What I Wore and Shoes I Want

Work It Girl

 

 

Monday 

I think the sweater is Maxx Studios? It's from Marshalls, gap leggings, Tahari boots, hat and scarf from Paris

 

Tuesday

 

Blouse is from a local boutique in Santa Monica, J.crew pants, J.crew heels

 

Wednesday

 

Vince Top, Paige Jeans, Loft Necklace, TB flats 

 

Thursday

 Zara top, J.crew Blouse, TB wedges

Friday

Veronica M. dress, gap leggings, ivanka trump boots

 I feel like my days to wear boots are starting to wrap up so I'm thinking about joining every other woman in America and snatching up some new kicks from J.Crew. I've been hesitating because I wasn't sure how I would style them, but after stalking and searching I may be able to pull them off with more than just workout pants.

             

 

What do you think? Have you rocked the jeans with sneakers look?

Meal Planning Weekly low-carb Dinners

I'm going to try and share some of our weekly dinners on a more consistent basis. I've really started to get in the groove of consistently cooking 4/5 nights a week and I like to try and keep adding new recipes to rotation. I try to keep our weekly dinners as low-carb as possible because I just feel better without too much white stuff in my diet.

Every week I spend about an hour going through Pintrest and pulling our menu together. I try and do only one grocery trip a week, so normally our Trader Joe's bill is about $150. I tend to cook dinners for 4 people so that we always have leftovers for lunch the next day.


We have a chalkboard menu in our kitchen which I stick pretty closely too.  Last week we had....

Monday

 Chicken Kale Ceaser

This makes an appearance almost every Monday. It makes a ton, holds up well for lunches, and is so damn good.

 

Tuesday

Quinoa Enchilada Casserole

Since the kale salad calls for quinoa, I made the whole package on Monday and saved half for this bake.

  I recently started buying pre-diced onions which is a major time saver

 

Wednesday

 Chicken Fajitas

Thursday

Buffalo Turkey Meatballs

This recipe is from my girl April, and it's one of my favorites! Since creamy blue cheese dressing can be really high in calories & fat, I take blue cheese crumbles and add them to plain Greek Yogurt and add salt and pepper. You cannot taste the difference!

I'm hoping I'll be able to remember to take pictures of our dinners this week but if you have any easy, low carb ideas - I'd love to hear your favorites!

Four on Friday

 

 :::1:::
I'm a house hunters addict, and this week I saw what may have been the best episode yet. Actors Sarah Wright (Marry Me) and her husband Eric Olsen (NCIS) were looking for a second home in Jackson Hole. They were both adorable and Jackson Hole has quickly made it on my must-see-soon list. If you didn't catch it, keep an eye on OnDemand


 :::2:::
Joel hurt his foot running about two weeks back and after two weeks icing it and staying off of it, he was still in pain. We were worried that it might be broken, but we got to an orthopedic surgeon at UCLA yesterday and I'm happy to report that it's not. He's got tendinitis and with some topic treatment, rest, and athletic tape he should be back running in just a few weeks.

:::3:::
Early this week I had the lucky privilege to try on wedding dresses with my cousin Erin and it was just so much fun. She looked radiant in every dress, and BHLDN in Beverly Hills provided such a fun and special experience for us. Clearly I'm a very #basic B because not only was I tearing up every time I saw my cousin step out of the dressing room, but every time anyone walked out of their dressing room I needed a tissue too. We found lots of potentials so we had to celebrate at lunch!

:::4::: 
Joel is going away for work so I'm flying solo all weekend. I've found that in order to fully enjoy the time alone, I need to keep a few things on the calendar to keep myself from getting bored and lonely.  I've lined up a few girlfriend dates and workout classes so that I can actually enjoy the alone time. It's a fine, fine line!

 

Sailing

Beyond all of the fun weekend plans and quick getaways, it's actually been a pretty tough month for my family. We lost a dear, dear, dear family friend this week and have gotten less than stellar health news from other loved ones the last few weeks. 

Life is so fragile and so unpredictable and so damn scary sometimes.

More times than not, if I let myself go to that dark place of fear and anxiety and sadness and grief, all I really want to do is climb in bed and never come out.

But, we can't do that, and as my mom said, life is never smooth sailing, but we just have to figure out a way to roll with the winds and not tip over.

So, I'm going roll with the winds and try and remind myself of all the good things around me. I wholeheartedly believe focusing on gratitude and sending positive energy is magic that heals. At least a little.

So today, I am thankful for 

:::Rosé

:::David Beckham sightings after SoulCycle

:::Weekend plans

:::New Girl

:::My ugg slippers

:::A dog that likes to cuddle

:::A good book

:::Pintrest

:::These gap leggings (buy them, I bought two)

:::Scented candles

:::Anthropologie

:::California weather

:::Group texts

:::and all of the obvious stuff that I feel bad leaving out but don't need to write it because I'm thankful for it every damn second.

What I Wore

Work It Girl

 

Monday

  

Jcrew blouse, Paige jeans, Cole Haan boots, KS necklace

Tuesday

 

Jcrew button down, Banana sweater, Joe's jeans, Franco Sarto booties 

Wednesday

 

Jcrew turtleneck, Paige jeans, France Sarto booties, KS necklace

Thursday 

 

Cynthia Rowley blouse, Gap pants, Ivanka Trump heels 

Friday

 

The ever popular J.Crew blouse (that I can't find online anymore!), Joe's Jeans, TB wedges

House Updates

Last week, we got some very exciting news - Joel got a promotion at work! He has been going through the interview process since August so not only was I beyond proud and excited, it's also a relief to have it over.

His promotion is going to keep us in Los Angeles longer than we had originally signed on for (3-4 years). It'll be our 3rd year here in February, and we are likely here for another 3 at least. 

Once the papers were signed, we had to decide if we were going to stay in our condo or move on.

Our house is great, but we've started to feel like we are growing out of it. Closet's have reached max capacity and we were getting tired of living with stuffed cabinets and drawers.

Long story short....we decided to stay. Financially it makes the most sense and we couldn't find anything better on the market in our budget. By deciding to stay, we knew we needed a major overhaul - so this weekend we basically moved out of our house and then moved back in.

The biggest, or most noticeable, change was to this area behind the dining room table.

It wasn't an efficient use of space, and with our small kitchen, it wasn't doing enough of what we needed that space to do.

On an impulsive and frustrated whim, I ran to World Market and within twenty minutes I was loading a huge shelving unit into my car. Joel was out with a buddy, so I brought it all the way up to our unit and started to build it. When I make my mind up, you can rest assured shit is going to get done.

Before dinner I forced Joel to help me build it and then all day Sunday we did major, major, major work. 

After one more round of accessories shopping we have a totally new situation going on and I'm already loving it. 

We moved our wine fridge and turned our antique cabinet into a bar and now we have a whole booze station, which is pretty fun.

 

The house is never done, but the changes we did this weekend have already made an enormous difference.

Five on Friday

 

::: 1 :::

The 2015 calendar is starting to fill up, and while it is full of great things -  I need to find a way to cope with it, take it day by day, and not be overwhelmed by it. I feel like a broken record but this blur of busyness makes me feel like life is going by too fast.


::: 2:::

My sickness came somewhat well timed. I was due for a long booze detox and not having a strong appetite helped me keep carb potions low after so much vacation eating. We stuck to our weekly menu like pros this week and I can already feel the difference after eating properly for 5 full days

::: 3 ::: 

Did you see Natalie's post,  at DDBD, about her 3 day food diary? I loved it, and it made me rethink some of the stuff I've been pausing to post on here. I find myself over-thinking my "weekly menu" posts, or daily life posts, or whatever,  because I start to think, who the hell cares what we ate for dinner, but, I find the true daily posts the most interesting of all, so I'm going to try over the next few months to add more of those to my blog.


::: 4 ::: 

I haven't been to McDonalds in well over a year, or maybe two, and I think the only time I've stopped is for one of their ice cream cones....well, randomly I started aggressively craving a shamrock shake. I need to get my hands on one! I found this recipe online, and if it doesn't live up to the hype, I'm going to have to start a March 1st countdown.

::: 5 :::
We've got a low key weekend on the books except for Saturday. My sisters boyfriend Michael is in LA for business and is staying with us for the night. I love that he is coming to hang out with without Hannah....he earns major bonus points in my book for that!

And a good reminder before the weekend

Cheers!

Thoughts for Thursday: Health

Hot water, lemon, honey, and cayenne pepper

I had a chest cold from hell this week but I think I was able to nip it in the bud faster than normal thanks to this little concoction I was having 2-3x/day. I actually don't mind the taste, and it made almost an instant difference.

I know that drinking warm water and lemon is good for you on a daily basis, so it might have to make a more frequent appearance around these parts.

I also chugged an Emergen-C packet every morning, and I have Joel doing it too so he doesn't get sick. I think Emergen-C works if you use it when you start to feel the onset of cold, I'm pretty sure once you've got it, it can't help you, but I guess it can't really hurt.

Also while I was perusing ways to get rid of my cold as quickly as possible, I saw a lot of information on essential oils. Have you used them? I've seen a few friends sell/post them on Facebook, but I'm just not sure I believe the hype....Thoughts?

 

Any other tricks of the trade?