*I don’t get paid for my opinions in any way; this is just me sharing stuff that I like and I think you will too.

Shopping at Whole Foods this week I was attracted to this stand-alone cooler in the frozen food section.  It could have been that I was hungry for cookies or the big yellow sale sign got my attention, but I was intrigued enough to stop and read some more.

What I learned is that Immaculate Baking uses no trans fat, no high fructose corn syrup and only all natural ingredients in their cookie dough.   Now, although I am not a big fan of pre-made cookie dough as they all have an “fake” taste to me, and I have yet to find a tasty healthy cookie, I decided to try these cookies at home with my own cookie monsters.  I bought 2 packages for $8: Cranberry Oatmeal White Chocolate and Triple Chocolate.  Each package makes 24 cookies.    The dough is already scored for each individual cookie and therefore easy to bake as many or little as you want at one time.   My family wanted to taste the cookies right away (naturally), so after dinner I made 8 of the Cranberry Oatmeal White Chocolate according to the directions on the package.

14 minutes later (plus cooling time) we were enjoying some really delicious cookies!  No, FOR REALS!   They were fresh and clean-tasting (no nasty “fake” taste), the perfect consistency, and very flavorful; they were as good as (if not better than) freshly made bakery cookies.   Everyone in my family gave the cookies an enthusiastic 2 thumbs up!  I normally do not like oatmeal in my cookies, but I love these; oatmeal, cranberries and white chocolate turned out to be a winning combination.  With the holidays upon us, it is always good to have a quick snack in the freezer like this cookie dough for unexpected guests.  A fresh warm plate of cookies and some hot apple cider (also easy to keep on-hand) makes for a very welcoming house.   We can’t wait to try the Triple Chocolate cookies!

*Update: We tried the Triple Chocolate and they were just as good as the Cranberry White Chocolate–delicious!  I have also found that my oven bakes them best for 13 minutes.  They will look puffy and not all the way done when you take them out, but then they will harden upon cooling.  I transferred mine to a wire rack to cool for 3-5 minutes before eating.

© 2009, Funkidivagirl.com. All rights reserved. Republished only with permission.

I am a big fan of Trader Joe’s from living in California; there was one within walking distance from my apartment and the cheap prices were right in line with a graduate student’s budget.  Back then I didn’t cook a whole lot and mostly bought wine and cheese, but since then I have learned that Trader Joe’s has other great items for sale.   It’s not on my weekly shopping route, but since the store opened in Midtown Atlanta 2 years ago (finally!), I try to go every 2 or 3 weeks to stock up on my favorites TJ goodies.  

Of course they still have a great cheese and wine selection.

The nuts and dried fruit section is chock for of interesting snacks.  Wasabi Wow is a delicious mix of almonds, wasabi peas, peanuts and cranberries.

I buy many of my staple items here (they are such a good price!) like pasta, rice, pesto, marinades and pancake mix.  Trader Joe’s Brown Jasmine Rice is the best; even my kids, who don’t care of brown rice, eat it right up!   And the pancake mix is really easy, but  yields perfect pancakes every time.

I buy many of my beverages at Trader Joe’s.  The kids like the Organic Tea & Lemonade.  I like the Pomegranate Limeade, but I don’t buy it much; I will seriously drink the whole bottle in one sitting!  Instead, I drink the unsweetened green tea; it has enough favor to forget that it isn’t sweet.  The Blueberry & Pomegranate is my favorite.

I don’t buy much meat at Trader Joe’s, but the chicken sausage is delicious–especially the mango.  Sometimes I put that in jambalaya or with Trader Joe’s Biryani Curried Rice and it’s soooo good.  The Biryani Curried Rice is found in the frozen food section and it’s great as a side dish also.  It takes about 5 minutes to make so I always keep some in the freezer.

The frozen vegetables and fruit at Trader Joe’s are interesting and a great price.   I keep these French Green Beans in my freezer for my daughter, who loves green beans, and the frozen fruit  for my smoothies.

In the summer my kids eat a popsicle every day and Trader Joe’s has some good ones.  The Fruit Floes are refreshing and pretty guilt-free at 80 calories and fat free.  The Mango & Cream Bars and Raspberry & Vanilla Cream Bars are delicious and only 60-80 calories each; they are small, but just enough to satisfy a craving for a frosty, sweet treat.

Rarely do I leave Trader Joe’s without buying a bouquet of flowers; I love having fresh flowers in my house and Trader Joe’s has a good selection at awesome prices.

Besides all these great products (and much more) for sale, the store is easy to shop, there are always great samples to taste and there is a place to tie up your dog while shopping (since owning Chili Dawg I am more appreciative of dog-friendly establishments).   Thank you Trader Joe’s for–finally–coming to Atlanta!  

© 2009, Funkidivagirl.com. All rights reserved. Republished only with permission.

If  you are a visitor to Atlanta this summer, you must make a point of visiting the Atlanta Botanical Garden; it is so lovely.   If you are an Atlanta resident then you are lucky enough to experience the garden many times throughout the year.  The garden has recently been renovated with a new entrance, new parking deck (no more free parking) and several new garden areas.  

I take my kids to the garden often.  The Children’s Garden is a great playspace for kids and even has a water play area; on a hot summer day many swimsuit-clad kids can be found cooling off in the sprinklers.  One of our favorite things to do is look for frogs in the garden ponds.  Today we found one!

And while the permanent gardens are always beautiful, such as the Japanese Garden

or Tropical Garden in the conservatory,

we have also seen many fantastic special exhibits there such as Chihuly in the Garden, Locomotion in the Garden, Niki in the Garden, Big Bugs & Killer Plants and Sculpture in Motion.  I have learned to expect nothing but the best exhibits at the Garden.

Today my daughter and I went to see the new Moore in America exhibit and just like the other exhibits, it was spectacular; we absolutely loved Henry Moore’s sculptures and the way they were displayed throughout the garden.

After a good lunch at the Garden Cafe (the food is catered by one of our favorite lunch spots, Sun in My Belly), we took a final mother and child photo in front of Moore’s Reclining Mother and Child.

Moore in America will be at the Atlanta Botanical Garden through October 31, 2009, so you have plenty of time to check it out.   The Garden also hosts Cocktails in the Garden every Thursday night through September, concerts, and many children’s programs; go to the website for more details.

© 2009, Funkidivagirl.com. All rights reserved. Republished only with permission.

After I made him throw away yet another pair of ripped and torn Converse sneakers, my son finally got around to using his Nike gift card from Christmas and made these very sweet kicks on NIKEiD.  I have to say that they are pretty fly.  My husband, who is a total sneaker-head (I mean like out of control, crazy) loves them too and wants to make himself a pair now.  If you can’t tell from the photo, they are purple patent leather, hot pink and the sides are made of a really cool gray silk wrinkled fabric.  One shoe says “Topsy” and the other shoe says “Turvy”.  Sometimes I have to veto his choice of shoe-wear if he’s hanging out with me, but with these shoes we are in complete agreement.

© 2009, Funkidivagirl.com. All rights reserved. Republished only with permission.

*I don’t get paid for my opinions in any way; this is just me sharing stuff that I like and I think you will too.

Wow, it’s been a MINUTE since I last blogged!  Did you miss me?  I missed you!  My kids getting out of school totally threw me for a loop and it’s taken me awhile to recover.  I’m slowly adjusting to our summer schedule and working in some blogging time a few times a week.  But I ask for your forgiveness in advance if I am a little light with the words this summer.

I’ve been missing on Twitter as well, but had a good time last night reading all the tweets about The Real Housewives of New Jersey’s finale. I was trying to go to sleep, but the tweets were so good that I had to turn on the TV. Personally, I think that the New Jersey housewives were the best of the lot, and I’m not just saying that because I love New Jersey.  The housewives were relatively normal (except for Danielle, who was a lunatic) and I liked the addition of a family dynamic as well.  Show fans: what did you think about Dina’s decision to focus on her daughter, husband and home right now and put her career on hold? I thought it was an interesting, tough and real dilemma; I could totally relate to her.

But this blog post is not to dish on the New Jersey housewives, but to call attention to the “Jersey Girl” t-shirt that Teresa was wearing when she showed Dina around the house.  I was so stoked to see that she had on a Festa T-shirt; I had been meaning to write a post about these super-cute tees!    I see the shirts in Atlanta boutiques and I love them, but I haven’t bought one yet because I don’t have an alligence to any one place that I have lived.

My formative years were spent in Chicago and south suburbs, so I would wear this tee because of course Chicago has the best pizza in the WORLD:

My teenage years were lived in Minnesota, where I NEVER got used to the cold.  Yeah, this tee says it all:

That’s why I fled to Arizona for college–the opposite extreme–and had a great time (oh yeah, and got a good education too).  This tee just about sums up the college town of Tempe:

Really digging the west coast, I went to grad school in California.  Of all the places that I have lived, I think that I am mostly a California girl and would like to rock this tee with some flip-flops:

Although I was upset to leave California, I really enjoyed living in New Jersey, the Garden State.  This is the tee that the New Jersey housewife Teresa was wearing:

And of course now I live in Atlanta. If I bought an Atlanta tee I would buy this one because I live “ITP”–or “inside the perimeter.”  Atlantans know that this means that I would only live in the city, not the suburbs.

My daughter, who was born in New Jersey, but has lived here in Atlanta since the age of 2 may turn out to be a Southern Girl.  If we don’t move she can claim this tee:

What about you, where’s your hometown love?

© 2009, Funkidivagirl.com. All rights reserved. Republished only with permission.