Pretty In Pink

I've been talking about doing something a little more fun with my hair for awhile now. On Friday I went to my go to salon in New Haven, CT and Lucy turned my Pinterest hair dreams into reality.

I decided to go the pink route because in my opinion, girls with pink hair have more fun. Also, breast cancer awareness month is October, so what an appropriate time to go pink. And I thought it'd just suit my skin tone the best out of all the colors I was contemplating.

So first she put some lightener in it because the ends were already blonde, then she detangled it which took about 30 minutes because I hadn't run a brush through it in a few days... oops. Then she applied the color which was called rose Tuscany.

Rose Tuscany. How beautiful does that sound?

Lucas was watching Lucy's baby, (Lucas and Lucy are twins, by the way) so while my color developed we played with him and watched him sleep in his stroller a little bit. He was being so good, he barely made a peep the entire time his mommy was doing my hair!

Pinterest inspiration // the final results 

I love it!!! Pink but not too pink. Fun, but not too crazy. 

And my hair is still brown at the top, so when I wear it in a ponytail it's all "business in the front, party in the back." Hehe! 

The only downside is that my hair feels a little bit like straw. It always feels amazing when I leave the salon and then I'm totally incapable of getting those results on my own. But I have some sulfate free color preserving shampoo, sulfate free wave gel, and did a coconut oil hair mask yesterday. I just may need to use that coconut oil every damn day. 

After the hair transformation, Lucas and I got a slice of pizza at a tiny Italian pizzeria downstairs from the salon. Later that night, we went to a pop-up carnival in his town where he won me a stuffed penguin by playing a squirt gun game against a bunch of 8 year olds. It was hilarious. Then I got me some fried Oreos because you just have to get fried SOMETHING at a pop-up carnival! 

Saturday

We went pumpkin picking and I had some hot apple cider and apple crisp. So overall, it was a terrible eating weekend. *shrug* You gotta do what you gotta do when you have a serious autumn bucket list to accomplish and eating your weight in apple and pumpkin treats is a definite necessity. Despite the fact that you're participating in a weight loss challenge... oops again.

Saturday afternoon I had a little gathering of friends at my house. We decorated with minimal dollar store decorations (spider webs and Zombie Zone! caution tape) and ate veggie pizza and home-made mac & cheese in the backyard. We had a small fire roaring in our fire pit and toasted marshmallows for s'mores. It was our last little hurrah before the cold weather sets in, since we'd had a cookout in my backyard earlier this summer. Then a few of us went out dancing and I cut loose with a couple of tequila and OJ's and a totally expected impromptu dance battle with one of my best friends, Shawn. 

Sunday was spent relaxing, even though I did have to make a trip to the dance studio to work on a dance solo for my little cousin. My aunt, my mom, and Lucas hung out in our backyard while we were gone, gossiping and clipping coupons. On Sunday night we chilled hard, and watched a strange little movie called Five Dances - if you LOVE modern dance, you will be enamored by this movie, but otherwise you may get fed up with the heavy levels of angst, silence, and lack of real dialogue. 

Now, Happy Monday! 

This weeks forecast is literally unreal. It's going to be upper 70's, even 80(!!!!!) a couple of days. So I'm going to take full advantage of that and plan to go for a walk or work out outside every day that I can.

How was your weekend ?

2 Festivals, 1 Spin Class

Hello Monday. Monday, you are not welcome this week. I try to start each week off with positivity but I can definitely do without Monday on this particular week.

That being said, this weekend was fun!

Friday Lucas and I had our first CHEAT DAY of our #30DayCleanEatingChallenge and we spent it at Ben & Jerry's and Plan B Burger. Friday night I went out dancing with some of my friends for one of their birthdays'. I don't do that very often, so it was a nice treat for myself to let loose a lil bit.

 The Tonight Dough with Jimmy Fallon included chocolate and caramel ice cream, cookie pieces, chocolate globs, peanut butter chunks, and brownie batter. This is what ice cream wet dreams are made of, people. 

 Yes that is four cheese mac & cheese with BBQ pulled chicken because I just cannot help myself. I just can't. I try and I can't.

When we do cheat day, we do cheat day right. Then lay in bed for hours afterwards, with stomach aches, hating our poor choices. 

Saturday Lucas and I went to a special event at the gym that I work at. There was a Spinning class held by our gym for a young guy named Ian, who was born with cerebral palsy and at the age of 18 months was told that he would probably never walk. Ian overcame so many odds and is now a Spinning Instructor based in Florida, who travels all over the world going to conferences and teaching classes.

Apparently, all Ian wanted for his birthday was to come to East Hartford and co-teach a Spin class with Matt, his good friend from Spin conferences and the director of our Spin program. So on Saturday at noon they hosted a special event, complete with glow sticks, disco lights, and light up neon speakers. Ian was SO inspirational. The class was completely full and Lucas and I really did almost shed a tear a couple of times.

We were so wiped out afterwards that we just laid in bed and watched TV the rest of the day. Lucas had an overnight shift so I binge watched some episodes of Girls on HBO (great fucking show), and snuggled him when he got home.

Sunset from either Friday or Saturday. Just had to include it because I took my dog for a sunset walk, something else that I haven't done in what feels like forever. 

Sunday was one hell of an eventful day!

I went to yoga in the morning, which I haven't done in FOREVER. This is a friendly reminder that my body and mind need yoga, on the reg.

Then Lucas and I went to this wild place in Middletown called Wild Bills. It's like a thift shop meets strange and unusual museum. I swear, this was one of the weirdest places I've ever been to. Any way you look you'll see stacks of records, stuffed deer heads, metal contraptions that looks like medieval torture devices, giant plastic clown statues, and wind chimes made of animal teeth. It was a hoarders dream.

I guess we went on the right day because around the back of the store is a giant lot that was holding a free Earth Day concert! It was scattered with hippies and grunge-styled folks, and little art vendors and food stands. Lucas and I were so overwhelmed! We looked like the quintessential Rhode Island couple.. I was wearing a chambray shirt and Nautica slip-ons and he was wearing a Watch Hill shirt, lmao. It was really cool though, and nice to hear live music!

Then we drove on over to New Britain for the Little Poland Festival. This was obviously way bigger - a whole street was blocked off. There was a gazillion street vendors, info tents, and food trucks. We went a little late, so all the stands were out of potato and cheese pierogis, which I was VERY disappointed about. But oh well. We wandered around here, watched some more live music, got a FREE bag of mini donuts, just appreciated each other and the sunshine and lively atmosphere.

Afterwards we went to a bar and got drinks with a few of Lucas's friends. Phew! What a packed weekend. What did you do? Anything super fun? Anything super relaxing?

As long as it was restorative in some way, I'd say it was a success. :)

RI Vacation & Snow in April

Hello, hi, and happy Monday!
And boy oh boy, what a happy Monday it is, since this little chickadee has the day off!

I had a dance performance at my alma mater this weekend in Rhode Island, so Lucas and I decided o make this into a little weekend getaway. Unfortunately, the weather didn't decide to cooperate in terms of us doing the Newport cliff walk or going to Colt State Park, but we enjoyed our getaway anyways. Take that Mother Nature!

FRIDAY
Friday night I spent in, while Lucas went out with his friends. I did do some reading of my first ever self-help book, "You Are A Badass - How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life". That's one hell of a title, huh? I like it so far, but as the same time feel kind of guilty reading about to attain all my dreams when like, kids in Africa have to walk five miles there and back to get clean water and all that, ya know?

Is the glare coming off that book blinding you, or is it like staring right into the Golden Gates of Self-Help Heaven? I'll let you know when I'm done reading the book.

I also did some heavy bullet journal planning which like, ohhhhh my goodness, I'm so excited to write a blog post about. It's totally perfect for me. 

SATURDAY

I had to be at the school at 2 for my dance performance at 7:30. We rehearsed the piece from 2-4:30, then I checked into the hotel and managed to squeeze in a quick dinner with my old roommate, Katie! It was great to catch up with her on our crazy lives since we only see each other a few times a year. Our dinner was so short and impromptu that I wasn't able to take any pictures! Aw, man. 

My dance show went great. The performance was actually completely packed, it looked like every seat was taken, and I got to see some old friends and dance professors from the school. It warms my heart that so many people came to support the performance! My dance partner, Michael, likened it to a bunch of our friends coming over our house to watch us perform. That's kind of what it felt like, lol.

After the show Lucas and I went OUT. We haven't gone out drinking together in forever. But our hotel was honestly only 500 feet from three bars, so we hit up two of them, Dirty Water Pub and Aidan's. Dirty Water Pub had live music, and we sat on the top balcony and watched! Super fun and relaxing. Then Aidan's was the complete opposite atmosphere and had a dance floor and club music. It was so fun and hilarious to let loose with my honey. 

Lols to shitty quality bar pictures.

SUNDAY
We were going to leave on Sunday morning, but woke up with snow outside our windows (wtf mate) and decided to stay another day. Why not???

We went out to breakfast at a cool diner called Green Eggs and sat at the counter. Lucas got too much food, as per usual, and I got Texas style French Toast with berries and cinnamon sugar. And of course coffee milk, cuz hello! When in RI, do as the Rhode Islanders do. Peep my Insta for the pic of my delicious French Toast breakfast ;)

Then when we realized that our hotel didn't have a microwave to heat up all of our accumulating leftovers, we literally drove a half hour to the nearest Walmart and bought a microwave. I wish I was kidding, Lucas justified it by saying that he needed one anyways...

We relaxed HARD CORE in the hotel for the afternoon while it snowed on and off outside, then went to dinner at one of my favorite Asian restaurants called Jacky's Galaxie which was actually voted one of the best Asian Fusion places in the USA! Here we proceeded to of course, get way too much food, and were treated to amazing service by our awesome little waitress.

It was so fucking delicious.
Yes that is a giant personal Scorpion bowl that just I drank. Also we had special shots called a Peppermint Patty and a Naughty Redhead. Holla!!

MONDAY
Today, on the day we had to check out, we woke up and it was of course BLIZZARDING. But we had to go home anyways, cuz staying in that hotel was really gettin a lil esspenssiveee. Of course we had to stop to take some basic pictures by the water in the snowfall.

Then we stopped at a place in Warren that is this gift shop called Imagine! I can't believe I've never been to it. It's voted one of the best gift shops in America! It has three floors and some really neat stuff. The umbrellas that were hanging from the ceiling looked so pretty and like we were in wonderland.

Overall, it was a really great weekend and ended with some great news... Lucas got a call back from the job that he interviewed for on Friday aaaaaaaaaaand HE GOT THE JOB! So exciting, so happy happy happy for him! It's a job I think he'll really enjoy because it's so hands on and physical. And he's a little puppy dog with ADHD sometimes.

So we're going to the movies (since it's his favorite thing ever) to celebrate tonight! My dance classes have been cancelled from the snow, which is exciting but terrifying since we only have a short number of weeks left before the recital... omg.

#Basic.

Have a wonderfully happy and productive Monday!

Easter eating & Candy comas

As I write this post, I am more stuffed than I have been since the Christmas holidays, laying in bed in a complete food coma, watching a really interesting show called "60 Days In". Regular people volunteer to go into prison systems pretending to be inmates, to try to either gather information or experiences. It's actually a pretty cool show, and I'm biting my nails worrying about these people's safety because if the inmates find out they're not real, there's a very real possibility they might get shanked! No thanks. I can't imagine ever doing something as stupid and dangerous. Hereeeeeeeeee is my weekend!

SATURDAY
I had a pretty short dance rehearsal in Rhode Island, so Lucas and I drove there for that in the early morning. After it, we went to this Irish pub called McBlarney's and ordered literally so much food. Ya know that phrase, "your eyes are bigger than your stomach"? That was pretty much our catch phrase all this weekend.

We got BBQ chicken nachos (which I still have only been able to find in RI, wtf?!), Santa Fe egg rolls, Hawaiian pulled pork flatbread, hot wings, and a burger with French fries. It was out of control. Lucas goes a little hog wild with the appetizers. We were loaded down with leftovers and headed back to Connecticut.

That night we settled in for a relaxing good old time of eating the fudgiest brownies I've ever had and snugglin' and watching a mini binge of The People vs. OJ Simpson. Good ass show. This adorable doggy, Lily, stayed beggin' for the brownies. She's Lucas's mother's prized possession pure bred Sheltie dog. Ain't she the cutest?

SUNDAY
Happy Easter kiddos! Easter breakfast was held by Lucas's prize-winning homemaker of a mother who makes pretty much everything from scratch and makes the rest of us look bad. Here we had orange infused pancakes with orange maple syrup, home fries, scrambled eggs with cheese, and turkey kilbasa. We got ready in our Easter finest, then headed over to my aunt's house for Easter lunch. Stuffed some more food in our mouths in the form of mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, and steamed broccoli. Then since we were started to feel like some extremely stuffed muffins, we headed out for a walk to the park.

Washington Park is right around the corner from my aunt's house and they have a little pond you can walk around that they stock with fish every spring for a fishing derby! I don't think it was stocked today, but we did end up seeing some sunfish and this rad turtle that was sunbathing under a bridge. Lucas pretended to try and push me over the bridge as well. Dysfunction at it's finest. My little brother and dad played tennis on the tennis courts of the high school. They're very competitive, so we went and watched and cheered them on for a little bit. Go dad!

On to Easter dinner. We went back to Lucas's family's house and crammed in some more asparagus, ham, risotto, scalloped potatoes, vanilla bean cheesecake, Nutella brownies, and home made moosetracks ice cream. Kathy really knows how to make her house guests gain nearly 15 lbs in one sitting. Lucas also did a little egg hunt for his family where he wrote prizes on the eggs like "Movies with me", "Dinner with me", and "A ride in my Mercedes", LOL. I won the dinner, which I win at least once a week already anyways *wink. Lucas also put together this adorable Easter present for me, which was totally unnecessary because we shouldn't be the kind of couple that gets each other presents for stupid holidays like Easter, the 4th of July, and Cinco De Mayo for goodness sake. But, he always goes above and beyond and is the cutest muffin of them all. So he got me a Cosmo magazine, Reese's eggs, Cadbury eggs, Wet & Wild make-up setting spray, L'oreal cushion foundation (!!!), and Peeps that come with Peeps socks! I love that kid, I really do.

Now, as I mentioned above, we are in a total food coma. Laying in bed, truely barely movable, and I cannot believe that tomorrow starts another long ass week. The only consolation is that I have a four day weekend staring me straight between the eyes and this coming Monday and Tuesday marks my first days off in over three months. HALLELUJAH, POUR THE WINE, LET'S DO THIS WEEK.

Happy Sunday, happy Easter, may good digestion be with you.

Cinnabun French Toast Bake Recipe

FRIDAY = ZUMBATHON

I took my first Zumba class ever this month, so obviously I had to be extreme and go to a full blown Zumbathon not long after! The event was a fundraiser for a family who has a daughter with Rett's Syndrome, a neurological disease that impairs movement and speech. They're trying to raise money to buy this little girl a handicapped vehicle. I went with Lucas's mom because apparently Zumba is our bonding activity, lol. I had one of those "it's such a small world" moments because a girl who I teach dance to and her mother were also at this event! So it was nice to know another person there.

The Zumbathon began with a bootcamp style warm-up led by a personal trainer named Samantha. She whooped our asses! All the middle-aged Zumba ladies never saw it coming. And without warning, we were doing jumping jacks, holding squats, and dropping and doing push-ups. Which was probably the most difficult part of the whole event!

The Zumbathon itself was very cool though, with three different instructors switching out every three or so songs. They all had different music and teaching styles and very different energy. I'm pissed I didn't take any pictures of the actual event, but just look at these Fitbit stats! Super proud of my work out this day. I burnt almost 700 calories in the Zumba class, which was nuts! An hour and 30 minutes well worth it.

SATURDAY = FOOD, WALKS, & DANCING! 

When Lucas woke up he was literally so determined to make a Cinnabun French Toast Bake from one of those short, sped-up videos that he saw on Facebook. It was unreal. So we threw on sweatshirts and popped on over to the grocery store and got the Cinnabun rolls. And since it turned out beyond delicious, here is the recipe:

Cinnabun French Toast Bake

Ingredients: 
2 Cinnabun rolls
6 eggs

1 stick of butter
1/2 cup milk
2 tsps cinnamon
2 tsps vanilla extract 

1/2 cup maple syrup (optional)

Directions: 
1. Cut Cinnabun rolls into disk shapes, about 1/2 inch to 1 inches thick. Then cut those into smaller chunks. 

2. Whisk together eggs, milk, cinnamon, and vanilla extract.

3. Melt butter in microwave. Pour butter into a large glass baking pan.

4. Break apart Cinnabun pieces and layer them evenly in the baking pan.
5. Pour liquid mixture over the Cinnabun pieces.
6. Pour in 1/2 cup of maple syrup over top everything.
7. Bake at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes.
8. Let cool for a few minutes. Heat up Cinnbun frosting in microwave and drizzle over the top.

Enjoy!

So yes, that was amazinggggg.
Then since it was kind of nice outside (and supposed to snow on Sunday, wtf) I decided to take my dog for a walk and then go for a jog myself. I can't get a good workout in when walking Sherman since he's 12 years old so can't go far distances and stops to sniff things EVERY 20 SECONDS. 

My jog took me around a 3 mile loop that my mom and I usually walk. Somehow I was able to jog the entire way! I have never never never never been a runner. So I've gotta say, I was extremely proud of myself. I did have to keep a very slow pace (like, a 14 minute mile slow) but I did not stop to walk once and even accelerated a little bit near the end. So I give myself a solid pat on the back! 

Saturday night I went out with my good friend Shawn. He and I both work at the dance studio and love going out dancing! We basically dance battle each other and take up so much space that no one really wants to go near us bahaha. Our night started out slow because we arrived before the clubs had really gotten going. So after trying out two places and being disappointed, we decided to go get a slice of pizza down the block! After we got back from that, the music and dancing had finally started, so I'm sure we burned off those calories real quick. The only disappointment was the DJ never played "Work" by Rihanna. We were dancing right next to the stage, screaming, "GIVE ME RIHANNAAAA!" for about 15 minutes straight. Oh well! 

SUNDAY = MOVIE DAY! 

There's always gotta be at least one movie day per week, so today after eating this delicious spinach and cheese omelette, made by bae, we settled in to watch American Sniper with Bradley Cooper. 

This was a very intense and dramatic movie, but I also liked how it portrayed Chris Kyle's life in between tours and before he enlisted. I read an article about his actual life and death, and the movie did a fairly decent job of covering the majority of his life, but turned the focus intentionally away from his death. In truth, his death could have been a movie all its own. But it got less than 3 seconds of screen time, producers opting to write across a single black page "Chris Kyle was killed on this day when trying to help a fellow veteran", or something to that effect. It's a truly crazy story, and very very sad. Bae fell asleep during the end of the movie and for a very long time afterwards while I put away laundry and cleaned our room. I snapped this gem during that slumber. 

Later that afternoon we went to the actual movie theatre with my mom. Movie day with mom and bae! For some reason we really like going to the movies with my mom. I don't know if it's weird or cute, orrrr... weird. Mom doesn't seem to mind being the third wheel though, so I guess we'll just go with it. 

We saw 10 Cloverfield Lane. And WOW, WHAT A FUCKED UP MOVIE. 

I don't even know where to start but if you're looking for a psychological, fucked up movie where you don't know who's lying and what's real, thennnnn watch this. The beginning is a little bit slow, but then it's like you're on a downward spiral towards what on God's green earth ??!?!! for the entire last section of the movie. Maybe I'll write a more in depth review full of spoilers later on this week. 

So that's the weekend! Later that night we also watched The Family on ABC Family, which is another fucked up show. I don't know what to think or who to believe here. And did anyone catch that the daughter was having fantasies about being with a girl?? I would love for that to be true. The daughter is freaking nuts.

How was your weekend? Did you watch anything great? Did you Netflix and chill or Netflix and fit in some active minutes? Happy Monday!