Fabulous Awards and Fall Goals

    I am so honored to be receiving blog awards and tags!!! 

 Thanks so much for reading!!!

The wonderful It's the Little Things... presented me with two  fabulous awards:

And the sweet Happily Ever Healthy also gave me a fabulous award:

The rules of redeeming these awards are as follows...

  Write seven things about yourself and then pass the award on to other bloggers

ABOUT ME:

1. I am unreasonably afraid of domesticated pet  fish.  
2. My favorite food is Pizza, specifically salad pizza from a local pizzeria in my hometown in NJ.
3. I like to cook with at least three cloves of garlic in every meal.
4. Teen Mom is my guilty pleasure
5. In college I studied abroad in London, and it is my most favorite city in the world.
6. I love DIY projects
7. I drive a manual car                        

Also the lovely Nautical by Nature tagged me in a blog tag where I am tagged to list 5 goals for Fall:

My Fall Goals:

1.  Go to the gym on a regular basis

2. Go to the eye doctor and finally get contacts ( I've been putting off getting contacts forever )

3. Make my own wine

4. Send more snail mail

5. wake up earlier ( it would be nice to be able to sit down and eat breakfast rather than eating my bagel on the way to work)

Thanks so much!!!  Please check out their blogs they are so great and I am so happy to be receiving awards/tags from them.

I am passing the Versatile Blogger award and this tag to the following Fabulous blogs:

1. Steel Magnolia

2. Pink Maple in Boston

3. Seashells and Southern Belles

4. Fashion Meets Food

5. Sundresses and Smiles

Happy Thursday xoxo

Marco...POLO

   The other weekend my friends LES and ALV and I were lucky enough to get tickets to a charity polo match which benefited a local non profit Family House, which provides affordable housing to families when loved ones are in the hospital.  It is a wonderful organization and it was a wonderful event. 

It was my first polo match, and I loved it and learned so much about the sport.

I loved "outfit" watching

LES myself and ALV

ALV & Me

 The Hunt

and the traditional divot stomping to help even out the playing field.

I was so happy to be able to attend this event, we already cannot wait for next year. 

Judging a Wine Bottle By its Cover

   I love finding fun and personal bottles of wine to give friends for birthdays, special occasions, hostess gifts etc.   Who doesn't love getting a bottle of wine where the title/theme fits them perfectly.  While I was at home in NJ this past weekend I came across some fun bottles I have never seen before, that would be so fun to give as gifts. 

TXT Wine for the obsessive texter/word abbreviator in your life

We chose the WTF

Middle Sister Wine has a variety of different fun wines, which sister are you?

   Drama Queen?

 Goodie Two Shoes?

Sweetie Pie?

 Sweet And Sassy?

  Smarty Pants?

  Mischief Maker?

Each wine has a paragraph describing the type of sister each wine is.

My favorite is Sweet and Sassy:

"After a long hard day of being fabulous, I like to relax with a glass of wine. But I don't want it to bite me back. Isn't there enough drama in this world? That's why this wine is my new best wine friend. With a touch of natural sweetness, it's smooth and refreshing and so easy to love. Moscato, always stay as sweet as you are. I'll handle the sassy part."


I love that there is a sister to describe most of my friends :)

Other great wines to give as gifts:


HOUSE WINE: My friend ALV gave this to her friends Ali and Jon when they bought their new house

BITCH WINE::   This is self explanatory, but funny to give a BFF when she's not having her best week.

CUPCAKE WINE:  These are always cute to give for a friend's birthday.

Do you have have fun wines you like to give friends?

Essie is polished

Out of all of the nail polish brands Essie is my favorite.  I have always loved the color choices, and I think it goes on the easiest.   I had no idea that Essie, was named after the owner herself Essie Weingarten. 

Essie Weingarten was featured in this months Better Homes and Gardens and I am now even more fascinated with herself and the company. 

In the article Essie discusses how she was bored with the usual red and pink nail polish colors in the 1980's and as a buyer at Henri Bendel ( jealous!!) she was inspired to create great new nail colors from all of the fabrics and ribbons she worked with. 

She also states that one of her favorite nail colors is Ballet Slippers, which as I've stated before happens to be my favorite as well. 

Essie states the best colors for ....

Gardeners:  Lady Like

Cooks:  Mademoiselle, Sugar Daddy, Ballet Slippers, or Allure

Sugar Daddy

Job Interview: French Manicure

Impressing Someone:  Clam bake

Meeting the In-Laws:  Rock Candy

Essie has created a color for Better Homes and Gardens named "BHG Beautiful"  which looks like prefect fall color, I was unable to find a picture, but its a pretty maroon color and you can apply on their website to win a bottle.


What is your go to Essie color?

Never Forget

     It is hard to believe it has been ten years since 9/11. 

 

One of the few moments where everyone knows exactly where they were

We will never forget those who lost their lives in the attacks and the heroes that that risked their lives for this country. 

United We Stand

"When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around." - Love Actually



DIY: Ribbon Wreath

  Last month I saw this adorable DIY ribbon wreath on Monograms and Manicures Blog, and I could not wait to make one.  I decided to make a fall themed wreath, since that was the next season, plus I knew I could use fall colors that I could keep up from September through November. 

I went to Joann's and purchased a wreath wire and some ribbon.   Any craft store will have a variety of wreath wire sizes to choose from, depending how large you want your wreath, any size would work. 

I bought a variety of fall ribbon colors including a fall plaid, maroon, brown, orange, yellow, and green in different size ribbon widths. 

I am not sure how much ribbon I used because the ribbon I bought came in different yard lengths.  I believe I used about eight spools of ribbon.

 If you go to Joann's or Michael's you can find sale/clearance ribbon and use coupons to help cut the cost of the ribbon. 

I started cutting the ribbon in pieces approx. 5-6 inches long and then knotting the ribbon on each section of the wire.  Moving through each section and each wire ring, rotating between all of the colors. 

  I continued adding ribbon knots to each section until all parts of the wreath looked full

   It took me a little over two hours to finish.  I love that you can make one of these to fit any holiday or season, I cannot wait to make another wreath.

Final Product, Ready for Fall!

Food Truck Craze

  It seems like Food Trucks are popping up everywhere!   DFH and I have recently gotten really into the The Great Food Truck Race show on the Food Network.  The show features eight food truck teams who compete to see who has the country's best food truck.  It is on Sundays at 9:00 pm on the Food Network, and It is Awesome, if you have not seen it I would definitely check it out. 

I love the show, but had never seen a food truck in Pittsburgh.  Last week LES and I were getting lost in Pittsburgh and accidentally stumbled on a whole row of food trucks.  We couldn't believe it, it was so close to where we lived, and we didn't even know it existed. 

 There was a variety of food truck choices including Vietnamese, Chinese, Indian, and Mediterranean food.  Most of the trucks were already closed when we arrived, but we decided on some Vietnamese Pho, which is a Vietnamese noodle soup.

Food Trucks are great because usually the food cost is reasonable, and it comes out quick.  Although it seems like Food Trucks are some what trendy now, these trucks have been around since 1982, such trend setters, haha.  The Pho we tried was amazing, even better than Pho we had recently tried at a Vietnamese restaurant.

Yum! I cannot wait to go back and try another food truck!

( Sorry bad pic taken with my phone)

Do you ever go to Food Trucks?  What is your favorite food truck item?

Our First Veggies

Summer may be winding down, but we just got our first veggies for the summer.  We started a bit late due to moving in June, but hopefully the veggies will continue growing until the first frost.  Just had to share:


Above we have from left to right:

1. Fresno Chili

2.Red Hot Cherry Chili

3. New Mexico Big Jim Chili
We added all the peppers to our homemade tomato sauce and they added such a great spice.

Our Tomatoes are coming along as well, YUM!


Nothing beats homegrown veggies, what do you grow?!

Happy Labor Day Weekend!!