Happy 2nd Anniversary

Happy 2nd Anniversary to my amazing husband!

This year has been crazy and awesome and stressful and the best so far.

Can't wait for a million more!

Love you my husband, love you tons.

50's Festival In Leonardtown, MD

Yesterday, we went to the 50's Festival in Leonardtown, MD.  It was mostly a GIANT car show so Mike was in heaven.  Here are some pictures he took of his favorites.  (This blog post is mostly so Mike's mom and brother can see the car photos, but just in case I have one guy follower who might like it??)

Five Books Every Young Woman Should Read Link Up

Hey guys!  I'm linking up again today with Summer Book Swap ladies for a book-centric post.  This time, it's the five books every young woman should read.

This was actually way harder than I thought it would be.  Partly, because I have an awful memory and partly because I read a lot of books that are inappropriate for young girls.  Here are my random five:

He's Just Not That Into You

My mom got me this book while I was "dating" someone who just so clearly was not into me, but I was of course head over heels, head buried in the sand, major denial, in love with him.  It was KIND of insulting at the time, but seriously, it helped.

Are You There God?  It's Me, Margaret

Or you know, anything by Judy Blume.  No one better encapsulated what it was to be a young girl than Judy Blume.  Fun fact, her more adult novels are pretty dirty.  Good stuff.

Memoirs of a Geisha

This might seem like a weird choice, but I think it's a very non-graphic way to introduce women to sexism, sexual enslavement, abuse, and all manner of things that women then were faced with.  It's also an amazing novel of female strength, perseverance, and courage.  And it's beautifully written to boot.

A Little Princess

I don't have the proper words for this one.  You just have to.  Every girl has to.  It's so good and beautiful and sad and courageous and fantastical.  I have vivid memories of reading this book and having it transport me so far away with its words.  Ohhhh I love this one.

She's Come Undone

This one has some pretty adult themes in it, but any young woman struggling with depression should read this book.  It examines depression, weight issues, being self conscious, being unhappy, being hurt by men...all of these things in an incredibly honest and heart breaking way.  It's also, like most of the books on my list, a great testament to how women can persevere regardless of what is thrown at them.

What are your Top Five Books Every Young Woman Should Read?

Leonardtown Wharf

One of our favorite things to do since the weather has been getting nicer is to drive over to Leonardtown and walk around downtown.  Yesterday, we drove down to go to a car show for 50's weekend which we realized once we got there wasn't until Sunday (whoops).  We decided to stay since it was such a lovely day, have lunch, do some shopping, and walk around.  We had lunch at the Front Porch which I'll review over at By The Forkful soon, bought some books for my book club blogger buddy Audrey at Fenwick Books, grabbed some coffee at The Brewing Grounds which we drank sitting out in the sun on the square, did a quick impromtu tour of the Old Jail Museum, and then finished with a quick stop at my favorite spot in Leonardtown - the wharf.  I snapped some quick pictures at the wharf before we left because it was just too pretty to pass up.  If we stay in this area, I definitely hope we end up in Leonardtown; it's quickly becoming one of my favorite towns.

For The Love of Post Earrings

I'm generally pretty damn behind on the trends.  I tend to wear whatever I want and then a couple months later I'll realize ohhh everyone is wearing boyfriend jeans?  Maybe I should get some!  BUT the trends are usually cheaper a couple months later so....win.  Following suit, I was pretty unaware of how effing cute post earrings were until watching Bridesmaids and dying over Kristin Wiig's character's style.  Since then, I haven't been able to get enough of this trend and thankfully, it's all over Etsy right now.  Here are some of the many pairs I've recently added to my wishlist.

DittyDrops

ThePinkRhino

PetiteVanilla

ButtonYourButtons

Lepun

AspieCraft

(If you get what these earrings are, you're a giant nerd and I love you)

AGirlAndHerClay

FazJewelry

(I am fully aware of how ridiculous these are)

CutieCottage

What trend are you guys really into right now?

Pinspiration7

I really like the IDEA of this outfit.

The monotone, khaki, military vibe appeals to me.

But the styling doesn't do it for me; the bag, shoes, belt just don't work.

So here is how I would recreate this outfit affordably!

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How would you guys style this outfit?

My Revolt Diary - The Future

I haven't posted a blog about Revolt in a while.  My husband and I finished the 6 week uprising and since then, have decided to make some changes for the future of our eating and fitness routines.  I loved doing Revolt and I really believe in the program and especially Nichole.  Seriously, she's the best, I just want to squeeze her face.  We have decided to stop following Revolt to a tee, however.  (This blog post is coming off like a break up, yeesh)  I think the program is amazing for people that need to lose a significant amount of weight and/or people that are just starting their fitness journey (cheesiest phrase ever...fitness journey).  It wasn't perfect for me though because I felt like I needed a lot more weight training on top of just fat burning exercises.  I tried to add weight training on top of the Revolt workouts, but the schedule didn't really work out with my husband and doing two workouts a day wasn't awesome.  So, from now on, we're doing a new fitness routine that builds on some of Nichole's ideas and other fitness programs my husband has researched.  This is the program he has laid out for us starting this week:

My pea sized brain just realized that link isn't going to work once I saved it as a jpeg.  Duh.  It goes to here.

We'll see how it goes and if I feel like I'm not burning enough fat, I plan to add either some of Nichole's circuits back on or another form of cardio a couple days a week.

When it comes to food, we are sticking with the principles of Nichole's plan:  high on protein, very low on sugar, low on carbs and fat, lots of veggies and healthy fats.  Instead of following her menus every week, we are just adapting our favorite recipes to fit into the program, using some of Nichole's recipes, and finding new ones to add to our Chuck Norris trapper keeper (that's where we keep our recipes of course).  Here is our menu for the first week:

Breakfasts:  Nichole's egg white and oats pancakes (recipe found here) or egg white scrambled eggs with spinach and peppers.

Lunches:  Chicken Curry Soup (recipe found here) which is one of our fave recipes from before the diet that we are converting to be a little more healthy.  That basically just means removing the sugar and not sauteing the veggies in olive oil beforehand.  Our other lunch is another old favorite Falafal Pitas (new recipe found here).  An old favorite made healthier by buying whole wheat pitas, baking the falafels instead of frying them, and using skinny tzatziki (recipe found here).

Dinners:  Superfood Salad w/ Lemon Vinaigrette (recipe found here) is one of Mike's all time fave Spring/Summer dishes.  We made it healthier by removing the sugar from the dressing and only using half the amount of olive oil in the dressing.  Shrimp and Pea Rice Bowl (recipe found here) was one of our old recipes that didn't need tweaking at all, we were so excited!  Low-Fat Chicken Enchiladas (recipe found here) is a new one that we're trying out to see if we can actually have tasty Mexican food while eating healthy.

Snacks:  Fat-free Greek yogurt and strawberries, after-workout protein shakes, and Banana Oat Breakfast Muffins (recipe found here).  For the muffins, I use honey instead of white sugar, but you can use sugar substitutes as well.

Desserts:  Mike likes to have raisins, almonds, and a banana as his nightly dessert while I'm currently obsessed with sugar free jello pudding.  Fun fact:  a lot of the sugar free cookies are FULL of fat calories.  It's pretty bad.  Read your labels!

Overall, I'm really glad I signed up for Revolt.  It was a great kick-start to eating healthier/cleaner and to being more into being fit as opposed to wandering around the gym, lifting lighter weights, and watching Mike sweat his butt off.  I didn't take final measurements or anything  but I feel stronger and healthier and I honestly can't wait to continue this plan!  I definitely recommend Revolt, especially if you have a good amount to lose and are just now starting to work out seriously.  Check it out here!

My Super Boring Saturday

My Super Boring Saturday:  I Have No Idea Why I'm Putting You Guys Through This

Last Saturday, Mike went to Virginia to golf with my dad.  My plans for the day fell through so I ended up at home, alone, with no car from 7:00am to 7:15pm.  I know I'm home alone every week day, but I usually have things to do; jobs to apply for, blogs to write, lunch to prepare for Mike, gym to go to, dinner to cook with Mike, etc.  Saturday, I had none of those.  Nothing.  I got nothing.

THIS is what I did all day.

I got up when Mike was leaving and discovered that he had already fed and walked the dogs (SCORE).

After he left, I drank a bunch of coffee and browsed Reddit.

The dogs were bored with me already at this point.

I ate far too many Panera scones (it was cheat day after all).

I looked like this for the majority of the morning.  Hobo chic ya'll.

I showered and "got ready."  I thought about wearing actual, real pants for about 30 seconds, but went with this instead.

I watched Waiting.  Because, I don't know, why not?

Then I watched 500 Days of Summer.  Because, JGL.  Duh.

Then I ordered Chinese food from this place and waited over an hour for them to g-damn deliver it.

It was totally worth it.  So I ate a massive amount of it.

I also got inappropriately excited that the Chinese food place delivered sodas.

Then I walked the dogs.  They pooped in case you were wondering.

Then I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (one of my all time favorite movies).

Then I watched Memoirs of a Geisha.  Seriously, how all over the place were my movie choices?!

Then I made a bloody mary.

Then I fed the dogs and walked them again.  More poop.

Then Mike came home with a Panera Greek salad for me.  I ate it with some more Chinese food.  I couldn't help it.

Then tv, Mike time, bed.

Aren't you glad we're friends?

My Top Three Favorite Books

(Full disclosure, I typed that title accidentally the first time as My Top Three Favorite Drinks...that says so much about me)

Today, I'm doing a link-up over at I Believe In Story of my top three favorite books as a kick-off for our summer book club.  You might remember, one of my goals back in March was to read two books that month.  I failed, pathetically.  It was not cute.  I could feel all my English professors glaring at me through the tv I was watching instead of reading. Bad English major, bad.

So to help offset that, I joined up with this awesome group of bloggers for a book club and I can't wait!  To start it off, we're all linking up to talk about our top three favorite books to get to know each other a little better.  Here are mine!

One:  In Cold Blood

I remember reading this book in one of my first major courses and it had a huge affect on me.  I can't completely put my finger on what it is about this particular book, but I remember being blown away by how Capote got you, as the reader, to sympathize and even like one of the "bad guys" in this book.  It was the most complex character I had ever read; it made me look at characters in a different way.  I'm not explaining this right, but I just can't shake the influence reading this book had on how I look at writing.

Two:  Harry Potter (All)

I know this is a total cop-out, but I can't pick a favorite one...I can't!  I hadn't jumped on the HP bandwagon until Mike and I started dating.  He is a total HP lover and re-reads the books every single summer.  I hadn't ever been so sucked into a series before like I was with these books.  I've also never re-read a book before and I re-read these all the time.  There are few books where you get THIS invested in your characters.  I also, as cheesy as this sounds, love the lessons in these books...come on people, they're uplifting!  They're just so good, you have to be an HP nerd to understand...

Three:  The Joy Luck Club

I tend to be drawn towards books and movies that follow multiple story lines like this one does.  I love this book.  I also approve of the movie which is rare with me and movies made from books.  The themes in this book hit so many nerves, love, family, friendship, pain, war, etc.  I love every single character and love how flawed they all are.  I realized while writing this, part of what I love about this book is how affected everyone is by their own past which is something I definitely see in myself.  It's just beautifully written, can't say enough.

 

What are your top three favorite books?

Men's Summer Looks

I got a request from my favorite male follower (he's probably actually my only male follower, but he'd be my favorite regardless) to do some summer looks for men to help him buy and style some new shorts.
Now M, I know these looks might scare you at first, but I swear you can do this easily and the best part is that all the pieces can be used a multitude of ways (and I'm not going to suggest shorts THAT short, don't worry).
And you are correct, you are absolutely not allowed to buy cargo shorts!

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Here is how you can recreate these looks and get a good jump start on your Spring/Summer wardrobe!

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