Catching Up Instagram Style

Hey friends! Happy belated Mother's Day to all of the Mommys (Mommies?) out there (of human and/or fur children). I hope that you all had a really nice day. I spent the day with the family which was really nice. The only small issue was that my body didn't enjoy spending a few hours outside amongst the ridiculous amount of pollen and I had a bit of an allergy (read: swollen throat) situation last night but it's better now. And today is Monday which means it's time for "This Week On Instagram!" I have a few old pics and a whole lot of randomness but I guess that's what makes these posts fun, right?

On the heels of Mother's Day, here is a pic of me and my mom at my brother's wedding a few years ago. Minus the hair in my face it's one of my favorite pictures of us. I'm so lucky that my mom isn't just an amazing mother, she is also one of my best friends. We are lucky to have a really close relationship and while we drive each other crazy at times, she is honestly the most amazing woman I know.

And now onto the randomness ;)

There have been tons of bunnies running around my neighborhood lately. I got super close to the guy and he was so cute but I wasn't about to get any closer. 

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I worked a wedding for the first time in a while. I was at a catering hall that has peacocks randomly roaming around the grounds. I've had many run ins with the peacocks (they have a white one too) over the years... including one time in the parking lot where I had to wait for 5 minutes him to mosey along until I could leave because he was just standing in the middle of the lane just staring at me.

Here he is again. Those doors lead into the reception room so I'm sure it's fun for the guests to be able to look out or walk out of the door and see it. I hope that they treat them well and take good care of them. I wonder where they hang out during the winter as well.

I saw these gorgeous blossoms walking back to my car after a visit to my Dr. I thought they were so gorgeous I had to take a bunch of pictures of them. 

This is another picture of the gorgeous blossoms. The sky was so blue that day. This is one of my favorite pics I've taken and it's now the wallpaper on my phone :) It just makes me happy to look at the beautiful blossoms.

That's all I have for you this week. Not a ton of pictures but I hope you enjoyed them. I went grocery shopping this morning and did some prep for the week so I'll show you what I made on Wednesday! I hope that you have all been well. Sadly I think I have to put the mansions on hold for a few weeks until I get my allergies under control because the throat swelling is really uncomfortable but I can't wait to go to my second mansion and will do so as soon as everything is back on track.

Hope you all have had a great Monday! See you on Wednesday!

This Week On Instagram... a Teaser!

Hey everyone! Soooooo I barely posted last week... sorry about that! And today's post will be quick too but trust me, it's worth it. My allergies have flared up big time so I'm feeling a bit yucky but I braved the environment and my severe allergies to go check out my first Gold Coast Mansion! I'm not going to give any details... just three teaser pictures to hold you over until my post on Saturday. Hopefully they will intrigue you enough to bring you back on Saturday!!

No explanations, just awesomeness ;)

I lens flared the heck out of that last pic. I'm just saying. 

The only information that I'll give you is that I have a personal history with this town and it's very close to my heart. I'll also tell you that only one photo is of the actual mansion property. The rest is just amazing architecture in the town. I can't wait to tell you more about it and share more photos this weekend!

I hope you all had a good week and a Happy Easter. See you Wednesday!

This Week On Instagram & Patch Test Results

Hey everyone! Happy (?) Monday! I hope the start of your week was kind to you. I'm back today with some pictures I posted on Instagram over the past week :) Trying to get back in the groove of my new posting schedule and I think I should be on track for this week!

Here's what I've been up to!

I finally had the time to sit down and attempt to do the water marble technique on my nails! It didn't come out too bad for my first real try! It is very subtle because I chose dark colors but I love how it came out. I'll try again with more springy colors next week and show you how it comes out :)

I also had the time to try to achieve some heatless curls using my new Flexi Rods. I used two different sizes and wasn't 100% thrilled with how it came out. My hair got BIG. Like Lady Marmalade big. Ridiculous big. It calmed down a little bit eventually but I think next time I'm going to try to do them all with the large size Flexi Rods and see what happens. And sadly that gray hair at the top of the picture is here to stay :( More on that in a minute.

I just saw this sign at an abandoned gas station near my house and thought it was kind of awesome.

I normally capture sunset pictures but as I wasn't sleeping all that much the past week I was able to get this amazing sunrise picture! It almost looks like fire! Love it.

Yesterday was an absolutely gorgeous day and I couldn't in good conscience sit in my house all day. I don't like going to Whole Foods any time after 9:30 am because that's when all of the self absorbed, entitled jerks in my area converge upon the store but decided to risk my sanity and take a trip at around 4:30 in the afternoon. It was a mistake in the sense that the store was a disaster and people were leaving their carts all over making it virtually impossible to pass. On the plus side I got to take a nice drive with a gorgeous blue sky above me and the spring air coming in through my open window. So beautiful.

For some reason I've been feeling really girly lately (see above hair and nail attempts) so I decided to go to my local beauty supply store (we used to have an Ulta but sadly not anymore) and pick up a few things. I grabbed a few bottles of nail polish for a cute springtime water marble, some clips to help tame my crazy hair when I attempt to style it, some empty travel pill cases that will be perfect for holding DIY crayon lipstick (which I discussed in yesterday's post) and of course cotton balls... because we all need cotton balls. Yeah, so between yesterday and today I decided that I really am curious about this crayon lipstick and really need to try it ;) Who knows, if it comes out well I may do a little giveaway. We shall see!

OK so I finally am finished with my allergist adventures and have two confirmed allergies to add to my extensive list of environmental allergies: P-Phenylenediamine (PPD) & GOLD! GOLD?! OK, so the PPD allergy was actually the reason I went in there. It is the ingredient in hair dye (it is in pretty much every single dark hair dye out there... including black henna, wtf?) that I reacted to several months back. Upon further research when I got home, I basically need to stay away from hair dye (except the one brand that supposedly doesn't have it in there but I've heard that people still react to it), and need to inform my doctors and dentist about the allergy because it can cross react with certain local anesthesias. It can also be found in black rubber, sunscreen, and for some reason a lot of websites I went to said to stay away from orange peel? I don't completely understand that one except it may just be naturally occurring in orange peel so I guess no more orange zest and I either need someone to peel oranges for me or I need to wear gloves. That's crazy.

The other allergy that popped up was to Gold. I find that amusing because apparently it is rare to be allergic to pure gold. Most people that are allergic to their gold jewelry are actually allergic to the nickel that they mix with the gold. Nickel is the most common metal allergy and I'm not allergic to it. I don't know why but I'm amused by that but I am.

As of now those are the only two confirmed allergies. The other one we were watching was for a textile dye (also dark colors) but while it turned red it didn't have any other characteristics of a full reaction. I have to watch for one more as well which could also be starting to show a delayed reaction. This one is for Chromate but for the most part I don't come into contact with most of the common sources (no thanks leather!). I think the only things I would have to be careful of is tattoo ink and some cosmetics.

I did skin testing today for some food allergies like tomato, potato, eggplant, corn, and soy and they all came out negative. Yay!

OK this turned into a very long post but that's what I've got for you today! I hope you all had a great Monday and I'll be back on Wednesday with a What I Ate Wednesday post! See you then!

This Week On Instagram!

Hey everyone! So I'm a day late on this post but I guess a day late is better than not posting at all right? I'm mostly a day late because 3 of these 5 pictures were taken and posted today :X Sometimes the inspiration strikes a day late? Anyway, here's what I've been seeing this week.

So I woke up yesterday and was getting ready for my Allergist appointment (more on that in a minute) and had no idea what was waiting for me outside until I got in the shower and looked out the window... and it was SNOWING!!!! WTF?! I don't remember hearing anything about snow at all in the weather forecasts.

It wasn't just snowing, it was snowing REALLY hard. And it was windy. Luckily it only lasted for a few hours (maybe 3 or 4?) and then naturally it went up to 50 degrees and was bright and sunny a few hours later. Because why wouldn't it be like that?

Pulled over on the way to the allergist. I swear every time I'm supposed to go to the allergist it snows! The last time I was supposed to go for Patch Testing there was a crazy snow storm and I had to cancel!

I saw these decals on the car in front of me and I had to take a picture of it! I'm not into Star Trek but I love it when people let their nerd flags fly. My friend is a big Star Trek fan too so I had to send him the pic :)

Another sunset pic! Can you tell that I love sunsets? Especially beautiful ones like we were treated to tonight.

And saving the best for last, it's my sweet Tyler! I went to see my niece after work today and watch her for an hour and that means I get to see my nephew as well ;) I couldn't get him to look at me but I love this picture.

So as a little update (and as I mentioned earlier in the post), I went to the Allergist yesterday to have some patch testing done. If you don't know what that is basically I have these patches taped to my skin that contain diluted amounts of chemicals, preservatives, metals, etc. I decided to have this done for two reasons. First, because of the reaction I had after dying my hair the last time and second, because my skin has been out of control lately. I get rashes and it's very weird... especially the one on my throat. Not feeling that so I'm trying to figure out if it is because of allergies. It would make sense considering I seem to be allergic to everything nowadays.

Anyway, the patches stay on for 48 hours and then they are removed and the area is observed. Then it is observed again 48 hours after that because some allergies may have a delayed reaction. All I can tell you is that I'm definitely allergic to something because there is one strip of patches that is DRIVING ME CRAZY!!! OMG I'm so itchy! I can't wait to get these taken off because if it's not an allergy then this hypoallergenic tape must be irritating the heck out of me. In either case I can't stand it. If you've ever had skin testing done (with a positive result) imagine that itchiness being constant for 48 hours. Or I guess more like 36 hours because it really started today.

Anyway, that's all I've got for you today! I hope that you've all had a great start to your week. Tomorrow I'm getting these things taken off and then I work late so I'm not sure if I'll be able to get a post up tomorrow but I'll try! Hope you all have a great day!

This Week In... Orlando!

Hey everyone!! I'm baaaaaaaaaack! The cold 32 degree weather was kind of a punch in the gut coming back from the gorgeous 85 degree Florida weather but that's the way it goes I suppose. Anyway, I just got home about an hour ago and I couldn't wait to show you guys some pictures from my trip! You'll have to wait until Wednesday to see the yummy food I had down there though ;) Such a tease, I know.

I know you're probably wondering why the hell I took a pic of my "allergy kit." Well, it's because I was going to be sharing a space with...

This handsome guy!! He is so freaking cute I can't stand it. Here he is resting on the very top level of his kitty mansion that his grandma got for him ;) You can see he can't be bothered by my nosiness.

So on Friday we ran our usual errands that we run when I visit (Whole Foods, grocery store, wine store, etc.) and after that we settled in to catch up and...

Have a glass of wine with Kathie Lee and Hoda... those lushes, hahahaha! He loves them and I find them amusing, especially their love of daydrinking so we decided to join them for a glass of wine. And this was when I found out that wine makes me soooooooo sleepy.

Here is an obligatory photo of a silhouette of a palm tree. When in Florida, take photos of palm trees.

On Saturday we took a little day trip to a town about 40 minutes away from my friend called Cassadaga. It is a spiritualist community and is known for the amount of mediums and psychics that inhabit the town. We walked around and checked out the shops and it was really interesting. I purchased a few things but I'll hold off until Saturday to tell you about that ;) I'm full of teases in this post!

It was hard to get a clear pic of the building but this is the Cassadaga Hotel. The building was so incredibly beautiful, this photo doesn't do it justice.

There was also a park and a short nature trail in the town. It is so hard to describe but the air smelled sweet! When we were walking the trail the air smelled amazing and sweet and I *think* it may be because there were orange trees around there? I thought I saw a sign for it but I didn't see any oranges. Lots of little lizards running around too.

On Sunday we had a lazy day and watched some movies before going out for an evening walk around Lake Baldwin (the same lake from the pictures last year) followed by dinner (and a margarita) on the patio of a Mexican Restaurant.

Here is the gorgeous view from our table at the restaurant. It happened to be sunset too so we were treated to a blue and pink sky. It was a gorgeous evening. (Note - I darkened this picture on purpose so you can't really see the faces of the other diners. I feel weird showing people without permission!)

Today we were slow waking up but then got ourselves together and went to a vegan restaurant for breakfast (actually lunch since it was noon when we got there) and then just hung out until it was time for me to leave.

The flight home was ok and I was treated to some gorgeous sunset views. Naturally I captured them for you, my friends.

Beautiful, colorful sunset!

Sunset over NY. So pretty, the colors were so stunning. 

When I walked outside at the airport here in NY I was greeted by bitter cold temperatures. It's crazy what a different a thousand miles makes ;)

So there is the overview of my trip! Stay tuned for Wednesday to see what delicious meals I ate (and cooked) while I was there. I'll do my best to catch up with all of your posts too!

This Week In Instagram

Hey everyone! Hope you had a good Monday and a Happy St. Patrick's Day! I haven't really had a ton of green food but I made a discovery that will drastically increase  my green consumption and I'm excited about that! More to come on that later this week ;)

So I have a few random Instagram pictures to show you this week. The excitement level of this post is down close to nonexistent but I figured I'd still post them anyway. This is how un-exciting my life is... until this weekend that is. Just two more work days until vacation and I definitely can't wait. That means that hopefully next week's photo wrap up will be far more exciting (and full of wine and margaritas, ha!).

So here are my photos from the past week:

I don't know about you guys but I'm kind of obsessed with Bed Bath & Beyond. We got this catalog last week and not only did I love the aesthetics of it but I wanted one of everything on the cover... which meant that I'd probably want everything inside as well. Which I pretty much did. These marketing people were smart because you know everyone loves a mason jar.

I took this screen shot of the weather app in my phone last Tuesday. It was a GORGEOUS day and definitely one of the first true spring like days we've had. Of course it didn't last long but I made sure to get out and take a walk on my break so I could at least enjoy it a little. I even drove around a bit after work to enjoy the fresh air. There is nothing better than driving on a beautiful day with the windows down and nowhere to be. 

This was a night time stop sign shot I took on the way home from work on Wednesday (so it was just after 9:00 pm). I just thought the neighborhood looked nice and I love when the lights look all flare-y and whatnot.

So I made this side by side view because I was looking through my photos and found both of them and thought it would be interesting to show you what I saw out of my window after Hurricane Sandy hit. On the left you have the typical view and you can see that there are tons of houses in the neighborhood. After the hurricane hit and the power was out for 11 days all I could see in my neighborhood after sunset (which was early, around 5:30 since the hurricane hit so late!) was the moon. I remember how eerie it was and how words couldn't describe what I was seeing. I also remember taking this picture maybe 2 or 3 days after the storm hit and thinking it was crazy that the neighborhood was completely black. I know it is a weird and random thing to think about now but the old photos made me think about it.

That's all for today. I'm not sure if I'll have a post on Wednesday but I'll definitely post a Throwback Thursday recipe before I leave for Florida. I'll also be scheduling a a review post for Sunday while I'm away :)

I hope you all have a great few days! 

This Week In...

Hey everyone. Hope you all had a good week last week. Sorry I wasn't around, it just turned out to be really crazy and not a great week so I just stepped back for a couple of days. I had intended to post yesterday but the day completely got away from me between watching Delilah (she had slept over from Saturday to Sunday), baking vegan cookies for my friend's daughter (egg and dairy allergies) and this same friend's baby shower. By the time I got home I was exhausted and basically ended up being useless the end of the day.

As you know I'm supposed to post my Instagram photos from last week on Mondays but once again I failed on the Instagram front. However, I thought it would be hilarious to post some of the photos in my Photobooth gallery since those are always fun. This shows how much I love all of you because I look like a mess in pretty much all of them ;) The guy in some of the photos with me is my best friend that I go to visit in Florida.

I don't know why I love this picture because it is horrible but I do. It's actually one of my favs, probably because you can't see my face, ha!

Look at that hair! Mirror effect.

If I were an Easter Island statue.

Me and my bestie, the brainiacs ;)

Being goofy with the thermal effect.

Extreme close up. Sorry for that one.

Comic book effect.

X-ray! My Halloween pic every year. 

Thug gangsta frog.

This one was actually from work. Big eye!

So there you have it, fun with the Photobooth app! For all of you Mac owners that haven't discovered the glory of the Photobooth app please check it out, it is hilarious.

That was my way of lightening the mood at the beginning of this new week. I've been trying to make sure I take some food photos for Wednesday and I should definitely be around more this week. Hope you all had a good week last week and that your Monday was kind to you.

See you on Wednesday!

Last Week On Instagram: February 24, 2014

This past week was a pretty slow week with Instagram posts. I feel like I'll have more posts once we enter the spring and I'm able to get outside and explore a little more. There appears to be a theme that has started to pop up recently though. I am drawn to the evening light... that soft light that appears just before sunset. I don't think there is any more beautiful time of the day. I've also enjoyed taking red light photos to document my travels and routes I take. I only have four pics this week so it'll probably be a pretty short post.

I honestly thought this was just funny when I passed by. First, there is the absolutely filthy, disgusting black snow that almost looks like a crazy crystal formation. Then there is the random soda sitting there. It looks like someone put it there to chill until they were ready to finish it... and I really hope that's not the case because half of the dirt in Long Island is on that snow.
*Edited to add - I don't condone littering and not recycling your bottles/cans. We pick up bottles and cans tossed in front of the studio on a regular basis and add it to our recycling. I just thought the imagery was amusing.

I took this one because it is the light that I absolutely love. The soft evening light coming in through the bare tree. It's so pretty and the weather has been so warm it was such a pleasure to spend some time outside without risking hypothermia.

This is probably my favorite photo of the week. More red light photography ;) This is one of my favorite roads to drive. The tree lined streets studded with big, beautiful homes make the drive really pleasant. This photo was also taken at sunset so the sky is fiery and pretty and I even love the reflection of the red light in the puddle. And it was taken super super quick too. This is definitely a lucky picture ;)

This one is leaving the sunset behind me. Like I said, the weather has been so amazing and you can't tell by the giant snow piles in the rearview mirror but the snow has been melting very rapidly and the weather has been balmy and really pleasant. I've been enjoying being in the car (which doesn't happen often) and I've even been driving around with my windows open enjoying the fresh air :)

So that's all I have from Instagram this week. I hope you all enjoyed my yesterday's Nature Box review post. I'll be back Wednesday with some food pics for you! Have you all been liking these new themed days? I've been enjoying it quite a bit... it has definitely helped to keep my interest which is always a good thing.

Hope your week has started off well! Have a great night!

This Week On Instagram

Hello my friends! I hope you have all been keeping warm and dry over the past week. It has been so crazy weather wise but I have to say I find it really amusing that I had multiple people come to me for weather reports since I'm the weather nerd in their lives. I've been working hard on finding the silver lining as well so I've been enjoying getting in the consistent workouts over the past few weeks. This snow has been heavy and plentiful so I've been getting some great cardio and strength workouts in which is kind of nice. How have you all been coping?

I decided it would be fun to do an Instagram update today. I'm thinking about working that in on a weekly basis as well. It will be good inspiration to start taking more pictures on a regular basis, something I haven't really been doing a whole lot of over the past months. I'm sure you can figure out what this week's theme is ;)

Check out this MASSIVE mountain of snow! And it wasn't the only one... there were probably 5 or 6 huge mountains like this one in the parking lot. If the snow wasn't so gross and dirty it would actually be really cool and pretty. The photo was taken around sunset time, hence the pretty pink and blue hue.

I've become fond of taking snowy travel pics from the car. No, I'm not dumb enough to actually photograph while the car is in motion (unless someone else is driving). Especially not in road conditions like this. This pic was taken on the way to work this morning. 

This one was taken on the way home from work on Saturday. Again, totally stopped because I'm not crazy enough to take pictures while driving.

Last weekend we had a slumber party with Delilah. My brother and sister in law went out with their friends to celebrate a few birthdays so we had Delilah and Tyler over our house for a sleepover. I can't believe how big she has gotten. The time has really flown by! Poor thing is sick right now with a high fever so hopefully she'll take her medicine and get some rest. She doesn't like her medicine though :(

So as I mentioned in my last post, I'm trying to figure out a new format for this blog. Something to keep me inspired and to keep me posting. My idea is to dedicate each day to a certain topic. So for example, every Wednesday could be "What I Ate Wednesday..." where I'll post meals I've eaten over the previous week. 

Here's what I've been thinking so far:

Monday: This Week On Instagram (I'm a day off today, whoops!) - posting pics that I've shared over the previous week on Instagram

Wednesday: What I Ate Wednesday - post meals I've eaten over the previous week and grocery hauls (if I take pics of them)

Thursday: Throwback Thursday - post old recipes from my previous blogs 

Saturday: Nerd Alert! Talk about the nerdy things I'm into :) (still working on this one - it probably won't be weekly for a little while)

Sunday: Show and Tell Sunday - share new recipes and/or post reviews of products, foods and services I've tried (whichever one I have for the week).

What do you guys think? It seems pretty lofty to go back to blogging 5 days a week but I'm hoping that different topics each day will prevent me from feeling overwhelmed by it. Also, as I mentioned, Saturday posts will probably be sporadic in the start as I figure out exactly what I want those posts to look like. And on that note, I'd love to hear suggestions of what you would like to see in these posts... especially for my Saturday posts. I love hearing your input and suggestions!

That's all for today. I hope you are all doing well! I'm not prepared to post meals tomorrow since I just came up with this schedule but maybe I'll be able to pop in with a quick grocery haul? We'll see what tomorrow brings. I will definitely be back on Thursday with a Throwback Recipe.

Nerd alert: I'm going to get back to this marathon of Planet Earth on BBC America. Such a great series.

Good night!