Curing Cancer 1 Drumstick at a Time

Have y'all seen the new commercials for the Susan G. Komen and KFC collaboration: buckets for the cure?




This alliance is complete BIZARRE to me... Let's fight against cancer by eating highly processed foods that cause heart disease! And by the way, did you know that heart disease is the number 1 killer of women in the United States? NOT cancer....

Hang on a minute-- let me get on my high horse. This is so wrong to me. It seriously makes me question Susan G. Komen's motives. I realize that they are bringing in big bucks from getting sales percentages from playing cards, EmergenC, tennis clothes and everything in between. I know and gratefully respect that Susan G. Komen uses those funds to pay for incredible amount cancer research. But, why give Americans yet another reason to eat fried and processed foods? I find it irresponsible and shocking.




....for my Grandfather who died of heart disease....

Okay. Let's start fresh and less angry! How were your weekends my loves? I had a great one filled with big hats, tennis, and a few too many mint juleps!

I'll see you all tomorrow and I promise you I'll be filled with only good feelings and fun!

xoxo,
M
Happy Friday Love Bugs!

I hope you all have wonderful plans for the weekend as well as the AMAZING weather we are having here in Chicago!


This weekend I am headed to a Kentucky Derby party and will be rocking this outfit (don't worry I'm adding a big hat!)


These espadrilles are my new favorites! But with a 4-inch heel my normally 5'9 self becomes a rocking 6'1. I like it... but I always feel a little like an awkward amazon when I wear such high heels.So if you see a giant woman in a huge hat walking down the street in Chicago this weekend it might or might not be me.

I'm now off to make some Mint Julep mix for the party!

Have a great weekend!
xoxo,
M



and for one last laugh before we head off into the weekend

whomp whomp

Big news. Because of some personal reasons Chris and I are going to have to postpone our around the world trip indefinitely. We are hoping that it will work out to leave September 1st but it might, unfortunately, be longer than that.

The delay sucks but we have no control over it.

So to combat our wanderlust and the disappointment we feel about our postponement we are going to take a vacation this summer.

TWO WEEKS IN HONDURAS!

I am so excited to scuba and lay on the beach in the Bay Islands



Explore the city in Tegucigalpa, practice our Spanish (hola y'all!), and even to stay in hostels again! We're booking our tickets this weekend. I'll be sure to give you all of the nitty gritty from packing to extreme budgeting.

AHHH I have to get to the gym NOW to work out if I am going to be at the beach in a little over a month!

xoxo,
M

DAY 2

The gym was great yesterday. Instead of taking a 10-minute ride on the L I walked 35 minutes to the gym and 35 minutes home. Legs are the cheapest transportation ever!

Instead of doing pilates (rock your body... with pilates....) I took a yoga class. I did yoga on and off during my college career but didn't really get into it-- never to the point where I was holding myself up off the ground or centering my chakra or knowing what a chakra is.

It felt so good to really stretch my body for an hour. It was also tough. I am not as flexible as I once was and I was awkwardly told today that my knees rotate out and that I should try to balance my thighs while counter-balancing my calves. Say what? Seriously... I'm still working on walking and texting at the same time.

And since all great posts need a few great pictures here are some of my friend I's very sweet pup:






I'm feeling back to 99% after my IUD placement on Monday with just a tingle of tummy cramps but so far so good! If I turn into a crazy hormonal bitch I'll be sure to let you know!

Day 2- Must go to the gym now!! It's too early to give up!

Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails,
Meredith

30-days of working out

Good morning my little apples!

I am trying to be a healthy healthy healthy bunny right now. Of course like any regular American woman I would love to lose some weigh but more importantly I just want to be in better shape. I want to be able to walk up the 11 flights of stairs to my apartment without wanting to give up around the 6th flight. And working out regularly always makes me feel so much better: I eat healthier, I love those endorphins that working out releases, and I sleep more soundly. It sounds like a win-win-win to me!

And also I definitely want to ROCK my swimsuit this summer!
(Which kind of looks like this but in black. Maybe after 30 days of working out
I'll actually show you a picture of me in my swimmy?)


So I'm making a promise to myself that I will work out EVERY DAY no matter what for the next thirty days. I'll be keeping myself accountable right here with y'all I can't guarantee that I'll always go with a great attitude and will be pushing myself for an hour run but I will be there!

In about 30 minutes I'm headed to the gym to take a pilates class! Which every time I think about the work pilates that Black Eye Peas (maybe?) song lyric "rock your body... with pilates..." gets stuck in my head for hours! So so so annoying!

I'm going to go get schwetty!
xoxo,
M

IUD Recovery

Good afternoon lambs!

Today I was forced to act like an adult (hate) while I was at the gynecologist. For a variety of reasons I decided that despite the pain and discomfort the best birth control option for me is an IUD.

It definitely did hurt. DEFINITELY did hurt but luckily just not as much as I thought it would. While I would rather get a bikini wax over an IUD any day... the pain wasn't unbearable by any means. It hurt while it was happening, like a giant pinch in my abdomen but now I'm just suffering through cramps (which are no worse than what I had before going on birth control).

But since I was forced to suck it up and not be a whiner in front of the doctor I decided to come home and act like a whiner in front my boyfriend. So far he made me a delicious lunch and gave me some much needed snuggles to combat the cramps.

I've also been indulging myself with a few cheesy episode of MacGyver:



Hopefully the cramps will go away soon and we can all pretend that I don't even like MacGyver and only read books my Tolstoy, Hemingway, Dostoevsky, and other great and intellectual novels.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful and cramp-free Monday!

xoxo,
M

What a trip!

Hello loves! It's been a long time since I've been home in Chicago! Chris and I flew out on the 12th of March and just got home this morning. We were suppose to arrive last night but electrical storms canceled our flight. We had a very early 7:45 am flight and as soon as we landed I had to rush to a doctors appointment downtown. I would have postponed it but the office has one of those very annoying $25 fees if you don't cancel within 24 hours-- I wish I could charge the airlines a fee like that for my flight last night!

You might be wondering what we've been doing away for the last 3 weeks. Luckily because Chris is a consultant and happens to be traveling to North Carolina the majority of weeks or can work out of the Dallas branch of his company he was able to work while we cobbled together a grand moving/road trip/friend seeing/Easter extravaganza. We flew into North Carolina, flew to Texas, drove from Texas through Arkansas and Tennessee back to North Carolina, and then arrived where we started in Chicago this morning!

While in Dallas I packed all of the furniture and belongings in my condo and turned the keys over to the new owners. It felt a little surreal moving out; I moved into the condo at the end of my freshman year of college and spent almost 6 years there. Packing and moving was a hideous nightmare. There was just so much stuff to go through. For instance, what was i suppose to do with my old college class notes? In the end I kept some and recycle others. But I'm sure in 5 years (barring that i go to grad school for history and bust out those old notes) I will come to my senses and get rid of them all.

The biggest lesson of moving was not to procrastinate-- go ahead and tackle the back of the closet or the bathroom drawer filled with cosmetic samples. Ten minutes on one project now is so much more tolerable than hours on every project when it's time to move. NEVER AGAIN. Seriously y'all. Lesson learned. If I'm not using that two-year-old sparkly exfoliating body scrub now I won't be using it in two years. So why keep it? And cosmetics have a pretty short shelf life or so i saw on an episode of Tyra once; but it was an episode of Tyra....

Chris and I drove an explore full of my stuff home to North Carolina. The drive was incredible and we had so much fun taking our first official road trip together! This weekend I celebrated (totally not the right word) Easter with my mom and our family friends, played a lot of tennis, and made some delicious meals. It was fabulously relaxing after a stressful week and a half of moving boxes.

But, I'm glad to be back here in Chicago. Strangely it now feels like home.

I'm alive

Hello love bugs!

Sorry for the disappearance! I have been BUSY BUSY BUSY over the last 3 weeks!

I have been dashing through the country packing up my condo in Dallas for sale and driving back to North Carolina with a small collection of my stuff!

But tonight I'm headed home to Chicago and will be uploading my pictures and will be back to writing!

It is suppose to be in the high 60s in Chicago this week! I'm so excited!!

xoxo,
M