loveliness.

Category: other things

• favourites

  Posted at 8:00 am by jasminedesirees, on March 8, 2018

  It’s been awhile since I did a favourites post, but there are a few things that I’m loving so I wanted to share.

  First up, this sunscreen from Supergoop. Everyone knows you’re supposed to wear sunscreen everyday (especially if you’re living in Southern California) but I’ve tried so many, and I always feel like it makes my face white or messes with the makeup I apply on top of it.

  This sunscreen is clear, and it’s light and feels like a primer once you put it on. It’s very similar to this one from Glossier, but while I’m usually a fan of Glossier packaging, I hated this little plastic cylinder, it felt empty as soon as I received it and it was expensive so I found myself not using it every day because I felt like there wasn’t much in there, if that makes sense.

  

  Next up, most people have probably heard of Kayla Itsines’ BBG program by now, I’ve had the print out version of her workouts for years, but every time I’ve started to use them, I only made it a couple of weeks in before I would go back to my old workout routine.

  I finally bit the bullet and downloaded the app, and it’s made a world of difference. I was hesitant at first because it’s $20/month, which is kind of expensive on top of paying for a gym membership, but I’m now nine weeks into the PWR program, and I haven’t missed a workout. It’s really motivating having the moves being demonstrated right in front of you, and seeing the time tick down instead of having to mess around with the timer between each set.

  The workouts are getting more challenging, but they don’t take a lot of time, so hopefully I can keep it up!

  The Shoptagr browser add-on (there’s also an app) lets you tag items from online retailers to save them for later, and gives you alerts when something you wanted goes on sale, or comes back in stock.

  I love it because it lets me think about something for awhile before I buy it, and also lets me see when something goes on sale. There are a few items that I’ve really wanted but felt they were too expensive, and I’ve been patient and ended up getting them for a fraction of the cost because I kept watching. It can be risky because there’s always the chance it’ll sell out, but the savings are worth it.

  I also find that it saves me money because often after a few weeks, I’ll have found something I like better or just re-thought something I initially really wanted, so it saves me from buyers’ remorse.

  

  Finally, I’m obsessed with these shoes, I have them in purple, red and tan, and I will probably get them in every single colour, because they are comfortable enough to wear all day at work, or out at night, and hopefully provide some distraction from the fact that 99% of my wardrobe is black, like my soul.

  

  That’s all for now!

  Posted in favourites, other things | 0 Comments | Tagged bbg, shoptagr, sunscreen, supergoop, sweat app, target, workouts

• news21

  Posted at 12:18 pm by jasminedesirees, on August 14, 2017

  I’ve been a little MIA the last few months, mostly because I participated in a Fellowship called News21 this summer. I’ll be putting up individual posts of the different places I visited, hopefully soon! But in the meantime, check out our full investigation into water quality in the United States, launching today at troubledwater.news21.com.

  Even though it was competitive to get in, and a lot of work, it was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. I was able to travel to three new states, meet a lot of really interesting people, and improve my writing and video skills, all while working with an amazing and fun group of journalists and editors.

  

  Check out our full site here if you’re interested!

  

  

  

  

  Posted in life, other things | 1 Comment

• one down

  Posted at 8:00 am by jasminedesirees, on December 5, 2016

  

  I kind of can’t believe it, but I just finished my first semester of grad school.

  That’s actually not true, I still have one more paper to write, but all of my big projects were due on Friday so everything after that feels kind of anti-climactic.

  Here are my two big final projects if you want to check them out, one on the differing experiences of refugees and undocumented immigrants in Arizona and one on the history of racial disparity in Arizona.

  I have a few weeks off over the holidays and I’ll be going back to the Bay for most of it. I’m thinking SF for New Year’s Eve, I want to make a trip up to Bend to see my girl, and I’m hoping to sneak off to Big Sur for a few days. I’ve been dying to go camping there ever since we moved to California 5 years ago, but it just never happened.

  It might be totally freezing in December, even with the sub-zero sleeping bags we bought on the way back from Montana this summer. Our only chance will be to huddle together for warmth. I, for one, choose death (Without A Paddle? Anyone? No?).

  I’ll be working over the break too and I already have reading assignments for next semester so I know the time it’s going to fly by.

  Posted in Arizona, life, other things | 1 Comment | Tagged Arizona, ASU, cronkite, education, grad school, journalism

• grad school

  Posted at 9:00 am by jasminedesirees, on September 13, 2016

  

  It’s been way too long since I posted anything on here, I actually have some great stuff in my drafts folder but I have so much writing-for-grad-school writing to do that writing-for-fun writing is kind of taking a back seat.

  Grad school is going pretty well so far, I’m about a month in and I go back and forth between “This is so great, I’m so glad I did this” and “What the hell was I thinking” in an almost 50/50 ratio, so right on schedule, probably.

  Posted in other things | 3 Comments | Tagged ASU, cronkite school, grad school, journalism

• eighteen hours

  Posted at 9:04 am by jasminedesirees, on June 1, 2016

  

  I just realized it’s been almost exactly a month since my last post.

  Things that have happened since then:

  • I got accepted into Grad School at ASU starting in August
  • I worked for two weeks out of the San Francisco office and ate robot food
  • I spent the weekend in Santa Cruz for my brother-in-law’s wedding
  • At said wedding, I drank too much and danced too much and I’m pretty sure I broke my toe
  • I visited my best friend in Bend, Oregon. We almost went to see Eve 6 in concert, but ended up playing beer darts all afternoon instead.
  • I drove 18 hours from San Francisco to Lakeside, MT, where I can be found lounging on the dock and learning how to Flyboard, if anybody needs me.
  Posted in California, Oregon, other things, travel | 0 Comments | Tagged life, Montana, oregon, San Francisco, travel

• the wright house

  Posted at 8:00 am by jasminedesirees, on May 2, 2016

  For the last few weeks, the David and Gladys Wright house, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, in Phoenix has been offering free yoga classes.

  Right now the house is still a private residence (Frank Lloyd Wright’s granddaughter lives there) but they are working to turn it into a museum. The vote is in December, so they are trying to give the community as much access to the property before that, through events like this, so that people will vote to preserve it.

  

  

  

  The classes are offered by different yoga studios throughout the valley and there are usually a couple hundred people there. Not only were the yoga classes free, but they also had a bunch of free stuff for people who attended, including t-shirts, tote bags and yoga mats.

  We had been arriving about half an hour before the classes started so we could go through and tour the house. I went to two different classes, the first time I took a bunch of pictures, but they were all on my Snapchat (jasminedesirees). I thought I would remember to download them the next day but I didn’t, and I lost all of them. But luckily I was able to go again and take some more pictures.

  

  

  

  The first time I went through the house, they had a “docent” there to answer questions about the house and the family, and it was really interesting. The house had been slated for demolition in 2012, but the wrecking crew showed up to tear it down, and called the city to make sure they were really supposed to.

  The city stopped the demolition, put protections on the property, and arranged to have it sold at auction. It was bought by a private citizen, who still owns it today.

  

  

  

  Sarah, Frank Lloyd Wright’s granddaughter, lives on the property because it’s still zoned as a private residence, so in order to have events like yoga classes or anything else, someone has to live there and invite everyone in.

  Last week was the final yoga class, but it was such a success that I’m sure they will do it again. At the end of the last class they played a Frank Lloyd Wright monologue where he discusses creativity. It was a very fitting end.

  

  

  

  If you get the chance to go check out this amazing property, definitely do it. The house is amazing (I love the wooden ceiling inside!), and the views of Camelback and the sunset are worth it even if you don’t get to go inside. I also want to go here as soon as I have a free afternoon.

  

  Posted in Arizona, art, other things, USA | 0 Comments | Tagged architecture, Arizona, art, david and gladys wright, frank lloyd wright, yoga

• i wrote this for you

  Posted at 6:59 am by jasminedesirees, on April 19, 2016

  I was creeping around on Amazon last weekend, I can’t even remember what I was looking for, but I had some new book recommendations based on recent purchases. I fell down the recommendation rabbit hole, but eventually found some excerpts from a book, I Wrote This For You, that I loved.

  As per usual, I spent the next two hours reading everything I could find by the author, but I will probably still end up buying the book. A few of my favourite quotes below:

  “Forget about your lists and do what you can because that’s all you can do. Phone up the people you miss and tell them you love them. Hug those close to you as hard as you can. Because you are always only a drunk driver’s stupidity, a nervous shopkeeper’s mistake, a doctor’s best attempts and an old age away from forever.”

  “You’re just another story I can’t tell anymore.”

  “We clutch that picture to our hearts because we expect each other to always be the people in that picture. But people change. People aren’t pictures. And you can either take a new picture or throw the old one away.”

  “This is my skin. It keeps out the rain and words I’d rather not hear like “I’m tired” or “I’m fine” or “We need to talk.” This is my skin and it’s thick. This is not your skin. Yet you are still under it.”

  “To you, it was just picking flowers. To them, it was a massacre.”

  “I’ll see you at your funeral, if you’ll see me at mine. I’ll wait at the edges for your ghost to rise (until the end of time). We’ll find someplace nice to haunt, an abandoned beach house filled with memories of summer sunburns. Children will giggle as we tickle their feet at night and they’ll never know the bad dreams we fight. We’ll make our own heaven.”

  “As your body cuts through the air, think of only the things that made you smile, the people that made you love, the ideas that made you strong. Remember, those things will never happen again but they cannot unhappen.”

  “I read what you leave in public spaces. The songs you reference. The quotes you quote. I know it’s about me. I can feel you thinking of me.”

  You can get the book here. Also, I just got this in the mail last week and I am SO excited about it. Give me all the books.

  Posted in books, inspiration, other things, poetry | 0 Comments | Tagged books, i wrote this for you, jon ellis, poetry, quotes, writing

• vegetarian: an update

  Posted at 8:08 am by jasminedesirees, on March 28, 2016

  

  I will have been vegetarian for two years as of this summer, and I get asked all the time how it’s going, so I decided to do an update on what I usually eat, some of my favourite recipes, and things I want to try.

  Breakfast:

  I make my own granola (loosely based on this recipe) and it’s my favourite thing. I literally wake up in the morning and work out almost every day because if I do I am rewarded with the best breakfast ever, which is fresh berries (I usually do raspberries and blackberries, but strawberries are good too, and blueberries are also a choice someone else might make) with granola and unsweetened vanilla almond milk. SO GOOD.

  If Derek is cooking, he usually makes me an egg, mushroom and onion omelet, cooked dry to the point of being almost burnt. YES.

  Snacks:

  I always have raw almonds and cuties in rotation for snacks, and I keep cans of sweet peas in my cupboard. 60 seconds in the microwave and they are good to go.

  I also love hummus with cucumbers or mini sweet peppers.

  Lunch:

  I eat a lot of salads for lunch, and I usually add nuts or beans to add protein. I’m a pretty terrible vegetarian actually, I hate Tofu or “fake” meat products and I won’t eat eggplant or sweet potato. Want to have me over for supper? I’m really not picky, it’s just that those things are gross.

  Caprese salads are pretty much my jam, and I also eat a ton of soup. I still make this all the time, I almost always have a tupperware of it in my fridge, (sans hamburger) because it’s so delicious and so filling. Derek will eat it all if I’m not paying attention.

  Every once in awhile I’ll have a veggie burger, there are quinoa and garlic ones that I like on the BBQ. I’ve tried making my own black bean burgers and it was a fantastic failure every time.

  Supper:

  Luckily we live someplace where so we can BBQ all year round, otherwise I might actually starve to death. More often than not I chop up veggies (cauliflower, mushrooms, onions, peppers, brussels sprouts) in a piece of tinfoil with olive oil and salt and pepper and roast them on the grill. It’s one of my most favourite things and I never get sick of it.

  Cauliflower Alfredo– I’ve made this a couple of times and it’s seriously so good. I like to add sun-dried tomatoes to the blender as well to give it a little extra flavour, or pesto would work great as well.

  Lentil tacos- Instead of tacos with hamburger, just cook lentils with taco seasoning. I usually make them with lettuce cup taco shells, cheddar cheese, tomatoes, salsa and greek yogurt. Derek likes them too.

  Caprese Portobellos– Sooo good on the BBQ. I soak tomato slices in balsamic, olive oil and salt and pepper, clean and de-gill a portobello mushroom cap, then put the mushrooms and fresh mozzarella into the mushroom caps with a squiggle (it’s a technical cooking term) of balsamic glaze, then BBQ them for about 25 minutes. You have to wait until the mushrooms dry out and deflate a bit, but so worth it.

  Pasta Primavera with Feta- No recipe for this, I just roast veggies (tomatoes, carrots, onion, mushrooms, peppers) in the oven with olive oil, and cook quinoa pasta. When it’s done I toss it all together with extra olive oil, salt and pepper and feta. I had this dish for the first time at Kafe in Ubud, Bali, and I went back and ate there almost every day the whole week because of how amazing it was. I do not grow tired of you (with heart eyes).

  Roasted Veggies with Feta- The same concept as above, but with no noodles. Only slightly less good.

  Things I will try if I’m ever home for more than 5 minutes:

  Butternut Squash Linguine– I actually tried to make this once, but I couldn’t find any butternut squash? But this will happen sooner or later.

  Also, I bought myself this cookbook in a frenzy of New Year’s self betterment, and I have yet to make anything out of it. I’ve been traveling a LOT but I will get my life organized and get cooking this month. Just in time for it to be too hot to turn on the oven.

  Perfect.

  I always try to have as many veggies on hand in the house as possible, because it’s SO easy to eat terribly as a vegetarian. Actually the first time I tried it I lived for a week on chocolate, chips and cheese and wondered why I didn’t feel well and concluded that I must need meat to survive.

  The only things I miss about eating meat:

  Crab cakes: Because yum. If I ever gave up vegetarianism I would probably only eat fish which I never actually ate before, but I would become pescatarian to just eat veggies and crap cakes for every meal.

  Xiao Long Bao (soup dumplings): If you haven’t had these, stop what you are doing and go find them. Actually the only time I’ve been sad that something is off the menu. I went to Yank Sing in SF for Dim Sum for the first time in a long time, and I remembered that these existed and almost cried. I tried to find out if there is a vegetarian version, but they need actual bones to make them, so that’s probably a no.

   

  Posted in food, life, other things | 0 Comments | Tagged food, meals, recipes, supper, vegetarian

• renovation

  Posted at 9:55 am by jasminedesirees, on March 21, 2016

  

  Did you miss me? It’s been a pretty crazy few weeks! We bought a house in December, but we basically just shoved our stuff in it, and took off for California and Mexico. Then in January we had house guests for a few weeks in a row so we didn’t get much done, but we finally started working on it at the end of January.

  We ripped out all of the floor, upgraded the bathrooms, and painted everything. At some point in February, we decided to put it up on AirBnB to rent it out for Spring Training (a big deal in the Phoenix area). We didn’t even have flooring in it then, but we figured we would be able to get everything done no problem.

  I ended up traveling to NYC and SF for work during that time, so Derek basically was working on the house all by himself. I got back from SF last Sunday, and the renters were moving in on Wednesday.

  I was working all 3 days as well, so before work and after work I was frantically cleaning and trying to get everything ready. Derek finished laying the last of the tile on Monday(!) and we actually managed to get everything done, just as our tenants were pulling into the driveway.

  It’s basically a miracle we were able to finish in time, also I have the best husband in the world. It was actually kind of sad, the house looked sooo good after months of work, and then someone else got to live in it before we did! But we’ll be back in there on Wednesday, so we don’t have to wait too much longer.

  Posted in other things | 0 Comments | Tagged AirBnB, DIY, homeowners, house, renovations

• a beautiful mess

  Posted at 8:00 am by jasminedesirees, on January 8, 2016

  Exciting news! I, a girl who never wins anything, except for that plastic container of cinnamon hearts when I was in fifth grade, won a set of Photoshop Actions from the DIY blog A Beautiful Mess right before Christmas.

  I’m not amazing at Photoshop by any means, I’ve taught myself slowly for different jobs over the years, and we met a fellow traveller in Australia last year who gave us a copy of the program for our laptop (thanks Jake!) but I would definitely say I’m still a beginner. These Actions are cool though because you just have to pick one, and it automatically edits the image for you.

  From there you can adjust the level, and turn certain layers on and off within the Action itself to play with it a little, but it makes it a lot easier.

  Full confession, I have been writing for over three years on this blog, and I’ve never edited one. single. image. And not just because I’m lazy (although that’s part of it). It kind of feels like cheating to me? Anything can look amazing if it’s edited enough. I hate when I see a picture of something and it looks incredible, and then I see it in person and I’m like wait… why is this water brown?

  But it’s nice to have the option, and I’m having fun playing around with these new Actions.

  I picked an image from our trip to Cambodia last year, of a monk sitting on a building inside Angkor Wat and one of us snorkeling near Komodo Island to showcase some of the different options here:

  

  Frankie

  

  Jean

  

  Summer

  

  Georgia

  

  Lula

  

  Spring

  Posted in art, Cambodia, Indonesia, other things, photography | 0 Comments | Tagged a beautiful mess, Cambodia, photography, photoshop, photoshop actions

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