I really (don't) love juice cleanses.

Some may remember two months ago when I decided to try to lose a few pounds before Shannon's wedding (in order to fit into my bridesmaid dress...yup, that was my life) by going on a three-day juice cleanse. I posted several Instagram pictures of my juices when I first got them and a lot of people wanted to hear what I thought and how it was. 

Welp, it was horrible. It has taken me two months to write this because it's taken me two months to get over how awful it was, haha.

It seemed like an amazing idea. I love juice. I could easily drink juice nonstop for three days. I read up for weeks before trying to find the best (and the cheapest) ones based on reviews on other blogs, etc. I finally made a my pick -- the BluePrint Cleanse (Renovation). They had great packaging and the juices seemed decent. I found several awesome blog reviews of BPC, so I went for it. I spent $225.00 on 3 days of juice. 

Here's a little, mini-journal of what I went through. 

Day 1

Juice 1: Made my breath smell horrible - or so I thought. Wasn't the best way to start the day but it could have been worse. Drank it during a morning meeting so it got real warm and gross. The last few sips made me want to vom but I made it through somehow. Felt really accomplished.

Juice 2: Sounded amazing. Thought it would be one of the better ones. then I smelled it before I drank any of it and wanted to die. The first few sips are very minty...too minty. But the more I drank it the more I liked it.

After Juice 2: I was pretty alert and awake and not hungry and not wanting food immediately after. I felt kind of light and air-y and the mint taste stayed in my mouth for a bit after so when I was drinking water, it tasted really weird. After about 30 minutes of finishing, I started to feel tired and sleepy. An hour after that, things escalated quickly and I wanted real food for the first time all day. I became extremely hungry, heard a coworker making food in the microwave and thought I was going to die. At around 2:00pm I started to crave weird foods like tomato soup - the kind that they served us in our cafeteria in high school that was just water-y tomato juice. 

Juice 3: Same as juice 1 - my LEAST favorite. So yucky the second time around. It was a rough afternoon. Where's the pizza?

Juice 4: Really spicy. No joke about it being spicy lemonade. I had to drink it through a straw but that helped get it down. I still avoided it for about 45 minutes and then right before work, I just chugged it to get it down. It was not fun times.

On the way home, I felt a bit lightheaded again and kind of grumpy for the first time all day.

I got home, saw brownies on the counter, and wanted to die. 

Juice 5: As I started drinking it, I heard the ice cream truck. Never wanted ice cream so badly in my adult life. It hurt my heart. Ouch.

Juice 6: Clearly the highlight of my day. It was actually normal -- but it was chunky. I honestly thought that if the rest of my juices were like this one, I could maybe actually do it for the remainder of the cleanse. 

Day 2

Juice 1: Attempted to drink Juice 1 after waking up feeling sick to my stomach. Had one sip, almost got sick. Took a 5-minute break and came back to it. This time I tried to drink it while plugging my nose (because that's supposed to help me not taste it...right?). Couldn't do it. Went to the kitchen at work and threw it away. 

After Juice 1 (or the sip I had of it), things went downhill extremely quickly. I couldn't even think about drinking Juice 2...but I tried. 

Lunchtime rolled around and it was time for Juice 3 (same as Juice 1) again. Couldn't even look at it so I decided I just wouldn't drink any more juice that day. I wasn't going to break the cleanse, but I wasn't going to drink any of that juice either. 

Spent most of the afternoon with my head on and off my desk, looking exhausted. My lovely cubiclemates agreed that I looked pretty awful. Around 4:30, I really, honestly thought I wasn't going to make it. Decided that I was going to get a salad from Panera - just a regular ol' salad with tomatoes and cukes - nothing else. 

Got to Panera, decided I wanted a baguette too. Why not, right? Got home, ate my salad, went over to the kitchen and there were those same brownies that I saw the evening before and wanted so badly. I felt so sick to my stomach (as I did all day) but I knew that eating something more was going to feel really great. So I did it. I ate a brownie and never looked back.

So, that's that. So awful and horrible tasting that I actually gave up after 2 days and threw the rest of my juice away. I couldn't even give away. No one wanted it! Still, even two months later, I will randomly be sitting at work or in my car and I'll get a whiff of Juice 1/Juice 3 and want to gag. Forever punished. 

I love weekends.

Hi again, blog. Long time, no see! 

This weekend I:

visited Nick + Shannon (hehe, the Barrs) @ their new apartment finally. We got Chick-fil-a, drank pumpkin beer, and lol'ed. Best times. Can't wait for the Fantasy Football draft @ their place next weekend with so many snacks and so many pumpkin beers and me probably not getting a good team but still being really excited about it. 
celebrated my mom's birthday by taking her out to lunch @ Beck's with Catie - finally. We were only a month and a week late. Sowwy, mommy. John Mayer was our waiter (there's a waiter at Beck's that looks exactly like John Mayer) and the child/baby expo was going on outside on Main Street so it was amazing people watching from our table. Saw some cops on Segways and robots requesting high fives so that was pretty great, I guess. 
stopped by Gyspy Systers. Sigh. It's a really rough life because I want literally everything in there but then I get so overwhelmed by wanting everything and end up walking out with nothing. It's not right and it's not fair to anyone - especially myself.  I need to go back again soon and buy a million candles. And some purple feather earrings for football season :)
hung out with some neighbors that moved to South Carolina but stopped by for the weekend on a trip up to Syracuse. Hi, Momos! They brought some peaches from SC that might be the best peaches I have ever had...ever. So perfect. 

I'm going to try really hard to start posting more and making fun things and baking good foods so get excited! Hehehe. Lots of fun things coming up! 

I love Shannon('s birthday).

Happy birthday, Shannon! It's your golden birthdayyyyyy. Weeeeeee. Here are 24 reasons why you're awesome. 

1. You're the best. 
2. You've got nice hair. 
3. You've got a nice cat - see what I did there? Your cat is friendly - I can't deny it. 
4. You make me laugh more than anyone else. You make everyone laugh because you're hilarious and ridiculous.
5. You're so friendly. Actually friendly. I'm not saying friendly because you say friendly. You're actually friendly. 
6. You make people feel great. Thank you for that. How did we all get so lucky to have you in our lives? Not sure but thanks for that too. 
7. You are very generous. 
8. You're a good walking partner. Walking forever. 
9. You're good at making cupcakes. And also eating them with me. Cutcakes.
10. You are good at talking about Ed Sheeran. And Zac Efron. 
11. You love Disney as much as I do. Probably more but I appreciate you helping my love for Disney grow. I can't wait to go to Disney World with you and cry with you over Wishes. Cry is an understatement. I think we'll be sobbing - or at least I will be. You're the only person that I could ever do that with.
12. You're extremely understanding.
13. You love sports as much as I do. Mostly football. But baseball is okay too because Mannnyyy Achadddooo.
14. You love food as much as I do. Talking about food while we eat food.
15. You have a great taste in restaurants. Example: you love Chili's.
16. You are still friends with me even if I'm A. Also, I'm A. 
17. You remember everything. 
18. You are great at sports. 
19. You're awesome at school. So great at grad school right now. 
20. You try to see the best in everyone. 
21. You love Christmas so much. Happy Half Christmas Eve.
22. You're my blog's biggest fan.
23. You have some road rage in you which I can appreciate.
24. You're an amazing friend to me.

I hope you have the best day ever. Can't wait to celebrate with food. The only way to celebrate. 

I love(d) my four-day birthday weekend.

My birthday was Thursday. I'm 24 now. I had the best four-day birthday weekend. I'm a lucky gal. I'm also old (or getting there). Here's to hoping year 24 is as good as this weekend was!

During my birthday weekend, I:

• went to Chili's for my birthday lunch - it doesn't get much better than that. Shannon + I had the most energetic waitress (whose name was Lindsay - that's some birthday magic right there) and I basically yolo'ed on appetizers and Blue Moon. Best life.
• broke a plate or two and ate the best nachos and drank the best sangria at my birthday dinner with Paul at Cheesecake Factory. So yummy + so clumsy. 
• got a birthday shout out from my favorite NFL player on Twitter - Anthony Allen. I think I laughed so hard I cried for about five minutes. Seriously - anyone who knows me, knows I love the sht out of him. I was so happy. 
• ate the best birthday cake of all time - triple layer banana cake with peanut butter + cream cheese frosting. Mmmmmmm.
• made the trek down to Bethesda for dinner with Shannon + Catie. I love Bethesda. So many stores and great restaurants and most importantly of all - Georgetown Cupcake.
• made the tipsy mistake of purchasing an entire dozen of cupcakes. Why? I wish I knew. I can't eat 12 cupcakes on my own. That's not true. I probably could but I don't want to be sick everywhere (TMI or...?) and/or gain 10 pounds overnight. I learned that I shouldn't be going into a cupcake shop while tipsy because this is going to happen and it's just not a good idea.
• had my first frozen yogurt of the season. Also, it's worth noting that I ate gummy bears for the first time in a long time on my froyo - ugh, I love them. Such an addiction to gummy candies + Twizzlers lately. I'm a child. 
• spent the last afternoon of my weekend at the Fine Art + Wine Festival in Sykesville. Sangria, getting to see the new GypsySysters store, spending time with fun people. It was the best way to end my weekend.
• decided to commit to being a part of a football league with Shannon, Nick, Paul, etc. Should be good if all goes well!

I love May goals.

A while back, I was coming up with six goals per month. After a couple months, I noticed that the number of goals I was actually accomplishing was going down and down and down (and down and down and down). I went from doing six goals, to three, then doing zero. 

Goals are back, though! I wish I could call them "challenges" because that's more accurate. For example: since January, I've had two fairly huge "challenges" for myself. One was to go without Starbucks for as long as I possibly could. I went a whole 47 days without it! I think I broke the addiction because I think I have only gone twice since I broke. It's really exciting for me. 
The second challenge I had was to go as long as possible without drinking beer. I was just curious to see if I could go without it - but I'm not sure where I was going with that because clearly I need it. I attribute my love for beer - that has developed over the past year - to the pounds that have been added to my body. I guess what I learned from my 20 days without beer was that moderation is probably better for my life than no beer at all. Lesson learned.

Anyway, here they are!

1. Run 40 miles in the month of May
This shouldn't be too hard if I can stick to my running schedule. I've been able to easily run 2.5 miles -- which is huge for me. So if I can keep that up and throw in a couple 3 mile evening runs, I should be good. I'm excited! 
2. Organize my closet.
Here's a before picture for you. 

What a hot mess. It's gotten worse and worse over the last year - since I started working full-time. I have no time to clean it. That's a lie. I do have time, I'd just rather watch the previous night's Late Night with Jimmy Fallon than clean my closet out.
3. Make cake pops. 
Yup, this is actually a goal. I finally have all of the supplies to make cake pops - thanks to Shannon - so I need to do it. Pretty great goal.

I love(d) April.

I want to start off by thanking everyone who donated and helped me raise a (grand) total of $440 for the Maryland SPCA through the March for the Animals. I started out with a goal of $300 for this year which was around what I was able to raise last year. Of course I hoped to raise more than that but I never thought it would happen. It really means a lot to me (as I probably told you when you donated) so thanks times a million.

The walk itself was pretty great (after a fun morning of realizing Sasha had TOO much exercise the day before and was limping all morning because she was sore, haha). It was a chilly + windy morning which was kind of a bummer but I ended up getting pretty sweaty after having to pick Sasha up towards the end of the walk. Nope, I wasn't picking her up because she was sore still - she was actually fine the entire time. It was because at the end of the walk, there's a ton of vendors and a million dogs wandering around that are about 3x her size, haha. She can't handle it. She gets really timid and weird and won't walk - she'll just stand there. So I had to pick her up in order to get through the end of the walk without it taking 2 hours. Or rather, Paul and I had to take turns carrying her. Teamwork, haha.
One of the best parts of the walk was Art Jones hanging out at the "finish" line. He's huge. I should've chatted but I was too scared - typical life. Anyone even remotely famous intimidates me too much for me to go up and talk. What am I going to say to him? "You're awesome you're a Super Bowl champion let's go hang out at Hightopps come on let's hang out tell me what Flacco talks about in the lockeroom tell me all of the secrets." I'd say that all in one breath. That'll go over well, hahaha. Yeah...so didn't talk to him but got close to him and that's enough for creepy me.

More highlights from April:

• My dad's birthday - he's the best! Got him a card from Minted - I mentioned it a previous post but look at it (above). It's awesome. He liked it, of course. How could you not? 
• Two O's games in one month? Best. 
• Got my first Birchbox. I'd give it an 8 out of 10. The box it came in was probably the best part about the entire thing. I'm going to give it another try this month and see if it gets any better!
• Started running a lot more and worked up to being able to run an actual 5k (or 3.2 miles) without a problem. Here's to hoping I can do that next weekend at the Color Run! 

I love things lately.

Okaaaay. The title of this post isn't entirely true. The past week and a half have been a little bit on the rough side. If I'm being real, last week may have been the worst week I've had in years - so that was fun. Really great times. Luckily, this week is better and the good news is only two days until the weekend!

Instead of whining (and trust me, I could do it) about how incredibly annoying things/events/people/life was/were last week, I'm going to update you guys on some of the positive things that have been going on! 

I enjoyed Paul's birthday. I think he probably did too. We went out to his favorite restaurant - the fancy, magical Olive Garden - but went to the new one in Owings Mills which was surprisingly amazing. It's so new and nice and our waiter was kind of an a-hole but I didn't mind because he just did his job and didn't try to be too obnoxious - and I respect that, haha. Other than dinner, we didn't do a whole lot on his actual birthday - Sunday. Mostly just hung out with Sasha - which is enough fun on it's own, haha. We could have just done that the entire day. I love birthdays. Mine's next! Can't wait.

The weather has been amazing. I wish I had a better word to describe it but I don't want to go to thesaurus.com to look for another word and end up using something cheesy. I'll just stick to amazing. Traffic has been a hot mess (infuriating) disaster the past week and a half which is confusing but the best part about it is: I get to (kind of) be outside during my weekday. I like to think it's the traffic gods giving me a chance to enjoy the nice weather before heading inside to sit at my desk for 8 hours. Thanks, traffic gods. Love ya.

I do love me some new apps. Thanks to Kayleigh from Elliot in the Morning and her Instagram, I found the Nike Running app. This thing is the best. Not only does it track how much I've run/ran but it yells nice things at me while I do it. Well, not really. It just tells me how fair I've gone and my pace, etc. I like to think she's trying to motivate me and I like that. I run on a treadmill and didn't think that running apps could track how much I've run but I was wrong - this one can! I'm sure it'll come in handy once I start running outside too! I'd highly recommend it!

I've got a lot of work to do coming up. Doing a lot of thinking about my future - which is something I tend to try to not think about. Gotta do it sometime, I guess. 90% of me thinking about my future has been questioning "how soon in my life can I make cake pops because I'v never made them before and that needs to happen?" Things are getting serious, obviously. 

I love these things.

1. Minted -- sure there are plenty of sites where you can make customized cards with pictures, etc. but this place has free shipping. And it's easy peasy. And everything is so quirky like Zooey Deshannel. And I made the best birthday card for my dad on it.
2. Charm City Puppies' Easter-themed new puppy pictures. Seriously?
3. Finding out a new, less expensive and BETTER way to clean my make-up brushes. I had been using this weird concoction for months and it smelled SO BAD and it didn't work that well but I'm new to make-up brushes so I thought it was the only way to do it. Shout out to Pinterest.
4. Puppy Weather. Best app ever or best app ever? 

Also, HI. Woodbine Hotine's EP release show (and Benn's last show with WBHL) was announced and it's super soon. Come. Their new stuff is so good. It's only $5 and it's going to be great times. Here's some more info.