Confession, I'm a Fake Hipster

There's a whole lot of reasons why I'll never be a real hipster. Mainly because I don't posess the core interests that true hipsters have especially...

Music: I love LMFAO! Did you know they're touring with Far East Movement?
(Something I've said today, yet a real hipster has not said.)

Q: How many hipsters does it take to change a light bulb?

A: It’s  some obscure number. You’ve probably never heard of it.

This leads us to my BF. I wouldn't call him a hipster, but people he hangs out with totally are.

Well in a 'this is really how I am, i'm not trying to be a hipster.'

Authentic way. Basially, his friends just regular people who hipsters wish they could be.

It's true. and awesome. I realized what they all are... the term is 'natural hipster'

BF = Natural Hipster

Oh! And hipsters #1 accessory in life... is a bike. I have a bike.
I can't really ride it well and I'll probably go out of my way not to ride it, but I do own one.

And BF's friends have real life bike parties... and I've been to two! That I'm pretty sure automatically gets me a hipster card. Something I really overheard from a hipster at a bike party:

Yeah, I do yo-yo tricks. This guy tried to battle me, but when I saw his tricks, I backed down.

 OOH... and foot shots are a total hipster move.

 Except my shoes are Tommy Hilfiger. yeah... see how that just happened? Pretty sure Tommy Hilfiger doesn't = hipsterness.

This whole hipster-esque environment is a world I'm not familiar with. This may seem like a shock because I do sorta dress like a hipster... and if I reallly try I can be a legit fashionable hipster.

 

I own 5 pairs of TOMS, I drink herbal tea, I have the bangs, glasses....

But I'm way not cool enough to be a hipster.
Like... at all.

I think if I HAD to define my style, it would be kawaii.

I love Hello kitty, anything cute, happy, tiny, and fun.

Except to be almost 32 years old, and lets face it... I'm not from Japan (let alone any Asian country).
 I have a corporate-type job and so I have to keep the Kawaii to a minimum. Some shoes here, Hello Kitty Shirt there, gotta keep it in check.

BF totally encourages me to embrace who I am and if that means I dress like a hipster or hello kitty obsessed fan, he is into it. And I think that's what it's all about. Not if you fit in or dress like the people you are around. To be true to who you are. The people who you're around will appreciate your authenticity. And if you are a real life, true hipster... awesome! Just don't try to talk to me about music, or have me go on a bike ride with you. I'll might fail at both.

Blog Redesign

I'm so sad about Picnik shutting down, I don't know what I'll do (other than actually learning Photoshop). Anyhow, I got really motivated and updated my blog. I figured I know what I'm doing in Picnik so I might as well do it now while I can. I am totally no design expert, but I think I did pretty well. I also designed myself a new blog button! (do people still use those?) oh well, take it if you want lol!







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So What! Wednesday.... Delicious edition!

SO what if the Dorito's taco from Taco Bell suddenly looks delicious and like something I want in my mouth. I promise, seriously I PROMISE I could never get one. But that doesn't stop me from thinking about them every time I pass a Taco Bell.

Speaking of delicious looking things, have you tried birthday cake Oreos yet? SO what that  I *may* have checked the grocery store for these... and no, they aren't in the store by me. This is a blessing in disguise for sure.

...just look on the inside, it's like frosting and sprinkles! Maybe these will appear in my life, who knows. (I have friends on FB who've posted friends in other states have sent them some. Amazing, right?!) Oreos are vegan!

Ok healthy things...

SO what if I've been obsessed with my Aveda tea. It's the best ever. You don't even need to add sweetener!  It's just delicious and caffeine-free and the best ever.

Remember me talking about the Herbalife shakes last week (and how I lost 5 lbs in 1 week drinking them!?) Well... there's this independent Herbalife shake shop... think a smoothie shop, but all they make are these Herbalife shakes! SO what if it's $6, and I can make them for home. I am kind of excited to go there and try out their flavors, I think its cool there are shops like this. I want to try some flavors I don't know how to make... like wedding cake flavor or oatmeal cookie flavor. 

SO what if I really love warm homemade kale chips dipped in katsup.... omggg. you're welcome in advance. (PS if you're the last on the planet not to make kale chips, just toss kale in olive oil, sprinkle with sea salt and bake in the oven at 350 for about 10 min.)

      

SO what if I'm super excited that I randomly pinned the key lime tart recipe I blogged about yesterday and I got 54 repins and almost 200 hits to my blog just on that pin. Pretty awesome how social networking works :)

What are you saying SO what to this week?

Key Lime Pie Tart Recipe - Weight Watchers 2 Points

This is my real-life super delicious

and awesome recipe for Key Lime Pie Tarts!

Only 2 Points Plus+ (if you're on weight watchers)

• 8 oz Fat Free Cream Cheese (softened)
• 1/8 Cup Sugar
• 4 Tbsp, lime juice (or more to taste)
• 8 oz Fat Free Cool Whip (thawed)
• 2 Tsp, Sugar-Free Lime Jell-O (optional, I only used it for color)
• 25% Less-Fat Graham Cracker Crust

Yield: 15

For Lauren's birthday this year instead of the delicious yet bad for you funfetti cupcakes I usually make, I remembered that she loves key lime cheesecake. I found a recipe (and adapted it to be extra healthy) and it's delicious! seriously!

All you do is throw the block of cream cheese, sugar and lime juice in a bowl. Use your mixer and whip it up for a few minutes on low until it's super smooth. Then fold in 6 oz of your cool whip and mix on low for a few seconds until it's blended.

I had some lime jell-o and put just a little in, to give it a smidgen of green color. Totally not necessary. Then place baking cups into a cupcake tin. I broke up the graham cracker crust and placed pieces at the bottom of the baking cups. I scooped the key lime mixture on top, then added a dollop of the remaining cool whip.

I had enough for 15 individual servings. I sprinkled the remaining graham cracker crust around the top, and it looked really cute!

Plus of course... It tastes delicious! A little more 'fluffy' than key lime pie (less of cheesecake texture). But according to Courtney (who was just in Key West for her honeymoon in october), she likes my version BETTER! YES!!!

These keep really well, you can freeze them or keep them in the refrigerator.

Enjoy!!!

Weekend Recap

This weekend I celebrated two birthdays! A 26 year old's and a 7 year old's.

The first one was Lauren's on Friday night! I'm not sure if you remember, but I did a really long/hilarious/mostly embarassing more than anything else post on her 25th birthday at the club last year. You can catch up on that post HERE.

Lauren's actual bday was on Saturday, St. Patrick's day. But she had to be at a wedding, and I *thought* I'd be out of town and at Childish Gambino. But no, he had to break has foot/leg and reschedule for July.

Anyhow, so this year we went to dinner the Friday before her bday, and also the Comedy Zone again too.

 Saturday afternoon I got Gav back from his dad's and we went to his bff Sean's pool party at the Y.

They had a skylander's cake and cupcakes which were actually really awesome. If you didn't know, Skylanders are the hottest video game for the elementary age crowd.

I was pretty bummed that Childish Gambino was canceled, but because we were at the funeral last weekend so we didn't get to see BF.  Post HERE on the funeral if you missed it. Gav & I didn't have anything else going on Saturday night (other than it was St Paddy's day and we were all decked out in Green) so Gav and I headed on down to Charlotte.

Here we were on Sunday on our way to the park with BF so they could skateboard.

It was a good weekend and it went really fast.

AND I got to do my fav thing in this entire world ...which is lay outside in the sun in the grass :D

I'm sooo happy it's finally warm enough to do that again!

How was your weekend?

Firm Friday - I lost 5 lbs!



What is HK holding? Oh, it's just my WW log with the 5 lb sticker I earned this week.

(Wait! didn't you just say last week you weighed more last week than when you started WW back in January?)

Yes, sad but true. I did. But that was last week.

And this week I was ON IT with my Herbalife shakes. Healthy eating. And working out.

And when I went on Wednesday of this week to weight-in at WW I was down and earned my 1st 5 lbs lost star.

I have felt amazing this entire week. I know the 1st 5 lbs was probably water weight, but I feel very very good in every way about it. I have tons of energy (even with the time change!) and I know i'm doing the right thing right now.

This weekend I'm going to see Childish Gambino, so I'll need to work extra hard staying on track with the healthy eating. But hoping we can hit up the climbing gym and do what I need to do to keep losing.

And I look like I've lost weight, right? Maybe?

(I ended up sending the way too big cobalt and red skinnies back and exchanging them for 2 sizes smaller, pa-dow!) Except they didn't have any more red, and sent me purple instead. They totally must have known it was my fav color!

This is the Before from like 2 wks ago:

And this is the after (2 sz smaller pants + I shrunk the top on purpose in the dryer)

Ok it's basically impossible to tell with only 5 lbs... but it is good to have clothes that fit better. Get ready to see this outfit again because I'm pretty sure I'm wearing it to Childish Gambino!

**UPDATE*** (donald glover aka childish gambino broke his leg yesterday. and the show's been rescheduled for july 27. JEEZ man. i mean he's a rapper. like sit in a chair with a mic. It's not like a boyband requiring dance moves. man up Donald, man UP)

Making Pinterest Real: Rainbow Cupcakes & Rainbow Nails!

In honor of St. Paddy's Day this weekend, here are two rainbow-themed projects I attempted from Pinterest:

Pinterest Project #1 - Rainbow Cupcakes

The above pic is from pinterest. I found the air heads sour colorful ribbons in the $1 section at Target, Score! I had wanted to make them forever, and ended up making them for my sister's 22nd birthday.

 I had a white box cake mix and white frosting. I added lots of food coloring to the batter.

 They turned out really well!
Except for the rainbows on top. They totally slid off the frosting :/

Pinterest Project #2 - Rainbow Swirl Nails

BF sent me this pic he found on Pinterest. He loves color. And lots of it.  Here's a pic I snapped of the shoes he got when we were in NYC. We go out, he wears them and gets non-stop complements:

 Anyway, so to do the color swirl nails, you get a bowl of water, drop a bunch of nail polish colors in, swirl with a toothpick, then dip your nails in.

... and here's my result.  

Yeah... kind of gross. Maybe if I used fancy china glaze nail polish like in the pic above they might have turned out better? I won't call this one a total fail, but it wasn't pretty.

Have you made anything from Pinterest for St Patrick's Day?



Healthy Shake Recipes - Part 1

For the past week I've been replacing 1 or 2 meals a day with Herbalife Healthy Meal shakes. When I received the powder containers I tried googling for shake recipes, but honestly, none looked good to me. I even tried pinterest and found nothing that I liked.

So... I set out to create my own delicious shake recipes. No, not everything I created was epic, but I did put together some pretty good ones. And the epic recipes I included in this post! The secret (and what is missing from 99% of the online recipes I found) is the addition of Jell-O pudding mixes (I got fat free, sugar free of course).

I had some awesome ideas, but quickly found that not every grocery store has every flavor. This leads me to my first tip before you get too excited about the shake recipes below:

Once you know what flavors are available to you, it's easier to create the delicious shakes.

Oh! And yes, duh... of course you can just follow the directions on the side of the Herbalife container.
The shakes are really good that way. But I like making everything next level awesome & delicious.

This leads me to my next tip:

Heck yes add stuff to your shakes and smoothies!

I got chocolate and regular low fat graham crackers, walnuts, fresh and frozen fruit, etc.

I even got low fat cool whip, just to make mine more like a real milkshake.

On to the shakes!

*=Disclaimer: I personally do not add the extra protein. I highly recommend it if you are someone who is always hungry. The protein will keep you full and make the shake even more delicious and effective. If you are vegetarian/vegan and are used to low protein diet currently, you may not need it. If you lift weights or are building muscle, I absolutely recommend it. Also, duh, I'm no doctor so these recipes are what I've created, and I can only speak from my personal experience.

This one almost rivals the amazing banana pudding milkshake from chick-fil-a. So so so so good.

Depending on how much you like key lime I might recommend using more than 1 tsp lime jell-o. This deff. has the 'essence' of key lime pie, but is missing the tartness. Maybe add key lime yogurt instead of the almond milk?

You of course could use any flavor jell-o and frozen fruit, how great would blueberry be? Or strawberry?

This is my personal favorite. I LOVE pistachio pudding. I haven't had it in years, but when I saw it at the store, I got it.  YUM. I keep walnuts in the house (to put on everything) but any kind of nut will kick up this shake.

I want to use more of the chocolate mix I got, but I'm a little stuck for ideas. This is all I've come up with so far that is even semi-exciting (I guess I could have called this Chocolate Oreo?).

 And a little something special I created in honor of Easter...

These are all the exciting ones I've created so far. I have PB2 (below) arriving any day now from Amazon, and I'm excited to create some shakes using peanut butter. Hello Reece's cup shake!

These shakes (without all the mix-ins, almond milk, pudding, etc.) will only be around 180 cals. each. You absolutely must have a 'well balanced' 3rd meal if you are drinking 2 shakes a day. I like to have my 3rd meal be dinner with my 2nd shake of the day for dessert. I do fruit 'till noon and a shake for lunch. A well balanced dinner and shake for dessert. Night time is when I'm most hungry, and have no clue what to eat. I found doing this gives me a little more guidance. Plus dessert!

PS - A well balanced dinner contains 50% fresh veggies/fruits, 25%+ protein and up to 25% starch/carbs. Your body must have 40g protein (give or take depending on your size) a day, and at least 1300 cals a day (depending on your size). Otherwise you go into starvation mode. That's a big time sad face. So obviously, like I said before, I'm no doctor. But these are some recipes I've created. I will post more as I try new ones out! I have 2 month's supply of the Healthy meal Herbalife at home, so I'll be talking about this for a while LOL.

PPS you could use your own protein powder like whey etc, but I personally think those are SICK and this Herbalife shake mix is YUMMM.

So where can you get some Herbalife shakes? The sad news is they aren't sold in stores. The exciting news is Courtney (you know, who I work with) is an Herbalife distributer. You can read all about it and how I got started on it in THIS POST. If you'd like to order any Herbalife products (the healthy meal I use for shak
es, protein, etc) e-mail her HERE.

Ok last thing....

If it's good enough for hottie  David Beckham, and the LA Galaxy (even though he hasn't played for them in yrs)

It's good enough for me!