Rainy Day Fashion Guide

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Rainy day, stuck inside, girl, hand, windowThere is nothing worse than being stuck inside on a rainy April afternoon. We all have busy schedules, but unfortunately the weather never checks my day planner before unleashing a torrential downpour! What’s a girl to do when she needs to look her best, but needs to dress for a monsoon?

Step 1 – The right stuff!

Yes, that right. We need the right gear to ensure that we’re dry and toasty when everything else is soggy and dripping. My favorite accessory? Rain-boot inserts. Everyone has rain-boots, but inserts take wearing rain-boots to a higher level of comfort than even knee-socks can attain. My top pick are Slugs Fleece Rain-boot liners from WithTheRain. Check them out below. Super stylish and affordable.
rain-boot, liners, shoes, rain, feet dryIcky name, but super cute, funky and functional liners will keep your feet warm and dry all through the wet-weather season!

Make sure to splash it up!

Step 2 – Accessorize for yourself!

It’s easy to feel depressed and gloomy with big, heavy rain clouds blocking out those cheery rays, but make sure to keep yourself sunny with fun rainy-day accessories!

 

Anything could be classified as an accessory and some people really take their weather-wear seriously.

 

Check out this fashion piece kickin’ it old school – Way old school with this custom designed Parasol Sheath by WreckingCrewCreations.

 

 

If ye old parasol sheath isn’t your particular sense of style maybe a fun cell phone cover might be more aligned with your attire.

With this fun design from TheGawkyGiraffe on your cell all day long it would be hard to feel gloomy.

Add to that cover a fun ringtone like Adele’s Set Fire to the Rain and you’re all set for rainy-day bliss!

Fall Fashion Survival Guide

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Chocolate- Brown Jacket 3/4 Sleeves in Cotton or Wool- Shawl collar by Pilland

The end of summer is here already and with the cooler weather brings an opportunity to break out those adorable sweaters and gloves that have been hiding in your closet all year.

This fashion changing of the guard also allows you to incorporate some new elements into your tried and true fall apparel. However, take care to learn how to utilize those new funky trends to earn compliments instead of weird looks. For instance, did you know leg-warmers are making a comeback, but the one-shoulder slouch sweaters are still firmly embedded in the 80′s? I can understand the confusion, there is a subtle different between trendily retro and terribly outdated. If you already knew the difference then you’re well on your way to rocking the sweater weather attire, but for those of us who need a little help here is a guide to this season starting with my top picks for additions to your ensembles.

#1. Crocs Cyprus II Heels

The sidewalks are slippery with tons of rain and leaves falling nearly every day, I’ve chosen these shoes as my favorite fall footwear!

They’re super non-slip like the rest of the Crocs catalog and because of the material they’re constructed of they have the ability to be wiped dry easily. They also have the added advantage of keeping your pedicure out of puddles by adding a few inches of heel.  Even being a rather tall shoe – they’re very comfortable and sturdy which is important to me. I love that I don’t have to worry about wobbling on or treading though slick leaves with these on. Nothing touches my feet and I don’t stumble! All of these blissful benefits without resorting to rain boots. Trust me – walking into your team’s meeting in rain boots will not earn you any points with the boss.

Plus, you’ll get tons of compliments from wearing these! I can tell you from experience *wink*

#2 Burt’s Bee Tinted Lip Gloss

Fall is always hard for me because I don’t always want to give up my pretty lip colors in order to switch over to the much needed protective lip gloss. So, normally I end up using chap-stick under my regular lipstick with less than amazing results. Seriously – one cup of coffee into the day and I’m already in need of a re-application. Enter Burt’s Bee amazing lip glosses.

They’re both pretty and nourishing to your lips. I really love the color Tiger Lily! However, they do admit to using carmine (aka boiled beetles!!) to obtain the color. I normally do agree with a strict vegetarian (or even vegan) practices, but in this case I feel carmine continues to be one of the best sources of red coloring in cosmetics. The other choices either obtained from non-renewable fossil fuels or are entirely synthetic. I am uncomfortable with either of those choices. So, if you can get past the non-vegan aspect of this product I suggest you try it out – your lips will thank you and you’ll look awesome all fall.

#3 Dangle Necklaces

As the weather turns colder and we all start pulling out our ponchos and sweaters, don’t forget about your dangle necklaces!

These are your biggest fashion weapon during fall. Scarves, while wonderful when you’re out in the frosty weather tend to get discarded in a office setting. The sweaters seem to stick around the whole day though and there is no better way to dress up your outfit than with a dangle necklace.

Get them long, looped and large! Make them fancy, sparkly or shiny – and let the compliments roll in! Soon enough – you’ll notice everyone else catching on and rocking their own dangle necklaces.

Here is my fashion prediction for this season: Owls.

Just trust me on this one – I have a feeling. Owls – everything!

While, this Fall trend is sure to take a nosedive after this season Owls are going to be really hot for the next few months, so if you’re into getting on board with the latest fashion train, then hop aboard!

Necklaces, applique, handbags and home decor will be taken over by these large-eyed birds! For those die hard owl lovers out there – this is the time to stock up on your beloved decoration and fashion accessories because they will be adorning everything for the next few months! How about an owl dangle necklace? Can you feel the synergy?!

What’s your favorite Fall fashion accessory? Have you spotted any Owls in fashion? Is there anyone in your life who inspires you with their fashion – either famous or famous to you? If so, who?! Who?!

As for what other aspects of this season’s fashion will be trending this year, don’t forget about…

Slouch Boots

Just remember to make sure they’re vegan like these from Alternative Outfitters.

Little and Loving: Moo

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My beautiful and talented friend, Elleen, over at Yum Yum..Eten! has a cute little chihuahua girl-dog that appears in several of her posts! Well, when she found out that I too had a chihuahua running my life she asked (way back on this post) that I share some photos of my little chihuahua, Widget-moo.

So, the rest of this post will be devoted to pictures of adorable Moo to satisfy her request! This one is for you Elleen!

Widget is small enough to fit into pockets, handbags, backpacks and grocery bags.

She is also very girlie and loves the color pink!

She loves to snuggle.

And has a particular love of sticking her head into drinking glasses!

She also loves getting into mischief in my office!

But she is SO cute when she falls asleep!

Mostly, she is happy just to be at my side, demanding pets and waiting for treats or other tokens of my affection.

I love her.

Quitter

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Today is day 7 of the raw food challenge. Initially, I intended for this challenge to last 30 days. However, I’m quitting this morning. On Monday I weighed 244 lbs and this morning my scale tells me that I weigh 235.2 – that’s almost a 9 pound drop in weight over six days.

Monday – 244
Tuesday – 240
Wednesday – 237.2
Thursday – 237.2
Friday – 236.6
Saturday – 235.2
Sunday – 235.2

While I know I’m not starving myself, I feel uncomfortable with this dramatic of a weight change.

Additionally, I haven’t noticed any significant benefits to eating only a raw plant based diet. I feel nearly exactly the same as I did as an ovo-lacto vegetarian. Except, that perhaps I’m bored with the lack of variety in my diet and feel that I’m not really hitting my goals for protein each day. I really want to be able to reincorporate more protein into my diet without literally stuffing myself with vegetables or high-fat nut sources.

I do think that this experience did teach me some very good lessons. I now know that I am much stronger than I thought I was – I can pass up doughnuts and ice cream easily and happily in favor of healthful treats. I really learned to enjoy the flavors and textures of plain, unaltered fruits and vegetables. I also do feel slimmer with the shedding of the 9 pounds. So, all in all I think this was a very successful trial.

Even though I will be returning to cooked foods, I will still be incorporating a large portion of raw fruits and vegetables into my diet, much more so than before. I’ll also be more conscience of the portions and calories I am ingesting. My hope is that I can maintain an 1800 – 2000 calorie diet and shed excess weight more slowly, but sustainably.

I hope that I haven’t let any of you down with this decision. I have so much enjoyed your support and well wishing during this past week! Thank you for being such great friends.

 

Vegetarian BBQ

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1/2 cup sun-dried (or dehydrated) tomatoes soaked in water to rehydrate
1 tablespoon paprika
1 tablespoon berbere (spice blend)
1 tablespoon agave nectar

Blend all of the above in a food processor until smooth. Taste and add any additional seasonings you like.

Then using a vegetable peeler cut large slices of zucchini – they should look flat like a pasta sheet. You don’t have to use the skin if you don’t want – it’s up to you. After you have a nice stack of zucchini sheets cut them into small chunks and toss into a mixing bowl.

Chop 1 large portabella mushroom cap into small cubes and add to the bowl with the zucchini.

Pour your bar-b-que sauce over your veggies. Stir to coat evenly. Then add a few handfuls of raw spinach to the mixture. Stir until everything is coated then add more spinach. I suggest about 4-5 oz of dry spinach into the mix.

Then, pop it in the dehydrator on 115 for an hour or into a casserole dish in your oven at 350 for 15 minutes and you’re ready to eat!

Tonight I served this with homemade vegan raw sour cream to help cut the spice.

4 Down, 26 more to go!

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Tonight, on night 4 of the challenge, I prepared raw “macaroni and cheese” made from cashew nuts and yellow squash. Surprisingly, the cheese was very realistic and just a little spicy. The squash noodles were not very realistic, but nonetheless tasty. Philip even passed up his dairy and bread filled dinner in favor of this raw meal. That should tell you how yummy the cheese was.

I started out on Monday weighing 244lbs and this morning, much to my delight, my scale read 237.2!
I know it sounds like a dramatic drop in weight, but I can assure you I’m not starving myself. I don’t feel hungry or malnourished. Actually, most of the time I’m finding that I need to eat large quantities of foods in order to maintain the calories.

I really miss bread and cheese! Oh man, I really want a veggie-licious sun-dried tomato wrap from my favorite local restaurant. I keep telling myself that this diet will be over before I know it and that I’m having fantastic results so, why stress about it? Then, I get distracted by something else and forget the bread and cheese for awhile.

I purchased a dehydrator today so that I may delve further into the art of raw meal preparation. I’m hoping to be able to make something bread or tortilla-like in order to be able to make a sandwich this weekend. Doesn’t a sandwich sound nice?

Now I need to go figure out what the hell oat groats are and if I can eat them on this crazy diet…

 

 

The first daze – days!

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So, this is the second day of my vegan, raw, gluten-free, vegetarian, whole food “diet” — ugh… I shudder just looking at all those tags associated with my dietary choices. I feel so… Labeled.

Do any of you remember the golden days of your childhood when an after school snack came in a disarming blue box and the TV chanted that you too could have the “blue box blues” if you just went along and asked your parents for this delicious treat?

If you don’t then watch this:

Yeah, this dad is wearing a vest and glasses – indicating wordlessly that he’s educated and still prefers to feed his adorable little girl boxed mac and cheese when his wife “has the night off.”

Well, the truth is that I was 10 years old when this commercial aired. I grew up eating this stuff all the time and shockingly, I’m not dead. My parents even loved me.

I grew up eating the high fat, GMO, carb-a-licious Standard American Diet – or SAD, as some ironically have deemed it – that most Americans enjoy today… And I mean enjoy! People love country fried steak. I’m not sure what is in it exactly, but people look happy when they’re eating it. They don’t care that it is loaded with trans-fat, saturated fat, fat fat or growth hormones, GMO corn, antibiotics… the list goes on. They don’t care. And they’re happy.

So, why is it that I’m such a crazy person now when it comes to food selection? I guess I just wasn’t happy.

See – there is a flip side to all this marketing… it comes in the form of catchy slogans – “Plop, plop fizz fizz – Oh what a relief it is!” or my favorite…

Yay pepto bismol!

Those people look excited, but in the past when I reached for that pink bottle I found that contrary to what the advertisement showed me, I wasn’t excited or happy when needing to use their product.

I’m not sure how to wrap this little dialogue into a neat little bundle. These questions about food, life and the meaning of everything are hard to define. They seem to be different for each person – they are different for me and different for you.

I know from experience that abstaining from “normal” food is difficult and sometimes downright awful, but there are benefits too. Conversely, I know that “normal” food also has it’s downsides. I suppose it is all about what you want to live with and what you’re willing to give up.

So, that’s where my mind is at on day 2 of this exciting food journey!

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the topic! What do you think?

Re-fried beans with Sour Cream and Mango-Tomato Salsa

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Re-fried beans with Sour Cream and Mango-Tomato Salsa

On day 2 of my raw food vegan challenge I started craving Mexican food fiercely! It was an undying craving of epic proportions and I was pretty miserable thinking that I’d have to wait an entire month before eating re-fried beans again. You see, anyone who really knows me knows that I adore Mexican food with unrivaled passion. How could I abandon something so dear to me for so long? Time for some kitchen magic! Which, is what I call “cooking” now.

I went into my kitchen and took stock of the ingredients I had on hand. I already had 2 cups of sunflower seeds soaking in water – nothing fancy, but a good start.

I remembered the success I had the night before with the cashew avocado pasta sauce. I thought I could probably turn those sunflower seeds into something like beans, which are just mush anyway right?

I popped about half of the sunflower seeds into the food processor. It was really quite a lot of food, the sunflower seeds plump quite a bit after soaking. I added about two tablespoons of cumin, a small stick of celery, about 6 large cloves of garlic (I really love garlic!), and a pinch of dried red pepper.

I took a little bit out and had Philip taste it. His eyes instantly went wide as soon as the food touched his tongue “Wow, that is surprisingly re-fried bean-y like!” he exclaimed to my delight! I tasted a little too and realized I thought it was a little too spicy and really wished I could eat some tangy sour cream.

Remembering that I still had that 1/2 of the sunflower seeds left, I put those in the (cleaned) food processor. When they were nice and smooth I added some raw apple cider vinegar and the juice of 1 lemon. Not exactly sour cream like, but satisfied my craving perfectly. It was even white!

At this point I knew I couldn’t wrap a flour tortilla around these goodies. So, I laid out some romaine lettuce leaves and spread the toppings on thinly. I couldn’t help but feel like something was still missing.

I took the flesh of an entire mango, added an entire carton of cherry tomatoes and a big chunk of zucchini for protein and extra calories. I pulsed the food processor a few times – Viola! Delicious and nutritious mango-tomato salsa. I could not taste the zucchini at all.

After the little “tacos” were gone – which didn’t take long! I consumed the rest of the romaine lettuce with the mango-tomato mixture as a dressing. Super win tonight!

It tastes better than it looks, salad is hard to photograph.

 

 

This isn’t health food – is it?

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Tonight dear readers, is day 1 of my raw food diet. I’ll be posting everything I consumed today, tomorrow because I’m not finished eating today. That’s right – it’s late evening and I still am eating! Why? Well, frankly it is so hard to consume 2000 calories when all you’re eating is fruit and veggies.

Do you know how many calories are really in oranges, strawberries, cucumbers and the like? Hardly anything. You could eat until you’re way past full and barely break 300 – Seriously.

So, after stuffing myself with pounds of produce and getting tired of straight sliced fruits and vegetables – I had an idea! And I’m so glad I did…

I purchased a Titan brand vegetable slicer as you can see in the picture above. Please, know that I’m not suggesting you run out and buy one, but it works for me. I used it to cut several large, luscious zucchini into long flexible “pasta” strands.

Then, I used my oh so handy food processor to obliterate a cup and a half of raw cashews! Yeah, they’re raw and packed with calorie dense nutrients.

To this already calorie brimming mixture I added a half of a huge Florida avocado, a few tablespoons of water and blended this mixture until it was smooth and creamy and – oh my goodness I’m drooling thinking about it…

I topped my “pasta” with the sauce mixture and haven’t stopped complimenting myself yet. Maybe this raw food diet won’t be such a chore after-all.

Things I’ve said to compliment myself about this meal:

Oh em gee! This is like the simplest “recipe” ever. There are like, what? Four ingredients?

Danielle, you’re so amazing you even make raw food taste good!

Don’t cha wish your dinner was raw like mine? Come on baby, don’t cha?

Kvetching already?

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In order to prepare for this drastic change in my daily life I’ve been weaning myself off coffee. My husband told me this morning, “I dreamed that I was eating coffee beans, one by one, and they tasted like chocolate.”

I guess I didn’t realize it, but my husband has been abstaining from coffee too. Poor supportive husband, he is still napping on the couch. I think he is definitely having a harder time of it than me. In fact, after my 3 hour nap and then 12 hour sleep I’m feeling pretty awesome! Hopefully, this energy will last.

So, this is my first day without any coffee. Thursday I consumed 3/4 of my normal amount and then yesterday was really difficult with only 1/2 of my normal allotment of coffee. Yesterday, was so hard, but I’m hoping that was the worst of it.

I’ve also been decreasing my dairy and grain intake and seriously increasing my daily intake of raw, uncooked vegetables and fruits. I had a dinner of carrots and oranges on Wednesday that was surprisingly satisfying. Hopefully, I’ll still feel that way three weeks from now!

Please, join me throughout this exciting experiment. Feel free to leave me notes or words of encouragement to help steel my resolve against the dreaded cheese pizza and chocolate ice cream. I’m also very interested in those nutrition expert’s opinions out there. Let me know if you think I need more protein for example and what foods you recommend I add to my diet. I do a ton of research, but I love to learn from others as well.