11.29.2010
Military Glam

Military Glam by gretchstars featuring a chain handbag
Ooh I like doing this - I might get addicted. Here is another one - Military Glam. Lots of army green, leopard, red, black leather, chunky gold jewelry & browns. Love it.
Romantic Sequins

Romantic Sequins by gretchstars featuring a tube dress
This is my 1st time making an "inspiration collage", like I have seen on many blogs. Makes me feel like I work for Marie Claire magazine (I wish). I did some things I love right now - romantic sequins - a mix of black sequins, gold and pink, and ruffles. The harshness of the black sequins are softened by pink ruffles and gold tones. I love it. Every piece on my collage is $50-$100.
My Thanksgiving Dish!
I had a potluck at my new home this year, and my boyfriend and I were in charge of a turkey, drinks and a yam dish. We made some guacamole and ended up buying a bunch of other stuff - the company was fabulous and I just wanted to share my recipe! It was the 1st time I have ever made a sweet potato dish (besides when I did a couple of figure competitions and ate plain yams every day!) - so I was excited. I actually found a recipe on Allrecipes.com, then tweaked it to use the healthy ingredients that I already had!
Gretchen's Healthy Turkey Day Yams:
- 4 1/2 cups cooked and mashed sweet potatoes (I used canned
)
- 1/2 cup butter, melted (I used Smart Balance Light)
- 1/3 cup milk (I used unsweetened Almond milk
)
- 1 cup white sugar (I used the equivalent in baking Splenda
)
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 1 cup light brown sugar (I used brown sugar Splenda
- which smells like rum by the way! Weird!)
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour (I used Fresh & Easy organic wheat flour
)
- 1/3 cup butter (same as above - Smart Balance Light)
- 1 cup chopped pecans (Yum! I might have added a few extra. Wink Wink!! Love me some Pecans. I WAS born in Georgia!)
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x13 inch baking dish. (I sprayed it all over with olive oil cooking spray
)
- In a large bowl, mix together mashed sweet potatoes, 1/2 cup butter, milk, sugar, vanilla extract, and eggs. Spread sweet potato mixture into the prepared baking dish. In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar and flour. Cut in 1/3 cup butter until mixture is crumbly, then stir in pecans. Sprinkle pecan mixture over the sweet potatoes. (Gretchen note here - my mixture did not really get "crumbly" - so I added a little more flour and a little more brown sugar splenda. I think that normal sugar would be drier - but I spread it out evenly over the top anyways, and it was fine!)
- Bake for 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden brown.
Here is me --- YUMMY YAMS!! I would definitely make them again. Super easy & delicious. I have had leftovers a few times already. Let me know if any of you bake any up!
11.28.2010
Sunday Shoppin'
I didn't do ANY Black Friday shopping! I found a couple cool things on the Bloomie's site today though!
Top ZIP Medium Brown Bag - $35
and a fun gift for my boyfriend..master of the grill! A BBQ Branding Iron
:) Fun huh? I think the Bloomie's one was $19.99.
and a couple of gift items that I cannot mention on this blog -- just in case the recipients come snoopin (mom & best friends) !!
They have some really cute Bloomie's ornaments and coffee mugs. I don't NEED them though, so I resisted those. But they are super cute!!
Hope everyone had a fabulous Turkey Day! Here is me @ my front door. We had 29 people at our house. It was a fabulous, family & friends-filled day. I do feel blessed!
Top ZIP Medium Brown Bag - $35
Hue Corduroy "Jeanz"
$25.50 (reg. $34) -
and a fun gift for my boyfriend..master of the grill! A BBQ Branding Iron
and a couple of gift items that I cannot mention on this blog -- just in case the recipients come snoopin (mom & best friends) !!
They have some really cute Bloomie's ornaments and coffee mugs. I don't NEED them though, so I resisted those. But they are super cute!!
Hope everyone had a fabulous Turkey Day! Here is me @ my front door. We had 29 people at our house. It was a fabulous, family & friends-filled day. I do feel blessed!
11.23.2010
Fight Night!

Sorry this is blurry! Just a fun, relaxed outfit I wore when we hosted fight night at our house this past Saturday. Cute Quicksilver t-shirt I got in Whistler Canada last NYE, some Old Navy Diva
Mock Potatoes

Tried to whip up some "mock" potatoes I read about using frozen cauliflower, Smart Balance
Sephora & Marshall's Finds
While Christmas shopping recently, I founds some fabulous items @ Marshall's and Sephora I had to share!
Michael Kors Sunglasses
- These were $15! What is not to like!? AND, I have an old MK sunglasses case I can use for them. Love it! I hate buying expensive sunglasses that I am going to break anyways! :)
Too Faced Pixie Perfect set
- $42, $100 value! I loved the bag. Contains an eye shadow quad palette, a blush and bronzer duo, a glamour gloss, a mascara, a shadow primer, and the case. Love it, even just to put out on my bathroom counter to admire. :)
11.18.2010
Yummy Frozen Lunch
11.17.2010
I heart free stuff!
11.15.2010
Kale Chips! Happy Monday!
I have seen lots of people writing about baking Kale chips as of late and suddenly I got the itch to try some. I actually bought a bunch of Kale at the store last week, but it went bad before I remembered to cook it. I picked up a fresh bunch the other day and decided to cook it up the other night while I was eating dinner. I was too tired to cook dinner & James was at the gym, so I popped a veggie burger (Gardenburger) in the microwave, ate it with Organic low sugar Ketchup
and then ate about 3/4 of a can of Marinated Beans from Trader Joe's.
Got a recipe from AllRecipes.com - (photo is before cooking)
- 1 bunch kale
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 teaspoon seasoned salt
- Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line a non insulated cookie sheet with parchment paper.
- With a knife or kitchen shears carefully remove the leaves from the thick stems and tear into bite size pieces. Wash and thoroughly dry kale with a salad spinner. Drizzle kale with olive oil and sprinkle with seasoning salt.
- Bake until the edges brown but are not burnt, 10 to 15 minutes.
Per serving: Calories: 58, Fat: 2.8g
My experience - I don't have a salad spinner, so I washed the Kale and then dried it with paper towels. It probably wasn't as dry as it should be for the recipe. I had so much kale, that I made one batch with season salt and one batch with normal salt. I didn't really like the season salt - I would rather have it on Fries or a Turkey Burger, so I liked the 2nd batch better. I had plenty of nice & crisp chips when I was done. I felt like it was kind of the phenomenon of cotton candy. You put it in your mouth and it gets small really fast and you can just keep eating it. I ate most of it actually with my dinner, then made a small bowl to take to work the next day as a snack. No bueno - cold lunchbag = soggy Kale.
So, I would make it again, I would dry it better, and I would probably not eat the leftovers!! At least it was a fun healthy crispy snack! Happy Monday! :)
11.11.2010
Take me to the Greek!

Yummy mid-morning snack @ work! Plain Greek style nonfat yogurt from Fresh & Easy, with Organic Agave
drizzled in, a spoonful of Skippy Naturals
chunky peanut butter, and.a dash of salt. Mmm! This cup o yogurt alone has 24 grams of protein! Happy Thursday and Happy Veteran's Day.
11.09.2010
Bend it like Bekham?
I used to "celeb-hate" Victoria Bekham. I didn't know her and didn't know much about her - I just knew that she looked like a skinny, plastic b-word.
Until I read her interview with Marie Claire
magazine in November the other day! I was surprised, so I decided to blog about it. And, I loved the cover too!
It's one of those covers that I would probably save in a notebook if I worked for a magazine or a fashion company - for future inspiration, or something. I guess now I get to "scrapbook" it here in my blog. I love her recent Glamour
cover too. She looks funky and cool.
Things that made me flip my switch?
- She admits she never smiles but she doesn't know why. She says she is insecure. I found somewhere where she said "people have this impression that I'm a miserable cow that doesn't smile", but I am actually quiet the opposite. I think she said she just reacts to the paparazzi that way.
- She looks at her husband after he gets out of the shower and thinks to herself, "You done good, girl!"
- She admits she is not a good singer, and would rather be in fashion than an actress or performer.
- She actually works out and eats healthy. She doesn't just naturally look that good.
- She says she read once that "elegance is a privelege of age" and that "you get more comfortable with yourself as you get older".
- She thinks she is incredibly ordinary looking, so she expresses herself with fashion.
- I saw her on a show recently too - I think it was The View, showing some of her fashions. She was actually pretty funny and normal.
And, what is this? A smile!? :)
11.08.2010
Pumpkin Fabulousness
Happy Monday, happy Monday! I got to work from home today, so when I woke up this morning, I had time to do a little baking - then at lunch I got to do a little walking! I wish I got to do that every day. My life would rock! lol. I just have to spend so much time commuting every day, that it is hard to squeeze in the healthy part sometimes!
Ok - so I wasn't planning on baking today, but Fitness and Spice, one of my favorite blogs, posted this pumpkin recipe for Pumpkin and Spice Pumpkin Bars - and I had all the ingredients, so when I saw the post in my email inbox, I decided to whip up a batch! For me, a recipe has to look easy and normal, or I won't even read through it. This looked very doable, so I tried it out. Oh, and I am absolutely obsessed with the taste of pumpkin. It is sooo good. :P I had high hopes for this one!
My substitutions = I didn't have cloves, so I used a little shaker I have of "Pumpkin Pie Spice", which I think has cloves in it anyways, along with cinnamon, nutmeg, etc. I even commented on her blog that I thought 1.5 cups of protein powder was a mistake and that she meant 1.5 scoops - but I had some vanilla Designer Whey protein
in the pantry, so I threw it in! I threw in probably 1/4 cup more pumpkin
too, just in case. My recipe turned out a little moist - this may be why! Also, instead of using Splenda
(which I love, but don't have any right now - I do have Stevia in the Raw
, but only packets and I didn't want to waste them all) -- so I used Organic Agave Nectar, which I think I got at Henry's or Trader Joe's. This probably contributed to the moistness too. Oh, and I burned my hand on the oven too. I am a terrible klutz, so this happens very often! Boo! Owell..
As you can see, mine came out looking not-so-pretty and not so much like I could cut it into bars, but more like a cake! I had to keep testing it to see if the inside was dry yet - hence the fork and knife holes. Next time I will bake longer, or substitute dry sweetener for the Agave Nectar -if I want firmer bars. This works too though! It really did smell fabulous when it was baking. I took it out & let it sit like so this morning... (keep reading to find out how it tasted)!
On my lunch break, I decided to go for a walk (since with this wonderful time change, when I get off work on most days, it will be dark!). I have been wanting a fitness GPS gadget
- but found out that my phone pretty much rocks! I turned on Pandora on my phone (Samsung Epic 4G)
, then turned on the GPS satellite, and opened up this app called Cardio Trainer that I downloaded. I had only manually entered workouts in it before, but found out that you can push "Start Workout" and it tracks everything for you. My town doesn't have a big "walking path", so I like to have a mission in mind when going for a walk (RiteAid for Advil, Grocery Store for Tortillas, etc..) - and I needed to go to the bank - so that was it! I looked on Google Maps and it was about 2 miles away, so 4 miles round trip = bueno! The weather is so nice today, it rained last night, and it is sunny and cool here. Check out what my phone did when I was finished! Cool, huh!? I love it and can't wait to use it again! And the English guy's voice kept telling me how far I had gone, my pace, and my time! It was great. So, go from ipod, phone and GPS on a walk - to just a phone? That is great!! Just gotta make sure it is charged!
So, before heading back to my laptop and my work - I grabbed my reward for getting my exercise done. I sliced off some chunks of that pumpkin heaven in my kitchen, put a couple of spray butter squirts on it, a sprinkle of Stevia - and oh wow.. seriously..HEAVEN! I didn't even heat it up, I ate it cold - it tastes like pumpkin pie. Now, the hard part.. I want more!!! And, I think I will need to bake some more very soon!! Pumpkin Fabulousness!!
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