16. Weekly Favorites

My weekly favorites are coming a bit late but that works out because this weekend was filled with a lot of revelations and that means new things to share. Hope you enjoy!

I LOVE Vosges chocolates. But I especially love these Caramel Marshmallows. Dark chocolate, homemade marshmallows with Madagascar bourbon vanilla beans, caramel toffee and grey sea salt. Delicious!!!

I always get into the shower in the morning feeling a little groggy, not quite like waking up just yet from my slumber. But as soon as I open this Pink Grapefruit Splash body wash, I feel a jolt of energy. It's citrusy and vibrant and filled with moisturizing beads. Stock up on a few bottles. You'll go through them like wild fire.

I love songs that make me want to dance, that leave me humming that tune and that make me happy, happy, happy. The E.N.D. (Energy Never Dies) is the new album from The Black Eyes Peas and it does all of those things--whether it's "Boom Boom Pow" or "I Gotta Feeling," I've been singing from this album all summer. 

I assigned my writing class an essay entitled 'Wisdom" from the book "Infinite Life" by the Buddhist scholar, Robert Thurman. I was really inspired by Thurman's idea of selflessness. He disagrees with the Western idea that we need to know who we are and what we want to do when we grow up. "If you don't know exactly who you are all the time, you're not sick, you're actually in luck, because you're more realistic, more free, and more awake! You're being too intelligent to be stuck inside one frozen mask of personality! You've opened up your wisdom, and you've realized that 'knowing who you are' is the trap--an impossible self-objectification. None of us knows who we really are. Facing that and then becoming all that we can be--astonishing, surprising, amazing--always fresh and new, always free to be more, brave enough to become a work in progress, choosing happiness, open-mindedness, and love over certitude, rigidity, and fear--this is realizing selflessness."  

Photograph by alicemariedesign

This weekend was the New Jersey Festival of Ballooning. There's something about these beautifully colorful balloons and the idea of floating in a basket in the clouds that makes me swoon. Love it.