From the category archives:

Healthy Living

This Elf is for Health AND Shopping!

by agirlandhermutt on December 10, 2012

Hello friends! I’m happy to report that I am officially done with my Christmas shopping. I’ve been a little quite on the blog for the last few days because I have been a busy little elf shopping, buying and wrapping. I don’t have that many people that I buy for (small families FTW!), but I still love the whole Christmas present shopping process.

Speaking of being a little elf…I just joined the Elf for Health Challenge started by Elle of Nutrionella and Lindsay of The Lean Green Bean.

This is a 6-week challenge that started the Monday after Thanksgiving and goes into the first January. I missed signing up for the first round by a few days so I got on board for Round 2. There is a daily tasks calendar, prizes, weekly newsletters, and my favorite part…you are paired with another “elf” to serve as support buddies for the challenge!

Today starts the first day of the challenge and our task is to track our water intake. Easy peasy for me. I’m a real liquids kind of gal and drink a ton of water throughout the day. I use a fun little app called “Eight Glasses a Day” to track how much I have downed each day.

Although Round 2 sign-ups have closed, you can still follow along and also sign up for Round 3. Check it out here!

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After I was finished being an elf for my loved ones, I did a little shopping for myself. Heh. Figures.

This weekend was the SOWA Holiday Market and this is a can not miss event for me each year. I picked up a few goodies for friends, but I also managed to find a few things that I enjoyed.

Earrings from Leetie Lovendale <—Greatest name ever! These earrings are all made out of vintage lucite.

I also snagged up a pair of arm warmers, one of my favorite winter accessories, from I Heart Arm Warmers. They have appeared on the blog before. All of the arm warmers are made out of not-worn-any-longer sweaters. The pic on the right is the actual color.

They are also doing more accessories now so I picked up this super cute clutch.

Just like the SOWA Market each weekend, this event was packed. They were playing Christmas music and had festive decorations so I didn’t mind the crowd too much.

I have a few holiday parties coming up in the next few weeks so I figured while I was out I would pick up a few items to complete the looks I am planning on.

One of the dresses that I have I plan on wearing to two events. One party is in December and the other in January, for two totally different groups. No one will know.

I am going for two different looks by changing up my jewelry.

From Forever 21 I picked up this great bejeweled necklace and found matching earrings. I have sparkly black flats and a clutch to tie it all together!

I also picked up this amazing peachy floral necklace at Forever 21. It paired perfectly with a pair of jeweled earrings that I found at Call It Spring. I’m wearing a pair of patent leather nude heels with this combo and adding a rose gold clutch that I also got at Call It Spring.

My shopping is done. My outfits are ready to go. The Elf for Health Challenge is on its way. This is going to be a great week!

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Tonight I’m heading out to have dinner with a bunch of my girlfriends for our annual Girls Holiday Dinner. I’m so excited! Have a great day!

Have you finished your holiday shopping?

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Healthy Living Summit 2012 Recap

by agirlandhermutt on August 20, 2012

Hi folks! I managed to squeeze a bunch of fun things into my weekend and have plans to share all of those this week, but this post is dedicated to the Healthy Living Summit, a blog conference that went down on Saturday.

The Healthy Living Summit was my very first conference that I ever attended and it was held in Chicago in August 2010.

Apparently I was a lot wordier back then and it required 3 posts to tell you everything. This time I’m boiling it all down to one post. Well, mostly because I actually only attended one day of the 3 day event. Heh.

The conference was held at a hotel in Cambridge, not to far from my house. On Friday night they had several mini mingle events and a cocktail party, but I had tickets to a concert that was a can not miss event. So I arrived bright and early Saturday morning.

I arrived just in time for breakfast, all put on by Wild Harvest. There was a competition before the conference to make a healthy breakfast recipe using goodies from Wild Harvest and the winner, Cupcake Kelly, had her dish (Greek Egg Scramble) served at the summit. So good and definitely worth making at home!

Next up was a sample of a CrossFit class. Have any of you tried this? I have a pretty good idea of what the classes would be like and this pretty much confirmed my idea. I’m not exactly sure if the whole “do as many as possible!” is right for me. It was fun, although a bit short, to try though.

Throughout the day there were a few sessions to attend. Unlike my BlogHer experience, I really got a lot out of the sessions. I ended up attending:

-Hosting a Virtual Challenge
-Working with Brands
-I Am the Blogger in Your Neighborhood
-Social Media Trends

The social media trends session, presented by Heather from Running with Sass, covered a lot of ground, but I took away a ton of To Dos. There is so much to learn about Twitter, Facebook fan pages, and all those types of things!

*If you are interested in following some of the highlights from the sessions check out the HLS website to find the hashtags that can be searced for on Twitter.*

Ok, so here goes some honestly. Up until Saturday morning when I walked in the door of the hotel I really really really didn’t want to go. I bought my ticket several months ago ready to spend some time with a few blog friends, but then life got a hold of me and my schedule got hectic. I had just finished BlogHer12, a busy time at work, and a medical crisis with Korky. I wanted nothing more than to sleep in and just relax. Believe it or not, there are some times when I can be really shy too. It isn’t often, but it can happen and this was one of those times.

Plus…it was a Healthy Living Summit and I still have so much more to go before I’m 100% healthy. I have weight to lose. Blood pressure to lower. Feet to feel better. Having attended the conference before I am fully aware that the majority of the bloggers who attend are super cute 20-something tiny cute girls in Lululemon workout gear. All very nice people, but I always felt out of place. As I walked through the door I was kicking myself for signing up for an event where I knew that I would feel self conscious.

When I walked into the ballroom where breakfast was taking place I could feel myself start to sweat and then it happened…someone called out my name. Someone recognized me and wanted to say hello. *Phew* I immediately felt relief wash over me and then that turned into feeling silly. Why was I so worried?! I was there with my insecurities just like everyone else was. I was also there to learn, have fun with friends, and enjoy the conference…just like everyone else.

At the end of the day, as I was saying my good-byes, I found myself sad to see the day ending. I had so much fun and really enjoyed being a part of the HLS community.

I’m not sure where 2013 will be held next year, but you can best believe I’m going to try my best to be there. I might even be wearing my own Lululemon gear.

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PS. I know I said that I would do a giveaway with some of my BlogHer swag, but when I remembered that I would be at HLS I decided to wait and include some of those goodies. That giveaway WILL happen this week!

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CSA Update, Juicing and my first 5K!

July 27, 2012

I’ve been kind of slacking on my CSA posts for the past few weeks. I’ve been getting the veggies, but not really doing anything that special with them. It seems almost sacrilegious to get all this great fresh produce and then just chop it up for a salad. The reason I signed up for a [...]

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