Today’s mixtape has a little bit of everything – but I’ve been loving these songs when I’m working and I need something that’s upbeat but not distracting.
1. Recently I ate the largest apple I’ve ever seen in my life. It was the size of my face.
2. I started eating low carb again because I totally fell off the wagon this winter, and apparently it’s not cute when your thighs explode out of your shorts like croissant dough. It hasn’t been that hard, because I don’t really eat bread any more (miss u, sandwiches) so I don’t have a lot of cravings. HowEVER, it’s made me super sensitive to alcohol, like have a single drink and wake up in the middle of the night sensitive, which is a real bummer. I’ve been drinking flavored seltzer water and pretending it’s beer, which is going about as well as you’d think.
3. I’ve been trying to streamline the whole dinner process, and I was excited to remember that I have a slow cooker! I took a break from it because I felt like every meal I tried to prepare using it was a big fail. So, my new schedule is to make a crockpot meal once a week, so we’ll have leftovers and such. Unfortunately, I took this plan out for its maiden voyage this week and it was… a big fail. Womp womp. I was going for like a Hawaiian pizza taste, so I used barbeque sauce, pineapple, onion and jalapeno with chicken. I was picturing like a sweet/savory thing, but it turned out suuper sweet. I’m trying to figure out what to do to fix it, since we have a bunch of it. Next up is pesto ranch chicken, that sounds promising, right? Ugh. I have a feeling crockpot cooking would be a lot easier if I didn’t think canned condensed soups were gross.
4. I DID make a super good meal the other day. I made this pistachio crusted halibut recipe, and loosely followed the yogurt recipe. I also made a warm salad that was grilled corn, lightly roasted cherry tomatoes, onions, salt and pepper. It was sooo yummy. Even if you don’t like fish you should make that halibut. I would eat it every day if halibut wasn’t so freaking expensive.
I gotta say, I wasn’t totally sure how this bouquet was going to turn out. When I was at the Fresh Market, agonizing over what to pick, (Yes, literally agonizing. Sometime happens to me when I’m buying flowers or yarn, and I spend SO MUCH time, and get so stressed figuring out what to buy. It’s ridiculous. ) I wanted to do something different from what I’ve currently done, but everything looked so… common. Eventually David got impatient and I had to make a choice, so I went with spray mums, ferns, and alstroemeria.
I was going for something that looked like I just gathered this stuff in the magical forest I lived in, and plopped it in a vase. The ferns were so sculptural so I let them just do their thing, and I tried to keep the flowers close to the vase. If I were hosting a dinner party in the next couple of days, I’d definitely use something like this as a centerpiece, since it’s low, but still makes an impact.
As you know, we recently underwent construction on the apartment, and I ended up upgrading our decor in the office and bedroom while we were at it. I still have a few things I want to get done before I take pictures and blog about it, but I thought I’d share some little projects I did in the meantime.
My nightstand was a flea market find from when I first moved into my apartment way back when I was in college. I love, love, loved the yellow at the time, and only recently did I realize that it looked a little grungy. I decided to give it a little upgrade in the form of a fresh coat of paint.
At first, I just wanted to paint it white, but then I decided that the drawer insets were too cool not to call out. I (like everyone else my age) am obsessed with gold right now, and when I saw the gold spray paint next to the white stuff I was picking up, I decided to go for it. It was pretty simple, I just painted the drawers white and then taped off the inset, easy peasy. I also painted the interiors of the drawers gold because it makes me happy.
I’m happy with how it turned out on its own, and I’m especially happy with how it looks within the context of the room. Everyone please keep your fingers crossed that my succulent planter continues to live, because waking up next to some little plants every morning also makes me happy. The heart frame doesn’t really ‘go’, but it’s a) a picture of me and my brother when I first met him at the hospital, and b) I have a very vivid memory of getting that frame, choosing the photo I wanted to go in it, and then hacking it up so it fit correctly, at the age of 6, so whatever, sentimental value trumps taste in this one.
It feels good to get some projects done! I was really dreading this one, since I’ve pretty consistently sucked at spray painting things, but I was really careful and sanded a lot, and it turned out awesome. Triumph!
Today’s mixtape is a little upbeat, a little weird, and great for when you need to focus on your work, but you want to jam to some good music at the same time.
It’s probably my favorite mixtape yet!
This weekend I did some work on my blog, which involved going through all 420 posts one by one. It was pretty tedious, but also really fun to see how my blogging style has evolved in the three ish years I’ve been blogging here. While I definitely feel like I’ve come pretty far since my first posts, I also had some really good stuff in the beginning! I’ve spent a lot of time looking forward to the future lately, but this project forced me to take a look back to the past, and remember where I’m coming from.
I’m going to keep it short + sweet today, but not before I remind you to sign up for Real Talk, if you haven’t already. Today’s newsletter is going out at 4 PM EST, and I’m talking about what success means.
(spoiler alert – success to me means lots of newsletter subscribers! So please sign up if you haven’t already – you’ll be getting extra, brand new content from me once a week, and making me super duper happy.
1. I know you’re all on the edge of your seat, wondering how David’s birthday dinner went. It was great! We ate stuffed peppers (the recipe: red peppers, rice, ground beef, cottage cheese, basil, oregano, whatever else I feel like putting in them, ya welcome.), Cesar salad (secret family recipe), and we finished it off with this dessert from smitten kitchen because no gathering of mine is complete without something Deb recommends. I don’t wanna brag, but it was suuuuper good.
2. I also made up a new dip! Given my recent obsession with roasted garlic, I figured it was time to add some cheese and make a thing out of it. A rough recipe: Take as much roasted garlic as you can handle skinning, shredded cheddar cheese, goat cheese, and parmesan cheese. Run it through the food processor just a little. Add some salt and pepper. Bake it at 350 until it’s melty, and then try not to eat it all. Yuuum.
3. We’ve been really into making baked french fries at home. It’s not because I’m trying to be healthy, for once, it is simply because I don’t have a deep frier yet. One of my favorite memories is when my friend’s dad would bust out the deep frier and make the most amazing curly fries in the world. There were usually a million kids over when this happened, so we’d only get a small handful each but oh man. That is some quality stuff. But I digress.
I figured out a great way to make really crunchy fries in the oven. It takes a while, but it’s worth it. Get red skinned potatoes. Cut them into thin wedges. Soak them in warm water for at least an hour. Pat them dry and lay them out for a little while to get completely dry. Heat your oven to 450, line a baking sheet with aluminum foil, and then coat the bottom of the sheet with a thin layer of oil. We use rice bran because it has a high smoke point so it won’t set the smoke detector off. Salt and pepper the sheet, then lay your potato wedges out, drizzle more oil over them, and mix them with your hands to coat. Top with more salt and pepper, and make sure the potatoes are in a single layer. Bake until they are brown and delicious looking – usually about 45 minutes to an hour.
4. Does it bug you that my recipes aren’t specific at all? I’m sorry if it does, I just never really follow recipes! It’s because I’m lazy, and the thought of making teaspoons dirty is more than I can handle. I think it’s why I don’t bake a lot, because you actually have to follow the recipe or else things get wonky. Although, I did go through a phase where I’d make chocolate chip cookie batter, and then just add weird mix ins and see what happened. That’s how we ended up having peanut butter chocolate pistachio chip oatmeal cookies once.
5. I’ve been really happy that it is strawberry season, FINALLY. They are the only berry that I truly love (raspberries are okay, and blackberries are… tolerable. Don’t even talk to me about blueberries.) and it feels like such a short window of time that they are truly delicious, and not kind of shriveled/sour. Go eat some strawberries. That is all.
I seem to go through these phases where I get really angsty about what I’m going to doo with my liiife. It doesn’t help that this has been a cold, drizzly joke of a spring so far, and my mood seems to be completely based on whether or not the sun is out.
The past three years I have felt like I’ve been waiting for something. Waiting for a job, waiting for my career to take off, waiting to start my big adventure, whatever that may be. My vision for how my life was going to turn out versus how it has actually turned out so far is, in a lot of ways, completely off base, and I’ve spent a lot of time accepting that some things are even better than what I initially anticipated (I think I like freelancing a lot better than working in a big fancy firm, and I think I like having a boyfriend way more than being single until I’m 30, which was kind of my plan junior year of college.) Other parts of my life I’ve worked to get in line with my original dreams, to varying degrees of success.
The problem is, I don’t know what I want any more! For years I’ve had this dream of the things I’d accomplish in my life – but at this point, when it’s probably getting to be about time for the rubber to hit the road, I’m not as one-note. There are a lot of things I want, but I’m not sure how to prioritize, or what is worth working toward. Some dreams have evolved into bigger, better dreams, and some are still appealing – but I’m not sure if they’re for me. Logically, I know that I don’t exist in a vacuum, so things will happen that probably make one path or another the clear choice, and I’ll wonder why I worried so much when everything worked out so nicely. Unfortunately, I am a planner, and a worrier, and I can’t just be all ‘oh whatevs, it’ll work itself out’ when it feels so pressing. I want to make decisions, not hang in limbo for years and realize that by not making a decision I actually made kind of a crappy decision.
So, I turn to you, my friends in the computer. How do you decide the path your life wants to take, knowing that no action is immediately required, and being aware of the curveballs life throws you? How do you feel at peace with the present, knowing it’s not permanent? I mean, nothing is permanent, but I’m foreseeing some big changes over the next year or two, and it’s hard to appreciate what I have now without worrying about what’s going to be going on then.
Please leave me your sage advice in the comments – or you can find my email address here.
Mornings are hard – it takes me like 2 hours to fully wake up – so I thought I’d make a mix to put a little pep in your step when you first wake up. Enjoy!
(Semi related: I cannot figure out how to properly use Spotify. I feel like I’m 80 years old. So, uh, if you have any tips that would be awesome – and if you are following me, my seemingly random activity is just because I am always discovering new buttons to click. I’ll get it eventually!)
My pal Liz just bought her first condo! Can I take a moment to publicly talk about how proud of her I am? She is legit making it in the big city all by herself, working in a fancy building and doing fancy things with her life, and while I am not surprised, I am very impressed. She is the best.
Anyway, she asked me to make a housewarming party invitation for her. She wanted a Cinco De Mayo theme, and I wanted to do something that was on theme, but didn’t involve a sombrero, a cactus, or tequila. I think we struck a good balance.
I love doing little projects like this. It’s very satisfying creatively, and it’s super fun! So, if you have something coming up that you need some invitations or announcements for, hit me up – I’d love to make your stationery dreams come true.
