Tag: music

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?

Mother’s Day Weekend Things

Lauren3 Comments

Turning a corner this weekend.  Finally starting to feel better (colds are not supposed to last this long!) and it’s actually sunny and warm here.  It’s about time.  I’m sure we still have some cloudy/rainy days in store, but for now, I’m just going to focus on how it’s going to be 80 degrees this week, yippee!

On Friday afternoon, we took a spur of the moment detour to walk along the shops on Tennyson Street in Denver.  No joke, we walked past at least 3 wine bars.  I didn’t even know that was a thing.  We also had a good laugh when we realized what we thought was a Planned Parenthood (we drove by last weekend when there was a huge line outside) was actually a Planned Pethood.  Aka, a veterinary hospital with a sense of humor.

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Stopped in at the ice cream shop next door for some Stranahan’s ice cream.  Their specialty was actually waffle sandwiches and it smelled so good in there.  Plus they had a Hawaiian punch drinking fountain! Seriously.

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Friday was also Joey’s dad’s birthday.  After grilling burgers and enjoying some chocolate cream cheese cupcakes (uh yum!), we did a little exploring in the basement and I found these.  I loved these books growing up.  I think I was actually more of a bookworm as a child than I am now.

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Half of Saturday was spent shopping with Hannah (whose birthday is today — Happy Birthday, Hannah!) and my sister.  I really wanted to find some fun casual dresses for our trip to Vegas, but after 3 hours and 8 stores, all I had was a skirt and a t-shirt.  Hannah left with some funky leggings and sleeveless Batman shirt and my sister left with nothing.  Not quite as productive as I’d hoped that shopping trip would be, but at least we got pizza out of it.

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Later I made some strawberry simple syrup in preparation for Mother’s Day.  I do this all the time (mostly for margaritas) and it’s, well, simple.  All you do it bring a pot of equal parts water and sugar + sliced strawberries to a boil, then simmer for about 20 minutes and strain the strawberries out.  I also keep the strawberries and use them to top pancakes.

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Saturday night was spent at Summit Music Hall in Denver.  Joey’s longtime friend’s band was playing there and he gave us tickets.  I’d never heard them before and was really impressed.  Wish I could say the same for the two groups that went on after them.

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Naturally, Sunday was all about mothers.  My own whipped up some deliciously fluffy pancakes, while I provided this crock pot casserole  and some strawberry Bellinis.  I swear the plan was to have my mom not lift a finger for brunch but she doesn’t know how to do that.  She told me it was hard to watch me mix the pancake batter because she just wanted to do it herself, which is exactly how I am too.

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I’d never made a Bellini before, but it basically amounted to mixing the strawberry simple syrup with a bottle of Prosecco and they turned out really good.  They also turned out to be the same color as this “sherbet” shirt Joey just bought.  Four of us easily finished the whole batch.  I think Joey drank one in his mom’s honor.  She’s sick and couldn’t make it to breakfast 😦

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After brunch, we spent hours looking through old photo albums.  My sister’s hair in this picture KILLS me!  A million pictures of Easter egg hunts, dance recitals and seriously awesome bedhead later, we headed home to rest and take a long leisurely stroll around our neighborhood before Mother’s Day celebration #2 with Joey’s family.  It was a totally relaxing and fun end to a beautiful day.

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Love you, Mom!