Pinterest has not failed me.

While perusing Pinterest lately I came across a pin that said that there was a version of that Wen shampoo made by a brand that is found easily in stores and it is way cheaper than the Wen brand. Naturally, I had to try it. It's made by Herbal Essences. You can get it here. I bought my bottle at Target for $4.99 (which definitely beats the $30-60 for Wen on Amazon). I used it last night in my shower and I have three things to say about it:

1. It smells fantastic
2. My hair was really soft after rinsing it out which is not normally the case. It usually feels like straw. I made sure to massage it really well when putting it on because it doesn't lather. I used 4 pumps (the directions say to use 3-4 pumps. I started with 3 and then added another pump when I felt I had missed spots), let it sit for a few minutes and then rinsed really well. I ended up rinsing, going on to the next step in my usual shower routine, back to rinsing my hair, next step, back to rinsing, etc. I think I rinsed it 3-4 times just to make sure it came out all the way. 
3. I must have fully washed it out because after blow drying and then sleeping on it, I woke up this morning with beauty queen full sized hair. I looked like I had teased the crap outta out, but not the knappy teasing, the teasing that adds tons of height and volume. Even after straightening it which usually takes off the volume, my hair is still big this morning!

You're not supposed to use it for every washing, so I think I'll be using this maybe once a week at the most. I'm definitely pleased with the results after one use. Thank you, Pinterest!

Why I love Thanksgiving.

It's my favorite holiday because:

1. Family time
2. Holiday centered around food. Of course I can get behind that!
3. FOOTBALL (Seahawks v. 49ers!)

Family time being the favorite part of the day. I love lazing around the house with everyone just enjoying their company. I don't do the whole Black Friday thing, so I don't have to deal with crowds or overpricing of merchandise only to "slash" it back to the original price.

This year will be different in that we're not going to both sides' houses for dinner. We usually go to Jason's parents' house first and then drive over the bridge to my parents. Jason has to work early on Friday, so we're just staying close to home this year. I'm kind of sad about that, I love seeing my folks.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Enjoy the day spending it with those you love and please be sure to thank the cook. They work hard!

November, Yikes!

October was an insanely busy month for me, hence the lack of posts.

Oh, by the way, my health experiment was a MAJOR fail. I think I lasted 2 days. It was awful and I'm pretty embarrassed by it.

At the end of the month hubby and I met my family down in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for my sister's wedding. It was such a relaxing vacation. I did not want to come back to the cold weather and rain (actually, with the humidity in Mexico this time of year, we were actually looking forward to the cooler temps while waiting for our plane ride back). Best part of the trip, J loved it! Mr. I Had a Bad Experience in Mexico when I was 15, I hate Mexico...wants to go back. Success!

Spent our 2nd Halloween in our home. Only this year J had to work late. Good thing I have girl friends that wanted to come over and help me pass out candy. My friend brought her three cousins from Korea with her, and they got so excited passing out candy to all the trick-or-treaters, it was great, my work was done! All the little kiddos dressed up were so cute! I found this post on Instagram regarding health and fitness, where anytime an "Elsa" came to the door, you do 5 pushups. I had 6 before my friends got to my house, so I did 30 pushups by myself. While they were there, 2 more came to the door, so we all did 10 pushups. It was kind of fun to do something silly like that. Also, second year in a row I ran out of candy before the first hour mark. Next year I'll learn, I swear.

Health Experiment, Day 1.

I've decided to start a week long experiment on eating the correct portion sizes of my meals, working out every day, and just eating healthier (everything homemade, no eating out, the least amount of processed ingredients as I can with what I have/basically don't spend any money just use what I have).

Notes on this experiment:
-I do not plan on doing this on Wednesday - no workout and I'm going to dinner with my parents and hubby's parents. I may go to the gym after dinner...I haven't decided yet, we'll see what time we get home. I have a 9:30 bedtime :)
-I just came up with this last night, so Monday was not included in my "week". I'm going until Sunday and from there I'll see if I want to extend to the next week.
-I made a plan on dinners I wanted to make late Sunday night and went out Monday and bought all my ingredients I was missing, so it's not like I had all these just laying around my house...so yes, money was spent, but that was before I came up with this experiment for myself.

Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2014:
Breakfast: serving size of peanut butter multi-grain Cheerio's (3/4 c), with serving size fat free milk (1/2 c). Beverage: homemade London Fog (1 1/2c. fat free milk, 2 Earl Grey teabags, 2Tbl homemade vanilla syrup) Thoughts: didn't seem like much, but if it says that's a serving size, so be it.

Mid-Morning Snack: organic medium honey crisp apple. Thoughts: 40 minutes before lunch and I'm STARVING. Maybe drinking water will help...

Lunch: leftover from dinner last night - oven baked chili dogs. Granted, this was semi-homemade, as in I bought all the ingredients and just assembled it. Next time I make this (and I will, I really liked it) I will do homemade chili, not canned as I did last night. I also won't forget the mustard. Oops. Thoughts: drinking water between my mid-morning snack and lunch definitely did help curb the appetite. Just a reminder to me that I need to drink more water. They'll be days I don't drink any, so a good day would be 1-2 glasses. I know it's bad, but I'm not a fan...and I've tried adding fruit and it's so-so. I don't do those powders or liquids you can add to your water...I HATE artificial sweeteners and no matter which I've tried, I can always taste the aspartame aftertaste and I hate it. I'd rather drink regular sugar.

Mid-Afternoon Snack: 1.25 cup sliced strawberries. Thoughts: I bought these last night from the grocery store and they're just not the same at the peak of the season (sigh). 

Workout: This was the most frustrating workout I've ever encountered and I ended up quitting early and going home. I went to my gym and started with some cardio on the elliptical. My machine started making very weird noises, so I moved to another machine that did a mixture of ellitical movements and stairmaster movements. The log screens kept freezing, so if I hadn't had my heart rate monitor on, I wouldn't have known how long I was going for, etc. That got annoying, so I moved to another machine - a regular treadmill. Couldn't get it to turn on. Once it finally turned on, I couldn't get it to start a program. Moved to yet another treadmill, and everything was great - got intervals going, watching Pioneer Woman on the attached tv, all good. 20 minutes in, and bam! sleep timer and it shuts down. I think, "Okay, about 30 minutes is a good warm up, I can move to the main classroom since there are no classes going and I'll do my pilates workout." {side note: I have the blogilates app on my phone - love it! I subscribe to her monthly workouts and in the app she has links to the youtube videos of her workouts so I don't have to search it while I'm out and about} I get into the room to start my workout and the app won't open because I get terrible data coverage in the gym and they refuse to get wifi for members. I was so over it I went home thinking I'd do my pilates workout there...but eating dinner and watching tv with the hubs was way more comfortable.

Dinner: leftover chili dogs from last night. I had 2 because I was hangry.

Total Calories = 1,694

It has been over a month since updating and I feel like this summer is just flying by! I can't believe schools are back in session (in Washington anyway) just next week. My nephews will be starting kindergarten!

What I've been up to lately:
1.) after 6 years, I left my position at a non-profit and went into the construction business. I am the sales coordinator for a cabinet/casework manufacturer. I help prepare all the bids that are sent out. It's such a different path than what I was on, but I'm starting to get the hang of it and am starting to do really well. Hopefully I can continue to grow and learn new things in this new field of mine.

2.) after 5 years and three nephews, whom I love dearly don't get me wrong, I have a niece! My brother and sister in law have birth to their daughter at the end of July. I wish I could fly down to Georgia to meet miss Elena, but sadly I can't. Duty calls. Boo.

3.) football season is now upon us, and I'm anxiously awaiting next week when hubs and I will be at the season opener of the Seahawks season against Green Bay. We lucked out and my parents sold us their tickets, so 1st level baby! So excited for Sept 4th!

4.) the following week J and I will be celebrating our 2nd wedding anniversary. Time is flying by, but luckily this year I remembered in time to get his gift early..2nd anniversary is cotton or china, depending on whether you follow traditional or modern. I have a plan for both :)

And I'm going to stop here. I have to be up for work in about 6 hours and I'm cutting back severely on my caffeine intake due to getting a high blood pressure reading recently. This won't be pretty...

Portland Mini Vacation

Last week my husband was on vacation from work so he talked me into taking Friday and Monday off and having a long weekend down in Portland. It was fantastic, I didn't want to come back to reality! We drove down Friday morning and hit up the Woodburn Factory Outlet before checking into our hotel in downtown Portland. It was nice to have a leisurely day shopping with him.

Unfortunately for J, seasonal allergies took over due to driving down with the top down on our new to us convertible. Once we got checked in and settled in our room, he took some allergy medicine and passed out. I stayed up reading my book. Currently, I'm reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I'm almost halfway through it and still trying to get used to the narrative, but so far it's pretty good.

Day 2 (Saturday) consisted of heading down to the Portland Saturday market. I found a birthday present for my dad, and bought at growlette of local cider from a booth for Atlas Hard Cider Company. I haven't opened it yet, but I'm thinking it'll be perfect for when I get home tonight from work! :) Since we stayed at the Vintage Plaza downtown, it was an easy walk to all the shopping, literally a block or so away from Nordstrom. Hubby had to go because it was the men's sale going on, and he surprised me with dinner at a nice restaurant that night, but didn't bring a thing to wear for it. So I got to pick out his outfit for the night, which was kind of fun.  We had dinner at the Portland City Grill, which boasts a great view of the city. My food was excellent too, I wish my stomach did shrink lately because I just wanted to keep eating, but couldn't.

Day 3 (Sunday) we went and had breakfast at an English soccer pub, The Thirsty Lion, down by the farmer's market. Got to enjoy a mimosa and french toast. Afterwards we back to the farmer's market and just walked around the city. We also went to Peninsula Park where a friend of mine from college was working an event. She does marketing for Kaiser Permanente. We chatted with her for awhile, took a walk through the rose bushes and then left to go find smoothies. When it got closer to the afternoon, we started to find a place to watch the Portugal v. USA match. Seemed like everywhere was packed! We finally found a spot at Buffalo Wild Wings and I'm so glad we did, because before the match even started, there were people lining up along the wall waiting for someone to either leave, or just stand there for the game! My old roommate from college met up with us and we watched the game together, caught up and ate some food. After the game, J and I went back to the hotel where I fell asleep for a nap. I needed to get more steps logged for my fitbit (I'm in a constant competition with my mom who always kills me), so when he woke me up from my nap, I went down to the gym in the hotel basement and watched an episode of Pretty Little Liars while on the elliptical. When I was done and after showering off, Jason needed to get out of the hotel room (there's only so much Big Bang Theory he could watch), we walked to Voodoo Doughnut and stood in line. I wasn't feeling very well, my stomach was upset (probably due to all the food I ate) and I couldn't stand in the line once we made it inside due to the heat, so I sat outside at a nearby picnic table waiting while he bought two dozen doughnuts. We walked back to our hotel and were in for the night.

We left Monday morning after I made him search for a Dutch Brothers coffee stand. While on this trip, I decided I didn't want to go to places I could go back home, and with the exception of Nordstrom and BWW (even though that was the first time I've ever been there) we were pretty successful. I wanted to experience more of Portland and it was nice.

Pretty Little Liars is my newest Netflix marathon. I'm almost caught up the the current season. I'm hoping to be caught up to the newest episode by the end of this weekend. Should be done by Saturday which is perfect because the weather isn't supposed to be nice.

Uh-Oh. I'm in trouble.

I just discovered this. My husband is going to kill me, but I need a new project! I can only watch so much Netflix people!!

Update

Sorry I haven't updated in over a month. Not much exciting news in my life.

We're in audit-mode at work, so it's been insane with that as well as co-workers' vacation schedules so covering for them has been a nightmare. Thankfully, the hubby and I will be taking an extended weekend vacation down to Portland next week. It will be nice to explore Portland some more. Some things on the agenda are Shakespeare in the Park, and trying out some "urban hiking" (apparently that's a thing down there??)

The rest of my summer will consist of working, spending quality time with family and friends, and planning my sister's bridal shower for August. Invitations were mailed out yesterday, so it'll be nice to get some planning down on that front. It's a fiesta theme and I've been pinning like crazy trying to make it a great day. Hopefully the weather cooperates. Too far in advance to check it, unfortunately..

Happy Birthday to me!

Hard to see, but Google is pretty awesome..

Obsession: Baked Eggs

I don't know if it's come across in my previous posts - but instead of saying I have interests, I say I have "obsessions" because it's more accurate. I am so fascinated by various things. I get engrossed with them and go through phases where that's all I can (insert verb here - eat, watch, read, listen to, etc). My current food obsession is baked eggs. I LOVE breakfast food anytime of day. I've been really into eggs for dinner the last few weeks, more specifically, baked eggs for dinner. I've been experimenting with various ways to make them savory instead of just scrambled and drowning in maple syrup from the other food on my plate. I've come up with two ways so far that I think are super delish and easy to boot.

Italian Baked Eggs: in a greased ramekin add enough marinara sauce (I used pizza sauce because that's what I had on hand already opened) to cover the bottom. Crack two eggs into it (if you can fit 2 eggs in the ramekin - if not just do 1 and adjust other ingredients), pour some milk or heavy cream into it, just eyeball it, doesn't have to be exact, but try not to add TOO much because then you'll get really runny baked eggs. Salt and pepper until you're content, I also added some freeze dried parsley (got from the produce section of grocery market). Top with mozzarella cheese until you can't see anything anymore. Bake for 15-20 min at 400* or until eggs are set. I usually stick a fork in it and see if anything comes off with the fork, or if it looks too runny, I'll pop back in oven.

Southwest Baked Eggs: in a greased ramekin add salsa (I had a southwest salsa that had corn and black beans in it), 2 eggs, some milk, I omitted the salt and pepper and changed the cheese to a shredded cheddar/jack blend I had already on hand. Baked for the same amount of time as above. Once it was done, I diced up half an avocado I needed to use up before going bad (cut into it the night before to add to chicken friend rice, was surprisingly good! but was starting to brown up). I love avocado so I had tons of it on top. You don't have to do that, but if you want go right ahead!

Easter weekend

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend spending the holiday with loved ones. My husband was working on Easter and my parents left for Colorado last week to celebrate the holiday with my sister, so I was an orphan yesterday. Luckily a girl friend of mine came over and we ate all the ham, and asparagus we could fit into our bellies and binged on Revenge episodes on Netflix. I'm kind of obsessed with that show now that Scandal is done for the season. I may or may not have filled my belly with mimosas as well. They're so good though, I add Grand Marnier to the glass before the champagne. Delish!

Holidays are a little sad for me nowadays. Since we don't have kids yet, the holidays are just too quiet. I can't wait for the day I see little faces light up on mornings where they got a surprise visit during the night. I may have baby fever, but I know that we're not there yet so I can wait until we're ready. Still it's a little bittersweet.

Lazy weekend

It was a glorious weekend! Some highlights are:

• Friday night after work I met my mom at the local mall and searched for a bridesmaid's dress for my sister's wedding this fall. We'll be in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for it, so needed something weather appropriate. As we were walking in, I saw a dress in a photo plastered in the window and thought, "Wow, that's a super cute dress...if they have it in the right color I'm definitely trying it on." Lo and behold, as soon as we walked in, we spotted said dress in the correct color. Looked at the size (score!), tried it on...and the rest was history! Tried on only one dress, loved it, and bought it. That's the great thing about being my sister's one and only bridesmaid - I got to choose what I would wear. Luckily, we sent a pic to Christy and she loved the dress. I guess we'll be sharing a neckline ;)

• One step closer to Mexico thanks to finally getting around to renewing my passport. Technically, my passport doesn't expire until next year, but I needed to change my name since I've gotten married since previously getting a passport, so it's not valid anymore since I don't have any identification with my maiden name on it...and the plane tickets we purchased for said trip have my married name on it..So something I learned while taking my passport photo - you don't smile anymore!? How come!? I look like I'm being booked into prison. I managed a teeny tiny smile in my new photo because I suffer what is known as "Resting Bitch Face"..It's a real thing, people!
  

• Thanks to Netflix, I got to revisit a favorite movie of mine I've forgotten about. Penelope. It came out while I was in college and hit quite close to home for me..No, I wasn't born with a pig face...but during that time in my life, I didn't really like myself. I always found too many "imperfections" in me - I was too skinny, too pale, big nose, etc. Later in my college career I started to actually embrace everything I formerly hated about myself...And thanks to on demand and DVR, I've caught up with Scandal, Reign (new guilty pleasure), finally seen what's so great about this gem...and got an Emma Stone/Ryan Gosling fix with Gangster Squad. I personally love those two together. They need to make more movies I say!

• I busted out my Silhouette Portrait yesterday and started working on spring crafts. Nothing gets you into a holiday mood like crafts! Haven't finished yet because after cutting everything out, I realized I had nothing to mount it on. Oops. Had no desire to leave my house yesterday, so saving the finishing product for later in the week when I can stop by a store on my way home to grab the necessary materials. 

• 

  Spring banner, anyone?
  
  
  

  Got really excited to see progress with my raspberry plant I purchased in February at the Seattle Garden Expo. So far my quest to no longer be a black thumb is proving to be successful..I've managed to keep an orchid alive since September, my raspberry plant is budding, AND as I was leaving home to head to work, I saw that the hydrangea plant in my front yard is budding too!

  

Hope everyone had a great weekend! I know I enjoyed mine!

I live in a house with a boy and 2 boy long-haired dogs. Needless to say, no matter how much I clean, there is a "funk" smell in the air some days. Today was one of those days. Walked into the bedroom and living room and smelled...I don't know what. Today is not a deep clean day so that's when I turn to Arm & Hammer Carpet and Room Pet Fresh Odor Eliminator (can find it here). Man, what a difference a little sprinkle of that does before I vacuum! The fresh scent lasts for quite a long time in my experience with it as well, which is a huge plus, because I already vacuum everyday due to previously stated long-haired dogs.  If I skip a day vacuuming, the next day I'll have piles of dog hair floating around the hardwoods looking like tumble weeds. It's ridiculous!

With the weather warming up it is getting close to that time of year when the boys get shaved. It's still a tad too cold, so I'll wait a few more weeks for it to warm up. Last year we did it super early and the little one (poor guy), had to wear a sweater for like a month so he wouldn't shiver constantly.

My newest project

Over the weekend my mother-in-law and I went to thrift stores looking for a good deal on furniture because she was going to teach me how to refinish it. She's been finding these old school sewing cabinets with machines still inside and fixing them up. They look awesome.

Less than 5 minutes in our first store we find a sewing cabinet with a machine in it. Priced at $19.99. I was sold. Walked out of the store spending $30 because she also got a cutting table for me. She has one that she got at Joann Fabrics for over $100 and found the exact same one at Value Village for ten bucks. Couldn't leave it!

I have one more coat of polyurethane to put on it and then this bad boy is coming home. I was so excited about it last night I moved the current computer desk my sewing machine was sitting on in my craft room into the office. So it is now holding my Silhouette Portrait which will get used tonight when my sister in law comes over to work with vinyl for a home decor project for her dining room. I'm excited to see it work with vinyl, I haven't used anything other than paper in it yet, AND I'm getting paid for it with wine and Girl Scout Thin Mints :)

Here are photos:

I was so excited when we plugged in the machine and it actually worked! All that was missing was a bobbin case. We're guessing the machine is from the '40s. It's a New Home (which is now Genome). My mother in law knows a guy that has expertise in old machines in the area so she took the machine to him to see if he could find a bobbin case for it. Just got word that he did, yay!

So here's the process of how we refinished this piece. We put Citrustrip stripping gel on it to take the varnish off. Used a palm sander to sand it down (there were cigarette burns and watermarks from drinking glasses on it so we got those off as much as we could..What we couldn't get off will be "character"), wiped it down with both a towel and this tacky cloth stuff to get all the dust. For the legs because there is so much detail into it, we thought it best to hand rub the polyurethane on it instead of using a brush, and we also did the hand rub on the front with the two toned wood just because we didn't want to have drips. The rest we brushed poly onto it. Last night I did my second coat of poly, and on the legs towards the bottom I brushed poly onto it in case I ever steam clean our carpets or anything just to protect it. In between the coats of poly we let it dry 24 hours and I rubbed it down with steel wool to get bumps out. Wiped it down with a towel and the tacky thing again, then did the next coat of poly. 

I'm already itching for my next project. It'll either be experimenting with Annie Sloan's chalk paint, or learning how to reupholster..We shall see!

3 Day weekend, holla!

I love 3 day weekends from work, especially lately because my office is so understaffed and at the same time growing like a weed. This economy is certainly very stressful on a non-profit mental health organization, let me tell you. So yes, again, I love 3 day weekends where I can lounge around the house for a whole day (A WHOLE DAY!!) and not worry about my to-do list for the weekend because I have an extra day to make that up.  It's fantastic!! Because of 3 day weekends, I feel Saturday always becomes the lazy day. Do I need to buy groceries? Yes. Am I doing that today? Absolutely not. Instead I am using all the gift cards for Amazon I've saved up since Christmas and buying myself the super indulgent item I've been lusting after for months, but refused to buy yet because I couldn't justify it. As of Tuesday, I'll be the proud owner of the Silhouette Portrait for all the craft projects I've been pinning on Pinterest and seen in magazines and other peoples' Facebook photos. I want to make crafty things too dang it! If I were being extremely indulgent, I would have opted for the Cameo instead of Portrait, but I'm not confident in my craft skills yet.

To be honest, I'm not THAT crafty. But I really want to be!! So that's why the portrait was a good decision for me. I've had the portrait in my wish list for about a year. When I originally added it, it was $150. Yes, that is a doable price, but it still was not low enough for me to bite the bullet and get it, especially since we just purchased this mondo house in September, so our mortgage is over twice what we used to pay in our condo. It was a BIG adjustment for me, that I'm still trying to get used to. I just checked my wish list out yesterday and saw that the price dropped to $119. Yes, that was a way better price for my taste and because of gift cards, I only paid around $30 because I also signed up for the trial of Amazon Prime, so free 2 day shipping for this girl!
 (I have a confession: I love Amazon Prime, but I hate paying the $80 something dollars for it a year. I did that once and I noticed that I did not use it to make paying the eighty bucks worth it. So what I do is when I get something saying I'm eligible for Prime with a 30 day trial, I say sure I'll sign up for Prime..but then a day or so after I'll go into where you can manage your prime account and there is a place that says when your trial ends and you'll be charged and it gives you an option to continue it after that date or choose to not continue. I always choose to not continue. I don't know if that's cheating, but it really helps me out by saving the shipping fee.)

Update on savings plan

Week 5 done! Woot Woot!!

I haven't really been following my exactly on this day of the week I will deposit this much amount into my savings. I've been basically doing 2 weeks at a time when I get paid. Hey, do what works for you. This works for me.

Thick Hair problems

Am I right?

I have thick hair. When I say thick, I mean, I have to get it thinned out every time I go in for a trim because if I skip it just once, the migraines set it from the weight of my hair. It was much worse when I had longer hair.

I absolute hate washing, drying, straightening my hair. It is my least favorite thing to do. Just recently I've found a few things to help with this process though!

First up is Kenra Professional Platinum Blow Dry Spray. I was introduced to this product by my hair stylist. He used it after washing my hair and before styling. It reduces blow dry time to about half AND it protects against heat damage. Kill two birds with one stone!

I also swear by dry shampoo for those days where I wake up late and washing and styling my hair just will not happen even though I really should (like today). Spray that stuff in my hair at the roots, put it up while I continue getting ready for the day, take my hair down and start finger brushing/make my hair a crazy beauty pageant contestant's volume. I basically just keep going back and forth like you would to create volume until the white powder disappears. It will add volume, but not crazy lengths when you're finished which is nice.

  I don't have a favorite brand yet, I'm not too dry shampoo savvy yet. I got a trial size of Tresemme's version with my hair spray and I really like it. I also got a groupon for a buy 1 get 1 free of Batiste original dry shampoo. I'm not a big fan of Batiste's smell, but oh well, I'll live. I use both interchangeably. Basically whichever one I find first in my stash of clutter is what I use.