No More, Thank you.

Yesterday I didn't feel amazing, so after my 2 pieces of pizza lunch and bacon egg and cheese breakfast, I thought I could get control of myself for dinner so I went to Liquiteria which is a fabulous juice and smoothie shop, with other super healthy snacks.

You really should stop in here if you're in the East Village - it's awesome.

I got the "Mean Green" which is a refreshing green smoothie that also has pineapple and some mango to tone down the greenery taste. You can taste a hint of spinach but I love it. So I got that as an appetizer and then also grabbed the first 4 juices I could see, because the store got me all motivated and healthy feeling. I really don't know much about juicing or detoxing, for that matter, so I figured that if I got a random mix of "drinks" that it would suffice.

Yesterday I kicked my little detox off with the smoothie, but then was starving so I opened up the red drink - something with Beets. There are other flavors in this one, most specifically ginger, and I can totally see how this curbs your hunger because it's freaking disgusting. I tasted it and then opted for the watermelon juice I got. (Disclaimer: I am only saying that MY taste buds are not cultured and developed enough to appreciate liquid beets.  I'm not saying the drink totally sucks, and I can totally see how a lot of people would love just chugging this thick, red, spicy concoction on a day when they have had nothing to eat for the last five days.)

Mr. Green. It's red, and it's potent.

Today I was left with the green drink, the beets (1 sip removed) and this Organic Pili Milk. Now after digging into cleanses this morning via the internet, I quickly realized that the juices need to basically be vegetables, and specifically of the green sort - so my watermelon drink and my faux chocolate shake aren't really having the potent detox effects I was going for. Either is my beet drink, that "accidentally" fell into my trash half way through. After that I may have gotten a bacon egg and cheese. I said MAY.

This is the nutty one. Kind of chocolaty tasting and definitely filling. But also not on the juice cleanse plan. Woops. 

So the Organic Pili Milk is my favorite thus far, even though I don't think it counts, because it definitely is filling (I'm chew drinking it) and I like the coco-esque flavor. I am very curious as to how many calories it has - and I am almost positive that I definitely am not starving myself with this one. I'm going to attempt drinking the green drink I have at home for dinner (yay) but then I'm going to drinks so that also negates probably any of my efforts.

Next "cleanse" I will be more prepared, knowledgable and mentally ready - especially when I am about to spend $45 on like 5 juices. If you are reading this and know anything about cleansing/detoxing/juicing, please share. I would love to hear some advice. I do realize that it is supposed to be like a meal supplement and not just a drink with your meal (kinda) so any additional info would be welcomed. :)

May I Have Some.. More??

There is just like SO MUCH that I want I can't even explain it. I read this article in some magazine yesterday  while having my nails done that said that you should spend 4% of your salary on clothing. WHAT a moron who wrote that. That doesn't even make sense. I couldn't even spend 4% on like.. (trying to think of the most random thing that I have no need for at all).. well good. I don't buy a bunch of random shit. Spending 4% of your income on like costume party attire sounds more appropriate. Or items with fur. Or leather shorts.

There is just so much I want need, and I am in this constant battle with myself of - well, if I can't wear it to work should I really buy it? Do I have something like it in my closet already? Is it worth the money right now? Should I just go work out instead of shopping and everything that I already have will look awesome? No. No. No. I just went on a big buying spree to finally look like a sorta professional at work so I am set with working attire. Now I need items to play in. By this I mean shirts to jump around the East Village and Brooklyn in - drinking/playing shirts. I have professional shirts, and playing shirts. For playtime I either like to show back/under side boob, or leg. Sometimes 2 of the 3 ;)

My new favorite styles that I can't get enough of are the exaggerated open armhole big sleeve tank tops (not a good search term, especially considering I am in search engine marketing) - ya know the tanks that drape much lower than your normal tank top so it shows some side boop when you hold your arms out - LOVE side boob btw. So they are referred to as "drop armhole tanks." SO sexy, especially with cuttoff shorts. I really want some super shirt cutoff jean shorts but I just think they are more meant for the west coast. or the beach somewhere. You can just get away with showing more skin there. Even though any style is basically acceptable in NYC, I just feel too "open" like when I am on the subway heading from East Village to Brooklyn and I don't want to show any ass during this ride. I'm not trying to invite more attention than necessary. Because most of the time this attention isn't (revisit pep talk that a mom would give to an insecure middle school girl) "good attention." And I'm down with good attention.

Find this here - they only have Medium and Larges tho, otherwise it would be mine :) It's also around $45 I think.

I got this from Asos.com and I LOVE it but I think it might be sold out? Go ahead and check. They have a lot of good drop armhole shirts, they are just tough to find. This is my biggest problem with asos - they use different words than we do in American language (joke) - but seriously. They don't use "racerback" and some other common search term phrases. 

Another little looksy that I still love are jumpers/rompers - whatever the difference may be. I just think they are so sexy IF they fit. They should either show a lot of leg, or a little back, or some part of the body - but not all. A couple I love are below. I just can't justify spending $300+ on a piece of clothing called a "romper" - plus I already have done this but it was on a tuxedo styled fancier romper (ironic, yes) and I haven't worn it enough to warrant the cost. I need to pull it out and wear it again.

This one is also on Revolve - super cute and pretty classic style. I like how it hugs the butt. 

And this (below) is my DREAM ROMPER. I need it. If I were to be a CMO and about to lead my ideal company meeting, I would do it in this (if there were no HR dept.). I would also wear sunglasses during the entire thing. And potentially go barefoot. After I kicked off the below shoes. I literally would feel like a million bucks romping in this. This is the reason why the garment is called a romper - because it makes you want to ROMP.

Find it here at Revolve. It's $396

Beach hair for the meeting.

These are the shoes I'd wear to the really professional meeting. Don't they look comfy? They are from revolveclothing.com by Boutique 9  - $180. So cute. 

I bought these Celine sunglasses at Bergdorfs last week and I am obsessed with them.  Pulled this pic from this site. They are so great - $340. A big size so you need a decent sized face to pull them off.

This outfit would make for the most ridiculous meeting ever. I'd lead a brainstorming session over glasses of Sauvignon Blanc and alternate between euro cafe sounding remixes and Taylor Swift. Then I'd probably just call the meeting off and go outside.

Nicole romps too. Who wants to get a spray taan!?!?!? MEEEE.

Me, Today.

(this was found on http://wheresmyothershoe.blogspot.com/ - great pics on this blog.
maybe don't look while you're at work.

What I Got

Song of the day. Listen, there ya go..

I haven't posted in a while so I thought that now would be an appropriate time, since I am now 27 years old (since 2 days ago) and I have gifts and events to write about. Turning a year older also made me remember my New Years' resolutions, since I always think you can re-start anything during 2 points in the year: New Years, and after your b-day. And I really like this idea - of new starts. So 2 of my new years resolutions were to work out (obvi) and focus on a hobby: blogging, photography, whatevs, so that explains this part. I just like the idea of constant progression, and knowing that one year to the next brings change - ideally good change. I never want to look at an entire year long span of time and see that everything has remained the same, whether that be job, finances, living situations, goals, hobbies. Of course not everything can progress so rapidly, but I think focusing on baby positive changes end up quickly adding up to great new things. This reminds me of one of my favorite Warren Buffet quotoes:

"I don't look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over."

I like it because it kind of makes you feel relieved that you can accomplish big things with small steps. My mom always reminds me of that. 

As for turning 27, I had a really good day - went to Williamsburg with a bunch of friends for brunch at a great place called Station  - where they had all you can drink Mimosas and Bloody Maries (these added up very quickly) and then we all left quite silly and bar hopped around to a few other places. 

Station restaurant - in Williamsburg off the Bedford stop (L Train)

Things really got super silly on the walk - and literally at one point every person in the group said they would either get a tattoo or piercing, but thank god we probably just got distracted and kept walking onwards to the next bar. We had such a fun day of bouncing around, and even though I had a band that was going to play on the roof of an apartment for us which I was super excited about, but I had to cancel it because of the really shitty weather and non stop mist rain, this didn't stop our fun. It may have fucked up our hair, but it definitely didn't fuck out our fun.

Two of my best buds Megan (left) and Shelly (right). I've realized I tend to choose blonde friends.

Luckily Monday I had off work so I could enjoy the sun and the new patio furniture that I recently purchased to create my ultimate East Village oasis. So I chilled outside all day and got a bit of a tan and ate coconut ice pops and contemplated traveling and sunning myself (only) for the rest of my young years. 

The new patio furniture. Look at how much space I have!!! And best part - no one from other apartments really has a view of me laying out since it's pretty private. Also, I got some sweet solar LED lights that look like twinkling stars that light up on the rail once it gets dark. Super cozy.

I also decided to renovate my room since now I'm definitely an adult. Jk. I just wanted something else to look at and I find myself constantly re-doing things (and reorganizing my stuff at least once a week). I wanted my room to have more of a bright hotel kinda feel, but I also like the rustic elements so I wanted to keep those to warm it up. 

New rug with a little Moroccan look.  No one is allowed to walk on the white parts :)

And while I was on this birthday spending bonanza I also picked up this vintage black and white photo from Etsy of this naked guy sitting in a barrel bathing himself, which is awesome. It's actually vertical, this photo seems to have squished it, and it's super cool. I have it right when you walk in the room. 

So that seems to recap a lot of what I have been doing lately: finished my semester of school, working, sprucing up my room, having a birthday, buying myself some items, looking at Manhattan from Brooklyn, sunning myself - and that's about it. Now to figure out what is next...

Beach Bound

In the spirit of the Hamptons - where I am headed this weekend with my best girl friends from middle school AND with our MOTHERS (mother daughter weekend yea yeaaa) I thought I'd post these amazing photos I found on Who What Wear from Vogue Paris (May 2013). OMG nothing could make me want to be in the sun, on the water, at the beach, more. These photos are amazing. Like they could sell the shit out of any nautical inspired clothing, perfume, makeup, hair products, anything. Sometimes images are just perfect and just ooze (sorry I hate that word) such a strong feeling and this is one of those cases. Enjoy! More pics of my own to come!

My Fave.

Ph: Gilles Bensimon, Stylist: Geraldine Saglio, Model: Edita Vilkeviciute

I've Got A New Scent-Sation

This week is going by so fast - I think because the weekend was really fun and this week's weather has been BLISS thus far. I work in Jersey City right by the water (so you can see all of downtown Manhattan, which is the redeeming part) and yesterday literally everyone in our building was on the boardwalk soaking up the sun.

Over the weekend I met up with my 2 best girlfriends from middle school (Sarah & Shelly, I love them so much!!) - I went to middle school in Tampa, Florida - and we had another activity day.

This was from Brooklyn Painting Lounge - we went to paint a couple Sunday's ago and each session is a different painting thing. Best part - it's BYOB so we sipped on Sparkling wine while creating these tie dye masterpieces.

Our activity days are turning out to be my favorite btw. First we met up at Freeman's, this awesome brunch place on the lower east side - you go down a (pee smelling) alley to find this dark cozy like barn-ish kind of restaurant with dead animals on the walls - definitely feel like you are in Kentucky rather than LES, which made my eyes light up right away. So we did that, then we went to The Wren before our activity (I'll tell you what activity in a moment) and we got drinks to get pumped up. I got an elf-sized mimosa thing (very delicious, but each sip was probably like $2.50 which is annoying) and Sarah who I thought didn't like spicy stuff got this literally beef jerkey peppered drink (DON'T ORDER IT) that literally would be used for hazing or something - had a chunk of beef in it, tasted like a liquid steak, and not a filet - because that I might consider.

This just in! Sarah captured every good moment of the day and even had a photo of this Beef Drank!!

Anyways, then we scurried along over to the East Village because our activity for the day was perfume making! #sniff

I'm glad Sarah did a little photo journalism here with this one - nice action shot.

So I forgot to mention that before we entered the fragrance shop I told the girls about my favorite perfumes - Bond No. 9 - and so we had this idea that we should go smell something we liked, Google the ingredients (how many fruits and flowers could it be?) and then duh, we'd just recreate it. Super easy. So we went to Bond - fell in love with a couple $300+ perfumes (they are cheaper on Nordstrom.com btw). If you are interested, my new fave is "Montauk," which is a unisex scent that kind of smells manly, but in the best way, and is so clean and cool - and my old fave is "The Scent of Peace" which is just beautiful.

Get them here - literally amazing scents

So back at the perfume factory, we had lists of things that we thought embodied these scents, so we tried to recreate them with the relatively limited selection of perfume oils available to us in the store. Clearly scents were becoming altered, because for example: to make Montauk I needed driftwood as one ingredient. The perfume factory only had "Woodstock" so I subbed that one in instead. If you are imagining the difference between the 2, I am sure you are already correct. Driftwood most likely smells like clean ocean air that you'd breathe in while having a nice outdoor lunch in the Hamptons, and Woodstock smells like unwashed hippie sunbathing by a lake. My final product consisted of woodstock, blue musk, mandarin "breeze" (flying oranges, I guess), Sweet heart vanilla aka Strippa, White Patchouli aka same shit as Woodstock. So the lady working at the story craftily squirted these perfumes on an INDEX CARD and rubbed then together with her index finger. 2 issues I have with that: 1) I am no perfume expert but I thought the general rule was DON'T RUB IT on your skin because the temperature change will alter the scent and 2) I don't know where that index finger has been!!!! My blend morphed into literally just Old Spice. Sarah's (she is the one on right side of pic at the top) became baby powder, and I don't know if Shelly (middle one in pic) even considered mixing her blend - She said aloud (so funny) "I just know this is going to smell gross so I don't think I want to even make it." But the activity was really fun and we learned a valuable lesson that day: buy expensive perfume.

After that we went into the chocolate store to the left and the guitar store to the right. The great thing about the east village is that there are so many very unique and specific independently owned stores and you can never really go to all of them because some change out over time. Each store seems to house someone who is so passionate about their craft; it's like professors at colleges who have dedicated themselves to not just one subject, but one topic in that subject (my adviser was from Harvard and focused on Work-Life balance - I majored in Sociology & Anthropology). The chocolate store had like 20 chocolates for sale in interesting flavors (even though the store was really small, selling 20 chocolates doesn't take much space) like peanut butter and jelly and bourbon and tea, and I guarantee that woman knows exactly what's in each one. One time I walked into a jewelry store and the artist was creating these little skull rungs that had such intricate faces and it was all by hand! Such cool stuff.

Me trying to play a guitar chord on the banjo.

And dennn Shelly and I went for drinks (typical) and had some wine (happy hour all day Sundays = $6 wines = yesss) and then had more drinks on my patio and had a fabulous day. I tried to rally for a concert (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) that evening which I went to (Yeah I did) - it was really fun but potentially not the best choice for a Sunday: the day of rest.

Cool venue, close to my apt which is nice.  

The concert was awesome - that lead girl is nuts, like actually nuts. She wears crazy shit and spits water in the air and screams and basically made me rethink what I wear each day.

This chick. She wore like the same outfit at the concert I was at. I googled this pic since I wasn't close enough to take one this clear and in such a fabulous second position (ballet position - basically just means "spread legs") Also my general philosophy at these small concerts is "stay as close to the bar as possible," which generally means far away from the stage (also a great choice in this situation, since I didn't know she was a spitter), UNLESS IT IS A COUNTRY CONCERT. In that case.. get up there!! The plus side is that no one really attends country concerts in this city or shares my passion for them (except Shelly) so really you can just do whatever you want there. 

And best part, we walked right by Glen Hansard who is the cutest man I've ever seen. If you don't know, he was in the movie Once which is now the best musical - it's incredible.  And that was a great Sunday.

The Colors, Duke, the Colors! I'm Colorblind, Kid.

Yea, got your attention!

OK, First, watch this. 

You are about to be hypnotized in the best possible way.

Isn't that beautiful? I learned about the musician from a documentary called "Press Pause Play" which was very interesting - about the changing world of music and technology - I highly recommend it.

So on a less important & meaningful note, just 2 days after I posted about tie dye (literally was slightly embarrassed to share my interest in it), Whowhatwear.com has a whole page on tie dye's return to the spotlight. Check out this literally one of a kind outfit below. They could have chosen way cooler images to include in their slide show of pieces, but hey.. who cares. I'm just happy they share my interest in these little rainbow numbers.

Read more here! FUN!

So on another exciting and colorful note, I ordered patio furniture for the terrace outside my room today which I am VERY excited about. I was going for this look (below)... but Rome wasn't built in a day... and either was my terrace. Plus, the environment is a little different, so I have to work with what I have.

So the primary difference here is that my space is a bit more confined (NYC) and I overlook other apartments instead of a waterfall - and in place of that little bear on the lounge chair will probably be a pigeon, and rather than all of those trees I have one potted (dying) "money tree" that tends to flip over mid day so I have to pick it up in the mornings, dust it off, and put some of its dust back in. 

BUT, outdoor space in NYC is awesome and I have a view of the clock tower in Union Square AND I can hear the church bells ring AND I only have like 3 apartments that can see me when I lay there tanning. Until now I've tanned twice out there, and both times I laid on newspaper (homeless style) but now that I have lounge chairs it's going to be like literally walking out to a resort. YESSSss. And definitely better than going to lay out in Washington Square park because I have a bathroom inside and no crazies to get near me while I lay in peace and (partial)quiet.

So, I was assuming that the furniture I ordered would come looking like the 2 lounge chairs, 2 chairs and 1 small table, but instead was surprised to find 2 medium sized but like disproportionately heavier square boxes outside my door yesterday. "Now how can a lounge chair fit in a 3x3 ft box?," I thought to myself. "Fuck, it doesn't," I replied to myself. I guess for like $200 large items don't come assembled ex: IKEA, so now I have important plans for Saturday morning, because I need to build this furniture asap. Will post pics of it as soon as it's built! PS. I'm like secretly happy it came in pieces because I love building stuff. It's so rewarding when you get to look at a final product after a few days hours.

Here is one more good song to work to that I used to love in college, if you are interested. Love instrumental stuff like this. Especially when it involves a guitar or banjo. Nothin' like a good banjo.

Have a good weekend!