Category: Friday Favorites

Oh yes.  The day has come.

IT’S FRIDAY!

Mind as well just jump right into it.  These are my Friday Favorites for this week.

Bryan and I went down to the city on Wednesday for our catering tasting for the wedding.  We got there a bit early so we walked around downtown for a while.  Bryan needs a shirt for my friend Lauren’s wedding, so we thought we’d head over to Brooks Brothers.  Unfortunately, it was closed already.  LAME!  But – I’m glad we found this one because it’s two-stories! Good to know for future shopping adventures.

The catering tasting we had on Wednesday was AMAZING.  We are so happy with the caterer and just need to figure out the contract and everything.  The building the caterer was in was gorgeous.  Loved the chic-ness and rustic feel.  A great blend.  The doorman in the building was hilarious and kept us entertained while we waited for Bryan’s parents to get there.

On Thursday afternoon, I took a break from work and drove over to Starbucks for an iced soy chai.  This is one of my favorites from Starbucks.  For whatever reason, it was ever more delicious than usual. 

I’ve mentioned these chips before, but I wanted to mention them again in my Friday Favorites because I finally found them again at the grocery store.  I thought I’d never get them again because I swore my store stopped selling them – but FINALLY, I picked these up again when I went food shopping.  This version is the pinto bean.  I think they taste pretty similar to the black bean, but Bryan actually prefers these. 

Other favorites (not pictured):

• Zensah compression sleeves
• Watching So You Think You Can Dance auditions
• Rain jackets!
• Happy hour at work on Thursday

Talk to Me

• What are your favorites from this week?
• How many caterers did you taste before signing the contract for your wedding?
• What’s your favorite drink at Starbucks?

Thank you to everyone’s kind words in yesterday’s post about remembering my mom. 

Now that it’s Friday, I’m kind of bummed that today is going to be gorgeous and the rest of the weekend not so much.  Instead of laying out by the pool today, I’ll be in my office.

Anyway… here are my favorite things from this past week.

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What’s the Phrase!  I may be late to this game, but it’s definitely been a favorite this week.  If you’ve never played it, it’s an app for your phone that is very similar to Wheel of Fortune.  You can add your friends and play against them, just like Words with Friends.  The Apple iStore has a free version and a paid version.  I only downloaded the free version to see if I liked it, but I do and I’m tired of the ads popping up, so I’ll be purchasing this one.  If you want to play with me, my user name is NicoleMarie1214.

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My new home office desk!  Bryan’s sister was super nice to stop by our place last night and help Bryan put together our desks.  Tonight I’ll be cleaning out the office room and making space to finally put our desks in there.  Since we’ve moved in, that room was just a clutter room for any misc. boxes or bins.  No more!  It’s exciting because now I can start looking for a chair and art work.  I might actually stop over at Michaels after work and pick up frames. 

Non-photographed favorites:

• meeting with my sister and cousin for dinner on Wednesday
• watching American Idol results show on Thursday (AHHH I can’t believe she went home!)
• not doing house-work this week – but now that means I’ll be cleaning all weekend (boooo!)
• painting my nails any color I want again!  So I went to get my gel manicure on Thursday night after work and LITERALLY right after my shower, my thumb nail peeled RIGHT OFF.  Since I was beyond annoyed, I peeled the rest of them off.  I know you’re not supposed to take off gel yourself because it damages your nail… but I swear when I tell you, the polish peeled off in less than 30 seconds.  Yes, all 10 nails.  I am never going back to that salon again.  Super annoyed because I drove a good 40 minutes to go to the salon and $30 wasted.  Oh well – lesson learned.

Talk to Me

• What color are your nails painted right this minute?
• What are some of your favorites from this past week?
• Is it just me or IKEA furniture super difficult to put together?

It’s Friday!  I feel like every day this week I woke up saying, “Only X days ‘til Friday!”  Well my friends, Friday has arrived!  Here are my Friday Favorites for this week.

I came across this gorgeous bridal makeup tutorial this morning and fell in love with it!  Since I for whatever reason can’t embed videos right now, you can watch the makeup tutorial by visiting this link.  It’s the perfect natural makeup for your wedding day, prom or any other special occasion you have coming up.  I will definitely be trying this out very soon!

You may be wondering why an elderly couple is in my Friday Favorites.  When my old co-workers and I would make our daily trip to Dunkin Donuts for coffee, we would see this cute little elderly couple sitting by the window enjoying their lunch.  Yesterday when I went to dunkin for a pick-me-up, I saw them there again.  It brought a smile to my face.  I even texted my friends the photo and they definitely remembered them. 

Since I was at Dunkin, I had to pick up an iced coffee!  Yesterday was such a sluggish day.  The weather was gorgeous and the only place I wanted to be was on the beach.  Since that couldn’t happen, the next best thing was to take a break and drive over to Dunkin for some caffeine.  The weather was perfect.  I had the windows down, the music up and caffeine crawling through my veins.  Haha, perfection.

Another favorite this week was actually going food shopping.  We haven’t gone in a few weeks so it was really over-due.  Now I’m happy to have a lot of fresh fruits and veggies stocked up.  I also made dinner every night this week!  Vegetarian pulled pork sandwiches on Tuesday; shrimp jambalaya on Wednesday; eggs and vegetarian sausage for me (bryan had eggs and steak) on Thursday.  IDK what we’ll have for dinner tonight.

Yay!  We got a hold of our engagement photos this week.  Bryan’s dad took them with his Nikon camera, so we were just waiting for them to be uploaded.  We’ll probably order a few to be printed out and place them around our apartment.  We need some new pictures around here.

Talk to Me

• What is your #1 Friday Favorite this week?
• What’s your typical coffee order?
• How often do you grocery shop?

Yay Friday.  I think I say that every single week, but Fridays are always great.  There’s only three Favorites for this week because I was super busy with work that not much happened this week but the following 3 things.  However… these three things are pretty freaking awesome.

Heck yes.  This deliciousness is back as a Friday Favorite.  I talked about it on here at some point, but I can’t find the post so you’ll just have to believe me.  I bought mine at Target, but I know a lot of normal grocery stores carry this brand.  It’s DEFINITELY not very healthy, but if you’re looking for an ice cream-like dessert with no chemicals this is what I’d recommend.

The ingredients are pretty good.  At least I can pronounce them all!  Not sure if you can read it from the photo, but the gelato is also:

• all natural
• gluten free
• HFCS free (high fructose corn syrup free)
• hormone free
• kosher
• vegetarian
• green earth – which refers to the packaging

Another thing I’m loving this week are game nights on our balcony with friends.  My friend Danica and her fiance came out on Wednesday night for Qdoba, beer & games!  We played Parcheesi until we got bored, then decided to play Farkle – which may be my new favorite dice game.  Actually, it’s the only dice game I know.

One of my colleagues came across this amazing Tumblr account called, #iworkinPR.  It’s hilarious if you work in the agency world.  If you’re not in PR, you won’t understand the humor but whatever it’s definitely a favorite this week.  I probably check the website at least 5x a day to see if a new post is up.

Talk to Me

• What are some of your Friday Favorites from this week?
• What websites are your guilty pleasures?
• Do you like gelato?  What’s your favorite brand/flavor?

Good morning!  This week was a bit different than usual weeks.  With Monday’s bombings and me being sick yesterday, I am happy that the end of the week is here.  Seeing all of the amazing blog posts this week dedicated to Boston, I am happy to be a part of not only the running community, but also the blogger community. 

Friday Favorites

Some of my favorite things from this week were pretty standard, as you’ll see below.  Nothing too out of the ordinary. 

In related news – I woke up this morning to an email from Bryan with a news link that said one suspect from Monday’s bombings was dead.  I’m hoping that they catch the other suspect as soon as possible.  Boston, you’re still in my prayers.

Doing at-home yoga on Monday morning before work was amazing.  I need to start doing this every day!  I just moved my coffee table to the side and popped in a Tara Stiles DVD.  I think the name of the video I did was the 15 minute morning one.   Next week I’m planning on getting up earlier so I can do the 1 hour video to get a longer yoga session in.

Granola and soy milk.  I know soy milk is not the best thing to have in large quantities, so I am looking for another non-dairy alternative.  I’m thinking maybe rice or almond milk.  Update: Although I told you a few weeks ago that I am going dairy-free, I decided that instead I would just eat/drink less of it. Going dairy-free helped my skin a bit, but I didn’t notice a HUGE difference over the course of 3 weeks. I’m definitely eating a lot less dairy, which is awesome.  Just trying to find good alternatives.

I’m not sure if Bryan sent this to me this week or last week – but either way it’s still a favorite.  How amazing is this photo?  I just can’t help but smile.  Now forward to all of your friends. 

Talk to Me

• What are some of your favorite things this week?
• What’s your favorite way to get someone to smile?  Do you tell a joke, send a funny photo, send them flowers?
• What type of milk do you use?

Wahoo it’s Friday!  This was probably the first week in about a month that I had work all 5 days.  Since I had a lot of vacation days I had to use before March 31st, I took off many of the Mondays or Fridays in March.  Although this week was pretty long, I’m glad that I was able to get some sleep these past two nights.  Bryan has had this nasty cold and I’m glad that he picked up medication so that he can finally get some sleep.  Monday and Tuesday were a bit rough.

Anyway… here are my Friday Favorites.

I love making homemade spaghetti sauce.  It tastes SO much better than the pre-seasoned stuff that comes in the glass jars.  For my sauce I use Nature’s Promise Organic Crushed Tomatoes.  (I’m not being endorsed by the brand, nor did they send me anything for free. I genuinely love this stuff).  For my spices I use crushed red pepper, garlic salt, black pepper and basil.  The mix of the sweetness of the basil and the spiciness of the crushed red pepper is the BEST! 

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A recent post on MindBodyGreen this week was awesome! 5 Simple Beauty Products You Can Make from Coconut Oil.  You already know how much I love my coconut – I use the oil as a makeup remover and my cleanser I use has coconut milk as the main ingredient.  This post was awesome because it showed other ways to use it – even as a shaving ‘cream’.  Can’t wait to try that!

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I realized this week that I didn’t have my nails painted at all!  So on Wednesday, I grabbed my Essie top coat and just used that to add a bit of shine to my nails.  This has always been a favorite, but I thought I would mention it this week.  It literally dries in minutes!  If you ever only have a small amount of time to do your nails, use this baby!

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My new to-do list notebook I picked up at Barnes and Noble on Wednesday.  I finally ran out of paper in my old one and knew I wanted something that was sleek enough to bring around to meetings, but also fun.  I like how each section has a different colored line on the side.  This one only cost about $7 and is the perfect size for my daily to-do lists! 

Talk To Me

• What are some of your favorite items from this week?
• Doing anything fun this weekend?
• Do you keep physical, digital or mental to-do lists?

It’s moving day 2!  Yesterday went pretty smoothly.  We met with the rep at our new complex, she gave us our keys, and did a quick walk through to point out any problems or items needing maintenance.  Today after work, we have to head to IKEA and pick up our new dresser and continue moving over small items.  Large items we still need:

• Dresser
• Dining room table and chairs
• Desk
• Bookshelf

After those are all in place, I think we should be good.  Of course there’s tons of smaller stuff we still need, but those will come with time.

Let’s get into my Friday Favorites from this week.  There’s only a few because I’ve been so busy packing and moving that there isn’t much else to talk about. 

An obvious favorite from this week – our new place.  I was standing in the middle of the room, so the space is actually a bit bigger.  This is just a view of our living/dining/kitchen area.  I’m super excited because we have two full bathrooms, a decent size master bedroom with walk in closet, a second bedroom we’re turning into an office, washer/dryer, and a deck!  I now have space to put plants!

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Sunshine!  This week had pretty good temperatures for our area.  Last weekend the weather was in the low 60s!  During the work week it cooled down a bit to a high in the mid-50s, but it was still gorgeous outside!  I’m hoping it never snows again.

If you can’t tell from the photo, my hood is dented, paint is chipped off, my grill is cracked off, and my headlight is scratched and pushed back causing my bumper to lower.  OK, so that doesn’t sound like a Friday Favorite…but let me explain. Last week, my intern and I were at a red light and she decided to start to parallel park her car at the light.  She backed right into the front right side of my car.  The “Favorite” part of this is that this week I got all the paperwork figured out and had an appraiser get a quote and now everything should be good to go to get Shelly (my car) all back to normal. 

WAHOO.  Friday!  I didn’t sleep well last night, so I’m pretty tired today.  However, as you know from my last post regarding “Reinvigorating Your Mornings”, you know that I’m slowly trying to wean myself off of coffee and juicing more frequently instead.  So that’s what I’m up to this morning.

Let’s take a look at my favorites from this past week.

Food shopping after work on Thursday.  I love food shopping when the grocery store is pretty empty.  I don’t feel rushed to move out of the way and can take the time to really look at what I’m buying.  I picked up some great items for salads this weekend. 

(source) – not my nails

Buying Essie “Lilacism”!  I love this color  I typically don’t pick nail polish colors that are cooler toned (so usually never blues or purples), but this shade has a hit of a warm undertone and looks pretty on my skin.  I think it will be even BETTER when I have a nice tan in the summer months.  Oh summer… please get here faster. 

Eminence Organic Skin Care’s coconut milk cleanser.  I’ve been using this cleanser since late January, I think.  I’m really loving it – but especially this week.  I was using my cleanser from the brand Simple, but I ran out of it on Sunday.  That meant that until I went to buy a new one, I had to use whatever else was in my shower.  Boy, I am glad I did run out of it.  I am LOVING my coconut milk cleanser this week.  I’ll do a full post on my face care routine at a later time, but I’ve been using this every night this week and it’s really calmed any inflammation on my face down.

Waking up to snow on Friday morning.  Yep, it’s snowing here this morning.  Hopefully the roads aren’t too bad because I have to get into work in an hour, but at least it’s pretty to look at.  We have so many windows at my work, so I’m looking forward to seeing it snow all day.  For whatever reason, snow calms me down and makes me slow down a bit.  Usually I’m so frazzled and going at 100 miles per hour. 

Talk to Me

• What are some of your favorite things this week?
• What time of day do you typically grocery shop?
• What’s the weather like in your area this morning?

This week actually flew by, which is a good thing.  I didn’t get that much sleep this week though, so getting up in the mornings was a bit rough.  Other than that, the week wasn’t THAT bad.  Here are some of my Friday Favorites to jump start this weekend.

1.  Dunkin Donuts coffee.  I usually don’t drink coffee in the mornings, but many mornings this week I needed it.  I think my favorite coffee of all time (or at least at this moment) is a regular coffee with cream and sugar from Dunkin Donuts.  It’s the perfect blend.  Bryan wonders why I don’t just get the free Starbucks coffee our complex offers – but I really dislike Starbucks house blend. 

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2.  Juicing!  Although I didn’t juice a lot this week, my Friday morning started with a kick-butt juice: 3 apples, 3 handfuls of spinach, 1 celery stalk, 2 carrots.  Mmm.  I’m vowing to get at least 2-3 juices in during the work week.  There is no excuse for not using it!  It’s fast, simple, and AMAZING.

In case you were wondering, we purchased the Breville Juice Fountain Multi-Speed 900 Watt Juicer.  I recommend buying it from Bed Bath and Beyond with a 20% off coupon.  That’s basically the lowest price you’ll get anywhere.

3.  Found this awesome blog – My Neon Running Shoes.  I hope reading more running blogs will get my butt into gear to train for some spring races.  I’ve taken a break from running since the half marathon, because I wasn’t really enjoying the last few weeks of training.  Lots of knee pain and dizzy dense headaches. Now that I haven’t done any significant amount of running lately, I’m itching to get back out there! 

4.  Bridal show on Sunday.  My bridesmaids and I went to brunch and a bridal show last weekend and I got the photobooth pics back this week.  Hilarious.  We won’t be having a photobooth at our wedding, but it was fun to try and squeeze all of us in the shot.

Talk to Me

• What were some of your favorites from this week?
• How often do you juice?
• How many bridesmaids did you have in your wedding?

Well friends, Friday is here again. WOO!  Bry and I have some wedding venue tours this weekend and my bridesmaids and I are going to a bridal show.  Lots of wedding stuff this weekend. 

This week I had a bunch of favorites, actually.  Usually by the time Friday rolls around, I have no idea what I’m going to post.  This week was different.

Coconut tomato shrimp and rice.  For Valentine’s Day, Bry and I made this dish together.  It was SO easy and really one used 1 pot (2 pots if you count the rice).  I’ll post a full recipe on the blog next week.  This is definitely going to be made many more times in the future.  It’s not too heavy and actually has pretty healthy ingredients.

My favorite chocolate, Fannie May’s Milk Chocolate Vanilla Buttercreams.  I only get these once a year for Valentine’s Day, but that’s what makes them special.  They definitely aren’t the healthiest dessert option, but I like keeping them in the refrigerator to grab when I need just a little something sweet.  Bryan laughs at me when I eat them, because I nibble off all the chocolate THEN eat the buttercream.  Best way to do it.

Valentine’s Day flowers, wine and watching American Idol by the candlelight.  Nothing says romance than watching Mariah and Nicki practically rip each others hair out on TV.  We enjoyed Valentine’s Day night because we kept it super low-key.  You don’t need a lot of money to make a nice dinner together and sit in front of the TV. 

Hunter Hayes.  He’s an up and coming young country star.  I’m by no means a country music guru, but I really enjoy his music.  Did you know he co-wrote “Play” by Rascal Flatts at age 16? Kid has got some talent.  Specifically, I’m loving his song “Wanted”.  You can listen to it here. 

No I don’t think that tax time is awesome.  HOWEVER, the best feeling in the world is submitting your taxes for the year!  I’ve been saying I need to do my taxes for a few weeks now, and this week I finally got them done.  Thank you Turbo Tax for making it super easy for the least-financial expert in the world.  Now all I have to do is make sure my loan repayment plan has my updated tax information. 

Talk to Me

• What are some of your favorites from this week?
• Have you heard of Hunter Hayes?  What’s your favorite song of his?
• What did you eat for Valentine’s Day?