July Birchbox-The Final

I've been saying it for a long time, but now it's final.  After 14 months, I cancelled my subscription to Birchbox. (I also cancelled Beauty Army after only 2 months.)  July's box was my last box. I think it ended on a pretty good note though.  This month's box was all about the five senses so it included ear buds, mints, perfume, etc.  

I had fun receiving Birchbox, especially since it is a surprise each month and more often than not, I thought the boxes were sub par but what do you really expect for $10 a month?  Just a handful of fun items that may or may not be useful to you.  

Me Time

Nature has always been peaceful and a sanctuary for me but in the last few weeks, it's meant even more.  Here's some pictures from two separate occasions, both at the same place...Vadnais Lake.

The MN State Bird- Common Loon

Sushi with Bestie

I met Tanya at Fuji Ya in downtown St. Paul  on Thursday, July 12th for dinner.  I took her out to celebrate an early birthday dinner.  I arrived at the restaurant before she did and when she walked to the table I was sitting at, the first thing she said was, "what's wrong?"  Before even telling her about my dad, she could see it in my eyes.

This was the first time I had been here and it was small and warm in there.  There was a steady flow of patrons which may have been due to the fact that the MN Wild were having a free scrimmage right down the street at the Xcel.  We talked for hours and hours and we were one of the last people left in the restaurant.

We tried a couple of appetizers beforehand and the sushi was pretty good.  Have you been to Fuji Ya before?  The Mpls or St. Paul location?

Salmon wontons

Vegetable Tempura

Happy Birthday Tanya! 

The Rest of the Days of My Staycation

Yesterday I wrote about my first day of my staycation,  here's a very brief overview of what I did for the rest of the days that week.

Nothing!  I barely did anything.  First, it was too hot to even go outside.  That left cleaning, hanging on the computer, lunch with my honey one day and that's about it.

I had plans to do the following:

• Go to the farmer's market
• Get my car detailed
• Get a facial
• Use my Crowd cut voucher for reflexology
• Use my gift certificate for the bike shop and get a new bike seat
• Test drive a new car
• Go to the dermatologist 

None of those things got done.  It was a bad week mentally and kind of a dark week but I was just glad to be scheduled off of work.

Here's what I did see:

Independence Day also fell during the middle of the week and we didn't do much.  It was too hot to enjoy the day outside so we went out for a late breakfast and painted inside.  M's been working on a painting for awhile and I just wanted to paint something during the afternoon so we cranked the music and cracked a beer and painted.

I felt the urge to splurge.  I practiced some restraint by not using the sour cream.

I have no painting skills but I still enjoy it.

First Day of My Staycation

I left work for a half day unexpectedly on June 28th and was out a full day on June 29th.  I had a vacation from work planned for the whole next week in which I had grand plans of not doing much but mostly relaxing and pampering myself.  None of those things happened.  But one thing was for sure.  The whole damn week was HOT!

Monday, July 2nd started out as just, well, Monday, however my nephew Keith was dropped off to my house around 5 pm and I'd be taking him for the night.

We did fun things that would rival any auntie's house.  We went out to eat for dinner at Bulldog in LoTo in St. Paul.  Auntie Dana took Keith to the bar.  It was so hot and the bar's air conditioning was broken!  Despite that, Keith said his favorite time with me was going out to eat.  He loved trying all different kinds of tater tots. 

Ok, so this photo is staged.  I hope I'm not the only one that thinks a 9 year old "cheersing" beer with M is funny.  I did text my sister this picture saying that Keith and M are enjoying beers together. 

His real drink...a Kiddie Cocktail

Ok, so he ran around Mears Park too.  He did do some kid things while he was with me. 

After dinner we stopped at Wal-Mart so we could pick up some fireworks.  He didn't know we were getting them and he was super excited to find out that M would give us a fireworks show later that evening.  He picked out an ice cream and pop and was on his rotting teeth way.  

Another classic photo I texted to my sister

Since it wasn't dark enough yet for fireworks, we went to the park for a little while and gave M a break from us.  He was swinging on the swings and gave me a nice pose.  The second photo on the swings below was his reaction that I happen to catch when he heard fireworks and thought that M was blowing them off at our house without us.  It was so funny to catch his expression.

Here's the extent of our fireworks show.  Cool enough for him though. 

M wasn't off for the week like I was so he was upstairs winding down while we were downstairs watching a movie.  Keith picked it out.  It was called the Billion Dollar Hobo from 1977 with Tim Conway in it.  We didn't finish the whole movie but I thought it was a weird choice from a 9 year old.  It was kind of funny.

After the movie, we went upstairs to my computer/craft room where we crafted for awhile.  Keith made his dad a birthday card and one for his grandpa Keith (my dad).  He knows that grandpa has cancer and created the card below with no help from me.  

We went to bed around 11:30 pm which Jamie says is late for him but that kiddo can sleep.  He didn't get up until 10:45 the next morning.  We went out for a late breakfast at Perkins.  I asked him what his perfect day of food would be and here's his answers:

Breakfast: 3 chocolate chip pancakes stacked with 4 french toast sticks with powdered sugar, bacon all around the pancakes and Propel to drink, any flavor.

Lunch: Beef Ramen Noodles with blue Mountain Dew

Dinner: 12 tacos; 6 crunchy and 6 soft, the kind that his mom makes.  He would have beef on them and then he said "the salad", cheese, salsa and no tomatoes.  He would have a strawberry banana or mango smoothie.

I love kids answers to questions!

While we were at breakfast, I asked him if he wanted to go to JCPenney.  I had a free $10 coupon so he could try and find something there that he wanted.  He was so excited and that instantly earned me 17 hugs, but he urged me not to use them all in one day and to save them for later in the year. He ended up a getting a NERF water gun.

Finally when we got back to my house, I made him a smoothie in my fancy blender and he loved it.  I even gave him a smoothie cup to take home.  We packed up his stuff and picked up his grandma (my mom) from work and drove them back to her house so he could wait for his mom to pick him up.  

We had a great time together.  I asked Keith to rate his time with me and he said it was a 9.75 out of 10.  I'll take it.

My Dad

I'm going to stay away from talking about what's going on with my dad as much as possible on my blog.  If you have interest in my dad's health, I've set up a Caring Bridge website which will detail everything that is going on with him.  

http://www.caringbridge.org/

Site name: keithsterner

Whole Living Thoughts- July/August

Whole Living thoughts this time are for both July and August so I thought I'd put them right smack in the middle of the month.

I have to say that I look forward to reading the list more than any other part of the magazine. 

1. Some of the best inner journeys start with the passport-stamped kind.  (Pass the in-flight peanuts.)
2. When our life stories start to sound predictable, it's time for a rewrite.
3. Overrated: multitasking.  Underrated: unitasking.
4.  Summer tomatoes: the universe's way of reminding us that good-for-you food tends to be delicious.
5. Midwives- of babies, ideas, peace- do amazing stuff.
6. Expanding the mind: always a cool thing-so what if it sounds a little too '60s-trippy.
7. Perpetually good advice from James Brown: "Get up offa that thing- and dance 'til you feel better."
8. Running on the beach beats trudging on a treadmill every time. (Just sayin'.)
9. Ever notice how people brighten up when you recognize their efforts?
10. There's a reason why nature is sometimes called vitamin N.

Healthy Surprise

I had the opportunity to review a Healthy Surprise box a couple of weeks ago.  What is Healthy Surprise?  It's a monthly subscription service that delivers healthy snack to your door that are all natural, vegan and gluten free.  Right up my alley!

I was so excited when I received my package in the mail.  I opened it up and here's what I saw:

There are several different size boxes you can subscribed to. Healthy Surprise sent me the Healthy box, which normally costs $66 a month with free shipping.  I think this is a great sized box for a couple of people and will last awhile.  The website says it's for 2-6 people.  They also have a smaller box called the Starter box which is $33 plus shipping.  They also have a Large and Super box too.

So what did I get in my box?  It was so fun to pull out so many snacks from the box, most of which I had never heard of before.  Here's the breakdown of snacks:

• Bare Fruit Granny Smith Apple Chips
• Skinny Crisps Cinnamon Crisps
• Go Raw Pizza Flax Snax
• 2 bags of Gone Nuts! Spinach Pesto nuts
• 2 bags of Gone Nuts! Lemon Thai Curry nuts
• 2 bags of Home Free Vanilla Cookies
• Two Moms in the Raw Cranberry Nut Bar
• Happy Hemp seeds
• Hail Mary Pecans- Orange Rosemary
• Oskri Coconut Bar- Cherry

So what did I like?  

I really liked the Two Moms in the Raw Cranberry Nut bar, Hail Mary Pecans-Orange Rosemary and the Oskri Coconut Bar-Cherry.  I thought all of these were really great tasting.

I also liked the Home Free Vanilla Cookies.  They taste very similar to Nilla Wafers.  The Skinny Crisps are also good but a little too dry for me.  

Some of the goodies are just ok to me.  The Bare Fruit Granny Smith Apple Chips are fun to snack on but didn't have too much flavor to me.  The Gone Nuts! Spinach Pesto nuts are very pesto-y.  I love pesto but you can only eat a few of these nuts at a time.  The Gone Nuts! Lemon Thai Curry nuts are much better to me.  I like the added lemon but I wish it was Thai Curry Lemon instead of Lemon Thai Curry.  

I haven't tried the Happy Hemp seeds yet.  I just happened to buy a bag of hemp seeds a week before the box came so I'll probably save the bag I have for now.

I was most excited about the Go Raw Pizza Flax Snax but I didn't like them.  Why?  Because there's too much of a taste of fennel seed.  I hate fennel seed.  I did give them to M to enjoy though and he seemed to like them.  If you like pizza and fennel seed, you'll really like these. 

Being that I hadn't heard of many of these brands before, I decided to see if I could find them at Whole Foods.  I found a few of the brands I was able to sample but not necessarily the exact same products.  I found the Go Raw Pizza Flax Snax, Gone Nuts! (not in the flavors I received) and Two Moms in the Raw. (not the product I received)  These snacks were expensive in the store so I can see where the $66 a month for this size box is justified.  Hey, it costs a little more to eat healthy!  

Would I subscribe to this monthly service?  Absolutely!...if I had the income to do so.  Right now I'm on a tight budget so it's not in my budget to do so.  I will definitely consider it in the future though.  If you do not have access to a high quality grocery store such as Whole Foods in your area, you're interested in eating healthy, all natural, vegan and gluten free snacks and you have a little extra cash to put towards your monthly food bill, this service is for you.

What I can offer you today is a discount!  Healthy Surprise is offering my readers the opportunity to try one of their boxes for $5 off the normal price.  Just enter the code, JANUARYBABY at checkout to reflect the discount.  Enjoy!