Snapshots

Rather than do a full recap of my past few days, I'll show you a few quick pictures of how I've been spending my time.

 My pretty (but neglected) garden

I've been busy in the yard, pulling all those weirds out of the flower gardens and planting some vegetables in the other gardens. Some of the seeds have started sprouting, and I'm already looking forward to having fresh produce from our garden. I'll have to keep a lookout though, because we have lots of critters in our yard, including an obese woodchuck who enjoys munching on everything we plant. 

A wildflower

I've also been going on walks and bike rides, trying to enjoy the sunny weather and the beauty of nature as much as possible. My summer job starts tomorrow and I'll be working a ton of hours, so I'll have less opportunity to enjoy the beautiful sunshine.

My love

I've also spent some quality time with my puppy love, Apricot. She is the sweetest little dog on the face of the earth. She enjoys napping for 20 hours, then running around in a hyper fit for the other 4 hours. Excuse her dirty face, I had just taken her out to play before this photo.

I've also been enjoying wearing casual clothing. I'm pretty sure my job will involve wearing suits every day, so I've been enjoying my comfort and freedom in jeans, t-shirt, and sneakers. These are my new everyday sneakers I got from RueLaLa on sale for really cheap and I think they are adorable.

And finally, I've been enjoying the farmer's market. Since the farmer's market is on thursday mornings/early afternoons, I won't be able to make it again this summer. So I really enjoyed walking around all the stalls and selecting the freshest produce and the best little homemade treats. These are two mini pies I bought because thy just looked too adorable and tasty to pass up. They also sold mini loaves of bread too and I picked up a mini zucchini bread that was demolished in one second flat.

My vacation portion of summer has come to an end, but it was fun while it lasted. I'm excited and a tiny bit terrified to start my job tomorrow. 

How do you like to spend your free time?

BluePrintCleanse Review

I survived my three day juice fast with BluePrintCleanse and overall, I have a very mixed reaction to it. The cleanse involved drinking six juices each day (a green juice, a pineapple/apple/mint juice, another green juice, a spicy lemonade, a beet/carrot juice, and finally a cashew milk). The pineapple juice and the cashew milk were delicious and I intend to try and replicate them myself. The spicy lemonade was decent, the beet juice was not very good, and the green juice was just awful. In fact, the green juice was so awful that I was only able to have a few sips of each before I would start gagging and wouldn't be able to finish it. I actually love salads and veggies, but these green drinks tasted to me like I was chewing on the front lawn.

Other than the terrible tasting green juices, the cleanse went smoother than I expected. I was hungry, but not nearly as hungry as I thought I would be. I did have vivid fantasies about cheese and chocolate pudding, rather than healthy salads like the BluePrint website suggests is likely.

Overall, I'm glad I did it. Since the cleanse, I've been more mindful of my eating habits and have been eating mostly healthy foods. I did lose a little weight, but I know that juice fasting is not meant primarily for weight loss. I wouldn't try BluePrint again, mostly because of the price (and also those terrible green juices). If I do try a juice fast again, I will make my own homemade juices and hopefully find a way to make a palatable green juice.

For dinner today, I made a homemade miso soup with tofu, cilantro, spinach, and scallions. I served it over soba noodles and garnished it with roasted cashews. It was delicious and quite pretty, but I forgot to take a picture of it until I had already finished and put away the leftovers.

I also baked a delicious banana bread!

Have you ever had a green juice? Did you enjoy it?

Return to Blogging

Hi there! I'm back, after a much longer than anticipated break from blogging. To make a long story short, law school completely consumed my life, and I've also been dealing with anemia which has left me exhausted most of the time. But I survived my first year of law school and now I'm back home in New York for the summer. I still have about two weeks before my summer job at a firm starts, so I'm going to take this time to relax and get my life back in order.

It would be a difficult task to recap everything that's happened in my life, but maybe I'll do a couple posts to give you an idea.

The most exciting thing going on right now is that I start a 3-day juice fast (the insanely overpriced BluePrintCleanse that my mom is treating me to) which I hope will help jumpstart my healthy eating and exercise routine for the summer.

I hope you are all having an amazing start to your summer.

Have you ever tried a juice fast or cleanse before? Do you believe that cleanses are effective?