Little Monster

Sunday night I had the awesome privilege to attend the coveted Lady Gaga concert!!! Because of a wonderful friend I was able to attend. It was such a fun night and we were definitely VIP's for the evening. We had a suite with beer, wine, and appetizers and awesome seats to watch the show from. I have to say, Lady Gaga is honestly a talented performer. She is excellent on the piano and has a beautiful voice. If you can look past playing the piano with her stilettos while only wearing her bra and underwear....you can really see her true talent. Between 4 ft. wide shoulder pads and a clear nun costume these are some shots I snagged. ENJOY!!!!

I Live for Sunday Night!!!!

Oh Mad Men.....how I love you!!! I love everything about you, your clothes, shoes, purses, accesories, make-up, interior decor and so cute cocktail hours (which seem to happen every hour)...but wait, you say this show has a plot too? I have to pay more attention on Sunday nights. But in all seriousness, this show is amazing!! I had a very good friend tip me off to it about a year ago and I immediately added it to our netfilx. I fell in love from the very firt "Joan, get me a coffee."

I am not sure how many of you watch the show that are reading this but if you do watch the show I am proud to say I have been a Betty fan since day one. Yes, she is a cold, frigid you-know-what, and an AWFUL mother....but her clothes...OH HER CLOTHES!!!! I just have to love her, how can you not love someone who wears crinoline at 9:00 am, all while drinking a glass of red wine.


I do not refer to the actors on the show (it took me awhile to admit it was not a realty show from back when) as their "real" names. January who? John what?? No, they are and will always be, Don, Betty, Joan, Peggy, Pete...you get the picture. The obsession is becoming a problem I have to say, when my husband had to talk me out of buying the ENTIRE Barbie collection of characters. I will be sure to run out and buy the latest copy of Rolling Stone for the exclusive interviews and backstage footage.

If the show, GOD FORBID, ever ends...I will, in fact, need some form of hospitalization.

What this Blog is NOT!!

OK....I wanted to start today's out by letting everyone know what you WON'T find on this blog. There are so many blogs out there today that seem to be the expert on EVERYTHING!! Don't get me wrong, I love these blogs, I check these blogs everyday and use many of their ideas, but I still can't provide what they provide.

I can't show you how to successfully home-school 3 sets of octuplets.....sorry. I can't show you how to collect enough coupons so that at your trip to the grocery store you end up leaving with stock in the Food Lion corporation (I can show you how to go into Target only needing toilet paper and come out with $100 worth of Essie nail polish!!!!), I am no expert on current events or economics but I can debate Snookie's outfit on Jersey Shore with you or Teresa's recent house forclosure on Real Housewives of New Jersey. I won't debate politics on here, most of you reading this know where I stand and know I love my liberal friends (including that guy I live with, what's he called....oh my husband) more than anything and would never want to lose them, same goes for religion.

I'll be honest, I've had a tough past 2 years. Now nothing compared to Hurricane Katrina or the earthquake in Haiti, nothing like that, but my family has struggled, I've had a life altering move and some big changes to deal with. I have learned to believe the saying though "put your big girl panties on and deal with it!!!" All I can do is hope that my passion for just being happy and having joy will come out in this blog, maybe make you laugh a little!

That being said let's discuss something I am a bit of an expert on I must say...........LIPGLOSS!!!!!!!

It's not something learned people, I was born, no wait, conceived with an obsession (for a lot of things) but one in particular....any lip product!!! I love it, i love chap-stick, lipgloss, lipstick, good grief vaseline will do if they package it cute! The genes run strong, just to give you a bit of background.....my mother had surgery about 12 years ago, nothing too serious but was sedated and stayed over-night. When she started to come out of the meds her doctor asked me to go check on her and see if she seemed ok. I went back in her room, her eyes were still shut and she was quite groggy, I had no idea what to expect her to say. She did not even open her eyes, just moved a little and whispered "Did your Daddy remember my lipstick?" I told the doctor she would be fine! But see what I mean, it's a necessity for life!

That being said, I keep at least 5 forms of lip product in my purse at all times. One is specifically for the beach and has some form of SPF in it. Another is just basic balm, I prefer Burt's Bees. A few forms of color but my newest find, which I love is Laura Mercier's basic lipgloss in Rose.

Now I'm not kidding, I will apply this amazing color just so I can "randomly" pass by a mirror and see it on, the $22 lip gloss is sure to be gone way before it's expiration date. Now some of you may think $22 is a bit steep for lipgloss but by gosh it makes me feel pretty so no price is too high!!!! So go buy some! If you go to Saks in Raleigh to get it, tell them Katie sent you....they will know since I am the one who lingers in the Louis Vuitton boutique way too long for any sane person ;-).

Foodies

Cary and I are what some may call "foodies." Now this in no way implies we are experts on anything, simply put, we LOVE food!!! Good food....I'm not talking let's find the best burger in town, or lets see just how much meat we can put on one sandwhich (KFC???) I'm talking, spend a mortgage payment on a meal, wine included....GOOD FOOD!!!



Many people don't know this but both of us have food backgrounds. Cary supported his huge gas bills in high school and college (8 miles to the gallon '66 mustang) by working in restaurants....not waiting tables but cooking. I on the other hand, always have to go the more expensive route and went to culinary school to fulfill my open credits for my major at.....drum roll please.....best college ON THE PLANET....Meredith!!!



That being said, we honestly have a huge appreciation for great, tasty, expensive food!!! So I decided on a challenge for the two of us.....no meat for two weeks. Two weeks you may ask, why yes, because two weeks after that we return to NC and stay with my parents. My father, a wonderful true-blooded republican American, MUST have meat at every meal. So we did it!!!! We accomplished our "no meat" challenge with flying colors!!! So I thought I would re-cap the last 2 weeks....you may want to try it out. Now I will say, I cook EVERY night....well ALMOST. I do make enough for left overs with at least one meal a week and we do go out at least once a weekend. So this is not a "30 minute meal deal" I don't do those. I believe if you want to eat healthy and you want to know what your eating you must spend more time. So here goes.



1. Breakfast: Really no change, Cary eats cereal for breakfast, me cereal and yogurt.

2. Lunches: This was a HUGE challenge. Cary eats a sandwhich every day...turkey or ham. So I was stumped??? I found some amazing hummus at Publix that had lemon in it....delicious and I really hate packaged hummus. Cut up some eggplant, cucumber and carrots, tossed it in oil and vinegar and wrapped all that up with spinach in a whole wheat wrap....it was awesome!!! We also had egg salad, and of course the tried and true PBJ.

3. Snacks: not a huge challenge here. We don't eat a whole lot of meat to begin with but I still needed more to snack on since we would get hungry more often. I found an awesome recipe for couscous with apricots, cranberries, nuts and mint....TO DIE FOR!!!! We took this every day to work, it was great cold!!

4. DINNER!!!: ok so this was the fun part.....what can I play with?? So of course we had to have pasta in there. I made a dish with fresh cherry tomatoes, navy beans, garlic, olive oil, fresh basil and I used whole wheat penne. We had motz. and basil sandwhiches one night with tomato soup (yes, a can....) We had two pizzas. I like frozen pizzas, I'll be honest. I was introduced to "Amy's" about a month ago and will never return to another brand. They are a bit more pricey but OH SO GOOD!!! Eggplant parm with home-made marinara sauce. And my personal fave...taco salad!!! TACO SALAD you say??? That has meat??? Oh no, I used Morning Star crumbles and I seriously cannot tell a difference!!!


Still have a few more days to go. I have veggie pot-pie on the menu and Friday, Take-out Margherita Pizza from Pizza by the Sea in Watercolor (this is a FL location for all my NC readers).



So it's back to meat eating come Saturday. We return to NC for two weeks but I'm going to try very hard to limit our meat consumption since now I know we can.



Give it a try!!! Want my recipes? Let me know:)