Shoes & Blenders

I tend to hold on to gift cards for a long time, pretty much storing them until I have a small pile of them. This is great when you have gift cards to the same store (like Macy’s) and can join all the gift cards towards one purchase, but not so great when you have gift cards to a lot of different stores.

Luckily, I usually get gift cards to the same stores because only a few people give me gift cards. Kevin’s parents have always given me Macy’s and Bed, Bath, & Beyond gift cards for the holidays and my birthdays. I’ve saved them for about 1.5 years, mostly because I had no idea what to buy at either of those places.

But I finally spent them.

Nike Free 5.0

At Macy’s, I ended up buying myself some new Nike tennis shoes, even though I was considering buying new bedsheets or plates for our apartment. I chose tennis shoes because it was pretty much a necessity at the time. Zoey got out of her crate that week and ate the only two pairs of tennis shoes I had (and also some of my nice pairs of heels). But, I love my new shoes and the best part? I had enough gift cards to cover the entire purchase. Nothing like free shoes, my friends.

Bed, Bath, and Beyond

At Bed, Bath, & Beyond, I bought Ninja Blender. I’ve pretty much made something in this blender every day since I brought it home last week. Smoothies are so easy to make! Kevin & I always have fresh fruit in the house, so all I do is throw some in there with a little bit of ice. I also made an Oreo Milkshake, which obviously isn’t as healthy, but it was incredibly awesome.  The next thing we want to make is homemade margaritas. If you have a recipe for that, please send it my way! (or any smoothie recipes, especially ones that don’t have dairy since I just quit eating it- ugh!).

This is probably the most pointless blog ever, but using my gift cards was on my bucket list – so I had to write about my success. Dork? Why, yes. I guess I am.

Life Without My Favorite Foods | The Launch

Hello, June! I know I say this about almost every month, but I cannot believe how quickly May has come and gone. A lot of things happened in May: we celebrated 6 birthdays, including the birth of my nephew.  Like they say, time goes fast when you’re having fun.

I chose June for one of my bucket list challenges: go one month with no dairy. I understand that it may come off as a weird challenge – why choose dairy out of all things to give up? I’ll tell you why.

1. I’m lactose intolerant.  
2. Dairy is very inflammatory. It has become one of the most inflammatory foods in our diets. 
3. I am highly convinced that the more dairy I eat, the more acne I get.  This is from my personal experience and reading studies. 
4. I am curious how much better I will feel. 

On one hand, this could be an easy challenge for me.  All I have to do is stop buying my Lactaid pills (they’re the natural pills I eat before I drink/eat anything with dairy in it). If I eat/drink dairy without a pill, I get super sick.

On the other hand, I tried this before and I failed miserably. I love cheese.  I love desserts like cakes and brownies and ice cream.  Within about two days of deciding to go dairy free, I marched myself to the store and purchased more Lactaid. And then I enjoyed dairy again.

June may also be easier because there isn’t too much going on besides a few birthdays and Father’s Day.

Maybe I will find that the benefits of quitting dairy far outweigh my love for dairy products. At least, I hope that happens. Wish me luck!

Edit: I’m not cutting dairy out 100% and making my life stressful by looking at ingredient lists on bottles. I’m simply cutting out the obvious dairy – like cheese, ice cream, etc.  

+ I had no idea what type of image to put on this post, so I chose a random cow one. 

Our Date at the BYOB Paint Class

I have always, always (and by always, I mean since last year when they became popular) wanted to go to a BYOB paint class. Finally last week I decided to RSVP spots for me and Kevin. I wanted to surprise Kevin, but of course he already knew what is was almost immediately after I told him not to make plans for Saturday night.  I’m not sure how he figured it out. I didn’t leave any receipts lying around, and I didn’t even tell anyone my plan. But, he somehow figured it out (he says it’s because he knows me so well).

The class we attended was a special “Couple’s Class.” One person paints one side of the scene and their partner paints the other side of the scene. Kevin painted the side with the swings (his group was called The Swings – which mostly everyone in the class started calling The Swingers instead.) My side was for The Tree People, who I referred to as The Tree Huggers.

I actually felt nervous before we started to paint. I was pretty sure I would make a complete mess out of my canvas. But, even after drinking, it wasn’t as hard as I imagined it would be. The teacher was really easy to follow and if I messed up, I somehow found a way to fix my mistake.

This is something I definitely want to do again!

P.S. I can finally mark something off my bucket list.