Easy makeup removers

I just made a fresh batch of makeup removers - I love using them at night when I am super tired, after a workout, or in the morning before I put makeup on. They are super easy to make, and last much longer than the store bought ones, plus you can control what you put in them.

All you need is a roll of paper towels and some oil. The first time I made them, I used a tiny bit of body wash too, thinking the soap would aid in cleaning my skin, but I ended up not really liking the feeling of my skin after using them. So this time I only used two ingredients: warm water and grapeseed oil.

Here is what Livestrong.com has to say about grapeseed oil:

High in Antioxidants

One of the benefits of grapeseed extract is that it is high in antioxidants. According to registered dietitian Mindy Weisel in her book, "Colorfully Slim," due to its high antioxidant count, grapeseed oil can help to fight free radicals from the environment that cause damage to the skin. She recommends not only using grapeseed oil on the face, but also on your legs, arms, hands and feet.

Lessen Allergic Reactions

Grapeseed oil may also lessen allergic reactions on skin. In the book, "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Making Natural Soaps," soap-maker Sally W. Trew notes that the flavanoids contained in grapeseed oil can inhibit allergic reactions, and may help with fighting skin problems such as eczema or psoriasis. It also penetrates the skin quickly and has almost no odor, and is therefore usually non-irritating.

Good Eye-Makeup Remover

In the book, "Complexion Perfection!" by esthetician Kate Somerville, she recommends using grapeseed oil as an eye-makeup remover. This is due to the oil's ability to break down mascara and moisturize the eye area at the same time. Somerville also believes the oil helps to condition the lashes and will make them grow longer and stronger over time. Use sparingly, as a little goes a long way.

Protects Collagen

Another way that grapeseed oil is helpful for the skin is that it protects your skin's natural collagen, according to skin care expert Michelle Eby in her book, "Return to Beautiful Skin." Collagen in the structural protein found in tissues, and is essential for healthy skin. During the aging process, the body produces less collagen, and skin begins to sag. Besides helping protect collagen, grapeseed oil also improves elastin and hyaluronic acid production, adds Eby

Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/article/489311-the-benefits-of-grapeseed-oil-on-skin-eyelashes/#ixzz1nnuowYWq

ANYWAY, here are the steps:

1. Cut the roll of paper towels in half with a serrated knife. I don't have a picture of this but it's pretty self explanatory. 

2. Put the 1/2 roll of paper towels in a container, cut side down, like this:

3. I used about 1/3 cup of oil and 2 cups of warm water. Pour this mixture all over the paper towel roll.

4. Put the lid on the container and turn it over so the water and oil can soak through.

5. Open the container and pull out the cardboard roll in the middle. It should come out easily if it is wet.

And that is it! The wipes pull out of the middle just like any type of cleaning wipe and last for a while as long as you keep the lid on!

Back from Asheville

Josh and I spent the weekend in Asheville visiting my family and one of my best friends from high school who was just getting home from being overseas in the military. We had such a fun long weekend, and now we're just being lazy and watching the Walking Dead! I love this show but sometimes it scares me, so I'll just type at the scary parts haha.

We drove to Asheville on Friday afternoon in the middle of a tornado warning and a heavy thunderstorm - not exactly the best driving conditions. We made it though, and my family was so excited to see us! We headed downtown to meet up with Maggie, Jacob, Zak and his WIFE (yes, he got married in Germany!) Lisa. It was so good to see him and catch up and meet his wife, who was great!

Me, Maggie and Zak at my favorite bar, the Lab!

On Saturday, Josh and I had to go to 12 Bones. It is the best barbeque in Asheville, and the location by my parent's house is in an old gas station! We beat the crowd by only a few minutes - once we sat down, the line was out the door! We ordered a ton of food to split, and Josh was loving it.

This is what $30 worth of 12 Bones looks like!

So excited for some blueberry chipotle ribs!

After we recovered from our food coma, we got ready to head out to west Asheville to celebrate Maggie's little brother's 21st birthday! Patrick went to preschool with my brother Chris, so I guess I've known him about 16 0r 17 years - makes me feel old! Maggie's older brother Jamie lives in west Asheville, so we met up with the Perkins kids and some friends and family to celebrate with Patrick.

The Perkins kids doing a little celebration dance!

Me and my favorite, Maggie P!

This weekend was way too short! I'm super tired and not ready for work tomorrow, but I'm sure I'll sleep like a baby!

So busy!

I have been so busy! I've been doing some very random things this past weekend but I'm trying to remember to get pictures of everything so I can write it down. Josh was home all weekend which I LOVE so we had plenty of time to hang together!

Friday night we cooked up some delicious pancakes. Not regular pancakes - savory griddle cakes! I mixed up milk, egg, baking powder and flour like regular pancakes, but then I added cayenne pepper, bacon, sauteed red onions and garlic. I would have added corn but my boyfriend seems to think he is allergic to corn even though he has absolutely no reaction to it. The pancakes were really good with maple syrup - the sweet and savory combination was perfect!

Pancake up close, Josh manning the griddle, and our finished dinner! 

(p.s. that chicken on the plate is just chicken I cooked in a pan and then made a balsamic vinegar+orange marmalade sauce to go over it. Super easy and really good!)

I've been eating the same thing for breakfast for the past 2 weeks and loving it. Chobani has crazy flavors of yogurt like blood orange, mango, pomegranate and lemon. I don't really like sweet things in the morning so this is perfect. I mix in a handful of Bear Naked granola - I like this one because it only has 140 calories in each 1/4 cup compared to a lot of dense granolas that have 200+ calories. Also, between the yogurt and the granola, I'm getting about 20 grams of protein! Keeps me nice and full until lunch.

This is what I had for lunch today - it is my go-to quick lunch sandwich. 1 can of chicken mixed with a spoonful of plain greek yogurt seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic makes really good quick chicken salad. I put it on a whole wheat mini pita from Harris Teeter with lettuce and tomato and I was done making lunch in about 3 minutes!

The other cool thing we did this weekend besides cook and eat lots of good food is....we made our own laundry detergent! I have been wanting to do this for a while - there are a ton of recipes out there! My scientist friend Brian warned me against actually mixing and melting chemicals in my house - probably not the best idea. So instead of liquid detergent, we made powder. After comparing a few recipes, I realized we only need 3 main ingredients:

Borax and washing soda - both found in the laundry detergent aisle of Harris Teeter - the borax was about $5 and the washing soda was about $3. The third ingredient is Fels Naptha laundry soap - I bought 2 bricks for $1.99 each. 

(forgot to take a picture haha)

So, we are up to $12 total. The hardest part was grating the Fels Naptha soap. Here is Josh working away:

It looked like a ton of yellow cheese! Then, we just combined the Borax and washing soda with the gratings in a big bucket, and we were done! Most recipes online add fabric softener for scent - we will probably do this but wanted to see how clean it got our clothes first, with just the basic washing ingredients.

 

We washed a big load of workout clothes and dirty socks, and everything came out nice and clean! This recipe yielded a TON of laundry detergent, so I think my $12 will go a lot farther than buying the big $15-$20 boxes of Tide.

This is my cute boyfriend holding my friend Whitney's adorable wiener dog. I love it!

Friday!

Finally, finally it is the end of the week! I love Fridays more than the average person I think - each weekday seems to drag by, and Fridays I usually don't have too much stuff to do at work and can get off early!

Last night was supposed to be a running night for Maggie and I but it was pouring rain so I just headed to the gym and ran on the treadmill. I feel like running outside is more challenging, but I didn't want to miss a practice day. The first time I looked down at the clock I had already run for 18 minutes! I did 30 minutes total with warm up and cool down walking, and kept my average of a 12 minute mile. I know I run slow but I'm more focused on running the whole 3.2 miles than how fast I run them. Here is my RunKeeper update:

http://runkeeper.com/user/KellyMullins/activity/71073953

After the gym, Josh and I went to Harris Teeter to grab some dinner and headed over to Brian's house. It was our first Spanish lesson night! We ate dinner and did the first two Rosetta Stone conversational Spanish lessons. All of us knew a few random sayings and words in Spanish from high school, but definitely nothing that made sense. The lessons were great! You practice speaking the words and sentences while learning plural and singular versions of nouns and verbs. We got to the point where we were inferring what some verbs  meant based on the words and actions we had already learned. So far I feel like it is a great program and I am glad we are doing it as a group so we can practice talking to each other!

Brian setting up some Spanish for us to learn!

 I bought Josh a nice pair of shoes for Valentine's day. It is what he asked for and I know he needed a pair of black casual loafers. BUT I also know he is a little kid in a man's body and loves his toys and games more than anything, so....I bought him a remote control helicopter! Haha. He LOVES it, and has had so much fun flying it around our living room and trying to land it on various surfaces. I tried to get a picture of him and his toy together, but he was moving too quickly. I think you can get a good idea of how much he likes it by the looks of pure joy on his face in these pictures:

The only one in the house that does NOT love the helicopter is Tasha. She has no idea what it is and is very skeptical! Here she is tentatively checking it out:

Josh and I went to Sushi Nine for lunch - I'm crazy for this spicy Tom Kha soup they have - it is the only thing I've ever LOVED with coconut in it! Now I'm catching up on some work from home and Josh is in a dead serious gaming situation. This is my view right now:

Haha! Look at that intensity. Happy Friday!

Valentine's day wrap-up and the hardest workout I have ever attempted.

I went to the CHASS career fair all day today to help my boss run her Pre-Law services table, so I was sitting ALL day long. I felt like doing a really hard workout when I got home, so I attempted Shaun T's workout on Dr. Oz's website after I found it on Pinterest. This guy is not joking. I was able to complete about 50% of this, maybe. I am weak! I work out almost every day and consider myself to be in shape, but this workout is so tough.

I can't figure out how to post the video directly from Dr. Oz's website, but here is the link:
http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/shaun-ts-miracle-15-minute-workout

On another note, Valentine's day was awesome! I tried to take some pictures throughout the day to capture Josh's extreme skills at being sneaky and thinking ahead. He really impressed me.

I made him chocolate and peanut butter banana slices the night before and left them him the freezer for him to discover in the morning. He loves chocolate and banana together!

When I got in my car to go to work, I found a box of chocolates he had snuck in there without me noticing!

Unrelated to my boy, I found a little sweet treat in my mailbox at work!

About 3pm, I had a special delivery! Josh sent flowers to my office. They were beautiful and I was completely surprised.

 So pretty!

I cooked him dinner - his favorite meal I've made for him so far. Chicken crusted with special K and baked until it's crispy, creamy lemon and herb pasta, and roasted purple potatoes!

We watched Something Borrowed, a love movie/girly romantic movie I had wanted to see but never went to. I loved it of course, and Josh actually laughed a lot too! After the movie he gave me this:

So beautiful/surprising/nice of him! I love sapphires, it is my birthstone and I think Josh has excellent taste in jewelry. I really wasn't expecting such a nice day/gift, and I feel like a very lucky person to have such a sweet thoughtful man! :)

Vday Celebrations

Last night Josh and I went out for our Valentine's Day dinner. Vday being on a Tuesday this year makes it a little tricky to know when to celebrate - we definitely weren't going out on the 14th - we are smarter than that after both working in the restaurant industry for years! Sunday night seemed like the most quiet low-key night to go out. We went to Buku - a restaurant neither of us had been to but had been wanting to try. It was about 1/2 full at 7pm - perfect for us to sit in the corner and have some alone time!

We ordered:

Cochinita Pibil pulled pork, soft corn tortilla, pickled red onion, habañero salsa

Thai BBQ Snapper green papaya salad,chili, tamarind

Jamaican Jerk-Spiced Free Range Chicken coconut-rice, heirloom beans, caramelized plantain, mango

Everything was really good, but my favorite by far was the pork tacos! I think I am just always partial to Mexican food. Three items was definitely enough for 2 people, we didn't finish the chicken and left full and happy! We came home and watched the Rum Diary with Johnny Depp. It was a funny/crazy movie, but not as good as Fear and Loathing!

I wanted to make Josh a little pre-valentine's day treat for when he came home from work yesterday. His favorite dessert (and he is NOT a dessert guy) is strawberry shortcake so I adapted this recipe I found on Pinterest. I made 2 angel food cakes then cut them into squares and skewered them with strawberries. I melted some milk chocolate chips and drizzled the chocolate all over the skewers - strawberry kabobs! He loved them and there are none left! 

I'm trying to think of another little treat I can surprise him with tonight, but no ideas yet. Obviously has to be food - related, the man loves to eat and I love to cook!

Happy Saturday!

Happy Saturday! I'm waiting on Josh to get home from a morning of paint balling. I'm anxious to see what he says about it! We have soccer practice at 3:30....yes, Josh and I joined a soccer team! How random - my friend Ewa said her adult co-ed team needed one more girl and one more guy, so Josh and I signed up. I have not played soccer in close to 10 years, so I really hope I don't slow the team down while I am remembering how to play!

Maggie is my best friend and running partner. We are the same height and at about the same level of training, so it is great to run with her. So far we are running together every Saturday and running by ourselves during the week. This morning we ran a little over 2 miles which is pretty good! We are training for a 5k at the end of March so we have some time to build up. I've been keeping track of my runs this week with my new Runkeeper app - it is really helpful and a good way to keep motivated. Here is the route we ran today:

http://runkeeper.com/user/KellyMullins/activity/70377196

While I was waiting for Maggie to come over, I decided to make her and her boyfriend Jacob some valentines day treats! I have been saving this recipe for black bean brownies and WOW they came out SO good! Super moist and fudgy, I can't stop eating the leftovers. I cut their brownies into heart shapes - haha - and forgot to take a picture of them but here is a picture from the recipe I used, which can be found here.



How good do those look! Mine came out perfect after about 25 minutes.

Tonight Josh and I are going to dinner to celebrate one of his oldest friend's birthdays. We are going to a place in Raleigh called Chuck's, which I was kind of skeptical about because they only have burgers and I don't eat a ton of red meat. but after checking out the menu, it looks awesome!



I think I will get "The Big House" ... I just know Josh will love this place!