Favorite Things: Make Up

I hate to disappoint but I'm not giving away loads of free stuff.  I'm not Oprah, people!
However, I love reading reviews and asking for recommendations about products people love, so when I find something I can't live without, I want to share!

The topic is make up! (Go ahead gentlemen, you can close your browser windows now)

My favorite powder/foundation:
Maybelline PureStay Powder Foundation

Why this is awesome?
I don't like liquid foundation and pressed powder alone isn't always enough so this provides the happy medium! Subtle coverage with a smooth powder finish that lasts the entire day.

Where do I get it and how much?
It's Maybelline you can get it anywhere and it's around $7-$8. You can't beat that!

I have been using this product for at least 8 years and was a little worried when they discontinued my shade. Fortunately, I realized this early enough and found several new compacts on Amazon for really cheap and stocked up!

My favorite lid primer:
Lorac Behind the Scenes Eye Primer

Why this is awesome?
No creases in your eye shadow! Some of you may not have this problem, but I do! My eye shadow would look great in the morning but by the end of the day it was no longer on my lid and there was a line where it had all moved to the crease of my eye lid. Yuck. I have tried several lid primers from cheap to pretty expensive and this one does the trick perfectly and keeps that shadow in place!

Where do I get it and how much?
Shhhh... don't tell!
Alone this primer is $21.00 at Sephora. A little on the high side for a small tube even though it does last awhile. However, Sephora sells this Lorac set for $37.00 that includes a full size primer, eye shadow trio, liner, duo mascara and an eye shadow brush!!  They never have that many in the store so when I find it, I buy it. No joke these items purchased separately are $110 so it's a great deal, and they work fabulously together.

My favorite eye make-up remover:
American Beauty Barefaced Make Up Remover

Why this is awesome?
My mom, sisters and I swear by this stuff. My mascara never comes off with just normal facewash, I look like a raccoon afterwards. After years of using the little pink or blue capped Maybelline make up remover the skin around my eyes was either super oily or really dried out. Then one time while I was home visiting my parents, I used this for the first time and pretty sure it "accidentally" ended up in my bag back to Pittsburgh.

Where do I get it and how much?
Kohls! Regular price it's around $15, but seriously... it's Kohls, when do you ever pay regular price?Whenever I have Kohls cash and a coupon, I pick up a bottle of this so I never run out.

So what are your FAVORITE make up items? Anything you can't live without that you want to share?! Please tell!!

Week 1: Off to a good start

Today I was actually able to get outside and run with Izzy and boy, did that feel great after being cooped up inside for the past month! Poor girl, while we've been playing with her inside everyday to get her some exercise, this run was a little more than she bargained for. I think I pulled her along half of the time which is rare for a puggle that is usually pulling me. Don't let her 30 lbs fool you, she's strong! Now she is back in bed resting, she has such a hard life.

So did I stick with my plan for this week?

Yes and no. Mostly yes, after all it is week 1! Of all weeks, this should be the one that I stick with!

What worked well...

• Planning out the week ahead of time
• There was no last minute scramble the night of to figure out what's for dinner and end up ordering take-out. Knowing what was on tap for every day made the week go smoother and made it easier to stick with the plan.
• Choosing healthy meals that were easy to make and tasted good
• Our menu for this past week certainly doesn't sound light.. we had Spaghetti Carbonara, Mini Pizzas, Tacos, Minestrone soup and Tortilla soup!
• Last night we went to Denny's for dinner because we wanted breakfast food. I knew this would be a hard place for me to make a smart decision but I decided against my craving for French Toast and went with their Fit and Fare egg white Omelette and fruit cup. I was pleasantly surprised that it tasted really good and filling with mushrooms, spinach, and tomatoes. I recommend it!
• Sticking with my work-outs
• I factored in time during the day/evening for my activity and did all but 1 of what I planned to do.

What did not work well...

• I skipped pilates because I ended up working late on Monday...
• Resisting the tin of delicious homemade caramel popcorn my mom sent me!
• Resisting splitting a piece of amazing almond cake with Kendra during our dinner date Tuesday. (At least we split it though!!!)

Overall, I feel pretty good about this week. I wasn't perfect but I did lose 1.5 lbs. Baby steps.
So tomorrow I'll sit down and plan out this next week which I am looking forward to because my new cookbook arrived!

Healthy Tortilla Soup

One of my goals with the 'get healthy' resolution for this year is to make smarter food decisions. For me, this does not mean eating salads every day, because 1) I'd be starving and end up snacking a lot more, and 2) it's not sustainable and I'd likely give up pretty quickly. One of my strategies with the smarter decision making is finding meals that are good for you taste great and don't scream "you're on a diet!!" When I sat down on Sunday to plan out my week, I had some support...

Let me introduce you to my friend Rocco DiSpirito. If you haven't seen or heard of him, you need to. He focuses on reinventing delicious dishes that are notoriously bad for you, and making them healthy (like 350 calories or less kinda healthy!)
While he wasn't really sitting down with me planning out my meals, his cookbooks were.
Now Eat This! and Now Eat This! Diet.
All of his recipes that I have made have been surprisingly really good and not too difficult! Earlier this week I made Spaghetti Carbonara and it was awesome!
(now really, who can eat THAT when they are on Weight Watchers?!? ME, thanks to Rocco!)

He recently released a Now Eat This! Italian cookbook which I am anxiously awaiting to arrive from Amazon.

Tonight, I was making tacos (using lean ground turkey) and thought rather than a side dish of spanish rice or chips and salsa, (which would not have been too healthy) I would make Rocco's Tortilla Soup. Arrrribaaaa!! It was tasty, filling and only 4 WW points a serving.

Tortilla Soup with Avocado and Cilantro
Courtesy of Now Eat This! Rocco DiSpirito
Servings: 4

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 corn tortillas
• 2/3 cup low-fat, low sodium chicken broth
• 1 cup diced fire roasted tomoatoes (Hunts)
• 2 chipolte chiles in adobo sauce, chopped fine
• 2/3 cup store bought fresh salsa
• 1/2 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels
• 1 cup shredded breast meat from a rotisserie chicken
• 1/3 ripe Hass avocado, sliced
• 1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• Salt and pepper to taste

1.) Preheat oven to 375'F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2.) Cut the tortillas into 1/4 inch wide strips. Place strips in a single layer on the prepared baking sheet, and bake until golden and crisp, 9 mins was perfect.

3.) Meanwhile, combine the chicken broth, tomatoes, chipolte chiles, salsa and corn in a medium saucepan. Bring the soup to a boil over high heat. Turn the heat to medium-low and simmer for 8 minutes. Stir the chicken into the soup, and season with salt and pepper to taste.

4.) Ladle soup into bowls. Top each with avocado slices, chopped cilantro and tortilla strips, and serve.

Traditionally tortilla soup has up to 510 calories and 20 grams of fat... not this version, only 142 calories and a whooping 3.1 grams of fat. Ay CarYUMba!!!

TO DO: get healthy

So here I am again making the same resolution that I make every year and seem to give up on after awhile once the motivation wears off. I know I'm not alone with this, we all do it. Say we're going to stick with it and then LIFE gets in the way.
I'm embarassed to even be bringing this up again since I blogged awhile back about how I was going to stick with my Weight Watchers tracking and well, that went to crap once Thanksgiving rolled in and brought Christmas right behind it.

Sigh.

Perhaps I need to take a different approach this year. I am still going to do WW but my focus needs to be less on the losing weight part and focus more on just being healthy. It's easy to feel defeated and give up when you feel like you are trying and don't see results right away. I want instant gratification and up to this point the gratification I pay attention to is the numbers on a scale, rather than the reward of feeling great after a workout or smart meal choice.  So this year I'm really going to try to focus on that more and hopefully the losing weight will come as a bonus.

HAHA, this all sounds so easy. NOT.

I manage my life through a series of 'To Do' lists. I write lists for everything. Sometimes I even write things on my list that I've already done just for the satisfaction of crossing them off. (Please tell me you do this too!)
Important things go to the top of the list, MUST DO! the rest drop to the bottom of the list, ehh if I feel like it. Guess where the working out typically falls?
So for this year I need to re-establish my health priorities and start organizing my lists as such.

First thing on the list: Re-join the gym.
This Summer I cancelled my gym membership because I was doing KettleWorx kettle bell workouts at home and really liked it. I was feeling good and losing inches but realized after a few months of doing the repetitive workouts each week that I needed variety. I was getting bored and with the cold winter setting in I didn't have the luxury of walking/running with Izzy in the evenings to add some extra cardio into the routine.
So today, I re-joined the gym and walked/ran (mostly walked) a 5K on the treadmill. I felt great afterwards, but am sure I'll be feeling the pain tomorrow.
My goal is to have some activity on my To Do list every day. It's not realistic to think I'm going to work out everyday, I know I won't, but even it it's just a 15 minute walk during lunchtime or squats during commercials it's better than nothing.

Next thing on the list: Plan ahead for the week.
Lately I've been winging it and taking one day at a time and depending what I feel like doing, that's what happens. Which typically results in not working out and eating whatever I want. I am going to use Sunday as my day to figure out my plan for the week. Depending on my schedule I can plan for what exercise I'm doing each day and also plan meals accordingly (what nights does John have school, are we dining out?, etc).  I know it's going to be a pain tomorrow to sit down and think through all of these things but in the long run I think it will make my week easier when I know what is happening every day and can be prepared for it.

BRING IT ON week 1!

Cheers to the new year!

The future is exciting because of the uncertainty; the surprise that each day brings and no matter how much we prepare and plan for it there is no way of knowing for sure what will happen.
It's funny thinking about New Year's Day last year and what I expected for 2012, some of it became reality and some didn't but all in all it was a good time!

My job was really hectic the beginning of the year but going into second quarter I started to re-gain my life back and took full advantage of it!

 

• John and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary in May and it was so hard to believe that two years had passed already!
• We were blessed with two little nephews Jacob Dominic Betters and Joseph Michael Caligiuri and my "niece" Mia Frances Henriquez.
• I did a bit more traveling than usual realizing that I needed to take advantage of this time while I had it...


• In May, I went to Florida for my cousin Mimi's wedding.

• In June, we traveled to Idaho to visit family and had a great time exploring a place we'd never been before!

• In July, I went to Aruba with some of my girlfriends and enjoyed the relaxation that one can only find there in the calmness of the sea.

• In August, I went to Fenwick Island and despite the crappy beach weather it was still fun chilling out with my friends.

• and in October, a weekend trip to Washington DC!

• We spent more time with our families and are grateful that everyone is in good health!

Looking forward to 2013, it's going to be an exciting year based on what I know already so I can't imagine topping it off with what I don't know...

• My sister Sara is getting married in April, so we'll be busy in Boxler wedding mode these next few months!
• John graduates from Carnegie Mellon with his MBA in May, I'm so proud of him!
• Trip planned to Riviera Maya to celebrate!
• Hopefully put the townhouse up for sale and if all goes well move into a new house!

Cheers to 2013!