It's... Fall?

If you know me at all or have read more than like 3 posts on this blog, you'll know I'm a fall girl. I am all about autumn. I will talk your ear off about pumpkin patches and hay rides and knit skirts and leggings and scarves, and I will feed you pumpkin breads and stuffed squashes and hot toddies until you want to kill me and go live in bermuda or antarctica or somewhere where it is never fall, ever.

But even I have raised an eyebrow at all the fall-stuff that is trickling into the latest of the interwebs. Halloween cupcake decoration DIYs? Beef and beer stew topped with garlic bread? Cmon people- I can appreciate an icy beer here or there during these sizzling months, but beef? stew? garlic bread?! I've got at least another 2 good bikini months left so what the hell are you doing?

I love fall, but I'm not one to cut summer short either- unless it gets to be November in Tucson and it's still 85 degrees and green. Either way... fall will have it's time. the web loves fall. spice bread recipes, knitting patterns, thanksgiving cornucopia diys- bloggers eat that shit up. but for right now, it's still SUMMER, damnit. So I say we turn up our noses at all the autumn stuff flooding our blogs and tumblrs and pinterest boards and embrace all things summer!

Sangria is a total summer thing. It's perfect for garden parties, bbqs, or really anything at all because it's delicious. make some, stat.

I love using zucchini to make healthy "pasta" salads. you really can't tell the difference as far as taste and texture go, and you cut the calories by an absurd amount. This pesto pasta sounds delicious, refreshing, and oh so healthy :)

I'm kinda caprese-ed out, but if you need to get your summer fix of tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil drenched in olive oil, check out this recipe for cute little caprese appetizers I posted last summer.

Now is the time to be wearing flowers in your hair. I really want to go buy some cute fabric and plain headbands and make a million of these adorable rosette hair accessories!

I think this is the cutest idea for a tropical themed summer party. I'm one of those people that believes wreaths can be a year round ordeal ;)

go enjoy what's left of summer! take a roadtrip, go camping, take a beach/pool day, buy short shorts and bikinis and flirty yellow summer dresses. eat fro yo for dinner. lay on the grass and look at the stars. drink lemonade on porch swings. It's summertime, baby! and the livin's easy :)

<3
Em

gee, what is this pinterest th- oh, no.

soo, it happened.

I apathetically avoided Pinterest for several months, mostly cause I didn't really understand what it was and was too lazy to try and figure it out. But all my friends were raving about it and all the cool kids were doing it so... I checked it out today. And then I didn't leave my room. For a day. Except to go to the kitchen to grab handfuls of Trader Joe's salt and cracked pepper chips. I may have gone to a crazy birthday party last night involving hot chocolate and rumpleminze which made me lazy beyond belief today.

I still don't really "get" it... like, what are you supposed to pin? how do you pin? what's the point of it all again? But I do really like scrolling through and looking at the pretty pictures and clicking on the links. It's like refined, feminine stumbling but with all the goods laid out in front of you so you're not clicking a button for hours hoping for the best. Or, it's like we heart it with links that go with the pictures. Either way, I like it. A little too much, perhaps.

Here are some cool things I found today:

mmmm, i love gin and tonics... except that one that had roofies in it (never trust an australian in mykonos). these look absolutely wonderful and sooo refreshing... something that would be wonderful in this atrocious heat!

This would be the cutest gift idea to give out to friends and family with little ones. you could buy everything in bulk and make a bunch of them to give away!

Bit 'sessed with this project. I've always thought having little candy bowls around the house is a cute idea, but these diy apothecary jars are even better than that.


so yeah... that was my day. oh, except for i found a little puppy to take home this weekend! I'm so freaking excited about it... i'll overwhelm you guys with pics and stuff once I get it :) hope you all had a nice, relaxing tuesday!

<3
ems

my new(ish) favorite way to start the day

This summer, I have found the secret to bright-eyed mornings, refreshing and healthy yet delicious food, easy weight-loss, and general happiness and well-being. I've also found the meaning of life. Excited yet? Perhaps I exaggerate a bit... but seriously, I've found a breakfast to end all breakfasts. In my opinion. Of course... I kind of detest breakfast so I guess my opinion isn't much to go on.

I'm sure half of you are gasping in shock and clicking the unfollow button- for how could one not like breakfast? People are serious about their breakfast, man... some people even eat it for dinner. I don't know. I can't explain it. I've never really been into eating mountains of doughy or bready stuff sopping with sugary syrup that early in the morning... and eggs have always kind of been meh. As for sausage and bacon... I just never really fell in love with it the way the rest of the world seemed to. maybe it's the vegetarian thing. I can appreciate a good eggs benedict though, provided the meat is substituted with sauteed greens or grilled tomatoes or artichoke hearts or something and they use real hollandaise sauce. Because seriously, how can anyone dislike something that's smothered in hollandaise sauce?

I'm getting off topic. Not liking the typical breakfast food can be difficult in a grand-slam kind of world. I did oatmeal for a while, then chocolate protein shakes, then cereal, then fruit and granola and yogurt, and then just fruit. I like eating fruit for breakfast because it's refreshing, delicious, and low calorie, but it still wakes my body up and gets my metabolism going. This summer though, I decided to mix it up. Enter my parents' blender.

Yep. That's my super awesome secret to everything wonderful. Breakfast smoothies. You're free to go.

Seriously, though! Breakfast smoothies are freaking amazing. The ones I make range from 150-250 cals each and fill pint sized glasses with some usually left in the blender. They are soooo delicious, take a while to consume since you sip it slowly (usually while doing something else, like blogging for instance...), give you an awesome boost of energy, fill you up for hours, AND they're super duper healthy, being low fat, low cal, and chock full of fresh fruit and vegetables and all.

I've been drinking these every day this summer... except for when I went to Greece for 5 weeks. Breakfast in Greece, by the way, made me pine for a big ol' stack of that bready syrupy nastiness. It's bad. Like really, really, really bad. Most times it consisted of shitty coffee, one type of cereal which was the same at every place, room temperature milk, and about 9 types of breads and random pound cakes on which to spread unsalted butter and individually packaged jams. If you were lucky there might be some hard boiled eggs, greek yogurt, or sliced cheese and processed bologna like meat. But fresh fruit? Oh hell no. You're going to eat bread and bologna for breakfast and you're gonna like it.

I hated it.

But now I'm back, and the age of smoothies has begun again!

also, not to like, toot my own horn or anything, but I've lost about 12 pounds this summer. Not saying that it's all to do with drinking smoothies in the morning, but yeah, it totally is.

so whip one up and have it for breakfast tomorrow. It will give you super powers and you will feel like the most amazing person on earth!

Here's what I've been drinking lately:

1 cup frozen blueberries (get the giant bag of them at costco, they will last FOREVER)
1 cup spinach or kale (you can't even taste or see it in the final product, but it's so good for you!)
1/2 a banana
1/2 a fuji apple
1/2 cup water, or soymilk if you're feeling frisky.

dump it all in a blender, turn the blender on. done. total cals: 169, or 214 if you use soymilk.

here's what I'm drinking right now:

1 cup frozen blueberries
2 cups diced watermelon
1 cup spinach
1/2 cup soymilk

total cals: 217. It's so creamy and sweet and light and delicious. and a kajillion times healthier than jamba or robeks!

Tomorrow I'm going to start posting greece pictures. Prepare to be wowed! Or bored. we'll see :)

love you all! happy monday, by the way :)

<3
Ems

20 in my 20th: #3 Drink Ouzo in Greece

Hooray for accomplishing the first of 20 things I wanted to do before next May 10th! Unfortunately I did not get a picture of this event- you see, I drank ouzo a couple times but I was waiting for the perfect moment to really "count" it- and when that moment came my phone was dead and I didn't have my DSLR! the unjustness of it all... anyways, I can describe what I considered the best ouzo drinking occasion in Greece to be.

For those of you who don't know, Ouzo is a clear Greek Liquor with a 40% alcohol content, like most other hard alcohols. It's made from anise seed and so it has a distinct black licorice-y flavor, similar to that of Jagermeister and Absinthe. I'm not a huge fan of black licorice-y alcohols... or candies... or anything, really, but I figured hell, I'm in Greece and I might as well do as the Greeks do ;)

You can shoot ouzo like you would any other hard alcohol, which is what we did before we went clubbing in Mykonos (THAT's a whole other story altogether...), but the more proper way to consume it is in a tumbler poured over ice cubes, which slowly melt and chill/dilute the ouzo.

Anyways, It was July 2nd, if I remember correctly- we were in Santorini, an absolutely gorgeous crescent shaped island with lots of beaches named for the colors of their sand. We spent the first half of the day at the archeological site of Ancient Thera, which was interesting, although by this, the 27th day of our trip, we were all kind of site-ed out.

 Anyways, we then wandered our way down the mountain to the black beach, where we bought 2 euro gyros and half liters of amstel or mythos and strolled down the boardwalk in search of a good place to lay out and enjoy the beach.

  I was with two of the boys I spent the most time with on this trip, Trevor and Kellner. We wound up finding a spot under the shade of a tree, where the black sand was warm but not scalding like it was in the sun. We laid out our towels and spent a while reading our various books for a while before Trevor eventually decided he wanted to get some ouzo. He and Kellner went off in search for a bottle, cups, and ice while I watched their stuff. It wasn't terribly classy, laying on the beach drinking ouzo from flimsy plastic cups which got sand all over them from the condensation, but it was wonderfully fun and relaxing sitting there with the boys, laughing and chatting and joking and people watching and getting just a little tipsy. It was great :)

I'm on the verge of completing a few other things from my 20 in my 20th list, like writing a song and getting a puppy- so look for a few more of these posts coming up in the next few weeks!

Woah.

So much has happened! All the crazy things I've been planning for and working on all year have come and gone in a blissful whirlwind of activity and fun. The past 6 weeks have been insane. Insanely amazing!

I'll get back to regular blogging- movie mondays, tasty tuesdays, lovely little things, etc in a few weeks when I get back down to Tucson and start getting ready for the school year and everything, but in the meantime I'll be popping in here every few days with tales of my summer adventures! Instead of overloading you with a trillion Greece pictures (after we left athens, I didn't find another computer to upload my pics to for the next 4 weeks!) in one post, I'm going to post about 15 a week so that I can be detailed in my documentation and the memories can live on for a while :) I've also got to tell you guys about the youth retreat catering thing, which went spectacularly. But more on all that later! Now begins my summer "vacation"- the part where I get to do nothing but kick back, drink fruity cocktails, go on river and camping trips, and host picnics at dusk with tiki torches. You know, all that summer stuff.

Thanks so much for being patient with me as my life went into crazy mode and I abandoned you all here for 6 weeks- I missed blogging so dearly and unfortunately I wasn't organized enough to actually plan out scheduled posts before I left- but not to worry, there are wonderful things to come! I love you all, can't wait to get back to reading and blogging! And hello to the couple new followers I picked up in my absence- I'm so glad you're here! Be back in a bit, lovelies.

<3
Em

Greece Days 6-7

Yet another deluge of photos :) I seem to be averaging 30-40 a day, which is going to add up to, well, a shit ton at the end. These pics include the temple to Afea on the island of Aigina, some day-trip fun in Aigina, the temple to Olympian Zeus in Athens, various pretty things in Athens, the only remaining Trireme in Athens (as far as I know) which was recreated to do various speed tests for historical purposes, some photos from the Pireas museum in Athens and finally a few pics of the beautiful (yet torrential) rain storm we had this afternoon.

I've got some time right now because I'm skipping dinner (noodle bar leftovers ftw) so I'm going to go through and actually weed out the good photos from the mediocre, and talk a little bit about each one. I didn't bring a good travel journal with me so this blog is going to be transformed into a greek travel blog for the next 4 weeks haha. hopefully you all will still find it interesting :)

Be sure to check out my last two greek photo posts as well, as I'm going to go through and do the same thing (deleting bad pictures, adding descriptions, etc) for them over the next couple hours.

 The above set is from the Temple of Afea on the island of Aigina in Greece. It is a long bus ride from the port where the ferries run through fields of pistachio trees, orange trees, and lots of other beautiful foliage. The busses in greece are a bit insane, though, and on the ride back down to the town from this temple we nearly had a head on collision with a bus going the opposite way. In the last pic you can see a little dust devil that randomly picked up and got quite powerful and then dissipated. Where I was standing it wasn't windy at all... weird.

 A to scale model of what the temple would have looked like in antiquity. I thought the little people/animal models were cute haha.

 Pics from the museum at the temple. Not a ton to see. What's pictured is stuff they found around the temple that originally would have been part of the temple itself.

 beautiful, beautiful island beach ^^

 I'd say about 70% of the people in greece ride scooters. They look so wonderfully european leaning up against white washed walls among brightly colored flowers everywhere.

 I really liked the vines growing along the power line in this pic. aps would flip.

 some of the lovely ladies on this trip with me :)

 crystal clear aqua marine water the temperature of a heated pool. It makes me swoon. how PERFECT does this beach look? oh, and there are some of the boys on this trip as well :)

 *swoon*

 the boys decided to do jumping pics. the water below is only 4-5 feet deep, but sandy. and the jump wasn't really that high.

 triple chocolate gelato. to die for! and only a euro fifty.

 we thought this guy was naked at first, but it was just the wood strategically blocking out his swim trunks haha.

 One of the boys giving his site report on the temple of olympian zeus.

 the above are all pictures of the temple of olympian zeus which is only a few block from our hotel in the heart of (ancient) athens.

i love these purple flowers.

 One of the wonderful street dogs that decided to attach itself to our group. One of the boys named it Sprinkles. Athens has a TON of street dogs. there are a few cats too, but you literally see a dog on every corner. When we got to the temple of olympian zeus today there were so many of them in different colors and sizes hanging out in a little pack that it reminded me of the movie Oliver and Company. Apparently the humane society (or something) goes around putting collars on the street dogs so that they don't get captured and killed... it's sad that they don't have ownders but they honestly all seem happy and well fed. They also get to hang out in the temples while the humans have to stay behind the ropes haha.
Sprinkles found us across the street from the temple while we were talking, and decided to bark at people passing by us. When we went to cross the street, Sprinkles stood in the bike lane and barked at passing cars, as if trying to get them to stop and let us cross. When there was finally an opportunity, we crossed and sprinkles trotted along happily next to us, and followed us around the temple for the rest of the morning. <3

 This adorable little pink and yellow bus was parked next to all the ugly tour busses.

 The only remaining Trireme in Athens (as far as I know). It is part of the Greek Navy and was constructed to match those used in ancient greece.

 A rendering of an amazonian woman, whom the greeks would sometimes fight.

 The above (and below) statues are from the Pireas Museum. A lot of the statues were found in the ocean after the ship they were on sunk hundreds of years ago. You can tell where the statues were exposed to the water (versus burried in the sand) by where the marble is porous and eroded like sea rock. In some of them you could even see old sea shells that had gotten stuck in there over hundreds of years at the bottom of the ocean. So, so cool!

 A funerary stele. These are EVERYWHERE in greek museums.

 A bronze tragedy mask.

 A bronze of Artemis

 A bronze of Athena. There are not many bronzes left nowadays because much of the metal was melted down to make weapons/bullets etc during the war- so these full bronzes are very impressive!

 Artemis once again

 A herm- herms are generally just a block, like you see here, with a head at the top and usually some male genitalia where the hole is. Very strange statues, and the butt of many a joke these days :)

 A wooden coffin. You can the reflection of me taking the picture!

 When we got out of the Pireas, we saw that the sky had turned dark and stormy! It was so beautiful against the sailboats in the dock and the crowded white washed hill of Athens.

 Love these little cars. After about 5 mins on the bus, the rain started pouring down.

 They have gorgeous trees here- they're like japanese cherry blossoms but with purple flowers instead of pink! and about 2-3 times the height.

What else have I been doing? hmm...Well, I've been sitting in many a greek taverna splitting jugs of wine with all the wonderful people on this trip and eating my weight in pita bread and feta cheese. Feta is about 1-2 euro here at dinner and they give you a slab of it drenched in olive oil and sprinkled with herbs. I tried a souvlaki gyro but the beef made my usually vegetarian stomach cringe so the boys let me trade my souvlaki for some of their chicken, which was very good.

OH! so 2 nights ago a bunch of us wanted to go check out the Athenian night life. We went out to dinner where I got some white wine, pita (which is 20 cents per bread),  and a spicy cheese dip which was just feta pureed with olive oil and hot peppers. it was really good but very filling, and as much as I hate to say it I'm getting a bit sick of feta cheese. (we ended up getting noodle bar last night- asian food in greece is surprisingly good!). anyways, after dinner we attempted to walk to a club we had written down directions for, but it didn't seem to exist. At this point a few of the people we were with (not me, luckily) were already drunk and acting kind of ridiculous. We wandered around for about an hour, looking up different streets and asking people for directions. We got some advice from a couple of greek girls to go to a dubstep club called ZAS, where they were planning on going later. We tried it and since it was so early (like midnight) it was basically dead. we left after 5 minutes. Eventually we stumbled upon a group of three american boys, who were doing the same thing. They got some advice from their hostel that there was a strip of clubs called the gaza, which is near the Kerameikos- about a 15 min walk from where we were. Us ladies were in heels, but we were determined so we decided to give it a shot. We eventually found a pretty cool bar with an open air second floor, but by that point we were all so exhausted (we have been getting up between 6-7:30 every morning and not going to sleep until at least midnight) that we just ordered one very overpriced drink (8euro for a gin and tonic? no thank you) and headed home. Of course, the cabs here will only take 4 and by this time we were a group of 5 so we had to walk the 20 mins back to our hotel. There were definitely some annoyed people that night haha... but I had fun and I'm glad we went out and tried.

That was a really long story. Anyways... yesterday was an island day which was amazing. I forgot a towel and bought one at a dusty little shop in the beach town- the store looked like no one had bought anything in years and they had random crap... like one of the guys bought a phoenix suns hat there haha. All the towels appeared to have loony tunes and disney characters on them which was interesting.. i thought mine was just pink flowers but when I unfolded it I found a large picture of minny and mickey mouse! ah well, it will be conversation piece of a towel i suppose haha.

tomorrow we hit the road and don't return to athens for three weeks. first we will drive around the mainland to places like delphi, olympia, etc.. and then we will island hop. I'm loving everything about this trip but I can't wait to get to the islands because it will become much less school-y and much more vacation-y at that point :)

Everything is beautiful and delicious and amazing, and I'm loving every second. The group of students is great and we've already become really close and comfortable with each other. I'm excited to see how the next four weeks play out :)

Love, love, love!

Kali spera,
Em