life updates

1. I've been crafting less and flea-market-shopping more. I've gotten some pretty sweet snags, which hopefully I'll get around to showing here.
2. I haven't been cooking all that much, but I would like to say that I've become less dependent on recipes and more about just dealing with whatever is rapidly spoiling in the fridge. The results haven't been remarkable, but they haven't been that bad either.
3. I saw my idol, Taylor Swift, in concert this summer. It was the greatest day of my life.
4. I enrolled in a master's program for health administration and have been relearning how to read for long periods of time and how to write papers. Citations are the worst, yo. Only 2.5 more years until freedom!
5. My beloved boss left in April and work hasn't been the same. I'm currently considering following  him to Northern NJ.
6. Depending on possible job change, D and I have discussed adopting a French bulldog together next spring. If that happens, I guarantee that the activity on this blog will skyrocket. 

my new obsession

Smoothies. They're great. Especially when you have a problem saying "No!" and a dad that always buys you way too much yogurt and fruit. He says that I can just eat more fruit during the day, but sometimes I don't feel like being that girl in the office that's toting around 5 containers of papaya a day, you know?

One day, while facing no less than 24 containers of yogurt and buckets of honeydew, papayas, grapes, and strawberries, I decided to start making breakfast smoothies.. and haven't stopped since.

Pictured above: 1 chinese soup container of papayas, 1 6oz can of blueberry yogurt, half a container of strawberries - makes approximately 2 glasses

Lessons I've learned:

• Honeydew is a GREAT smoothie ingredient. Let's be honest, honeydew is a meh kind of fruit. It's the fruit that you stick in a fruit salad or edible arrangement to take up space. The great thing about it though, is that it's really sweet and the flavor isn't terribly strong, so it's a great natural sweetener and smoothie-bulker-upper.
• Overripe honeydew and not ripe (i.e. sour as hell.) strawberries - delicious together.
• Papaya is a really strong flavor. Use sparingly if you're not a fan
• Leftover cherry tomatoes and random salad greens do not affect the taste of one's smoothies
• Be careful when washing a blender, especially if you're too lazy to remove the blade at the bottom. It hurts to be stabbed.

The CDC says I should eat about 2 cups of fruit a day. Does this still apply if it's not in its original form? I'd like to think so, especially since it's a lot easier to drink two cups than eat two cups. Regardless, I know it can't be bad for you to consume food in liquidy form. 

So the next time you find yourself with 3 cherry tomatoes and containers of aging yogurt, fruit and salad greens, remember that you can blend all that ish together, put it in a nice cup, and feel all fancy about it. 

walnut honey shrimp

Aaaahhhh I made this and it was delicious and I'm so excited!!!! Recipe here. For the future, I think I'll skip the marinating in salt part, as the shrimp was a bit too salty for my tastes.

shrimp

 

I peeled and deveined shrimp for the first time in my life as I helped the bf prepare fried rice ingredients. It was a disgusting yet strangely satisfying experience.

new (resolutions) | year (recap)

Happy 2013!

This year has been good to me. Last December, I was excited about my newfound independence (first apartment and real job, woohoo!) but was also feeling a little lonely with most of my friends in NY. Boredom was starting to creep up on me as my days were spent mostly alone with my crafts and cooking projects. The often hidden extrovert in me finally decided enough was enough and for 2012, I made the simple resolution to get out more.

I dabbled with OkCupid for a month, joined several organizations, made a greater effort to invite people over for meals, and traveled to and with anyone who asked.

I went to NYC.. a lot. I reunited with a Loveboat friend in Hong Kong and we traveled to Seoul, South Korea together. Technically we also were in North Korea for a couple minutes, so that can be added to the list as well. A friend's wedding celebrations brought me to New Orleans, LA and Durham, NC. I reunited with faraway college friends in Las Vegas, NV and Boston, MA. I ventured to Stowe, VT for my first real snowboarding weekend. I saw family in Portland, OR, San Francisco, CA and Detroit, MI.

These were rewarding experiences, no doubt - I met a great guy and 80% of those trips were to places I had never been before - but they were also exhausting, and over the past few weeks, I've felt a little disconnected with myself. Mid-20s crisis alert - I only have a hazy view of my goals and interests and my self-confidence is faltering as I try to figure out the next steps in life. Should I get that Masters degree that everyone says is super important? I love my boss and my job (sometimes) but should I look for something better? And what would "better" be exactly? On the other end of the life spectrum, how do I continue to make my relationships stronger and more fulfilling? Should I be making more friends or should I be weeding some out? How do I become less judgmental so that I can truly appreciate these new experiences? Why can I still not control my bitch face?

Okay, I'm done. Basically what I'm trying to say is that with all the running around I did this year, I think there wasn't enough "me-time" allocated at the end of the day. So for 2013, I seek to restore that balance with another fairly simple resolution: learn something new.

I plan to learn how to snowboard and play the guitar. I've already got trips booked for the former and enlisted a friend to teach me the latter, so we'll see how this goes.

Oh also, I want to clean my parents' house and take on these refurbishing projects:

• stripping and refinishing the wood furniture
• painting metal file cabinets (see here) - I'm thinking dark brown or slate grey with the original silver hardware

Hopefully these little personal challenges will help bring me back to center a bit. Regardless, thank you family and friends for a wonderful year and here's to many more!

why i love potlucks

they're inexpensive

you're guaranteed to be stuffed in the end because everyone always brings too much

you get to test your cooking skills and marvel at those of others

they bring together friends in a home and that automatically makes everything warm and fuzzy

this was by far the fanciest potluck i've had with the regular girlfriend crew of d&d (and now l). l cooked her DELICIOUS chicken in a real grown-up pot, and it got us all really excited. she also added rutabaga, which we were all pretty excited about even though no one really knew what it was and we couldn't really identify it in the mix of vegetables (hey guys, apparently it's like a turnip). but seriously, that roasted chicken was divine. i suspect the recipe is very similar to this one but she said that basically the seasoning involved salt, pepper, garlic powder and then a ton of thyme on the chicken. i'm trying this soon. like maybe tomorrow.

also i have a new best friend. please meet toro. he sheds a lot and can be a bit of a brat, but he's also a great snuggler and makes the cutest face when you scratch his head.

pasta bake

i haven't forgotten about this blog.

yesterday my friend/sista P and i made a pasta bake for a potluck that i hosted with sorority sisters. i specifically took pictures with the intention of posting them immediately here. remind me to do this later..