Manicure’s at McDonalds #SCCTO

I want to thank the Chicken Farmers again for sending me to the She’s Connected conference (SCCTO). Had a great time!

Yesterday morning I set my alarm for 5am to get my butt in gear and make the drive to Toronto. How many times have I said on my blog, it’s never a road trip unless I get lost? The GPS told me to get off onto Dixie (that road will be the death of me, I have so many stories about that road and me driving on it doing u-turns) do a u-turn and come back onto the same highway I got off of. Thankfully I allotted myself a ton of time to navigate the city. After that, everything ran smoothly.

Morgan and I had planned on meet up with one another at SCCTO, and so glad I did. I hadn’t seen her in months and I was overdue for a giggle-fest day with her.

At the first keynote, a few of the SCCTO first-timers (including me) were told to stand up and introduce ourselves. I’m glad I did because as soon as I did, Isabel tweeted me saying she was sitting at the table behind me. I finally met her!

 One of the main sponsors for SCCTO was McDonalds. I had huge plans to spend a lot of my day in their lounge, and so I did.

Nice spot, hey?

McDonalds Canada hired people to do massages and manicures in the relaxing jazz-music-playing lounge. Courtney and I got manicures, while Morgan got a massage. I requested a few hot chocolates throughout the day, and my final one I asked if I could have a pump of their caramel sauce (for coffee’s or lattes) in my hot chocolate. I think it’s something they should totally market, because holy heavens it was delicious.

Here’s my loot from SCCTO:

Yep. A thong in my swag bag.

Maple Leaf Connects was also there. My Dad would be proud of the shirt I scored. Dad makes the best bacon I have ever, and will ever have. I only eat it when I’m home in Newfoundland because of it. Good bacon cooker ;)

The seminars I attended were so great. I have pages of notes to flick through. Morgan ended up speaking on the one of the panels about Brand ambassadorships and community management from the PR perspective.

L-R: @AliciaHCox, Morgan, @CateWritesAgain (Canadians, remember Hal Johnson and Joanne McCloud? Catherine’s with participaction!), and @BigDaddyKreativ!

After SCCTO was over, our stomachs were rumbling. For lunch we all went to Chipotle to grab something to eat. I’ve heard so many people rave about that place, on blogs. But have never been there. It’s basically a mexican-style subway. I wish everything didn’t have onions in it though. Everything was smothered in it, and there was no way around it. Disappointing lol.

Morgan took me to the Queen/Spadina location of Fresh. It’s a vegan/vegetarian restaurant and it was my first time being there! I ordered this tasty dish and polished it right off.

I was then accompanied to my car with Morgan, because I didn’t want to get mugged. She’s my Batman in the bad city of Gotham haha. I dropped her off on some random side street (just kidding) and went on my way back home.

Spadina, the road I needed to make a left on, was shut down due to construction. My plan was ruined to get home (lol). I called the Boyf and he navigated me throughout Toronto for a full 30 minutes until I was finally on Lake Shore Blvd and heading towards home. Moses, what a rats nest I was in.

For the last 25km of the ride home I was feeling a bit unfocused. It was then 10pm, so I blasted the cool air in the car along with radio music. But it didn’t work, I felt like I was getting tired. I ended up talking to myself out loud in the car, about writing this blog post, about She’s Connnected, basically pretending someone was in the car with me but I was doing all the talking. I told my boyfriend this when I arrived home and he jokingly asked me “Have you gone mental?” hahahah!!!

It’s what I had to do. I had a great time hanging out with Morgan, thanks for taking me to some new restaurants! Can’t wait to see everyone again.

Continue Reading

Luxury organic skin care by GRATiAE

One of the many benefits of having a blog, is getting to try out products that I probably wouldn’t have otherwise tried, or purchased. This review, being one of them. Primarily because of the cost of the product ($59.99), but don’t let that deter you from reading about it, or even going out yourself and purchasing it.

As always, I give my full 100% honest opinion. I’m hoping that everyone reading this truly appreciates my reviews. I put it all out there on the line. The blunt, honest truth whether it be good, or not so good. Thankfully, this one gets an A+ in my books.

I go through a ton of body exfoliators and lotions. Due to the nature of my already dry skin, I’m prone to it being itchy or flaky if I don’t exfoliate on a regular basis. Plus, who doesn’t want to have smooth skin all the time? Especially if you’re like me and are semi-addicted to self-tanning. You don’t want to have patchy dry skin while your tan is fading off.

A little background on GRATiAE. It’s a Canadian premium skin-care company that offers certified organic products. They take minerals from the water and combines them with Sea of Galilee native flora and organic essential oils. Love how they adopted the name GRATiAE, as it originally came from the Roman empire who named the spring GRATIAE, meaning The Three Graces, after the goddess of charm, beauty and fertility in Roman Mythology.

To be quite honest, I don’t read labels to make sure that they’re organic, before putting them onto my skin. But the short ingredient list on these products definitely make me appreciate it. I mean, I don’t intend to put unknown chemicals into my skin with body lotions, but it happens with generic brands. Speaking of which, which body lotion/scrub do you use on a regular basis? 

The Passion Fruit & Ginger GRATiAE body butter soaked into my skin but left my body feeling very moisturized for plenty of hours later. It felt rich but not too thick and the scent? Oh man, it literally smelled like a pina colada which smells great but tastes gross, haha.

Passion Fruit & Lime GRATiAE exfoliating body scrub.

The scrub itself was a dry almost salt-like consistency. I found that the body scrub did its job, on wet skin while in the shower and it wasn’t difficult to work with. Some scrubs end up rolling up into a little ball and doing nothing while I’m in the shower. This one was effective, and left me feeling very moisturized after. Had somewhat of a “greasy” after-touch.

Both products shown above retails for $59.99. A little steep, but that’s what you get for a luxury product. Will I re-purchase these products once I run out? Probably not. Only reason, is that they’re quite pricy and a wee bit out of my price range. If they lower the cost, I would reconsider for sure.

I also got a few mini samples of the lifting facial serum, and lifting moisture cream. Nice little moisturizers for sure. I usually use a serum at night before bed, and then moisturizers in the morning.

The packaging is in this luxurious looking tubs, ready to be whipped up on my body after a nice hot soothing shower. Unfortunately right now they’re only in Alberta, and Nova Scotia but you can view on their facebook page a full list of GRATiAE retail locations.

You can find GRATiAE on twitter, and on Facebook!

Continue Reading

OOTWW & Fun, Fit, Fashionable #3

Ah! It’s finally here. The weekend! Monday’s OOTD is missing from the outfit’s of the work week post. It wasn’t anything to write home about. I had just gotten off the air plane that day, and went straight to work. Was definitely not in anything fashionable, haha.

I’m headed off to SCCTO tomorrow which I blogged about last month. I’m so excited! It’s a blogging convention just like BlogHer that I went to last summer.

It’s the third episode, of #TripleFFriday on my blog! I skipped last week, since I was away in Newfoundland for the Canadian Thanksgiving. Let’s get to it!

As always, I love starting out with my friend Meg. I got the idea for Triple F Friday, from her popular posts about High 5 Friday’s! Earlier this week, Meg talks about The Power of Positive Thought and Talk.

A fellow FitFluential ambassador, Danielle posted a WIAW (What I Ate Wednesday) post earlier this week, which looked delicious.

Carrie, another FitFluential ambassador posted 10 great tips about running!

OMG Leanne bought an iPad!!

Happy Belated Birthday to Gina! She’s having a fun giveaway in liu of her birthday, how great is that!

Rachel ran the Nike Women’s half marathon! Way to go :)

Submit yourself to my weekly Fun, Fit, Fashionable posts. You can certainly submit your own, next week. Just shoot me an e-mail to spiffykerms@gmail.com. Just include any of the following:

  • Your name
  • Your URL, if you have a blog
  • Description of you being Fun, Fit or Fashionable
  • A photo, which is optional of course
Continue Reading