A Trip To The Salon!

Hey everyone! This is going to be a short post but I'm excited to show you my new haircut! I've had this appointment for a month and it finally came where I had 2 hours to spoil and pamper myself. I started off with color then finally cut my ridiculous hair. I looked like a new person when I got out of there!

Can you believe this is AFTER I cut off 5 inches of hair! It is still so long that it gets cut off in the photo! I love the color, it is so rich and has a touch of warm red underneath and she got rid of 5 inches of dead ends and cleaned up some layers. I'm very happy with how it came out :) Can't wait to see what the beachy sea salt spray looks like with this cut!

Dinner party eats tomorrow! Have a great Friday everyone! I'm at my brother's house for the weekend so I'll try to keep up with your blogs while I'm here! Happy Friday!

Dinner Party Grocery Haul!

Hey everyone! Happy Thursday! So excited that I am going to have my first day off in two weeks soon  :) I'm extra excited that I get to spend time with my friends and cook a nice meal on that day. I have a wedding on Sunday but at least I'll have a chance to relax and do something fun on Saturday. I'm also finally getting my hair cut and colored tomorrow. It has literally been at least a year since I've cut my hair. I need a trim pretty desperately.

Before I get into the post, I got home from work last night and found out that my college (Undergraduate) was going to be featured on the SyFy show School Spirits! I went to SUNY Geneseo in upstate NY. I went way after the guy featured in the show and I actually had never even heard of that haunting even though I guess it is famous. We had a bunch of supposed hauntings in the school, and I would venture to say that the building that houses our radio station is haunted. I was really involved with the radio station and I hated being there alone at night. I experienced a few things that creep me out just thinking about it! Anyway, you can check out a short video here. If it doesn't link directly to it, the episode is called Dorm Room Nightmare. So creepy!

I'm sorry I haven't been around much. I feel like I work all the time and when I'm not working I'm at the gym or at a Dr. or something. I'm pretty exhausted and while I have Saturday off, next week is going to be really intense. Monday and Friday are short days but on Tuesday I am working 9-5 in the studio then I have a freelance party to shoot until 11 pm. Wednesday and Thursday I have weddings. It's going to be a long week but I think I have the weekend off next week? Fingers crossed!

Anyway, I decided to go to the grocery store this morning instead of after the gym so I could avoid traffic and keep the trip down to an hour instead of 2. I got a pretty sweet haul, most of which being for my dinner on Saturday :) I bet you can figure out what I'm making!

Zucchini, broccoli, raw agave, baby spinach, Daiya Mozzarella, avocados, Tofutti Better than Ricotta "Cheese," cherries and walnuts. Pretty sweet haul!

I grabbed my lunch from the prepared section since I was running late and didn't have time to make lunch before work so I grabbed some golden sesame tofu and black quinoa Asian slaw. So good!

I got clearance from my physical therapist for Bikram yoga (he's actually a big fan of yoga and thinks it'll be great for me) so I have taken off the next month from training at the gym and I'm switching to no impact cardio and Bikram yoga. I will probably start yoga on Monday :) I'm a big fan of Bikram yoga but I'm not a big fan of that first class after taking a really long break. It's pretty much torture but I'll survive!

OK I promise I will get some more food on soon. The next week will be a little light on food pics because I'm working so many weddings but I will post when I can. I will definitely show off my awesome dinner party eats either Saturday night or Sunday ;) Stay tuned for that!

Have a great night!

Quick Meals

Hey everyone! Hope all is well with you. Nothing exciting happening here today, just the usual work until 9. I slept a lot last night but still feel really tired. I'm going to focus on hydration today because I tend to get dehydrated at work and I know I didn't drink enough water yesterday. Hopefully that will help :)

I just have two boring meals to show you today. I haven't had time to make anything fun but that will change this weekend! I took Saturday off to have my dinner party with my friend and her fiance. I have a yummy meal planned but need to figure out dessert. Suggestions always welcome!

I woke up craving peanut butter so I decided to have some peanut butter, banana and cinnamon on some broken rice cakes. That's how I roll :) Served up with some delicious blackberries!

I made a big salad for dinner. This one has some spring mix, carrot, cucumber, raw corn and tomato from the vine. Dressed with balsamic vinaigrette.

Sadly that's all for now. I have some cleaning to do and some more relaxing to do :) Have a great day friends!

Quick Catch Up!

Hey everyone! I'm sorry in advance for the lameness of this post. I have only photographed a few things I've eaten over the past day or two because of just how damn busy I've been. Yesterday turned out to be a nightmare partially because I only slept for about 3.5 hours (I was woken up by incredibly loud thunder and incredibly bright lightning and once I'm up, I'm up. No getting back to sleep for me!) and partially because the wedding was difficult. I left my house at 6 am and got home at 7 pm thanks to some ridiculous traffic. On the bright side, I passed out at 10 pm (which is SUPER early for me) and woke up at 8 am (which is late for me, ha!)! I feel refreshed today but we are anticipating another really difficult wedding. Hopefully I'll get through better than yesterday. I'm sure the all the vitamin D will help though!

OK here's a few things I've eaten!

This is a sliced banana topped with my Raw Buckwheat Cereal. I still have a lot left and I love this stuff. This is the perfect breakfast!

Yesterday's breakfast was a Good Morning, Sunshine Smoothie and an unpictured Gluten Free Carrot Spice Muffin.

I'm bringing this Two Mom's in the Raw Blueberry Nut Bar to work today. The reception is in a Temple which is phenomenal for me because it takes the guess work out of whether or not there is dairy in anything! Obviously I still have to be careful of eggs and butter and the meat is typically obvious but it is one less thing to worry about :)

I've been eating peaches over the past few days! They are so sweet and juicy, a perfect summer snack! Yum! Oh and check out the nails. I tried the white polish with glitter over it. I'm not a huge fan of it but haven't had time to re-do them but over the next few days I probably will.

And, since I've been working so damn hard I bought myself a present today!

Look how cute this skirt is! It is actually a lot nicer in person too! I went to Old Navy this morning to pick up some more dark gray and black V-Neck t-shirts (I wear black dress pants and a black or dark gray shirt to work) and saw this super cute skirt. It was inexpensive and I figured I deserved it so I got it :) I plan on wearing it with a turquoise tank top (some of the stitching at the bottom is turquoise) and a white V-Neck over it with some cute wedges. Very excited!

Ok I've gotta run so I can eat and then I have to leave at noon. I anticipate being home by 1pm tonight hopefully! I hope you all have a great day :) I'll be back tomorrow with a real post, ha!

Fun Friday!

Hey everyone! I hope you had a great week. Mine was fine but not over. I have to be up at 5 am for a day wedding tomorrow then I have another wedding on Sunday. Fun times!

So for today's Fun Friday post I figured I'd do a workout post :) Some of you asked me to talk about workouts so I figured I'd start broad and narrow a bit as the weeks go on. I think it is important to include variety in your workouts so you don't get bored. I have tried tons of different workouts in my life and some have stuck and some haven't.

Check out the workouts that I'm loving the most right now!

You all know I'm a big fan of the Tone It Up girls. This is one of my favorite workout videos that they've put on Youtube. I love how they all have a beachy theme too :)

You all knew kickboxing would show up sooner rather than later. This is Gina Carano training with an amazing view. That normally doesn't happen though. I recommend it because it is a great stress relief, teaches you a lot of skills you can use in self defense (which you would hopefully never need!) and it really just feels good to kick ass! I'm going to miss it during this break but hopefully when I get back to it I'll be back to normal!

I have practiced Bikram yoga for two periods of about 4 months each. The first session is absolutely miserable but after that it feels amazing. It is cleansing, your flexibility improves exponentially, you learn how to deal with the heat and it is such a feeling of accomplishment every class. This is what I have been thinking about doing for the next month while I have to eliminate impact training. I think it will help my neck a lot. If I remember correctly, it helped the last time I picked up the practice... about a year and a half ago. I'm going to run it by the physical therapist before I start.

I have mentioned it a million times on here but don't know if I explained it well. This is the arc trainer. I love this cardio machine and it is one of the only things that doesn't aggravate my shoulder/arm. I usually describe it as a cross between a stair climber and an elliptical. Love it.

This is actually something that I've always wanted to try! Have any of you ever been mountain biking before? It sounds like a great challenge and like so much fun! I'd love to hear your thoughts on it!

Sorry if this post is boring but these are some of the general workouts that I either love or am interested in trying. I will be getting more specific in future Fun Friday posts :) I'd love suggestions for specific things you'd like to see and also workouts that you love that you think I should try! I'd love to try some new things :)

This isn't a workout but it is something that my mom emailed me and had to share because it is so cute!

Haha I love it! So perfect for the heat wave we just had. Today we had a monsoon like storm that naturally started while I was driving and ended just after I got soaked getting out of the car ;) Gotta love that! At least it won't be a million degrees over the weekend when I have to work.

Hope you all had a great week! Do something fun over the weekend for me! :) I'll have to live vicariously through all of you!

Another Milestone, Some Updates and a Grocery Haul

Hey everyone! Thank you all so much for your sweet comments on my last posts! All of you (commenters and lurkers ;]) are such a huge part of the reason I blog and I appreciate all of you so much! I'm happy to say that I hit another milestone today when I saw that I gained my 100th follower :)  I'm so happy and honored that you all decided to follow my blog. Thank you all so much!

So I mentioned the other day that I had an appointment with a physical therapist yesterday. After an hour and a half of evaluations, we have pinpointed that there is no shoulder injury at all and my pain, numbness and tingling are in fact caused by a bulging disc in my neck (C6 if you follow that kind of thing ;]). I'm really happy to have figured this out finally because over the last 6 months it has really gotten bad. I probably downplay it a bit but the truth is that my shoulder hurts most of the time, and when I do something to aggravate it I get numbness and pain down my left arm and into my thumb and pinky fingers. One major reason why I hate running is that 9 times out of 10 I will get off of the treadmill with horrible pain, numbness and tingling. The impact must aggravate it because it is terrible. I'm probably really lucky that the disc isn't herniated given the amount of impact that I put my body through between the running, jumping and fight training that I do.

I'm clearly a stubborn girl because none of this has stopped me in the past. I was advised to put the activities that involve impact on hold for a few weeks and I definitely need to listen. I'm tired of being in pain and struggling through it. I've been training probably at 60-75% for the past 6-12 months and it is really sad because I remember all of the things I used to do and want to be able to do them again. So I'm going to have to take it easy for the next month at least. I'm working on figuring out a new workout plan that will help me get back to 100%. I'll definitely keep you posted on that. I have an idea but I'm going to run it by the physical therapist first. For now I'm replacing running with the elliptical (did 30 minutes of intervals this morning) and doing all strength training with my trainer (45 minutes this evening... omitting overheard presses for a few weeks).

Anyway, I know this seems negative but I'm really happy that after 3 years of searching for answers I finally have one. I'm disappointed that I have to stop my Tough Mudder training for a little while but I know that it is the smartest decision to avoid more serious injury. I'll have to play it by ear in terms of Tough Mudder. It's pretty clear to me now that I'm going to avoid all obstacles that may aggravate or worsen the problem. Side note - I told my physical therapist that I was training for it and he said he was doing it to! How funny!

Anyway, sorry for the long update but you've all been so supportive throughout the whole thing so I figured I'd keep you in the loop. I may be on the sidelines for a bit but I can definitely still kick ass ;)

So I can't do a post with no food to show you so I am going to show you my mini grocery haul! I'm working weddings on Saturday and Sunday this week so I didn't get too much because I won't be home all that much. Check out the haul!

2 Two Mom's in the Raw bars (to bring to work as a substantial snack), Goji berries (finally!), organic salsa, stuffed grape leaves (shocking) and some golden sesame tofu.

For produce I got organic blackberries, spring mix, some corn, carrots and some tomatoes on the vine. Yum!

Thank you all for sticking with this long post :) And thank you all for reading, following, supporting me, and inspiring me. You are the best!

I hope all of my Northeast Friends are doing ok in this heat wave. My air condition isn't doing anything because my room is above ground level and therefore like 120 degrees. I just cleaned out the filter so hopefully that'll help a little. Wouldn't you know I locked my keys (and phone) in the car AGAIN today. On the hottest day so far. I'm just good like that ;)

Have a great night friends!

400th Post (For Real!)

Hey everyone! Today is my real 400th post! Sorry for the confusion last time :X This is for real this time, I promise! It seems like the post was published before but it was just a draft. Very weird. This is the real post, a little early. This is your Wednesday post this week... onAnyway, I wanted to make this post fun so I have a recipe to share with you! It was supposed to be a dehydrator recipe but I wasn't 100% happy with that aspect of it so it has transformed into something different. It is still delicious though!

Curious? This experiment was inspired by this post by Gabby. Check out those delicious looking flavored almonds she has! I went to the company website and saw that they had a Mexican Chocolate flavored almond and knew I had to try and make my own!

Check out this yummy, decadent treat! They are rich and chocolatey, but still not too terrible for you! Definitely a great way to cure a chocolate craving :) These are mostly raw because I used cocoa powder but you can always use raw cacao powder if you want to make them completely raw.

I tried to make them in the dehydrator because I thought they would crystalize kind of like the raw buckwheat cereal. It didn't really crystalize or even harden like I thought they would.

Basically what I did was make the syrup (recipe to follow) and used it to coat 1 1/4 cup of soaked almonds. Then I dehydrated the almonds at 104 degrees for 16 hours. They were still a little sticky after 16 hours so I turned the dehydrator off and waited to see what happened. They hardened up a bit and then I popped them in the fridge to store. 

These things are amazing! Like I said, they have a rich chocolate flavor with a kick of cinnamon. You can't taste the cayenne at all but you can feel the heat just a little in the back of your throat. It is so good! 

I figured that since the syrup is so versatile, I'd give you the recipe for that! I bet you can all dream up some yummy ways to use it :)

Mexican Chocolate Syrup

Ingredients:

1 tbsp coconut oil

2 tbsp raw agave (it is a bit sweet, you can use 1 tbsp if you like it less sweet)

2 tbsp cocoa powder or raw cacao powder

3/4 - 1 tsp cinnamon

pinch cayenne (optional)

Directions:

Mix all ingredients together into a thick syrup. 

Suggested Uses:

1. Drizzle over banana soft serve for a sweet and spicy treat!

2. Mix with your favorite plant milk for Mexican Chocolate Milk.

3. Use instead of melted chocolate in your Mess Free Banana Splits!

4. Coat your favorite raw nuts with it ;) Place in a single layer on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper. Refrigerate until it sets!

I plan on experimenting with different flavors of those nuts as well :) If they come out good I'll definitely share with all of you.

Hope you all have a great day! I'm looking forward to the next 400 posts :)

Quickie Post!

Hey everyone! Today's post is going to be a quick one since I'm rushing around getting ready for work! I just have two yummy meals to show you :)

I decided to work out at home this morning because I woke up late. I used the Tone It Up Beach Babe DVD and did the HIIT workout, the arms workout, the ab workout and the stretching routing. It felt good. These ladies are amazing, these workouts are really tough. The arm workout is especially tough for me because of my jacked up shoulder. Hopefully I'll get to the bottom of it in physical therapy tomorrow!

OK here are two of my meals from today. They'll sound familiar because it is pretty much what I ate yesterday.

Lunch was this pretty hummus plate :) Hummus, stuffed grape leaves, baby carrots and a ton of grapes. Easy, quick and delicious.

A big ol' yummy chopped salad. Tip. Save your good plastic take out containers for salads and dressing! It makes it much easier to carry them around! This is going to be yummy :)

That's all for me today! Stay tuned for a recipe and my 400th post tomorrow! Hope you all have a great day!

Monday Madness!

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a really lovely Father's Day! We had a great day yesterday :) We went to my brother's house and had a family BBQ (well they BBQ'd and I had a big ol' salad) and had a really fun time. Delilah is a little chatter box. She LOVES dogs and freaks out and screams "puppy!" every time she sees one! She loves animals in general :) The two of us spent some quality time together too which was so nice. Definitely a great day!

Today I started a new workout routine as well! I woke up at 6:30 am and got ready for my first 2 a day workout! My morning workout was 2 miles of intervals on the treadmill. Then I went back to the gym in the evening for my second workout: Intervals on the arc trainer and a 45 minute training session. I'll be doing 2 a days on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays and one workout on Tuesdays, Saturdays and Sundays.  My running will be done on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday and I will be doing non-impact cardio on Saturdays and Sundays. I don't like doing impact workouts on days that I have weddings. It sounds like a solid plan and I'll be paying attention to my how my body reacts over the next week or two and adjust accordingly. Nutrition is going to play a major factor in this!

Before I get to today's food I have a mini grocery haul to share with you! A new Fairway opened up close to my house and I've been told I HAVE to go there because it is amazing so I headed over there. I was so overwhelmed! They had so much stuff, a huge gluten free section, tons of organic food and lots of health and wellness items. It was crazy! I was going to do my grocery shopping there this week but the produce was even more expensive than Whole Foods! I picked up a few things but I'll get my produce at Whole Foods later this week. Check out the mini haul!

Kale, brown rice cakes (banana walnut butter anyone?!), 3 avocados (on sale 3/$5), 2 packages of sesame seaweed snacks and some medjool dates.

More groceries later in the week!

Now on to today's food!

Post workout recovery smoothie. Banana, blueberries, pineapple, almond milk and Vega vanilla powder. So good!

Late morning snack was a Gluten Free Carrot Spice Muffin. These are really amazing. If you want a healthy muffin to snack on or enjoy for breakfast I really recommend trying these.

Lunch was a hummus plate with tons of veggies and some stuffed grape leaves. I was so hungry I forgot to take a photo!

Vita Coco coconut water after my workout.

I haven't eaten dinner yet. I'm still cooling off after my workout. Even after I shower I'm still warm. It takes me a while to get my body temperature down sometimes. Does that happen to anyone else? I have a feeling I'll be making a big salad for dinner then maybe I'll have a rice cake with some walnut butter.

Now that I'm doing workouts twice a day a few days during the week I really need to be on point with my nutrition so I'll have the energy to keep up my exercise routine while working the 6-7 days a week that I'm working now! I have two weddings this weekend so I'll be working twelve hour days Saturday and Sunday. If anyone has any tips on how to fuel my body correctly after that much activity I'd greatly appreciate it!

Oh and as a little teaser, I did another dehydrator test and it came out so good! I'll post it on Wednesday or Thursday most likely :)

Have a great evening! I'll photograph more of my meals tomorrow I promise! Just adjusting to the new schedule :)

Snack Time!

Hey everyone! Rushing today to get out the door for a wedding but here is a quick post with the two snacks that I made yesterday! It was kind of a hectic day and pretty brutal that I had to turn the oven on but I suffered through ;) And it was so worth it! Check out the eats!

How cute are these muffins?! These are Gluten Free Carrot Spice Muffins. 

I used my recipe for Gluten Free Carrot Spice Oat Bread with a minor tweak. I basically just left out the white sugar. I thought it would be sweet enough with just the maple syrup, bananas, carrots and raisins. I was right! No white sugar necessary so these cuties are naturally sweetened. And the best part? I plugged the recipe in to the Lose It! app and each muffin is less than 200 calories! Gotta love that! Oh and I cut the baking time to 22 minutes :)

Here is the inside! It wasn't too sweet but just sweet enough. The only thing was that they stuck to the paper a little bit. Next time I'll bake them with no paper and just lightly spray the muffin tins. This is the perfect snack to bring along when I'm working weddings! I popped 8 of them in the freezer so I'll have these for a while :)

Here's the amended recipe!

Gluten Free Carrot Spice Muffins!

Dry Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups oat flour

1/2 cup whole oats

1 tablespoon ground flaxseed

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

3/4 teaspoon ginger

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon salt

Wet Ingredients:

1/3 cup maple syrup

1 medium banana, mashed

1/2 cup plant milk (I used unsweetened vanilla Almond Breeze)

1 tsp vanilla

Add In Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups shredded carrot

1/4 cup raisins

1/4 cup chopped walnuts

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray a loaf pan with non-stick spray and set aside.

2. Mix together all dry ingredients in a large bowl. Make sure all ingredients are well incorporated. Mix wet ingredients together in a separate small bowl. Add the liquid ingredients to the dry and stir to combine.

3. Add the carrots, raisins and walnuts and mix entire batter together. It will seem like there are more add-in ingredients than batter but just mix together as best you can.

4. Scoop batter evenly into muffin tins. Bake for about 21-23 minutes until there is a little resistance in the muffins.

5. Remove from oven and cool in muffin pan for about 5 minutes. Transfer muffins from pan onto a cooling rack and let rest until completely cool. 

I finally got around to making my Kale Chips! Not just any kale chips though. These are Cool Ranch Kale Chips!  I used this recipe :)

These are SO DELICIOUS! They are really savory and has really great flavor. The chips are super light and they came out great in the dehydrator. The only thing is that I'll probably puree the onion next time because I feel like it is weird to have chunks of onion on my kale chips. Or at least try to dice them even smaller. Anyway, dehydrator success yet again! I'm on a roll with it now ;)

OK off to work a long ass day again. Have a happy Saturday!

Fun Friday! The Style Edition!

Happy Friday friends! I hope the week has treated you well :) My week is not over yet, I have a wedding to work tomorrow but I am so glad that today was a short day at work! I have time to do some cooking/dehydrating and now I will have some yummy, nutritious snacks to bring with me tomorrow and to share with all of you! I'll try to post it tomorrow if I have time before work.

And now on to Fun Friday! Today's post is going to be dedicated to sharing my personal style with you. I've found some photos of styles that I really love and I think represent me. Granted I don't own any of these outfits or many clothes at all, but if you recall #27 from my Bucket List, one day I will buy myself a new wardrobe. And I assure you these looks will all be represented there :)

The photos of the first 7 outfits are all from one of my friends' Pinterest page. Apparently we have very similar styles :) Sorry the photos are so small, they are low res files so they are super blurry if I enlarge them.

I love the simplicity of this and I LOVE these jeans. I'm a big fan of the layered look, as you'll tell from most of these outfits. I don't have pierced ears but the rest of the accessories are adorable!

Love purple and gray together! I'd leave the hat but love everything else. You'll also notice a trend that I love flats! I rarely ever wear heels to be honest. I know they look nice and all that and I do enjoy heels once in a while, but on a daily basis I prefer flats.

Another cute layered look! Love these jeans too. I'd pass on the hearts but I love everything else.

This outfit is perfect. How cute is that dress?! I want it!

This is my absolute favorite outfit and 100% indicative of how I dress now. The jeans are the perfect length, I layer v-necks over tanks almost every day, the bag is ADORABLE, wedges are the only heels I'll wear on a semi regular basis and the accessories are so cute. By far my favorite outfit and also the one closest to how I dress.

Again, this is close to how I dress. Another simple, layered look with flats.

Love the jeans and apparently I need to investigate Tom's shoes because I'm loving all of the ones I see with these outfits! Gotta love that there is a vegan section on the website!

During the summer you'll see me mostly in dresses and skirts. I find them to be the most comfortable and I LOVE maxi dresses! This is when I'm forced to wear the wedge shoes ;) I love the far right one in the above photo but I would never feel comfortable rocking that much cleavage.

The last time I was in Target I saw that they were carrying Converse brand clothing! How cute is this dress?!

Speaking on Converse, I'm a big fan of the Classic Chuck Taylor's as well as this super cute double tongue Chuck Taylor! 

I've been trying not to be such a lazy ass about doing my nails and I love this look! White nail polish with colored glitter over it. I always go dark but white would be so cute for the summer! LOVE.

One pair of heels that I do own and love are my sequined skull heels. I've worn them once and they hurt like crazy but I'm waiting for an occasion to wear them again!

So that is just a snippet of my personal style and what my dream wardrobe looks like :)

I would like to end this Fun Friday post with a huge thank you to Caralyn for nominating me for...

the One Lovely Blog Award! Thank you so much Caralyn, you are so sweet!

The rules are fairly simple – share a few things about yourself your readers don’t already know, and pass the award on to some of your favorite bloggers.

Hmmm ok facts that no one knows... I feel like I always share random info :)

1. I went to Hebrew School 3 days a week for 8 years when I was younger. I can still read Hebrew but don't understand it. I never got Bat Mitzvah'd.

2. I want to road trip the California coast for my 30th birthday in 2013.

3. I am motivated by competition. I want to be better than the boys. 

4. I still want to start a vegan business. Since my own tastes and eating habits have changed, so has my idea for what kind of business I'd like to have. While I'd still like to do some baking (probably more on a special order basis) I'd love to focus on mostly gluten free, (some) raw, snacks and treats. In my ideal world I'd be selling at Farmer's Markets. I'd have the cutest presentations for my treats ;)

And my nominees:

Gabby from The Veggie Nook

Sage from Sweet and Sage

Molly from Vegan Flower

And for the record, I think all of the blogs that I follow and comment on are lovely and amazing and you are all wonderful people! Nominating people is so hard! I try to share the love with all of the blogs I read.

Hope you all enjoyed this peek into my personal style :)  Have a great Friday and if I can get on tomorrow before the wedding I will. I have to leave my house at 11:30 AM though and it'll be tight between the gym and the start time so I may be back on Sunday! If that is the case I hope you all have a lovely Saturday as well!

Morning Meals :)

Hi friends! :) I hope you are all well on this Thursday evening. Today has been a long day. First I went back to the spine Dr. and he has been working on getting me in to see a physical therapist. The ones that are in the same facility as him are willing to work with me so I'm going in on Wednesday! I think the plan is to go once or twice and to have them show me corrective exercises I can do at home. Such a feeling of relief to finally see some sort of resolution!

Oh, and I should also tell you... I'm kind of a giant idiot. I went on a tagging spree on my posts last night and realized that some of my posts saved as drafts when my internet connection craps out. So when I got rid of those drafts I realized that today's post is only number 395. Oops! So in 5 more posts I'll have a real 400th post. But now that I'm prepared for it I'll make sure to make it a special post ;) Sorry!

After my appointment I went straight to work and then to the gym right from there. My workout today was insane! We are doing strength training on Thursdays so today was pretty gnarly, especially because I did half of it with a weight vest on! He had me just leave it on and do a bunch of exercises including running the stairs, row, elliptical, squats, calves, the rope, and lots of other fun things. It was rough but it'll only make me stronger!

Since my day was so packed I wasn't able to photograph all of my meals but my breakfast and morning snack were so pretty I had to! I haven't eaten dinner yet so I don't have that either. Breakfast makes up for it though, I promise!

Check out this gorgeous breakfast bowl! I cut up a banana and a few strawberries and put them on the bottom of the bowl. Then I added about 4 spoons (regular soup spoonfuls) of my Raw Buckwheat Cereal on top and added some milk to it. It was SO GOOD! It was really filling too. The best breakfast I've had in a long time!

And I'm so happy to share with you my first giant bowl full of cherries of the season! So sweet and amazing. I LOVE cherries!

Unfortunately that's all for today! I have also been meaning to ask all of you lovely readers something for a few weeks! I would love some suggestions of what you'd like to see in my Fun Friday posts! Any themes that you are curious about? Definitely let me know, I'd love some thoughts! 

I hope you all have a great night! So glad tomorrow is Friday and I only have a short work day. I have plans to make some yummy things though so I'll share them with you at some point over the weekend :) Good night everyone!

WTF Wednesday!

Hey everyone! Happy Hump Day! I'll be very happy when today is over since it is my long day at work. I started off my day by taking some time to prep my meals, make homemade walnut butter and come up with a new smoothie (which means you all get another recipe!). A pretty productive day so far and it is only 9:20 AM!

I woke up this morning feeling a bit tired and wanted a bright and sunny smoothie to wake up me and to bring a little sunshine in to the day (it is a gross, gray day here). Check out this gorgeous smoothie!

I'm calling this my Good Morning, Sunshine Smoothie! It was so delicious and definitely brought a little cheer to my day :) Here's the recipe!

Ingredients:

1 small frozen banana

5 fresh strawberries

1/2 cup frozen pineapple

3/4 cup favorite plant milk

1 serving vanilla protein powder*

Directions:

Blend all ingredients and enjoy!

*I always use Vega One protein powder because it has my greens, probiotics and omegas included. No need to add spinach unless I want an extra green boost!

For lunch I'm having a hummus plate including stuffed grape leaves, 2 farmer's market pickles, 2 carrots all sliced up and some hummus. This is going to be so good!

As I mentioned I whipped up a batch of Gabby's Banana Date Walnut Butter! I am going to have it as my afternoon snack with a sliced up gala apple. I'm bringing the little container with me but threw the mason jar with the rest of the batch in the photo. I only made a half batch because I only had 1 1/2 cups of walnuts. I tasted a bit of it (how can you resist) and this stuff is amazing! I also had to substitute some agave for the dates because I used all of mine up in the VaVaBars. I used 1/2 tsp because I didn't want it to be overwhelming with sweetness and it is perfect! Great recipe Gabby!

Here is the walnut butter in all of it's glory :)

Dinner is an unpictured salad.

I realized I haven't updated you guys with my pantry challenge situation! I've been doing amazing with it, really dwindling down my pantry and using up lots of grains, beans, nuts/seeds, dates, etc. I'm really happy with how well that has been going!

I also decided to add an item to my summer list and that is to add tags to my 400+ posts. It is a daunting task but I feel like it should be done! Hopefully I'll be able to make some progress with it :)

I hope you all have a great day! Sorry this is a rushed post but I have to finish getting ready for work. Hopefully the day goes quickly!

Typical Tuesday

Hey everyone! This is going to be a quick post since I have to finish getting ready for work! Pretty good food day today :) Crappy photos though. Don't know what happened! Sorry!

For breakfast this morning I had a proper bowl of my Raw Buckwheat Cereal! It was SOOOO good and the milk tasted amazing too. I added a bit too much milk but it was all good ;) Can't wait to try it in new ways too!

Lunch was a delicious Mexican Quinoa Bowl. Mixed in the salsa already but left the guac on top because it looks like a hot mess when it's all mixed in. Took the photo in the window, better lighting. 

Afternoon snack will be a pear and some strawberries!

A big chopped salad for dinner! Greens, cucumber, carrot, sun dried tomatoes, and sugar snap peas.

That's all for now! Hope you all had a great day! Sorry so quick!