I’ve just returned from the best. weekend. ever. with my favorite friends. We headed down to New Orleans to celebrate the bachelorette party of my bestie Katie who is getting married in June, and we purposefully timed our visit (even further) South to be there during Jazz Fest. It was my fourth trip to New Orleans, but my first to Jazz Fest and we had so much fun!
(Special shout out to my friend Sean who lives there and supplied us with plenty of chairs, sheets, and insider tips!)
I couldn’t believe that our entry ticket provided us the opportunity to see Bruce Hornsby, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, and Zac Brown Band. They just played one right after after the other. I’m still smiling thinking about how much fun we had at Jazz Fest (and the entire weekend as a matter of fact). Here are some snapshots from the weekend…. well, those that are appropriate for public consumption anyways. hee hee.
Houston, we have arrived:
Me and the bachelorette:
My Jazz Fest snack of choice was a softshell crab po boy. I made the right choice:
The crowd at Jazz Fest was ba-na-nas:
Here’s our entire bachelorette party crew. What a group!!!
Moving on after Jazz Fest, we spent the rest of our time just enjoying little bits of New Orleans. Our time there was limited, but I think we did a really good job getting a taste (literally and figuratively) of everything the city has to offer.
Pedicabs were our preferred method of transportation:
This was actually from our first night in New Orleans. We rallied ourselves after a long day of travel to get a drink out on Bourbon Street before crashing for the night.
You never know what might happen in New Orleans. Here my friend Katie (not the same one getting married in June) got pulled in to assist in a fun little magic act happening in the street:
A picture on the Mississippi River because why not:
Saturday afternoon (after a fabulous brunch at the Court of the Two Sisters), we walked off the copious amount of food consumed with a Voodoo Tour. Again, why not?
I obviously ignored the signs on this chair because I simply had to get a picture. If I had a spare $6,000 you can bet this crazy thing would be sitting in my house. Alas, it’s still at the store. sigh:
Our entire group out on Saturday night. From the looks of this picture our waiter was so kind to take, you would think he was the one who shared four carafes of sangria:
I hope you had a great time, Katie. It was certainly a weekend for the record books. Love you!!!
Crowd + Grace Potter and the Nocturnals (Taken with instagram)
In New Orleans at Jazz Fest with my favorites. (Taken with instagram)
The latest book I’ve read as part of BlogHer’s book club is You Have No Idea which was written by Vanessa Williams and her mother Helen Williams. I am totally a sucker for famous people so I read this book in a couple of days. It was a pretty light read that chronicled Vanessa’s life to date and told her story from both her perspective and her mother’s perspective of being a mom to a beautiful, spirited, rebellious child. Helen was much more interested in being Vanessa’s mother than friend growing up and I could totally relate to that. It was really interesting to hear her mother’s perspective on this style of parenting. Now that I’m older, I’m so grateful my mother was a mother first and my friend second.
The book had everything you could ask for in a book written by a celebrity:
Scandal - 1982 was the year I was born and also the year Vanessa was stripped from her title of Miss America due to nekkid pictures being released. Though I obviously don’t remember this scandal, it was still interesting to read about from an inside perspective.
Celebrities - There’s definitely names dropped in this book that make you go “oh!”
Romance - Vanessa was married and divorced twice. She talks about her love and heartbreak openly.
Secrets - I won’t spill the beans, but there are definitely some parts about Vanessa’s childhood (and her mother’s, too) that I would never in a million years have guessed. It makes it all the more amazing that she’s gone on to have such a successful career.
You should definitely check out this book, and it would totally make a perfect-o Mother’s Day gift, too. To read some more reviews, check out the BlogHer page.
I was compensated for my time to review this book, but the opinions here are (and always will be) my own.
The first issue of Carolina Style is available online! Check it out to see yours truly as well as the 24 other most stylish people in the triangle. Holler.
A little cartoon I made inspired by recent events.
Last image via.
Don’t forget to enter my giveaway for $100 worth of Darphin Paris products! It’s a good one, y’all!
(look ma! It’s a little exercise angel!)
Sacre bleu! I almost let this day pass me by without documenting that today marks one year since I started Tracy Anderson’s Metamorphosis (TAM) program. I had previously done her boot camp book and worked out with the myriad of YouTube videos available (for free!) but it was May 1, 2011 that I took the plunge into Metamorphosis. Here’s that year by the numbers:
1,435,329: The number of times (I feel like) I have pureed, juiced, blended, and chopped to adhere to Tracy’s dynamic eating plan (ugh).
221: The actual number of times I’ve worked out in the last year. Tracy recommends working out 6 days a week with one rest day. Obviously, I took a few more rest days.
117: The approximate hours of sleep I have lost by getting up at 5:15 in the morning to workout before work. It’s much easier to get up in the morning when the days are longer.
14: The number of various Pandora stations I have to get my groove on while I workout. I had two before: Britney and Christmas.
7: The number of workout bottoms I own.
2: The number of tops that match those bottoms.
0: The number of times I have actually cared what I am wearing while I workout because I don’t need to look cute for anyone while I jump around my basement.
This is the first workout program that I’ve actually stuck with for more than a month. And I can honestly say, I’ll keep doing it as long as Tracy keeps putting out new content. I have not gotten bored once. Sure, sometimes I hate her guts (you want me to twist that how?!?!) but deep down, I really do love her and her masochistic method. Anyone else know what I’m talkin’ bout? Have you tried TAM? What do you think?
Ready to rock with the beach boys! cc: @shopvestique for the super colorful outfit! (Taken with instagram)
Cute summer wedge…
…for $22.
(!!!!)
Heck, that’s a cute wedge no matter the price.
Let’s get a pair in every color.
Last night, I was supposed to go home and work on my skinnies with Tracy Anderson, but this happened (see above).
I couldn’t help myself really. The weather was so nice that it was just begging me to please, please, pleeeeease sit on the porch with my main squeeze, a good beer and some good tunes and talk about stuff.
One of mine (my?) and el husb’s favorite things to talk about is inventions.
Specifically, things we should invent.
We’ve come up with lots of great ideas over the years and I’m here to share them with you.
Things we invented without realizing they were already invented:
- Irrigation system that automatically waters plants based on the moisture of the soil (instead of preprogrammed times) Obviously, this one was the brainchild of my engineer husband.
- All natural herbicide/fungicide for landscaping.
Things we invented but don’t actually know how to invent so you can take these idea as long as you pay me royalties:
- An app that you take a picture of a leaf and it tells you what kind of plant it is.
- An app that can recognize smells. (No, it wasn’t the dog that just farted it was you. See, my app tells me so!)
Things that we are going to invent and make millions:
- HA! I can’t tell you those, silly.
I know there are more ideas that I just can’t remember (see above brewski and add until fuzzy but still fun).
Anyways, I hope you have a great weekend and leave a comment with your latest and greatest invention. I don’t even care if it’s already invented. I know you had the idea first. harumph.
