A Few Meals

Hey everyone! I hope you are all doing well. As I mentioned in my last post I am trying to be more mindful of photographing meals. I've done a not so great job I guess but I do have a few meals to share at least. Here are just a few things I ate over the past few days.

I made several of these yummy plates for lunch throughout the week. This particular one had cucumber, carrots, dolmas, hummus and sun dried tomatoes. There were some Everything Crackers from Trader Joe's on the side. This is definitely one of my favorite meals, it is so good and a perfect meal to throw together if you don't have a lot of time.

OK, so I don't know if this is a NY thing or not but this glorious breakfast was a bialy with tofu scallion cream cheese. Do people outside of NY know what bialys are and/or have them? If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you can read about what it is here. I couldn't even begin to explain. These are so good and whenever my family gets bagels there are always a few of these in the bag too.

The weather is warming up which means iced coffee time! I limit myself to having it a few times a week rather than every day but it is so tasty.

Cauliflower tacos!! I actually edited this post to add these since I JUST made them and had to share! I used the breading method in Blissful Basil's  Cauliflower Taco Recipe and just used panko breadcrumbs instead of oats. As you can see I added a lot of veggies on top of mine and used some Tofutti Better Than Sour Cream as well. There is some perfectly ripe avocado hidden under all of it as well.

Just so you can see the avocado. This was so good you guys!

My Dad's birthday was on Saturday so we all went out for dinner on Sunday. We went out for Mediterranean food and it was so good.

I started off with this plate of deliciousness. The salad was called Shepherd's Salad and was tomato, cucumber, parsley and onion (which I ate around) dressed in olive oil, lemon juice, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper. This salad is one of my favorite salads ever, it is so simple and flavorful. I also had some hummus and bread straight from the oven. I followed this up by more salad and some unpictured falafel... There was too much craziness at the table and I was entertaining Delilah so the follow up didn't happen but I assure you it was delicious.

Here is Delilah chowing down on an orange slice after the meal. She is getting so big, it is so crazy! She is so funny too :)

Things have been busy otherwise with work and trying to get some more jewelry made. I made about 16 more pendants today so I'm getting a nice stock together :) I'll show you some more pictures of those in the near future.

I hope you all had a nice weekend!

Grocery Haul & Then Some

Hey everyone! So like I mentioned in my Orlando Wrap Up Post, I'm making a conscious effort to try and blog some more. I FINALLY got to the grocery store and took a pic of my haul as well as a few other random food pics.

Before I get to that I just wanted to say I hope you all had a lovely Mother's Day! I know a lot of you guys are wonderful Moms to human and/or fur children and I hope you all had a lovely day. I had a really nice day with my family. My mom and I started off the day with pedicures and then went to my brother's house for a BBQ later in the day. The weather was perfect and we had a great time! And I found out I'm babysitting the fur babies in June so I'm excited about that!

I know it has been a while since you've seen a picture of Delilah and the pups so I snapped one yesterday. Delilah had just gotten out of her bath and was cuddled up with Tyler and TJ and it was too cute to pass up! I love all of them so much!

OK now on to the haul. I stopped at Whole Foods and Trader Joe's and combined the hauls.

First up is the produce. In the top left corner is a head of cauliflower (to make cauliflower tacos!), two heads of Boston lettuce (my fav for lettuce wraps), carrots, tomatoes, cucumber, avocado and strawberries.

As you can see I splurged quite a bit in this haul. I had a random craving for a Tofurkey Sandwich so I got Tofurkey, Mediterranean Hummus from Trader Joe's (my favorite store hummus ever), Maple Water (I just thought it looked interesting), Beyond Meat Beast Burger (which I tried for the BBQ yesterday and it was ok... not really worth the price though so I'll save the other one for the next BBQ and will pass on them in the future - unless they are on sale), Tofutti Better than Sour Cream, Trader Joe's Everything Crackers (the BEST with hummus), Cocomels (I finally treated myself to them! Still can't find the chocolate covered ones), stuffed grape leaves, corn tortillas and in the box was General Tso's Seitan (also just OK).

I also finally got myself some Scallion Tofu Cream Cheese from Bagel Boss! This stuff is so good, I'm glad I finally splurged on it... I guess in the future I'll just mix up my own.

Sooooooooo.... My mom found PRETZEL BAGELS at the grocery store!!! OMG you guys. Soft pretzels and bagels are pretty much two of my favorite things ever so to combine them is pretty much my ideal meal. I spread on some scallion tofutti and enjoyed this for brunch today.

I'm trying to prepare in advance these days so I put together this bowl of fruit to bring to work for breakfast  and it is basically just watermelon and strawberries. I'm looking forward to it though... I love spring and summer produce so much!

And that's all I have for today. I'm really planning on taking pics of more of my food again so I hope to keep you posted on all of it. I've also been working really hard on my jewelry and some DIY stuff and I'm excited to share it with you as well! I have a few pieces of jewelry to show you as a preview :)

This is a faux-druzy ring that I love! I have four different colors - pink (pictured above), blue, green and a champagne/gold. I love my makeup brush mandrels as well ;)

On the left is a Faux Druzy Filigree Floral Pendant (available in the four colors listed above) and on the right is my favorite Glass Pendant I've made so far. It is a gorgeous coral and silver pendant and is perfect for the summer!

Some more glass pendants! Just a drop in the bucket, I'm planning on making a ton of these for a Jewelry Party I hope to have in June. I have also made glass rings like these as well.

That's all I have for you today! I hope you all had a great weekend and that your week is starting off well. See you soon!

Orlando Vacation!

Hey everyone! I'm sorry I didn't do my monthly favorites post this month but I was in Florida on vacation through last night (May 5) and didn't have time to put it together before I left! I did try my best to at least take a few pictures of my trip so I could show you all what I've been up to on my vacation and here I am to share them! I had an amazing trip and was able to spend a lot of quality time with my best friend :) We had a good balance of relaxing and going out and enjoying the gorgeous weather and everything Orlando has to offer.

Without further ado, here is the recap!

So first I thought I would take a picture of the view out of my bedroom window so you could see how pretty it was. I couldn't open the screen so sorry about that!

The weather was so amazing and I would open the window overnight for an amazing breeze while I slept. I would wake up much earlier than my friend but I had this adorable guy keeping me company every morning!

A curious little guy :) And so handsome!

Shen asked for a lizard picture and I was happy to oblige! I made sure to get the crazy blue sky and palm tree in the picture as well ;)

We had a very mellow day on Saturday and then Sunday was very busy! We started off by going to brunch (more on that below!) and then went to the Orlando Farmer's Market at Lake Eola. I LOVE this market, it is HUGE and there are so many different vendors! After we stroll through the market we always take a walk around the lake as well. 

This is the view of the Farmers Market from across the lake. I really love this market, they have so many amazing and talented vendors! If I had more space to pack things I would have purchased quite a few things! Probably better for my wallet that I didn't.

This is just a pretty view of Downtown Orlando from the lake. Look at how blue the sky it! They day was PERFECT. It was literally 82 degrees with crystal clear blue skies every single day of my trip.

Here is a closer shot of the fountain. So beautiful.

Later that day we went to Universal Citywalk to walk around and to do something different than what we always do. It was so much fun! We didn't go into the park but we perused the shops and again soaked up the beautiful weather. I had to get the obligatory Universal globe picture since it was right in front of me :)

On Monday we did some shopping and once again, it's probably a good thing that I didn't have enough space to bring things home because my poor wallet would have suffered ;)

I did remember to take pictures of some of the food we ate! We had quite a few meals at home as well as a few restaurant meals. I didn't photograph everything but I did photograph a few of the meals.

This is a terrible picture of an absolutely DELICIOUS meal. I really highly recommend trying this one, it is so good! This is Pasta with Creamy Sun Dried Tomato and Mushroom Sauce and I highly recommend trying it! So amazing.

I knew I wanted to pick up a watermelon and made sure to do so when we went to Trader Joe's to go shopping for food for the weekend. This was a really great watermelon and was a really refreshing snack when we came home from being outside in the hot sun.

As I mentioned above, we went to brunch at Ethos Vegan Kitchen before heading over to the farmers market and I enjoyed this glorious plate of beige vegan deliciousness. This is the Breakfast Burrito and it has potatoes, tofu scramble, faux sausage and is smothered in an amazing gravy. I couldn't finish it but oh man did I enjoy every bite I could get in.

Keeping up with tradition from previous visits we found ourselves at Loving Hut for lunch one day. As always it was incredible. We both had the exact same meal. We started off with the small wonton soup which is pictured above. It was a bit more cilantro-y than I remember it being in the past but it was still pretty tasty.

We also both enjoyed the "Combo #1" which includes yellow rice, a summer roll, tofu in mushroom sauce and a steamed cabbage and carrot salad kind of thing (which is amazing!). It was such a delicious meal and I get it pretty much every time but it's just too good.

Finally, here is the sunset out of the airplane window yesterday as we were taking off. It was really pretty so I decided to capture it :)

So there you have it! I feel recharged and refreshed but also like it went too quickly! It was amazing to catch up with my best friend and I miss him already!

I'm going to try really hard to get some more food posts up in the coming weeks! I've pinned a ton of new recipes that I really want to try and I will try really hard to get on here and share the results with you. Truthfully after spending 8 hours at work editing pictures and staring at a computer makes it really difficult for me to feel motivated to stare at a computer and edit pictures when I come home but I'm going to try to make an extra effort to get more posts on here.

I hope you are all doing well!

March 2015 Favorites

Sooooooooo. It's been a while, eh? I don't really have an explanation but I decided to take a bit of a hiatus... mostly from blogging but also from commenting for the last few days. I guess I just needed a break. I sit in front of the computer at work all day and then to come home and sit in front of the computer is sometimes really tough for me. I do feel a bit refreshed and I'm going to be catching up on your posts and commenting on the most recent ones! I hope you have all been well!

I'm back with my favorites from the month of March. I'm pretty excited about these, I found a lot of great products this month!

The first favorite from March is this Dr. Bronner's solid bar soap in the scent Almond. I took this pic for a haul that I never posted which is why I have the wrapped soap pic. I purchased it after hearing on YouTube that it was great for cleaning makeup brushes and beauty sponges so I decided to give it a try.  I keep it in a plastic soap tray and it works perfectly.

This is after some use. You guys. You will never use anything else to clean your brushes after you try this. It works perfectly and the Almond scent that I chose is amazing! My beauty sponge ($3 knockoff of a beauty blender) looks brand new... which has never happened even after a thorough cleaning. I highly highly recommend this product and they have different scents like lavender, peppermint, rose, eucalyptus, tea tree, citrus orange and unscented. I got mine at a great price at Harmon Face Values (I'm pretty sure I paid $3.49) which is pretty much my favorite store ever for beauty supplies. I purchased the soap dish there too.

The next item that I have is 100% Pure Jojoba Oil which I purchased from Trader Joe's. I needed something to take off my makeup and after finding out that Coconut Oil is less than ideal because it clogs pores, I decided to try Jojoba Oil because it does not clog pores. This stuff is really amazing for taking off makeup. I like to soak a wash cloth in hot water, wring it out and press it on my face for a minute and this loosens up the mascara and eyeliner. Then I just put the oil on a cotton round and wipe it off and it really does work well. I highly recommend trying this if you are looking for an all natural makeup remover!

The next item was purchased from a store called Five Below where everything is $5 or less.

This is my new spring cell phone case! I'm kind of obsessed with it. It was $5 and I LOVE the floral pattern.

Here it is on my phone. It provides a lot of protection, doesn't feel cheap and the design is really nice. I'm so happy I found this case.

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I have been obsessed with this haircut for the last week or so. I really want to get it but the only thing that holds me back is that I have had very bad luck when bringing in a photo of a short hair cut in the past and when they cut too much there is nothing I can do to make it better until it grows out. I'll probably end up doing it eventually but I need to talk myself into it.

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I found this next favorite through a friend of mine and he is an artist named Oscar "Sketch" Navarro and his work is called The Art of Sketch. I really really love his work, and the piece above is definitely my favorite. I'm going to be purchasing some prints and probably a necklace once I can decide which ones I want! There are SO MANY that I love! This is definitely my aesthetic.

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This may seem a little strange because I already LOVED Trader Joe's but stay with me here. Trader Joe's has become my main grocery store this month for many reason. First, you can't beat the prices. I walk out with a grocery bill that is an average of $30 less than my bill at Whole Foods. While the organic produce selection isn't as extensive as Whole Foods I've definitely been able to get by without missing anything. Beyond this, they have introduced some new, amazing products! I spotted a HUGE bag of organic, raw hemp seeds for $5.49. The equivalent at Whole Foods would probably run closer to $15. I also saw a huge bag of Chia Seeds with a comparable price comparison to Whole Foods. I have been really happy with my full grocery hauls from Trader Joe's and I'm happy to be fully converted :) I'll still go to Whole Foods every once in a while for specialty items but I'm a Trader Joe's girl now.

That's it for March. I hope you all enjoyed this post and that you are all doing well.

Love, Sarah

Hey everyone! I hope you are all doing well and surviving the cold and snow. We had a lot of snow last week and the piles are getting bigger and bigger. It seems the end may be near as we are going to see temperatures in the high 40s and 50 this week! It's so exciting!

Anyway, I'm here today to share something with you that I've been working really hard on. It's my jewelry. I have my Facebook page set up and I am so excited to share it with you. I have two different kinds of jewelry listed and a lot more in the works!

I've decided to call my business "Love, Sarah." I make each piece of jewelry with a lot of care and love and I love how it sounds like I'm signing a card, because in a way, I am. If you are interested in checking out my page you can click here! If you have Facebook and feel inclined, please click the "Like" button, it will help me out a lot!

Here are a few samples of some of the jewelry I've made!

First up are the glass pendants. They are $25 each. They can be customized with whatever shape, color and design you like best!

This is my Green Galaxy Pendant. I LOVE this pendant :)

Champagne and black with a little silver glitter!

This is my "Faux-pal!" It didn't photograph so well but it shimmers blue and red in different angles and is very reminiscent of an opal!

Purple Galaxy pendant!

I've made quite a few Clay Pendants but I'm just going to share two with you here. You can click the link to see the rest ;) They are $15 each and you can customize the colors!

Lavender and majenta.

Red with black!

Thank you all so much for your kind words in my last post! I hope you like what you see! Everything I make is customizable in terms of color and design :)

I hope you all have a great day! Enjoy the warm weather! ;)

February Favorites!

Hey everyone! I'm back with my monthly favorites for February! Here are a few things that I was loving last month :) I'd love to hear what you have been loving lately too!

First up is a product from my recent e.l.f. haul! I am obsessed with this lipstick, it is the most beautiful wine/berry color. It is perfect for the season and I've been wearing it a lot before the season changes! I've also been enjoying dark, bold lips in general. I love pairing a bold lip with a neutral eye, it's fun to wear a funky lip color :) This shade is called "Wine Tour" and it is one of the e.l.f. Studio Moisturizing Lipsticks.

These next two favorites are for my fellow dry skin sufferers! My skin is horrifically dry during the winter and I have to constantly be on top of it. If not it is a pretty bad look for me. Two products that I have been LOVING are the Skin Drink facial moisturizer and Charity Pot body and hand lotion, both from Lush. I'm not going to lie, the scent of the Skin Drink moisturizer isn't my favorite (to be kind) but this stuff works like a dream! It leaves my face feeling hydrated and soft. The Charity Pot is amazing in so many different ways. First, it is a great moisturizer (I use it as a hand cream) and it has the most lovely, light scent. More importantly, every penny paid for this product goes to the charity found on the lid of the pot. You can choose any charity you would like your money to go to. The one above is the closest I could find to an animal charity. It is called Seven Ravens and they are working to "improve the lives of people, animals and ecosystems worldwide through permaculture."

This is totally random but I have been enjoying grilled peanut butter and banana sandwiches lately (not too often but when I want a super comforting meal!). I make my bread all crispy and toasty using a coconut oil cooking spray and it comes out perfect. If you have never tried this please try it! Sooooooo good!

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I have two more podcasts that I've been obsessed with this month. The first is The Moth Radio Hour. The podcasts is basically true stories being told live in front of an audience with no notes. Some of these stories are so captivating you just hang on every word. I highly recommend checking it out! You can listen by clicking the link above or through iTunes.

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The second podcast I loved this month was another NPR podcast called Invisibilia. According to their site, "Invisibilia (Latin for all the invisible things) is about the invisible forces that control human behavior – ideas, beliefs, assumptions and emotions. Co-hosted by Lulu Miller and Alix Spiegel, Invisibilia interweaves narrative storytelling with scientific research that will ultimately make you see your own life differently."

I was going to wait to talk about this until I had everything all organized and settled but I am too excited to hold off!! I started working on creating my jewelry to sell in February and I'm so happy with the pieces I have created so far! I will show you just a teaser of what I have just until I'm ready to actually launch my "shop" (which is actually just a Facebook page). This is considered a February favorite because I'm having a really good time creating everything and it has been a really fun hobby for me. Sorry if this is shameless self promotion ;)

I have created a few embossed painted Clay Pendants and the one pictured above is one of my favorites. The copper paint shows up so beautifully. I have other color combinations as well and I will be making custom pieces based on specific color requests :)

I am SO HAPPY with how these pendants came out!! I especially love the square (which is supposed to be a galaxy design) and the rectangle. I can't wait to make more and to share everything with you! I just couldn't wait ;)

That's it for this month! Let me know what you have been enjoying this month! Especially food recommendations. I'm in a total food rut, I could use some ideas!

Have a great night!