Last night, I attended a Girls Lunch Out event at Rizzieri’s Aveda School in Voorhees. Lucky me, I got to sample two very relaxing services at the school – a massage and facial. I was thoroughly impressed and wanted to share with you 3 reasons to visit the school and why I’ll be going back.

1. The holidays can be stressful. Take time to relax.

Need I say more?

2. Students, schmoodents – I couldn’t tell the difference.
I’ve had quite a few professional massages, and I gotta tell you, the student at Rizzieri’s who massaged me was as good – if not better – than some of the other therapists I’ve been to.

Now, if you have back pain or some other medical condition, the school may not be appropriate. But if you are healthy and without back troubles, I highly recommend the school and if she’s still there, ask for Justine.

3. Quality service and a spa-like atmosphere for a fraction of the cost.
When you walk into the service area, you instantly forget that you are in a school and not a high-end salon. The lights are dim, soft music is playing, the blankets on the beds are nice and warm, and the women providing services are professional and curiousness.

And the cost is very reasonable.

60-minute customized facial – $32
50-minute massage – $35

Guess what I am doing for my birthday later this month…

I’m 31 years old and I’ve never:

1. Gone rock climbing

2. Jumped out of a plane

3. Been pregnant

4. Traveled outside of North America

5. Driven anything bigger than a minivan

6. Gone deep sea fishing

7. Eaten frog legs

8. Volunteered at a homeless shelter

9. Sewn anything I could actually wear

10. Run a marathon

11. Learned how to dive

12. Been on a sail boat

13. Cooked Christmas dinner

14. Taken a ballet class

15. Snuck into a movie I didn’t pay for

16. Been in a wet t-shirt contest

17. Eaten rainbow chard (I didn’t event know it existed until Liza from (a)MusingFoodie told me.)

18. Read anything from Ernest Hemingway

19. Seen the Star Wars movies in their entirety

20. Broken a bone

21. Had a cavity

22. Won more than $150

Now, it’s your turn. Leave me a comment and share something you’ve never done.

This post was inspired by Mama’s Losin’ It. Check out her blog and see what everyone is writing about.

Stop by Eating in South Jersey.com and enter to win 2 tickets to A “Taste” of Virtua, an event where the winner will dine on  SJ Hot Chefs quality food, drink wine from Kress Wine in Cherry Hill, and sample beer from Kramer Beverage out of Hammonton.

Simply visit this blog post and leave a comment to enter.

Contest runs through October 10, so enter now

First, I love this song by Miranda Lambert.

Second, there is a lot of truth to this statement – the house that built me. For me, my parents have lived in the same house for 35 years. I grew up there and continue to go home and visit whenever I can. So, when I think about my childhood house, I think about home. I know it’s trite, but home is where your heart is, and for me the house that built me and my home are the same.

The physical house is modest – one floor, one bathroom, three bedrooms, living room, dining room, kitchen, laundry room and a “front room” (aka: foyer). But I can’t talk about this house without mentioning the people who live there.

My mom was a stay-at-home mom who I love dearly. My mom tucked me into bed at night and made french toast almost every morning. My dad was the hard-working bread winner who always took care of us. He coached my softball team and taught me how to drive. My brother is five years older than me, but he still let me play with his Matchbox cars and gave me a ride to school. (Okay, so maybe my mom made him, but I’ll give him a little credit.)

While we may sound a bit like the Brady Bunch…..we kinda were – minus 4 kids and the maid.

In addition to the physical house and the people in it, I am who I am because of where the house is located. I grew up in North Western PA in a small town with a population of less than 1000. There was a mix of dirt and paved roads, no stop lights, farms, 5 bars, 5 churches and wooded hills. I grew up listening to southern rock and country. Our idea of fun included camping, fishing and spotting dear. (If you don’t know what spotting dear is, ask me about it. That could be another blog post.)

So, what does this say about me?

Based on what I’ve shared with you, there are a few things you can know about me.

1. I’m not very materialistic. The home is more meaningful than the house.

2. I love my family very much. My mom and dad are wonderful people.

3. I have an eclectic music taste. Southern rock and country only opened the door to other music.

4. I prefer practical, kitten heels over kill-your-feet, 4-inchers. You can’t hike in heels anyway.

5. I can start a fire and take a fish off of a hook. That’s one thing my husband found (and still finds) endearing.

Over the weekend I got to thinking: As I get older, the question I ask myself has changed from “why not” to “why.”

For example, at 21 years old my college friends would call me up on Friday night at 9 and ask me to go to a dance club 45 minutes away. Asking myself “why not,” I would get ready and jump in the car without hesitation.

Now fast forward 10 years.

At 31, I am sitting on the couch at 9 on a Friday night, watching TV, exhausted from the work week. My friend calls me up and asks me to meet her for a few drinks at a bar that’s about 2 minutes from my house – within walking distance in fact. But now, instead of asking myself “why not,” I ask myself “why.”

Why would I want to change out of my comfy pajamas, go outside in the cold, and walk over to the bar just to subject myself to loud music and drunk people who bump into you without saying excuse me. Wow! How my perspective on fun has changed.

Do you still ask yourself why not or why? How has your perspective on fun changed in the last 10 years?

This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump. Want to try it? Here are the rules…

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spellchecking. This is writing in the raw.
• Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.
• Add the Stream of Consciousness Sunday badge to your post.
• Link up your post at all.things.fadra.
• Visit your fellow bloggers and show some love.

Cat, dog, lion and dead bug. No, I didn’t go to the zoo or kill a spider in my apartment. Today, for the first time ever, I took yoga. For all the other non-yogis, cat, dog, lion and dead bug are all different poses.

I went into the class and found the instructor. I asked her if the class was for beginners and she said yes. She had two rules: (1) Listen to your body and don’t do anything that hurts or makes you feel uncomfortable and (2) breathe. I can to that, I thought.

So, I got my mat,  took my shoes off (it’s definitely time for a pedicure), and situated myself right in front of the instructor. She took us through a series of relaxation stretches and a few basic poses.

Cat Pose

Lion Pose

Downward Dog Pose

Dead Bug Pose

Not bad.

Then, we moved on to some more difficult poses. This is where I broke out into a sweat.

I can’t remember the name of the pose, so I can’t find a picture of it, but it went something like this:

1. Your right shoulder and right  cheek are flat against the mat. Your right knee is bent and on the mat for support. Your left leg is straight up in the air practically behind your back, and your left arm is up in the air

If you can picture that, you can see how difficult that might be. I literally fell over. I giggled and got right back into it.

I also found the lion pose (pictured above) very funny. Never during exercise have I ever stuck out my tongue, opened my eyes wide, and made a hissing sound. This was a first for me.

While it was a bit amusing, I can see why people do this. It was very relaxing but also a good source of exercise. I would encourage anyone who has never tried it to give it a chance.

When you do give it a try, there may be a few things that seem contradictory to your religious background. Yoga is rooted in the Hindu religion, so if that’s not the religion, you may feel like a few things don’t jive with your religious practices. But to be honest, I really felt that I could separate the very few things that felt contradictory to what I was used to, and I didn’t do those things. But I didn’t feel that they took away from the goal – to gain muscle and to stretch.

Are you a yoga virgin too? Would you try it?

If you’ve done yoga before, Do you remember the first time you took yoga? What did you think? Have you done it again? What advice would you have for a first-time yogi?

This post was inspired by all.things.fadra - Stream of Consciousness Sunday.

Up until a few years ago, I didn’t know anything about my family’s heritage. My husband – then boyfriend – asked me about it. He is Irish, Scottish, English and German, and wondered about my background.

Curious for the first time in my life, I called my dad. Come to find out, I am Irish, Scottish and German. Since then, I’ve thought many times about where my family came from and what life must have been like immigrating to the United States.

With yesterday’s Saint Patrick’s Day festivities, I found myself taking some pride in my Irish heritage.

I enjoyed a dinner of potatoes, cabbage and corned beef.

Sported my green shirt.

Me and Angela

And then I went to ancestry.com and started doing some research on my family’s lineage.

So far, I’ve found that my family is from northern Ireland. Interestingly, I’ve found two family crests – one from Ireland and one from Scotland. So, I’ll continue to do some research to see what I can find out.

Another thing I found out is why my mom always cooked sauerkraut on New Year’s Day. It’s a German/Pennsylvania Dutch (I’m from northwestern PA) tradition that is supposed to bring good luck for the year to come. For my family, it was tradition to sit down a dinner that included: sauerkraut, pork chops and potatoes.

Anyway, after doing this research, I have to wonder:

Do you know about your ancestry?
Do you associate yourself with your family’s heritage?
Do you follow family traditions?
Or do you just consider yourself an American?

No, I don’t call the Ghost Busters. When I have an hour to kill, I call my mother.

My mother and I live 7 hours from each other and she doesn’t text, Tweet, Facebook or Skype, so the phone is our main source of communication.

(P.S. She just got a camera phone last month. She loves it.)

And when we do talk, our conversations are rarely under an hour. It’s funny that we can say goodbye 3 or 4 times before we actually hang up the phone. One of us will say we have to get off the phone and the other continues to talk.

While our conversations aren’t usually earth-shattering, there is comfort in consistency. And there are some things that never change. We always:

1. Talk about the weather
2. Talk about the family and our dog
3. Mom catches me up on all the town gossip
   (I swear she makes a list, so she can remember to tell me everything.)

But I’ve gotta say, there’s nothing better than hour-long conversations with mom where we hardly say a thing but say so much all at the same time. That’s the beauty of being best friends with your mom. You can have a whole conversation without saying much at all.

And let’s face it. No matter how old a woman gets, she still needs her mom.

Post inspired by Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop.

Today, I had the pleasure of meeting with a group of wonderful ladies from Girls Lunch Out, a network of bloggers who love to get together and discuss blogging, social media and a host of other topics. I had great conversation with @figmentsofamom @piecesofamom @roemptymommy @lifewithoutpink @lvalleymomma @mommysfabulous and many others.

Besides the great conversation, there’s was:

• Good food provided by 8 East Bar in Conshohocken, PA
• Baked goods from Cookiepalooza and O’Boy Organic
• Great door prizes; and
• SWAG donated by a group of great sponsors

Our SWAG bag was full of goodies from  Dole foods, Dapple, Happy Tot, Diamond Dazzle Stick, Seed, Popchips, and Lavenders.

And to top it all off, I had a very tasty turkey club sandwich for lunch.

Thank you to co-founders of Girl’s Lunch Out, Mommy’s Still Fabulous and Life Without Pink, for putting together a great event.

If you like good food, great company, interesting conversation, and getting free stuff, I strongly suggest checking out Girls Lunch Out and attending an event. You won’t regret it!

Sitting in a dimly lit bar, I order a glass of wine. My husband hands me the glass, and at first, all seems fine. I sip the wine and enjoy the flavor. While we are waiting for our table, I look around taking it all in, and run my hand down the glass.

Something isn’t right. I pick up the glass of wine and look at it. The bar area is so dark, I don’t really see anything, so I continue to enjoy the Pinot Grigio.

Fast forward about 10 minutes.

The rest of my party arrives and we are taken upstairs to our table. The upstairs is well lit. I look down at my glass, and I am horrified at what I see. My wine glass is dirty. I mean, disgustingly dirty. “Okay, I’m done drinking that,” I say to my husband.

The waitress comes to take our drink orders, and I immediately point out the problem to which she quickly brings me a new glass of wine. Kudos to the waitress, but the damage is already done. My table mates immediately begin to inspect all of their plates, utensils and glasses.

Not a good first impression to make.

The restaurant’s saving grace? The food. While parts of our service may not have been stellar, the food was amazing!

Eggplant Rollantini from Filomena Lakeview restaurant in Deptford, NJ.

I would still recommend Filomena Lakeview restaurant in Deptford, NJ. Just make sure to check your glass before you take a sip. And remember, if your glass feels dirty, it is.

Have you ever had an experience like this? Leave me a comment and tell me about it.