pretend shopping

I'm in a self-imposed spending freeze right now so one of my favorite past-times of browsing catalogs and my favorite online stores for fun new things for my wardrobe or my home has been a no-go lately. This mostly gray snow-filled winter has left me longing for spring and glimpses of the new season have been popping up everywhere. So I've decided to indulge in a little pretend shopping and even attempt to make it a regular feature over here.

So here's the outfit I put together on my pretend shopping outing today... and obviously I'm having a pretend 68-degree, sunny day to go with it. :)

striped tank | chambray shirt dress | sandals | necklace | bag

Back in the saddle...

I made a goal for the new year to get back to blogging. Since it's now February, I figured the best time to get started on that goal is right now! What can I say? Things got busy over the summer, then things got really busy around the time that Phee learned how to locomote. I wondered what I should be using the blog for and got overwhelmed by ideas for new projects and new posts and the lack of actual time to do them. So here I am, with the sole goal of actually posting something here on a regular basis. Whatever time allows. Whatever happens to be on my mind, no matter how scattered. I do have some ideas for somewhat regular "features" which might help inspire and motivate me... more on that soon.

So what's been going down since my last post (in August)...

* I never finished my lunch project. So I couldn't actually make an effort to make something delicious and healthy for 30 non-consecutive days. That's downright sad! These days my lunches are back to being a rushed potpouri of dinner leftovers, non-stale snack foods and/or non-rotting fruits, and the leavings from Phee's high-chair tray. Don't judge. You know you do the same thing. :)

* We had a lovely fall and then got 8-million inches of snow.

* Phee turned 1! We celebrated this milestone with a small party complete with a reasonable number of DIY touches and a sappy photo retrospective of Phee's exciting (and adorable) first year. Phee's lack of interest in the delicious cupcake that I made for her was of great concern to this cupcake fanatic connoisseur.

* I finally finished and hung the curtain panels in my office! Bought the fabric in May, bought the curtain rods in September, actually hung the curtains in February. Not too bad. It's truly impossible to take good photos in this room thanks to its tiny footprint and cramped layout, but overall the panels look good and make me hate all of that wood trim just a little bit less. Other projects in that room are still in the brainstorm stage... I'm waiting for the thaw to hopefully bring some new inspiration.

That's a good update for now. More to come.

My summer (un)vacation

While much of the country enjoys their summer vacation, my business speeds into its busiest time, steamrolling all in its path. In the few spare moments when I haven't been working, here are some of the reasons that I have not been online much for the past several months...

* I'm re-reading. I've been making my way through some of the books I read in high school and college with a wonderful new perspective on and appreciation for them. Right now I'm deeply immersed in The Great Gatsby. And I thought that book couldn't get any better when I was a naive ninth grader. Pshaw.

* I'm paring down my possessions (again). Since we moved two years ago, I've done three cycles of paring down the things we own. Each time I find more things that no longer seem important or simply haven't been used or appreciated since the previous pare-down. Newly inspired by a few courageous souls, beyond just clearing the easy clutter, I've been giving serious thought to why I keep some of the things that I do. And I'm trying to put to real use some of the things that I just can't seem to part with. Right now I'm attacking my cookbook collection, which has avoided scrutiny in all previous pare-downs since I really do love to cook. But I'm finally questioning why I keep so many books on the shelf when I gather the majority of our recipes online or from magazines and rarely make the same recipe more than once. Some of the books have barely been opened since they were added to the collection a decade ago. We're currently vegetarians as I work my way through Moosewood Low Fat Favorites, which has long housed three of my all-time favorite recipes but to which I never paid attention beyond them. Everything we've made so far has been fantastic (not surprising) and I feel like this book has truly earned a spot in my kitchen now. So many more books will be put to the test over the coming months. I'll never be a true minimalist (that's not the life for me, and that's fine), but my goal is to keep only those things that are truly useful, enoyable, beautiful, and/or meaningful in my home. We're really getting there.

* We've been a-travelin'. More trips are on the calendar for late summer and early fall. While the swimming pool has been too cold for more than tiny toe dips, Phee has been enjoying her own private jacuzzi tub on the sidelines.

* I've been crafting. My creative life has become far too digital these days, so I'm returning to my collage-loving roots and I'm working on a real baby book for Phee. I'm trying to avoid the mega-million-dollar-industry, sticker-aisle-at-Target, capital-S-Scrapbook style and have been challenging myself to work creatively with all of the scraps of paper, fabric, and ribbon, and antique flea market doo-dads collected over the years that have been sitting in boxes in my closet. Making a digital photo album would have been more in line with my current talents, but boy does it feel good to make something with your hands after they have been stuck on a keyboard and mouse to make a living all day long.

There have also been walks on hot days and time spent with friends over chamomile lemonade, cucumbers from the garden and baby milestones... this summer has been HOT and busy, but there have been many wonderful stolen moments that have kept me happily occupied.

I imagine once the busyness dies down and the weather turns cool and gray, this blog won't be still long enough to gather a fraction of the dust that's been accumulating this summer.

Yum

Yes, the blog has been sorely neglected for weeks. This is a busy time in my professional life and a busy time in my mommying life as Phee gets more and more active and requires more creative forms of entertainment. And we've been taking some marathon walks lately, discovering new places and getting lost left and right. And it's been hot, which makes me - generally - cranky and unmotivated.

On that note, I wanted to share a delicious recipe. One of the only things that I like about summer is the abundance of fruit (on the short list of other tolerable things is a margarita). I'm probably one of a very small few who just can't stand the heat and humidity of summer. Give me an entire year of fall with a few days of winter thrown in and I'd be in heaven. Summer is something that simply must be suffered through to get to fall in my book. Perhaps if I had central air conditioning I'd be singing a different tune... but alas I have but two pitiful window units to get me through my least favorite months of the year. Anyway, back to the fruit.

Good old Martha. Fruit salad is one of those things, like sandwiches, where I feel embarrassed to admit that I often have to rely on recipes to create something good. This is perhaps my favorite fruit salad, ever. I look forward to it each year when the temps skyrocket and summer fruit appears at the grocery store and farmer's market. I made it a few weekends ago for a friend who recently had a baby and again this past weekend for us to enjoy. It's an absolute delight. And is best enjoyed sitting directly in front of an air conditioner.

{ruby fruit salad, courtesy of Everyday Food}

Menu Review: Week of 5/16

Coming off a week of mostly great weather and mostly great dinner recipes!

Rachael Ray is notorious for (among many other annoying things) creating recipes that - while delicious! - somehow seem to dirty every pot and pan I own. Sometimes I feel like I need four additional hands just to keep on track with getting everything done at once. Two of the recipes I made this past week were no exception... the outcome for the pork chops with balsamic strawberry salad and orzo was worth the extra dish-washing. When I was getting everything together to make this dinner, I realized that I had forgotten to buy orzo, so I had to work with what I had... and that was couscous. So instead of making the orzo as written, I threw the butter (I only used 2 tbsp - it was plenty), cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and pepper in with the water required to make the couscous, boiled, cooked and fluffed, and then folded in the pine nuts. Instead of prosciutto, I used bacon (already had some on hand), and I put it on the salad instead of the orzo couscous. The salad was the best part of the dinner and I definitely plan to make that again (complete with bacon). Everything together was very good, but the salad was the real stand-out of the meal. On the flip side, the fish and pasta recipe, while good overall, wasn't good enough to make up for the extra clean-up. I liked the pasta and may make that again, but everything together was just too much work for a mediocre payoff. Oh, and we didn't put the pasta in "lettuce bowls" as the recipe requests. For real?

I admit that I was skeptical (and maybe a bit confused?) about the use of "no boil" lasagna noodles in the BH&G recipe for Lemon Chicken with Olives & Ricotta, but I decided to give it a try because I always have those around. It was good! I added about a stalk worth of rosemary into the pan with the olives and deglazed the pan with a little chicken broth afterwards, but otherwise I made this as written.

What I especially loved about the Avocado and White Bean Salad was that it didn't require any actual cooking. Sometimes you just want something that comes together easily without using the stove and I think this will be a go-to recipe for those times in the future, especially as the temps continue to rise here. This salad was really good and has to be super healthy with all of those good fats and vitamin-packed veggies. I used baby spinach instead of arugula, but otherwise made it as written.

The pizza was good and interesting but I don't think I'd make it again (I used a roasted chicken breast instead of the rotisserie chicken). The enchiladas are something we've made a few times before, we're fans - just don't use low-fat cheese as listed in the recipe. Ew. And make sure you season your veggies to taste (they don't add any seasoning in the recipe and I think it's lacking without).

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What we're eating this week:
Lemon Rhubarb Chicken
Goat Cheese & Sun-Dried Tomato Pasta
Tuna Orzo Salad (a favorite recipe of ours)
Apricot Turkey Burgers (another make-again)
Parmesan Chicken and Greens with Lemon Vinaigrette
Shrimp Cakes with Carrot Slaw

Flashback

Were Tretorn kicks the thing to have in other people's middle school days or just mine? I saved up a lot of babysitting coin to buy some. I proudly sported both the classic white with blue signature "swoosh" and the white-on-white. I wore those puppies into the ground.

So obviously as a tribute to the era of my most embarrassing personal style choices, I'm really needing to get my hands on a pair of these from J.Crew.

Anyone need a babysitter?

Adventures in rice cereal

I've recently discovered that few things are cuter than a baby learning to eat from a spoon.

Phee's verdict was that her thumb was still the tastiest item on the menu.