victory is mine!

Let it be stated for the record that on this day, November 18th, 2008, I fought my Feed and won. Ok, we didn't fight, but since March of 2007 it has said that I have not updated a single word on this blog. Finally, finally I was able to figure out the lingo and get it done myself!

All that said to say ~ if you read blogs in Google Reader (like me) or if you organize your blog roll by most recent updated I will no longer be banished to the bottom with that silly old post about cruising around Chicago on a yacht.

Now all of you friends that say, "Oh I wish my list would tell me when you updated" have NO excuse not to comment! I'm kidding... you can be happy for me in your heart.

Sweet Leaf Tea

Unfortunately for poor little old me I've been suffering from an illness for right around a week. I'm sure it's just sinuses acting up or allergies flaring from the weather change, but either way I HATE 'EM! I'm not sick very often, so I don't wear it well. Symptoms include but are not limited to ~ runny nose, chest congestion, raspy truck driver voice with a touch of pre-pubescent teenager, scratchy throat, headache, chills, and coughing. Not to worry... I'm taking the medicine and hope to be on my way to a speedy recovery.

The silver lining to the sickness is that I found a fabulous new tea made right here in Austin, Texas to soothe my throat and tantalize my taste buds. I ADORE tea ~ green tea, sweet tea, unsweet tea with splenda, peach tea, hot tea, cold tea and now I can add to my list ~ Sweet Leaf Tea!

I spotted the tea at a restaurant the other day and instantly reached for the peach flavor, because peach tea is my favorite drink, but then hacked half of my chest out and decided on the mint & honey. It was a fantastic choice! I'm not usually a fan of bottled tea or tea from a drink tower, but this tea tastes like it was brewed with fresh mint and local honey and then poured directly into my bottle.

If you are not lucky enough to be in Austin, TX, go to their website ~ www.sweetleaftea.com ~ and type in your town/city to find out where you can purchase this tea deliciousness!

The start of November

Can anyone believe it's already November? Does everyone say that at the start of a new month?

November is here and Justin asked me the other day if I felt like I had truly lived out my mantra of living great in 08. So far, so good. There is one thing I'm interested in doing. NaBloPoMo. Every heard of it? It stands for National Blog Posting Month and the goal of it is to post every day for a month. I first saw this idea on my friend Shanti's blog last year and I've wanted to try it ever since.

My biggest worry is that I will write a bunch of crap that is boring and pointless, but the truth is - most blogs are at times boring and pointless. So, Here's to November and 30 days of blog posting. Please let me know if there is anything you'd like for me to write about and of course, wish me luck as I doubt this will be easy!

Grease~Ball Hotties

It's another football Monday! Justin and I went to our first University of Texas game together this weekend. I've been before, but this was his first college football game ever. EVER! He said before, "I went to a game at the college across town and they had 5,000 people there." Ok, so here we are Saturday in Darryl K. Royal Memorial ~ 98,500 and something people and I'm thinking there are more people in this stadium at this moment than in all of Texarkana (hometown)! More by like 20,000! Ay ya ya...

We had to be down there for work before the game, which is a far cry from my tailgating days, and I sure would have traded it in for a breakfast taco. I will say though, it was fantastic people watching. Texas girls are always fabulously dressed for the game and look darling in their boots, but there is a new trend out there that made me cringe! The high waisted poof skirt. Do y'all know what I'm talking about? It is OK on a stick figure, but not flattering at all if you're 1lb over 95lbs. Other than those skirts, I stood in clothes envy the entire time. I miss my closet,(we left our apartment in July and what we have with us is what we have with us) I wish I had cowboy boots, and I wish I looked better in burnt orange.

Back to the people watching... I'm silently judging people, good and bad, as they walk by when my eyes catch this one guy. Crusty Grease~ball hair, long sleeve button down shirt unbuttoned to his navel, miller light in hand, and painted on jeans. Boy he things he hot, huh? OH WAIT... he IS hot! 98,000+people and I just saw my good friend Tim Riggins from Friday Night Lights! Gawd, I was so star~struck I had to cover my mouth so I didn't scream! He was with Tyra and Buddy, and I was ALL BY MY SELF, so there was no one to share my joy or take our picture. Plus I couldn't remember their real life names, and what is sillier than yelling out their character names? Arrggg...Oh well, I'll always have the vision in my heart.

On to the game. It was NEEEEEEEERRRRRRVE WRACKING! By the end I had no fingernails left and my stomach was doing somersaults. It's not just this team... I do this for every team that i pick to cheer for. I do it to myself.

I'll say this... the experience of being with the crowd and foot long corn dogs is something everyone should experience, but I much prefer watching the game on tv.

Heeeeeeeeeeeeey ~ Matching Ray Bans. Ok, well their not real Ray Bans, but they're Justin's best attempt at Ferris Bueller & the cool "now" look for college. We have two pairs, because Justin can never find his glasses, so I keep a spare pair in my bag and luckily so, because the sun was in our eyes the entire game.

If you need to be reminded...The Eyes of Texas are upon you... all the live long day.

College Game Day

I don't know why I like college football like I do, but I do. Some of you even find it hard to believe, because I didn't even graduate from a school that is ever good at football (although, they have gotten a few ESPN shout outs this year). I guess you could say I like the rich tradition of college football and how from one season to the next new players come on the scene and it's a whole new ball game.




When Justin and I were presented the opportunity this past weekend to be apart of the College Game Day Broadcast down at the University of Texas we jumped at the chance! Get paid to be watch in person one of my Saturday morning ritual and risk the chance to getting to smooch Kirk Herbstreit? Oh, yeah, I'll take that chance! Girls, have you seen how yummy Kirk is? Perhaps you should start watching as well... at least for the eye candy ~ just remember that some of the players are still in their teens!



Justin went to a small school in Missouri for his undergrad where they don't have a football team or cheerleaders or pretty girls for that matter. I thought he might lose his lunch when the Texas Cheerleaders and Dance Team came out. He assured me that they weren't as pretty as me...he must have forgotten that I don't have a perfect tan, rock hard abs and beautiful long flowing hair...seriously, can I be as cute as them when I grow up?







Oh hey, what do you think of my new dark fall hair?

Justin and I are really trying to take in all that we can while were here in Austin, and we've done a pretty good job with the food, so we're working on the entertainment side of things. We have tickets to the game this week...we haven't gotten Baylor tickets yet, but hey ~ when in Rome... Hook 'Em Horns!

Best of the Best

I'm a sucker for a Best Of list. I use my barometer of agreement to determine how legit the list is. I also take these recommendations to heart and two lists that I trust completely are The Austin Chronicle Best of & the Allure Readers' Choice Awards. Since the Austin Chronicle list hasn't come out yet, let me touch on the Allure Readers' Choice Awards. Is it just me or does anyone else give three cheers to their product cabinets when they see one of their products on the list?


And the winners that i use are...


Nails: OPI Nail Lacquer in Lincoln Park After Dark - I wore it when I lived in Lincoln Park and I'm wearing it right now. It must be true love.




Face: Jergen's Natural Glow Face Daily Moisturizer - admittedly I go back and forth with Jergen's and Olay daily moisturizer, but Jergen's face glow lotion is much better than Olay's face glow.





Hair: John Frieda Collection Luminous Color Glaze - you know I love this and I promise it will make your hair shine like a wig!


Tools: Sonia Kushak Blusher Brush - I've been using this blush brush since the Sonia Kushak line first came out and I recently bought the powder brush and another eye shadow brush. They work fabulously and stand the test of time!


Honorable Mention: as you well know, there is not an honorable mention section, but I had to share my own. Maybelline Great Lash - this might be the cheapest mascara on the market, but let me tell you...I have long eye lashes but on seeing Ali's eyelashes I had to know what she uses, because honest to gawd they looked like fake eyelashes! This was it and now I'm hooked!



Ok, so here's where you come in! I trust your opinions, especially after the tex-mex tour recommendations!


What's on your list? Is there anything that I have to RUSH out and get today? And I need some eye cream! I used to use Benefit Cosmetics Eyecon, but I lost it and I didn't great results, so what should I be using? I need a cream that will brighten the skin underneath my eyes and reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.

living local in 08'

I've said out loud a couple times, lately, I wish i was the kind of person that went to the farmers market. The thought of eating local foods floors me and is so living great in 08'. I just get nervous buyers syndrome. Take me to the grocery store produce aisle, and after much trial and error, i now know exactly what we'll need and use before it goes bad. But for some reason the dern farmers market gives me the heeby~jeebies! i just KNOW i'll buy the wrong stuff and it will go bad and i'll waste money. and you all know how i LOVE wasting money.

so, i started with what i know will be used. WINE. when christina came for a visit a couple of weeks ago I got a Cute Label Wine ~ Polka Dot, the old stand by ~ Livingstone, and a local Kentucky Wine ~ Talon Sweet Evening Breeze.

I have to say... the Kentucky wine was delicious and inexpensive. The best part was that it was made right here in our very own town!

I also want to be the kind of Kentucky person that tours the wineries and distilleries. Both of those sound like lovely activities for me and my other half to try in the fall.

ps... happy birthday, christina! wish we were sharing a glass on a porch or a rooftop or a balcony somewhere. miss your guts.

from clark street to lexington

when i lived in chicago christina and i had this summer time tradition. well, is it a tradition if it's not set in stone, but somehow managed to happen about once a week if not more? she'd call me when she woke up on saturday, because i'd been up for hours watching cooking shows and cleaning my studio. she'd meet me at my house and we'd plan our day of shopping or sunning or wine~ing. every weekend it would begin with brunch at tarascas. it was my sort of stand in for the juan in a million (austin) void i needed to fill, and while not a perfect replacement- it helped.

tarascas was a block from my house and was famous for their margaritas. their $3 mimosas are what brought us back every week. we'd sit outside and watch the fit people exercise while we polished of plates of huevos rancheros with chips and salsa and $3 mimosas.

we'd sit there for hours, much to our fiance's chagrins, but there was life to discuss and new situations to figure out. i was newly in love and she'd been at it for 3 years. i was about to be engaged and she was about to have her wedding. it was such a favorite among the two of us, that if we skipped church on sunday, we usually met back up at that same place.

since i moved from chicago we've made our best effort to keep up our girls time and since our husbands saw how happy maintaining our own traditions made us, they go to great lengths to ensure we get a proper amount of girl time in.

this past weekend christina came down to good old lex for a few days of laughing, crying, eating and of course wine~ing. we stayed up late re-watching so you think you can dance and dishing our critiques, she taught me the chicago step and there was a noise violation that came as a result of our 4pm dance party. we watched juno and 7 episodes of sex and the city, and as a treat from the tv god's Steel Magnolias was on sunday afternoon

our weekend seemed to be sprinkled with specific ingredients to create girls weekend perfection for us. of course i was only able to snap one picture of the entire weekend, but then again y'all probably aren't interested in seeing us sprawled out on the couch watching our shows in our ratty pajamas.

And now for the very first time...

Little Miss

Lola

Justin and i both got our first shih-tzu's right around the same time - 4th grade... Pixie (his) and Prissy (mine). weird, huh? when he first told me that, i thought he was making it up so i'd like him more because we have sooooooo much in common. I have since confirmed with his family that Pixie was, in fact, real. We've always said that if we got a dog for ourselves that we'd like to get another shih-tzu, and this weekend we did. She is 7 weeks old and weighs a little over a pound and enjoys eating, sleeping, peeing, pooping and playing with her toy.

I can report that little miss Lola has done very good for her first full day with us and besides being the most popular dog at pet smart on saturday I think she'll definitely be the smartest as well. how cute is her pink rhinestone collar? very fashionable, too.

see... she already does tricks! this is her best speed skating start pose.

Gone With the Caffeine

as of late, my life finds me in the middle of sorting, packing and moving all of our lexington belongings, trying to work two jobs and doing neither of them well, my mind drawing a mental road map to different places our career could take us, months/weeks of family drama from both families, and it all came to a head saturday night. right here in our little apartment sitting on the side of our bed i had my scarlett o'hara moment broken and ravaged in the field with a dirty face and matted hair... as God as my witness... as God as my witness...

as a culmination of these things, I discovered i have been suffering panic attacks which means i'm not going to drop dead from the dizziness and i'm not going crazy... yet. i was consulted by a doctor to lay off the caffeine...fiddle-lee-dee. now don't let this scare you but as of last week i drank 6 cups of coffee in the morning and then sipped green peach tea for the rest of the day. not one single drop of water. i blame this on my favorite doctor - Dr. Oz, because he told me that it's not about drinking 80 billion glasses of water a day, but about staying hydrated. so i did just that.

sunday was my first full day without caffeine, and it was ugly. i slept in and drug myself to lunch and then drug myself back to the couch for a few more hours of sleep. when i woke up i was battling a mind numbing headache. i don't have regular headaches, but this was enough to make me crazy. it felt like a bad hangover that i didn't deserve. i couldn't even speak.

monday... same headache...great balls of fire! i felt like an addict...how can depriving oneself for mere hours of something cause this much pain? can anyone tell me why ibuprofen doesn't "cure" these? so i tried to trick myself and made a small pot of decaf coffee that tricked no part of this body. round about 4pm i gave in and had a glass of green peach tea. with one sip i felt a sense of normalcy.

so, i'm 3 days into my caffeine limitation, and i have to say - I feel amazing! My energy levels are through the roof, but i'm ready for bed at 10pm and sleep peacefully through the night. i had no idea i didn't have any energy until i actually had energy.

for now i am limiting myself to 2 glasses of green peach tea a day. i figure green tea is good for me, so along with caffeine i'm receiving valuable nutrients. I have one glass in the afternoon and one with dinner. In between my 4 cups of decaf coffee and green peach tea i drink water. lots o' water! so, back on track to living great in 08' and living even better this time.

as for the panic attacks and my overactive brain? those things will all work out for the good...after all, tomorrow is another day!

living great, packing great!

southwest airlines gives away a t shirt each month for the best travel tip and i will not be asking for a shirt when i'm though. this idea came to me, though unoriginal yet practical, after i spent and entire hour last week untangling my necklaces and earrings out of my travel bag i decided that there had to be a better way! i googled "jewelry travel bags" and could only find faux croc leather cases or tiny travel pouches.

neither of these would work, because i would NOT pay $40 for a faux croc leather case and lord knows i don't have a single piece of jewelry that would be described as tiny so nothing would fit.

i decided to get creative and here's what i came up with...

1. place jewelry in individual sandwich size ziplock baggy. the sandwich size was perfect for my big earrings and gaudy necklaces, and since it was clear, i could easily see what was in each bag without having to dig.

2. place baggies in desired travel bag. i love this bag, because it's big enough to fit all that i will carry with me!

so see i can add this to my living great in 08 plan even though some might argue that the plastic bags were a no-no, but you know i'm going to reuse them - time and time again! plus it was so handy pulling out a set of earrings this morning and not having to fight with 6 other necklaces to get them loose.

not everyone is hip to going green...

are you using reusable bags? you should be. besides the clutter you accumulate from saving them think of it as your small gift to the environment. for those of you that still watch oprah you should know that me and julia roberts have our bags in common because we both leave them in the car. it's the most responsible thing i do. once i unload my groceries or ANY purchase, i hang them on the door and take them to the car the next time i go out. Then they are always in the car no matter where i go.

with that said - not everyone is hip to going green. i had two different incidents just this past week.

1. Hobby Lobby - i went to hobby lobby 3 times last week looking for different things... frames, pillows, beads... everything in the store. I bought beads, because i was given a beautiful turquoise pendant and wanted to make a funky necklace for it to go on. I take all my necklace making equipment to the counter, it was all half off - yay! and the lady starts to ring me up.

when she swipes the last one i say...

Lesli: You can just put these in my bag

HL Checker: gives me a smirk and reaches for a plastic bag

Lesli: Ma'am, I brought my own bag, so i won't be needing a plastic bag

HL Checker: continues with smirk and pulls the bag off

Lesli: say very calmly - I have my own bag, so just put them in here.

HL Checker: puts all my stuff in a plastic bag and puts the bag in my bag with a smirk like i just showed you!

Lesli: dejected - I was just trying to save the environment...

The lady grabs the plastic bag from my bag and dumps the contents into my bag and yanks my change out of the door. i asked her 3 times BEFORE she put them in the plastic bag and i was polite about it. Why do i get the feeling that she and the customer behind me called me ugly names like hippy and unreasonable?

so then yesterday...

2. Kohl's: I bought a shirt there a few weeks ago and wanted to exchange the size. If i couldn't it was no big deal, but if i could i wanted to. I walk up to the customer service desk and explain my situation. Do you ever wonder how stores pick their customer service agents? It's like they purposefully look for the LEAST service oriented and unpleasant person on their team and put them there. i digress...she sends me to the dept and they don't have what i'm looking for, so i come back for MY shirt that i brought in in my reusable bag.

Lesli: they didn't have it, so i just need my shirt back.

K Checker: reaches for a plastic bag

Lesli: Oh, I brought my own bag, you can just put it in here. (i feel like i'm having de ja vu)

K Checker: looks at co worker and says, "Uhhh we HAVE to put it in OUR bag don't we?" other checker says YES!

Lesli: But what if i don't want in a plastic bag.

K Checker: Well then just throw the bag out in our store and keep it in your bag!

so i did. i wonder if they found the plastic bag?

¡Salsa!

speaking of homemade salsa in the fridge...justin and i have been working on perfecting our salsa since around christmas. read: i create and he is the taste tester. if you decide you'd like to come up with your own recipe for salsa, christmas is probably not the best time to make tomatoes turn to greatness. they just aren't ready. but i'm a texas girl who was coming off a 2 week fix of tex-mex and all things salsa, so i had to try.

first few tries i used roma tomatoes and roasted them with garlic, onions and jalapenos.

gorgeous, huh? the taste was not so gorgeous. not enough tomato UMPH and roasting the onions, garlic and jalapenos didn't add as much flavor as i would have hoped for. i tried this a few more times doing various things. slicing tomatoes, chipotle peppers, serrano peppers, and nothing seemed to make it perfect.

then i thought... how do restaurants get salsa so red? wonder if they use canned tomatoes. before you shudder, think on this - they ALWAYS have uber tomato taste no matter what month and are always BRIGHT red.

so here we go...

i start by adding 1 can of diced tomatoes and 1 can of stewed tomatoes

then i chop off about a half a stalk of cilantro. i've learned with salsa that easy does it or less is more. add your base ingredients in sparsely, and then more to taste.

then one jalapeno, gringo. but again - start with one. mama loves her heat, but it's best with this to take it easy. no reason for the heat to over power the rest of the flavors.

all of the other ingredients were blurry looking, so let's skip ahead to the end. you'll see that i've added big chunks of yellow onion 1/4 of an onion to be exact. yeah, big chunks... i have a hand blender with a nifty little blade that makes my salsa making less labor intensive.

There's tons of coarse black pepper in there, because when i eat good restaurant salsa i take mental notes, and black pepper is high on the list. lots of garlic - 2 tablespoons of minced garlic. then for fun i threw in a handful of green onions. i just love their taste and crunch, plus the color just goes perfect with our cilantro. ***OOPS*** forgot about salt... of course! salt to taste!

there's my favorite hand blender. i bought it to make smoothies so i would have to deal with an entire blender, and i absolutely love it. i use it several times a week and i think i paid $20 for it! get one... promise you'll love it for good.

voila! this is what it looks like after being blended. of course if you like your salsa chunky, then don't blend as finely. i sort of get carried away with the fun of my hand blender, so everything i make with it gets fully blended.

now for the taste test...

he says: "This is the best one yet." and i agree, but i think you'll be surprised just how good your salsa is if you let it "marinate" in the fridge over night. enjoy!

what's up buttercup?

what do y'all think about outlet malls? i think they are mostly overrated, as the look like a shoppers paradise, but end up dissappointing more times than not. we saw a "nice" one on the way to cleveland, and talked about stopping on our way home if time permitted. really all i saw was the williams-sonoma outlet, and that was all i needed to make a detour.


we made it to the outlet around 8:54pm and they closed at 9. 6 minutes is plenty of time to make a quick run through, right?


on my rapid mission for a good deal, i happen to run into the kitchenaid artisan stand mixers with this sign above ~

KitchenAid Artisan Stand Mixer

$199

Buttercup

holy williams-sonoma i am no longer breathing.

buttercup is "my" color and i'm standing here with $300+ in WS gift certificates. what to do? of course i debated it. we've been eyeing that slow cooker and panini press for a while now and we'd most certainly use those more. BUT...

pro ~ $240 is the cheapest i've ever seen this mixer.

on the other hand $199 is still a LOT of money.

pro~ it's something i'll use for a lifetime.

but i won't use it everyday. it's still $199.

pro~ i'm standing here with $300+ of FREE MONEY in my hands.

it doesn't get much better than that.

so, i got the mixer! and a darling apron and a cast iron grill press with $75 to spare. how will i ever decide how to spend the rest?

guess i'll just kill time deciding by staring at the beautiful new kitchenaid mixer that is all mine!

the weather outside is frightful!?!

the last time i went to a professional baseball game i looked more like this. i was blonde, i was tan, i was a sweaty pig (nice pit stain, huh?) that thought kacey was crazy for wearing a T-SHIRT! she'll burn up, won't she?

that's what i and most other people come to think of when they think of a day at the ballpark. a day with the sun beating down while you wash down heart burn hot dogs and funnel cakes with lukewarm stadium beer. oh yeah... and the game.

until justin took me out to the ball game sunday.

you wouldn't even know if i was tan, blonde or sweaty as covered up as i am! our mid april baseball experience in cleveland had a balmy high of 38 and a wind chill of 28, so i can assure you that of all the things i was - sweaty was not one of them.

we came prepared with layers and layers of clothes and gloves and scarves and ear muffs and desperately tried to tough it out with the 400 other fans. our layers were meager at best. i packed for April which equals spring and short sleeves layered with tank tops but failed to realize that cleveland equals long underwear and furry hats. has this been the longest winter in history or what? gosh, i am SO over it!

round about the top of the 3rd inning the familiar christmas melody played over and the loud speaker oh the weather outside is frightful... and on cue it started pouring snow which was our cue to gather our belongings and literally RUN to the car. i'm pretty sure i lost a toe or two to frost bite hitting the pavement.

there's just something about your eating an ice cold hamburger as fast as you can without even so much as a sip of water for fear of having to undress your layers that just doesn't equal baseball to me.

*of course TODAY it's 68 and sunny... what luck!

Lolita

for my birthday celebration dinner i chose, Lolita. oh dear lord did i choose well. it was by far the best birthday dinner i've EVER had. (sorry, vivo!)

the restaurant is tucked away in the tremont area of cleveland smack dab in the middle of a neighborhood. the neighborhood look a little ghetto chic. is that a descriptive term? like it was probably a very cool area in real life, but looks a little run down on the outside. perhaps it's an area that's "turning." Lolita, however, looks so cool on the inside (for lack of a better term). very "now" with their antique tin ceiling tiles, sheers hanging from the ceiling to enclose tables, chandeliers, and the wine on tap fridge.

now who doesn't want one of these in their house? plus those stemless wine glass... still a sucker for them.

on to the apps... we ordered:

garlic bruschetta (and you should know that i ordered it - Garlic BrusCETta... just like giada and tyler). roasted garlic and basil with fresh mozzarella. at first glance i thought, where are my tomatoes? and then i took a bite and the garlic and basil and mozzarella over took me and i forgot all about the tomatoes.

&

almond garlic dip with rosemary and sea salt flatbread. this one was surprisingly delicious. not that it surprised me that it was delicious, but i thought it would be like hummus, but it wasn't as "thick" as hummus, and i thought it would maybe be warm, and the dip was really cold.

both of these were wonderful and had very pronounced flavors, and gave me very pronounced garlic breath, but justin knows that for better or for worse i DO love garlic.

i studied the menu for a week before, and had already decided on THE Ravioli: butternut squash, prosciutto, sage, brown butter and walnuts.

my portion was small, but perfect. enough to thoroughly enjoy, but not enough to kill me. i'm a clean your plate kind of woman, and this size made that task possible. i was trying to think of one word to describe this while i was eating (wait - it's pretty weird that i think of descriptive words for food) and what came to mind was succulent. i've had many a good dinners before, but i love when food sticks in your mind and you can't quit thinking about it. the butternut squash is still in my brain. so creamy and succulent and delicious and perfect... i have to figure out a way to go back.

if justin will let me...

i wanted to snap a pic of us to commemorate our night out... my first birthday as a married but justin with his solemn i'm going to kill you look is not what i had in mind. as we were leaving the restaurant some thugs rolled by yelling "You GD MF'er QUIT TAKING PITURES OF ME WIT YO MFing CAMERA PHONE!" now do you get it... ghetto chic.

*lolita is owned by michael symon who recently won the food network show - The Next Iron Chef.

the up-side

who knew there was un upside to being in freezing cleveland for 5 weeks? i found TWO up sides to being in cleveland, and I haven't been to h&m yet. interestingly enough, when i lived in an h&m town i went some of the time, but when i'm visiting an h&m town i HAVE to go.

the number 1 upside to being in cleveland is TRADER JOE'S. have you been? it's a little piece of heaven packaged up in a grocery store and this sister loves her the grocery store. seriously, i do - i walk up and down every aisle of any grocery store just for fun to see what i can find. i just love finding new treats... something away from the norm of just regular old grocery store food.

i used to live in whole foods capital and got to experience their grocery store coolness first hand, but mostly i just thought they were over hyped and over priced. then i moved to chicago and met trader joe's and it was love at first dip.

if you've never had the luxury of going to TJs allow me to enlighten you. it's TINY but not in an annoying way more like an easy to find everything way and you leave knowing you haven't missed anything. pictured above are my cool finds that are not only out of this world delish, they are GOOD for you AND ridiculously inexpensive, even for organic food. yes, at the top of my pros list for ANY store and especially trader joe's is that it's inexpensive. i want an over the top find for nothing! i proudly admit that i'm a bargain shopper! oh, and they have really cool packaging on a lot of their products that makes you want to buy them for their artsy appeal, but i didn't get any pics of them because i felt weird taking pictures in a grocery store.

ie...

1. Tomato and Roasted Red Pepper Soup - consistency of a creamy tomato soup with the tangy kick of the peppers, but only 100 calories per serving. does that mean i can have 2 servings?

2. Reduced Fat Cilantro Dressing - if you've had the reduced fat creamy ranch you know that TJ's does NOT play around with their dressings!

3. Baked Soy Crisps: Feta, Garlic and Olive Oil Flavor - bad for the breath, good for the heart. awesome flavor, but not overbearing.

4. Tomato Juice - you know i'm addicted to this stuff, and theirs taste like pureed salsa. am i a little weird that i love that it is really thick and almost has bits of veggies in it? (at least i didn't call them chunks!)

i'll stop now and leave you with my absolute favorite find of them all...

with a nice 15 second sear for each side this makes a fabulous dinner everytime. seeing this picture gets my mouth watering, and i haven't even finished my coffee this morning. but i can't not mention that it ONLY cost $6 for two whole steaks. now pair it with their $3 wine... see, there's always an up-side.

cut for the cause

by the time we got home i was more than over my hair! isn't it weird how you wake up one day and HATE your hair and everything about it? yeah, well i did that about a month before, so i was daily tormented by the awful color and general ratty state of my hair for 30 whole days that felt like an eternity.

see what i mean? tormented - day in and day out! please note - cute rings, dark polish, favorite warmer weather but still winter outfit that says it's good to be home and have on different clothes, and last but not least the PEDOMETER - check, check, check, check!

lucky for me, the salon in lex stays open until 10pm (who does that?) so i was able to be worked in. thus began the debate in my mind. do i just trim it up and get all over color or do i get high lights or do i cut it all off. i was trying to wait for ali do it for me, but after a couple of hours of going back and forth i realized that i wouldn't see ali for over 2 months. that's plenty of time to have enough re-growth for her to go wild with! (btw - i need an appointment!)

then i thought... how better than to live great in 08' than to donate my hair that's healthy and has NO bleach in it (which is a remarkable feat for the girl who loves the high lights) to a cause that will make wigs for cancer patients. nothing better to do with the hair anyway, so why not!

this is pony tail #2. yes, i had 2 pony tails, because mama has a lot of hair!

my luck continued, because the salon mails your hair in for you! if you've ever waited by the mailbox hoping to get something from me, i'm afraid the post man might find you still waiting.

want to see the end result?

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wait for it...

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wait for it...

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TA~DA!

the color is not exactly what i want, but i absolutely adore the cut! basically i wanted to blondes to be blonder and the browns to be much darker, but as they say - you can't have it all! in these pictures my bangs were pinned back, but i can wear them swoopy too. it's not the victoria beckham cut that is running rampant and might i add - ridiculously cute! think katie holmes or just ME. all i know is it looks different every day and i did it for the cause!