Fit for the Holidays Giveaway Prizes!

Hi!

Right before Christmas I found out that I won a giveaway that included prizes from Whish Body and BodyLanguage Sportswear!  I learned about Whish products when I received a sample of their shave cream in one of my Birchboxes!  I follow them on Instagram now and that's where they did the giveaway.  Look at everything I got!!

What an amazing prize!!!

I got the package when we got home from our trip and couldn't wait to see everything!  Here's what I got from Whish:

Shave Cream 
Sugar Scrub 
Body Butter  
Body Wash 
Body Oil 
Hair Inhibiting Gel 
Flawless Swipes 
Deodorant Swipes 

All of the Whish products besides the swipes are the lavender scent, and they smell soo good!  So far I've tried the top three products on the list!  I love them and I'll write reviews soon :)

From BodyLanguage Sportswear, I got a Scrunchy Top sports bra in Neon Pink, Scrunchy Capri pants in Royal Heather/Hot Pink, and an Alba Headband in Pink Moss.  I've already worn all three things (the headband several times), and I LOVE it all!  Everything fits so well.  Perfect for my Pop Physique classes!!

Here's a silly pic from after a class :)

OH!  And I also got an awesome bright orange (my fave!) duffle bag!

I can't believe I won all of these great prizes!  As I use all of the products I'll tell you all about them.

Thanks for reading!

Pop Physique

Hi!

I've mentioned Pop Physique a few times so I thought I should write a post about it!  It's a studio chain that has locations in California, Florida, and here in Baltimore.  It offers ballet barre-inspired classes that focus on very tiny repetitive movements to strengthen your arms, core, legs, butt, etc.  When Alex and I decided that we were moving here, I was googling everything Baltimore like crazy to find out what kinds of things they had here!  I found Pop Physique and knew that we would be living on the same street.  It's only about a 10-12 minute walk but it took me a while to finally sign up for a class!  I purchased a Groupon several months ago for five classes for $39 (which is a great deal - individual classes are $20!) and then I won five free classes during a "Pie Off Your Thighs" contest on the main Pop Physique Instagram!

I finally signed up for a class a few weeks ago and now I've gone to seven classes!  I love it.  The owner, Kim, is so nice.  I met her the first time I went in and she has made me feel so welcome!  The instructors and staff at the desk are all very friendly, too.  The studio is super cute, with old black and white pictures decorated with brightly-colored painted frames, retro furniture in the lobby, a pretty chandelier, etc.  It's also extra cute right now because it's decorated for the holidays.

I've now taken classes from three different instructors and I really like all of them!  They all teach great classes and have their own personal style, which is fun.  The classes are an hour long (unless you take one of the lunch-time express classes, which are 45 minutes) and the equipment used is a mat (much thicker and softer than a yoga mat), a ball, free weights (usually a lighter and heavier set), the barre, and sometimes a strap.  I've gotten a great workout at each class I've gone to and I am definitely sore afterwards!  Sometimes for a day or two.  

I went to a fun event there last week that they called the Nutcracker Mash Up.  Two instructors team-taught the class with nutcracker music, fun lighting, and we even got to wear tutus!  So much fun :)  There were snacks and treats afterwards, too :)  I had been on the waiting list for the earlier class and I was happy when I found out on the day of that I got into the class!

 

(This picture collage is from Pop Physique Baltimore's Facebook)

You can see me in the middle right picture!

What a fun, festive class :)

Another really exciting thing is that I'm selling my hair ties there!  I bought a cute container to match the one that is already on the counter (filled with pink gum balls!) and people can buy my hair ties when they buy their cute socks and bkrs :)  So fun!!

Last week I purchased a class deal that is ten consecutive classes for $39.  I get to choose when to do it (by the beginning of February) and then I'll to go to classes as many days in a row as I can (up to ten)!  If I miss a day, the deal ends.  I think I'm going to do it right when we get back from our trip!  Hopefully I can do all ten days!

I went Thursday morning for the last time before we left to go to Tucson and St. Louis.  It was a hard one!  I'm was very sore (the good kind of sore, though)!!

Thanks for reading!

Happy Birthday Brownie Pie Recipe!

Hello!

There were a million reasons to make something yummy today, but then it started snowing!  So the oven heating up the kitchen didn't hurt, either :)

Like I mentioned yesterday, I won the Birchbox Book Club book this month, Homemade Decadence.  It is such an adorable cook book and the pictures make me want to make (and eat!) every single thing in it!  Since I got it in the mail the day after my birthday, I thought it would be fun to make the Happy Birthday Brownie Pie for my first recipe!



We haven't tasted it yet (I just finished making it, plus Alex isn't home from school), but our apartment smells sooo good.

Here is Joy Wilson's recipe, exactly as it is in the book (the parentheses after things are my notes/changes):

Happy Birthday Brownie Pie

Ingredients:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 large eggs
3 tsp pure vanilla extract (2 are for the pie, 1 is for whipped cream)
1/2 cup milk chocolate chips (we had semisweet so that's what I used)
1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts (optional) (I used them!)
1 cup heavy cream (this is also for the whipped cream, which I didn't make)
2 tbsp confectioners' sugar (this, too)
1 quart mint chocolate chip ice cream (I got vanilla ice cream)
Rainbow sprinkles
Birthday candles

Directions:
1) Put a rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 F.  Grease and flour a 9-inch round pie dish.
2) In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt.
3) In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the sugar, melted butter, eggs, and 2 teaspoons of vanilla.  Add the dry ingredients and fold together with a spoon.  Fold in the chocolate chips and walnuts, if using.  Pour the batter into the prepared pie dish.
4) Bake until the top looks dry and a wooden pick inserted into the center comes out with only a few moist crumbs, 20 to 22 minutes.  Let cool.
(This is where I stopped)
5) Meanwhile, for the whipped cream, in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, beat the cream with the confectioners' sugar and remaining 1 teaspoon of vanilla until in holds soft peaks, about 4 minutes.  Refrigerate until ready to serve.
6) Scoop the ice cream into the center of the brownie.  Freeze for at least 30 minutes, or until ready to serve. (We'll probably do this part!!)
7) To serve, spread the whipped cream over the brownie ice cream pie, sprinkle generously with rainbow sprinkles, and insert birthday candles.  Light the candles and sing loudly.
8) The brownies can be made up to two days in advance.

Makes one 9-inch pie

We won't get to try this until later tonight, but I'll add an updated section underneath this so I can tell you how yummy it is!!  I am so excited to make more of her recipes, too!  Here is Joy's blog, Joy the Baker.

I'm going to a special, super fun-sounding holiday class at Pop Physique tonight!  It involves tutus, so I'm excited :)

Thanks for reading!

**Update**

We just tried the brownies with vanilla bean ice cream and sprinkles...they're so yummy!!



I cut the pie into eight slices so I would say this recipe makes eight servings :)

Wedding Fan Factory

Hi!

I just realized that some ink cartridges that we thought were done are actually brand new so now I can print out the wedding fans! I was thinking I'd have to go to Target to get more ink first, then make the fans, then go to the post office, which is back where Target it.  Not very convenient!  So this post won't be very long :)  That makes tomorrow a lot simpler!  I'm planning on taking them to the post office as soon as I finish them in the AM.  Shipping will be interesting...I don't think I have a box here that will fit them without being too huge and having a super high shipping cost (they're going to Australia!).

I have a little assembly line going right now (print, score, cut, fold, round the corners, tape in the sticks/tape closed).  I love it!  My own little factory :)

If you or anyone you know wants customized paper goods for a special occasion, here's my Etsy shop!  

I went to my second Pop Physique class this morning.  It was great and it was 40 degrees warmer today during my walk there/back than it was when I went on Friday!  There were a lot more people there today, and maybe all different people, too.  It was a different teacher and I really liked her too.  The classes were similar but not exactly the same, which is nice.  My legs were shaking like crazy again!

I might be able to finish a lot of the fan work tonight, so I'm going to go work on that!

Thanks for reading!

Holiday Fest

Hi!

Yesterday I saw a picture on Instagram that said something about a craft fair in Baltimore so Alex and I went to check it out!  It was called the Holiday Fest at the Friends School of Baltimore, which is maybe ten minutes north of us, past JHU's undergraduate campus.  That's an area we hadn't been through yet and it's so nice!

The school is huge and really pretty.  It says it was established in the 1700s!  There were two huge rooms plus a few other areas filled with vendors and a silent auction.  There were so many things I wanted to get!  We ended up getting a few fun things :)

We got a set of really cute holiday letterpress cards that have the Washington Monument on them made by Tiny Dog Press.  Then we got some homemade marshmallows from The Mallow Bar!  She had bags of different flavors, plus tons of delish looking rice krispie treats!  We got vanilla marshmallows and I can't wait to try them with hot chocolate!  We also got some Sassy's Tomato Jam.  We got to sample it and it's really yummy!

There were so many other cute things I wanted to buy but some booths didn't take cards and some things we just didn't need to buy!  I got some good ideas for how to set up my table at the craft fair next month!  I also took a bunch of business cards, both so I could find their websites/Etsy pages and also so I could get ideas for how to design my business cards.  I'm hoping to screen print them sometime soon!

We just got home from a really nice dinner party at one of Alex's professor's houses!  They have such a nice house!  It's right on the water and you can see Baltimore far away across the water!  His professor and her husband made tapas the entire evening.  Every once in a while they would come around with a tray of another type of yummy food!  They had cups of salad and pasta, tiny plates with shrimp, pork and sweet potato casserole, spoons of some kind of stew-type thing, and so much more.  Everything was delish!  I can't believe how much food they made!

At the end they brought out lemon and pumpkin mousse in cute little cups!

They have the sweetest doggy!!

I got to meet so many of Alex's friends, their significant others, and a few of his teachers!  It was so much fun!!

Time for bed!  I'm going to my second Pop Physique class tomorrow morning :)

Thanks for reading!

Pop Physique Baltimore

Hi!

I finally went to a class at Pop Physique yesterday!  It's one of the many places I found when I googled everything Baltimore before we moved here and I've wanted to go for so long.  It's on our street (about a 10-15 minute walk from our apt) and we've passed it so many times, plus I've had a Groupon for five classes there that I need to use!

Pop Physique is a fitness studio that has "ballet barre-based" classes.  I've been following them on Instagram (the main account, I didn't realize that the Baltimore location had their own account until yesterday!) and I entered and won a contest to win five free classes there!!  So exciting!  When I called to make an account there and sign up for a class, the person I spoke with said I was the first Baltimore person he knew of that had won one of their contests :)

The walk there is nice (even thought it was 32 degrees outside!) and the woman at the front desk, who is also the owner, is so friendly!  She showed me around a little bit before the class.  The studio is really nice and decorated so cute, plus the front window is decorated for the holidays!  Here's a pic I took (that both Instagram accounts posted too!).

The class was super hard and so good!  I loved it.  The teacher was great and the class was small which was nice.  It's lots of very small movements, sometimes with small weights, sometimes while squeezing a ball between your legs, sometimes without anything.  It makes your muscles shake like crazy.  I've gone to barre classes in Tucson at barre3 (my sister-in-law and I went to three classes together) and this class was very similar to those.

I am so sore today!  I was actually getting sore by the minute yesterday, and today I have been sore all day.  I know tomorrow will be worse!  But in a good way :)  I can't wait to go back!  I'm going to go again on Monday.

Oh, I saw this on my walk home :)

Thanks for reading!