2015 Resolutions Archives

January 23, 2015

Charleston, SC [Part 2]

HAPPY FRIDAY PEEPS!!!!!

I hope you all have some stellar weekend plans waiting for you! I know I have some fun plans on the horizon. Last night I tried a new recipe – Yellow Split Pea & Sweet Potato Soup! It was absolutely delicious and OMG… pumpkin seeds are becoming my new favorite thing!

This soup is just fan-freakin-tastic! Please go try this recipe!

Now it’s time to finish out my re-cap of my visit to Charleston last weekend.

Charleston, SC [Part 1]

On Sunday morning, I woke up and watched Food Network with Meg. Seriously, I miss Food Network! I reveled in all the Food Network glory I could over the weekend and it was wonderful. Mike made us some really fancy coffee – You can view the tutorial on Meg’s blog: How to be a coffee snob in 5 easy steps! The coffee turned out great and I drank it black. Nick added a little milk & sugar to his, but he was extremely pleased with the coffee and thinks he needs an Aeropress now! I think I need a coffee grinder!

Jammies, Coffee, & Food Network – amazing combination!

We finally got up and moving so we could get ready for lunch. Lunch was at Poe’s Tavern on Sullivan’s Island. My boss recommended this place and said his favorite burger was the Annabel Lee (which is served with a crab cake on top of your burger) so that’s what Nick and I tried. Meg even took the suggestion too. Mine was a Black Bean Burger, Nick’s was a real burger, and Meg’s was a chicken sandwich, but all three had a beautiful crab cake on top! Their fries & onion straws were really good too. Mike mentioned that he didn’t even eat fries very often or care for them much, but he really enjoyed Poe’s fries!

We were all completely stuffed after lunch, but were really excited about our next adventure to Fort Moultrie! The next set of pictures come from Meg –

There was a kite surfer out there, I really don’t know how he was not freezing! The wind was perfect for that activity though, which you can clearly tell by the pictures we tried to take.

Then it was time to head inside the Fort!

We all really enjoyed touring Fort Moultrie! Fun Fact: Meg was a history major! She went into a lot more depth with the history behind Fort Moultrie, so you can read about that here!!

Once we finished up our site seeing, it was time to walk down King Street, but we burned off a few lunch calories so we were ready for some sweet treats at King Street Cookies! Nick and I got the 1/2 dozen so we could try a few different flavors since we wouldn’t be back for a while (insert sad face.)

We ordered: Strawberry Fields Delight, Spicy Hot Chocolate, Salted Caramel, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip, M&M, White Chocolate Cranberry, and I don’t remember the last one Nick picked… We ate them all though with ZERO ragrets (<— hehe love that movie!)

We burned off more calories by walking down King Street and walking through the market. We saw a lot of interesting things… such as the one location that sold edible underwear right next to the glass case of baked goods children were looking in (Inappropriate? Yes.) We also saw some really cool art and I’m sad I didn’t take some pictures of their talent, but it was art made of medal or something. I really have no clue what it was exactly, but I loved it! I would have gotten one if I had a really cool hobby they could portray. I wanted Nick to get the diver on the diving board. They had a jogging one, but that seemed like the lamest one to get when there were surfers and skiers to pick from. I have boring hobbies haha.

Our walk ended at the Pineapple Fountain which was really pretty and we arrived right around sunset!

This crazy kid wanted to put his feet in the COLD water. Also, let’s discuss for a quick second how white I am – SO WHITE! Looking forward to getting some color in Jamaica next month – if I don’t blind myself first.

We were pretty wiped out from our adventures, so we decided to head back to the apartment, have a drink, and relax before we went out to dinner. Meg & Mike are really into football, so we watched some of the game that determined who would go to the Super Bowl – I’ll be honest though, I don’t remember who won. She’s probably ashamed of me right now. Nick and I are not big football people haha, I cheer on Mississippi State simply because I went to school there! I go to football parties for the food, not the football. So we watched the game, relaxed, and somebody won the game.

Dinner was Mexican! Fancy Mexican to be exact. When we said that, they both gave us surprised looks, but let me explain. Mexican in Mississippi is basically like a sit down fast food restaurant. It’s the most basic of Mexican. It’s extremely cheap, I can eat with about $5 and get very full. This restaurant though put more effort into their food and it wasn’t greasy. I got the mushroom nachos, Nick got a taco with beans & corn. We both ordered a drink too, me a margarita and Nick a bloody mary. My nachos were awesome!

Once we realized how different our Mexican restaurants were, we spent the rest of the meal talking about the differences we had growing up – basically it revolved around middle & high school, how classes were structured, what was required to graduate, things like that. It was fun to see how different the South is from the North.

The rest of the evening was spent relaxing. When we woke up on Monday morning, we relaxed some more, Meg & I had some blog talk, we packed up our bags, and then headed out to lunch at Panera before hitting the road. Unfortunately Monday was the end to our wonderful stay in Charleston, but I have so many fond memories from our weekend and it was so great spending some quality time with Meg. It’s amazing how connected you can become with people through blogging & social media! I just love having her for a friend!

Looking forward to our next visit to Charleston where we try to cram all of our favorite things back in again while adding new favorites – I know, I’m extremely ambitious!

Have you ever visited Fort Moultrie?
What tanning lotion would you suggest to give me some slight color before my trip to Jamaica? Seriously – I need some help!
What are your weekend plans?

I have our Annual Company Awards Banquet to attend which is apparently a fancy shindig! I’m pulling out an old bridesmaid dress for the event. There will be dinner, drinks, and dancing! Nick will also be in town, so that’s always a highlight to my weekend!

January 21, 2015

Favorite Things #2

Happy Wednesday to you! It doesn’t quite feel like Wednesday because of the holiday on Monday and luckily that means the weekend is closer than it appears! yippee!! I just got back into town late Monday night, so I didn’t have much time to meal prep and get ready for the week. Yesterday for lunch I grabbed something from Whole Foods and then ate something light for dinner before going grocery shopping.

[[ Quinoa Stir Fry, Pasta, Spicy Tofu, Fruit, Cucumbers, Black Beans, & Fire Roasted Corn ]]

I have some full re-caps for y’all about my trip to Charleston, SC to visit Meg this past weekend, but first we need to dive into my second Favorite Things post of the year! So far my New Year’s Resolutions are shaping out pretty well and what I loved about creating some specific blog goals was being able to go back and view them yesterday so I could see where I’m slacking and plan my posts for the rest of the month accordingly!

Charleston, SC

I can’t help but mention that Charleston, SC is now one of my favorite places! I still feel like there is so much to do and see and eat there, but I got a pretty great taste of it this past weekend! Not to mention, my long time blog friend Meg now resides there and is only a whopping 9.5 hours away from me! I know that probably seems like a long road trip to most of you, but when she was a good 18 hours away before, the 9 hour drive now doesn’t seem so bad! I have so much good food to share with y’all (which btw, was NOT part of my Engine 2 Diet Challenge – I already knew I was making this exception when I left town). I was excited for her to finally meet Nick and I was looking forward to getting to know Mike better! Luckily the weekend wasn’t filled with awkward silence like you might imagine with half the people who had only met once their entire life and the other half who had never met before.

Engine 2 Approved, Health Starts Here Approved Dressing

I’ve been head over heels in love with this no oil dressing! My favorite so far is the Tangerine Vinaigrette, but I have my eyes on the Avocado Vinaigrette for a meal this week! There are so many things to love about this dressing – It’s healthy, It’s super tasty, It’s light on your stomach, and it has no added oils! My only regret is that I didn’t know this dressing existed when I did the Health Starts Here Challenge last August!

King Street Cookies & Others…

This was a difficult one to decide on, but I went with King Street Cookies. I promise, you’ll hear about a thousand other things that also topped my favorite list, but if I let all the good stuff out on this post, then I wouldn’t have a recap to write. King Street Cookies was one of the many places Meg & Mike took us this past weekend! Nick and I splurged and got the 1/2 dozen which gives you one free, so we got 7 cookies total. Each cookie was absolutely delicious and when we polished them off the very next day, they were just as soft as when we first ordered them! I’ll dive into which ones we specifically got on my recap post, but I was very impressed with King Street Cookies!

Menu Planner

When I got home from Charleston, I had one last Christmas present waiting for me. My aunt, uncle, & cousins all came down to Mississippi while I was gone (they planned their trip after I planned mine so we ended up missing each other). They made me the cutest customizable menu planner! I immediately made out my weekly menu for the rest of this week! I’m excited to try some new recipes!! Nick will be coming into town this weekend, so anything I can’t finish off or end up not liking, I’ll just pass it on to him! I have one more except
ion in my diet coming up this weekend and that’s for our Annual Awards Banquet because they’ll be providing a free meal & drinks. I plan on sticking to the diet completely the last 2 weeks though.

Grapefruit Beer

Oh my goodness, this stuff is AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Seriously, it’s one of my new favorite beers! Meg introduced me to this beer at a local pizza place this weekend and I couldn’t resist ordering it. I’m so glad I did because I think mixing tangerine with beer was a genius move. It has the perfect tangy flavor and it doesn’t feel heavy on your stomach like regular beer does. It was also a refreshing beer to drink since it had that fruit flavor. I’m on the hunt for a tangerine beer that I can buy in Mississippi now! I have no clue if this one even exists in Mississippi, but I’ll be on the hunt for it or something similar!

I think it’s safe to say that we had an amazing time in Charleston and I am so excited to recap our entire trip so you can see what we did and what we ate! It’s going to be legen— wait for it — dary! I’m so thankful for this little ole’ blog that brought me friendships I’d drive 9 hours to see!

What’s on your favorite things list today?
Any idea where I can get some grapefruit beer?

January 12, 2015

Why say no to dairy?

Good Morning friends! How was your weekend? Do anything new & exciting or was it another typical weekend for the books? Let me go ahead and apologize for the lack of pictures in today’s post!

Nick came to town this weekend and on Friday night he didn’t arrive until pretty late so we just hung out at my parents for a short while, watched some of the IT crowd (have you seen it?), and enjoyed the fire! Saturday we were up way early to go watch the MS Blues Marathon. Our timing was absolutely perfect to see Nick’s brother Trey during the race. We arrived around mile 4-5 because we didn’t make it for the start and we waited around watching for only a few minutes, but then thought he had probably passed that point in the course, so we started walking back to our car to find the next station we wanted to wait at, as we were walking, we heard Nick’s name shouted out and it was Trey! That was exciting, so we went back to the car and made our way to mile 9 hoping to see him at that point in the race. We literally waited no more than 10 minutes before he came running by. After that, we decided to grab some McDonald’s real quick (as someone who does care about her health, I don’t recommend McDonald’s – ever! But sometimes you crave a egg & cheese mcmuffin (minus the canadian bacon!)) We then ran into some traffic, so we didn’t make it back in time to see Trey finish the race, but we headed back to the race finish line to find him afterwards. Then it was a freezing hour before we decided to head back to my parents for lunch.

Watching the race made me a little nervous for my marathon in February!

Saturday night we went over to Nick’s cousin’s house for a little get together since Trey was in town and it was nice to see some of his extended family that we haven’t seen in a really long time.

On Sunday I spent the morning cleaning my room, it needed it BAD! Then I went and picked up Nick so we could go to Whole Foods for the week 1 meet-up. I was planning on doing the challenge by myself, but mid-day Saturday, we had some time to watch Forks Over Knives and afterwards Nick mentioned that he may try to join the challenge with me so I brought him along to our weekly meeting. This week was all about dairy & processed foods.

Processed foods are practically a no-brainer in my opinion. We have all known that they are no good for us and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that potato chips & frozen foods are usually very unhealthy.

Dairy is always a topic that people struggle with when someone talks about going plant-based or going vegan. It’s common for us to believe that we MUST get our calcium from milk and we MUST drink milk to have strong bones, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth! Since the Health Starts Here Challenge, I’ve known that dairy wasn’t a requirement, but I feel like I’ve learned even more since August! We do not actually get our calcium from the milk of a cow – we get our calcium from the plants the cow ate before being milked. That right there tells you that you can get your calcium from a plant based source. When you think about it, a cow produces her milk to feed & fuel a baby calf that will later grow into a 600 pound cow. That’s what cow’s milk is intended to do, grow a calf, not a human being. Another common misconception is that milk helps you lose weight, but that’s simply not true. How could a type of milk intended to grow a 600 pound cow actually make you lose weight? It was a marketing ploy from the very beginning. I believe Mary Lindsey said that the milk industry has been sued THREE TIMES for making such a false statement which is why that marketing tactic is not used these days. The study on dairy products simply amazes me and if you have the opportunity to watch Vegucated or Forks over Knives, please do yourself a favor and at the very least educate yourself! Going vegan or plant-based will not be easy or something you’ll just immediately do, but at least have the facts straight, don’t listen to the industry leaders who are simply trying to market a product for sale. I’m definitely not vegan or plant-based yet, I have my fair share of dairy, but I feel educated enough to know that one day I’d like to be off dairy completely and over the past 5 months I’ve drastically reduced my overall consumption of the product because I know the benefits of doing so. Dairy has been linked to so many diseases that if we don’t at least cut back on our consumption, then we’re putting our bodies in great harm. All I ask is that you do the research for yourself!

After the meeting, Nick, Rachel (my co-worker), and I all went for our “last meal” before the challenge starts – Japanese. I really wanted some fried rice & veggies! It was absolutely delicious & filling, but I’m excited about cutting out oils & eggs over the next 4 weeks. Next it was time to grocery shop! We went back to Whole Foods to pick up some food for the week and it was really fun helping them determine what they can have on the diet and finding items they were excited about using as opposed to alternatives.

This morning my breakfast was the same Cinnamon Raisin Ezekial bread with peanut butter & sliced bananas along with a sprinkle of cinnamon. I have officially switched back to my almond milk for creamer in my coffee and it feels good. Now I’m off to pack my lunch & snacks for the day and get ready for work!

If y’all ever have any questions about topics like that, please don’t hesitate to e-mail me or drop me some questions in the comment section! I’m fascinated by this material and the disturbing fact that industry leaders have had so much control over our views & opinions on dairy, eggs, meat, and processed foods! The change has to start somewhere and I’m so thankful for people like Rip who started the Engine 2 Diet and companies like Whole Foods who promote a Whole Foods plant-based diet with their Health Starts Here diet, also people like Marissa who create documentaries like Vegucated and the doctors behind the research who have taken the time to uncover the facts & encourage a plant-based diet in the treatment of their patients. It is all a step in the right direction for healthier & happier living.

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Charleston, SC [Part 2]

Favorite Things #2

Why say no to dairy?

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