Friday's Awesome Five

1. It's spring time which means it is almost summer time which means all I can think about are fruity cocktails. Forever and ever. Next on my to-do list is this Blueberry Passion Mojito.

2. Speaking of alcohol, the recenet purchase of Elysian Superfuzz was an excellent choice. Fruity but still with all the excellent qualities a good pale, we enjoyed a couple of these with a fancy ass pizza we made the other night. And seriously, who could resist the packaging?

3. Ya girl has been online shopping! I just dropped some dough at Lulus.com (among other places... sorry bout it), they've got lots of super girly and cute stuff. Maybe too much. Either way, I picked up this frilly little skirt, and Cait was very surprised! I guess spring is putting the girly girl back in Gu!

4. I'm getting a haircut today! I am so so excited! I have no clue what I'm gonna do, but I have never gotten a bad 'do from the sistas at Supernova. Whenever I get the final "so what do you think?!" there's only ever one thing to say:

5. This weekend is the Daffodil Festival in Tacoma! You wouldn't believe the gritty city would still be into this kind of thing, but the festival revolves around a group of "Daffodil Princesses" and is a debutante type of thing. They do some volunteering, throw a parade, and daffodils get painted on main intersections around town, so I'm not complaining! Check out their Facebook page for event info, I'll see ya there pre-gaming Second Saturdayz!

Brought to you by a splash of gu and a dash of Cait. 

Egg Dying Party- Lush Scout Style

Hey Hey Hey Lush Scouts. Happy Easter or Happy Pesach or Happy Zombie day or Happy Spring day or whatever you want to say. Regardless, Gu and I dyed eggs yesterday and it was bomb. Check out the results below:

All the things necessary for bomb.com egg dying.

Makin' magic with water, vinegar, and dye capsules.

The ever-lovely gu provides a 'before' photo.

The finished product!

YOSHI!

#4ever

We also enjoyed our awesome egg-dying with some big ol' Bloody Marys (obvi). 

You're never too old to dye eggs, right Lush Scouts?

Put my makeup on and wear my hair all pretty,

Cait

Friday's Awesome Five

Hola Lush Scouts! After a slightly less horrifying than usual week at work (because it included free mexican food and margaritas), I'm here with the Friday five.

1.  The most exciting development of my week is MY BED! I finally bought a bed. I've been sleeping on a mattress on the floor which is fine, but it is difficult to go from dead asleep on the floor to completely upright at five in the morning, which is why this is so great. I bought the cheaper bed below from IKEA (obvi) and have plans with a bookshelf to make myself a fake alcove bed.

2. I've been on a bit of a summer-wardrobe-buying-spree because it is getting so so nice here in Tacoma and also because I had a 3 week paycheck this week. One of my favorite purchases is this triangle necklace from Forever 21. I've been obsessed with pennants and bunting for a while so finding this necklace was perfect!

3. To continue with the theme of my spring wardrobe, I've been completely obsessed with this dress for a while now, so I finally bought it, I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that it will fit when it arrives. (lord knows modcloth plus sizing is super inconsistent). I also got a couple of other things.

4. You may not know this about me, but I really really really like dogs. A lot. I would rather spend my time online on Petfinder than trying to online date. I basically make all of my life choices around what will let me get a dog sooner. Right now, being out of the house for 12 hours every day and basically making a pittance is putting a serious damper on my dog-having abilities, but that doesn't stop me from looking and pining and following basically every local rescue group on Facebook. I am currently really interested in Salty Dog Rescue here in Seattle. They rescue Formosan Mountain Dogs from Taiwan and bring them stateside to enjoy much more lush lives. They do great work and these particular dogs are apparently really loyal and affectionate and socially awkward, which pretty much sounds like me in dog form. They're also pretty small without being little dogs and they have the most adorable ears known to man. I cannot wait until I can adopt! Look at this sweet baby below, brought in on their most recent transport. You can check them out at their website above and definitely follow them on Facebook!

5. Gu and I are having an egg dying party. Sadly it isn't going to be as fancy as this INCREDIBLE one  from Real Simple. I mean, I can't. I can't even. Seriously Real Simple. You need to stop right meow. But, there will be eggs. There will be dye. There will be joy. Keep your eyes open for pictures of the party later! I don't think they'll be as fancy as eggs I saw in Austria below, but a girl can dream.

Hakuna some vodka,

Cait

Get Lush | Whiskey-Pink Lemonade Popsicles

As if you weren't already the life of the party, my beloved Lush Scouts! Here is a treat that will have you waking up every morning thinking of reasons to have people over that evening, just so that you can open up your freezer and watch everyone's face light up as you exclaim, "Oh hey! Who wants a popsicle with booze in it?!"

Two things are clear: Everyone wants one, and they are super-duper easy to whip up! Cait and I happen to have found the ice pop maker you see here at IKEA, but I see no shame in a tray full of paper cups with popsicle sticks stuck in the middle! Everything else is sort of up to you. If you don't want to start with a plan or a clever name in advance, any combination of what-we-had-for-girls-night-last-week can make for a great popsicle! Though come to think of it, that's a pretty clever sounding name.

Since a plain-pink pop isn't really anything to write home about, I decided to pizzazz them up with some grenadine. Now that we're all sitting at the grown-ups table at Thanksgiving (I wish!), grenadine isn't just for Shirley Temples anymore! The bottle might look like a big commitment compared to how much you actually use in any given drink, but aside from looking beautiful on the shelf, it can jazz up any drink! If you're super worried about it, just buy some orange juice make tequila sunrises--the best way I can think of to get your daily doses of vitamin C and vitamin T at the same time. Plus, I guarantee that your instagram followers are gonna FREAK about all the cute drinks you'll be drinking.

The Recipe:

1 can frozen pink lemonade

2 oz whiskey, approx.

3 tsp grenadine

Prepare the lemonade per the instructions on the can, duh. The rest of the process is a lot more art than science. The closest thing to science involved is putting in enough booze so that upon trying a pop, everyone's first reaction is "woo hoo hoooo! These things are a party!" but not enough that it runs down their arms after their first lick. Alcohol doesn't freeze. SCIENCE. I put about 1/4 shot of whiskey in each, then about 1/2 teaspoon grenadine, and filled the rest of the way with pink lemonade. Put 'em in the freezer for a day or so, and party on. Even by yourself on a rainy Wednesday morning:

Take it sleazy,

gu

I Been On

Howdy Lush Scouts!

I wanted to apologize for my prolonged absence from posting. I've been real busy what with these folks (my mom and dad) visiting:

And taking me lots of places including here:

And helping me find a frame to make this happen:

Bringing this (and a table too) to help with the storage issues in my kitchen:

But most importantly, they needed to hand deliver this special present from my niece:

But I'm back now. I too got my tax returns and blew it all on some new furniture for my apartment! (I currently sleep on a mattress on the floor.) I will try to take some before and after photos so you can see the mess that exists now, and the slightly more functional mess that will happen later. 

In happier news, there is new Beyonce, and though I'm of the opinion that it's just a hype-song for her new album, I can definitely get down. Take a listen for yourselves below!

Keep on keepin' on,

cait

Friday's Awesome Five

Hey Lush Scouts! It's Friday again, praise be! And that means a wrap up of all my favorite things about this week. Besides it ending, here are the best parts of my week:

1. This super inspiring TEDxtalk by Amanda Palmer. She has some great things to say about life and asking for help, but more than anything, she says some stuff about the changes the music industry may have to consider to stay relevent; things I've considered myself in fact.

2. I love Essie Tart Deco so much that after buying it last year I used the entire bottle over the course of the summer. Now it's spring again and this lady wanted her tart! So using the $2 off Essie coupon Target is offering right now, I got a new bottle. It immediately went on my fingers. I feel springier already.

3. One of my favorite places for on-trend, sometimes over-the-top, and always sexy plus-size clothes right now is Posh Shoppe. I own a couple things from them already and love them all! As if I didn't already want this top aaaand also this one, they just released a new Colorblock Crossback Dress and I'm in loooove.

4. My sister sent these tea-cup lights to me on Pinterest from Apartment Therapy. They are the Electric Mavis lighting collection from Greg Bonasera. It may or may not be pretty obvious to those around me that I love teacups and this is such a brilliant way to use them! I may have to figure out how to wire a few of these for my own apartment!

5. Besides the other eighty-seven-thousand items I covet over at Modcloth, the Lilac Festival Top has been tickling the hell out of my fancy lately. Much to Gu's chagrin, I love ombre and this shirt fits the bill. Also, I'm not normally a fan of purple but something about this has convinced me to put my predjudice aside.

* Bonus: I am watching the HELL out of X-files on Netflix Instant Stream. Can I get an amen?

Bring out the tiger in you,

Cait

Anything get your goat this week Lush Scouts? Let us know!

Fat and Happy | Pineapple Upside Down Cake

Pineapples are, in my opinion, one of the best short-term investments you can make. Just pick one up during an otherwise unassuming trip to the grocery store (come on, how many weeks in a row can avocados be your exciting tropical fruit?!), and you're already having fun, shimmy-shimmy-shimmying around the rest of your trip with that puppy in your basket. You wink at the cashier as he scans your eggs and wonders whether you're from some tropical island since you have such exotic taste in produce, he can't help but notice. Then, for the next week while you ponder whether you'll cut it up and devour it in one sitting or maybe make a pizza just to put the chunks on, you can practically hear the waves crashing outside your apartment window every time someone walks in your kitchen and gasps: "A pineapple?! How fun!!"

Well I got lucky. You see, as the aroma of that fated pineapple began filling my apartment with the smell of golden Hawaiian sunrises, it brought with it the call of work in the morning and a worthy cause for which to slice open that prickly exterior. Next thing I knew it was both the make-or-break point in pineapple town and the eve of my mom's birthday--an occasion to celebrate a long-time lover of pineapple upside down cake, and a fancy schmancy ripe fruit to make it with! Who could ask for more? I know it's a little old fashioned, but I know you're hip enough to pull it off, Lush Scouts. I know it!

So I set to work! I hunted down a recipe, and decided that Betty Crocker has never steered me (nor my mom, for that matter!) wrong. This short-and-sweet recipe, with fresh pineapple replacing the canned rings, KILLED IT. Amazing crunchy sugary top, perfectly tart/sweet fruit, and a nice moist cake that took on some tropical flavor of its own. I sliced the pineapple in quarters with the intention of arranging a beautiful sunburst design on the cake proper, but wound up with a much more homemade-looking (read: ugly) result. I tossed some smaller chunks in a cupcake mold so that I could have some leftovers to share with friends and still have an untouched cake to give my mom on the big day, and those came out very fun and festive!

The Recipe, Courtesy of Betty Crocker

1/4 cup melted butter/margarine (I used olive oil because I didn't have time to go to the store... ssh!)
2/3 cup brown sugar
9 slices pineapple from 14-oz can, drained a whole freakin' fresh pineapple, baby!
9 maraschino cherries, if you're into that
1 and 1/3 cup flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup shortening (I used olive oil again)
1 and 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup milk
1 egg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a 9-inch pan/cupcake tins/what have you, drizzle your melted butter and sprinkle the brown sugar evenly over that. Slice the pineapple thinly, and arrange in your desired design on top of the brown sugar. Jauntily place your maraschino cherries throughout, you wild folk including them!

In a medium bowl, mix together the remaining ingredients. I'd say I stirred for a good few minutes before pouring the mixture over the pineapple in the pans. Some chunks might float up into the cake itself, but that's just bonus flavor! Pat yourself on the back for already making your cake extra-delish.

Bake 50-55 minutes (less time for cupcakes) or until a knife/toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Right off the bat flip the pan onto a heat-proof dish to let the cake flip and get all that amazing brown sugar drizzling onto your cake. Remove pan after a few minutes, and serve that baby warm.

Life's a beach,

gu

Haterz Gon' Cait

Hiya! I'm Cait, and the giantess of this dynamic duo. I measure in at about 5'11" (but you can't tell with the tall-girl-slouch I've developed) and I am not afraid to grab things off the top shelf. It has taken me a long time to cultivate my style and myself, but this is where I am now and it's a pretty lush place to be. Between juggling my suuuper satisfying day job (end sarcasm), multitude of hobbies, and plenty of TV watching, I like arts, crafts, vintage markets, lipstick, poetry revivals, trains, and Austria. I'm awesome at sarcasm, lip-pursing, pancakes, avoiding showers, and being a hermit. I get just as obsessed as Gu. I'd consider photography my foremost art-form, my six-year-old niece is my best friend, and I'm a huge Paul Simon afficionado. And now you've had a crash course in Cait 101.

I'm not sure what happened, but sometime last summer I suddenly found myself in possession of many crop tops. And now that summer is coming again, I've started to bust these babies out of the closet. Because it's from last season, this shirt, from Target isn't available anymore, but they do have some similar ones. I particularly enjoy this brightly coloured one. The skirt is a run-of-the-mill black bodycon skirt which I wear all the time, likely from H+M. These boots are somewhat new, purchased from Modcloth's cabin fever sale. They're called the Obsidian Odessey Bootie and they're sparkly on the back and the toe, with studs! I'm an ankle boot addict and always have a hard time with black boots (they make me feel like a witch) but these are actually perfect. There was a bit of a snafu with the first pair but Modcloth graciously sent me a new one. Speaking of Modcloth, this Apollo Yes necklace is from them. It's become a wardrobe staple. Lastly, I'm wearing some great tights! They're Sculptz by Silkies; I don't notice much 'shaping' when I wear them, but they're long enough (unlike most other tights) and pretty much opaque (yay!) and come in colours in the Plus Sizes (you hear that Target?!). I'd definitely recommend them because not only are they pretty, but they're pretty durable.

Bitch don't kill my vibe,

Cait

When someone flirts with me:

Immediate Reaction:

Second Thought: 

Hearts, stars and horse-shoes,

Cait