What do you do to help?

What do you do to help?

I was at work yesterday and was blown away when someone came into my office and we were discussing something and at the end of our discussion they realized they didn't need the huge stack of paper in their hands anymore and just threw it in my garbage. After they left, I of course fished it out (it was on top and there was nothing else in there except for my granola bar wrapper) and brought it over to the shredder bin which also recycles the shredded paper. I don't know why but when people throw out things that can be recycled it makes me cringe especially when it's in larger quantities, and it shocks me every time I see it happen.

How I recycle:

~All bottles including juice bottles, shampoo bottles, contact solution bottles, etc... are all recycled and not thrown away.

~All cardboard is broken down and recycled even smaller items like cheezit boxes, cereal boxes, milk cartons, egg cartons, all get broken down when finished and recycled instead of thrown in the garbage.

~All cans including H's soda cans that he brings home from work each day (I'm so proud of him!) and food cans like when I make a pot of sauce or a can of soup all get recycled instead of thrown away.

~I bring back to MAC. For every 6 containers you bring back to MAC they will take them back to recycle and give you a free lipstick or a free eyeshadow. You have to go to an actual MAC Cosmetics store not just the kiosk inside Macys for the eyeshadow though.

~I never throw away paper! Anything that comes in the mail gets brought to work and dropped in the shredder bin.

~I pay all bills online and all of our statements are paperless.

Some may think this is all ridiculous, but when it becomes your routine it's really just second nature and you're really making a difference. Now the next list are things I do not only to help the environment, but also to save money.

~We replaced all the bulbs in our home to energy saver bulbs.

~We always turn the lights off when we leave a room, and use minimal lights at night.

~We stopped buying bottled water and bought a Brita pitcher.

~We always run the dishwasher late at night which isn't considered peak time.

~We unplug all appliances that aren't in use (except the fridge, stove, tv's, lamps, and clocks)

~When we lived up north we used draft blockers in the winter and insulated our water heater.

I've noticed a big difference in our electric bill and when we lived up north and had upstairs neighbors with the same exact size floor plan, our electric bill was 1/3 what theirs was and in the summer when they were constantly running their AC it was 1/4 of theirs! Of course we run our AC when it's hot and the heat when it's cold, but we leave it at a reasonable setting so it kicks off quicker.



What do you do to make a difference for not only the environment but your wallet? Or what are you willing to start doing to conserve and/or recycle? Every little bit helps :0)

Also, I thought I'd give an update on my Clarisonic use. I'm unfortunately still going through the "purge" but I see a difference between how bad my skin was last week compared to now. I knew I'd have a bad purge because the whole reason I purchased the Clarisonic was because I was running out of options and so frustrated at how bad my skin has been when I've never really dealt with bad skin. I can see it starting to get better, but I know it'll probably still be a few weeks before I see the results I'm looking for. I'll keep you posted ;0)
The rest of this week was quite eventful. I've been telling people that I can't imagine how anyone can plan a wedding and buy a house at the same time. My H and I have been going through so much stress with our new house being built. It's like deja vu from this time last year when we were getting down to the last few months before the wedding. Oy the stress! Hats off to those of you who balanced both at the same time. But it's all worth it, and we stopped by our dirt lot this weekend and took pictures of our lot and our sold sign. Very exciting!



It's amazing to think that empty lot will have our home on it all ready for us in the next few months. We couldn't be happier and are eagerly awaiting to watch the progress and move in.

Moving down here has opened up so many doors for us from enjoying the outdoors all year round to buying our first home that will be our forever home to us both finally working at jobs that we are both very happy at. My office had it's kick off this week and after being in meetings all day, we were treated to going to see the Magic play. What a great evening, we were in one of the luxury suites and the Magic won by a lot! 



Saturday night, my H and I stayed in and got a bottle of my favorite.. Skinny Girl Margarita and had a Netflix night. It's so good and I love how it's so much better for you then regular margaritas. It's made with agave instead of sour mix so it has far less calories and isn't as indigestion inducing. All we were missing was some freshly made guacamole!

This morning before my H and I went out for the day I decided to try out my new dry shampoo. I keep reading about it and wanted to try it out for myself. So I didn't wash my hair and sprayed it with the dry shampoo, waited 2 minutes and then brushed it through and styled as usual. It worked great, I instantly noticed that my hair looked fresh and smelled great too. But by the time we got back home later that afternoon I was more than ready to wash my hair. My official review on it is that it's a great quick fix, but it's not something I can use as a substitution all day in lieu of washing my hair. I have very fine hair, so I can't get away with it as easily as girls with thicker hair that doesn't get oily as easily.


I also started using Tresemme's volumizing mousse before I blow dry my hair and I've noticed a difference in how much body I have. Again just like with the dry shampoo it's great in the beginning, but it doesn't last all day. Any suggestions on a great volumizing mousse or dry shampoo I could try and maybe have better luck with?

Now on to my last beauty experiment. I finally got a Clarisonic after being overly frustrated with my recent breakouts (never really dealt with bad skin but now in my mid-late 20's it's been horrible). I first tried Proactiv and it worked great in the beginning, but still didn't clear me up completely, but after a month or so it started to get really bad again. So I decided to purchase a Clarisonic and cross my fingers that I wouldn't experience the "Clarisonic purge". Well after the first few washes, my face felt amazing. So soft and it was much fresher looking. About a week into it, I started to notice the purge and that I was breaking out pretty bad. It's been about another week and a half and I'm definitely still experiencing a purge, but it seems to be easing up thankfully. I'll post updates on how my skin is doing and hopefully it'll continue to clear up as the Clarisonic pulls out all the "crap" that's been underneath my skin that regular facial cleansing wasn't taking care of on it's own.
I've been using my Clarisonic with Clean & Clear Advantage face wash, but I'd also like to try Philosophy's Purity.

Now I'm going to cap off the weekend with H and watch the NBA All Star Game. Go East!

Life is Good :0)

Life is Good :0)

I have been MIA from my blog since before the wedding and I apologize! Life has been crazy busy. We got married in June, then were gone for 2 and 1/2 weeks for our honeymoon. When we returned, we enjoyed the last month and a half of summer with our amazing friends and family.

The summer of 2010 was absolutely amazing. My bridal shower, the bachelorette party bus to Mohegan Sun, our wedding, Chrissy's infamous pool party, our bbq and pool party and campfire, river tubing at the Farmington River, day trip to Block Island with Katie and Alex, living it up in VIP at Shrine with some of our best friends, and more of our friend's weddings. 2010 is definitely a year to remember and was just what we needed before making one of the biggest changes in our lives.

The last week of August, I got a phone call for an interview down in Florida. My husband and I have been talking about moving to Florida ever since we started getting serious and we knew as soon as the wedding was over we'd be looking to move. I booked plane tickets and flew out for my interview 2 days after the call. I was offered the job at the end of the interview and was on cloud nine on my way back to the airport to fly home. I couldn't believe it was finally happening! We moved 3 weeks later and started our new lives together in a much more desirable climate.

A month later, we flew back home for another wedding. We had a blast and it was great to see a bunch of our friends that we already missed so much. Upon returning home from the wedding weekend, I started to feel really ill a few days later. At first I thought I had low blood sugar, then I thought it was a bad virus. But after a few weeks of feeling ill with no signs of feeling better I started to get scared that something was seriously wrong. My doctor had no answers and was perplexed as to what was bothering me. I finally self diagnosed myself after hours of research online and reading forums of people who have been experiencing the same miserableness I have. I'm 99.9% sure I was suffereing from labyrinthititis. The symptoms were debilitating to say the least and here's a list of what I went through for almost 2 months straight:

-I felt seasick.. which led to me feeling nauseous when it would hit


-I also felt really disoriented a lot which was kind of like being drunk without the good feelings that come with drinking

-I had a very stiff neck and upper back and severe pain in the back of the lower part of my head

-I went through periods of exhaustion, but also had a hard time sleeping through the night

-Sometimes you just don't feel a part of reality, it's like you know you're there, but you feel like it's a dream and you're not really there

-Near the end was when I started to become really sensitive to noise and my ears started to hurt

-I was very sensitive to different lightings. I felt the most sick going into stores (like Target or the grocery store... the mall was completely off limits or else I think I would have passed out) and in my boss' office because of the way the light came in through the blinds and it was always hot in there.

-I also felt sick when I had to talk to someone and maintain eye contact

I'm thankful I was able to come to work, but I looked like a zombie and struggled to get through most days. It's such a scary feeling, but around Thanksgiving weekend I decided to cut out caffeine which was advice I found on one of the forums I had been reading about my virus. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done. I've been addicted to caffeine for several years and couldn't live without my morning coffee, and my diet cokes, unsweetened iced teas, etc.. but once I cut out the caffeine, I noticed a big difference. I've had 2 maybe 3 slight attacks since I cut out the caffeine. And one of the mini-attacks happened on a day I brought an iced tea to work so I know caffeine was a huge culprit in my feeling so crummy. I still feel off sometimes and feel a little sick at times, but I have come a long way since October and November and couldn't be more thankful for the progress I've made. Life was put on hold for several months because I could barely leave the house to go to work or to go grocery shopping. My amazing husband was understanding throughout the whole thing since it put his life on hold too.

My biggest fear is having to fly up to Omaha for training for my job next month. I just hope that the flights don't trigger my symptoms where I feel ill on the plane or throughout my training days away from home or even worse bring back everything I had been dealing with for so long. I hope I'll stay on the road to recovery and never be that miserable and helpless again.

Now onto bigger and more exciting news, my husband and I bought a house! Aside from the much more desirable weather, we moved to Florida because the real estate prices are worlds away from real estate prices in Connecticut. My husband and I can't imagine why people choose to live somewhere with miserably long winters and ridiculously high real estate and taxes.

We decided to have a brand new house built in a development close to where we've been living down here. The house is going to be our "forever house" and is going to be huge! We're still blown away at how far your money goes down here, because if we bought the same house in Connecticut, it would easily be three times the price it is down here. We're just so thankful for our lives have come together, we're now married, living where we've always wanted to live, and we're building our dream home. Ahhhh life is good :0)

And I'll leave you all with a hilarious clip from our wedding of my husband and his good friend Brian rapping to Warren G's Regulators. We finally edited our wedding video down to just the song and uploaded it to youtube. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tteJqDisP8U