The end of an era

Can we talk about how it's been 70 degrees here (and elsewhere across the country) for the past two days?

Weather like this makes me want to cry happy tears. We spent my day off breathing in as much of the warm air as we possibly could. Sadly, it won't be around for much longer. 

We walked around downtown, did some last-minute shopping, and shared a milkshake and a bagel (random combo). 

The bagel (white & black with jalapeno cheddar cream cheese) was so good that we decided to go back for more to take home. Only they didn't have any more of the bagels we wanted, or the cream cheese, so we settled on two flavors which turned out to not be very good. When will I learn that I almost always regret food impulse buys? I literally still have all the impulse buys I've picked up since moving here. I eat a little bit and then they just...sit there. Unless my husband jumps on the grenade and finishes them for me. 

We ended the day at Men's Wearhouse, where my husband picked out two new suits for his Christmas present. His new job starts in January <-- really the best Christmas present I could ask for. 

I feel like one (very small) chapter of my life is coming to a close. Tomorrow night we leave for Boston, where we'll spend Christmas with my fam, and when we get back a few things will be different. My husband will be working 40+ hours, with a normal schedule, and I'll be in classes again at the end of January. I'll also be adding a few new responsibilities to my plate at work. Shortly after that, Spring will be on the horizon, and we'll start talking more seriously about where we'll be moving over the summer. This chapter has been extremely challenging, but extremely rewarding, and I'm so, so happy with my life right now. I think the next chapter will also be both, but in new ways. I'm very optimistic, and we all know that's not a word I use to describe myself often :)

I'll see you all from Newton!

xo

That time I made the worst pasta anyone has ever seen.

Hi world!

How's your week going? Mine has been a little rough...I've been feeling under the weather, but I'm confident I can kick the bug.

I feel like I've been slacking in the cooking department lately, so I had a plan to cook more at home this week. I found a couple recipes to try, stocked up on ingredients at work, and gave it a whirl. To put it nicely, some of those recipes came out better than others.

We all take risks in the kitchen, right? Sometimes they turn out really really well, and sometimes they turn into horrible failures. The zucchini pancakes I mentioned in my last post come to mind. The purple noodles I made the other day also come to mind.

I found a recipe online (the source of which shall remain nameless) which called for a pasta sauce made out of sweet potato, tofu and tarragon, among other things. We have these awesome purple sweet potatoes at work right now, and I thought it would be nice to use them instead of regular orange sweet potatoes. I had a vision involving super cool and creative purple pasta.

Not only did the process take forever, but about halfway through, I got a bad feeling about the outcome. I blended the sauce in the vitamix and it smelled completely unappetizing - kind of like dead houseplants. Meanwhile my husband watched, horrified, as I stirred the purple tofuey slop.

It was NOT GOOD. We dumped goat cheese on it, and the only edible bites were the ones that were 90% goat cheese. My husband was completely unsurprised and couldn't believe I had thought a recipe involving blended sweet potato, tarragon and tofu would turn out well. I guess it sounded like a good idea in theory? In all fairness, sometimes I don't understand his food choices, either - like when he grabs a handful of babybel cheeses and dips them into hummus like they're pita chips. 

So you don't have nightmares, here's my attempt at paleo sweet potato brownies, which turned out to be delicious:

I followed this recipe, and I was shocked at how easy it was. In my experience, specialty recipes (paleo, vegan, raw - especially raw,) tend to be very complicated and require expensive ingredients and equipment. This recipe was simple, and I already had every ingredient. Yay! 

So there you have it, one kitchen-tastrophy and one success. I'm just glad my kitchen disaster took place at home and not at work. Not that I haven't had my fair share of close calls there, too..

Have a great night, and I'll be back soon with another post.

xo 

A swiffer makeover/ green clean 2014

Hi guys!

The snow came back today. It was actually pretty bad on my drive to work, but it cleared up by the time I had to drive home. Predictably, work was incredibly slow. One of my coworkers and I used the downtime to deep clean and organize backstock, and I have to say, we were both extremely proud of the result. 

I was at an awesome work event all day yesterday, which I'll get to in a minute. First, a few pics from the night:

My husband has been begging for more veggies at home, so I came through and made this meal of baked shrimp on a bed of lightly steamed rainbow chard, + roasted broccoli and cauliflower. We covered our plates in Thai peanut sauce, which was the real star of the show. 

Of course, I had to bake a special lone shrimp for the cat:

Next, check out this beautiful thing - 

Isn't it incredible? It's a romanesco cauliflower, and you can eat it however you'd eat a regular cauliflower.

I can't stop staring at it. It's like a fantasy vegetable. 

I spent yesterday at a sort of training/education event that my company holds regularly for employees. It's meant to be an introduction for brand new staff, but I never got the chance to attend early on in my "career". In my department, we're so busy that as soon as you sign your paperwork, they hand you a knife, a case of bell peppers and tell you to start chopping. My formal education came just a few months late. 

The goal is to learn about the culture, values and purpose of the company, and I learned some cool factoids. For example - did you know that a dairy cow can be considered organic one year and conventional the next? All it takes for the organic label is 12 months without antibiotics, so cows often go back and forth between being labeled organic and conventional. Something to think about. 

One topic we covered was green cleaning products, which brings me to the real purpose of this post. We only touched on it briefly, but for some reason I got stuck on the subject. As you guys may know, I'm pretty careful about what I put in my body. I've come a long way from the days when I used to frequent KFC, the candy aisle at CVS and Dunkin Donuts on the reg. After learning about green cleaning, though, I realized that I could be using fewer (or no) toxic cleaning products. It would be better for the environment, better for us, and better for our animal, who spends a lot more time on the floor than we do. 

The first thing I wanted to green-ify was my swiffer pads, which I use almost every night but are wasteful and probably toxic. I had the brilliant idea to buy or make a reusable swiffer pad, and then looked online and realized that about a million people have already thought of that. Amazingly, I found two microfiber cloths in my stash that fit the swiffer mop perfectly.

I bought a super green and clean all-surface cleaner from work, and I swiffered the kitchen floor using that and my new microfiber swiffer pad.

It worked unbelievably well - way better than the disposable pads. Look at that clean floor! If only I had thought of this plan before I bought a Costco-sized box of the disposable ones.

So, one of my goals for the new year is to clean up my household products. I'm calling it Green Clean 2014. There are some products I'll never be able to go completely green with (deodorant being one of them - I tried once and swear it made me smell worse than if I had worn no deodorant), and I'm okay with that. It's more of a general effort. 

Any green cleaning tips out there?

Have a great night!

xo

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Oh, snow.

Hey, happy Sunday!

Crazy weather happening over here right now. It's the first snow I've ever seen in Maryland, and it's a strange scene. I associate this place with summer, so it's kind of unsettling to see it looking so wintery.

Before work in the parking lot:

After work at the apartment:

It was a stressful drive home. I've certainly driven through worse, but my car hasn't. It didn't get much traction on the slippery road and I worried about the hills and turns on the back roads home (there was no way I was taking the beltway in this weather). Luckily, everyone else in Maryland seemed to be just as confused and terrified by the snow as I was - no one was driving over 20 mph. Also luckily - this is the worst weather Maryland gets.

Work was slow. I don't think we've ever had so few customers, but since our normal state is so chaotic, I'm always grateful for a slower day. Another workday bonus? These free goodies:

Dry shampoo, facial cleanser, makeup remover, keylime scented body oil, vitamins and supplements galore. I'm so excited to try everything out - maybe I'll review some of the products (what do you think, Char?). The freebie bin ties with the daily free lunch as my favorite work perk. 

When I got home, I was itching to create something in the kitchen. I had a huge jar of salted cashews from Costco (which I admittedly should not have purchased in the first place) that I've been dying to find a use for. I thought about making cashew butter, but I found a recipe in my Vitamix cookbook for granola with cashew coating that sounded way better. 

It came out beautifully, and the apartment smells like heaven. I was a little nervous since the last recipe I tried from that cookbook (for zucchini pancakes) turned out to be nothing short of an abominable failure and an hour of my life I'll never get back. We'll both be eating this for breakfast tomorrow, if we can pry ourselves away from it tonight. 

Have a great Sunday night!

xo

Testing the cast iron

Hello out there! Having a good Saturday?

I started my day with week 6 of Body Revolution, and it was sweaty and awesome. These DVDs are my workout of choice lately. They're only 30 minutes (but afterwards I feel like I worked out for an hour), so the workout and shower take an hour, total. It's so much faster and more efficient than going to the gym, and I've found that I can handle them in the morning before work. I haven't been following the schedule that comes with the DVD series because it's an extreme weight-loss program, and I'm not trying to lose weight. I like them as a total body workout and will usually do two a week.

When my husband got back from his workout, we cleaned up and headed out to run errands. PetSmart, Trader Joe's and lunch at a Neapolitan pizza place we happened to walk by.

Spinach, caramelized onion and egg for me, sausage, bacon and egg for hubby. We both have a special love for gratuitous eggs atop meals - it reminds us of Spain, where an egg goes on everything (but they don't eat them for breakfast. I never got used to that.)

My husband heroically agreed to babysit his cousins tonight, so I'm chilling here at the casa with the cat. I would have gone with him, really, but he won't be home until after 11 and I can't go to sleep that late when I have work the next day. For dinner, I decided to test out the new cast iron skillet I got on Black Friday:

(organic chicken with mustard, lemon juice, kalamata olives, a little honey and 21 spice salute)

(an unseasoned piece for the cat)

The verdict? The pan was heavy, hot, and the food stuck to it horribly, despite my having seasoned it three times using this technique. I scrubbed at it with a stiff brush for 10 minutes and rubbed it with kosher salt before giving up and using soap to wash it, which I know is a big cast iron no-no. I can't see any benefit to using it, besides the lack of potentially toxic chemicals that are rumored to exist in nonstick cookwear. I still need a new everyday pan, and I have my eye on this nonstick beauty:

(source)

I might clean the apartment tonight, if I get a burst of inspiration. I love how quickly I can clean this little apartment, but I hate how quickly this little apartment gets dirty. For some reason, our kitchen has two states: 1) I just cleaned it and 2) filthy, disgusting, horrible. There is absolutely no in between. 

Have an awesome Saturday night. Mine looks like this:

xo

Back in the swing of things

Hello world!

It's great to be back after a blogging hiatus. This wasn't like my last blogging hiatus where I was wasn't blogging because I was sad. I've just been busy getting back into the swing of things around here after my little Thanksgiving vacation. Work has been crazy, and we've been erranding, cleaning and catching up for the past few days. Here are the only pictures I have of my trip:

A snapshot of our GPS as we were driving through Connecticut

(I don't know why, but I really like that picture)

The outlet mall at 6:00 am on Black Friday (and my husband's arm, I think)

Also, our cat recently decided to stop using her litter box, so that's been fun. We took her to the vet last night to rule out a medical problem, and I was more than a little disappointed when the vet didn't find anything, since a medical problem would have been the easiest to fix. Now we have to watch her like a hawk, and it feels a lot like potty training a child. Luckily, the women at the shelter we adopted her from have been extremely helpful and attentive. I didn't realize that by adopting her from a shelter, we were getting access to an entire cat problem-solving support team. Fingers crossed the issue goes away very soon, and apologies if that story was way too much information..

Anyway...

I'm spending the morning relaxing with the hubby. Neither of us has work until later this afternoon, so we made pancakes for breakfast and stayed in our PJs.

That's the sweet potato casserole I made a few days ago at the top. As soon as it came out of the oven, my husband informed me that he wouldn't be eating any because he ate too much sugar over Thanksgiving weekend and wants to avoid it for a while. So now I'm left to eat this entire casserole myself, or let it go bad. It's delicious, but I feel like that kid from Matilda who had to eat the entire chocolate cake himself. I also tried to be cute and crafty and poured the pancake batter into star-shaped cookie cutters. As you can see, they're pretty mediocre. 

I'm going to stretch and chill for the rest of the morning so I'm rested for work tonight. It's almost the weekend, and I'm hoping we can make a trip to Alexandria tomorrow (one of my favorite places around here). 

Have a great day!

xo

Sushi celebration

Happy Sunday everyone!

Yesterday was our last day with the kids, and it was not easy. My husband had to work, I wasn't feeling 100%, I picked the seven-year-old up from gymnastics 5 minutes late because I had trusted the girl herself to accurately remember what time practice ended, and then I arrived home with both kids and realized the door was locked and no one had a key. And they were both hungry, and it was almost nap time for the four-year-old (and me). So my husband called a locksmith, who charged us a ridiculous amount of money to do nothing more than pick the lock open. At 4 pm on the dot, my husband and I were finally relieved and set free. We returned to our clean and quiet apartment and I snuggled with my own baby.

It was dinnertime, and we celebrated the fact that we don't have kids by going out for sushi at the place across the street. 

I don't remember what everything was, but it was the best plate we've ever gotten there. 

Dinner tonight was a little more random. I wanted to do a bowl like Emily's, but I didn't have the energy to cook quinoa for it and I couldn't find broccoli at Joe's. 

It's Joe's pre-made lentils, roasted cauliflower and half an avocado, drizzled with white wine vinegar and truffle-flavored olive oil. With sea salt. And a lemon wedge. It was easy, delicious and filling, even though the ingredients don't really make sense together. 

I'm going to clean the kitchen and head to bed. I don't have to wake up so early for work anymore, but I still like going to bed at a toddler-appropriate time. 

Have a great Sunday night!

xo

Kids, man.

Agh. I've had a few crazy days, and the craziness isn't over.

We were asked to babysit my husband's cousins, ages seven and four, from Wednesday night until Saturday afternoon. Both parents are out of town.

Lemme tell you, this life is not for the faint of heart. Overnight I got two kids, a dog, a cat, two cars, a house, and a full time job. Remember when I thought the job alone was tough?

Yesterday morning I woke up at 5 am so I'd have time to shower and wash my hair, since I had an interview an hour after work and knew I wouldn't have time to shower in between. Like a DUMMY, I took my sweet time in the shower, lurked Pinterest for a good 40 minutes and sipped coffee while I waited for the kids to wake up. They got up at 6:00, and for the rest of the hour I was running around getting them dressed, fed, hair and teeth brushed, bags packed, shoes on and ready to go. I raced to work with 10 minutes to spare, ran to the gym, changed, straightened my hair and ran to work, where I was greeted with news that we had had a catering for 50 the night before after I left that no one had known about, plus an understaffed and depleted kitchen to start the day with.

Work was work and we were swamped all day, and a meeting that was supposed to start at 2 pm didn't start until 2:30 and ran late. Already running behind schedule, I sprinted back to the gym and had just enough time to change and run a brush through my hair before hopping back in the car and driving to the interview.

 After fighting traffic across town to pick both kids up from afterschool, we arrived home and had 40 minutes to kill before my husband would be coming home from work with pizza. I kept them busy by giving them my computer, straightening their hair (upon their request) and letting the little one eat an entire bag of Trader Joe's orange-flavored dried cranberries. The only picture I have of the day is this one of my dinner:

Yeah, that's wine in a coffee mug.

Today has been significantly less frazzled. The seven-year-old is in school, and a friend's nanny graciously offered to watch the four-year-old in the morning. We dropped him off with the nanny right after we dropped his sister at the bus, and we used our precious alone time to see our cat, do a load of laundry, hit the gym and grab Sweetgreen afterward. I was a salad repeater:

The seasonal salad is just so good. 

We picked the little one up right before naptime and all three of us fell fast asleep. I woke up first and ventured out to Starbucks for some sugar and coffee. 

The little one is still asleep. I'm like, do I wake him up? Or continue to enjoy the peace? I've already gone upstairs to wake him up twice and chickened out. 

I'm a little scared for tomorrow. My husband has work most of the day and I'll be alone with these two. Wish me luck!

xo

All my ducks in a row

Hey :)

How was your Monday? My new schedule took effect today, so I woke up with the rest of the world. The sky looked like this as I walked to my car:

I'll take it. 

Dinner last night was a production, but well worth it - I made the Thanksgiving-y recipes I'd been wanting to try. Mashed sweet potatoes, vegetarian gravy and green beans with truffle-flavored olive oil (I wanted real truffle oil but Joe's was out). 

Not a very photogenic meal, I know, but it all came out really well. The cranberry sauce is store-bought from Joe's, and it's so good I've been eating it with a spoon as a snack. The roasted cloves of garlic, still in their papery skins, are there because I'm trying to not get sick at all this season. Among other things, extra roasted garlic is one way I'm attempting that. I have no real evidence that it's working, but I will say that almost everyone around me at work has been sick except me. Knock on wood. 

In other exciting news, I started my nursing school application today (!!). I've been waiting and checking the website every day for weeks, and it finally opened. I have a first choice school, which is a reach, and two other schools I'd like to go to but can't apply to until next spring. While I'm glad I have a couple options, I'd rather not wait an extra semester to start. It's kind of funny - I've never considered myself to be "Type A" or a perfectionist, but I do have a tendency to become attached to a plan and afraid to veer off course. There are certain things I want to happen in my life in the next few years, and I don't feel like I have any time to waste. If nursing school gets pushed back, so will everything else. I'm not 18 anymore, and I don't have all the time in the world to mess around and get things done whenever. I want to have all my ducks in a row.

Are you rolling your eyes Liz Lemon-style upon hearing my angsty self-imposed timeline panic?

(source)

I don't blame you. But let me feel my feelings! 

I'm going to attempt to get a late-night workout in before bed, since I don't have to be up early tomorrow. I was going to hit the gym after work today, but I decided I'd do a Pilates DVD at home instead ("Pilates DVD at home" is a lie I tell myself when I don't feel like going to the gym after work). 

Have a great night!

xo

Something had to give

Hello! Happy Friday night!

So, I'll jump right in. I had an uncharacteristically great week at work. Well, Tuesday through Thursday were great, but I have reason to believe that the change will be relatively permanent. The past two months have been brutal, you guys. It was one stressful, exhausting, defeating week after another. Many, many times I considered quitting. But I didn't quit. I stuck it out for a whole host of reasons, some of which were valid and commendable, some of which weren't. I'm a big believer in changing your situation if you're unhappy rather than sticking it out, yet I was unable to pull the trigger and actually leave this job because it was, oddly, easier and more comfortable to stay put than to leap. The job was intense, but I was good at it, I understood it, and it was familiar. Starting from square one in the job world intimidated me. But that's not to say that I was content to stick around and suffer in silence. If there's one thing I can't do, it's keep my unhappiness to myself. So, I had a frank discussion with some higher-ups, and things changed. I was given a title I can work with, some new responsibilities, and perhaps most importantly, a different schedule, which will have me starting my day at a more respectable hour (driving to work in total darkness is no fun). I also grew to love the people I work with. They keep me smiling, even when I'm grouchy. Something had to give, and knock on wood, it finally did.

To celebrate my career success, I stopped by GT Cupcakes after work on Thursday and grabbed two treats: caramel apple and chocolate banana. We went to dinner at the sushi place across the street and enjoyed the cupcakes when we got back home.

For the record, I eat my cupcakes by separating half the cake portion so there's an equal ratio of frosting to cake. Try it, but it's my idea, so don't steal it and make money off it, mmkay? Copyright Elizabeth Horst 2013, or whatever. 

Today was totally perfect. Due to my husband's new job at the gym, I was able to attend two group fitness classes this morning - spin and "shred". The spin class was out of this world amazing. The playlist was awesome, the instructor was hilarious and the energy was sky high. There's been a void in my life that group ex classes used to fill. When I was going to school in New York, I went to one almost every day. I belong to a gym here, but the classes didn't fit with my old schedule. I'm hoping with my new schedule I'll be able to get more group ex in my life. 

We stopped at Sweetgreen for a post-workout lunch. The chocolate milk is from Whole Foods (supposedly the perfect recovery drink - it has calcium and magnesium, essential electrolytes, and the ideal ratio of carbs to protein). 

Another thing I used to do religiously in New York that I haven't done here yet? Plan out my week:

For the past two months my plan for each week has been to survive, but I want to use my new energy to get a better workout schedule and meal plan going each week. Some meals I'm planning: butternut squash bowls, green beans with truffle oil, mashed sweet potatoes and vegan gravy. Clearly I'm getting excited for Thanksgiving. 

I'll see you guys soon with another post!

xo

Question of the day: In tough situations, are you a stick-it-out-er or a make-a-change-er? 

Soccer practice and chocolate greens

Hi out there!

Hope your weekend is ending on a happy note. Mine is long gone - I was up bright and early to start another work week this morning. I had a great day yesterday, though. I spent the morning with my husband's 4-year-old cousin. He and his sister both had soccer practice in two different towns, and his mom couldn't be in two places at once. So I was in charge of breakfast and soccer for the morning.

It was his last practice of the season, so they had a surprise moon bounce. It was great...for about a minute, until every child tried to climb up the stairs at once to get to the slide and got so stuck that they couldn't get back out. Picture both coaches and two or three parents standing outside the moon bounce, trying to verbally untangle a pile of screaming preschoolers. Was I the only one who took one look at the slide and saw that coming? I could only watch, laugh to myself, and sneak pictures. 

After diligently cleaning our apartment, hubby and I went to Bethesda for a little date night. I finally scored the vest I've been wanting at Nordstrom Rack, along with some awesome sneakers (to replace the ones I trashed on my first day of work) and a small bottle of Philosophy Cinnamon Buns body wash for my gym bag. Hubby got the pants he needed and a new bag for work. We went to a new Indian restaurant for dinner, and everything was so good. 

I was pretty satisfied with the day. 

Today, I got to try a new seasonal product we're all super excited about:

Chocolate peppermint greens! Amazing Grass has two seasonal flavors - the other is pumpkin spice - and Whole Foods, our biggest competitor, doesn't have them! Amazing Grass made a limited quantity and offered a shipment to Whole Foods, who turned it down. After hearing that we had ordered it, Whole Foods changed its mind, contacted Amazing Grass and tried to place an order. TOO LATE, WHOLE FOODS! Amazing Grass had already sold the entire supply. Pretty cool for us. I added some to my brownie in a mug today, and while it was delicious, I don't think I'll use it for that again. It's better as a drink with vanilla coconut milk. 

After dinner tonight, I have to go back to work for two meetings, one at 8pm and one at 9pm. I'm really not a nighttime person, and I start to unravel around 7, so I'm not looking forward to it, to say the least. It's kind of exciting, though - the purpose of the first meeting is to roll out my new title of assistant manager, which should put an end to people asking me to do crap that isn't my job (in my dreams, right?). The second meeting is nothing exciting, and I'll be lucky if I can keep my eyes open for it. 

Have a wonderful Sunday night!

xo

A much needed day off

Hi world...

Sorry about the blog hiatus this past week. To be honest, it wasn't a very good week. I've had a lot of tough decisions running through my head, none of which have been resolved yet, and they've been weighing me down. I opened Housewife Glamour this morning and came across this post, which summed my feelings up exactly and gave me a little emotional boost. The fact that it's my weekend gave me an enormous emotional boost.

I came home after work yesterday and promptly gathered the ingredients for a brownie in a mug while simultaneously pouring myself some wine.

Said wine and brownie were followed by a long nap, which was followed by ordering pizza, which was followed by bed. It was that kind of day. 

This morning, I ate the breakfast cookie I forgot to take to work yesterday and did some yoga with the cat:

Hope I'm not disturbing you, kitty. 

I also ventured out to the University of Maryland campus for a nursing school information session. I'm SO glad I went. I got my questions answered, learned about the program and also discovered one path I hadn't ever considered - getting an associate's degree, becoming an RN and then entering an RN-BSN program. I'll have to look further into that option.

I needed some coffee after the info session and searched for the nearest Starbucks. What I found was so much better:

A Krispy Kreme where the donuts are baked on-site. LOOK at that donut conveyor belt. 

Cappuccino and glazed donut. Happy happy.

I'm about to pick up my husband and help him search for black pants, which he needs for work. Tonight we're having dinner with family. 

Have a great Friday!

xo