Long Weekend Recap

Highlights of the long weekend:

Making sure everything fits for the upcoming 1930's Circus Murder Mystery Party:

Killer salad I blogged about (we maybe had it twice LOL):

Watermelon when its 96 degrees outside:

And Geocaching (which wasn't nearly as fun this time due to the f*&(@*$ mosquitoes and ticks!):

Finished up with the Avengers!

Yum, Yum, Yummity Yum

I have to share the awesome salad I made for dinner tonight.   The "dressing" made it - and the dressing was totally me winging it.

It started off as a taco salad basically - romaine, black beans, flax seeds (for omega 3's - you can't really taste them), onion, a little cheese and Trader Joe's fresh salsa (which is a combo of cilantro, garlic, tomatoes and jalapenos).  So I was trying to decide what kind of salad dressing to top it off with.

I got out the Magic Bullet and blended together fresh cilantro (about a hand full), an avocado, olive oil (about a tablespoon), sour cream (about a 1/2 cup) fresh lime juice from 1 lime, hot sauce, garlic, cumin, pepper and sea salt to taste:

Blend and this is what you get:

I will definitely be making this again.  The dressing would even be awesome on tacos.  Lucas even said "Applebee's should buy this recipe!"  Ha, I'll take that as a compliment.  :-)

Retrorama

We attended the 7th annual Retrorama at the Minnesota History Center last night.  What great people watching.  You're encouraged to wear your vintage.  There were people there dressed from all decades - 1900's (yes we saw some suffragettes), 20's, 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's and even some 80's.  Oh, and one dude dressed like George Washington  - he wins the prize for most vintage lol.

I pin curled my hair - it wasn't looking right in the back so I put it up.  I went for more of a casual housewife look with the hair so I changed my dress at the last minute to reflect that.  Here are some pics from my dear dear friend Julie Abnet to enjoy (the rest can be found on my Facebook page):

What a fun night! And thank you Julie for the awesome pictures!!  Not everyone has their own photographer.  :-) 

Pin Curls

Today I took my pin curl clips and gave pin curls a try.  I curled my hair wet (some people do it dry but I don't think I would like that - too many fly away hairs all over the place).  It took me about an hour to pin all of my hair (hello jello arms).  This is what it looked like:

I let it dry for about 4 hours and then took out all 77 pins.   Before: Shirley Temple....

After:  The 80's called - they want their hair back.  For realz.  This is where most first time pin curlers freak out and wash their hair.  I however have watched 9 million You Tube videos on the subject so I know better.  :-)

(I know your jealous by this hotness.  1. Please excuse the crappy bathroom pic and 2. Please excuse my extreme lack of make up.)

The key to pin curls is brush, brush, brush, brush, brush, brush, did I mention brush?  Ok oh, well when you're done brushing - brush some more.  I also added some smoothing serum to help tame that frizz.

Finished product.  Not bad for a first timer!!

(This side needs more work.)

Can't wait to try again! From what I've read the key is practice, practice, practice.  Thank you Lisa Freemont Street for your awesome tutorials - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PBwSXHWvA8!  

Confessions

I've read other bloggers who do a "Confessions" blog once in awhile and they usually crack me up, create great conversation and/or give me some great ideas.  So here ya go:

1.  I never separate my laundry when I wash clothes.  Mom - if you're reading this I'm sorry I never picked up on your stellar laundry skills.

2.  Speaking of laundry - my laundry never smells as good as Mom's.  True story.

3.  I don't iron.  I hate it.  Lucas does it.  Granted we don't have to iron often - its mostly my vintage/retro dresses he irons.  I heart him.

4.  I use to be a huge college basketball fan in the early/mid 90's.  My dad and I use to fill out our brackets every March.  Go Duke!

5.  Today we were at a block party sort of thing - there was a basset hound howling and a child screaming (not screaming like mad/hurt screaming - screaming like to make noise screaming).  The owner was hushing the dog and the parent was ignoring the child.  I would rather have heard the dog howl all night long than that child scream for 20 more seconds.  Am I going to hell for that?  :-)

Happy Weekend kids!!

Edited:

Julie totally snuck a picture of us with local celebrity Scott Seekins at the party earlier!  Mwhahaha!!

Don't worry - Lucas isn't crabby - he just didn't know what Julie and I were up to.  ;-)  Oh hey Scott Seekins!

A very "summer" dinner

Iowa Girl Eats posted a new recipe this morning and it looked so fresh and summery I knew I wanted it for dinner tonight.   :-)

Open Faced Caprese Chicken Sandwiches

A Sweet (Fast!) Treat

And I can guarantee you have the ingredients in the pantry!

I wanted some dessert after dinner so I made this baby:

Meet the 90 Second Nutella Chocolate Cake - Cassie over at Back to Her Roots came up with this little gem (http://backtoherroots.com/2011/08/04/90-second-nutella-chocolate-cake/). 

I whipped it up in about a minute, microwaved it for 90 seconds and Lucas and I ate it in less than 2 minutes LOL, but it was perfect for a portion controlled treat - and I didn't have to leave the house to get the ingredients!  PS - the recipe called for cocoa powder - I didn't have any and it still turned out great!

Next time, I'm trying this: http://backtoherroots.com/2011/07/09/sweet-saturday-one-minute-peanut-butter-cake/

I'll stop blogging now so you can all run to the kitchen.  :-)

Vampires and Documentaries

I watched some movies this weekend - first, the fun one - "Dark Shadows" - very Tim Burton.  Very fun. Love the soundtrack.

Now the other two - I saw these on instant Netflix.  I've been wanting to see them for awhile now and we just signed up for instant again so I'm on a documentary kick.  So we watched "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead" (http://www.fatsickandnearlydead.com/)  and "Forks over Knives" (http://www.forksoverknives.com/).  I've always figured that we, as Americans - particularly Americans living in 2012 - are killing ourselves with our foods but after watching these movies - holy hell.  I'm not here to preach to anyone about what to eat - just like I don't give a shit if you smoke - you know you're doing wrong by smoking so you don't need me telling you about it.  But do yourself a favor - watch these films as well as "Food, Inc."  It will open your eyes.  Lucas and I are going to try juicing (watch "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead") not to lose weight but to just feel better - I'm not doing it for 60 days though (watch the movie - you'll know what I'm talking about).   And I'm going to really, really, really make an effort to eat less meat, less dairy and less processed food.  

I really fear what the US will be like in say 20-30 years when our teens who have been raised on crap food even more so than my generation are middle aged - will their life expectancy drop?  Doubt it - we have too damn many drugs out there keeping people alive (remember when there use to be survival of the fittest?).  A great deal of our diseases (high cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease, even some cancers) can truly be eliminated or reversed simply by your food intake.   I dread what healthcare costs are going to be by then.....  oy. 

Anyway - let me know if you watch these documentaries!  They are definitely worth the time.  Enjoy the beautiful weather this week!

May Birchbox

I received my 2nd Birchbox today.  I'm not too impressed yet.  I've seen other bloggers' Birchboxes and they get awesome stuff!  Gah.  I'll stick with it a little longer.  This month was a "Gossip Girl" theme box - whatever that means....

Here are the goods:

The line up:

Moisturizer and eyeliner.

Hair tie, conditioner and perfume.

The eyeliner - kind of a gold sparkly color.

So my sister in law Fiona also got her Birchbox - looks to me she didn't get conditioner or eyeliner - she got nail polish instead.  Very random.  

Oh well - we'll see what June brings!

Weekend Wrap Up

What a weekend.  Saturday was the Animal Humane Society's Walk for the Animals.   Thank you all who donated!!  I don't know the grand total but we beat our goal of $500!  Thank you thank you!

Here is Chuck's first time on a bus - they were expecting around 10,000 people so they shuttle people from parking lots nearby to the Humane Society.

Then Chuck made friends with a lady named Charlotte.  

And we're off.  

Then after the walk we drove down to Rochester to see my niece off to prom.  Here are some pics - she looked so pretty!

Ash and Benny - 

Ash and Grandma -

Grand March -