There is something about the color white that makes me feel very angelic and free. White symbolizes so many lovely things: Purity, Weddings, Innocence and so many other wonderful things. I wanted to wear something pretty and whtie and enjoy it before I got barbecue sauce all over it...LOL
I plan on saying a silent prayer for our troops, both fallen and the ones still with us. Then I plan on having lots of barbecue, licking my fingers, sopping up the barbecue sauce with bread and enjoying this day:-)
I am wearing white shoes, which is huge for me because I have not worn white shoes since I was a little girl. I have never liked white shoes, but I saw these and had to have them. I love whte and turquoise together so I paired this white ensemble with turquoise accessories. I hope you have an amazing holiday!
White Dress: Crush Boutique, Silver Clutch: JC Penney, ShoesL Random Boutique, Jewelry: Burlington Coat Factory
Ever since I was a little girl, Orange Crush has been my favorite soda!
I decided to kick a little flow today. We have explored fashion and food and now it is time for you to experience my flow. This poem like a lot of my writing, was sparked by a conversation.
A man asked me recently what it takes to get close to me and what I want in a man. I thought about it.And it took me a millisecond to answer it. This poem expresses my sentiment. Let me know your thoughts.
You better make me smile
I need to smile like theres a million dollar check
In my mailbox
And you better not hurt me
But make me smile
The way I did when I held my son in my arms
After ten hours of labor
Make me smile
like
A child on Christmas morning
That still believes in Santa Claus
A smile Like I just gotpaid and its Friday night
I don’t need a stone set
And matching baguettes
But a smile?
You better make me smile
Because a big d*** and good looks
Is like a carbonated drink
It gets flat after a while
And if you can’t make me smile
You need to inspire me
Like speed chasing light
Or Bach adding another note to the symphony
Or Jesus walking on water
And if you cant inspire me
You need to encourage me
I mean pull out the pom poms when I’m losing the game
Encouragement
Or jump off that cliff baby
I’ll catch you if your wings aren’t strong enough to make you fly
encouragement
And if you cant inspire me
Maybe you can ignite me
Light me up like a trail of fire
Chasing fuel
Or Mercury flirting with Venus
And if you can’t inspire or ignite me
Dammit
You need to celebrate me
I’m talking cherry bombs burst, fireworks big production bang
celebration
Roll out the red carpet because I’m comin
celebration
Kiss my daddy for making me
celebration
Butter cream frosting on moist cake
celebration
Distill your own wine because
They don’t make one with enough complex notes and flavor to capture my effervescence
Celebration
And if you can’t inspire, encourage, ignite, or celebrate me?
This is one of those salads that is light, refreshing and full of flavor. Perfect for spring and summer! The Kiwi and Avocado is a great comnbination. The hint of sweetness from the Kiwi and Mandarin oranges is enhanced perfectly by a flavorful peach vinaigrette. Enjoy!
For the Salad:
Approximately 2 cups spring salad mix with baby spinach
Approxinmately 2 cups romaine lettuce
1/2 cup mandarin oranges
1 sliced avocado
1 sliced Kiwi
In a large bowl, combine all salad ingredients and put aside
Peach Vinaigrette
1/3 cup peach nectar
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 tablespoons sugar
Whisk ingredients together in bowl until well combined. if the flavor needs to be adjusted, you can add more olive oil or peach nectar as needed.
This is the start of another work week. I hope you had an amazing weekend! I would like to thank North on Harper for featuring me in their recent brunch attire feature. You can see the feature by clicking
I am excited about my first give away, which will be in partnership with Danielle Celeste Couture. I will announce details on the giveaway soon, so stay tuned. You can check out Danielles amazing one of a kind couture clothing at : Danielle Celeste Couture
I have gotten all of your emails asking when i am going to post some of my poetry and I promise, I will post some poetic flow soon. I hope you are ready to experience it. Today, I chose a simple ensemble for work and just added a fun animal print scarf. I hope you enjoy the pictures:-)
Red blazer: Macys, Zebra Scarf: Saks Fifth Avenue, Slacks: Express, Booties: Urban OG, Purse: random boutique in Little Italy section of New York
This post came about when I was having a conversation with some friends about friendship and the complex dynamics that exist between friendships with other women. I wanted to write about a subject no one likes to talk about. Keep reading...
The word Faux, is great when it refers to fur or some other inanimate object. I have a faux fur hanging in my closet, it is beautiful, it keeps me warm and you would never know it wasn’t real fur unless I told you. Deep down at the core of those fibers that make my faux fur jacket look like the real thing, it is fake.
Artificial.
Fake friends are just like that. They look and feel real, but they are not. The danger in faux friends is that they are worse than enemies. At least with an enemy you know where they are coming from, with a fake friend, they secretly dislike you, but you are oblivious to that fact because they pretend they are your friend.
A real friendship is like a palm tree, it bends, sways, even through challenges, but it never breaks. And if you are lucky, you have a friend like a cedar tree in Lebanon, it thrives forever. If you have even one friendship like this, consider yourself very blessed.
Friendships with women are priceless, deep, emotional and challenging, but sometimes too much estrogen is a bad thing. I was having a conversation with a male friend of mine and he said that women are always competing with each other and he stated that male friendships don’t have that dynamic. He said that our friendships are laced with envy and her ugly sister, jealousy.
I had to ponder that for a moment and then I realized that over the years I have experienced friendships that I thought were genuine and then years later I discovered that some of those friends didn't really like me. And there were those that were not well wishers but pretended that they were.
If you want to experience that one, just announce your engagement and watch what unravels when you plan your wedding. And there were the ones that always had something negative to say. Dream snatchers is what I call them. and this soapbox woud not be complete if I didn't mention the ones that made everything a competition. Of course by the time I realized some of these things, I was already emotionally attached because I let them get close to me not knowing that they weren't genuine.
Has that ever happened to you?
The challenge in spotting a faux friendship that is not in your best interest, is that when you are too close to it, you don’t see clearly. Or the friendship is like an old pair of clothing, or shoes that you just don’t want to donate or trash because you think they are going to come back in style at some point and then you can wear it again. But here is the caveat, if and when it does come back in Vogue, do you really want to wear it?
Here are some of the telltale signs of faux friends:
Phone calls only to talk about what is going on in their life, but icy indifference when it comes to yours
Around for the good times, but when you go through the storm you cant find them in the daytime with a flashlight. The flip side of this is the old mantra that misery loves company. There are also those that love it when you are down and the minute things shift for you, they can’t stand it
And this classic trait, they smile in your face but they talk about you behind your back
They ignore your victories
When you accomplish something impressive green foam comes out of their mouth. They would rather ignore your accomplishments than celebrate them with you
They use personal things you revealed about yourself and all of your weaknesses against you
They are happy with your gifts and your blessings as long as you don’t pass them up on the freeway of life. Did u get that?
And now the signs of a real friend
A shoulder for your tears and champagne for your victories
They are genuinely concerned about you and show it through action
When the storm comes they provide an umbrella and then walk with you until the sun rises again
They are happy when you are thriving, in fact they are as happy for you as they would be for themselves
They don’t allow trivial matters to contaminate your friendship
They are not jealous hearted and are thrilled at your accomplishments
They want the best for you
They know what is going on in your life because they stay in contact with you through real person to person contact
And what about those shades of gray? The friendships you can’t quite classify? Here are a few ways to gain clarity. Think about the last time they picked up the phone and actually called you. If they asked how you were, was that a platitude, or did they really care about the answer?
Life is too short for faux friends. Do you have any hanging in your closet?
I have always loved chocolate chip cookies. Warm from the over with a glass of milk, they are the ultimate comfort dessert. There are those times when I want lots of chocolate and other times when I want to enjoy more of the brown sugary part of the cookie. With this recipe, you can have the best of both worlds! A little cookie with your chocolate:-) Instead of the traditional chocolate chip cookie, these miniature brown sugar cookies have the chps on the side. Rich chocolate Hershey's kisses, served with these cookies and milk shots, make for a stylish presentation and a delicious miniature treat!
I like to serrve these on a beautiful platter. I have made the presentation stylish and modern with an animal print table runner paired with a bright spring lime green fabric. These look great on a platter or on small saucers. Try serving these at your next function. Your guests will devour these tiny treats! The serving possibilities are endless! Use your imagination and have fun with this modern take on the chocolate chip cookie.
Ingredients
2 sticks softened butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon warm mill (this activates the baking soda)
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup Hersheys kisses
Cream the butter until fluffy. Add both sugars and continue to mix.Add the vanilla extract, one of the eggs and mix. Add the last egg and continue mixing. In a small bowl, mix the baking soda with the warm milk. Add to the sugar butter mixture mixture and mix.Add the flout and salt and mix.
Heat the oven to 350 (over temperatures may vary slightly)
Use your hands to shape the dough into small balls. Shape the dough about the size of a large marble. Place on well-greased cookie sheet, or use parchment paper to line your baking sheet. Arrange on the cookie sheet, leaving 1 inch of space between cookies. Bake until golden brown, 8-10 minutes. Let the cookies stand for 2 minutes on the pan and serve warm the Hersheys kisses on the side.
Note: You can also shape the dough and freeze in an airtight zip lock bag.
Too cute to pass up...
Remix!!!!!
Remix!!! Are you ready to indulge?
Serve Cookies with style!
Absolutely divine with a cold milk shot
I was waiting for you to have one, but I had to take a bite:-)
This is a very special post and I apologize that its such a long one. I wanted to write about being happy. Exactly one year and three weeks ago today, I was diagnosed with Leukemia. That is a life altering word. Leukemia. At that monent, the things that I thought were so important meant nothing to me. I no longer cared about what people thought of me, or how much money I had in the bank or in my retirement plan. I could only think of one thing.
I could die.
And then I started thinking about what I might miss, like seeing my son dance at his wedding reception, or one day holding my grandchild and teaching him or her about the joy of cooking, the way I do with my son right now. I thought about my younger years and all of the time I wastred worrying about what other people thought, or trying to live up to impossible standards. After that grim diagnosis, I took a trip with
two of my closest friends and tried to forget about the diagnosis, but I kept thinking about losing my hair and going through chemotherapy re-emerging as a bald, frail shell of my former self.
I wouldn't be human if I didn't have those thoughts. I might sound melodramatic, but the very thought of laying in the ground in a wood box with dirt as my blanket, twisted my mind into a pretzel.
I continued life as normally as I could and had only shared the news with my mother and a couple of other people. I went to work every day trying to pretend like nothing was wrong. The thought that kept coming back to me was that I could be knocking on heaven's door and I wasn't ready. There were dreams deferred, places I hadn't seen, my son and I hadn't made home made brioche yet. After three weeks of thinking I had Leukeaia, my doctor told me I had been misdiagnosed.
Three weeks is a short amount of time under normal circumstnces, but an eternity when you think you have a debillitating medical condition. Those three weeks felt like thirty years to me. So the facts were in, I was misdiagnosed.
Do you know what that meant? I now had another chance to go back and live life more fearlessly. So I am jsut happy to be here. HAPPY! Do you hear me? Ok, so what does happy look like?
It looks like me in a colorful dress enjoying a beautiful day of sunshine!
I wanted to put on something bright, colorful and pretty to rreflect the joy I have on the inside to be here
another day. Can you feel my joy?
I hope you continue with me on my journey back from what was a devastating 2010, as I blog about the things I am most passionate about. These things are a part of my healing process. I hope that you come along for this journey so that we can look fabulous, cook amazing food as I share my recipes, and you can listen to me flow about the things in life that move me.
This is my food, my fashion and my flow...
Dress: Steinmart, Purse, LA Fashion District, Shoes: Urban OG
"I see your true colors shining through, I see your true colors, thats why I love you, so don't be afraid to let them show, true colors are beautiful like a rainbow"
This song by Cyndi Lauper is the song I have sang to my son every night for the past two
years and now he looks at me with his big brown eyes and sings this to me. And then he says: "Mommy" and I respond, "Yes Sweetheart?" and then he says " I see your true colors mommy"
Happy Monday Lovely Ones! The world is your oyster!
