My June Birchbox arrived the day after my birthday, so in a way it was like an extra box of birthday goodies! Yippee! I’m in love with the June box design, though one of the corners of mine got a little squished in transit. 🙁
Birchbox: June 2016
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Forty-Nine Names
I’m aware that my blog is typically filled with innocuous things that don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. And that’s okay. But in the wake of the horrible mass shooting at Pulse in Orlando last weekend, I did not feel right posting a regular Friday Five this week. So in lieu of Friday Five, I’m dedicating this post to the forty-nine victims who so senselessly lost their lives at the hands of a U.S.-born monster with a legally purchased assault rifle.
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#tbt to When I Was Totally Into Book Series
Today’s Throwback Thursday demonstrates what a good little book nerd I was as a kid. I’m guessing this photo was taken in sixth or seventh grade. It appears to have been taken in a hotel room, so my family was probably on vacation.
I’m posing with Sweet Valley Twins #32: Jessica On Stage, The Fabulous Five #12: Katie’s Dating Tips, and Sweet Valley High #58: Brokenhearted. I had actually totally forgotten about The Fabulous Five series until I saw this photo. I LOVED these and other book series (Babysitters Club! Satin Slippers!) and couldn’t wait to get my hands on the new ones as they were released. Clearly I had a fun time reading while on this vacation, wherever it was. I wish we still had my huge book series collection at my parents’ house, but they are all long gone, donated to charity. I hope some other kids got to enjoy these books as much as I did!
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My 38th Birthday: So Far, So Good!
I turned 38 this past Monday, June 13, and I’ve had a wonderful time celebrating. My husband and I kicked off the festivities on Saturday night—we did an early birthday celebration together because he had to work on the night of my actual birthday. He surprised me by making dinner reservations at Beetle House, the new Beetlejuice/Tim Burton-inspired restaurant in the East Village! Beetlejuice is one of my all-time favorite movies and I’d been wanting to check the place out. We got verrry mildly goth’d out for the evening, by which I mean we wore black and I did a smoky eye look. Okay, totally not goth. 😛
Friday Five
1. Hill Country BBQ: last Friday my husband and I did a little date night with a friend at this downtown Brooklyn BBQ joint. We went to the location in Chelsea years ago and really liked it, and the food did not disappoint the second time around. The setup is a little confusing—you wait to get seated, but then you go up to the counter and order your food and bring back a booklet showing what you ordered so your server can charge you appropriately. The place is even veggie-friendly; I got mac & cheese (which is amazing), cucumber salad, and cornbread with ancho honey butter. I like to put BBQ sauce on the mac & cheese. Is that weird? Maybe. Do I care? Nope!
#tbt to 1982
This week’s Throwback Thursday is a Polaroid of me feeding my little sister yogurt. The photo is dated January 24, 1982, so my sister was about nine months old at the time and I was almost four—probably around the same time I managed to get my first ponytail.
It’s hard to tell, but it looks like my sis is wearing a bib that says “I Love Daddy.” I’d like to point out the super vintage Dannon lowfat blueberry yogurt container sitting on the kitchen table. Our mom was into lowfat foods all the way back then!
My lifelong dislike of messes is evident by the fact I somehow managed to get only a drop of yogurt on the high chair tray while feeding a nine-month-old (though my sister’s face and bib are covered in yogurt).
How cute were we?!
Friday Five
1. Front Porch Herb Garden: we decided to get some herbs to grow on the front porch so that we can have fresh herbs to cook with! So last weekend we got basil, oregano, and thyme plants and potted them up. I hope I can keep them alive; I have a better track record with orchids than with other plants (weird, I know).
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#tbt to My First Ponytail
When I was back at my parents’ house for my high school reunion almost a month ago I went through old photo albums and took lots of pics for future #tbt posts. These two related pics make for perfect Throwback Thursday posts: they are pics of my first ponytail at age 3 1/2!
It’s hard to see the ponytail in the first pic, so I’m glad there’s also a profile shot. And you know what? When I put my hair up in a ponytail now at the age of almost 38, it looks basically the same, just longer. Ah, my poor, baby fine hair. 😛 My little dress, knee high socks, and mary janes were pretty cute, though!
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Friday Five
1. Snapchat: I resisted downloading this app SO HARD, but I finally broke down and did it last week. And it’s so much fun! I haven’t fully figured out all the features, but it’s worth it just for the Layers, which the app updates daily. Layers basically overlay crazy filters over your face so that you end up with looks like the ones you see below. The weirder and crazier the better, IMO! I’ve also figured out how to create Stories (aka “I Googled ‘how to create Stories on Snapchat’ because I’m old) and am trying to get in the habit of doing those.
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HelloFresh Veggie Box Review + $50 Discount on Your First Two Boxes
Somehow it’s been months since I’ve written a full-on review of a HelloFresh veggie box! To be fair, I don’t get these boxes regularly—I only order them when all three menu options for the week sound easy to make and when I feel too lazy to come up with dinner ideas on my own. This week we got a veggie box that we were very happy with, so I want to share the experience here with you.
If you’re not familiar with HelloFresh, it’s a subscription-based meal kit service that delivers recipes, along with all the ingredients needed, right to your door. You can read more details about how the service works down at the bottom of this post.
This week’s vegetarian meals were:
Sweet Potato Niçoise Salad with Lemon-Dijon Dressing
