Naturing

We decided to go a couple of hours south to a place called Garden of the Gods this past weekend.

It was 90 degrees by 11 so it was a pretty intense hour or leaping around rocks and naturing.

I think I hallucinated that there were dwarfs in the caves..

I don't think I have ever sweat so much. Maybe in Haiti?? I was seriously dripping with sweat

SEXY

I wish I had this view from my house..(minus myself, of course)

I put that rock up there.

Then we found some greasy spoon to eat at and it was interesting to say the least. But after hiking in bazillion degree wheather anything tasted good!

This is us, acting like out of towners.

(check out the sweet window treatments..)

It was a good adventure.

I love my husband.

Food Friday

1.  If I could choose my last meal it would be    my grandma Evelyn's maccaroni and cheese, Caprese Salad and Rama Noodle.

2.  My favorite person to share a meal with is    my husband and Derek and Rebecca. We make some amazing creations between the 4 of us.  It's kind of a big deal whenever we eat .

3.  The best meal I've ever had was    probably the first meal I ate in Greece. We sat outside on a patio that overlooked the Mediterranean Sea while eating spiniach and feta stuffed phylo dough and some other confusing food. It could have been anything, I'm pretty sure  . It looked like this:

4.  The one food that makes me feel instantly better when I'm having a bad day is    a cheeseburger .

5.  My absolute specialty in the kitchen is     I suppose it's this one pasta dish I make with spinach, feta cheese, sun-dried tomatoes and italian herbs. I really like making pies too    .

6.  The city that has the best food is      probably somewhere I haven't been yet    and my favorite restaurant there is   going to be a Thai or Japanese  place.   

7.  My favorite healthy snack is     fresh fruit .

8.  In my opinion the nationality which has the best food is  Thai and Japanese. I seriously could live off of either of those.

9.  If I could learn to cook anything in the world (and be really good at it!) I'd choose      sushi. However I don't have access to awesomely, fresh seafood or sea weed.. I've thought about getting a kit to start trying to roll it but I am afraid of the epic fail    .

10.  The most outrageous dessert I've ever had was    I don't think this qualifies as outrageous. But it was outrageously amazing.   It was the lava cake from our cruise last year. They called it Warm Chocolate Melting cake. I had it everyday except for one when I tried Baked Alaska. I seriously could bathe in lava cake. I dream of it still and nothing I've had since quite compares! 

Born to Party

I have always L O V E D planning parties. Especially when there is a purpose i.e,: baby shower, wedding shower, graduations, birthdays etc. I really enjoy it. I think I would do it for a living if I could (hmmm...).

I have thrown approximately 10 baby showers and probably around 5 bridal showers. I try to make every birthday for my husband something special.

I. Heart. Events!

I.Heart. Decorating! 

I absolutely heart it.

Since my partner in crime, Rebecca, and I are in the midst of planning our second shower together I am in event planning mode for sure. I am usually in charge of theme and decorations while Rebecca is in charge of the lovely designer foods she makes.

Our theme for this shower is all things girly and feminine. Tea Party style baby shower with fresh flowers, lace doilies, fine China and more. 

Did I mention already that I could do this for the rest of my life??

Today as I was looking around for some further inspiration for our dear heart, Joan's, shower, I stumbled across some GLORIOUS party planning blogs. They are out of my league for sure but WOW! something to be inspired by and reach towards. I don't even know where to start! So off for Tea Party inspiration I went ..

..and I got a bit side-tracked:

A mix between Snippet and Ink and Bella Grace Party Designs check this inspiration board out for a beautiful honey bee party. I like how she is going to use it for a 2nd birthday party (can you even imagine having the resources, time and money to get such a beautiful 2nd birthday party?! I would be lucky to get this for my 50th, I think!)

And this sweet adorable 3rd birthday party inspiration!

(I am partial to bee themes because my name is Greek for "Honey Bee"- betcha' didn't know that??)

Then this:

The Party Dress is an amazing site I found today that has the most exquisite themes. This makes me want to get married again, and have lots of rich friends throwing me a shower.

Woodland Fairy Birthday Party by Kate Landers Events

how cute would it be if each little girl at every party got one of these?:

And one more little girl party here

SLUMBER PARTTTY!!!. And those bags are filled with custom made pj's for each of the attending little girls. Gah!  I can't handle it. 

(WHO HAS THIS MUCH MONEY!?!?!)

So anyway. I could post picture after picture of  lavish parties that I adore but I must stay focused on the task at hand. And place my dreams of a party planning business to the side. I am getting lots of excellent practice and am learning to do it on a budget. 

If you can think  of any names for a prospective party/shower business , send them my way. My creativity is focused elsewhere at the moment and I can't think of anything cute!

Oh, one more little picture. This would have been my jam when I was younger..

from: The Party Dress

Obviously inspired by..

Gardens, flowers, nature.

Always.

I want to

A new start and a finished week

I stopped. Yep.
A 3 day jump start was what I needed. Not eating wasn't an option for me.
Yesterday night I enjoyed myself a little (big) dinner.
It was a splurge and it wasn't all that healthy per se but it was 

DELICIOUS.

So this morning, I took what I had learned in principle about the ways of eating and started to apply it.
This was my breakfast.
Scrumptious.And by the way I love flax seeds. They are becoming my version of salt. I put them on everything!

And here we are again: Fill in the Blank Friday courtesy of Lauren at The Little Things We Do

1.  The best thing about being in school was/is       skipping class and laying in the grass outside of the Education building and also, the constant slumber party of college dorms. It was so fun and I got away with a lot of silly things!

2.  The worst thing about being in school was/is      Elementary Education homework. I'd rather would have done sociology homework. With El Ed you spend hours cutting things out. I am not good with scissors .

3.  My favorite subject in school was/is     English and Biology in high school and Child Psych and Astronomy in college  .

4.  One subject I wish I could have mastered/would like to master is       a foreign language. Maybe Spanish, maybe Italian. Not many schools teach Italian though   .

5.  I could never get tired of studying    Art  .

6.  The most memorable teacher I had was     Mrs. Tidball. She turned EVERYTHING into a lesson. And I loved biology because of her. In college, Dr.'s Curry and Dr. Grill! Dr. Curry related with me in a way that made me feel entirely special. Dr. Grill made me love phsychology   .

7.  If I could choose between going to school for the rest of my life or working for the rest of my life, I'd choose     neither. There is a time for both and I love both but I wasn't made do either full time and eternally. 

2 for 1 Thursday

Lets get business out of the way.
Day 3 of the detox and I am in the "dislike" stage

Not a fan
And I weighed myself and I am heavier??
Confused about that one. Maybe it has nothing to do with it. Plus this is about being healthy not shedding water weight.

Either way..It's not my favorite thing I have ever done.
I may just be doing a 3 day jump start to diet overhaul.
That seems much more doable.

In some ways I feel like a quitter but in other ways I feel starving so...I'd rather be alive than be a winner.
Just being honest there.

But today I went home for lunch and made this "soup" they recommend.
Which I am sure, if anyones else made, would taste great. But I made it and so therefore I ate two bites and then gave up and ate a banana.

I am being a baby I am pretty sure. Everyone on the site and the forum says how WONDERFUL it is and how they feel so full and  look forward to their smoothies and recipes.
Not Missy.

I have no alternate plans to eat McDonald's or anything I just want something else.
I am bitter-ish at the moment...It's that mid-day hunger rage mania I get.

So this is the smoothie I made..looks healthy-ish

Yes and it was. But I had an issue with it's texture after it was all blended..

John was trying to force himself to eat/drink/choke this down.

So onto fun things

I went garage sale-ing this past weekend with my friend Rebecca and her joey, Ogden.

I found some fun things.

A vintagey old camera for 50 cents

some doilies for $1

Vintage wrapping paper $1

Vintage nesting tea tins 50 cents

A cabinet for the baby's room $8

Then we went to antique stores and she surprised me and got me a Honey Bee sign for my kitchen.

"It's bee-licious"

It's one of those vintage tin signs and it hold significance because my name actually means "honey bee".

She's a thoughtful friend like that. Not just presents, but presents with meaning and significance.She speaks my love language fluently.

Then

I got some rad canisters for my kitchen. I am slightly obsessed with them.

They aren't Fiestaware but they are beautiful and mix well with the F-ware.

So I am excited about these things.I hope to  do some sort of project with this paper..maybe frame it..actually use it for presents..I don't know. I just really wanted it.

Anyway that's what I am NOT excited about today and what I am excited about today. 2 for the price of 1.

.

Hey, you wanna' come over and eat celery?

Do you??
Well, I making my body go through rehab. But first, detox.

A 7 day raw foods detox to be exact.

After returning from our glorious vacation my tummy was acting quite unhappy.

I have had a history of some dumb digestive weirdness in the past . Since I have a couple of other physical things going on I decided that a detox couldn't hurt. Get my system reset and ready to work!

My doctor once told me to switch to a gluten-free or a low- gluten diet. "Gluten free is not for me" that's my motto but I know I can do a low gluten diet...eventually.
It's just a matter of wanting to.

However, I am finding out that I can do a gluten- free diet because this week I am doing a 7 day raw food cleanse.

Oh man.

This is only day 2. My days start off well but about this time everyday I flip out and start craving:

cheeseburgers

{source}

gyros

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California burritos from Santanas

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lava cakes (multiple)

ice cream

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macaroni and cheese

{source}

Sonic drinks

Cheese popcorn

Oh man. Seriously!?

That didn't help.

I really tried to talk myself out of this whole thing because we are going to a concert tonight and I really wanted to eat bad foods for me, our social life revolves around "good food" and I love to eat!

 But I am determined to stick with this and finish it even though I may be quite annoyed at eating like a rabbit. Because really, will there ever be a convenient time to start this?? And I need to be a better steward of this body God has given me even if it seems inconvenient.

I think I can maintain a very semi-raw diet after this detox.

Raw breakfasts, absolutely. The smoothies I am making are quite enticing :)

And I could do a few raw lunches a week.

I think this would really help me maintain but not feel completely sad about the lack of gyros in my life.

This is definitely causing me to get creative in ways I had never imagined. I am learning a lot about food combining too and that's super helpful. So see, it's not all awful. It just feels awful because it's day 2 and it's mid-day ..

I'll keep you posted about how it's going.

I hear after day 3 it gets easier.

Check out the detox HERE!

There are no catches and it's completely free and there are very helpful e mails and forums!

I didn't even blog for a couple of weeks because I was busy having real life fun.

I went on V A C A T I O N!

Praise God!

We wanted a break and we got one. It was one of the most relaxing times I can ever remember sharing with my husband. Second only to our honeymoon. That was pretty much unbeatable as far as QT and relaxing go.

We spent a week in Cherry Grove, South Carolina. 

We were on the beach as much as possible.

We woke up to the waves, went to sleep to the waves, played in the waves, relaxed in the waves.

Not only was this a physical break for us, but it was a much needed emotional and mental break.

We are in a weird-ish time of life right now and we desperately needed to take a breather.

We were blessed to get to breathe warm, salt water air.

Counting the days until we go again!

NOW CHECK THESE OUT!!

we tried to do those trendy fun in-air pictures of us jumping on the beach

we failed miserably and quite hilariously.

A.) our flash was doing something funny because it was sunset

B.) our timing was waaaaay off.

A+B= lots of belly laughing from me and funny pictures of us that make us look "special"

John trying to do the Karate Kid Crane Kick

Silly boy.

So we tried this...

Success!

Now I just look like a cecil for sure..

That was supposed to be a jump not a Latin dance move

I look like a crazy praiser person here :)

I was trying to find my light like Jay Manuel suggest to the ANTM girls. 

Anyway. As you can see it was a lot of fun.

We have decided to retire early to the beach.

Like next week.