Mean Green Fiber Machine

I wanted the first post for my recipe section to be a smoothie that we've been making on a daily basis. I know the name is pretty out there but that's how I feel about this smoothie. I know many people think you need to take alot of those gimmicky pills and crazy diet plans to lose weight but really, you just need to eat right and exercise and your body will do the rest. On most days, I usually have one of these smoothies for lunch with a Luna bar and I'll be good until we have dinner. It's a great healthy meal replacement and it's pretty all natural. I don't like putting in any of those meal replacement powders or protein powders. All I add are some green veggies and frozen fruits. Right now we are using a Nutri-Bullet to make our smoothies. We weren't really sure how serious we were going to get with this so we didn't feel like it would be great to spend like $400 on a Vitamix so we bought the Nutri-Bullet instead. We got ours for $80 from Bed, Bath and Beyond, original price was $100 and we had a 20% off coupon for it. Okay, so for the recipe. Mean Green Fiber Machine: 1/2 cup of kale handful of frozen mangos or fresh if you have handful of frozen pineapple or fresh if you have 1/2 of an orange 1/8 cup of flax seeds Water till the "Max" line (or you can add juice) Depending on how you like your smoothie, you can vary the type of fruits/veggies that you like but for this recipe, we like to add these. Usually we keep with the kale, mangoes, pineapple and flax seeds. Depending on what we have at the time, we will usually switch out the orange with either apples, strawberries, blueberries, bananas. I usually try to add 3 different types of fruits because I think kale has a really strong flavor and the fruits mask it really well. I always add flax seed. It's very high in antioxident which is great for your skin and also for losing weight. Also, you can vary with the type of liquid that you add. If we have some kind of juice like orange or apple, we will add it instead of water but usually water is good to add. You can vary on how much water you add depending on how thick you want the consistency of the smoothie to be. I like mine more watery so I feel like I'm drinking it rather than it being thicker and I feel like I'm eating it. If it's warm outside, I'll add some ice to it or add less water if I have some frozen fruit so I has like a froyo consistency but usually I like mine more watery. That's basically it. You can always substitute the kale for other veggies, I just suggest you keep it within the same leafy green family. When we can't get kale, we usually use baby spinach and it works the same. Add this and a luna bar of your choice (I really like the Chocolate Peppermint Stick or Blueberry Bliss or Lemon Zest) and I have a really filling lunch. This can probably hold me down until dinner time. Sometimes I might get hungry and I'll grab some fruits or some crackers or another luna bar and I'm usually great. Let me know if you guys do any types of smoothie and share your recipes with me!

New Blog Entries

So I've been thinking about which direction I want this blog to go. I know there is a million and one beauty blogs out there and many people usually follow the more known ones and I felt like this blog would just adding to the long lists of ones to be discovered. Since I've been getting more involved in so many things in my life now and I myself have been spreading my wings out to different things, I felt like my blog should do the same. I think I want to add a few things to it and the one thing I'm so excited about is the technology part that I've been thinking about adding. TechnoNerd. I am a huge tech geek, been like that ever since I was younger. My daddy use to teach my brother and I things about computers since we got our first one way back when computers use to run DOS, yes I said DOS. I've been builing my own PCs ever since forever and I just love all the new technology that has been introduced in the past few years. There are a few things that I think I'll post there, nothing really too crazy. I want to start like AOTW (App of the week) and just review some items that I recently have or want to purchase especially a new purchse I just made today but I won't post it till I receive and test it out. But nonetheless, there are a few things out there that many people don't know and I want to share with everyone. I feel like a broken down record player when I convince my friends of new apps I've downloaded or new things I purchase and try to convert them over and if they love them, I think my readers would love them too. Bookworm. I also wanted to add a new section for book reviews and thoughts. I am a huuuuge book freak and I always wanted to join a bookclub but honestly, I don't think I have time to go to weekly meetings and what if I don't like the book of the week that people recommend. Don't get me wrong, there are times when I would spend the whole day reading and finish a book within the day but there are times when I would drag that book out for weeks at a time depending on how crazy my schedule is or how into the book I am. A part of me also kind of dread finishing a book or a series of the book because I would have to hunt down a new book to read so maybe I can use this to open to everyone for suggestions for new titles to read or new books that people would reviews in. Hair. I also want to get into hair. There has been so many questions from my friends and other people on my hair and honestly I don't really do much. From time to time when I style my hair, I'll use some tricks that I've learned over the years and I wanted to share those thoughts with you but maintenance wise, I guess I'm either blessed/cursed with very thin straight black/brown hair but I want to add a new hair style/maintenance area to share with everyone on what I do if my routine changes (which it does more often than I want to admit) and it also just depends on the weather as well. Recipes. If you guys know how many times people ask me for recipes for things I make, I could just make money from that. I'm not bragging and saying I'm the best cook there is (I'm definitely not) but I want to pat myself on the back and say I am proud of a few recipes that I know. Many I learned from my uncle (who is an amazing cook) and my mommy (who is another amazing cook) and honestly, my finance. We love to cook dinners together and we definitely bounce ideas of each other. I'd admit, he is the grill master and the chicken god. Anything to do with chicken, he can do completely better than me and since our new wedding diet contains so much chicken, he has perfected some recipes and I would love to share them with everyone. Also, we started to eat extremely healthy and not even for the reason of losing some weight for our wedding but I think our lifestyle has changed from back in college days. We had such a bad brunch the other day (bad as in unhealthy). I mean, the food was beyond delcious but afterwards we felt terrible and we figured out that our body is not used to eating such bad foods since we've been trying to eat healthy all the time. I wanted to share some of our favorite recipes and maybe start a daily dinner log. I'll admit, sometimes we come home so tired that we might just order out and that's fine when we do it a few times but usually we like to cook our meals. We won't say no to friends asking us to join them for dinner but overall, we like to try and eat our meals at home. Wedding. So we're getting married next year in August and we cannot be more excited. We started the planning process already and I wanted to blog about the progress that we are making and giving you guys some tips that we picked up and learned along the way. I know weddings can be stressful and costly but we found some ways to cut costs in certain areas and spend money in others. Maybe these tips and some of our style ideas can help with any of your future weddings. I am so excited to share all of new blog ideas and the direction that I want this blog to go. Of course I want to keep reviewing beauty items and of course my favorite things, nails. I want to start maybe a NOTW (nail of the week). I usually change my color at least once a week and I think it's a great way to keep your nails healthy. So for now, ado and happy holidays everyone!

Welcome 2013!

Time to say goodbye to 2012 & welcome in 2013. 2012 had its good times and its bad but a new year always mean a fresh start. Looking back, I wanted to talk about my favorites for 2012.

I guess we can start with the face and go around that way. BEWARE: there are a lot of NARS products.

NARS Sheer Glow - i love this foundation. it feels very light on your skin and the best thing to wear during the summer. You don't want a heavy foundation and this foundation feels so light, it doesn't feel like you're wearing foundation at all.

MAKEUPFOREVER Mat Velvet Plus - However when I need a little bit more coverage, I turn to my Mat Velvet Plus. It gives me the coverage I need without leaving the cakey feeling afterwards.

MAC Mineralize Skin Finish - This is my favorite powder foundation. On most days, I just put on my moisturizer, concealer and this powder. It gives decent coverage without adding too much build-up especially when you wear liquid foundation underneath. With other powder foundation, if I use a liquid underneath, I feel like I have a cakeface but with this, it feels light but makes sure my liquid foundation isn't moving at all.

YSL Touche Eclat - This is by far my favorite thing I bought this year. Two clicks everyday and I can do the touch-ups underneath my eyes, around the nose and mouth and other blemishes. This is the best thing for the small touch-ups where you don't need to paint your whole face with liquid foundation.

NARS Blush (Madly) - On days when I'm lazy, I just like using this blush. It's not as loud as other colors but I feel like this color can be used as both blush and bronzer.

NARS Concealer - I just love this concealer. The pen shape lets me just dab at certain areas that I need coverage in and it blends it away better than my other liquidy concealers.

NARS Velvet Matte Lip Pencil - I was surprised that I liked this product as much as I did. I received this in one of Sephora's 500pt perks and I'm thinking of purchasing a full-size one. It's actually applies alot smoother than most lipsticks and the color lasts longer than lipsticks as well. I haven't had to sharpen the lip pencil yet but I think I'll buy a separate sharper just for it.

NARS Larger Than Life Long-Wear Eyeliner - Best eyeliner of all times. I've been through so many of these already. The best part of this eyeliner is that you don't need to sharpen it. It twists at the bottom and more of it comes out! I think that it lasts for a long time, longer than pencils and other pen liners also. It runs smooth for easy application, all in all, one of the favorite eyeliners.

URBAN DECAY NAKED Palette - I know I sound like a dying horse with this but this palette is the best palette ever. If you wanted to do a neutral look, you can, if you wanted to do a sexy smokey look, you can. If you wanted to go darker or lighter, you can. It's the most versatile palette ever and most of my looks are done with this palette itself.

DIOR Diorshow Maximizer - I have lashes that can't hold a curl and are very thin but this eyelash primer helps gives me the boost that I need. I use it underneath any regular mascara and it helps hold the curl longer and gives it the volume that I desperately need.

MAC Single Eyeshadow (Carbon) - I use this eyeshadow on a daily basis and it may not be what you think it is. No, I'm not gothic and use only black makeup but I like to use this eyeshadow as an eyeliner. It allows me to play with the thickness of the lines that I want to create and also the shape.

MAC Liquid Liner - This was a recent purchase but it soon became one of my favorites. I wore it a few times and both times, the line never faded, heck it took forever to remove. It dries very quickly so no more smearing my top eyelids when I put on liquid liners. YES!

L'oreal Volumious Lashes - Hate to say that one of my favorite mascaras is actually a drugstore one. I can't really find any other mascara that can define all of my lashes while giving me volume as well. This mascara does that and more. It's able to catch every one of my lashes and give them all volume. I also love the brush, the bristles make it easier for the mascara to latch onto my lashes.

FRESH Sugar in Rose - One of my favorite lip treatments. It goes on smooth and helps heal my lips while leaving a light pink tint. It comes in over flavors and tints as well, it just depends on how dark, bright, light you want to go.

DIOR Addict Lipstick (Tokyo) - LOVE LOVE LOVE this lipstick. I feel like it just gives me the right shade of pink I need. This is a limited edition color only to Sephora so you won't be able to find it at your local DIOR counter. It compliments most skin tones and basically darkens the naturally pink in everyone's lips.

DIOR RougeLiner Automatic Lip Liner (Caramel) - I think this lip liner complements almost all lip colors. I like to wear alot of pink colors and this liner compliments almost all of my pink lipsticks. Goes on smooth and blends very easily also.

OH, on the subject of lip products, I almost forgot my DIOR Glow lipstick which my boyfriend likes to call it a mood lipstick. The only reason for that is that the color of this lipstick goes on different depending on who the person is. No lie. I went with my girlfriend to buy the lip stick and I got a bright pink while hers went a darker pink. Supposedly the way the lipstick clashes with the chemicals on your lips determines the color (according to the DIOR counter lady). I'm not sure but hey, it's interesting to see what colors people get. Also, my Burt Bees Chapstick. I adore this chapstick, it leaves a minty layer on my lips. I have one in each of my purses. I never leave home without it.

WHEW that was a long post but I think my best of 2012 deserves it. They stuck with me through thick and thin and here we are to 2013. I can't wait to see what this year has in store for me and what new products I discover. HAPPY NEW YEARS EVERYONE!