One to Nothin'

Best. Weekend. Ever.

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Lindsay and I grew up in Florida together and we both migrated West. I hadn’t seen her in two years, but as we’ve proven to each other time and time again, it doesn’t matter one bit how long we go without seeing each other. We had so much fun exploring San Francisco, Livermore, Tahoe and Oakland over the weekend. We hiked, drank wine, talked about boys, locked ourselves out of my car, got into a car accident (this is a story for another day, but it wasn’t my car and no one was hurt), did head stands on SUP boards, climbed redwoods and ate so much delicious food. Seriously, best weekend ever and that’s saying something because I’ve had some pretty amazing ones lately. I guess it’s time to ease back into normal life stuff, like figuring out where I’m moving in three weeks. Anyone want to come live with me in the Bay? We’ll have lots of adventures, promise!
How was your weekend?

PS: See who won the Epic Stitching giveaway here!

Sponsor?

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If you’ve been thinking about expanding your blog, business or brand, I’d be more than happy to work with you this month! Check out my advertising options here and feel free to e-mail at mackensieg@gmail.com if you have any questions, products you’d like me to review or just want to talk about your horoscope for the day (I’m a leo, FYI).

Happy Fourth of July in advance! I’ll be off exploring San Francisco with a BFF I haven’t seen in years. Stalk away on Instagram if you’d like. Have fun, be safe and AMERICA!

Confessions

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This is what I look like when I eat ribs after leaving the bars (some guy told me I was cute right outside of this establishment–joke’s on him!).

I’ve been sweating nonstop for the past week and the term “hot as balls” has rolled off my tongue more times than I’m comfortable with.

Maybe confessions like that one are contributing to my interesting search terms (and rejection from adsense).

Whenever I eat toasted bread or certain cereals it’s like a massacre of the roof of my mouth.

This song makes me wish I were a sassy blonde in cowboy boots. Oh, this one too.

That janky laundry basket I told you guys about just stabbed me in the forehead on the way to the laundry room.

My stomach has been completely destroyed this whole week so far and I have a theory it’s from the green curry I ordered on Monday.

This is my third time eating it despite this theory.

I didn’t watch the US game yesterday at first because I didn’t realize it was on and then because I couldn’t find the channel. I don’t deserve to be American.

The Dude Baby (my nanny babe) decided he’s over naps. Hence why this post is late as fuh.

This might also be contributing to my premature PMS this month. I’ve been eating ALL THE CARBS and I’m pissed at everyone. Yea, even you. Sorry. Blame my ovaries (and the Hokey Pokey).

I’m running a half marathon in four weeks and according to Nike+ the last time I ran was June 19.

I keep forgetting to buy pooper scooper bags for Ziggy, so I either don’t make eye contact with anyone before sprinting away after she goes or I grab random bags from my apartment like the goodie bag I used earlier. Trashman is going to get the worst goodie bag ever.

What are your humpday confessions? Linking up with Kathy.

Strawberry Mint Margaritas

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I needed a fun summery beverage to bring to the park on Friday night, so I decided to get creative with the leftover Camarena tequila in my freezer. I have a love/hate relationship with tequila, but I hoped that adding mint leaves, sliced strawberries and limeade would ease the hate part for the night at least (the next morning was a different story).

All you need is a bunch of sliced strawberries, mint leaves, ice cubes (or frozen strawberries so it doesn’t get diluted), 3 cups Simply Limeade and one cup silver tequila (depending on how strong you want them to be because you can barely taste it–they’ll getcha!).

I poured all the ingredients into a pitcher and shook it up, which made it all pink, but I was feeling this color scheme so I drank the first one with the mint and strawberries as garnishes.

So what do I even call this? Tequila limeade? Strawberry mint margaritas? I don’t even know, but they were tasty! What’s your favorite summery cocktail?

Weekend Snapshots

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Guys, my weekend had all the qualities of an epic story: new friendships, explosives, patriotism, tequila, sunshine, dog birthday parties and near death experiences. That’s what makes a good story, right? Friday night I made a bunch of new lady friends and we wined and dined in the park while a cover band played classic rock.

Saturday Ziggy and I experienced our first doggie birthday party with homemade dog treats and everything. Later on I went to the San Jose Earthquakes game at Stanford where we watched patriotic skydivers, impressive fireworks and an exciting soccer game. Oh, and the Heimlich Maneuver had to be performed at our picnic. It was terrifying, but it had a happy ending.

Then Sunday I cooked myself breakfast and went on to pretend I was still in college by paddleboarding in a pool, playing liquor pong and whipping out my sorority gang signs with a sister from a different school. Clearly I’m making the most of the last month I have of my early 20s. It was a pretty fantastic weekend.

What did you do this weekend?

Epic Stitching Review + Giveaway

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Mel of Epic Stitching & Handmade Design was sweet enough to let me review a couple of the bracelets from her sweet Etsy shop! I chose this one and this one because they were so different yet both neutral enough to be worn with lots of different outfits. These bracelets are all traditional handmade Kumihimo, which is Japanese Samurai Braiding (how cool!) and there are tons of braids, colors and materials to choose from (you can customize them as well). The pink one is silky, beaded and feels kind of fancy whereas the brown/green one makes me feel like I should have sand between my toes. Mel made sure I gave her my exact wrist measurements so they fit perfectly and they will definitely be great summer accessories. We’re giving you the opportunity to win a $25 credit to her shop and free anywhere shipping. Enter below and check back next Friday to see who won!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Happy Friday, friends!

Low-carb Scallop Pasta

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Guys, it’s been like 453 years* since I did a recipe post. This could be because I’ve been eating fried oreos for dinner or because when I do cook I’m too lazy to photograph it or it could be because most of my readers don’t care about recipe posts. But despite these obstacles I persevered because I am a damn champion (and I didn’t have anything else to talk about today). So here I am with a low-carb scallop pasta dinner thing. Here’s what I used (none of the measurements are exact–I am an anti-perfectionist):
1 package frozen scallops
4 tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 tablespoons Earth Balance vegan butter
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
capers (the more the better!)
Juice of half a lemon
Salt & Peppa
First I thawed the scallops, seasoned them and threw them in an olive oil coated pan over medium high heat. I wasn’t sure what I was doing so I just kept flipping them until they were a little brown. In the meantime I heated the ‘butter’, olive oil, garlic, lemon juice and capers in a different pan and heated the noodles in pot on the stove (they’re already cooked so you just have to heat up and drain). Then, you guessed it, I combined them all together and ate it up. I got two meals out of this bad boy, but probably if you were patient enough to create side dishes or something it could last longer. This was not in the cards for me. I can’t even eat my sweet potatoes properly.
*slight exaggeration
Simple enough, yea? Just know that Shirataki noodles have a strange un-pasta-like texture and they don’t taste like much. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Happy eating!

PS: You can thank Shannon for this throwback.

I confess..

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I went to work yesterday only to realize I had the day off.

I was not expecting to be this intrigued by Steinbeck’s “East of Eden,” but it’s crazy, man.

I keep getting weird bumps all over my arms every time I go in the sun. I’m destined to be a ghost forever.

An 18-year-old-looking dude working at the fair hit on me while I was chaperoning a bunch of 11-year-olds. I got some free games out of it but lost miserably.

He originally thought I was their mom.. Wtf, mate?

I’m feeling the new Ariana Grande song.

I must be giving off the spinster vibe because everyone (including one of the aforementioned 11 year olds) is trying to set me up.

I ate half of a giant family-sized bag of bbq chips yesterday.

I wish I had the other half with me right now so I could finish it off.

The sweet potatoes in my kitchen have sprouted and I’m considering just decorating with them because apparently they are the only type of plant I can keep alive.

Some of the search terms bringing people to my blog lately are truly disturbing. I mean they make me laugh until I remember that someone actually typed that stuff into Google hoping to find it. Ew.

Linking up with Kathy.

Best Photo Editing Apps

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If you guys follow me on Instagram or read this post, you know I’m not a fan of the #nofilter phenom. It’s not that I feel like I need to hide behind a filter or that people should conceal their natural beauty (I only wear makeup on weekends, mostly out of laziness but still), but I do think we have an obligation to our followers to post the best possible photos. At least that’s what I like to see from the people I follow. There’s a time and a place for awkwardly angled candids, greasy foreheads and sloppy kegstand photos and that place is Facebook. Kidding, kind of. Although many of those do exist in the scary massive land of Kensie’s-untagged-FB-photos. But when it comes to Instagram, I like to pick my favorite of the literally dozens of photos I took and edited them to look exactly how I pictured. Sometimes I spend a stupid amount of time on just one small photo, but as far as I’m concerned it’s a little piece of art and a little reflection of who you are. There are so many cheap and powerful photo editing programs right at your fingertips and in case you haven’t been taking advantage of them, check out some of my favorites.

A Beautiful Mess
$0.99
The ladies of A Beautiful Mess can do no wrong in my eyes. They are the goddesses of the blogging world and their app is just one more smashing success to add to their repertoire of perfection. This app is like a super fun, easy and way less messy version of scrapbooking. There are a couple adjustable filters, but the real fun is in the borders, backgrounds, doodles and fonts. You can choose pre-made phrases or write your own text, add cute little hearts or mountains, add scrapbook-paper-like backgrounds and even create collages. I usually use this app for the doodles and text adding properties and save the other steps for the following apps.

Afterlight
$0.99
I recently discovered this app and I’m completely in love. Ever since downloading it I’ve edited every single photo in it before uploading it to Instagram. There are a ton of adjustable filters to choose from, but there are so many user-friendly photo editing options that I often don’t even need to go the route of a full-on filter. You can clarify, brighten, adjust the highlights, mid tones and shadow tones, add warmth, texture, crop, add film effects and choose all kinds of borders. I tend to go to the original borders and select the one that fits the whole photo (vertical or horizontal) into a square with white strips filling in for the extra space to see how it’ll look on Instagram. I choose this if the square will otherwise cut off more of the photo than I’m comfortable with. The great thing about this is you can still add a filter in this app without it affecting the shade of the white background unlike if you were to add a yellow-ish filter in Instagram. It’s the little things.

DipTic
$0.99
I downloaded this one a long time ago when I was fed up with the free collage apps throwing ads in my face and redirecting me when I was trying to get my collage on. Depending on how often you fuse your photos together, it may be completely unnecessary, but I like having the freedom to adjust the size of each section, the border width and zoom in and out on certain sections. If you like to get crazy with your collages, there are some pretty unique ones in here too including a ying-yang shape, waves, an alien face and all sorts of designs. You can also change the color of the background and add text.

Instagram
free
I’m sure you’ve heard of if not mastered the art of this one, but I figured I’d include it anyway since I use it pretty much every day. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t do a whole lot of editing in IG itself, rather I use it for the social aspect, but the newest update did add a lot more editing options if you want to skip the other steps. There are now far more options as far as intensity of filters and a few other basic photo editing steps such as brightness, contrast, warmth and vignette, but the only one I really use is the ’tilt shift.’ It focuses on the part of the picture you choose and makes the rest of the photo slightly blurry making it almost look like I know how to shoot a camera in manual (one of these days!).

How do you perfect your selfies? What are your favorite photo editing apps?

Weekend Snapshots

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I had another lovely weekend, friends. I think we can officially add buying a ton of books and eating fried Oreos to my list of things-that-make-me-less-stressed. Friday night I enjoyed fried chicken and waffle sliders, hand crafted hipster cocktails and fun conversations with a new creative friend. Saturday was spent admiring the Golden Gate Bridge and the crazy swimmers competing in an open water swim alongside it, enjoying nausea-inducing carnival rides, being some of the youngest attendees dancing along at a Creedence Clearwater Revival concert, eating things that truly need not be breaded and fried and getting photographed very cautiously with goats (remember my last traumatic goat experience?). Then Sunday was packed full of sleeping, lounging, reading and splashing in the sun. It was pretty great, but now that the weekend has come to an end and I just finished reading #Girlboss, it’s time to hustle and make things happen. 
What are you doing today to better yourself? Please do share.

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