Month: September 2016

Five on Friday {9.16.16}

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Hi there! I cannot believe it’s already Friday! And today kickstarts a very long vacation for me, starting tonight with my best friend’s bachelorette weekend in NH and then Sunday with us leaving for our honeymoon. With everything that’s been going on the past few weeks, including working long hours, teaching extra classes, shopping/packing/planning/preparing for our honeymoon, etc., I am MORE than ready to escape for a bit of R&R with my favorite guy.

Since I’m running short on time, let’s get right to the post!

  • Cycle & Sweat Fitness Event for ALS One at Derby Street– This Sunday, there is an awesome event happening at the Derby Street shops in Hingham benefiting ALS ONE.  Cycle & Sweat Fitness will feature nine fitness classes over the course of three hours, held every hour, on the hour, from 9am through 12pm in front of Whole Foods and lululemon at the Derby Street Shoppes. Class choices include spinning with Rev’d Cycling, based in Dedham, yoga with lululemon and ivivva, and cardio boot camp with Mobile Fitness. The first 100 people to register via Eventbrite will receive Cycle & Sweat tanks and swag bags. Classes are $15 each.
  • Sunset Bootcamp Class at ZINC Apartments– This is a FREE fitness event happening on Tuesday, September 20th from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. The class will take place on ZINC’s stunning outdoor terrace as the sun sets over Cambridge. The event is free to attend, but space is limited. Please register here. Additional details are here:
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  • Best Dressed– On Wednesday, my friend Lauren hosted an event at Best Dressed in Charlestown. Have you heard of that store? It’s a store version of Rent the Runway, which is so awesome. You can go in, try stuff on and rent what you like for whatever event you have coming up. They had a huge selection, as well as jewelry to rent or buy. More to come on this later, but I had to share a bit about it now because I think it’s a genious idea for a store!!

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  • Travel Reads- I picked up 2 new books to bring on our trip. Have you guys read these (Easter Rising & All Souls)? Apparently they’re about a guy growing up in Southie, so I’m excited to read them!

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  • Honeymoon! Our honeymoon is finally almost here! On Sunday we leave for a 16 day vacation throughout the Amalfi Coast. I’ve gotten so many recommendations from friends who have recently gone (thanks, ladies!!), but if anyone else has any “must do/try/eat” recommendations, feel free to leave a comment on this post. We just booked a couple of excursions, so everything is starting to feel more real. B2B will be very quiet while I’m gone, as I’ve decided to not have any guest posts. I couldn’t add another thing to my plate the past few weeks, but don’t worry- I’ll have lots to share when we get back. I’ll also be keeping my other social media channels active, so feel free to follow along there (burpeestobubbly).

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. I’ll talk to you in a few weeks!

Five on Friday {9.9.16}

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Hi, friends! Happy freaking Friday 🙂 I hope you’ve all had a good week- mine started out roughhhh, but turned around a bit by the end of it. We leave for Italy in 9 days and work is absolutely crazy right now so I’m just trying to get through what I can so I can start my vacation without the stress of worrying about what I didn’t finish.

But, let’s talk about more fun things, shall we?

  • Moscow Mules- We received some beautiful monogrammed copper mugs for our wedding (thanks, Jean!), so last weekend we decided to put them to good use by whipping up some Moscow Mules. Neither of us had had one before, but we both enjoyed them! It was a really fun cocktail hour enjoyed on our back patio.

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  • Eating out vs. eating in- Most of the time, RM and I try to eat in the majority of the time. We shop on the weekends for the week, prep a bunch of food to have handy (I bring my lunch every day, too), but last week we kind of went on a eating out bender. Thursday we went to Buff’s (hadn’t been in SO long), Friday we went to Hopsters (again, hadn’t been in SO long) and Saturday we went to The Local in West Newton, because, well #saturdaydatenight. This is very unlike us to go so many days in a row eating out (unless we are on vacation), and while everything was delicious, we decided to eat IN on Saturday night. RM grilled up some veggie and shrimp skewers and I made a nice big salad. There’s something to be said about making your own meals- it felt really good to eat a nice meal like this!

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  • Love Grown Cereal- Confession: I LOVE cereal. I always have, but over the years I’ve tried to clean up my cereal choices (and I’ve gone from eating it daily to just a few times a week- baby steps). Most of the time I have Erewhon & Uncle Sam brands because they have such few ingredients, but they had a sample of Love Grown Power O’s at Whole Foods last weekend and I knew I had to try it out. They’re made out of different legumes, so they are wheat & corn free- something you don’t see often with cereal!

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  • Teaching- I’ve been loading up on classes leading up to our vacation since I know I’ll be going so long without teaching while we are away. While it can be tiresome (yesterday I did 6am and 5:30pm… and 9 hours of work in between), it’s really so rewarding. I love coming up with new workouts and playlists and helping people feel good and feel strong. I’m teaching tomorrow, Monday and Tuesday… and then I’m off for a longggg time, so catch me while you can!

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  • Biking- I can’t thank RM enough for suggesting that we get bikes. We have been having SO MUCH FUN with them. One day last week I rode it all around town to run errands and then Friday night I took it to meet my sister for a drink (RM rode with me which was nice) and then Sunday RM and I covered nearly 25 miles of biking. We rode all the way into the city, brought the bikes on the T to Eastie (RM had to check on one of the units in a building he owns) and then back to Watertown. Midway home, we stopped at Naco Taco in Central Square for a snack and a beer. I used to run by that place weekly and would always be so jealous of everyone there enjoying drinks and food outside so it was nice to get to check it out. We both highly suggest it if you want good tacos and guac- everything was fantastic, and reasonably priced. Oh, and the good part about biking places for drinks is it limits me to just one, since I don’t trust myself operating the bike after any more 😉 #lightweight

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I guess that does it! We have lots to get done this weekend in preparation for our honeymoon, so it’ll be a busy one! There is a Vegetarian Food Truck & Craft Beer Festival at the Arsenal Mall tomorrow which we might try to get to. It starts at 11am and is $10-$45 and guests can enjoy more than 30 craft beers and lots of vegetarian dishes. Sounds pretty cool!

I hope you have a great weekend with whatever you have planned 🙂

Questions for you: What was a good part of your week? What do you have planned this weekend? Do you prefer to bike, walk or drive places? Do you prefer to cook/eat in or eat out? What’s a guilty pleasure of yours?

Just Add Cooking: Fall Celebrity Chef Series

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Another week, another Just Add Cooking review to share with you. If you are new to B2B, l’ll fill you in quickly: last spring, I was graciously given 4 months of service through Just Add Cooking, which meant that once a week I was given 3 meals to make and try. This came at the most perfect time because it was during the months leading up to our wedding so knowing that I wouldn’t have to plan out our meals every week was a huge relief. Not only that, but the meals were all SO GOOD and really easy to make so it was a win-win all around.

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Recently, Just Add Cooking reached out to me again to see if I wanted to try out meals again as they kicked off their Fall Celebrity Chef series. What this means, is that Just Add Cooking will be partnering with some local celebrity chefs to bring restaurant-quality dishes to JAC, while also making sure everything is still locally sourced and easy enough to handle in your own kitchen. The chefs in the partnership are: James Beard award-winner Jody Adams of TRADE, Saloniki, and Porto; James Beard finalist and celebrated chef Andy Husbands of Tremont 647, Sister Sorel and The Smoke Shop BBQ; television personality Diane Kochilas, one of the world’s foremost authorities on Greek cuisine and Consulting Chef at Committee ; and James Beard award-winner Frank McClelland of L’Espalier and Riversbend.

For the week we chose, the signature dish was Chicken with Muhammara from Jody Adams, which also happened to be my favorite meal of the week! The flavor in the “topping” was incredible- both RM and I couldn’t stop raving about it while we ate it. Such an interesting combination of ingredients that made such a delicious end result!

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The next meal I made was the Scandinavian Cod, which was the first fish meal we received…. weird, considering we love fish! This meal was SUPER simple to make, and based on how simple the ingredients were, I wasn’t expecting it to be as full of flavor as it was! I really loved the topping of eggs, horseradish & brown butter for the fish. I ended up sauteing the snow peas, which didn’t go along with the recipe but I wasn’t sure I felt like eating them raw. Lastly, I was totally blown away with how easy it was to cook the fish. The directions told me to boil water and once the water was boiling, remove it from the heat, drop the fish in, cover it and let it cook for 5 minutes. It came out perfect!!  Mind. Blown.

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The last meal of the week was the Hungarian Goulash, which RM and I had a blast saying (you try saying it by accentuating the GOU in the Goulash… it’s funny!). As with the other recipes, this was easy to throw together AND it reheated very well. The flavor combination from the spices and veggies and the meat were wonderful- it felt like a hearty fall meal! We talked about how there are so many variations you could make from the base recipe, too, like subbing out sweet potatoes for white potatoes, adding in other veggies, etc. I see this on repeat for sure.

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The celebrity chef meals will be on rotation until the end of the year so if you like the sounds of everything in this post, Just Add Cooking is offering a great deal for those of you who haven’t yet had a chance to try them. With the code BUBBLY, you can get your first Just Add Cooking box for just $39. Which, btw, is 3 meals- one hell of a deal if you ask me! Click here to sign up for a free account and to pick your recipes.

Previous reviews can be found here:

Just Add Cooking {First Review}
Just Add Cooking {2nd Review}
Just Add Cooking {3rd Review}
Just Add Cooking {4th Review}

Disclaimer: I was not compensated for this post but I was provided with a free week of meals in response for my review. As always, all thoughts and opinions in this post are my own- I really, truly think this is a wonderful company and I’m so excited that I get to work with them! As an affiliate, I do receive a credit when you sign up for the service using my code. Thanks for your support!

 

Wednesday Workout: 15 Minute Blast #3 {Last one of the 3 part series}

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I’m back with the 3rd and final part of my 15 minute AMRAP blast series! If anyone else is running tight on time these days, then these workouts are perfect for you. They are quick & dirty, as I like to say. They cover multiple muscle group, require minimal equipment and are over in a flash. A win-win-win combination if you ask me!

In this workout we’re working the legs/glutes with lunges and the upper body with biceps curls. I’m not one to usually focus on specifically working the smaller muscle groups, but once and a while I think it’s a nice addition to my workouts. That, and I think the lunge & bicep combination is a good one 😉

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For everything that has a “right and left” component (lunges, jumping lunges, butt kicks), perform the number of reps on each side.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Questions for you: What’s your favorite “combo” exercise?

Beautycounter Review {and a free gift for you}

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Hi there! Did you guys have a nice long weekend? We had such a great weekend kicking it around Watertown/Boston. As much as it would’ve been nice to have one more Cape weekend before Italy, it was also really nice to not have to pack up and head anywhere!

Today, though, I’m talking about new-to-me beauty products that I’ve had a chance to try out over the past few weeks. Have you heard of Beatuycounter? If not, it is a personal beauty company with a mission to make safer and more effective skincare and cosmetic products for women and children. Did you know that  in the United States there have only been 11 products banned and a law has not been passed regulating skincare or cosmetics since 1938?! This means that there are lots of products on the market right now with less than ideal ingredients in them. So, when the founder and CEO, Gregg Renfrew, learned of this she started her mission to create safe and effective products. Beautycounter has created a “never” list with over 1,500 ingredients that will never be allowed in any products sold. Amazing, right?

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side note: I REALLY wanted one of these adorable makeup bags!

After Melissa, reached out to me and gave me a glimpse into this product line, I agreed to check out some of the products. For as much as I care about what goes IN my body (meaning, buying organically, etc.), I’m embarrassed to admit that I don’t really think twice about what goes ON my body. I tend to use “whatever is around” in terms of face, body and hair products, but after using some of the Beautycounter products for a few weeks, I’ve seen what a difference it makes to use good quality products. Everything lathered well and felt really light and fresh. While Melissa sent me a lot of different products to try, I have to admit that I only used a handful of them due to the fact that I just don’t care to spend a lot of time on my skincare routine. I wash my face and use a moisturizer…. that’s about it! But, even though I only tried a few I’ll share all of the with you so you can see what they have to offer.

Shower Products: Shampoo, conditioner, body wash, lotion and body butter

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These were probably my favorite products, which is funny considering they weren’t even facial products! The shampoo is made with pure plant botanicals and it lathered SO well and felt like it was really stripping the mousse and other products from my hair, leaving it feeling nice and clean. The conditioner also worked well to get my gnarly curls loosened up (I am in major need of a hair cut!), probably because of the marula and mongongo oils. Although I’m not a big body wash person (yes, I still use soap- don’t judge!), I did love the way this body wash made my skin feel- even RM was a big fan. And lastly, the lotion and body butter were amazing- there’s something so great about putting on a nice, rich lotion after you get out of the shower, #amiright?! Everything had a similar fruity smell, too.

Face Care: washes & lotions

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I also really enjoyed trying out the face washes and lotions. My only complaints were that there was no SPF in the lotion (they only have SPF in their tinted moisturizer, which I think is strange) and the face washes didn’t take off my mascara very well at all, even though it’s washable.  I didn’t try the face mist or eye cream, but I’ve heard they work really well. Even though the creams didn’t have SPF, I thought they were great because they were lightweight and didn’t leave me feeling oily. Instead, because of the coconut oil and aloe in them they left me feeling perfectly moisturized. I loved the packaging, too, because one pump gave you exactly the right amount of cream.

Rejuvenating Collection

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I didn’t try anything in this line, mostly because if I wanted to see if anything had positive effects, I needed to stick to just a few of the products. This line is also geared towards mature skin and is great for those who want to fight the signs of aging…. I suppose I should’ve tried these, though, because I don’t think it’s ever too early to start that fight! Here’s what Melissa shared with me regarding these products:

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Various other products

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This was another fun bag of goodies, although we only used the sunscreen and lip balm. If I was into spending more time on my facial care routine, I definitely would’ve tried the face oils and charcoal mask and I think that in the winter a tinted moisturizer would be awesome! If you are into a more elaborate skin care routine, the face oils can be applied directly to your face or mixed with your daily moisturizer to add extra moisture to your skin, which I imagine would be really great in the dry winter months.

All in all, I really enjoyed trying out these products and being introduced to a “new and improved” beauty product line. If you’re interested in learning more, please feel free to reach out to Melissa (beautycounter.melissac@gmail.com)- she can certainly provide more details than I have in this post! Also, if you buy any products from her site and mention Burpees to Bubbly, you can get a FREE GIFT with your purchase! Pretty nice little perk if you ask me!

Now I want to hear from you: What do you use for your daily skincare products? Do you have a strict skincare routine or are you more relaxed about it? Have you started with “age defying” products? Have you heard of or tried Beatuycounter?

Disclaimer: I was not paid to write this post nor was I provided with these products to keep. Melissa let me try them out and I’m sharing my honest opinion of them.