Suburbanette

Hola Amigos!

As you may (or may have not noticed) I recently took a month and a half long hiatus from blogging.  I didn’t mean to do it but life just got in the way.  I will have to do a pretty big “Loose Threads” post to catch you up but here are the highlights of where I’ve been!

I went on a nine day So-Cal trip (the longest vacation I’ve ever had in my adult life)!

I attended a fashion show benefiting the Washington Humane Society at the National Building Museum.  Read my recap here.

I celebrated Easter with a lovely dinner at my sister Kat‘s house!  Rob got me this Easter basket full of candy I can’t eat.

I got to visit my cousins’ in Las Vegas for the first time since they moved there two years ago.

Rob became a godfather to the cutest baby in the WHOLE world!

I went on a cupcake crawl with for Little Miss Cupcake’s birthday (not pictured).  Check out my reviews for The Sweet Lobby and Sticky Fingers Bakery.

I staged a fake birthday party for Kassie since she was so upset she didn’t get invited to my original (adult-oriented) birthday festivities.

Oh by the way! I turned 28! My house was full of flowers for two full weeks!  Thank you to my friends at Nintendo and non-brand affiliated friends haha.

I hosted a Mother’s Day dinner on my apartment rooftop for my mom, my sister Kat, and Rob’s mom!

I officially realized that I have the cutest little family in the world.  See above for proof.

For the first time ever, I wore a watch and painted my nails!  Can I be a fashion blogger now?!

I cheered Rob, Timmy and Roel on as they participated in the annual DC Dragon Boat Race (Gold medal winners baby!).

I got to spend a lovely day at Paradise Springs Winery with my sisters and mom!

I met a bunch of fun fashion bloggers at the Baby Bash and Bling Media Event featuring Tia Mowry!

PS: If you would like to follow my adventures on a daily….maybe even hourly basis check out my Instagram.

PPS:  Don’t forget to sign up for your chance to win an organic makeup prize pack from Sally B. Skin Yummies here.

A little over than a month ago I made a personal vow to nourish myself with clean, whole foods that encouraged natural flushing of toxins from my body.  I hit a few rough patches but overall I am feeling happier, lighter, and more energized.  My fiance, Rob, has been seeing positive effects as well — he has lost twenty pounds (I am not going to lie, I am very jealous!).

In my continuous search for health and wellness, I found out a few frightening facts that lead me to believe that I should care not only about what goes IN my body but what goes ON my body as well.  As a self-confessed girly girl, I am a sucker for makeup.  I love all brands – - MAC, Nars, Cargo, Urban Decay, and Stila are a few of my favorite products.  However many makeup brands use harmful ingredients such as carcinogens, pesticides, reproductive toxins, plasticizers (chemicals that keep concrete soft), degreasers (used to get grime off auto parts), and surfactants (they reduce surface tension in water, like in paint and inks).

My body is already pretty much messed up as it is.  There is NO need to pile these ingredients onto my skin — a porous surface that readily sucks up everything or my lips which I lick about 100x a day.

Luckily for me (and you!), I was able to reach out to Meghan at Sally B. Skin Yummies , a company which produces all-natural, organic cosmetics, who was nice enough to send me a bevvy of makeup samples to try.  At first I was skeptical to see if these products would work as well as my top-performing Allure rated brands but I was pleasantly surprised.  Here are a few of my favorites:

Healing Hand Butter- I have raved in the past about my love for L’Occitane’s hand cream and found this to be a great substitute.  In fact, I just slathered a bunch on my hands a few minutes ago (I am writing this en route to LA and the air is awfully dry on this plane) and it was such a welcome relief.  It is thick, rich and smooth and has a very pleasant smell.

B Glossy Lip Gloss – This is my new addiction!  This lip gloss has a wonderful sheen and left my lips with the perfect not-too-vampy red tint.  It has peppermint extract in it which gave it a nice tingle.  Nutritionist to the stars and my fitness guru Kimberly Snyder uses this tint in Ruby’s Red on a daily basis.

Carrot Dream Facial Cream – I really enjoyed using this because of it’s sweet vanilla smells and thick, whipped texture but Rob has found this facial cream to be a real life saver!  He has suffered from a severe case of facial psoriasis for most of his adult life and most of the ointments, lotions, and creams (prescription and non-prescription)  that he used always left him with a burning sensation on his face.  After using this product for a week he noticed an IMMEDIATE difference in the clarity of his skin.  I believe that this is a true testament to the benefit of using all natural products. I am putting a before and after photo (which may or may not be requested to be taken down after a while) so you can see his amazing results.  He is already requesting that I order him a re-fill tub of lotion!

Before

After

If this information is not enough to make you a believer, I am inviting you to try their products for yourself!  I am giving away a full sized B Glossy Lip Gloss and Healing Hand Butter to one of my readers.  To win, please leave a comment below.  The winner will be chosen at random on June 7th, 2012.

Good Luck!

PS: In no way was I compensated for this review.  All opinions are my own and my opinion is that Sally B Skin Yummies ROCKS!  All of their products are all natural and organic and made in America (I even made one of my biochemist scientist friends check out their ingredient list and it is a LEGIT company).

PPS: Yes that is Tia Mowry from Sister Sister.  And no I am not going to promise you that if you use Sally B Skin products that you will transform overnight from eating a corn cob to rubbing elbows with stars from the ’90s.  And don’t worry a story about that encounter will be coming up shortly.

Happy Endings is my favorite show so I was psyched to see Brightest Young Things use the cast as supporting characters in this week’s email blast!  In one word –

Enjoy the rest!

As a new yoga student, I pretty much got my butt handed to me on a silver platter  when I attended a free yoga class on the National Mall last Saturday.  But the weather was so beautiful, I didn’t mind one bit!

Thanks to my sister Kristina and friend Clarissa for joining me in this public humiliation!

PS: The next Yoga on the National Mall class will take place on May 19th, in conjunction with DC Yoga Week!

Two weeks ago, I visited my friend Casey in Richmond!  Casey and I originally bonded in the bathroom after gym class in middle school because I admired her scented glitter spray from Bath and Body Works.  Fifteen years later we are bonding over our shared love of Yelp and our recent engagements!  Go us — I love long time friends!

Richmond has a nasty reputation as a hood rat city but that could not be further from the truth!  The city has a vibrant artistic community with tons of cute, locally owned shops.  While I was there, they were hosting a French Film Festival at the Byrd Theatre which is a beautiful, historic theater right in the heart of Carytown.  I had such a lovely visit full of brunching, thrifting, wine tasting, and shopping!  Richmond is such a wonderful city.

Here are a few photos from my trip!

If you are craving Indian food without the heavy cream and clarified butter — this should do the trick!  It is spicy, easy to make, and quite filling.  But I’m not going to lie — it would have tasted MUCH better in a creamy tomato sauce with lots of garlic naan to soak it up.  There are some classic recipes you shouldn’t mess with.

Ingredients
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 medium red onion diced
1 cup of cut broccoli florets
1 medium zucchini sliced
2 Tablespooons of curry
1 teaspoon of tumeric
1 teaspoon of red pepper flakes
1 cup of cooked quinoa
Himalayan sea salt to taste

Directions
-Saute diced onions in olive oil for a few minutes until translucent, add salt, curry, tumeric, and red pepper
- Add other vegetables and cook untik softened
- Add cooked quinoa and stir everything together. Adjust seasoning as needed.

Recipe adapted from Kimberly Snyder

I was lucky enough to check out the soft opening at the much-anticipated Chasin’ Tails Restaurant yesterday and all I have to say about it is…

NOM NOM NOM

As a seafood aficionado, I have never had the chance to fall in love with crawfish.  My pops had 30 lbs of fresh crawfish flown in from Louisana last spring and I was a bit underwhelmed — now I know why.  It was missing that hot, spicy, tangy seasoning that makes the inside of your mouth pucker for days. Luckily for me, Chasin’ Tails had the secret ingredient and it is less than a hop, skip and a jump away from my office building in Falls Church!

I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves:

Everything I consumed from the gator bites, to the shrimp, to the lushious, lushious crawfish was fresh, juicy and perfectly seasoned.  I have a feeling that this will be my new seafood bar of choice since our last trip to the raw food bar at Dogwood Tavern ended up being a big fail.  Rob, Kristina, Andrew, Timmy, Linda, Sam, Kat, Paul, and Carlo – - I hope you have your seafood bibs ready cus things are about to get CRAYYYY!

Now Open!
220 N Westmoreland Street
Arlington, VA 22213
http://chasintailscrawfish.com

In my household of two, I am the main cook while Rob takes care of the dishes.  Some people may think that I have it easy since cooking is the fun part, but it is EXHAUSTING trying to come up with new and delicious recipes all the time.  Thanks to Pinterest, this task has been alleviated for a little bit, but now I am stuck with the wonderful job of making sure that my pantry is stocked with the right ingredients at all times.  I have been drooling over this recipe for stuffed zucchini for quite some time now, but unfortunately I was missing more than half of the ingredients it called for.  I decided to try stuffing my zucchini (that sounds dirty doesn’t it?) with whatever vegetables I could find at the fridge at the moment.  Guess what — my gamble was worth it!  This dish ended up being tasty, filling, and easy to prepare!  I am already thinking of other ways I can stuff it next time — orzo salad? garlic, cheese and bread crumbs?, curried cauliflower and chickpeas? I don’t mind if I do!

Ingredients:
- chopped tomatoes
- chopped parsley
- chopped onions
- chopped mushrooms
- minced garlic
- two zucchinis
- salt and peper

Directions:
- Cut two zucchinis length wise
- Scoop out the guts with a fork and then chop into cubes
- Combine zucchini, tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, and garlic in a skillet and saute until cooked
- Stuff vegetable mixture into hollowed out zucchinis, top with shredded cheese and fresh parsley
- Cook in 400 degree oven for twenty minutes
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Serve immediately

I served my zucchini boats with some tzakiki sauce on it just because I had some laying around.

[#1] Cherry blossom season came and went faster than you can say whatchamacallit
[#2] My new beside milk jug flower arrangement thanks to Ikea
[#3] Baby Willow is in the hospital again so we ended up celebrating her mom’ birthday/St. Patrick’s day at the PICU unit at Inova Fairfax
[#4] The lovely people at Robert Kennedy publishing just sent me Tosca Reno’s Eat Clean Diet cookbook to help me come up with some new healthy eating ideas.  I can’t wait to share some new recipes with you.

I just received a shipment of all natural, organic beauty products from Sally B Skin Yummies to review!  I am still testing everything but so far getting A-MAH-ZING results with their carrot facial dream cream.  I can’t wait to share my results with you.  Stay tuned!