Finds and Fails

It’s Monday again, and sadly I’m a bit excited for it.  Why?   Because I had the most boring weekend ever!  FAIL!  I don’t do well being bored.  I get antsy and cranky and inevitably eat way too much food .  Yeah so that sort of happened this weekend more than once.  Ugh.  Shame on me

Another FAIL?  Being super stoked all week to go out for Mexi food on Friday night to one of two places Palo Alto Sol or Fiesta del Mar, only to go elsewhere for convenience.  This wouldn’t normally be a bad idea, but when any restaurants idea of “vegetarian” is simply beans and cheese, I get a little disheartened.  Now I still have to find a way to get my Mexi fix…

As long as we’re on a roll, let’s hit you up with another FAIL.  This was my smoothie on Saturday before Bikram:

That doesn't look right...

You see, I have been wanting to incorporate Xantham gum into my smoothies to thicken them up since I don’t like to add a lot of extra calories via soy milk, Greek yogurt, etc.  I bought some Red Mills Xantham gum about a month ago and decided to bust it out.  I checked the back of the bag for serving size and it said 1 tbsp = 30 calories.  Alrighty then, 1 tbsp, it is!  Yeah, um, no.  My poor magic bullet was having a coronary trying to blend this sludge.  And it was so gelatinous.  DI-sgusting.  Oh and since I thought this was super weird, not only did I realize from other blogs that you should use 1 tsp per smoothie but Google also told me that “xantham gum in excess can cause runny diarrhea.”  Awesome.  Just want I want to worry about before 90 minutes of Bikram.  I stopped eating after only 3 bites an opted for oatmeal instead.  Can you blame me?

But this weekend wasn’t all bad.  I did FIND these guys:

New (to me) NuGo flavors

I sort of love NuGo’s nutrition bars.  My bestie got me hooked on them about a year ago and I’m still in love.  They are a pain in the arse to find, so I often will order them.  But Whole Foods does carry them so after our Mexi FAIL, we stopped across the street for this FIND.  I have a feeling the Pomegranate is going to pretty epic.  (Almond is the flavor behind it).  NuGo Dark, NuGo Mocha, and NuGO Mint are my current faves.

Remember when I showcased my Christian Louboutins back in October for Shoes-Day?  (No?  That’s okay ) Well I also really loved the dress I borrowed from my friend Mojan.

Kurt's wedding Oct 2010

Every girl needs a classic strapless black dress and she had the perfect one, thanks to White House Black Market.  I seriously coveted it!  Well, I decided to buck up and FIND myself one:

LBD

Here is a better shot from their website:

White House Black Market Ruffled Sweatheart dress

Even on the model it really doesn’t do the dress justice.  It is just so darn classic and cute!  And best part of it?  It was on sale for $80 from $170.  Now that’s a FIND!

So I may have ended up with more FAILs than FINDs this weekend, but I still say the good outweighed the bored bad.

What were your FINDs and FAILs of the weekend?

How the heck am I supposed to be using Xantham gum?

POM and Kauai weddings are both wonderful!

Happy Monday!!! (yeah, probably too many exclamation points for Monday AM, but err, fake it til you make it?)

Anyway, I was contacted by Ryan at POM Wonderful to try some of their delicious pomegranate juice.

8 little bottles just for me!

The closest I had come to drinking pom-juice was along the lines of a Pomtini  I was excited to try it au  natural and as a mix in for other drinks/food.

My immediate thought was to make a new cocktail — enter Pom-agne

A "shot" of POM filled with Moet champange

And then because I wanted to make something just a wee bit healthier, I made this on Sunday:

1 medium banana, 1/2 bottle POM, 1/3 packet Shakeology greenberry mix

Yeah it may have turned out brown, but it was de-lish!

On to the wedding…

In October of 2009, when I took my course to be professionally trained in Wedding and Events Consulting, I had to draft an entire wedding as one of my assignments, including budget, location, day-of schedule, gown/tux, favors, invitations, food and drink choices, etc.  It was quite the epic endeavor and I knew just what I wanted to do…my recently engaged friend Anne hinted she may want to get married in Kauai.  She gave me a modest budget and away I went.  Well without going through all the details, you can see she executed much of my plan!  It was a gorgeous wedding for two fabulous friends, Anne and Conor.

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(Ignore the fact that the POM photos attached themselves to the slideshow.  GAH!  Did you notice that Kim is wearing my alternate dress that I showed here)

It was such a lovely, intimate wedding!  The highlights included seeing whales in the distance, the awesome mai-tais and veggie apps, fabulous dinner, delicious Lilikoi cake, and simply spending a little time with just Anne before the ceremony started.

Have you been to a destination wedding?  If so, where? All of the weddings we go to are not in the SF area, but the last true destination wedding was for my friend Andrew in Xcaret, Mexico (Summer, 2009).

Are you a fan of POM?  How do you use it?

How am I doing?

Happy Thursday!  I started my rainy morning by burning my forward with my 2.5″ big barrel curling iron.  I know have an awesome mark front and center.  Sweet!

Before I fill you in on my goal status I must share a smoothie recipe I made on Tues:

• 1 very ripe banana cut up
• 1 cup almond milk
• 1 tbsp maple-pumpkin butter (or just pumpkin butter)
• Dash of cinnamon

Holy moly this was the best smoothie that has ever been created.  Ever.  No, seriously.  Try it.  If you’re disappointed, well, then get your taste buds fixed

Alright, let’s see if I’ve been passing my own test.

You can see the full post on my 2011 goals here:

1. Better the ol’ blog. Hmmm, haven’t really done much either.  Although I have been more diligent about posting every weekday.  And I finally got on the Google Reader bandwagon.
2. Practice patience. I’m definitely more aware, which I think is the first step in making progress.  I try to catch myself when I’m getting antsy or impatient and evaluate whether it truly is a big deal.  Usually it’s not.  Go figure.
3. Explore new exercises. Poop.  Haven’t done this one at all.  Work was crazy busy so I couldn’t really expand on any other interests.  But I did get a borrowed copy of P90X.
4. Pick up the phone! I’m still not doing a great job at initiating phone calls.  However, I am actually answering the phone when people call instead of letting it go to voicemail.  Seems silly but this is a major step for me.
5. Relax my no-eating-past-8p rule. I still pretty much don’t eat past 8p, but I am not down to the minute about it.  And 2 days ago, I had a bite of my sweet quinoa a 903p.  Little victories, my friends.
6. Reign in the crazy weekend eating. Other than this past weekend, I’ve done a really good job at this.  I’m much more aware of overeating out of boredom.  And I’m trying to identify  my triggers, like drinking too much wine makes me snack. So, duh, stop gettin’ tipsy!
7. Work ??? Mum’s still this word on this one. Stay tuned.
8. Family expansion. Truth be told, I wouldn’t broadcast this on my blog one way or another until I was well into..um..er…expanding…

And I’ve decided to add a few more less-serious goals for this year:

Can we shape these suckers? (photo circa 2007)

• Get my eyebrows professionally shaped.  I’ve never had them waxed or plucked and want to see if it makes a difference.
• Challenge someone to an eating contest.  Because I’m pretty sure I could win.  Bring it!
• Surf again.  This could be taken care of next week in Kauai.
• Bake a pie from scratch… that means the crust too!
• Go without makeup for a week. Oh wait, already did that.
• Try nutritional yeast.
• Lay in bed or on the couch all day.  It’s harder than you think

Not so hard for this guy to laze around

What silly/less-serious  goal do you have for this year?

What is one key ingredient for making an awesome smoothie?