About Gina Marie

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So far Gina Marie has created 328 blog entries.

Buckwheat Waffles with Cinnamon Apples | Gluten Free

Tomorrow is one of my favorite holidays.

It’s Steak and Lobster Day!

That’s right. Some people might refer to it as “Valentines Day,” but in this house we refer to it solely as Steak and Lobster Day. After a few years of going out to over-priced fixed menu dinners and suffering through people coming over to our tables and loudly serenading us with accordions or trying to sell us roses, we decided that we needed to go another route. One can only be serenaded by an accordion while eating overpriced lamb so many times. We started to notice that really good quality steak and lobsters were on sale at our local market during the Valentines madness. Jackpot. Thus was born Steak and Lobster day. […]

Kale, Spinach & Artichoke Dip With Greek Yogurt

I have some confessions for you…
I know pretty much nothing about football, unless you count watching every season of Friday Night Lights (Clear eyes, Full Hears, Can’t Lose). I know there are touchdowns and fumbles and first downs but I cannot tell you which is which. I grew up in a football household. My parents would wear jerseys and make large volumes of guacamole for Super Bowl Sunday. I would play with my Barbie Dream House, make things with glitter, and occasionally comment on how tight all the football players wore their pants. I somehow managed to miss learning all the rules. When my father asked me if I would be watching the Super Bowl this year, I responded honestly and told him probably not. He was disgusted. How could he have gone so wrong? The 49ers were playing and I wasn’t even going to turn on the TV? Awful. So, on game day I decided to get into the spirit of things in order to not be a total disappointment to the man who raised me. I bought a lot of spinach dip and a bag of crinkle cut potato chips and ate my weight in both. Apparently getting into the spirit means me eating myself into a dip coma. […]

DIY Sugar Cookie Foot Scrub | A Valentine To Yourself

I was blessed with a lot of things. I have a great family and a wonderful husband. I live in a beautiful part of the world. My friends are the coolest and usually laugh at my jokes. I feel fortunate. However, one thing I wasn’t blessed with was pretty feet.
I was made aware of this fact when my Hawaiian grandfather looked down and my flat, calloused, chubby-toed footsies, and then looked at his equally flat, calloused and chubby-toed footsies. He smiled at me and said “Look at those Hawaiian feet! You got cute feet. They look just like mine!”  It was true. They did. Uh oh. Maybe I just needed a fresh coat of polish.
Later in life, someone (my mother) would tell me that every time they heard Jack Johnson’s song “Bubbly Toes” on the radio they thought of me. Cute. Is this because my big toes actually have fat rolls? Perhaps, yes.
Even later in life I would try to snuggle in bed with my husband and he would gingerly tell me “Honey, do you want to go get a pedicure? I will go with you.”  This is his polite way of telling me that I had hooves, and it totally hurts to snuggle with someone who has hooves. […]

Carrot, Apple & Ginger Juice

It’s juice time again.

I like ’em real thick and juicy.

That actually does not pertain to how I feel about my juice, I have just been listening to a lot of 90’s music lately. Like…a lot. Like…I might have spent over an hour looking up music videos from the 90’s on YouTube last Friday. No big deal. Subsequently, I have had the song Baby Got Back stuck in my head for days. This only becomes awkward when you start singing it subconsciously in the checkout line at the grocery store. The woman in front of you turns around after you get to the “L.A. face with a Oakland Booty” part of the tune. You make eye contact. You stop singing. You think about winking at her but realize that just perpetuates the weirdness. Don’t make it weirder. It’s too late, you already winked. She probably thinks you’re hitting on her. Oh man, you can’t recover from this one.  Not. At. All. You could try to explain that you have just been listening to a whole lot of 90’s music lately, and you were not singing the song directly to her. You could try to explain that you sometimes just wink in awkward situations, or you could lie and say you had something in your eye. The explanation of your behavior will only make things weirder. You grab your groceries and pretend like you forgot something in the produce section. You wait until this person leaves and find another check out line. Whew. Yikes. Get out of there. […]