June Favorites

Yes it's halfway through July (Dear Summer, slow the F down!), but here we are with June favorites. The past few weeks have been well, a lot. Each time I wanted to sit down and write this, something popped up that needed to take priority. With each day, I thought about skipping this post or doing a combo June/July favorites. Obviously, I decided against that because here we are. Let's get to it...

Baseball Game

Early in June, I spent a perfect summer night at Citi Field watching the Yankees play the Mets, aka a subway series. The weather was stunning, the Yankees won (sorry Mets, I still love you just a little less), and the fries I ate were A+. 

RGB

Oh Justice Ginsburg, how I love you. I'll admit, in law school it was always rough when you had a quick-read Scalia decision followed by an 18+ page dissent by Ginsburg. Really madame? My eyes are le tired and this could have been shorter. Nevertheless, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the definition of what humans are capable of. There is hardly a challenge she hasn't faced and conquered with ease. While I knew her story already, I was still inspired and felt some pangs for my former life while watching the film. If you need to see an example of fortitude, strength, and unwavering determination, go see RGB.

Dresses

When it comes to clothes, or really anything that I own, I am not one to shy away from affordable brands. It's true that sometimes quality is not the same, but if you look carefully, you can find some amazing pieces. My closet was desperately in need of some more summer dresses that could be worn to the office, bonus points if they were machine washable. Old Navy and Mango to the rescue! For not that much dinero, I got three fabulous dresses and have gotten so many compliments on them. My mom was convinced that this one was from Madewell. You can find the other Old Navy dress here. Sadly the one from Mango doesn't seem to be online anymore. This was my first time shopping at Mango and it will definitely not be the last, just searching now for the dress I spotted so many things I want.

Blake Lane

I was lucky enough to be invited to have dinner at Blake Lane, a newish restaurant on the Upper East Side, in exchange for taking photos for @whatimholding. [Note: I would NOT talk about Blake Lane if I didn't like it, and I was never asked to write anything about it in my personal, non-WIH life.] While I don't often find myself on the UES, I will definitely be adding Blake Lane into my list of UES haunts. The vibe is casual but cool. I wouldn't want to come sweaty, though you could definitely rock a nice athleisure look and feel right at home, make sense? Everything is made with quality, local ingredients. The food is healthy but it's not a "healthy" restaurant if you know what I mean. I had the chicken bowl which was to die for, my friend got the tacos which I heard were very good (I'm not a fish taco kind of girl, at least not yet), we had an order of popcorn with nutritional yeast (yup, popcorn!), and shared the olive oil cake for dessert. Never in my life had I ordered an olive oil cake, and I probably won't again, but this was good. I'm almost convinced that there is cake beyond chocolate, red velvet, carrot, and banana, almost. If you need a good spot to meet a friend, a place to grab a solo meal, or just a good casual spot for any old thing, check out Blake Lane.

Studio 22

At the end of June, I was home for a weekend and wanted to get my spin on because well, hi, have we met? Over Thanksgiving I had taken class at Studio 22 and was left feeling mixed and wanted to give it another shot. OMG am I glad that I went back! As I remembered from November, class was challenging and the music was great. This time, I got a chance to speak with Catherine, the studio owner and one of the instructors. Catherine is so warm, friendly, funny, and used to live right near me and also began her spinning life at Soul way back when. What really won me over was that when I walked in, I told her that my shoes had delta look cleats (their bikes have SPDs on one side and they tend to have baskets clipped in to the delta side). Her reply, "I already took off the baskets for you." I was floored. I had been ONCE before and she remembered. Are you a psychic? Are you a ninja? No, you're just really good at what you do. I'm heading back home again this weekend for a wedding that I'm in and you better believe I'm planning to spend some sweaty minutes with Catherine. If you find yourself in Northern Westchester and want to take a great spin class at an independent boutique studio (with some really nice retail I might add), try Studio 22. FYI you will need to bring shoes and water or you can wear sneakers and use the baskets and buy a bottle of H2O. 

Not me but I'm really into those pants and shoes.      IG: @s22healthwellness

What were YOUR June favorites?