Monday, August 19, 2013

LUSH- Pink Bath Bomb Review


I recently purchased and used a LUSH- Pink Bath Bomb and wanted to share my thoughts with you.

This bath bomb was inspired by Audrey Hepburn and is fragranced with tonka beans and vanilla. I originally purchased this bath bomb because it smelled a lot like LUSH's Creamy Candy Bubble Bar!! This bath bomb smells like so good like a candy that you would love to eat!! When I placed it into my tub it instantly let out a hot pink color that filled up my bath and released pink paper hearts!! I absolutely loved this bath bomb!! It really is a girl's dream in a tub!! The fragrance fills up the bathroom and lasted the rest of the night.

The only and major con that I have with this bath bomb is that it stained my tub and my bath towel.  Because I had my hands in the water for so long it stained my hands pink and no matter how much I rinsed off when I grabbed my white towel (of course) it instantly stained hot pink all over it.  I really don't like the way this product stains the tub and stained my bath tub.

Final Conclusion:  Although I loved this bath bomb and thoroughly enjoyed it while I was in the bath, I would not repurchase this product.  I don't want to have to deal with the staining effect that this bath bomb did in my bathroom.

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Blueberry Muffins


These are my go-to Blueberry Muffins!! They are great to make on a Sunday afternoon, store them then have them for breakfast over those busy work week mornings!!! I like to also add a bit of cinnamon sugar on top to give the muffins a nice crunchy topping to give the muffin a great texture!!  This recipe makes approximately 11 muffins.



Here's what you'll need (Ingredients):
1 3/4 cup flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup milk
1 egg
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup blueberries (frozen or fresh)  (I used fresh blueberries in my recipe)
Topping- Equal parts sugar and cinnamon, to taste (optional) with 1/4 tsp unsalted butter

Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 400°. 
2. Stir the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a large bowl.  (I used my stand mixer's bowl for this step.) 
3.Mix milk, egg, oil, sugar and vanilla in a small-medium bowl with a wire wisk.  
4. Add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until moistened.
5. Gently fold in Blueberries and let the batter sit for approximately 1 minute.

(Steps 2-5 Pictured Above)

6. While the batter sits for a minute, it is time to make your topping. (Optional).  I melted a tiny piece of unsalted butter in the microwave and poured it over equal parts sugar and cinnamon to taste, until it reached a consistency like the picture below.
 (Step 6-Pictured Above)

7. Fill sprayed muffin pan with muffin mixture.  I used an icecream scoop to make the muffins equal in size and easy to plop.  (I was only able to make 11 muffins with this recipe so I added water to the last muffin insert in my pan).  Sprinkle each muffin with cinnamon sugar mixture and place into the oven.

(Step 7)

8. Bake 20-22 minutes or until golden brown.  Let cool in pan until its easily transferable onto a cooling rack. 
9. Serve and ENJOY!! :)


 I hope you all try this recipe and let me know how you like it!!  Happy Baking! :)

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Sunday, August 18, 2013

Week In Review (Aug 12-18, 2013)


This week has been a pretty chill week. 

Monday, we had a plan to wake up at 5:00am and workout before Isaac headed to work.  This lasted all of the 30 minutes it took for him to get ready to realize we will not have enough time to workout and have him get ready for work on-time.  Epic Fail! :) So he went to work and it turned out to be an average day until we decided to go out to dinner.  We went to McAlisters Deli which is our favorite deli place to eat.  If you have not heard of this place its very similar to Panera but the prices are cheaper and they have way more options for the choose 2 meal.  I just hate when I go to Panera and have to pay extra to have a salad besides the House or Cesar or to get the Chipotle Chicken sandwich.  But, with eating at McAlisters I can get pretty much the same things as I get at Panera but without the extra prices. We also stopped by Barnes N Noble for Isaac to get the next book in the series that he is reading and I realized that I have ALOT of books that I want to read this year.  Currently, I am reading The Scorch Trials by James Dashner and am loving it.  To keep track of what I am reading and different reviews of books you can checkout my Good Reads site. http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/9430490-elizabeth

Tuesday, was a busy housework day for me.  I spent the majority of the day cleaning our apartment and noticed that our electric socket in our bathroom didn't work.  I sent a maintenance request for it to get fixed and they came out to the apartment to fix it within the hour.  Isn't it great when things workout that quickly? If only it happened all the time!  Isaac and I spent the night vegging and whatched So You Think You Can Dance and a new discovery Capture.  Capture is a show that reminds us alot of The Hunger Games.  Its where there are teams of pairs where they run through the woods and there is one team who is The Hunter and they need to capture 2 other teams.  Once a team is captured they are put in 'jail' and the camp votes out who they want to send home.  If The Hunter team isn't able to capture 2 teams they are then put up to go home.  It is a very interesting show and we look forward to another episode this week!

Wed, I made those delicious Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies!! I previously have posted the recipe on this blog and recommend each one of you to try it!! Isaac absolutely loved the cookies and brought them to work where his co-workers enjoyed them so much they wanted me to make them more. :) 

Thursday-Errands Day.  I spent the majority of the day grocery shopping, getting things accomplished for work and GETTING MY HAIRCUT!! It has been months since I have actually had my haircut and I wanted a change.  I've been growing out my hair for years now and wanted a change.  I had the lady cut it to about shoulder length with a couple of layers to frame my face. That night we cheered on our team The Carolina Panthers and although we lost that game believe that we will prevail this season! LOL.

Friday-Date Night.  Each week Isaac and I try to have one night where we can just relax and spend some quality time together.  We discovered his new 'go to spot' in town- Hickory Tavern.  This is the Lynwood Grill of our area!  The food was amazing and the atmosphere our favorite kind of sports bar!!  We also noticed that they have 60 cent wings and specials on martinis and margaritas on Wednesdays so Isaac has planned our dinners every Wednesday for the rest of our lives! :) Hickory Tavern on Wednesdays here we come!!!  After dinner we went to 2 Guns the movie, this is a very action pact movie and we enjoyed it.  Isaac a little more than me, but who can resist Mark Wahlberg and Denzel Washington?


Sat/Sun, this weekend Isaac spent the majority of the time Reffing and I just relaxed at home.  I tried out one of my bath bombs from LUSH (review to come) and shopped a bit around town.  I also enjoyed cooking Chicken Tacos for dinner and prepared Blueberry Muffins for Isaac to have for breakfast this upcoming week!! Oh yeah, we had the Famous Bojangles for Dinner one night as well!



I hope you all had a fabulous week as well and are looking forward to this upcoming week!

Thanks for reading!

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Thursday, August 15, 2013

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies


These are the best chocolate chip cookies I have ever had!! They are WAY better than any store bought cookie or plop and bake cookie dough.  I found this recipe from Organized Jen on Pintrest and would like to share the recipe and my substitutions with y'all.

The much requested chocolate chip recipe is finally here!  I adapted this from the Soft & Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe from the Martha Stewart Holiday Cookies 2005 special issue.  Check out OLJ for the accompanying video!  Enjoy :)
Accompanying YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJedCahexL0

I followed this recipe pretty much exactly.  However, since Isaac can't eat anything with corn products which include corn syrup and corn starch I substituted another cup of semisweet chocolate for the m&ms.

I followed the recipe exactly for the batter, mixing the dry ingredients then wet ingredients and combining them at the end.  I used my KitchenAid Stand Mixer and paddle attachment with the scraper for this step. Resulting in my batter to look like the picture below.


When baking the cookies, I usually like my cookies to be big and soft.  Who needs a bunch of small cookies when you can have a delicious big cookie! :)  I used my big ice cream scoop to place each cookie on my cookie tray resulting in 15 cookies total.



I followed the recipe and flipped my tray after 7 minutes and then took them out about a little over 8 minutes when the sides turned a light golden brown.  I then let the cookies finish cooking on the tray for about 6 minutes and then let them cool on cooling racks before eating.

I hope you all try this recipe and let me know how you like it!!  Happy Baking! :)

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Monday, August 12, 2013

Week in Review (August 1-11, 2013)

Today, I wanted to start a new blog post that I hope to be publishing weekly.  Here I will talk briefly about my previous week and any tidbits that may seem interesting.  I plan on posting these like I said weekly either on Sundays or Mondays.  

To start off I wanted to apologize for not having any posts up during the past couple of weeks.  Isaac and I have been very busy with his new job and having myself go through the job search phase of my career.  Luckily, I was able  find a job in my dream career of recruiting and will be starting work in 2 weeks!!! I can't wait to start this chapter in my life and look forward to learning and growing as a business professional!  
I recently over the past couple of weeks have also started playing a bit with YouTube and made 2 videos.  Now don't get me wrong, I'm not a professional at all and this was my first time filming.  But, I just wanted to see what it was like and if I wanted to continue to explore that venture.  I am still on the fence about posting a lot of videos on YouTube but will continue to ponder it in the future.  If you are interested in my YouTube videos I will post the links here.  

The first video I did is my July Favorites.  This video is where I share what products I have been loving and using for the month of July.  I hope you enjoy!

The second video is where I share a haul with y'all from Ulta and Sephora!

I hope you enjoy those videos and let me know in the comments any suggestions/requests you have for that channel.

Back to some random things that have happened over the past couple of weeks.  Isaac and I went up to Raleigh, NC to visit his family and help out with the beginning of the soccer tournament season!! The weekend of Aug 2-4th was a 3v3 tournament and was on Saturday.  We all woke up very early that day to be on the soccer fields by 7am to host the tournament.


This tournament was alot of fun to work and I was able to manage the time halfway through the tournament and blow the air horn every time the games needed to start-halftime-end.  I always enjoy coming out to the fields and spending time with the Jordan family and all the fellow referees over the years!

The following week, I decided to paint my nails Essie's Bikini So Teeny for the first time.  This nail polish is a gorgeous periwinkle blue with some faint tiny sparkles.  I have heard great things about this particular nail polish from other bloggers and YouTubers in the past.  However, I was quite disappointed in this product.  As you may know I don't often or like to put on the whole shabang like base coat and top coat.  So when putting this nail polish on I just did as I normally did and painted without these extra steps.  Turned out that two coats made a lovely color on the nails and looked amazing. During the end of the day and following subsequent days after I found that this nail polish chips like no other!!! I was so upset when I started noticing my nail polish was chipping!!  I painted both my fingernails and toes and where as my toes seemed chip free my nails were totally destroyed after day 2 with this polish.  I apologize for not having a picture of my nails with this polish on it but I was just so apauled that the polish chipped the way it did.  In the future with this polish I plan on trying it with both base coat and top coat and will let you all know how it turns out.


This past weekend was a great relaxing weekend for both Isaac and I.  We were able to celebrate my new job and eat out at Maggiano's Italian Restaurant which is one of my favorite Italian restaurants to go to! Isaac had never eaten there before and although he did like the food would prefer to go to The Cheesecake Factory which was right next door to the restaurant for future Italian endeavors. :)  The next couple of days we also had our date night where we went to our new favorite mexican restaurant in the area called Cabo's Mexican Cuisine and Cantina! The food there was so delicious and I can normally have a lunch portion for the next day with the portion size that comes with the scrumptious Vegetarian Platter!  Isaac and I went to the movies to see Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters after dinner.  I rather enjoyed this movie with all the mythical creatures and scenes in the movie.  Isaac's first comment about the movie, "That was a very kid movie...nobody died...and the people who did die just came back to life."  Haha he's more into the 300 type movies where alot of people die and its not such a happy-go-lucky film.  O well :) I enjoyed it!!

Yesturday, we wanted to start our house hunting expedition!  We plan/hope to move into a house of our own within the next 2 years and want to start getting a feel for the different areas and floor plans to houses we may be interested in.  I just have to share that we found a Cook Out on our drive!! Now, I don't remember if I have ever been to one of these but I have heard great things about it through different people and Isaac.  So, I suggested that we stop by for a quick snack.  I had the Reese Cup milkshake and Isaac had a full meal :)  The milkshake was unbelievably good however once I put it into my calorie counter app for the day realized it was 7/8th of the calories I typically allow myself to eat, I realized this would definitely be a once in a while treat.  Although it did take all of my calories for the day, I did enjoy the milkshake and thought it was well worth it! :)


I hope you all had a great couple of past weeks and are happy and healthy!! Stay tuned for the next Week in Review next week!

Thanks for reading!

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