an evening on an island in rva

Friday evening one of my best friends, Rae, and I went down to our city's river and to the island in the middle of it - Belle Isle. We were in search of paw paws! Richmond is a gorgeous river city and I'm very fortunate to live only a couple blocks from the river. Our destination this evening, though, was just a short car ride away. I brought along my newest familial addition - Ogden, my half blind sharpei mix rescue! I brought him home in mid-July and he's settled in well.

Our view on our way to the island across the pedestrian bridge. Beautiful! Somehow neither of us had ever been to Belle Isle despite all our years here. 

Since Og is part sharpei, he's pretty aloof most of the time. He's not easily phased and in his own little world (unless he's checking on me). The bridge was a cake walk for him, but the river not so much. He's never been around water like that, so he unknowingly walked right into the river and it scared him! I tried in vain to get him to walk up closer after that. I believe he really wanted to, but he was unsure. He's grown leaps and bounds of his shy self when I got him in mid-July, so I'm sure I'll have him in the river soon, haha. 

Here's part of our beautiful city on our walk back! Our paw paw search was fruitful (no pun intended)! While the part of the island we explored was picked clean, we did manage to find two paw paws! Neither of us had had one before, so it was a special treat. And absolutely delicious. We hope to try again next year and find more!

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richmond veg fest 2019 // #rvavegfest

Saturday I volunteered with my two best friends at the Richmond Vegetarian Festival! We helped with parking and then walked around the festival and had some amazing vegan food and petted a bunch of adorable puppers (most notably a tiny little nine pound pup who was the cuuuutest).

I was starving by the time our volunteer shift ended, so I started with a sides sampler from Khepra's Raw Food Juice Bar! I loved their kale and one other side, but I have no idea what it was, haha. While I didn't try any juice, definitely check them out if you're in DC! The food is worth it.

Next I tried the vegan mac & cheeze from In the Raw with Soul and GUYS, this stuff was amaaaaaaaaazing. I wish I had tried more from them! They had a surf and turf burger that looked really good, but I didn't see a photo until after I was home! I hope I run into them again sometime.

I had a great time and great food. ♥


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lucky bandit is a for profit blog. I use affiliate links and paid advertisements. I may earn compensation for a click or purchase through a link. Paid (whether via product or monetary) reviews will be noted in the actual post. Though compensation may influence the type of posts, all opinions and reviews will be legitimate and honest.

*All affiliate links will be marked with an asterick.*

true food kitchen // mosaic district

Earlier this month, Jess and I had a girls' night and decided to try out True Food Kitchen in the Mosaic District. Since she's dairy free and I eat vegan, it was a great spot for both of us. It was a chilly night, but they had a great looking patio and the interior and atmosphere were great, though a tad crowded. True Food has a great philosophy about food and a rotating seasonal menu that we're going to be sure to check out.

I ordered the Teriyaki Quinoa Bowl and Jess had the Butternut Squash Pizza. Everything tasted fresh and both dishes were delicious. My bowl was filling and had a great mix of veggies. I'm not a huge avocado fan (gasp) but it went really well with everything else. It was a really pleasant meal and I'll definitely be returning!

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summer 2017

Summer is winding down and coming to an end, finally. I worked a lot, but did manage to get out a do some really fun stuff!

In June, I spent a week out in Tennessee and it was great. Saw some baseball, got sunburnt, laid around the house. Back home, N and I sat on a lot of patios and complained about the heat, saw some great local sights, stopped by the farmer's market and the soap box derby, and caused general mayhem. In late July, N and I took a trip out to Tennessee, Mumma made us some amazing vegan spaghetti sauce, we did a lot of outdoor sitting and talking, and I found my favorite seasonal beer, RJ Rockers' Son of a Peach, and tried Shiner's Strawberry Blonde. I'm now in love with both. Jess and I saw Jurassic Park, one of my favorites, at Byrd Theatre, which was my first time going and it was awesome. A few weeks later, N and I shot down to the beach one weekend spontaneously and that was a lot of fun, then stopped at a friend's on the way back for some night swimming, squealing over hound puppies, and hanging out.

I'm normally a homebody, especially during summer, so I'm really glad I could get out more than usual.

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a #bloggerscene rooftop party at the embassy row hotel

Wednesday night, Jess from Writing in Red Lipstick and I hopped the metro and made our way to the Embassy Row Hotel in Washington D.C. for a rooftop cocktail party for area bloggers.

It was a great time! We started off the night with drinks and the PeachE Punch was A+. While I'm not a big mingler, there were some great ladies there that I was happy to have met! There was a great panel of bloggers for a Q&A, the view was gorgeous, and the atmosphere was perfect.



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on blogging & being a "blogger"

I consider myself a blogger. I don't make a living doing this, and I have a full time job that sometimes prevents me from writing blog posts. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love blogging and everything that entails. I love having something to blog about. My life isn't the most interesting, but maybe someone out there wants to read about it. Haha!

My main reason for blogging is my mother - she lives six hours from me, and though we talk on the phone every day, there's things I forget about or are best told with written words and pictures. Even a post with a recipe gives her insight into how I spend my time.

Other reasons I blog? It passes time. I enjoy getting feedback on posts. I can document my life, things I love, photos, and more to look back on at a later time. It makes me stop and think about things I do on a regular basis. I put more thought into the things I buy, because if something isn't good enough to recommend to someone, why would I spend money on it? Although I will say that I don't buy things for the sole purpose of writing a blog post about them. A large portion of my life goes un-blogged.

I've had this little piece of blog heaven since 2008 (or at least my domain that long), and before that I dabbled in Xanga and Livejournal. No worries, they've long been deleted. I've been around in the blogging world for a while. Since I was so rooted in hobby blogging and other things, my blog never really grew. Here I am eight years later with less than 250 followers. Still. And some days that bothers me and some days I couldn't care less. I was reading blogs when the big dog blogs were just wee little online spaces. And what's happened? Now they've morphed away from blogs and more toward online magazines. Now, though, I really enjoy reading blogs about "real" people and how they spend their time.

Other times, blogging can be a burden. If too much time goes by without a post, I get antsy and try to hurriedly make something happen. It's hard to blog on your "own time" when others are churning out blog posts five times a week. It gets stressful, even without a huge following. I sometimes find it hard to distinguish between whether I'm writing for the enjoyment of blogging or whether I'm trying to just please people.

Well after that verbal flood, I have to say that overall, blogging has been good to me. Sure, there are negatives, but I thoroughly enjoy the world of blogs.

Any recommendations? ♥

blogger friends & nova trips

Yesterday I made a trip up to NOVA and visited my friend, Jess! We had a whole girls' day out planned and it was just the thing I needed after the week I'd been having. First, we started off with lunch at Cava Grill, which was delicious. I had a rice bowl with falafel, traditional hummus, harissa hummus (which was super spicy, but good!), and the dill yogurt dressing (the dressing wasn't vegan, oops). I'm so glad Jess had this on the list for the day. When I got home I wanted more falafel. I'm going to be raving about this place until I go at least fifteen more times.



Next we headed off to Tysons Corner. I'd never been before and I was super excited. GUYS, we don't have these kinds of stores down where I'm from. The first place we stopped was Lush, as I'd never been there either (I know, ugh). I had no idea they had so many products! I could easily have come out of there with a ton of stuff, but I managed to limit myself to a few items.



As we were heading to Lululemon, we spotted macarons! I got honey lavender and Jess got raspberry. They were so good!



Then there was Lolli & Pops! I love checking out candy stores wherever I go to see what others have to offer. This one didn't disappoint! We took a little tour and I only got one picture there - our feet. Haha! They had a massive selection of candies in bulk bins - we definitely tried some samples.



Afterward we stopped off and did some thrifting! I found some pretty great stuff (and some of it will be up in the shop once I have it photographed). It was pretty awesome having a thrifting buddy - I had someone to laugh about hideous items with! Jess took me by the used bookstore, too, and I found a couple Stephen King's I haven't read, yet. And everyone knows how much I love secondhand bookstores...

Then after a Wegman's stop for vegan Ben & Jerry's, we hung out for a bit so I'd avoid traffic. I had a fab day and can't wait til we make a trip to Richmond! It was pretty awesome to have someone to talk to that knew about blog terms and websites. And we even managed to take a selfie...the only one all day, but hey, time flies!



Have you had any interesting trips lately? Let me know in the comments!