Dubai Lately

We've been kind of boring lately.  May is our self-imposed month of savings. We said no to almost every invitation we had, which means we missed Florence and the Machine at the last Sandance of the year and the Royal Moscow Ballet performing Swan Lake.  Boo and boo.  BUT, this also means we will have more money for our summer vacation, and that sounds like more fun to me anyway. :)

Casey and I have sort of struggled to find our groove since we've been in Dubai.  We were in awe the first couple of weeks, then we hated our lives because he had to work weekends and we were really homesick, then a new semester came, he had a normal work schedule and we went a little party crazy (because that's what people do in Dubai).  Now we're just kind of here, finally settling in and trying to do the normal things we would do if we were living in Denver.  We joined a gym for a whopping $108/month, which is normal for Dubai.  It is THE nicest, most motivating gym I've ever been to.  I despise cardio, so I just try to go to 5ish classes per week - Body Pump, Pilates, yoga, spinning and my favorite, Body Combat.  The instructors are AMAZING, and the happiest part of my day is leaving the gym and walking across the marina to our apartment with that awesome, I-just-worked-my-ass-off feeling.  Yay for a happy place to work out.

We're trying to get healthy in all areas of our lives.  It's REALLY easy to get fat and lazy in Dubai.  Everything you could ever imagine can be delivered to your door - McDonald's, Baskin Robbins and every fast food chain you could ever imagine, groceries, water, nails, cars, furniture, etc, etc, etc.  You can hire people to do everything for you for basically no cost, and it's also not very easy to find healthy foods in grocery stores.  There are a few organic stores, but they're not very conveniently located, so we just try to find what we can at our neighborhood grocery store.

The most exciting thing that has happened in the Casler household this month is we bought a juicer!  Woo!  We almost bought one in Denver before we left, but we didn't want to ship it here.  It's been a long time coming and I'm really excited to try out different juice combinations and reap the health benefits of drinking veggie goodness.

Here's our lot for the next couple of days...

Beetroot, spinach, cucumbers, carrots, lemons, oranges, grapefruit, kiwis, pineapple, apples and mango.  If you have any good juice combos, please share!  I'm pretty sure we need to add more green veggies to our mix, but this is all I could find today.

We're also doing a chemical-free trial with our shampoo and facewash.  My friend EJ has been washing her face with oil for a few months and loves it.  She mixes castor oil and olive oil, and I mixed castor oil and Argan oil.  So far, so good.  THEN, as if this wasn't hippie enough, I read a really interesting blog about hair care and decided to try her methods too.  The girl washes her hair with baking soda and uses apple cider vinegar for conditioner.  She said the first week your hair will "go crazy" and get super oily.  Then it will settle down and be shiny and happy and healthy.  I'm in the oily phase right now...

Meet my new beauty routine.

Baking soda shampoo, baking soda and cornstarch dry shampoo (definitely need this this week), apple cider vinegar conditioner, coconut oil for the ends of my hair and my castor oil/Argan oil face wash.  So far, the face wash is my favorite.

If you're interested in this weird hair routine, you can read about it here.

And to add to the crunchy factor, we ordered some natural oils and will pick them up at my mom's this summer.  I'm super excited to experiment with different combinations and treat my ailments with oils instead of medicine.  We also bought ingredients to make our own cleaners, laundry soap and fabric softener.  We're really going for it.  Blame it on the documentaries.  And the fact that I'm 31.

That's what's been happening in Dubai lately.  Casey gets to go home in a couple weeks - I'm so jealous!  I have 4.5 more weeks of school and then we're leaving for AUSTRIA!  I still have to find my perfect twirling dress so I can make Maria proud :)