Pinterest Tuesday #2

Puns + Animals = Perfection



Campfire Cones



Layering rough pieces with classic gems for a dynamic look.

Garbanzo Bean Salad

Garbanzo Bean Salad

3-4 Servings

Ingredients

1 can of garbanzo beans (drained)

1 diced tomato

1/3 finely diced onion

1 minced garlic clove

3 sprigs of parsley

1 slice of lime

2 tbs extra virgin olive oil

2 ts vinegar

salt and pepper to taste

1. Prepare all of the ingredients as listed above.

2. Pour all of the ingredients, aside from the beans, into a medium container that closes up tight.  You will be shaking this so you want to make sure that it won't leak out. Close the container and shake it until completely mixed.

3. Add the garbanzo beans and shake until the ingredients are evenly coated onto the beans.

4. Serve at room temperature or cold.  It will keep in the fridge for several days. I had it with a warm sandwich and a mug of masala chai tea and a good old Lord of the Rings movie.

Masala chai tea is my own "precious."

Banana Ice Cream

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!

One ingredient banana ice cream to be exact.  That's right! One ingredient, and it's, you guessed it, bananas! 

Well mine was four ingredients including the toppings but other than that, yeah, it's one.  This is great for vegans (without the honey and waffle bowl of course) and those who are diary-free, I know I would've loved this when I was vegan a few years back. 

Banana Ice Cream

1 Serving

Ingredients: 

1 banana

2 tbs crushed peanuts (about 9 peanuts) (optional)

3 ts honey (optional)

1 waffle cone or bowl (optional)

1. Freeze the whole banana for three hours or until frozen.  You may peel and chop it before you freeze the banana in order to make it freeze faster.  It's best to use a ripened banana but I just couldn't wait any longer to try this out!

The Frozen Banana

2. Place the peanuts in a plastic baggies and crush them with anything.  I used a mallet that's meant for spices.

3. Chop banana into slices and peel the skin off if you did not do this before before.  My slices were pretty thick but you can make yours as big or small as you'd like.

4. Place in a food processor or blender until smooth.  I prefer the processor since I didn't have to keep mixing the bananas so that the blades could reach the others.  With the food processor it only took me about two minutes to completely mix it.

That's all banana, nothing else, I promise!

5. Take the ice cream out and serve immediately.  You can put whatever toppings on it that you like.  I chose to put it in a waffle bowl with honey and crushed peanuts, it made the flavor of the sweet bananas really pop out. 

6. Enjoy the sweet, healthy snack!

The Fourth of July

The last few nights have been full of thunderstorms, my neighbors' fireworks, and Air Force jets practicing in the little windows of good weather possible.  These are all signs that the Fourth of July is coming up soon; I know it's a month away but I just get so excited for holidays like this!

My dog, John, curling up and trying his best to sleep.  He's actually shaking in fear as he hates the loud noises. March and July aren't his favorite months to say the least.

Even with my baby being so miserable I can't help but love the Fourth of July.  It's wonderful to have the family around for good food and a ton of oohs and ahs at the end of night.  Last year a bush was set on fire during the show and everyone forgot about the booms up above until it quickly burnt out. 

Although I can't promise that your local neighborhood will set ablaze I can promise you a beautiful Fourth of July with a few of these simple tricks.

Snacks

Drinks

Outfits

For the more laid back girl.

Untitled #8 by mia-nguyen featuring a straw hat

Dress, $48
Keds shoes, £35
Prada plastic sunglasses, $287
Hat Attack straw hat, £88

And for that "you can never be overdressed" girl.

Untitled #9 by mia-nguyen featuring platform heels

AX Paris belted dress, £22
Steve Madden platform heels, $100
Retro handbag, €130
Banana Republic indigo jewelry, $35


So what are you guys doing for the Fourth of July?

Recipes: Strawberry Lime Popsicles

I love fruit and I love limes (I sometimes eat them alone, they're so good).  So I decided that a hot day needed a cool treat and this was it.  The sweet, overripe strawberries acted perfectly with the limeade to make a great pick me upper.

Now I'm a little bit late on this one, by about 3 days, so just ignore the date tags on the pictures. 

(With pomegranate juice)

Strawberry Lime Popsicles

Makes 3 cups of popsicle, 2-3 servings

Ingredients:

1 cup cubed strawberries

3 tbs lime or lemon juice (about 1 and a half of limes)

2 cups water

5 tbs sugar

3 tbs pomegranate juice (optional)

Make limeade with the lime juice, water, and sugar.  Mix in other ingredients.  Pour into popsicle mold or, as I did, pour it into old canning glass jars.  Place popsicle stick into the mix or use apple corers like I did.  Freeze for 4 hours or until frozen solid.  Enjoy!

You can add any other type of juice you may have lying around.  I ended up adding a small dash of POM Wonderful to the smaller of my two popsicles and that one tasted even better than the other.

Hint:  To remove the popsicles from their molds easily run the covered part under warm water until they slip out.

Hint: Don't sweat the measurements of the ingredients.  Taste the popsicle juice as you go so that you don't end up with one that's too sour of too sweet for your taste.  

Without pomegranate juice.

It was so good that my little brother and I finished them before I could take any photos!

Enjoying them along with some good old Mumford & Sons.

Gorgeous Eye

If only I had the guts to do it!

Smokey Eye

Nostalgic

I spent half of my life in Vietnam and am half-Vietnamese so when I was checking the weather for tomorrow and saw that it was in my favorite weather conditions nostalgia really hit me.  I love the rain in Vietnam.  The smell of petrichor brings back memories of riding on my uncle's motorbike in countless floods that everyone takes so casually.  I remember watching pigeons gathered by the puddles after the rain while eating street side pho with my grandmother and aunt and how cool it always felt during the rains. Vietnam is in my blood, of course I'd think 90 degrees was cool.  

P.S. This was supposed to be published last night but I must have saved it as a draft instead of publishing it.

Elated

Guess who just called?  The lady from my new internship!  It is going to be amazing working at the Birds of Prey Foundation.  I told her everything that I wanted to do and she told me that I could do it all except for, maybe, handling the raptors.  I'm just so excited!  I can't believe that in two weeks I'm going to be an intern at my dream job.  Yeah I'll be cleaning up poop and all that jazz but I really don't mind animal poo, I'll even get to work in the ICU with all of the injured birds and everything too! Wish me luck guys!

What new experiences are you guys going through now?  I'd love to hear all about it!

Tumblr Thursday!

Now that I've introduced to you one of my internet loves, it's time to introduce the other: Tumblr.  Tumblr has got to be my favorite of the two just because I'm able to let out my geeky side which I don't get to do quite often even with my incredibly dorky friends. I have two Tumblrs:

moderndaycaptive

I love this Tumblr since I can post whatever photography, style, hair, or anything on it.  I call it my beauty blog because it includes anything that I find beautiful no matter what, even movies and books.

The Doctor's Box

This is the one where I can let out all of my love for Doctor Who.  If you don't know what I'm talking about it's a sci-fi show about an alien man who can travel through all of time and space with his TARDIS, the inspiration for the title of the Tumblr, and he's been doing this for 1100 years now, that's translated into 50 years worth of TV series.  It may sound geeky, and it is, but it's one of the most heart wrenching shows that I have ever watched.  The plots are thick and there's plenty of variety thrown in there for everyone.  From action to love and even to side episode that have nothing to do with the show itself like season three's Blink, the episode that I would watch to start with.  I don't suggest watching the old series unless you get really into it but the new series, starting with Christopher Eccleston's doctor, is fantastic. The graphics are cute to say the least but the characters are amazing and don't worry, after the fifth season they get a budget make over and the CGI is so so so much better.  

Pinterest Tuesday

I love Pinterest.  Do you love it?  I just absolutely adore it.  The concept is amazing; I mean, one place where you can collect all of the interesting, pretty, or odd things that you find on the internet!  Who thought of that?  Plus you can get it all organized onto specific boards, which I love since I'm a stickler for order in everything.

I thought that I'd share a few things with you guys every week that are my favorites at the moment. So let's get started with the very first Pinterest Tuesday!

Skirt

This skirt is just right for summer.  With all of the high-low skirts and dresses around this season you'll definitely stick out in the light blue color.  Maybe try pairing it with a light weight white shirt and some gold jewelry.

Eclipse

Even though I missed the one from Sunday myself, this eclipse looks amazing! (Even if it might not be entirely real.)

Camping

I keep finding myself think about camping even though it won't be possible for me to go until late June since I live in Colorado and the mountains still think it's winter.  My camping won't be this luxurious but it surely will be just as fun.  I hope you guys try out some new camping spots this year or, if you've never been before, go camping in the first place.  It's worth the mud and bugs.

Stress Breakouts and Clearing Up

I'm so stressed with the end of school and finals that I'm breaking out badly.  I get acne on the area around my mouth and there's also a few rouges on my chin and cheeks so it's pretty obvious when I do.  And you know what?  Knowing that everyone can see my acne is stressing me out even more which will probably end up giving me even more acne!

I was going to do a post on acne treatments that I've found to work but when I was racking my head for all of the things that I have tried I realized that the store bought washes and spot treatments barely do a thing to help me.  It's the cheapo-I'm-too-lazy-to-go-buy-something-so-I'll-DIY-it treatments that work the best.  So I'm going to share this with you guys so that you can think twice before dishing out another ten bucks on a bottle of chemicals that might not even work!

1) Baking Soda
      This has honestly been the biggest life saver ever.  It dries up zits fast and it doesn't cost much.  I just sprinkle a little bit into a small sauce bowl with warm water and stir.  The ratio is about one part water to three parts baking soda and should be at a paste consistency (think of your toothpaste).  This works great as a spot treatment or as a full on mask left on for ten to fifteen minutes and then gently washed off with warm water.

Baking Soda

2) Vinegar
      To be specific, I use apple cider vinegar as a toner every other day on my face, neck, chest, and back.  Just to cover all of my bases.  This is the brand that I'm using currently and it hasn't caused me any problems.

Vinegar

3) Garlic
     A little bit of the antibacterial onion has helped to clear up many of my pimples in the past.  Just take one clove, crush it with the flat side of a knife, and press it gently to the zit for a few minutes.  Be careful not to leave it on much longer than this since it can hurt your healthy skin.  I make sure that at least a bit of the juices get on there too but this is hard to do since garlic is so dry.  Some people even swear by eating a couple of cloves of garlic in order to have it clear up you acne but I'mm not sure if I could handle that.

Garlic


So what do you guys think about these?  Yay or nay?  What other at home remedies have you come to love?

Outfits: Alice in Wonderland

I was shifting through a blog, The City Sage, when I ran along this post and it got me to thinking.  Tea parties are fun and cute but what do you wear to one?  I made up a couple of outfits with Polyvore (see? I told you I would become a bit obsessed) and want to share them with you guys! 

I made the first to look like a refurbished Alice in Wonderland outfit and the second one is something that I would fight to wear.  What do you guys think?

Untitled #4 by mia-nguyen featuring a pocket dress

Pocket dress, $75
Platform wedge heels, 150 AUD
Mixit gold topaz ring, $12
Astley Clarke yellow gold earrings, $795
Black hair accessory, $16

Untitled #3 by mia-nguyen featuring an envelope clutch

Lipsy dress, £55
Giuseppe Zanotti high heel booties, $795
BCBG Max Azria envelope clutch, $78
Yves Saint Laurent stone ring, $635

Lily

I am loving this handy little gadget lately!  I made the outfit below and I'm for sure am not going to stop here.  Check out Polyvore and post a link in the comments if you make one.  I would to see how creative you guys are!

Lily by mia-nguyen featuring high heels

Chiffon shirt, $20
Denim jeans, $175
Rupert Sanderson high heels, $595
Prada leather tote, £1,065
Tom Ford retro sunglasses, $390

Swimsuit Season

Summer's only a couple of days away and that means pools and bikinis. So if you're shopping around for a new swimsuit here are some to get you started.










Yellow Bikini
Bow Top