Birthday celebration

It's only been a month since my birthday and I just now saw that this was still a draft and never posted. So here you go...
I'll start by saying I'm not a party person, I think of myself a fairly reserved, so for my big 3-0 birthday I had a nice evening with two of the most important people in my life and the most important fur baby in my life, ha.

Enjoying one of my favorite beverages

Sitting around this gorgeous fire pit, I got a steal on it at Garden Ridge, the pit and stand together $40! It may have been on sale because of the painting but I find that makes it more unique, the butterflies are a nice touch in my opinion.

The next day the hubs took me shopping and out to lunch at one of my favorite places, Cheesecake Factory. If you have never been be prepared to spend some time reading the menu, they have everything you could imagine. This salads is one of my usuals that I order, it's the mexican salad on the skinnylicous menu.

Did more shopping that I needed to, but hey, it was my big 3-0 birthday afterall.

The big present ware these fab oakleys! I had a great pair that I loved and was hoping they still made them but apparently not and this is what I went with, and they are pretty darn great. These are going to get a lot of wear this summer that's for sure! These were to replace the old faves that some animal, that shall remain nameless, decided when no one was around to take them off the dining table and tear them to bits with his teeth, ahem... Guido Bianchi!

All and all I had a pretty fabulous birthday to the Casey standards, all thanks to two beautiful people, my husband and my bestie!

Sephora haul!

I've said it once and I'll say it again, I love Sephora.com!
Yeah, yeah, you can go to the store and pick up what you need but if you know what you want why not become a VIB member and order it online, then you get bonus samples and coupon codes to get you full size deluxe minis!

Above is some new stuff I'm trying on my skin, I recently read about this in a magazine article, it's for those of us aging women with acne and wrinkles. The AHA/BHA combo is supposed to force the skincells to turnover and force your skin to plump up with collagen at the same time...promising isn't it, hope it works.

And here are my free goodies! You always get three free samples with your purchase but if you look in the right place you can usually find a code to enter at checkout for a deluxe sample. I find the codes by googling sephora coupon codes and it's usually the first thing google finds for me, it's actually on sephora's site but I can never remember where to find it. I used the code this time for this boscia luminizing black mask, which was a ton of fun by the way, and if I was more daring I'd post pics but you can google and get the idea from that. I also got some perfume samples and a moisturizer sample. Perfume samples are great because I can change up my scent often without having to pay the high price for a quality perfume. 

This Sephora haul was actual from a month ago, I have another one scheduled to arrive this week full of all kinds of travel size goodies for an upcoming beach vacation. Stay tuned...

Zulily and Toms

Have you heard of Zulily? I always see their ads online and never thought anything of it, but one time they had the most beautiful shoes and I couldn't ignore them, I had to click. I checked out their site and they were having a great deal on Toms shoes, if you haven't tried Toms it's a must, and not for the look, it's for the fact that they are super comfortable!

I checked out their site and they were having a great deal on Toms shoes, if you haven't tried Toms it's a must, and not for the look, it's for the fact that they are super comfortable! Toms also gives a pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair purchased, that's a pretty good deal if you ask me.

I chose a pair of the slip-ons in the silver herringbone color, I would recommend going down a half size in the slip-ons, I am usually a 6.5 but these would have fit perfectly in a 6. The wedges I ordered were perfect in a 6.5 and the color is described as black metallic but it's more of a dark denim look, these wedges are fabulous and comfortable, now I just need warm weather!

Now with all that said, if you do order from Zulily.com be prepared for a long wait time for you purchase, they do warn you and explain the way they operate so you know that it's going to be anywhere between one and three weeks before you get your order, but I saved like $40 ordering the Toms from zulily versus any other site I have seen them on, the wait also wasn't too bad because it's too cold, snowy, and wet to wear either of these right now, but I'm happy to add them to my shoe collection!

Smoothies and Frappes

I scored some awesome finds on my grocery shop this past Sunday. I had eaten terribly all weekend and planned on making some smoothies this week to get my body back on track. Well I found these jamba juice smoothies in the freezer section, you simply pour the package in the blender with a cup of juice and blend it until smooth.                              

                           

Each flavor has a specific juice it recommends however the only juice I had in the fridge at home was a cranberry blend from whole foods, it paired perfectly with the Razzmatazz smoothie, I added a little whipped cream on top to make it pretty and enjoyed the smoothie outside in the sunshine, it was a fantastic lunch break. I would totally recommend these frozen jamba juice smoothie pouches, it says it makes 2 servings I just used a little less juice and fit it all in one class for myself. Today for lunch I plan to try the strawberry banana flavor. 

 The other score I made are these Seattle's Coffee Frozen Coffee Blends! For these babies you pour the pouch of frozen coffee and flavors in the blender with a cup of milk, I use nonfat, and blend until smooth, again I topped with a little whipped cream to make it feel more decadent. I tried the Mocha Madness over the weekend and this Creamy Caramel is fantastic, I will have to pick up some more of these, it's a bit easier than waiting for my espresso to cool so I can make my own and at $2.50 for each bag it's a bit cheaper than a trip to Starbucks.

Shopping...

While my in-laws were in town we did some shopping...I think shopping may have been my sister-in-law's only reason for coming, just joking. I was actually well behaved at all the stores, shocking with my shopaholic visitor. We went to Kenwood Town Center, Cincinnati Premium Outlets, and one quick stop at Tricounty Mall. 

 These awesome Nike Sandals were my outlet purchase...for years I had been using the old school Adidas sandals that were hard plastic and all black with the white lines, I mean like for over 10 years been using the same pair. I finally decided it was time to get some that were a bit more comfortable, and lucky for me I have very tiny feet and I can wear children's shoes, making these awesome sandals only $17!

 At Kenwood Town Center the main stops were Abercrombie and Express, two of my favorite stores, of course I had to get a few things. I picked up this awesome baseball tee from Express, I also picked up two black and white shelf bra cammies but those are basics and do not get a picture, however if you need a tank top with a shelf bra the ones at Express are fabulous and last a long time, if you are like me and could wear those things every day under every top. Ok, back to the cute baseball tee, they only had one other color or I would have bought multiples of this shirt, I love the baseball tees but have problems because my shoulders are broad and these shirts can make me look like a football player but the cut on this shirt was perfect!

 I had bought the Lash Stash at Sephora a few weeks ago and it was time to turn in my certificate and get my full size mascara. I chose the Benefit Bad Gal Lash, this was my favorite of the little lash stash pack, it gives me full long beautiful lashes, I like it better than the They're Real mascara made by benefit.

Last stop was Hollister...there were some huge summer sales going on at all the stores because they will be bringing out the back-to-school fall lines the end of this month. I scored these shorts and cropped light sweat pants for $10 each at Hollister, that is a fabulous deal, normally these are $24 for the shorts and $34 for the pants. Oh I should mention the awesome deal on the pinkish Abercrombie jacket, it was around $15, I'm not positive of the price because my awesome Mother-in-law treated me the family to the Abercrombie shopping. Those zip up hoodies at Abercrombie can run you close to $50 same with the jean shorts, so truth be told if you want good summer deals wait until mid-July.

Amazon & The Everygirl's Guide to Life

Have you heard of the Amazon Prime membership? Typically Amazon offers you a free trial of the membership for 30 days and after that it's $79 a year. The biggest benefit is free 2-day shipping on all items fulfilled by amazon and a lot of other vendors. I order a lot on amazon and the free shipping is great for me. Amazon is a great invention, you can find almost anything you can think of on their site. Like today I'm about to order a salad spinner, because I'm tired of wet lettuce, I will have that salad spinner at my door in 2 days, pretty fantastic and totally worth the $79 a year for me. There are some other perks that come with the amazon prime membership, like special pricing on books and music. I learned yesterday that there are amazon apps for the iphone and ipad that can help you take even more advantage of the membership or just your amazon account in general. There is Amazon Cloud Player, Amazon Kindle, Amazon Instant Video, and Amazon shopping app. All of these apps are available for both the ipad and the iphone, I would imagine you can get them for droid as well. The great thing about all of these apps is that I sign in with my one and only amazon login and everything is suddenly available, such as the songs I purchase, they are now on both my ipad and iphone because I login with the same amazon user id for both devices. 

My most recent purchase this weekend was a book by Maria Menounos, you may know her as a reporter for Entertainment Tonight and she has appeared on several other TV shows and has done guest articles in many publications. I think Maria is gorgeous, great skin and hair, her body is put together different from mine but I believe her fashion tips and health tips are general enough to be used across the board. This book is called "The Everygirl's Guide to Life" and I'm only on chapter 3 but so far I'm really enjoying the read. I downloaded this book for my upcoming vacation, it's great having it on the ipad which produces it's own light so I can read in the dark, not the best for my eyes but great on saving the energy at the solar powered cabin I'm renting. 

I also purchased the paper copy of "Fifty Shades of Gray" but books that read like books are not my most favorite to read. I figured with all the hype on 50 shades that it will read just fine for me but I prefer magazines, those are my guilty pleasure. I subscribe to about 5 different magazines and my mom and bestie subscribe to a few others and we all trade back and forth. I can engulf myself in a magazine for over and hour looking at the beautiful glossy pictures and reading about everything from diet and exercise to the latest fashion finds. That is what I love most about this book "The Everygirl's Guide to Life" it reads like a magazine, with great pics of Maria and her actual home and how she implements the tips that she's giving you in her own everyday life. I also love the "Honest Life" by Jessica Alba and Lauren Conrad "Style" book, after I finish the Maria Menuonos book I'll probably invest in the Lauren Conrad "Beauty" book. 

                                            
One of the chapters I have read so far was about organizing your home and your closet. I love this idea below from Maria's house, she went to Ikea and bought rods, drawers, cabinets, etc. to build her own closet in a spare bedroom in her house, my hope is that when we finally purchase a home of our own in January that I'll have an extra bedroom that I can do this too, I hope that it will also double as my office/exercise room and then line the walls with cabinets and shelves to have all my pretty clothes, shoes, and accessories surrounding me. The best part is while I'm running in the mornings on my elliptical I can scan the room for what I'm going to toss on after my shower, I think this could streamline my mornings. I'm looking forward to the other tips in this great book!

                                               

Newport-Cincinnati Purple Bridge

And finally our last adventure, we took the ladies to see the purple bridge, we parked in Newport and walked the bridge over to Cincinnati, and then had a walk along the river, it was a hot so it was a short walk.

 

The purple bridge was built for walking only, no cars ever go across the bridge. It's very nice, occasionally during the summer months there are small bars and restaurants that set up on the bridge, however this was on a Monday afternoon so there was nothing setup. 

 This is my beautiful sister-in-law taking in the view.

 The whole family, and let's not make fun of the short little American girl, thanks

 Hubs educating the ladies on history of his new city.

 Brother and sister love!

I have no idea what these things are exactly but there were thousands of them and thought they deserved a picture. They didn't seem to cause any problems to people just that there were a lot of them, I had a few on me and there were no bites or marks.

We had to take the girls to get a real American burger! We took them to Five Guys Burger and Fries, they loved it so much that they wanted to go back on Tuesday before flying home to Italy. 

I'm not sure what it is about Five Guys, its my husband's first burger love, and every Italian guest we have had thinks its divine. I will admit they are pretty delicious but it's not what I imagine when I think of a great burger, however if I think of a great fast food burger this would be the place. Five guys does use fresh good ingredients, you see them make the beef patty and throw it on the grill right in front of your eyes, then they build your lovely burger again with you watching and mouth watering, you also are told what farm in Idaho they bought their traditional Idaho potatoes at. They have a very limited menu, burgers and fries, that's it but with a good variety of toppings, I would have to say that if you are looking for a fast good tasting high quality burger then Five Guys is your place.

Okay this picture is just for fun, we took the girls to the Hustler Hollywood store, another place that Cincinnati is famous for, if you haven't heard of it google the story of the owner and creator Larry Flynt. We were doing some shopping near buy and figured we should show the girls what an American sex shop is like, and it was hilarious (as you can see from my picture), I'm very glad we stopped in.

The Italians are coming...

As I was saying before, my in-laws from Italy came to spend a few days here with us to see just how my hubs was doing in the US. My sister-in-law and mother-in-law seemed to have really enjoyed their short stay with us and I as well. It was kind of a stay-cation for me, I forgot all the awesome things my city had to offer since I've been here my whole life.

The girls arrived on Thursday in the late afternoon and with the six hour time change there was not a lot of moving and shaking, so we just let them get settled and made a quick pizza and salad for dinner at home. 

The next day we were off shopping! We took the ladies to the best mall in my area and that is Kenwood Town Center. My sister-in-law was in heaven, apparently Abercrombie is crazy expensive in Europe compared to the US, there were a few other things she wanted from the US as well, including new iPhone covers, so we stopped at our fabulous Apple Store!

 While shopping around we passed my favorite furniture store, Restoration Hardware, I say favorite but it's more my favorite place to look at furniture because it's very expensive but it's beautiful,

 This couch was super comfy!

 Here is my dream desk, maybe one day I'll have this airplane wing desk. You may have seen this in the newer episodes of Two and Half Men.

 Saturday morning it was raining, I should add that it rained here for about two weeks straight, it stopped or slowed to an almost stop on this past Monday. -side note we are expecting sunny days for a few in a row and Saturday I get pool time with the bestie-OK back to the story at hand...since it was raining we needed indoor entertainment, that was found at the good 'ol flea Market, Trader's World! I wish I had taken more pictures, one day I will since I go there occasionally to find odds and ends. Here is a pick of me outside sitting on a wet pony, haha.

New toy!

Hubs got a new toy last week! Now we are ready for a vacation at the cabin in Michigan. I know what do you need a crossbow for on vacation? Well our cabin is in the middle of over 80 acres of forests, lakes, waterfalls, etc... You never know when a wilderbeast (bear) may attack. Don't worry we bought a nice target to use also, my hubs is a huge animal lover and would only kill for survival.

Weekend wrap up

This was a very inactive weekend, no posting and not much instagramming either. My mother and sister in law are arriving Thursday all the way from Italy to spend a short week with me and the hubs here in good ol' USA. I'm so excited to have them here and show them around, I got a nice tour of their place in December and now its my turn to host them. This weekend was spent prepping the guest rooms and cleaning the house and grocery shopping to make sure I have some foods that they will enjoy and some American treats that hubs and I think they need to try. 

Painted my toes blue to get festive for the upcoming 4th of July weekend, although I do not have any major plans, I"m not huge on holidays. Holidays for me tend to be stressful, so I like more of having grill outs and get-togethers with friends on non-holidays. Take 4th of July for example, there will be fireworks everywhere so much that you can stand in your yard and see a nice display, so I see no reason to pack up the car and sit in traffic trying to go see a major fireworks display or to sit in traffic trying to make a trip out of town somewhere. All camping locations are overly crowded on holiday weekends, parking is a nightmare, it's just not worth it for me, so you won't be seeing any big 4th of July post here.

 Guido relaxed on the deck in the sun as usual, this is his favorite spot to bake in the sun.

 It was a rainy weekend, it's been a wet week for that matter. It was just about impossible to plan anything outside, no pool time with the bestie, so sad. Since the weather didn't permit any outdoor fun the hubs and I decided to have a movie date, we were torn between World War Z and Man of Steel. We chose World War Z because hubs was in the mood for zombies instead of super heroes, a rare occasion indeed. WWZ was overall a good movie, we were both hoping for a bit more action, or should I say blood and violence, these zombies don't eat you like in the Walking Dead, it's more virus taking over the world, kind of like Outbreak. Brad Pitt relies more on his brain than his brawn and I wanted him to rely on both. I am not saying it's a bad movie by any means, I was fully captivated by the intensity but I'm an action girl, I know I should have seen Man of Steel probably for the action, will do eventually.

 The only personal shopping I did this weekend that wasn't for my guest rooms, cleaning stuff, or groceries was a quick stop to TJ Maxx. Those that don't have TJ Maxx, it is a closeout/overstock kind of store, when designers have too much of something or want to stop a certain line they have they sell it to stores like TJ Maxx or Marshall's. I love these stores, you can score great designer merchandise at incredible bargains. Take these sunnies for example, on the top is the pair I scored this weekend, these are Kenneth Cole Reaction aviators, they were $9.99! On the bottom is a pair almost identical to the new ones, I purchased these a few years ago (again Kenneth Cole brand), I lost one of the nose pieces about 2 years ago but I love these aviators so much that I couldn't get rid of them, I have been holding on to them and keep telling myself I'll fix the nose piece. Well this weekend when I saw the almost identical pair I was super excited, I'm hoping the nose pieces can be switched from the new ones to the old ones, I still prefer the old ones over the new ones even though the differences are extremely small and unnoticeable to most. If it doesn't work out then I'll toss out the old and keep the new but they look like the switch should work! I'm so excited to have aviators again, I love them but I have a smaller than average size head so finding sunglasses and hats for that matter that fit me is a difficult feat, that is the reason why I have been keeping broken sunglasses around for 2 years waiting to fix them, because I was too afraid that I would never find a pair that fit quite as well.
Hope you all had a nice weekend!

Sephora

I am supposed to be on a spending detox but I just couldn't pass up Sephora when it was about 20 feet from the Pub where I had lunch on Saturday. I had read about this Dallas blush from Benefit on Rosie's blog www.thelondoner.me, she has one of the best blogs in my opinion. 

I stopped in Sephora and a nice woman with a belt of brushes and sponges came over and applied this beautiful dusty rose blush with it's light shimmer on to my cheeks and I was in love. I had to have it, no question about it.

 As I walked up the counter to make my purchase I noticed this little box of mascaras, the lash stash to go, it caught my curiosity. I asked the woman at the counter and she explained that for $25 you get 5 small sample tubes of their top mascaras and also enclosed is a certificate you bring back to the store after sampling the lot of them and you can get a full size of your favorite one. Not a bad deal, since most of these mascaras run over $25 for a full tube. So far I have tried the bad gal lash by benefit and love it, I might even like it better than the they're real mascara I have been using also made by benefit.

I can't say I'm proud that I went to Sephora since I had a bit of a shopping spree lately I was supposed to be cutting back, but I can say I do not regret walking in there one bit!

Insta-weekend

What a weekend, Saturday is missing from this post because I haven't uploaded the pics from my camera yet, we had a Subaru Meet on Saturday morning/afternoon, lots of awesome cars and people. Hope to have time to get to those tonight. 

So here is what happened Friday...after work Guido was scheduled to go to the vet for his yearly shots and somehow he managed to rip off the dew claw (the inner claw on the front paw, like a dog thumb). We noticed because he was limping around a bit and would cry if you touched it, but he didn't have as much bleeding as I have heard you can expect when a dog looses a nail. The vet trimmed it down and cleaned it up and then gave him a bandage to wear for two days to keep any infection from getting in there. I was actually amazed by how well he did with the bandage, I expected him to chew it off in the first few hours but then he got used to it and he was sad Sunday night when we removed the bandage, he got used to having it. He has a few more days of antibiotics left and the nail should grow back in after awhile. But doesn't he just look so sad and cute in the picture with his little bandage, I just wanted to cuddle my little baby non-stop. 

 Sunday we made a trip to Lowe's Hardware store and picked up some needed items for the back yard.
Since my basil I planted a few weeks ago from seed won't be edible any time soon we picked up one that was well started so caprese salad is on the menu this week, mmmm with burrata mozzarella.

 We also picked up some Rosemary and just for fun a jalapeno plant. I have never grown peppers before so I can't wait for the first one to show u!

 Had to rearrange some plants on the deck to make room for all the herbs and what we are calling the edibles. The edible plants, herbs, veggies, and fruits all get the big plant stand and the non-edibles got moved to the corner, and the placement looks nice with all the green behind them. 

 My fantastic husband replaced the screen that Guido damaged, it looks great He even managed to somehow get the screen door back on after replacing the mesh screen and it now works better than ever, it glides open and closed with so much ease!

 We picked up a new mat for the deck too, it's gorgeous, way better than the one that was out there before.

 I have decided I need to jump start something because well I have a Vacation in less than 47 days and I want to look good in a bikini. That and I just am not feeling my best lately, and I did the south beach diet about 8 years ago and I remember the effects were fantastic, I had so much more energy because I was being dragged down by sugar spikes in my metabolism. I decided to give the south beach another whirl, so I whipped up some sugar free strawberry jello with strawberries and blueberries mixed in and a bit of truwhip. It's not chocolate ice cream that's for sure, but it does the trick in satisfying the sweet tooth. After two weeks of sugar free jello desserts the chocolate ice cream cravings go away a bit as I remember, so I just have to stick it out.

 Dinner was south beach diet friendly, grilled steaks with sauteed onions and a yummy salad of spring mix with walnuts, feta, cranberries, and balsamic vinaigrette. A delicious dinner.