC 15, an Arizona based ABC affiliate. It talks specifically about the Arizona Sprinkles Cupcakes location, but it gives a good, overall explanation about what is known about Sprinkle’s closure.)

Sprinkles Cupcakes was started by Candice Nelson. It opened in April 2005 in Beverly Hills, California. It was a very popular bakery that specialized in, as the name suggests, cupcakes. It had celebrity fans and created something called a “cupcake ATM”, which is a vending machine that would sell cupcakes after the bakeries closed for the day. Candice would eventually sell the business in 2012 to a private equity firm.

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5 Favorite Clothing Brands I Like to Shop

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Over the last year, I’ve been cleaning out a lot of things from my house. Some of the things I needed to get rid of was old clothes. During this process, I noticed there are certain brands I liked more than others. After going through all the clothes I liked and what their brands are, I decided to write a post about five of my favorite clothing brands I like to shop.

Before I start talking about my favorite clothing brands, I wanted to mention I prefer to shop these brands when they are on sale. Some of them can be very pricey, so I prefer to browse them during sales and whenever I spot them at clearance racks or clearance stores.

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Juliette Has a Gun Not a Perfume Fragrance Review

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In late 2024, I decided to add a sample of a new fragrance to my Sephora order. I wanted to try one of the fragrance for a few years, but I wanted to try it first before I purchase it. When I saw it available as a sample, I decided to add it to my order.

The fragrance is by Juliette Has a Gun and it is called Not a Perfume. I was curious about it because it not only has one ingredient in it, Cetalox, it also is supposed to be allergen free.

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5 Things I’m Looking Forward to in 2026

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Looking forward to 2026, I don’t have any major plans for the year. I decided not to make new year’s resolutions or make plans for 2026 due to other things going on in my life right now.

Even though I have no plans for 2026, I am looking forward to things in the new year. I already know at least ten things I’m excited for, so I picked five of them to mention in a post.

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15 of the Happiest Things That Happened for Me in 2025

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2025 was not a great year for me. I had some major disappointments and suffered from some upsetting things this year. Yet, at this time of my life, I now know that no matter how sad the year has been, there are still some happy things that happen as well.

Since we are so close to the end of 2025, I decided to write a post about the happy things that happened to me this year.

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I Achieved My 2025 Reading Speed Goal!

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After yesterday’s depressing post, I decided to try to write today’s post about more optimistic: I achieved my 2025 reading speed goal!

Yes, I am happy to say I have officially achieved my 2025 reading goal. I didn’t want to set a number of books to read by the end of the year like many online do. Instead, I wanted to increase the speed of my reading. I used to be a fast reader in high school and college, but I’ve slowed down a lot since then. Since the popularity of reading began in 2020, I began to buy books, both new and old, to read. The problem was I was buying them with the mindset that I can read as fast as I used to.

Sadly, that isn’t true. So, now I have way too many books to read and no way to decide if I would like to keep them or not… unless I read them first. This is why I decided to focus my reading goal not on how many books I read in a year, but to work on getting my speed of reading faster.

This year, I can read much faster than I used to. Sometimes, if I have the time, I can read a 300 page book in less than 24 hours. This speed is similar to my reading speed in high school and college. I still notice I need to slow down more that I used to, but I’m not going to complain too much about it.

I have also noticed the work I did on my reading speed has also helped me in other areas of my life. Seeing this has made me feel more confident in my own abilities and gave me hope to start making a dent in my to be read pile of books.

Next year I have some reading goals, but my main goal is just to maintain my reading speed.

 

That’s all for now! Thank you for reading!

Featured Image is from Pexels.com

Book Review: 12 Days of Christmas, A Little Golden Book Classic

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It is Christmas Eve, which is a perfect time for families with children to read Christmas themed bedtime stories. Although there are plenty of books about Santa Claus, including The Night Before Christmas, and the birth of Jesus, I wanted to review a book for Blogmas 2025 that didn’t focus on them.

Instead, I decided to focus on a book about a tradition that was honored centuries ago: The Twelve Days of Christmas. Although the celebration is still honored by many, many just know it by the song, The Twelve Days of Christmas. Last year, I found a reprinting of A Little Golden Book that tells the story of the song with illustrations. Since December 24th is the night when the Twelve Days of Christmas begins, I thought it would be a perfect time to review this book.

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Lenox 2024 Snow Majesty Snowflake Ornament Feature

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Last year, I decided to shop for new ornaments that are different to the ones I can normally find at Hallmark’s stores. One of the ornaments I stumbled across is Lenox’s Snow Majesty Snowflake ornament.

I don’t normally like anything from Lenox’s line of metal ornaments. They don’t always have a shape or look that I like. Sometimes, the quality isn’t as nice as the ceramic ornaments. In 2024, I really loved with that year’s metal ornament. I liked it’s design and the quality, so I decided to purchase it.

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The Ups and Downs of Decorating for the Holidays While Working on the House

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Christmas is this week and I’m sad to say I don’t have a big tree up in my house. I had plans to put one up, but this year things are different. My house needs work and I don’t have anywhere to put a tree up.

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Book Review: Christmas at Hogwarts by J.K. Rowling with Illustrations by Ziyi Gao

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Every year, there are new Christmas themed books. Some of them are for adults while others are for children. They tell classic Christmas tales while others tell new and original stories. There are some that are inspired by popular media such as TV shows, movies, and more.

After watching and browsing these books for years, I noticed a major trend for these books. For the past few years, there has been a trend to publish Christmas books inspired by popular media for adults… but these books are meant for children.

One of the books I was curious about was Christmas at Hogwarts. I am not a huge Harry Potter fan, but I was curious about the book. The art looked really nice and the premise peaked my interest. After debating if I would actually like the book, I decided to buy myself a copy and read it myself.

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