1. Above are two favorite pins from last week. One made me nod and one made me laugh, but truer words were never spoken. (Although, I just finished writing a post for Women & Co in an attempt to disprove #2. We’ll see.)
2. Things are really looking good at the house. I have a feeling Friday’s update will be a great one!
3. You guys. The tea recommendations are awesome. I’m going to sit down and make a list of all the potential greatness. Rooibos teas? Total game changer.
4. Speaking of tea, have you all heard of the company Honest Tea? D drinks some of their organic bottled teas, but I’m really excited about the line of juice pouches that they just reformulated for kids. We aren’t much of juice drinking family – it’s pretty much just water and milk for the kids over here, but I have been in some situations lately (namely soccer games) when it was my responsibility to bring snacks for the group, and you all, I just can’t be the mom who brings mini water bottles to the kids after they’ve been chugging water throughout the entire game. I remember that mom growing up – the one with carrot sticks – that mom soooo sucked.
If the kids are looking for fun snacks and juice post-game, that’s what they are going to get. This season, I’ve been doing individual packs of Trader Joe’s Kettle Corn (the kettle corn only contains four ingredients – popcorn, sunflower oil, sugar, and salt), and the Honest Tea team sent some juice pouches to try out. They were a total hit with all parties involved. The juices are organic, contain no GMOs or HFCS, and the company just eliminated the organic cane sugar and replaced it with additional fruit juice, dropping the sugar amount to 9 grams. Plus, they taste good – not cloyingly sweet. Thank you, Honest Tea. You just made my life so much easier. You can check out all the flavors here. (I kind of want to mix vodka with the Tropical Tango Punch for a weekend cocktail. Is that weird?)
5. The Fitocracy group! Such a great group of girls. It’s the perfect place for us to keep track of our workouts, share tips and video links to great exercises, and most importantly, support each other. I just finished Week 7 of Run10K, and man, it wasn’t the most fun I’ve ever experienced. Running on a treadmill for over an hour is brutal, but I know my group has got my back. If you are serious about exercising, please join us. However, I do have one requirement for the group. If you’ve spent any time on exercise websites like Fitocracy, you probably know there are some sketchy half-naked peeps around. I will only approve you to join our private group if you have added your profile photo and put a sentence or two about yourself in the “About Me” section. It’s only fair that we know a little about you! If you are in, please join here, follow me (username is whoorl), and I’ll add you to the group. Also, if you have previously joined and haven’t received an invite to the group, please leave your username in the comments. (Also, like I mentioned, be sure that your information is filled out so I can add you.)
6. Sticking with the running topic, we got into a little discussion about Garmin watches at the Facebook page. Do you use a Garmin? They seem so great, but I plan to use the Runkeeper App on my iPhone instead, mainly because I will need my iPhone to listen to my Spotify playlist while running outdoors. So! I need advice on ways to run with my iPhone. I’m not a fan of armbands, but recently heard about the Spibelt? Has anyone used this? Pros? Cons? Does it bounce? Any other recommendations for running with an iPhone?
7. One more fitness thought, and I promise I’m done. I know some of you subscribe to the “Lululemon is over-priced and over-hyped” way of thinking, but I have got to tell you, there is just no comparison for me in regards to durability and style. No comparison, and trust me, I have tried everything under the sun, just wishing and hoping that something less expensive would be as cute and most importantly, as functional and durable because I didn’t want to be that girl. The Lululemon addict girl. Well, I am here to tell you that after years of wearing the heck out of my stuff, my Lululemon items are still kicking and still adorable, and I LOVE THEM, AMERICA. Do you hear me? I am addicted to Lululemon and I will proudly yell from the rooftops! I LOVE YOU, LULULEMON.
I am also prepared to show you why no short in the world is as fantastic as their Turbo Run short. (Not that weird pattern, though. I prefer the all black ones, although did any of you see the pretty plum color that sold out in less than a week? I really wanted that color.) In fact, I might just have to post a photo comparison of three different brands. Which would mean I would actually have to photograph myself in running shorts on this here blog. THAT is scary, but I’ll dig in and do it for the team. (Also, I have no affiliation to Lululemon. Just a deep obsession.)
8. Speaking of obsessions, you all know I’m obsessed with beards, right? People think I love November because it’s my birthday and Thanksgiving, but no, it’s due to a little thing called Movember. Men donning facial hair all month long for a great cause. I can hardly wait. In the meantime, I’ve got a beard porn Pinterest board going on, and it’s pretty much the best thing ever.
9. If you haven’t noticed the 13,450,000 pins on Pinterest the last few weeks, it’s pumpkin season. Remember these pumpkin brownies from the days of yore? I’m totally making them this week, but let me just say, if you want a quicker pumpkin treat, the Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Bread and Muffin Mix is so damn good. I bought it on a whim last week, and we made the muffins this weekend. SO DAMN GOOD.
10. If you made it this far, you truly deserve a medal. I commend you, lovely person. But wait, one more thing! The winner of the Freshly Picked moccasin giveaway is #516, Rachel S. Congratulations, Rachel! Okay, I’m done. Run! Before I think of something else!
Jill Will Run
October 29, 2012 at 4:46 pmI hate my spibelt and amphipod belt. I prefer the iFitness lineup. Give them a look!
Honest Kids pouches are great! And my kid can’t even drink them yet, but I would give her them when she’s older!
PS – when I typed amphipod my iPad tried to autocorrect it to arm hippos!
Rachel
October 30, 2012 at 5:21 amRe: #6. I tried a cheap armband when running, but I hated it. It slipped and slid and the cord got in the way. I’m a klutz, so of course, I hooked the cord numerous times and pulled it out of my iPhone. My redneck solution is to stick it in your sports bra. I’m very small busted, so I have plenty of space and I found that it didn’t bounce around because…ah, my boobs are so small that they don’t bounce, thus keeping that area nice and level. I tuck the cord in with the phone and if I know I’m going to be super-sweaty, I put it in a plastic baggie.
I know…so classy, right?!
Jennifer
October 30, 2012 at 8:29 amHonest Tea is a bottled organic tea company based in Bethesda, Maryland. It was founded in 1998 by Seth Goldman and Barry Nalebuff. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Coca-Cola Company.
Opposition to Proposition 37 Grows
Published by slangseth on Tuesday, October 30th, 2012
GMO-interests are really throwing their support behind the effort to defeat a proposed labeling law in California. MapLight, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization which tracks money and politics says opponents of Proposition 37 have contributed $43.8 million to the “Vote No” campaign to date.
Monsanto is the biggest contributor to the “No” campaign putting in $8.1 million, DuPont has thrown in $4.9 million, PepsiCo, Bayer Cropscience, Dow Agrosciences, BASF and Syngenta have contributed $2 million each, Kraft has added $1.95 million, Grocery Manufacturers Association $1.5 million, Coca-Cola $1.46 million and Nestlé’s $1.3 million.
Megan
October 30, 2012 at 10:09 amI am a huge fan of the iFitness belt. I bought it on a whim at the LA Marathon expo in 2011 and have been in love ever since. I put my month-old iPhone in it for the race that weekend and it survived the monsoon that we ran through. It easily holds my phone, gels, cards, chapstick, etc. I can wear it low on my hips and it stays put, lays flat and is pretty easy to get in to while you’re running. Hope that helps!
AirAth
October 30, 2012 at 11:02 amiFitness belts are THE BEST: http://www.ifitnessinc.com/ Trained (and raced) an Ironman with it crammed with all sorts of junk – phone, keys, Gu, etc. and nary an issue. There are options and ‘add-ons’ that go with each belt. Plus the main pocket is the perfect size for the iPhone.
Also check out Oiselle runnning shorts – the Rogas are amazing. Their stuff is cute and not nearly as expensive as Lulu (though still a bit pricey).
Lisa @ Lisa the Vegetarian
October 30, 2012 at 4:37 pmI’ve only ever bought one thing at LuLu Lemon – the tata tamer! I had been looking for something to tame my tatas for ever and decided to finally bite the bullet and spend some bigger bucks to do so. So far so good though!
Christina
October 31, 2012 at 11:12 amI have a Spibelt, and I liked it (didn’t move), but it was so hard to get my phone out when I wanted to check anything (like distance, time, skip a song, etc.). So, now I just hold my phone.
My family LOVES those brownies. I made them when you first posted them, and my husband requests them all the time :)
Kylie
November 1, 2012 at 5:50 amI just stumbled upon your blog and found the post where you ask for tea suggestions. Honest Tea is great, from what I have heard, but I encourage you to check out David’s Tea. They’re so good, I wasn’t even really a tea drinker until I had them. I can’t get enough of their unique blends and huge variety. Not to plug my blog, but I did do an in-depth review of them with some photographs of both the store and website. It’s better than I could describe in a comment, so if you are interested in them, you can read about them here: http://www.chicbananas.com/2012/02/best-tea-find-davids-tea.html
Isabel
November 1, 2012 at 7:36 amThere are people out there that don’t love Lululemon? Living so close to British Columbia (Lululemon’s birth place) we are surrounded my it. And it’s glorious. I got my first hoodie for Mothers Day a few years back and I tell everyone I know it’s the best $100 ever spent. And now we own more hoodies between the both of us then I care to admit.
I just had to profess my love as well.
Kate
November 2, 2012 at 2:21 pmZella capris are great (and much less expensive than Lululemon)!
Amti'b
November 3, 2012 at 6:45 pmFeel like stan should grow you a beard, it is nice but lost on the two of us at our house-it hurts! Not porn but at least you would appreciate its fullness/color/natural shape!