All Hallows' Eve

So in the spirit of Halloween, I figured I would show you some of my previous costumes

 The year we went as the old TV show GUTS contestant and referee

 The year I dressed up like an Olympian Badminton player

 The year we went as Garbage Pail Kids (I was Haggy Maggie and D was Itchy Richie)

And then of course the year we chose our favorite cartoon mice to dress up as - I was Danger Mouse (the really old British mouse detective) and D was Mighty Mouse

As you can see, we're really into homemade costumes... But Riley is a little pickier, this year she was a bucking bronco:

Happy Halloween! 

Polished

One of my friends recently brought to my attention how often I change my nail color.  I used to work in an extremely buttoned up industry so felt as though I had to keep my nails pretty bare or at least natural colors.  Now, I work in a much more laid back environment so I am able to express myself through my nail colors.  I change my nail color every two weeks, sometimes if I feel extra frisky I will change it weekly.  So I figure I would post some of my favorite colors right now, and there are a lot!  But I feel like you need to wear colors you love because you're going to see it every time you look at your hands and everyone else will notice too.  So here we go...

 So starting with the lightest colors.  From left to right (all Essie):
Nice is Nice, Pilates Hottie, and Steel-ing The Scene
The last one is a mix between gunmetal and silver and is really nice for nighttime.  Both of the other colors are light lilac colors and are just super girly and pretty.

 Onto the blues & greens, from left to right:
OPI Can't Find My Czechbook, Essie Mint Candy Apple (seriously my most favorite of all probably), Essie Going Incognito, Essie Butler Please.
These are definitely not neutral and all are pretty dark, but they are just seriously great looking colors.  I also think all 4 of these look great on all skin tones.  I know they're not typical fall colors since they are so bright but I really think they look great at any time of year.

 My reds... For some reason it is really hard for me to find a red nail polish I like.  From left to right (all Essie):
She's Pampered, Times Red Square, Showstopper, Bahama Mama.
The last two are pretty dark and I prefer for my toes.  Showstopper also has a shimmer to it that I love.  The first one is a super bright, happy red that I wear whenever I want to be girly and classy.  Times Red Square is just a super classic, deep red color that is perfect with some dark berry lipstick. 

 So these are some of my favorite pinks.  I have a ton more, but I tried to limit it to just a few. From left to right:
Essie A Crewed Interest, Essie Cute as a Button, Essie Splash of Grenadine, and OPI Party in My Cabana.
Love these - all are super pretty.  The first one is pretty sheer so if you work in a corporate atmosphere where you need to tone down, this is a perfect color.  The third one is a super girly pinky-purple that is so cute on my toes.

 Onto the super dark polishes.  I'm not a fan of too dark of colors, but these 3 I love.  From left to right:
Nicole by OPI Show You Care, Essie Lady Godiva, and OPI Siberian Nights.  The first and third colors are really deep purples. These almost look black but I love them both.  Show You Care looks especially nice with a clear or pink glitter coat painted over.  The middle one is a dark brown that looks just like dark chocolate, it is the epitome of fall colors. 

And finally these really just don't have a category.  All are Essie, from left to right:
Buy Me a Cameo which is a shimmery, pinkish bronze color.  This is a great option if you want a natural color that is not the usual pink or beige.
Next is the First Base Base Coat, which is the best base coat I have used.  It goes on so smoothly and dries really quick.  Plus, I never need to use a top coat with this.  It somehow keeps my nails from chipping, which is a feat in itself.
Lastly Shine of the Times which is a clear glitter polish.  I use this to paint over other colors when I want to add a little pizzazz. 
Seriously how great are the nail polish names?  I so wish I could come up with names for nail polish because it must be so fun!  On my local radio station they actually played a game the other day called "Name of a Nail Polish or Name of an Adult Film".  It was pretty funny because I never noticed how many nail polishes have such scandalous names.  Do you have a favorite nail polish color?  I hope I'm not the only one who is constantly changing my nail color!

Beach, Bells and Bagpipes

So this past weekend, two of our friends got married in Pensacola, Florida. 

Two other friends of ours were nice enough to welcome us all to their family's beach house in Destin for the Friday before the wedding.  We of course accepted with no pause and Friday morning we awoke and were on the road by 8 am on our way to Destin.  For some reason our GPS decided to take us the longest way possible, but nothing could ruin the day.  The weather was perfect, which I unfortunately did not prepare for, so we had to run over to a super cheesy beach shop to pick up a $10 Destin outfit.  Everyone else started arriving shortly after so we all went for a walk along the beach and just hung out on the back deck.

For dinner that night we stopped by a really good seafood restaurant called Harbor Docks.  If you're in town for a visit, you should definitely stop by there.  They had a bunch of daily catches that could be made a few different ways and a long list of sushi. I went for the sushi, and it was really delicious and super fresh.  The rest of the night we spent back at the beach house drinking wine and just chatting away.  Saturday morning we all got up and went for brunch at a local place called The Pancakery.  This is another good choice if you're in town, but be forewarned that there will be a long wait on the weekends.  We waited for about 35 minutes but the wait was worth it.  They have any kind of pancake you could think of, different types of batters and a very long list of toppings to choose from - even M&Ms if you wanted.  After brunch we went back to watch some football and then had to move on to Pensacola for the wedding.  The wedding was lovely.  They got married in a small, historic church in downtown Pensacola and then the reception immediately followed at a restaurant on the water.  Everything went well with the wedding with just one little hitch - unfortunately someone locked the church doors so the bride couldn't come in when it was time.  Finally someone realized and ran to unlock the doors for her.  Other than one little delay, everything else seemed to go smoothly and we all had a blast.

After the wedding our group decided to check out a local pub we had been talking about all weekend long.  So one thing you should know about my friends and I, we are all in our early 30s but sometimes I think if someone listened in on our conversations they would think we were a bunch of 80 year olds.  So Friday night when D and I were laying in bed watching TV we were flipping through the channels and saw a local commercial talking about the $0.18 soup at the pub that is the same price as when the pub opened its doors in 1977.  We thought we had to have misheard that but of course we had to tell everyone about it the next morning so we literally brought up the $0.18 soup about 30 times during the day so after the wedding we had to stop by to check it out.  So we walked over from our hotel to McGuires Irish Pub and bellied up to the bar where we ordered some drinks and a bowl of the $0.18 soup.  It was delish! We had an interesting time at this Irish pub.  First off one of my friends decided to share some steak with a group of random guys who were sitting behind us.  Then as we were getting ready to leave a nice man walked in and started playing his bagpipes.  All in all it was an interesting evening.  Sunday morning we basically woke up and had a 6 hour drive back home so the day was spent mostly with sitting in the car unfortunately. 

Everybody's Working for the Weekend

It's that time again.  The end of the week, the day that you've been waiting for all week long.  So, hopefully you're going to have a fun weekend, so to start the weekend off right, here is just an interesting picture.  It was taken two years ago while D and I were in New Orleans for a weekend.  We were just walking around and saw this interesting pair hanging out in the main square.  At first D tried to be sneaky and take a picture of them while they weren't looking, but they saw him and invited him to come over and take a close up with the stipulation that he send a copy to the gypsy's mom so she knew her daughter was OK.  D agreed and took the email address and took the picture. There are always interesting characters to make interesting stories from NOLA!

Hope you have a silly, fun weekend!

Clean Up Time

I've learned as I've gotten older how important it is to have a night time routine. When I was younger I would go to sleep all the time without washing the makeup off of my face.  I know, the horror!  But now if I make that mistake, the next morning my skin is splotchy and gross looking.  So I've developed a routine to make it easier to follow nightly.  Sometimes I switch it up a little bit, but this is the one I use most nights.

So to start, I put my hair back to get it out of my face.  Then the next stop is to use the Almay oil free eye makeup remover.  I prefer the oil free because it is less greasy and doesn't irritate my eyes at all.  After I get all of my eye makeup off I move onto the next step, the facial scrub.  I really like the Lush Cosmetics Herbalism face wash.  It may seem a little strange, but it scrubs your skin so well and smells good.  Plus, unlike a lot of scrubs, it is so gentle you can use it every day.  You just break a little piece off and add water so it becomes a paste.  Then you just scrub your face with it.  Then about once a week, I use the Mario Badescu Rolling Cream Peel with AHA.  This is an exfoliating cream that you spread on your face and then roll in a circular motion as you watch it peel up.  Then I pour a little of the Kiehl's Calendula Herbal Extract Alcohol-Free Toner onto one of the cotton pads and use that to rub off the rest of the exfoliating cream.  Then, this is a nightly step, but I apply the Clinique Moisture Surge Overnight Mask.  This stuff is pretty nice, you just put a thin layer all over your face and let it dry and then the next morning when you wake up your skin feels so soft.  The next step, and we're getting to the end of the routine, I massage the Replenix Eye Repair Cream around my eyes, especially on the area right below my eyes all over my bags.  Now, I have to be honest I have no clue where you buy this cream from because my mother-in-law works in the industry and got it for me, but I'm sure you can get it from somewhere.  Usually the eye cream would be the last step, but unfortunately sometimes I get blemishes.  The final step if I do have blemishes, I use the Mario Badescu Drying Lotion on them.  This stuff is a life saver!  While it doesn't completely get rid of the spot overnight, it shrinks it a lot and quickens the healing process.  It also makes you look quite silly since it leaves pink spots behind.  I've been using this stuff since I was in high school, and it seriously is one product that anyone who is prone to acne should really use.
So that is my nightly routine.  Do you have any specific getting ready for bed routine that you do nightly? 

Coat Trick

So this weekend was a pretty relaxed weekend and a cooler one at that.  I'm finally able to start unpacking my sweaters and jackets that have been boxed up for the summer. 

 So as I said before, Friday was a pretty calm night, we just went to a local casual pizza place for dinner.  Luckily it was still warm enough that we could even sit on the patio.  Since it was a pretty calm night, I just put on some jeans, a black shirt and this leopard print scarf.  I was also able to take out my lighter jackets, which I'm so excited to finally be able to wear!  The jeans are just the Diva Skinny jeans from Old Navy.  The scarf is from a  boutique called Fab'rik.  There are a bunch of locations of this store all over town, and they also have a website.  Their clothes are super affordable and very trendy.  It's a good place to buy trendy clothes that you don't want to spend a ton of money on.  The green jacket is from Bloomies last fast.  My shoes were a major find!  I got them from DSW a couple of months ago.  They are Vince Camuto and I got them for $20.  They are so comfortable and are cute enough I can wear to work or just casually on the weekend.

Saturday night, we went to a neighborhood pub to watch the Seminoles beat the Tigers.  Unfortunately I couldn't find any of my team shirts so I had to improvise, but it also was pretty chilly out Saturday night.  I wore these red pants that I got from Express last winter, but I feel like I always see them in store.  I can't find them online, but I'm pretty sure I remember seeing the colored jeans in store recently.  I wore just a plain, long sleeve black shirt from Old Navy.  The jacket was also another great find!  I got it from Zara on sale also for $30.  If you have not checked out Zara, you really should.  It is a European brand that now sells in the US.  Their prices range from cheap to moderately expensive, but they also have great sales.  They also have a great men's section.  The shoes are these Steve Madden smoker loafers.  They are super comfortable and I always get a ton of compliments whenever I wear them.

We All Cheer For Ice Cream

So last week, the Atlanta Elite Yelpers were invited to sample ice cream from a new local ice cream shop.  Yelp is a website where regular people can review different local businesses.  There's a site for almost every major city in the US, and even some internationally.  If you review enough businesses and people enjoy them, you can become an Elite member, which is the best thing ever!  You get invited to try different local businesses and meet tons of other people who you would probably never would have met otherwise.  So last week, Yelp invited the Elite members to try the Jeni's Ice Cream truck.  I brought D as my plus one and we headed over to the top secret location. 

They had a few flavors for everyone to try out.  I got the sweet potato with toasted marshmallow.  It was seriously amazing!  I would never think that sweet potato flavored ice cream could ever taste good, but it tasted better than good. I am still thinking about how delicious it was.

D tried the salted caramel flavor.  This one was good also, but it would taste better with some chocolate ice cream mixed with it. 

So the moral of the story is, if you want some delicious ice cream, try out Jeni's.  Their shop is opening this week at Westside Provisions and if you go over to their website you can search for the local stores that show this delicious sweet treat.