Product Review - Humbles

Well smack my ass and call me Lucy.

I have made a wonderful discovery today.

Ever heard of Humbles? They are baked hummus chips and BOY are they delish!

I was feeling a little snackish after lunch, on account of the bucket of wine I drank last night, so I marched on down to the Student Stores with the unenviable task of finding something that tastes dank, but isn't 400 calories.

Enter: Humbles!

Only 90 freaking calories for the whole bag. They were also a bargain at just $1.19. I purchased the Olive Oil, Lemon, & Feta flavor. But mark my words, I'll be back to try Sesame Garlic and Roasted Red Pepper sometime soon!

Move over stupid old not-that-awesome Pop Chips! There's a new sheriff in town.

Go try a bag today! YUMMY IN MY TUMMY! :)

Whoopdy Freakin Do

After years of speculation and one total abandonment on my part of Ms. Mariah Carey, she's finally pregnant.

http://living.oneindia.in/insync/2010/mariah-carey-good-news-271010.html

Much unlike her usual dealings, this is the most anticlimactic announcement ever.

I don't even have the Mariah-related energy to say much about this, but I will say that if she's really only 4 months pregnant, she is in for the fight of her life when she tries to lose that baby weight.

Mazal Tav Mariah!

Who wears (the same) short shorts?!

How is it this hot when it's almost November?

According to my internal thermometer, and weather.com, it's a balmy 73 degrees right.

And you know what that means? All the college girls are back in their shorts.

But not just any shorts...These shorts (above)

I would say that at least 1.8 out of every 2 girls on campus has these shorts in some color. I'm not saying they aren't great, because I have never tried them on. But they certainly aren't doing much to dismiss the stereotype that the UNC campus is too homogenous.

Take a tip from the pros ladies. Get a real job, gain a few lbs, and get self conscious. That way you won't want to wear shorts anymore and you will be forced to be unique!

All my married ladies

Are there any other recently married ladies out there who feel like your single guy friends totally lost interest in being buddies since you got married?

I sho is feeling that way lately.

Maybe it's because I'm not a viable entity anymore. Or maybe it's because I don't have many single friends to bring with me out to bars for the guys to talk to. Or maybe it's because if I take shots I feel a hundred years old the next day and I simply can't hang like I used to.

All this got me to thinking of my ideal night. In no particular order, just depending on my mood, they are as follows:

1) Sitting on a porch or patio somewhere with 1-8 of my favorite people in the world drinking beer or wine, listening to music and just talk, talk, talkin.

2) Hanging out with my parents and my sister, forgetting what time it is, and staying up too late just talk, talk, talking.

3) Drinking beer, dancing around in my kitchen, listening to old school upbeat jams, cooking something really complicated that takes forever and doing it as slow as possible so it lasts even longer. Alone.

4) When sad, drinking wine in my kitchen, listening to Sarah McGlaughlin's "Mirrorball" album, crying into a pot of homemade soup, knowing that I am being totally dramatic because I have nothing to be sad about.

Suddenly it is very clear to me why my guy friends are abandonding me one by one!

Oh well. I guess people change.

As Sarah Mcglaughlin once said to the Indigo Girls at Lillith Fair..."Shave your armpits you big lez!"

Diveats - Stuffed Bell Pepper

Last night's delicious beast was a bell pepper stuffed with rice, black beans, chicken, and onions. Covered in some cheese and scallions and baked to perfection. With a side of corn, tomato salad on romaine.

T'was a simple flashback to my days on the farms in Tijuana.

Diveats - Vegetable Beef Soup

As my passion for cooking grows, I've decided to start posting some about lucious recipes I make in my dilapidated kitchen and beyond.

Today's feature is a fragrant, delicious pot of homemade vegetable beef soup.

The pictures will get better when Santa brings me an SLR camera for Christmas.

Spotted

Someone in DC stole the license plate I didn't know I absolutely had to have.

Ode to Nigella

I know I'm about a decade late to jump on the bandwagon, but I just recently became OBSESSED with the Food Network.

I will forever be grateful for last Saturday, when I woke up so early that my body eventually rejected standing around high noon and forced me to watch 10 hours of Ina, Giada, and the new love of my life Nigella!

Especially now that it's getting chilly outside and way too dark to wake up in the mornings, all I want to do is sleep in until 10am and watch these beautiful, chubby strangers make dishes I can't afford to make on my own all day long!

Although it's hard to stomach Giada's cheerleader enthusiasm and Paula Dean's multiple butter orgasms, I could listen to Ina and that beautiful, wonderful Nigella all day long.

Something about Nigella tell me in her sensual accent that I was "absolutely forbidden to use anything other than a fork to fluff the rice" made me feel like we had officially become friends.

I also like Mexican Made Easy, but there's something about her frequent switch from English to Spanish that I find unsettling.

Viva la Food Network!!

Heil brandnames!

You know the expression, "That's just something ugly people say"?

Well, this might just be something poor people say, but I do NOT like name brand logos on anything.

The above pictures are some examples of what I'm talking about. Sunglasses are explained later.

To me these logos are just expensive ways of letting everyone else know that you are able to spend lots of money on shoes, etc. while they are not.

And don't even get me started on fakes. Buying a fake Rolex, Gucci purse, or Coach wallet is like saying, "I don't make enough to spend a ridiculous amount on accessories, but I want people to think I do so they will feel inferior, even though we are in the same socioeconomic status." It's basically like wanting to be pretentious, instead of just being pretentious. Which me thinks is a major offense.

Anywho, back to Earth...my mom told me a story yesterday that just filled my heart with delight.

She said one of the ladies in her bridge group told a story of her young grandson who was just learning symbols in school.

He asked her, "Gigi, why do you have a swastika on your shoes?"

Pause for guttural laughter and to let you guess what the brand name the shoes were?

If you guessed Tory Birch you're right! And probably a brand whore yourself...J/K

How funny is it that someone would spend $195 on shoes only to be mistaken for a Nazi?

Don't get me wrong. People can wear whatever the hell they want. But until I can come out with my own DSW brand of super sexy, slimming, elastic banded, stain resistant clothing, all for under $10, the only brand name I'll be wearing is the Bud Light I accidentally spilled on my jeans...which, by the way, only cost $25 ;)

P.S. One time I went to NYC with some gals and their moms when I was about 12. Every other girl my age bought fake Oakleys. I, and the 6 year old little sister of my friend, bought glasses that looked like the Statue of Liberty with spikes, stripes, and stars (pictured above). Apparently I've always been this obnoxious.

Paper? Plastic? Or nonsense?

This Sunday I went to the grocery store and brought 3 reuseable bags with me.

The guy bagging my groceries but every single thing in 2 of the bags so that they were bulging out and too heavy to carry.


He left the third one completely empty.

I refuse

Was anyone else aware of this ridiculousness?

Yesterday while cruising the beer section at Harris Teeter for far too long, I came across not one, but two varieties of Ed Hardy beer. I almost fell backwards right into the North Carolina red wine section.


I can only imagine the distinct flavor of the hops, barley, and hair gel this is brewed with.


The most offensive part? Besides the vicious lion and one-eyed skull on the packaging? They costs $9.99 per 6-pack.


The slogan on their website says "It's not just a brand. It's a lifestyle."


I'll say! No truer words have ever been spoken.

Little Lies, Big Stupid

I love it when people call their vices "little".

I was watching a recent episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians where the family gets on mom Kris Jenner about her smoking habit.

Her defense: "I just like to unwind every night with my little glass of wine and my little cigarette."

Bad news Kris. Just because you call something little doesn't mean it's not going to kill you.

I used to work with a person who would get just a little bit of almost everything from the nearby buffet for breakfast and lunch everyday. Again, calling it little doesn't make those biscuits and gravy healthy.

Not surprisingly, he was morbidly obese.

That's why I like to have huge beers and giant glasses of wine. You gotsta keep it real or you're just fooling yourself!

Word of the day

Altruism: n, al-tru-is-m

Volunteering on a Saturday morning and then calling someone immediately after to tell him that you're a better person than he is.

No Break 2010

Being married to someone in grad school is a funny thing.

My husband's Fall Break is this week and he is planning a big camping trip.

What am I doing, all his friends ask? Well, I will be continuing my job that sadly has no fall break.

What delusional world are these people living in?

The "best" was this summer when my husband lived in another city for his internship. Every single person I saw asked me if I would be joining him for the summer.

This is basically like asking, "I know it took you 5 months of networking to find a job in NC to begin with, but aren't you going to give that up to be with your husband for his 3 month internship like a proper wife? And is it 1941 or 1942?"

It's not like I'm a feminist or anything, but that's just illogical and outdated thinking. Not to mention the recession and the fact that jobs aren't exactly falling out of trees these days.

It's also just a sad reminder that I don't have a break and will be left all alone to churn butter in my apron, or whatever proper married women did back in yesteryear.

Gotta go plan my nonexistent Spring Break 2K11!!!

Quote of the Day

"I'm gonna be so mad when my mood elevators wear off."

Out of the woodwork

My sister has suggested before that I am a "chosen" person, because the most random stuff ever happens to me.

Well this morning was no exception.

While I was unhappily walking to work this morning in the rain, out of NOWHERE, an insane deer pops out of the woods and come literally 3 feet from me and another innocent pedestrian. We actually started running away because we thought we were going to be attacked. Who gets attacked by a deer at 7:30 in the morning?!

Luckily the deer seemed to have an electric fence around it's brain because it stopped just short of us, turned around, and kept jumping up into a fence that surrounded a patio, ramming its head into the fence everytime.

Something must have scared the doo doo out of that deer in the woods because he had lost his damn mind. And probably ended up breaking his neck on that fence.

Ten minutes later, still walking and thinking about the near-deer encounter, I slid on the wet pavement, scraping my hand, bruising my knee, and embarrassing myself in front of the hot young college students.

Even though no one even asked me if I was ok, I was. And better yet, I didn't even spill my coffee!

Another day, another dollar, another deer attack. All in a day's work!

Get well soon...PLEASE!

Having a sick husband is like having a baby.

My husband is currently suffering from a severe form of a life threatening auto-immune disease that is rapidly destroying his body.

Oh wait, no, that's just how he is acting. He in fact has the common cold.

Each sneeze if followed by a deep "uuuuuuuugh". And each nose-blow accented with a pitiful sigh. As if to proclaim to the world (me) that he has the dreaded sniffles and needs the unified pity of the masses to get through it. No sneeze shall go unnoticed!

Last night I forced him to go with me to get some medicine because, let's be honest, not taking medicine is selfish to the person you live with?!

I was waiting in line for a RX so I couldn't hold his hand through the process, but his selections were nothing short of amazing.

In this order, these were the medicines he brought up to me to buy.

1) A $30 box of Mucinex.

We don't make a lot of money folks. I ain't even trying to spend an actual percentage of my paycheck on lugi loosener.

2) A $15 box of the generic version of Mucinex.

Again, too much money. As someone who has bought cold medicine before (which apparently he has not), I know for a fact that you can get what you need for less than $6.

3) A big ole box of Nyquil gel caps.

Now this was hard for me. Should I point out the glaring fact that Nyquil is for Nyghtime? Or should I entertain myself with a husband who doesn't know that he's being slowly sedated?

I decided to tell him.

Finally he got a non-drowsy, non-entire-budget pack of good old fashioned Cough and Cold Medicine.

Here's hoping they work fast because I can't take too much more of the dying husband act.

Guys sure are wimps sometimes!

All my stylish ladies

Hey you!

Have you ever heard of Boden USA?

http://www.bodenusa.com/

Check out the website or, better yet, getchu a catalog.

Something about these clothes makes me feel like I have to have them or I'll die.

Oh wait, does that make me sound materialistic? Oh well...

If you order anything before October 22 you get 10% off and free shipping and returns.

Even though I'm trying desperately to save money, I literally had to order 2 dresses and a shirt last night.

Maybe it's because the company is based out of England, but I seriously feel in my heart that if I don't own these clothes immediately I am going to miss out on a huge international opportunity.

As I always say: SHOP ON DIVAS, SHOP ON!

Apparently this is "no nother man"

In other divorce news...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1319909/Christina-Aguilera-splits-husband-Jordan-Bratman.html

Christina Aguilera is separating from her FUGLY husband of 5 years!

It's a sad news day for guys who married outside of their league.

Scream!

This is really sad. Poor lil' Coco!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1319793/Courteney-Cox-throws-work-split-David-Arquette.html

Courtney Cox and David Arquette are on a trail separation!

After 11 years together, it looks like Courtney finally realized that David is one of the most annoying people in entertainment and unequivocally the worst dresser on the planet.

I bet you shiz is about to get reeeeal awkward on the set of Scream 15, or whichever one they're filming now.

I present to you this nap

I just sat in an awards ceremony for over an hour next to a woman wearing a charm bracelet.

Awards = clapping

Clapping with charm bracelet = soooo annoying

On the plus side, however, a clapping charm bracelet comes in handy when the Canadian speaker talks aboot Epidemiology for 45 minutes. It's like the intermittent alarm clock you didn't know you were going to need to keep you awake midday.

For the sake of impact, please click on this link to definition of epidemiology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology

I'm just not that into you

I want to find the person who invented excuses and give them a spanking.

I am soooo sick of receiving and giving excuses.

Receiving:

"Yes, yes, yes I'm DEFINITELY coming to your party." 6 HOURS LATER "Oh, I'm sorry I just got stuck totally against my will at this other party."

Read: I was never coming but didn't have the guts to tell you I'd rather hang out with other people.

Giving:

"I'm soooo sorry I can't come to dinner anymore. I've just been sick all week and really don't feel up to it."

Read: I finally have a weekend when I'm going to be in town with no plans and all I want to do is sit on my ass, drink wine, and have a good cry watching a movie about 2 people who in no way affect my real life.

I can't take the dishonesty anymore. It's absolutely exhausting.

America: This is my official promise to you to keep it real. If I don't want to come to something, expect me to give it to you straight. And you do the same to me!

Happy Hairy Arm Friday

Reason #4,569,234 to love Tina Fey.

I present to you, her new book cover.

Gesundheit

Yesterday at the gym I was reading a November 2005 copy of Better Homes and Gardens Magazine. I found it in some old pile in my office, hence the vintage date.

While thumbing through the Healthfamily section Q&A, I literally busted out laughing at the following question:

Q: My husband gets on my for holding back my sneezes. Is there anything wrong with doing this?

Now I'm no medical professional or relationship expert, but if that was a serious concern of this woman, than marriage must have been a lot more peechy keen back in the 2005's.

Unfortunately the answer isn't what it should be. Like, "Please stop wasting my time, grab a tissue, and love your husband." But it does quote Ben Franklin: "You should sneeze proudly". Which was both unexpected and deepy moving.

In a world with with AIDS, cancer, and deadly diseases, kudos to the sneeze for refusing to be silenced!

Guys and Dolls

I have the sinking feeling that I'm the only one out there that watches The Spin Crowd on E!, but just humor me while I talk about the shock of my week so far.

This show, which I willingly admit is wicked stupid, is based around these two flouncing queens that run a PR company in LA...or so I thought.

On the last episode on Sunday, Jonathan Cheban, the uber nipped and tucked owner of the firm says he has a date...WITH A GIRL!

I was stunned.

Check out this little clip to see why I 100%, would have bet my life on it, no doubt in my mind thought he was gay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOayvy1rG0M

The best part is that she ends up breaking up with him because he won't stop eating meat, not because he loves to have sex with other men.

P.S. Jonathan is the one with the hey hey middle part.

Quote of the Day

"God made you in his image and I'm sure he doesn't regret it... that much."

Sicky

Sorry for the lack of posts this week divas.

In addition to getting a new purple Blackberry on Monday, I also got a nasty cold that is apparently blocking all funnies from my brain and my fingertips.

Hopefully I'll be back sometime soon, like today, with something interesting.

Until then, standby.

Quote of the Day

"I can't look and listen at the same time. I'm not some robot from the future."

Feliz Cumpleanos

Guess what tomorrow is?!

Divasayswhat.com officially turns 1 year old!

Instead of Birthday gifts we are kindly asking that donations me made to me.

We're celebrating with some friends, food, and funfetti cookies. DSW's one carby splurge for the year. You because you know she gots to keep it fresh.

Happy Birthday Blog!

Call on me, Call on me

Source

There was a death in the family last night...and she was only 7 months old!

http://www.divasayswhat.com/2010/03/shes-baaaack.html


That little gal mentioned in the link above got water-freaking-logged last night. And even after an overnight bath in wild rice, still won't come to.


I wish I could say it was because I accidentally dropped it in the hot tub while going for a soak with Paul Rudd and his hilarious homeboys.


Sadly though that was not the case.


It drowned in a heated baking experiment gone right, then gone terribly wrong. While making these beautiful pumpkin-cinammon streusel buns above, I took my eye off of the increasingly wet countertop drowning from hand washed dishes (curses for not having a dishwasher!). The results were fatal.


However, the baking results were delicious. After spending only one hour kneading the dough by hand, over an hour waiting for the dough to rise, and about 30 minutes in the oven, the outcome was a delicious fall-inspired pastry.


I have since ordered a new (pimped-out Internet phone, omg omg omg finally!), which should arrive sometime today.


For the throngs of you that have been trying to hit up my cell piece to no avail, holla at me sometime after 5 today. Or email, because I can do that too now ;)


P.S. This above picture is not from my actual rolls. In addition to my phone being broken, my computer also has a serious case of the shakes that prevent me from using it at all since I can't read the screen. I can't wait to spend my whole day Sunday with the Geek Squad. Oh technology, how I worship and abhor you.

Namaste

Last night I went to a pretty awesome yoga class. I actually worked up a sweat, it was pretty hard, and, much to my surprise, the teacher wasn't that weird. Usually I find yoga teachers to be very strange and smelly.

During our 5 minute wind down meditation, I kept thinking about how impressively normal this teacher was. Then, wait for it...

He bid us adieu by saying, "I bless the light and life in each of you."

Yikes, getting a little to zen for me.

Then the real kicker...

"Also, this Saturday I'm teaching a voluntary class at my home at 6am, followed by a vegetarian potluck and an outdoor campfire."

Meat eater says what?!

A) If you think I'm waking up at 6am on Saturday, you're crazy.

B) If I am going to wake up that early for anything, there better be a mixed medley of breakfast meats involved.

C) If this schedule looks the way I think it does, that campfire is going to be around 9am. Somehow ghost stories and organic s'mores just don't carry that same nostalgia when the sun is still rising.

Survey says: Yoga teachers are still weird. But I really liked the class :)