My next celebrity style crush is Lauren Conrad. I really just love her easy breezy style. Also she has fantastic shoes!
LC also has a great clothing line at Kohls. Here are some items that I like from her current line.
I’ve had this book on my list for a while now. Ever since I read and fell in love with Peony in Love by the same author, Lisa See, I’ve been wanting to read her other novels. I just found out that this summer, the movie of the book is being released, which makes me more excited to read it. As I was researching the movie, I saw that currently Peony in Love is in production, so I’m super excited about all this. I hope to love Snow Flower & the Secret Fan as much as the other one I read of Lisa See’s. I would strongly recommend Peony in Love if you have not read it. The movie looks good too. What do you think?
My parents were in town this weekend and they were kind enough to help me clean up my house. I’m one person and I tend to tidy up after myself as I go about the days, so the overall main cleaning seems to get put on the back burner. We vacuumed, cleaned floors, tubs, toilets, wiped down counters and appliances, we cleaned it all. For lunch we treated ourselves to sushi.
We ate at my favorite Sushi restaurant Fuji Sushi. They have a great Happy Hour menu with $5 rolls! I ordered an Eel & Avocado roll and a Tuna roll. My dad got a small Veggie Tempura plate and a Shrimp Tempura roll.
My mom won’t eat Sushi, so she ordered the Veggie Tempura plate.
Overall it was a nice and very productive day!
Synopsis: As a young man, Jacob Jankowski was tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. It was the early part of the Great Depression, and for Jacob, now ninety, the circus world he remembers was both his salvation and a living hell. A veterinary student just shy of a degree, he was put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. It was there that he met Marlena, the beautiful equestrian star married to August, the charasmatic but twisted animal trainer. And he met Rosie, the untrainable elephant who was the great gray hope for this third-rate traveling show. The bond that grew among this unlikely trio was one of love and trust, and, ultimately, it was their only hope for survival. 
This summer one of the hot trends is the Ikat print. I’m finding this print on everything, shoes, scarves, swimsuits, dresses, skirts, tops, shorts, pants, you name it, it will come in Ikat. Not to mention home decor is now being found in Ikat. What is Ikat you ask??? I really don’t know. It looks very much like native american art, kind of aztecy, southwest vibe. I will provide you the official definition: A craft in which one tie-dyes and weaves yarn to create an intricately designed fabric. That sounds better, instead of me inventing words to describe the print. The one great thing about Ikat prints is just like in nature, not one two patterns are alike. Here are some of my favorites from this growing summer trend.
Since I’ve been regimenting my diet to only 1200 net calories a day I have had to become pretty creative with my meals to mix things up. But being a creature of habit my mixing it up is just rotating about 4 or 5 different dinner entrees. I also don’t have a lot of time to prepare meals so this makes it harder to come up with new things to add to my meal plan for dinner time. I need something quick and easy to make and clean up. I get home twice a week at 9pm to eat dinner and the other nights of the work week around 7:30pm. If it take more than 5-7min to prepare, than it’s too much of a hassle and I will toast two Eggo waffles and call it a day. I recently discovered during my last grocery shopping trip down the frozen foods aisle something that will change my whole outlook on cooking. To most this may not seem to be that fantastic but to me its a game changer in the kitchen. Tyson has a entire line of frozen chicken called Grilled & Ready. I’ve purchased Tyson’s frozen chicken breasts before and they take forever to defrost, which is why I stopped buying them. I bought the Grilled & Ready Chicken Breasts, 98% Fat Free last week. After 2.5min in the microwave I had a delicious piece of chicken for my dinner and it’s only 110 Calories! If that wasn’t good enough it actually tasted grilled. Tonight was my 2nd time using this little gem from my freezer. I made a chicken sandwich on a toasted 100 calorie Arnold’s Whole Wheat Sandwich Thin and a dab of Greek Yogurt. Throw on a little lettuce and tomato…I got myself a 226 calorie chicken sandwich. That has less calories than the grilled chicken sandwich I’ve approved for my consumption at Chick-fil-a. I can’t wait to try the other items in the Grilled & Ready line. I think next I’ll buy the chicken strips and do some chicken tacos…I have a lot of tortillas left over from my shrimp tacos. Also there is diced chicken maybe for a salad. Endless possibilities!!! I’m going to have to do some brain storming and introduce new meals into my dinner rotation.
Check out all the other items Tyson’s has here.
I had a nice two days at New Smyrna Beach this weekend. It was just the relaxation I needed. Here are a few pics of my lovely two days.
We arrived Sunday early afternoon and went right out to the beach. I was able to finish my book Water for Elephants. All of my boyfriend’s family were at the beach with a lot of their friends and families. It was fun to have everyone stay in the same condos.
Lots and lots of kids were there, 7 McKinnon kids + probably 20 others that I didn’t know. Activities galore including boogie boarding, kayaking, kite flying, hole digging as you can see in the picture, and Matt’s favorite game…Cornhole!!! not sure if this is one word or two and I had no idea what this game was until I met Matt 4 years ago. Don’t know what the obsession is with this game but they played for hours both days. Here are some pictures of one of the games.
The first day I was jealous of everyone’s chairs and canopies and here I was lying on the hard sand. The next morning Matt went and bought me a chair, cup holder included for my big gulp. It was a tight fit but it worked! A chair makes all the difference when relaxing on the beach. It wasn’t too hot outside but the nice breeze felt great. Matt also surprised me with an US weekly since he new I finished my book. I was all set…new chair, big gulp and some celebrity gossip!
We ate at PJs Sea Shack. Wasn’t sure what to think of a seafood restaurant that didn’t have Hush Puppies on the menu. It was delish! The conch fritter appetizer made up for my lack of cheese grits and hush puppies. Matt ordered a spicy seafood alfredo which was pretty tasty. I was torn between the Swordfish with watermelon salsa or the Salmon. The Salmon won me over with the melted brie and blackberries…yummy!
That night we got a tasty ice cream treat from one of the local shops and watched The Dilemma with Matt’s siblings. Pretty funny movie. Vince Vaughn is always fantastic, I love how fast he talks! Overall pretty good 4th of July weekend, shopping, eating and lying around on the beach. All of it made up for the fact that my A/C in my house decided to go caput and I came home to a 90 degree house.
This was a very long weekend and I’m exhausted. I will post more of my weekend next time!
I went to the mall today to catch all the 4th of July Sales. I had a stellar day of deals. I went to the mall with the idea that I will only spend $100 and usually that is just a pipe dream. But today I did it! I did my normal route of stores: Loft, Zara, American Eagle, Banana Republic, Anthropologie, Urban Outfitters, Forever 21 and Gap. I didn’t find something at all the stores but I did find some great stuff. To summarize: Loft had their 40% off everything sale and usually I can’t get enough of this sale but their current collection is just not speaking to me. Zara’s was another big disappointment, I see so many people buy things from this store and I love it all, but when I go there, I can never find anything I want. I have this same issue with H&M, I’ve never bought anything from this store, yet to so many others this is a gold mine for many trendy and even staple items for their closets. Then I went downstairs to American Eagle, found a great light weight military jacket and silver cuff, everything in the store was 20% off! Banana Republic was a surprise, I don’t shop there as much anymore because I don’t want to pay the prices, my speed is more the BR Outlets. But I found a cute skirt and tee and you can’t beat 40% off sale items, not to mention I had a $10 reward card to use! Anthropologie was sadly disappointing, came out empty handed, which always breaks my heart a little. Back upstairs again to Urban Outfitters, another surprise, I found several cute summery skirts on their 30% off sale items rack. I ended up with two great little gems. Next up Forever 21, I get so lost in this store but the cheap prices are worth it. Found a great cotton maxi skirt and a couple necklaces. Gap has lost its taste factor again, not really sure what is up with their styles lately. I give it a couple more years to have them get back to their glory again. They seem to go in and out of knowing what to put on their racks. That concludes my shopping trip. Now for a recap of my spending budget and how I bought 4 Skirts, 1 Tee, 1 Jacket, 3 Jewelry items all this for under $100!
$100 Budget:
Banana Republic Silk Ikat Pencil Skirt $29.39 (originally $79.50)
Banana Republic Trapunto Weekend Tee – Baja Blue $13.69 (originally $29.50)
American Eagle Military Jacket $15.99 (originally $49.50)
American Eagle Hammered Cuff $3.33 (originally $15.50)
Urban Outfitters Kimchi Library Skirt $13.99 (originally $49.00)
Urban Outfitters Staring at Stars Gauze Skirt $13.99 (originally $54.00)
Forever 21 Navy Maxi Skirt $7.80
Forever 21 Cutout Flower Charm Necklace $3.80
Forever 21 Gold Necklace $3.80
SUB TOTAL – 105.78
- BR $10 Reward card
GRAND TOTAL = $95.78
Saved a total of $196.62
TRUE SHOPPING SUCCESS RIGHT THERE!!!
