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Random Monday queries

Posted on February 11, 2013 by Sarah

(Copying this from CharlieSue, who copied it from Ginger. Attribution is good.)

(Also, I filled in these answers the other day while laying in bed gloriously doing nothing because my parents were babysitting LG — thanks Mom and Dad! — so some of the answers don’t apply rightthissecond, but that’s okay.)

Do you have any strange phobias?
Nope, not really.

Do you sleep with or without clothes on?
With, but not like full-on pjs. Too many hot flashes for that.

If you are outside, what are you most likely doing?
Running.

Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?
I really love everything The Eagles ever did and also Abba (I was born in the wrong decade, apparently), and she’s not a band, but Madonna is an all-time fave.

Do you believe in karma?
Yes.

Who is your celebrity crush?
Can I say Mandy Patinkin and Christoph Waltz even though they’re…Older gents? Yes? Okay good.

What’s a sound you hate; sound you love?
Hate: baby crying; love: baby cackling with laughter.

Choose: East Coast or West Coast?
West is best.

What was the last book you read?
I’m currently reading Wild Fire (Nelson DeMille), but the last book I finished was 13 Steps Down (Ruth Rendell.)

Do you like the smell of gasoline?
If I can smell it, then it usually means I’ve spilled gas all over myself AGAIN, so no. (God I hate pumping gas.)

Do you have any nicknames?
My family calls me Sar-Bear.

What was the last movie you saw?
In the theater: Django Unchained (go see this now); on TV: Love Actually is on in the background right now.

What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had?
Considering I’m always covered in bruises and scrapes, I’ve never actually sustained any serious injuries, so I guess whatever went down during childbirth.

What’s the last thing you purchased?
Brunch this morning.

Can you touch your nose with your tongue?
Nope.

Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you?
Yes! Some lip gloss (Eos) Caitlin sent me. She’s the tops, that one.

What’s your favorite animal?
Giraffes!

What were you doing last night at 12 AM?
Getting ready for bed/reading. Unusually late night for me.

What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it?
“Ain’t Nothing ‘Bout You” by Brooks & Dunn.

What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far?
Cliche, but, marrying Chris.

What’s the last song you listened to?
I probably heard a song on the radio this morning, but the last song I deliberately played was “Thrift Shop” by Macklemore.

What is your current desktop picture?

When LG sees this picture, she says, “Baby!” I don’t think she knows it’s her.

You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power?
I’ve always thought the power of flight would be cool. No waiting in traffic and anytime a situation gets awkward or embarrassing you could, literally, fly away.

You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?
I’d like another half-hour at our wedding. That was a fun party.

You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?
Thailand. Why not?

Okay, your turn!

Posted in All About Moi | 5 Comments

Happy Friday!

Posted on February 8, 2013 by Sarah

Wait, why you being so serious?

Okay, that’s a smile…ish.

C’mon, show your true colors.

Much better.

Happy Friday! I hope your weekend is light on the serious and heavy on the fun.

Posted in LG | 5 Comments

House cleaning avoidance = Kitchen counter makeover

Posted on February 7, 2013 by Sarah

I keep hoping I’ll miraculously get a job and thus, a reason to rehire my cleaning lady, but week after week goes by and no one offers me a job (no matter how many times I stare at my phone, willing it to ring, or refresh my email — doesn’t the universe know a watched inbox ALWAYS offers you jobs? Or is that not how the saying goes?) and so then week after week goes by where I don’t clean because I hate cleaning and whatever, LG ruins everything anyway, with her sticky hands and inability to grasp a bottle without spilling milk everywhere and ew.

It was during a period of cleaning avoidance a couple weeks ago that I decided to reorganize the kitchen counters and I must say, I quite like the result. Here, let me lead you on a tour of my kitchen counters (RIVETING.)

First, you should see how it looked before, so here you go:

And it still pretty much looks like that, only better, and with more depth and (insert other designy phrases here):

First of all, I ditched the spice rack and consolidated all my herbs and spices into the actual spice cabinet. Spices or otherwise, I really dislike having multiple homes for the same (type of) item. For example, I keep towels in five different areas of my home (the kitchen, the downstairs storage closet (rags), our bathroom, the linen closet, and LG’s bathroom.) They all have different uses, yes, but the fact that there are FIVE different places in my home that house towels just grates on me.

(Did I ever tell you about how I used to organize my money by serial number? Stew on that.)

Anyway, so I consolidated the spices (AND ANGELS SANG) and then I moved the wine over to where the toaster was and hid the toaster in the corner where the wine used to be. (Toasters are so ugly — why didn’t I do that sooner?) (Plus that’s where I keep the bread, so it just MAKES SENSE.)

Then I took that platter (made by Chris’s uncle and given to us as a wedding gift by Chris’s aunt) and put it in a holder-upper thing that used to house our wedding guestbook upstairs, so now you can actually see it (and how nice it is!)

Since I was on a roll with propping up platters (new band name?), I took the stainless one we received as a wedding gift and propped it up too, but I don’t love it, because it feels precarious and like it’s not meant to be propped. So, that platter is a work in progress, but I’ll make it work somehow.

It needs something, right? Any ideas?

Not done with proppin’ platters (like poppin’ collars, but definitely more gangsta), I took a third platter and put all our oils/vinegars/salts/peppers on it, mostly to give that platter a use, but also so I don’t have bits of salt and pepper all over my counters. (I prefer the salt and pepper bits be contained on a platter; I know it makes no sense, see above re: money organization.)

Finally, I framed this card, which my mother-in-law gave me years ago and which had been sitting propped(!) in a corner:

Please note I am currently out of wine, which seems like a bad omen given the message on the card.

So! That’s the kitchen re-do. I’d love to move the coffee pot elsewhere (out of sight), but I don’t know where it’d go and it’s really quite convenient there (what you can’t see is the cupboard above the coffee pot houses the coffee and mugs and other hot beverage accoutrement) and I just don’t think I’m ready to make the commitment of moving around the contents of my cupboards…But give me another week of avoiding cleaning and we might just get there.

Posted in Mediocre Homes & Gardens | 7 Comments

Chicken tortilla soup recipe

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Sarah

Chicken tortilla soup is a staple in this house. It’s so easy and delicious and there are not a ton of rules when making it — just toss in whatever you feel like and let it cook for however long you have and hell, you can even put everything in the crock pot if you want to. Basically the first rule of chicken tortilla soup is that there are no rules. Also, that we don’t talk about chicken tortilla soup unless we’re…talking about chicken tortilla soup. Which we’re going to do right now. *mumble mumble* That Fight Club reference didn’t work *mumble mumble*

Makes 4 servings

What You’ll Need

Chicken, cooked and shredded or cubed or whatever you prefer (I used two breasts, boiled them*, then shredded them, but you could buy the pre-cooked rotisserie chicken from the store)
1 onion, chopped
Hot peppers, diced (you can use a can of those diced green chiles or fresh jalapeno or whatever you like; I used a big handful of pickled jalapenos)
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed**
2-3 cups chicken stock
1 cup of corn (frozen, canned, fresh off the cob, whatever suits your fancy)
Juice of 1 lime
2 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. chili powder
2 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp. dried cilantro
2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper
Olive oil

What You’ll Do

– Saute onions, garlic, and hot peppers in a bit of olive oil; once they’re soft, add the liquids (tomatoes and stock) and the beans.

*I didn’t have stock, so I used 3 cups of the liquid I boiled the chicken in, plus a teaspoon of chicken bouillon.

– Do round one of seasoning, going a little light in the salt (not sure how much is in your chicken stock) and cumin.

– If you have tortilla chips, you should crunch a few handfuls in here. They help thicken the soup and give off a nice corn-y flavor.

– If you don’t have tortilla chips, you could add a few strips of corn tortillas. They’ll so the same job.

**If you have neither tortilla chips, nor tortillas, then don’t drain and rinse the beans and just add them straight from the can. The starch on the beans will help thicken the soup.

– Let your soup simmer on low for an hour, if you have that long, then do round two of seasoning and add a bit of whatever you think is needed. I personally find that I always need more salt and cumin. Here’s where you’ll also check the liquid situation. Do you need more stock? Add some. (You can also just add water — get nuts!)

– I also find at this point that the soup needs a little something, so I add lime juice. Usually the juice of one lime, sometimes just a half. Start with half and work your way up. Continue to let the soup simmer, if you’ve got the time. If you don’t, no big deal!

– When you’re about 10 minutes away from serving, just add the corn and chicken. I use about a cup of corn, but maybe you don’t like corn that much, so add less. Or, perhaps you and corn are BFFs, then add a shitton of corn. WHATEVER YOU WANT.

– When you’re ready to serve, top with an array of accoutrements like sour cream, cheese, green onions, avocado, and tortilla chips.

Enjoy!

Posted in Food & Wine | 4 Comments

Two flattering outfits I’ll probably wear over and over for the next three months

Posted on February 5, 2013 by Sarah

It’s definitely not my intention to post every single outfit I wear here (although speaking of which, I’ve been doing a Wardrobe 365 project over on Flickr, if you’re into looking at outfit pictures), but this dress was the last of the new things I bought at Old Navy, so I thought I’d show you.

I want to say CharlieSue recommended this dress to everyone on the Internet a couple months back and I wasn’t really in a place to shop then and sort of forgot about it, but when I was at O.N. a couple weeks ago, I saw it and it was on sale, so I picked it up. I tried to put a skinny orange belt on it, but it didn’t work with the stripes or the fabric. It needs more color, though, so I’ll have to figure something out for next time.

I don’t remember this dress being so flattering — maybe it’s the jean jacket? — either way, I’ll be wearing it a lot now.

I feel like if I were taking a Cosmo quiz identifying my “personal style,” I’d check the “Most comfortable in jeans and t-shirt” box, but the truth is, I don’t really ever wear jeans and t-shirts. This was my attempt at doing so, and I must say, I rather like it. Very basic and easy and I felt sort of chic (in a mom-ish way) all day. Unrelated, I saw in Allure magazine that the ’80s hair flip is back in style, so that’s what’s going on here.

I bought these Joe’s jeans a very long time ago, but hardly ever wore them, as there’s just something about them that’s off, but they’re fancy jeans and I refuse to give them up, so I thought I’d wear them and see if they grow on me. They make my butt look pretty great, so that’s a win.

Posted in Beauty & Fashion | 3 Comments

Dinner lately

Posted on February 4, 2013 by Sarah

I’ve been wanting to post more about what we’re eating, but a lot of what we cook is really just an idea with no recipe and I feel like a jerk saying, “This is the best thing ever sorry no recipe I just made it up!”

That said, here’s some of what we’ve been eating recently, no recipe needed, I don’t think.

Spinach salad with steak

I love a good spinach salad, man. Hard-boiled eggs, blue cheese, balsamic vinaigrette, awww yeah. I added avocado to mine (why not?), but if I’ve got them, I’ve also been known to add mushrooms, candied pecans or walnuts, and basically anything else that sounds good. Roasted red pepper might be nice, I think, and also cucumber.

Loaded baked potatoes

Another in the “awww yeah” category. I will put any damn thing on a baked potato. Chili is probably my favorite, and of course the traditional sour cream/bacon/chive, but this time we also did broccoli in cheese sauce (thanks for the idea, Miranda!) and damn, B. Other options I would do/will do are BBQ chicken and some kind of hot sauce/blue cheese combo (I’m thinking like hot wing-style, but on a potato. What could be better?)

Salad niçoise

This is not a traditional niçoise, but to me this is like spinach salad in that you can just add what you want to it while sticking, generally, within a framework. This was fingerling potatoes, green beans, kalamata olives, hard-boiled eggs, capers, tomato, and hake for the fish (as opposed to tuna.) There ARE mixed greens under all that and I made a lemon and herb vinaigrette (but I used dried herbs because unlike Ina, I am not an asshole who says shit like, “Fresh herbs really are the best.”)

(If it’s not clear, I think a lot should be said for the “salad as dinner” dinner salad. It allows you to gorge on good food while also being very smug, because you only had salad for dinner.)

We’ve cooked a lot more recently, but these are some good, easy dishes. If you’re interested, I can pass on my tried-and-true chicken tortilla soup recipe, which I am making tonight. Let me know! Meanwhile, what have you been cooking?

Posted in Food & Wine | 5 Comments

Dinner’s ready and I’ve been slaving over it for hours!

Posted on February 1, 2013 by Sarah

I recently posed the What Age Were Your Kids When You Started Having Family Dinner? topic to Twitter and thought I’d bring it here, as well. Also of interest to me (and Elizabeth recently posted on this same topic) is the discussion of what your kids eat (i.e.: do they eat what you eat or something different?)

With regard to the family dinner discussion, I was surprised (and impressed!) at the amount of people who did family dinner every night and had since their kids were born. We very rarely do family dinners and there are a lot of reasons, but the main one is that I am selfish and I’d rather eat with just Chris while we watch our shows (which we typically get on East Coast time, three hours ahead, i.e.: dinner time, thanks to DirecTV — one of their only redeeming qualities.) Also, I prefer to not have someone grunting and whining at me for more food while I’m trying to enjoy my meal.

Also a problem is the fact that LG does not chew reliably, so until she can, we’re sort of forced to feed her something different than what we’re having. For example, last night we made this pork loin (please make it — the sauce is so good I would like to just drink it plain), which is not really conducive to swallowing whole (LG’s preferred eating method.) I feel like if we’re feeding her something different, then she can just eat that and we’ll eat later. She usually eats while we’re cooking dinner for ourselves, and so we’re all in the kitchen together, listening to music and chopping onions and shit and truthfully, it’s one of my favorite times of the day, so that helps me reconcile the not-eating-as-a-family thing.

Another problem is that she typically goes to bed before we eat dinner, which is something I’d really like to change, but she just cannot hang past like 6:30pm. It is my hope that one day soon her bedtime will push back and hopefully that will align with her being able to chew and not choke herself, and maybe we can sit together for dinner a couple nights a week. Not every night, not on steak night, say, or any night where a good show is on TV (I’m sort of kidding), but it would be nice to do some meals together, teach her how to have good manners, other parenting things, etc.

Moving on to the topic of cooking for your kids and what they eat and making separate meals and whatnot…I am really very impressed that Elizabeth’s kids eat more or less what she and Mr. E eat (go Elizabeth!) and like I said, I’d like to get there someday soon. Meanwhile, I don’t really mind making separate food for LG. She will eat pretty much anything, so that’s nice and oftentimes she eats leftovers from our meal the night before, so I’m not worried that she is going to be a kid who only eats PB&Js, but if she is, oh well, I think that’s a normal kid thing and I can’t say I will have it in me to argue about that. I’ve already found myself saying, “But you always loved pineapple!” and god, I don’t care. Don’t eat the pineapple, then. More for me.

Obviously, it’s just the one kid and she does go to school twice a week (more often if I get a job and we can put her back in school full-time), so the meals we’re required to cook separately for her aren’t that many. Maybe I’d care more if I was making six meals a day, seven days a week. Oy.

Anyway, so that’s how we do dinner here. I feel like we’re in flux with it and am sort of itching for the day when we can do family dinners, but in the meantime, what we’re doing is working now and Chris and I get lots of quality time in the evenings, which is always good. What do YOU do in your house?

Posted in Chris, Family, Food & Wine, LG | 7 Comments

Almost two, always cool

Posted on January 31, 2013 by Sarah

LG is going to be two in a couple months (HOW?) and I haven’t done an update on the little tyke in quite some time (WHY?) (LAZY), so I thought I’d update the ol’ baby book (THIS BLOG) with her recent goings-on.

Much like with walking, LG is slow to talk, which is another thing in a long line of parenting things that I just don’t care about. I mean, I care of course, but I am not worried. I just don’t think she’s going to be 30-years-old and still signing “milk” when she’s thirsty, you know?

Teacup feet!!!

She is quite good at identifying animals (“a-animal”); lions “roar” (which she’s known for quite some time) and cows “moo” (that’s a new one) and she knows rabbits (signs “rabbit”) and ducks (“DUCK!”) and tries to oink like a pig.

She knows what apples (“a-apple”) are from a book, but when I gave her an apple, she wanted nothing to do with it. She still eats almost everything and anything. Eggs and cheese are staples in her diet, as well as pasta and lunch meat (sometimes) and bananas, unless she absolutely does NOT want a banana, in which case she shakes her head no and pushes it away.

Bananas are good. Today.

It used to be ever-so-slightly infuriating to have a person clearly say they wanted a ‘nana and then — even when you’d asked them, to make sure, “Do you want a ‘nana?” and held it up so they knew you were talking about a BAnana and not a grandma — refuse it. I decided not to get mad, though, but rather to get even, and so now when that happens, I put the offending ‘nana in the fridge and later mash it up in some oatmeal and serve it to her for lunch.

Mom: 1, LG: Zero.

She’s started to hit for fun, which is a phase, I’m sure (I’m not sure, however, where she gets that — Chris and I don’t hit her or each other, so I imagine she sees that at school? Or is it just a natural thing? I don’t know), so lately we’ve had to show her how to be “nice.” Now she goes around saying, “Nice, nice” and petting my leg or (deigning to; see below) give me a hug.

Something Chris and I noticed fairly recently is that she totally gives bro hugs. Months back, her school BFF hugged her when we arrived at drop-off and the look on LG’s face was nothing but disgust and disdain. (Another thing I don’t get, because we are big huggers, really.) Once over the initial shock of that public display of affection, she has started hugging, but she is in and out. Lean in (BARELY), tap tap, AND I’M OUT, BRAH. No time for hugs — these books aren’t going to read themselves.

Duly unimpressed with this kid trying to mack on her. Also…Not sure about the robe.

For all the toys she’s got, she much prefers reading the same books, over and over (and over and over) again or going on a “walk.” Chris has passed on his habit of pacing and the two of them — or the two of us, if Chris isn’t around, although I prefer to not pace — will walk hand-in-hand over to the front window and monitor what’s happening outside. Neighborhood watch is in full force here — don’t try anything funny.

She has learned that always saying “no” as a knee-jerk reaction to questions isn’t really working for her, so when we ask her something (for example, “Do you want some milk?”), she very, very solemnly nods “yes.” She also has learned that before meals and/or baths, she has to clean up all her toys and books and she is quite the mother’s helper with throwing things away (no car keys have been trashed…yet) and cleaning up her spills and messes. She’s also very particular about her stuff — she likes things stacked in a row and just so — so it seems I’ve passed that bit of OCD on to her. Sorry, kid.

Suffice it to say, LG is pretty rad these days — incessant whining aside, OMG what is that about — and I’ll refrain from getting all mushy about her, but let me just say: We taught her to high-five and fist-bump and IT IS AWESOME.

Posted in Chris, LG | 4 Comments

Holy pants and shirts

Posted on January 30, 2013 by Sarah

I’m taking a cue from Elizabeth here and have decided to dress like a human (most) every day and this requires establishing a sort-of routine, things like brushing my teeth before 5pm (real talk) and attempting to get my workouts in before noon, so I can actually spend more than just an hour in real clothes. (Real clothes not to include yoga pants, unless I am actually doing yoga, and sweatshirts. Except right now. Because I have one on.)

Anyway! Operation: Real Clothes commences now. I unfortunately was severely lacking in wintery real clothes (I have a few chunky sweater dresses I bought one size too big back when I was pregnant, which I should probably give away, but eh) but I didn’t have much else, so armed with an Old Navy gift card and intel from my pocket stylist Jess that O.N. had brightly-colored skinny jeans on sale, I marched myself down there and picked up some new things. (Including new yoga pants I AM ONLY HUMAN.)

Major confession time: These are a size-14 pant. I do not wear a size-14 pant and I have no clue why O.N. decided to do the exact opposite of vanity sizing with their Diva skinny jeans, but if you want to go grab yourself a pair, size up. WAY UP. Also, maybe it’s uncouth to talk about how much our clothes cost, but I don’t care. These were $8. So, they’re size-14 and they gap kind of funny in the back, but they are green and they cost less than two lattes at Starbucks would cost and so whatever. Eight dollar pantaloons, go get yourself some.

I don’t expect much of these items to last long, but it’s also my hope that I’ll be back in my beloved Ann Taylor pants soon enough, so in the interim, I think these will be nice enough to make me feel “dressed,” but definitely not nice enough that I’ll care when LG uses them as a Kleenex or I spill hot sauce on them, both of which will happen, sooner rather than later, I expect.

Since I’m confessing, this t-shirt dress was less than $3 and I bought two (the other one is red, white, and blue striped.) I love them both. Also, I have made no promises to do my hair every day, so back off.

Posted in Beauty & Fashion | 6 Comments

Moving on and up

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Sarah

After I wrote that post on Friday, I found out I didn’t get a job I’d been interviewing for. (How fortuitous! But not in a good way. I’m almost superstitious enough to think I shouldn’t post stuff like that because it will give me bad luck, but I’m not that nuts. Yet.)

It really pissed me off — interviewing had been a month-long process and I really felt like it was the right job for me; I was obviously wrong — and it had been my only lead for awhile, so it was sort of an “all my eggs in this basket” kind of a situation. Not good.

But then on Friday night, I was checking the yoga schedule for the weekend (in need of zen, anyone?) and I saw that my very favorite yoga teacher, who randomly and without reason quit last fall, was scheduled to teach on Sunday. And because I am, okay, a little superstitious, I took it as a sign for good things to come.

Onward, upward, downward dog, etc.

Posted in All About Moi | 6 Comments