Celebrity BFF

Do you ever see an actor/actress or tv or in a music video and just wish that you could be best friends? BFF's. Maybe it would be because they have an awesome wardrobe that you would love to steal borrow from. Or maybe they just have the type of life that you've always wanted. In my case my celebrity BFF is someone that I know that would keep me laughing while also keeping it real.

I want Bethenney Frankel to be my BFF.

For those who may not be as addicted to Bravo as I am, Bethenny is from the reality tv show the Real Housewives of New York City. She became really popular from that show and then launched a whole line of products that related to her career of healthy eating and lifestyle. She also had a spin off show on Bravo called Bethenny Getting Married.

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I've come to find that a lot of people either love her or hate her. She's a strong personality so I can understand that but I think she's hilarious. I love her one liners and her very dry sense of humor. I tend to have a dry sense of sarcasm myself so I find myself repeating her one-liners like a little parrot. Holy Catfight!

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She has her own thriving business which is inspirational to me. I love people that have a passion and go forward with it in full drive. I'm very drawn to people who have big goals and are always moving forward.

I have her yoga DVD which is a really great work out. If only I was able to work out with her in person! Of course I probably would get a lot more work out benefits this way without that distraction.

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I love her sense of style. She always looks put together, doesn't try to hard and more then anything would prefer to be in her pj's. That sounds like my idea of good fashion sense.

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I haven't tried her Skinnygirl margaritas yet but as to date I haven't met a margarita that I didn't like so I foresee only good things when I finally do get my hands on a bottle.

Whip smart come backs, a great healthy perspective on food and exercise and some strong entrepreneurial motivations all sound like things I would look for in a potential BFF. Call me Bethenny!

So who would you want your celebrity BFF to be? Think you have a lot in common or is it an opposites attract situation?

Monday Morning Brain Dump

Just a couple things floating around in my head on a Monday morning

- I can't believe that its Novemeber already. Blows my mind. This year has moved by so quickly.

- I always feel a little let down after Halloween is over. I love the Halloween period of time so much and now its kind of like limbo since I don't put up any new decorations for Thanksgiving and I don't take my Halloween ones down till after Thanksgiving.

- We have a special guest spending Thanksgiving with us this year so I'm really going to want to impress and should probably start thinking about our recipes now. Do you think someone from Jamaica would like Southern cooking?

- We've started our Christmas shopping, have you? Last year we had nearly everything done right after Halloween. It was nice not being stuck in the crazy malls with the tons and tons of people. I'm really not a fan of crowds. Unless its at Disney. Then I put up with just about anything.


Are you ready for the next round of holidays?

A visit to my desk at lunch time

Taking a break from all the Halloween hoop la for a second and focus on another issue.

Yesterday as I was eating lunch at my work desk it kind of dawned on me just how much I have bought into and have changed my eating to a more clean and healthier one.

This is my desk at lunch:



And the break down:



The miracle green juice is my newest healthy food venture and I am so in love with it. It's sooo good. It looks weird, which I kinda like, and it tastes great. I just need to learn how to make it myself. Loving the Larabars too. It sounds like my name and its very simple in ingredients. Plus I won a contest they were having and I got a Larabar prize pack and t-shirt. Yep, that is all it takes to seal my loyalty people. A cute t-shirt.

Pretty healthy lunch there, no? I always ate pretty healthy my whole life. My mom probably hasn't been in a McDonalds for food (besides an occasional fish sandwich during Lent) in well over a decade. Her healthy food perspective kept me away from a lot of junk food. Then there was college where I was stuck with the foods put in front of me from the cafeteria. I'm pretty sure I lost weight during that time instead of gaining the freshman 15 and I think my parents were actually concerned about me being underfed.

And then I graduate and moved out to my own place. And things started to change a bit. I was living near the love of my life and then we got married. And I think I found a little "happy fat" along the way. Life was good and comfortable and so was the food and couch time :)

I'm not trying to shed a crazy amount of weight, I just want to feel healthy. It amazes me how after a hard work out you just don't want junk food at all. It doesn't seem appealing in the slightest bit. Maybe because your body is moving away from that or maybe because you just don't want to imagine how much harder you will have to work to burn it off :)

I have to be careful not to get too extreme since this is a part of my personality that has a tendency to come out in a lot of areas in my life.

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The voice in my head sounds an awful lot like Bravo's Jackie Warner which at times is great but at other times makes me feel like I can't do enough. It's all a balance.

How do you maintain a healthy balance? Are you totally upset that I'm talking about veggies and health foods during the biggest candy week of the year? :)

Wednesday's Wednesday Wisdom

What is your favorite part about Halloween?

Halloweentown

Starting around the middle to end of September I start preparing for my favorite holiday. It all started with a little movie:

Yup, Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas made me LOVE Halloween. Before that I always kinda liked it but lets be honest, scary was never my cup of tea. I'm a total chicken. I can't even watch the Wizard of Oz without thinking about the nightmares that it gave me as a kid. But enough with the issues that should have me in therapy. Let's talk Halloween and my version of Halloweentown.

I love decorating for Halloween. I love the bright colors and the shabby chic Halloween decorations that focus more on harvest and autumnal colors then it does on bloody guts and gore.



My Halloween decorations mainly consist of bright orange pumpkins, black cats and Nightmare decorations.


My Nightmare Before Christmas shrine, complete with Halloween tree.



Besides being a quirky and unique story about the holidays and constantly starting conversations about whether or not its a Halloween movie or a Christmas movie (I think its both) it also happens to be great for double holiday decorating. Most of the decorations work for both holidays. Maximum effect, minimal effort. Always nice.

By the time it actually gets to Halloween the Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack is firmly on a constant rotation stuck in our heads (This is Halloween, this is Halloween..) we have to fight to keep little Miss Wednesday off the candy corn (told you she was a Halloween cat) and I have a great justification for all the candy I've been consuming.

The best Halloween decoration I could ever have.

Candy, color and some creepiness? Sounds like the perfect holiday to me.

Do you love Halloween? What's your favorite part?

Monday Morning Brain Dump

- Every Monday morning has gotten progressively harder lately. It's kinda crazy and hard to believe that is possible.

- Excited about Halloween. Much better and more interesting Halloween focused posts to come this week. Hang in there with me!!

Are you excited about Halloween?

Book Worm

The blog has been taking a back seat lately, things have gotten so crazy busy here with pet issues to traveling to craziness with my "real" job ( the full time one) and then keeping up with my side business (the creative, fun one). I have a whole stack of books that I'm really anxious to get through right now but I haven't had the time. Which is a bummer because I'm a total book worm.

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Growing up one of my favorite things to do was go to our public library. I was lucky that I lived in a place that they had such a nice library for kids. They had a great big kid's section of books, toys that you can check out, and special programs every month. They also had a book reading club where once you read a certain number of books you won a free tote bag. Guess who still has her tote bag. Yup, this girl. And then of course there was the Book It! program at Pizza Hut. I wish I kept my Book It pin, that thing was loaded up with stars.

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I really do love reading and still love when I find a book that is just sooo good that you can't stand the idea of putting it down. I came up with a list of books that I've really enjoyed recently. This isn't every book I've loved, just the more recent ones.

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I really loved this book. It was such an interesting story. I grew up in the winter home of Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey circus so a book about the truth about the circus was pretty interesting even if it doesn't always paint them in the best light. It was also interesting how they mention Ringing Brothers in the book. They are turning the book into a movie which makes me excited and nervous. Reese Witherspoon is in the movie and happens to be one of my girl crushes so that is very exciting. The guy from the Twilight movies is also in the movie which makes me less then thrilled. I'm sure I will see the movie I just don't have my expectations up to high with this one.

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You really shouldn't be able to buy or borrow this book without a box, and I do mean a FULL box of tissues coming with it. I really loved this book. It's a big book and I still got through it in no time at all. It's such a good story about friendship and how relationships change. I HAD to call my best friend after reading this book because it made me miss her so much and also appreciate the awesome friendship that we have.

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Classic chick lit book. I have read all but Emily Giffin's most recent book and this one was my favorite. She has a very easy reading style and while the storyline can be predictable I still like her books. Also being made into a movie.

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I really enjoyed both of these books. She has a great writing style, one that I found myself just floating through the books with ease and being really disappointed when the books ended. I wanted to know more in each story. The two books are separate stories and characters. I was really bummed when I saw that she only had these 2 books.

So read a good book lately? Got one that you just really love? Are you a book worm too?