Day: June 17, 2013

What I’m Loving Lately: Early Summer Edition

Lauren6 Comments

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Dress and Sandal Weather.

Gifts is without a doubt my mother’s love language. I swear she spends a majority of her spare time buying things for my sister and I. The remainder of her spare time is spent cooking delicious food, tending to her two spoiled puppies, and reading a New York Times subscription that doesn’t belong to her but keeps accidentally being delivered to her address. Anyways, she gifted me this adorable (albeit slightly uncomfortable) pair of sandals last week. Perfect with a summery white sundress.

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Toms.

Speaking of things my mom is gifting to me — she FORCED me to take these Toms home last week. A majority of my spare time is spent trying to convince my mom that I don’t deserve all the gifts she gives me and that she should buy something for herself. Somehow I went from thinking Toms were the ugliest dorkiest shoes ever — “I’ll never wear those!” — to owning two pairs and thinking they’re actually pretty cute. This pair is infinitely more comfortable than my lacey ones, which I keep wearing in hopes that the elastic on the top will finally stretch out.

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Homebrewed Iced Coffee.

Most mornings, I drink a cup of Earl Gray but when it’s early June and already in the upper 90’s in Colorado, I really can’t stomach the thought of drinking anything hot. Iced coffee to the rescue! I came across this awesome cold-brewing tutorial last week and kid you not, had to go to Target that night to gather the necessary components to make my own iced coffee. It turned out really good! The best part is that I can cater the amount of coffee to my caffeine tolerance, or lack there of… :O

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Hempz Hydrosilk Herbal Moisturizer.

I’m cheap and usually buy some junky body lotion, but for Christmas, my mother gave my sister and I each a bottle of the Original Hempz Body Moisturizer and now I’m hooked. Ahem, please note more motherly gift giving 🙂 I ran over to Beauty Brands last week to pick up some more and they were out of my beloved Original, so I purchased this instead and I LOVE IT. It smells unbelievably good and is nice and light — perfect for summer — plus it was on sale!

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Stone Fruit Season.

Strawberries will forever be my favorite fruit, but next on the list if definitely stone fruits. Peaches, nectarines, plums, apricots, cherries. Love love love all of them. I think this may have something to do with all the fond memories I have of eating them as a child. During the summer, my mom seemed to always keep our fridge stocked with a bowl of plums or a bag of ruby red cherries, clearly intended for me to eat all in one sitting, right?

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The Civil Wars.

I’m a sucker for a good male/female singing duo — one-time collaborators Alison Krauss & Robert Plant being my hands down favorite! — and the two voices in this one are perfectly beautiful together. Their live cover of Billie Jean played during a yoga class I took a couple weeks ago and they sounded so dang good live that it convinced me their CD was worth buying. And okay, the Billie Jean cover isn’t on there, but there’s an equally good take on the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back.”

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Dining Al Fresco. (I know you can’t tell that this picture was taken on an outdoor patio, but trust me, it was.)

There were many great things about the house I grew up in, but the one I will miss forever was the great patio in the backyard. My dream home will have a big wrap around front porch, with rocking chairs for sipping coffee and people watching and a backyard patio for summer grill outs. Wait, I promise I have a point. Joey and I have been sitting outside on our lunch break (in the shade, of course) and opting to sit outside when we go out to eat and dining al fresco is where it’s at.

Okay, enough of my rambling. What are you loving lately?

Weekend Things

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I hope you all had a wonderful Father’s Day Weekend.  My own dad was out of town until yesterday afternoon, so we got together later in the day for a little Father’s Day dinner.  My mom put me in charge of the simple syrup for some mint juleps we made.  She must really trust me to put me in charge of such a big task like melting sugar into water.

Anyways, there were a lot of things I thought I was going to do this weekend, like deep clean my kitchen (ha!), eat breakfast at Jelly Cafe in Capitol Hill, sleep in, watch the Rockies win and replace the sweater I lost in Vegas last month, but…most of that didn’t happen.  Instead…

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I watched the Rockies blow a 5 run lead in the 6th to lose the game.  Come on!  I distracted myself with beer and the beautiful Colorado sunset.  Can you make out the mountains way in the background?

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Can I just say that I have been jonesing for a Bloody Mary lately.  Every time Joey goes golfing he comes home and tells me about how he had one and I’m always jealous.  My solution to this very serious problem was to pick out a new breakfast restaurant for us to try on Saturday morning.  I picked a place called Jelly Cafe and was at a loss when we showed up and it was closed due to “unforeseeable circumstances.”  Plan B: Snooze!

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By the time we got there, there was a pretty sizable crowd waiting outside, but the wait was only 30 minutes (nothing compared to the 1 hour and 45-minutes I’ve waited there previously) so we hung out in the sun and waited for a table.

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Side note: Joey has thee shiniest pair of Oakley’s and I am constantly taking pictures of things reflected in them.  And I’m going to pretend he appreciates that I do this…

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As crowded as it always is, I actually know quite a few people who don’t really like Snooze.  My two cents is that it’s probably not the best food in the world, but the atmosphere, the fun menu options and the fact that I can get a flight of unique pancakes puts me in the “I love Snooze” camp.  Also, I’m game for anywhere with an extensive breakfast drink menu.

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Long-awaited Bloody Mary!  I ordered the “Bloody Maria” and actually liked Joey’s “El Mejor” (above!) better.  It wasn’t quite as spicy and had a cool pepper salt on the rim.

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As you can imagine, this tableful of food launched me into a small food coma and I was basically falling asleep on the couch when my mom rang to tell me she had a cancellation and could fit me in for a 1 o’clock massage.  Seriously the best.  Spent the afternoon on our teeny patio, reading and sipping an iced coffee then headed to a yoga class.  Happy Saturday, indeed.

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Saturday ended with these adorably rustic spinach-ricotta calzones.  Homemade, mind you!

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And then we hit up a late showing of the Great Gatsby.  We went to this tiny movie theater that’s a little on the older side and it was pretty deserted.  I was pretty sure we were going to be the only people in the theater, but to my dismay another couple came in at the last minute.  Which was mostly a bummer because I was ready to loudly talk during the movie.

I just read Gatsby in March so it was really fresh in my mind and I thought it was pretty authentic to the book.  Except that part where Nick Carroway was in an insane asylum — what the heck was that about??  That being said, I wasn’t a huge fan of the movie, but only because I’m also not a huge fan of the book.  I just find it incredibly disappointing that Gatsby isn’t actually suave or confident or really all that sane.

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Yesterday was pretty quiet.  And let’s not talk about how those mint juleps turned out.  Holy strong!  My sister and I eventually traded ours in for margaritas, which are much more my kind of drink.

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What did you do this weekend?

Have you read or seen the Great Gatsby?

What’s your mixed drink of choice?