Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Seafoam Green

Good Evening! Happy Hump Day! In honor of this special day I think we should all stand up and start doing the Humpty Hump dance.... or better yet lets pretend that I didn't just say that. Anywho, I hope everyone's work week is so far so good. I have been crazy busy all this week and last. The weekend seriously could not come soon enough.

Tonight's post is an outfit post. It's all about my seafoam green pants I wore over the weekend. I believe seafoam green was big in the 1950's especially in kitchenware. I bought these pants over the summer when the mint craze all began. I couldn't find a pair of mint jeans that weren't ridiculously expensive or were super low rise. One thing you should all know about me is that I'm a bargain hunter and if I am going to pay full price for something it better already be affordable or else that item is not coming home with me (I'm shaking my head and snapping my fingers). The second thing you should all know is that the coin slot look does not look good on me... or anybody. I retired any low rise jeans/pants in my college years and there they will stay. So last summer I found these seafoam green pants online at Zara that were reasonably priced. I liked them because they were close to the mint color but they also were pretty nifty because they weren't jeans and they had a snazzy side zipper near the ankles. I have to be honest... even though I adored these pants I haven't really gotten around to wearing them until last weekend. The main reason is because over the summer it was nasty hott (yes with two T's) I stopped wearing pants in early June because it was soooo hott. I didn't wear them in the fall because around early October is when I was diagnosed with Interstitial Cystitis (IC) and I was given advice from my OBGYN that wearing loose fitting clothes can help ease the severity of IC symptoms. So for a couple of months I would only wear long maxi dresses or loose fitting skirts with thigh highs so I wouldn't irritate my bladder. Since I feel that my symptoms are much more manageable now I allow myself to wear fitted pants and leggings a few times a week just as long as my symptoms are under control. So that's my story and I'm sticking to it! 

Below are some photos of my outfit and a nice little surprise at the end.... you'll see 

Sweater: H&M, Pants: Zara, Scarf: Charlotte Russe, Shoes: Cathy Jean





Necklace: Sammydress, Bracelets: LuLus          


and what you all have been waiting for....

Brian just being super..... SEXY.


Ha Ha, the last one was a special treat for all of you. I hope you don't get a toothache from taking in Brian's oh so sweet pics. Brian was mimicking my poses. He thinks he's hilarious... he kind of is... SOMETIMES!

Well that's all she wrote... literally. Boom! Until next time, thanks for stopping by!

Monday, January 21, 2013

In the Navy

Good Evening Folks! It's Monday... yay. I had quite the eventful day at work today. The most confusing, hectic and ridiculous Monday I have had in a long time. It beats being bored I guess! I hope everyone had a great weekend. I enjoyed eating delicious food with my boyfriend Brian and going on a hike (even if I couldn't breathe half the time due to my allergies). We also had a pretty funtastic time watching football and going to see Mama (I'm happy to say I did not have a nightmare like a five year old... at least not yet).

Today's blog is an outfit post. Apart of my hello stranger posts I sometimes due. It's a fun way of posting outfits I wore to work without showing the very little effort I put into my hair and make up during the work week (hence why my head is always chopped off). This one is focused on a new skirt I bought over the holidays from the Gap (online). They ended up sending me the wrong color it was suppose to be black and not navy but when it came in the mail I thought to myself. "Self you don't own any navy... Why is that?" I couldn't come up with a good explanation, it's a neutral and my Dad was in the Navy whenever I actually watch college football I cheer for the Navy. The Chicago Bears colors are orange and navy... I must have some navy in my life pronto! So I decided to keep the skirt and below are some pics of a snazzy little outfit I put together debuting my one and only navy skirt.
Enjoy. ☺

Cardigan: Nordstrom Rack, Scarf: Charlotte Russe, Top: Urban Outfitters, Skirt: Gap, Shoes: LuLus
Jewelry - Bracelets: Handmade by ME! Ring: Fashion Q



Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Sticking to your diet

Happy Hump Day America! He, he, he that was fun. I do not discriminate, so anyone who is not living in the U.S. and reads my blog happy hump day to you as well. I hope everyone had an aMAEzing day. I spent half of my day at work and the other half at the doctors office... Yay! Why yes that was sarcasm.

Today's blog is about how to keep your weight loss goal aka majority of Americans New Years Resolutions. I have one advice that I think will come pretty handy. Keep a food journal. Like I mentioned in an earlier blog I was recently diagnosed with Interstitial Cystitis. I have been struggling with this condition since late September and one thing that has helped me lessen my symptoms and feel like I'm on the fast track to feeling normal is by keeping a food journal.


These 3 items helped me stay on track and stick to my IC diet. The IC Survival Gudie, My food journal and a binder of the Interstitial Cystitis Network Diet.


The great thing about a food journal is that it can work for everyone. Whether you are trying to loose weight or if you are trying to stick to a challenging diet for health reasons a food journal works! I used the food journal to help me figure out what foods trigger my symptoms and what foods I was able to eat without feeling any pain. During this process I ended up loosing ten pounds without even really trying to loose weight. I would eat a lot of organic food and foods without artificial flavoring and foods that are listed as bladder friendly and food worth trying within the Interstitial Cystitis Network diet (this link will direct you to the interstitial cystitis network diet list)    
http://www.ic-network.com/diet/2012icnfoodlist.pdf. I would make two different categories for each day one category was called How I'm Feeling and the second was called the Foods I Ate. 

How I'm Feeling:

Every morning I would write down how I slept the night before and whether or not I had any symptoms that night. I would also write down how I felt that morning and I would jot down if I had any symptoms come up through out the day. I would also keep track of what medicine I took and if I had any urgency or frequency. I think that this category could also work for someone who wants to loose weight. Eating healthy and being more active can lesson stress and can help you get a better nights rest. You could keep track of how you slept what kind of mood your in that day and what food you might be craving and having difficulty staying away from. As the weeks go by you will notice that the amount of fattening foods you crave will lesson the longer you give the process time to work.

What I ate:

I would write down everything I ate and drank all day. Breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. Having to jot everything I ate down helped me stay honest and stick to my diet. The last thing I would want to do is write down all the bladder friendly foods I ate and all of a sudden there's a dark chocolate chip cookie written in my journal staring back at me and making me feel so guilty. Writing down what I ate also helped me figure out what foods upset me even if they were on the food you should try list within the Interstitial Cystitis Network diet. I would write down the food that caused my symptoms and I would also write down how it made me feel. 

Hopefully this will help you guys stick to your weight loss goals. For those of you who are needing to stick to a strict diet for health reasons trust me if I can do it so can you. I was a chocolate, spicy food and coffee junky and I stuck to my diet. Best of luck and have a wonderful night.







Monday, January 14, 2013

New Years Resolution

Happy Monday Everyone! Or at least as happy of a Monday a Monday can be. I hope everyone had a funtastic weekend. I had a great weekend up to late yesterday afternoon. I ended up having a migraine and a tummy ache. I hope I'm not catching something!

Today's post is about New Years Resolutions more specifically my New Years Resolutions. I feel that my resolutions are pretty do able and I have a feeling that I will be able to stick to it. I don't believe in having a New Years Resolution that is completely on the other end of the spectrum like living your life in a complete 180. If you are someone who doesn't eat healthy your resolution shouldn't be to eat nothing but vegetables and lean meat 7 days a week. If you never exercise don't expect that just by opening a gym membership you are all of a sudden going to workout every day of the week. Goals like these just set people up for failure. If you want to eat healthier that's great but be realistic. How about starting with portion control and preparing healthy lunches for work to make sure you stay on track and allowing yourself to have a cheat day or two on the weekend. If you want to start exercising that's fantastic but how about starting with writing down on a calendar an exercise routine. Maybe start with exercising every other day. My suggestion would be to do cardio one day and light weights and toning on your next exercise day. Starting up with a realistic goal can help you stick to your over all goal of being a healthy more active person.

As I'm going on and on about setting realistic goals I realized that I haven't even expressed what my goals are. Oh geez, silly me! My two new years resolutions are (drum roll) to live a more balanced life and to have less road rage.

Live a more balanced life
 To dive more into this goal for me living a more balanced life is to change characteristic of myself for the better such as by the way I eat, my activities, taking care of myself, and by the way I carry myself, as well as challenging myself etc. I don't expect to become a perfect person who only eats organic, who exercises daily and all of the activities I take part in are meaningful and productive. Living a balanced life is to set out to choose to live a healthy life style but also to be realistic and to allow myself to enjoy the little things in life like a warm chocolate chip cookie and a glass of milk and not beat myself up about it. Of course enjoying the little things doesn't mean that my entire diet should exist of delicious fattening foods every hour of the day. My goal is to challenge myself to choose the right choices majority of the time and when I have a craving for something delicious and naughty I will go ahead and indulge myself because lets face it sometimes eating or drinking something that tastes so good it makes you smile as you're eating/drinking it is well worth it. A big part of me wanting to live a more balanced life is due to a health condition that I have called Interstitial Cystitis (IC). IC is a bladder disease that causes urinary urgency and frequency. It feels a lot like a Urinary Track Infection but the difference is that with IC there is no infection and IC can't be cured it's a chronic condition that I will have to deal with for my entire life. The good thing is that IC doesn't lead to anything life threatening. For some patients it changes their lives dramatically because the pain can be very intense at times. I am fortunate that I can control my symptoms by eating bladder friendly foods and when choosing to eat something that can harm my bladder like highly acidic foods I can take Prelief. Prelief helps my body break down acidic foods that normally cause me pain. So for me I not only aim to eat healthy but to also try and eat bladder friendly healthy foods. Another thing that helps lesson my symptoms is by living a stress free life. So I am going to try my hardest not to sweat the small stuff. Going on walks, hikes and doing the stretches my Physical Therapist taught me can help me manage my symptoms. Besides trying to control my IC symptoms other reasons for me to want to live a balanced life have to do with making sure I don't over indulge in things. For instance a few months ago I challenged myself not to spend any money on clothes, purses, jewelry, shoes and accessories for three months and I passed the test! But ever since then I have been a bit careless with my money I guess you can say I was making up for loss shopping time. So instead of going overboard with my spending and going to the other extreme of not shopping at all I will come to a healthy medium and allow myself to spend money on one or two things a month. 

Less Road Rage: 
Now this goal is a must and just as challenging as the one above. Not having road rage in Los Angeles is basically the equivalent of being a saint. St. Mae.... nah! I'm no saint! But seriously though I do need to control my little girl syndrome when behind the wheel. Two things tend to help me have less road rage. One trick is to listen to my learn Italian cd's while I drive. I'm so focused on trying to perfect the accent that I am no longer butt hurt about the guy who merged into my lane without using his turn signal. Listening to Bob Marley while driving also helps me chill out... for the most part. If someone does something really crazy on the road I quickly snap out of my Bob Marley trance and become a trucker mouth fool who is a little heavy on the horn. So my plan on having less road rage is to find more helpful aids in not distracting me from driving but to distract my little girl syndrome from popping up while I'm driving. 

Below are some pics from New Years of Brian and this girl! Enjoy

Why yes I am tickling Brian. It's the only way to guarantee that we will smile for the camera.

Brian in mid chew and me as happy as can be.
 


So that's that! My New Years Resolutions for 2013. Realistic but at the same time still challenging. I hope that all of you are able to keep up with your resolutions. Have a happy and healthy 2013 everyone! 





Thursday, January 10, 2013

Santa's little helpers

Hello! Happy thirsty Thursday! To celebrate this day of thirst I enjoyed a cup of mint hot chocolate today. Oh yeah good stuff. Since it was so cold today I was more than happy to drink something nice and hot. Yes it does get cold in southern Cali. Definitely not as bad as the Midwest but hey when I'm making gizmo sounds as I run towards the office from the parking lot than yes it's cold. Oh yeah, I should mention when I'm really cold I shake like I'm spastic and make Gizmo noises... I can't really control it it just happens...

 Anywho! Today's blog is about a little story that happened to my sister and I this holiday season. It was Christmas eve and we received an email from Santa saying that the ribbons for Drake and Penni's gifts (my youngest nephew and niece) flew out of the slay because apparently the elf's fed the reindeer's some Red Bull and the reindeer's were going cheetah fast! Like way fast! So Santa was wondering if we would put a nice big red bow on the kids gifts for him. Unfortunately my sister didn't have any big red bows so we had to improvise. I decided that since we didn't have any big red ribbons or bows lying around I would have to make them somehow. Trust me when a fat jolly old man has been flying in a slay full of Christmas gifts all night and has been from here to Beijing you do as you're told! So I did what any extremly intelligent college graduate (I graduated from two colleges booyah!) would do.. I Googled! I Google searched images of red ribbons and began sketching out a ribbon. Once I felt the ribbon drawing looked Santa approved I began cutting it out and turning it into a ribbon pattern so I would be able to trace the sketch onto red cardboard paper. I have to say that I think that Santa would of been pretty proud of my design. I didn't stay up and wait for Santa because well I didn't want to piss the big guy off. He's got presents! Below are some pics of the Santa ribbons.


Left: ribbon sketch Right: The final result it reads Santa, always believe.


Santa left Drake and Penni some sweet easels for Christmas. I was so jealous!


THE END.

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

DIY Gift Ideas Take 2

Happy Monday! Just four more days until the weekend! How sad am I? I remember when I was a teenager and I swore I would never have a job where the most exciting thing to look forward to would be the weekend. I can just see the sixteen year old Mae shaking her head at me with her arms crossed. She's mean mugging me as I stare at her over sized soccer uniform, orange/blonde hair and barely there eyebrows. I almost feel guilty but then I realize I'm a grown up so step off kid! Yes, that just happened. What can I say my writing is more loopy at night. Tonight's post is the second part to last weeks DIY gift ideas. Below are a few more homemade gifts I recently made for birthday's and Christmas. Enjoy

Wood transfer of the NY Giant's helmet for one of Brian's Christmas presents.
I have already provided a brief tutorial on how to create a wood transfer in an older post in November called DIY Wood Transfer: 
http://amaezingadventuresinlalaland.blogspot.com/2012/11/diy-wood-transfers.html 
Refer back to that post to learn how to create a similar version to this DIY gift idea.






Hair accessory organizer for my niece Penni Pies birthday.


What I did: 

I purchased a pink picture frame from Michael's. Disposed of the glass and used a purple fabric to cover the card board. Glued on pink polka dot ribbon to the fabric to create sections where the hair pins would be placed. I super glued rhinestones to the sides of the frame and glued a few rhinestones around the front edges of the frame. All of the materials were purchased from Michael's and Jo-Ann fabrics. 


More b-day gifts for Penni's birthday.



What I did: 

Penni Necklace & Princess Necklace: All beads, bead tips, jump rings, clasps, chains and wire were Purchased at Michael's. Step one I cut off a piece of wire a little longer than the actual size that I want the design to be. I tie a knot on one end of the wire and place a bead tip on top of the knot and clamp it down with pliers. Next I place the beads on the strand in the order that I desire. Once I am finished with placing the beads on the wire I place a second bead tip at the end of the wire and tie a knot as close to the bead tip as possible. I follow by once again clamping the bead tip on top of the knot with pliers. Once that step is complete you can hook the chain onto the bead tip by using the hook end of the bead tip. Use the pliers to press down on the bead tip to keep the chain and wire in place. For the Princess crown necklace I used a jump ring to attach the crown pendent to the chain. At the end of the necklace use a jump ring to attach the clasp to the chain.

Girly Bow's: I used felt, ribbon and fabric from an old dress, rhinestones, hot glue gun and needle and thread. First step cut out a rectangle with the felt or fabric around the size that you would like the bow to be. Pick up your needle and thread and sew through the middle. Repeat this step a few times to make sure it's securely sewed in. Cut a smaller piece of felt and use the glue gun to glue it down the middle. This piece brings the form of the bow together. On the back end of the bow glue a hair clasp on the back. 


That's all folks! Let me know your thoughts and if you have any questions about the DIY gift ideas from Part I and Part II. Have a wonderful night.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

DIY Gift Ideas take 1

Hello, happy Thirsty Thursday! Today I quenched my thirst by drinking lots of water. I was feeling under the weather today so no fancy drinks for this gal. I wanted to share with all of you some homemade gift ideas that I recently made for Christmas for a few of my family members. Below are some pictures of the gifts I made and brief descriptions of what I did to create these gifts from the heart.

I created this orders of sharks sign for my brother for Christmas. 
 What I did: I first did my research on how many order of sharks exist and found pictures of one shark from each order. My boyfriend Brian helped me create this poster by using Photoshop once the Photoshop portion was complete I went to Staples and printed out the image on poster size matte paper. I purchased a wooden board from Michael's and Mod Podged the poster to the board. When using Mod Podge provide a medium coat onto the board before placing the image on top. Be sure to allow your image to dry at least for 20 minutes before continuing to Mod Podge. Make sure to also smooth out any bumps or air bubbles that may appear before beginning to lather on Mod Podge on top of your image.

Left: My brother with a big old smile on Christmas morning. Right: My brother as Lance the Land Shark.

Right: The sign I created for my sister's Christmas gift. Right: My sister posing with the sign. She was crying. Big baby! J/K

What I did: I wanted to create a sign that represented the year that she was born.  I researched all the major events and inventions from 1974. The major events I listed are The Godfather Part II was the blockbuster of the year. I also provided an image of the way women dressed that year. Muhammad Ali knocked out George Foreman, The Oakland A's won the World Series and Connect Four was published. The Boston Celtic's won the NBA Finals, The Miami Dolphins won the Super Bowl and Genesis's album The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway was the best album of the year. I also placed a very adorable picture of my sister from when she was a kid (wearing her Strawberry Shortcake shirt) on the poster as well. My boyfriend Brian designed the sign by using Photoshop and I performed the same procedure as before (same instructions as my brother's sign) as far as printing and Mod Podge is concerned.

Brother in- laws candy tin Christmas gift.

What I did: I purchased a tin from Michael's and found a photo that contained a bunch of brand name candies in the image and created a sign in Photoshop that reads "Phil's CANDY STASH." I printed out one copy of the sign and one copy of just the candy image. I Mod Podged the lid of the tin and cut out Phil's name so it would fit on the lid. I placed the candy images that matched the same candy the image of the candy found within Phil's name above and below the center where his name is located. I followed by placing Mod Podge in the center of the body of the tin and cut out the part of the sign that reads Candy Stash. I cut out the rest of the candy image and constucted it to be molded onto the sign so it fits just right. I performed the same Mod Podge technique as before.


 I hope you enjoyed reading about these three DIY gifts I created for my family for Christmas. There are more gift examples in Part 2! I will be posting up the follow up very soon. Until then Happy New Year and may you all have an aMAEzing 2013!