Never Ever Ever - Link Up

Never Ever Ever will you Ever hear me say... 1. Let's get fast food for dinner 2. Traveling is so boring 3. I can' relate any real life event to any FRIENDS episode 4. I'd rather have water than a margarita 5. That is too many chips for me 6. Garlic bread is too garlicy 7. I hate cuddling and hand holding 8. I don't facebook stalk 9. Adventures are no fun 10. I usually can't find anything to talk about Linking up with Neely

Happy Friday

Sometimes the stars just align.

source

Fresh Produce Box

Our complex has partnered with some local farmers to provide us and others around our neighborhood with local fresh produce! We decided this week to give it a shot, and believe me we were not disappointed! 

The fruits and veggies are so vibrant, luscious and rich looking and we both can't wait to dig right in!

Box Contents

Burgundy Spring Onion

Detroit Red Beets

Blue Dwarf Kale

Swiss Chard 

Carrots

Curly Parsley

Fava Beans

Strawberries

Mustard Greens

Bacon Avocados

We made carrot noodles last night and I ate some of the strawberries this morning.

There is just so much, I feel a little bit overwhelmed! I don't know where to start with all of these beautiful leafy greens!

Any ideas??

AGD IRD 2013

Check out Day 2 of #RawWeek2013!

our table

Lighting Candles

Pearls, badges and sisterhood - no better way to spend a beautiful Saturday!

On Saturday, my college women's fraternity celebrated their International Reunion Day. Alpha Gamma Delta is a great organization that has helped me grow in so many ways throughout college and has extended to after college. I have met some of the most influential women in my life and would not trade my experiences for anything.

The sisterhood that I have established here in Los Angeles has been such a blessing and I am grateful every day for the beautiful women that I have met through this organization. I have met women old and young, new to the organization and tenured, beautiful women, inspirational women and women that I am proud to call me sisters and my family. Nicole is a new addition to my squirrel collection! She was taking photos at IRD and we kept catching each others eye. We introduced ourselves and now are blogging buddies, facebook friends and we hope that our paths cross again at future functions!

Right now, we sadly only have one chapter in Southern California, at Chapman. The good news? We are reinstating the chapters at San Diego State, UCLA & USC, so the IRD will be a huge event next year and I can't wait!

We got fun lip glosses and candles that we could write on with chalk. 

And the squirrel in the lower right corner is a little keepsake box that the Alumnae Chapter President gave to me as a thank you for my involvement. I am so thankful and can't wait to store my badge inside of it!

How I love those Alpha Gamms...

:-)

#RawWeek2013

Source: Uploaded by user via LaTache on Pinterest

I am teaming up with Stephanie from BEAUtiful Mess for #RawWeek2013

One day down, six more to go!

I have been contemplating doing some sort of a cleanse for a while now, especially after the fun spring break we had where we ate and drank our way through. I consulted my great friend Melissa, with RNL, and she even guest posted for me about cleansing and detoxing at home. This guest post got me really thinking thinking about it. At the beginning of last week, Rich was out of town so I figured I would eat mainly raw meals since I knew he wouldn't be totally on board with it, and salads are a great one person meal. It was a lot easier than I thought. I just made big garden salads and added lots of yummy toppings: carrots, snap peas, beans, radishes etc - all kinds of good stuff!

So when I saw that Stephanie was doing and entire week of Raw, I figured, what the heck?! 

So here it goes!

On Sunday, I meal planned for the week. I decided what both Rich and I would like. This can be a challenge because when it comes to food we aren't too picky, but the things I don't like he likes and vice versa. (And no, I am not making separate meals for him...He can make his own breakfast and lunch and what we have for dinner will be what I make and it will be Raw :-) ) I also wanted to chose meal items that we either (a) had already, (b) wouldn't be too hard to find or (c) wouldn't cost us an arm and a leg to buy and we could use again.

Oh and we don't have a juicer or a dehydrator which crossed out quite a few options!

After I planned the meals, thank you pinterest (my raw board), I headed to the grocery store and bought the food that we would have for the first part of the week. Our complex offers fruit and veggie boxes that are grown and prepared locally for $17! Which is a total steal - with the boxes containing enough to feed 2 families for a week! Ahhmazing!

After the grocery store, I prepped and stored our dinners for Monday and Tuesday. I, honestly, was shocked at how quick and easy the entire process was - thankfully!

Honestly, I accepted this challenge and was a bit worried that it was going to be really tough to complete. I know it is only Monday night, so I can't say too much, but I am pleasantly surprised at how easy this has been!

However, let me be honest....I accidentally cheated...if you can call it cheating...I ate nuts and seeds that had been roasted and I had beans in my lunch salad today, and I didn't realize that it wasn't 'raw' until after I consumed it, thought about it for a minute and googled it. But I will not let this get me down...I will just make sure not to do it for the rest of the week!

Check out what I ate on Monday here!

Join us!
#RawWeek2013

Life Lately

Selfie :-)

I have kept myself very busy over the last few months: I kept in touch with friends in different time zones, I researched recipes for my sweet husband to make us, I got my TEFL/TESOL certification and I watched a lot of TV shows, movies and read some books!

I am so blessed with my sweet husband who always takes the best of care of me. He always knows how to put a smile on my face even when I was feeling down.

Thankfully we have streaming Netflix and midway through my recovery, Netflix offered us a free trial of the DVDs, and thankfully we have a library near us and I figured out how to rent e-books and store them on the kindle!

TV Shows:

Newsroom

Girls

Parenthood

Game of Thrones

Revenge

House of Cards

Breaking Bad

Sister Wives

Homeland

How I Met Your Mother

Movies:

The Dilemma

True Lies

The Hurt Locker

The Hunger Games

This Means War

The Change Up

Crazy Stupid Love

Breakfast at Tiffanys

Game Change

No Strings Attached

Men Who Stare at Goats

Invictus

The Departed

Black Swan

Horrible Bosses

Hall Pass

The Artist

Burlesque

Country Strong

Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Key Largo

Hope Springs

Rudy

Argo

Silver Lining Playbook

Sleeping with the Enemy

Monsters Ball

My Left Foot

Inglorious Bastards

The Bucket List

Cider House Rules

There Will Be Blood

Breaking the Rules

Trouble with the Curve

Casablanca

The Big Sleep

Books:

Redeeming love

The Psychopath Test

Heaven is for Real

The Tiger's Wife

Half of the Yellow Sun

Haircut!

I just got my hair cut and I am so happy with the cut!

I haven't gotten my hair cut in forever so I was long overdue for a freshen up.

Happy Saturday!

We Are Beautiful

This video is going around facebook so I finally took the 7 minutes to watch it and I am so glad that I did. The sentiment is so raw and so real.
While I watched this video I thought about how I would describe myself?  I have a big forehead, I wish my skin was less sun damaged and freckled(if only I was diligent with sunscreen when I was younger) And then I thought about how other people would describe me. How have I been described before? How would the two images compare?
And then I realized that I am beautiful.  Every woman, man and child is beautiful. It is so important that we tell ourselves this so that we can radiate confidence, happiness, joy and be the positive change that we want to see in the world.
You are beautiful. I am beautiful. We are beautiful. The world is beautiful.
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