Update

The vegan thing has been great. I've cut out dairy/meat Monday through Friday (mostly) for the last few weeks. After the first 3 days with no animal products I could feel a huge difference in my body/health. I think if I quit smoking/drinking beers I would feel an even bigger difference - but hey, I'm a faulty human ;)

I would definitely recommend trying to cut out meat/dairy/eggs for a few days just to see how awesome it feels. And 3 days of vegan eating is a piece of cake. Ideas for you: Bagel/toast w jelly, oatmeal, fruits, soups, pasta, hummus, guacamole, stir fry, veggie burgers, stuffed peppers/potatoes/mushrooms, pizza w/o cheese, risotto, rice, quinoa, veg chili, roasted veggies, granola, lentils, etc. I thought it would be hard to constantly come up with vegan meal/snack ideas, but it's been super easy. Plus, I've found things I like that I would have never ever tried before.

I think it is ready to be "spring" here in Chicago. I am going to put away my damn winter coat once and for all. Cold weather is depressing as shit AND I AM OVER IT :)

We are renewing our apartment lease, which is exciting (and a little scary because woah, commitment). Can't believe we've been there for a year already. I love our apartment. I'm happy that Amanda + Molly + myself live so harmoniously with each other.

I am "running" a 5k at the end of this week. I wish I was in better shape, haha. BUT I've been working out for several months (lost 4 lbs, whoop?). My goal is to finish this 5k in 45 mins. I think that for regular people that is really slow, but I would actually be impressed with myself.

Oy, it's Monday and I don't want to work, but I'm going to go do it anyway.

Day 1: Meal 1

Happy Monday!

I'm trying something new, and a little fun, this week: eating all vegan.

I have had so much fun looking up recipes, reading about nutrition, and grocery shopping - weird? But I am 100% on board the vegan train (at least for this week - we'll see where we go after that). I don't eat very much meat so cutting that out isn't difficult, especially just for a week. The tricky part is not using any dairy/eggs. That stuff is in everything! I put milk in my coffee and cereal. Cheese on pretty much everything else ;) I like the way cheese tastes. That is my main reason for eating it. Taste and convenience, since it seems like every food out there incorporates some kind of cheese or cream. I really don't eat dairy for it's nutritional content - the amount of calcium and protein in dairy is easily overshadowed by vegetables, grains, and beans. For me it's a taste thing. Queso dip, sharp cheddar, smoked Gouda  mozzarella on pizza, pepper jack slices on a sandwich, Parmesan cheese on ANYTHING EVER.

I won't get into the politics of meat/dairy consumption - at least not right now. It's a topic I'm slowly and eagerly learning about. There is SO MUCH information out there! And just as much mis-information. So, I think it's good to take it slow.

Anyway - today is day 1 of vegan week :)

Had some coffee w a splash of soy milk, and some overnight oats for breakfast (SO GOOD!) I made the oats with almond milk, 1/2 Tbsp chia seeds, and 1/4 tsp vanilla. Stirred it up & let it sit overnight. I was nervous it wouldn't be sweet enough, but the almond milk & vanilla were perfect. It was delicious cold, which surprised me also! I'm so happy to have a filling/healthy breakfast idea that I can make the night before.

Hollla back girl.

Hi

I'm giving up on this blog - unofficially.
As we know, I'm not great at updating and I never know what to write about.

I can't wait for winter to come to an end. The cozy nights and soups and warm drinks and slippers and scarves have been fun, but I miss being outside! I miss the sun. Oh how I miss the sun!

Some stuff I'd like to do in the coming months:
take a class (any), check out the yoga studio by me, learn a song on my guitar, run a 5k, try being vegan for a week, brew another batch of beer, go to a casino, call my grandparents, send a letter, start replacing cigs with e-cigs (again), go to the beach.

27 is going to be a good year for me - that's what I think.

Pop Tart

I am eating a "nutritious" and delicious Pop Tart right now. It is causing me to miss my camping trip from last summer. A squirrel stole our Pop Tarts but it was so cute we couldn't even be mad. He so badly wanted to run away with them, but pieces kept breaking off so he just gave up and chomped away. I respect that squirrel.

New thing #1

Oh hey, it's me - and I already did one new thing this year! Okay, it's kind of a stretch, but for now it counts ;)

I used my new hand blender to make soup - yippee! The best part is that it is the most delicious soup ever.

Butternut squash, potatoes, celery, carrots, and veggie stock. All squished together to make a super tasty orange colored flavor explosion.

My aunt surprised me and got me this sweet hand blender for Christmas, and now I'm in love with it. Plus, it's red. Who doesn't love red?

Resolution(s)

I've come up with a plan!
My 2013 resolution is to do 1 new thing every month.

I think I can be pretty flexible with that :) Anything from learning a song on my guitar, to cooking something different, or reading something out of the ordinary, or drawing, or taking a stab at photography, or crochet-ing! Yeah - I think I like this resolution. I will get back to you as details emerge (from my brain).

2013

Hey - you made it! We made it to the year 2013. Hip hip!

I was reading over the "resolutions" I set for myself this time last year. Whoops, kinda dropped the ball on that one. But hey, I won't beat myself up too much over it. 2012 was a busy year! Let's see...highlights from 2012: I moved out of my parent's house and in with my girlfriend. Skydiving. Got a big girl job. Started flossing my teeth regularly. No cavities! Camping. Parents: divorce. Decided I want to go back to school. Home-brewed 3 batches of beer.

Those are a few things that come to mind. Things are much different now than they were last year. And for the most part, it's looking up from here.

Do I make resolutions for 2013?
We'll see :)

This is how I feel at work.

oh, and this is me learning to use my panoramic camera feature. My cube. And judgmental co-worker.

Fall goals

Hi pretties,

I'm inspired. I'm inspired to make some goals for this Fall. Fall is awesome for a million reasons that I probably don't have to remind you of. And why not make it better by doing some awesome stuff that's gonna make me happy?

This is the blog that inspired me. And these are my goals:

1. Come up with an idea for/Work on a homemade Christmas gift for someone
2. Decorate my bedroom
3. Always be in the middle of a book, or have a next one to read in mind
4. Use the crock pot at least one more time before Thanksgiving
5. Paint my nails, and keep them looking non-ugly

Okay - those are good, right?! It's hard to come up with things like this because I can come up with a million things I want to do all the time, but that's the nice thing about limiting to-do lists to a small number.

My cousin and her friend Ryan were in town for a few days, staying at our apartment. It was such a great time, and it's fun to see Chicago with touristy eyes every now and again. Ryan took this picture from the Hancock building, and I'm going to share it b/c it's just super lovely.


Bye!

Alone time

So, I don't live alone. Never have. HOWEVER, I found many things on this list (32 Embarrassing Things You Do When You Live Alone) to be true of me when I am alone for an extended period of time. Whether it's several hours or weeks, I will certainly acquire some of these habits! I picked some of my personal favorites to share with you ;)

4. Realizing how many meals can be successfully eaten in bed, and not considering the repercussions until you are literally sleeping on a pile of crumbs.

6. Having brief existential crises over how lazy one person can actually get, because it seems like the toe-grabbing thing must be near the top of that category.

9. Beyond just singing in the shower, conducting full-scale operas while washing up with multiple voices, rich instrumentals, and out-of-nowhere guitar solos.

10. Dancing seductively in front of the mirror at length and marveling about how eminently bangable you are.

12. Crying for basically no other reason than it feels really sweet to cry, or maybe you saw something really moving and emotional and profound, like a Snuggle commercial.

13. Getting drunk by yourself whilst browsing the internet and laughing maniacally at your computer screen.

15. Rearranging things in your apartment because you feel that you could always have things placed in a slightly more sensical order, even though it always winds up looking exactly the same.

16. Allowing your eating schedule to become so backwards as to border on the surreal. “Oh, it’s 2:30 AM, time for breakfast! I don’t want to miss the lunch hour at 10 AM, followed by a snack-dinner that stretches on for two hours in the late afternoon.”

23. Remaining in the same pajamas for such an extended period of time that you think the fabric might actually be adhering permanently to your skin.

25. Getting into bouts of cleaning/organizing that seem to put into question your mental health.

26. Having to answer the door when you are in full “hermit” mode and have therefore not seen the business end of a brush or clean shirt in a few days.

30. Constantly thinking of all the magical things you could do with this space you have all to yourself, including painting an accent wall, none of which you ever do.


Haha guess that turned into my top 12 from somebody else's top 32 list. But seriously, I'm not sure I'd come out sane if I live alone for too long.

Snacking

I love food. I really do. I love healthy food, even! The problem is: I'm a bit lazy. I typically don't think far enough in advance to prepare foods, and when I do, I brush it off. This means I typically end up eating crap food, and spending way too much money on snacks/lunches at work.

Well, I'm sorting out ways to remedy this. First things first, I think I need to stock pile a few treats at work. All that takes is one day of motivation to stock up for weeks of snack attacks, I certainly should be able to pull it off. With the help of the internet, my stomach, and my taste buds, I'm compiling a good list of foods to keep at my desk/work fridge:

1. Fruits! (You knew that would make the cut).
2. Veggies! (Fruit's nerdier, better-for-you cousin)
3. Trail mix/nuts
4. String cheese/cheese wedges
5. Cottage cheese
6. Cereal
7. Peanut butter
8. Pretzels/crackers (whole wheat/multi grain)
9. Greek yogurt
10. Bars (Kashi, Luna, etc)
11. Tea (right, right not a food, but it give my mouth something to do when I'm looking to bored eat)
12. Oatmeal
13. Dark chocolate

Hmm, I need to find some frozen treats to keep in the freezer here. Always nice to have something that won't go bad anytime soon.

Getting crafty

The weather's getting cooler. And I'm ready to get crafty. Some things I'd like get checked off my pinterest list ;)



Cutest storage for make up brushes :)



Baskets on the wall in my closet!

Tickets in a frame

Deep picture ledge

I'd like to hang this on a wall somewhere.



Homemade whitening for zee teeth



Majestic.

Saving

If you are like me, and you don't have an unlimited amount of money/jewels/gold egg-laying geese, then you probably like to (need to?) save moolah.

Saving money can be so tricky. I am constantly making budgets, and picking apart my bank statements ("how did we spend $xx at Walgreens?!" is something you'll hear a lot from me). I'm starting to think that for me, saving money doesn't involve micro-managing my finances. I know people who are able to do this, they know that they have a certain amount of money to spend each week on groceries, going out, clothes, etc. and they always hit that number on the nose. Guess what? That doesn't work for everybody. It's clear to me that my attitude on money is equally influenced by my mom and dad. My mom's known for being pretty frugal, and my dad is a bit more "live in the moment" kind of spender. He won't even think twice before taking me and my friends out to a nice dinner that would take me a month (or 2...or 3) to save up for.

I like that my parents are different with money, because I have aspects of both of them. I love to save & find deals, and I also make sure to save enough that I can occasionally splurge. But now I'm interested in ways other than budgeting to save. I would like to share some of my thoughts :)

• Use the freezer! Oh my god, my biggest expense right now is food (going out, ordering in, groceries, buying lunch at work, snacks, etc.) When we cook food and freeze it for later, we save SO MUCH. First of all, we're not wasting food. And second, when we're so lazy that we want to order out...we just scamper to the freezer and re heat whatever concoctions we can find. The freezer is my friend.
• DE-CLUTTER. Staying organized and knowing where things are means using the things you already have and not buying excess. For me, this applies to almost everythings (clothes, medicine, food, makeup, dishes, etc.) I love how good it feels to get rid of things that I don't use anymore. And on the bonus side - if I get rid of a bunch of clothes, I don't feel guilty about adding 1 or 2 new things to my closet :)
• Make a list when shopping - groceries and otherwise. Try really hard not to stray. This is most difficult for me at Target. Sometimes I won't allow myself to walk in certain areas where my will power is lowest. That usually means I don't go anywhere near the clothing section at Target - IT IS MY KRYPTONITE.
• Direct Deposit! I love that my employer allows me to split up my direct deposit into different bank accounts. That way, I can have a certain percentage of all my paychecks automatically go into a secret savings account that I try not to get into. Whenever I am the middle man in a monetary transaction...some of it always gets spent in the process, haha. So it's better to keep me out - which is why I love my auto direct deposit :)

That's all I've got for now - coffee time :D




the continued

As it turns out, I did have a cold when I wrote that last post. And I am still sick. I missed a day and a half of work - and realized it's not very fun to sit at home being sick, even though I am missing work. I think I'd rather be healthy and at work, than bumming around my apartment feeling like poop.

There's something that has really been rubbing me the wrong way lately, and I kind of need to vent. It's the way people are always complaining about the weekend. In that way where people say, "the weekend was so short!" "I can't wait for the weekend!" "this weekend went by way too fast" or "Ugh, it's Monday already" or even worse "It's Sunday already, that means tomorrow is Monday" grumble grumble.

Really, people?! You're only happy 1 or 2 days out of the whole week? How miserable it must be to be you, and THANK YOU for finding a way to complain about each and every day of the week.

Each and every week it's the same cycle at work:
Monday, "ARRGG, It's Monday! Where did the weekend go?! I hate Monday!"
Tuesday, "UUUgghh, this week is going by SO SLOW. It's only TUESDAY!"
Wednesday, "Could this week be dragging any more?! I can't wait til this weekend!"
Thursday, "I hate today, but AT LEAST TOMORROW IS FRIDAY"
Friday, "It's Friday, I'm tired. But hey, it's FRIDAY! I better find something else to bitch about"

I'm not kidding. It's the same thing every week. And I think it was this combination of people complaining at work + people complaining on Facebook + people complaining everywhere else in life that kind of made me re-evaluate my own attitude. I think I was one of those people, "living for the weekend" for a big chunk of my life. I can think of 3 things that helped me get over that: 1. Growing up/coming to terms with the fact that I don't want to be miserable for the majority of my life, 2. Listening to people bitch all the time, and 3. Moving in with my girlfriend. Living with Amanda is awesome, and the fact that we get to hang out/go on adventures whenever we want to makes me excited every day. Yeah yeah, cheesy, but it's true. And it's been really important for me. Even if it's as simple as cooking dinner together and watching a movie on a Tuesday night.

Anyway, it feels good to vent. I underderstant that people get excited about the weekend, and I think that's pretty regular. Of course it's awesome to have a break from work! But really - being miserable for the rest of the week just seems sad. And I'm getting sick of hearing people complain about it.

Rant over.

Happy Friday! (haha)

ideas

I have an ongiong "blog idea" list on my computer. I read so many blogs that get me excited about making mine better, but I never get around to it. I really want to do more food-related stuff on here! I don't cook too often, but enough to have a once a week food post. Plus, I LOVE FOOD BLOGS.

I also really love crafty blogs, and I think I could try to be a bit more crafty.

My brain is fuzzy today - I think I've caught a cold :( Last night I kept waking up from a sore throat. It's been so long since I've been sick, I hope it's just a one day thing! The good news: I have leftover chicken pot pie for lunch today. I can't wait.

today is this day

I have a conglomerate of 6 mosquito bites on my right calf today. Gross. Despite that, it's a good day. I'm starting to get excited for Fall. No a.c. and sleeping with the windows open is one of those little things that makes me love the changing weather. LOVE.

I'm starting to brainstorm cooler weather related adventures, and that's making me feel better about the upcoming winter (shhh). Fires in my mom's back yard , apple picking, dates at cozy hookah bars with a couple glasses of wine, bed & breakfast weekends away from the city (last year's trip was so amazing, we might go back to the same place), lots of movies and blankets and hot tea, making new soups and re-creating old favorites. Everything in the fall has such a cozy feel to it. Plus - I like scarves and jackets a lot. Oh, and football season!! Haha I've got my Goodwill purchased child-sized Bears jersey that needs to be dusted off and strutted around the apartment in.

Paul McCartney and baby love Fall, too!

This Fall/Winter I absolutely want to experiment with some of my crafty Pins!

In news that is exciting to nobody except me: I'm getting an iPhone soon. Eeee! I will finally join the ranks of the yuppies instagraming blurry pictures while ironically listening to Gotye on the red line! Seriously - get ready for me to instagram the shit out of stupid things. I've been going back and forth debating on the iPhone 5 or 4 (first world problems). What it all boils down to is I'd rather get the iPhone 4 as a free upgrade, even though it comes with lame headphones and is a half inch shorter than the 5. Oh well. Any phone is better than my current p.o.s. :)

Let me leave you with a craft I have in mind:

Welcome, September

I'm not even mad that it's September. In my mind August/September/October all kind of blend together as a coming of Fall time. Right now I'm pretty okay with that. Ask me again once winter comes though. Ugh.

Anywho, I spent my long Labor day weekend in southern Illinois with my mom/grandparents/aunt/2cousins. It was fun! A nice way to celebrate the end of Summer. And I was really excited to get home as well. Yesterday I finally spilled the beans to Amanda about her birthday present, she is psyched! As am I of course. This week seems pretty promising overall.

Today! Making shrimp tacos from scratch, and possibly watching The Artist.
Wednesday! I'd really like to cook these vegan burgers that a friend gave me the recipe for. Also, I'm thinking Wednesday is the day we finally talk about decorating our bedroom (we have yet to put up anything on the walls). I also need to sort thru my kazillion amounts of clothes to get rid of a few things.
Thursday! Patrick (an old roommate of Amanda's) is coming over with a few of his home brewed beers. We are going to have a tasting party so he can try our 2 brews as well :)
Friday! Meeting up with Brittny downtown after work. Fun times to be had! Hopefully not over-indulging in any end of the work week activities so that I am in top form for Saturday.
Saturday! Heading to Wisconsin for sky diving and other adventures to celebrate Amanda's bday. Woo!
Sunday! Reeeeeeelaxing :)

I'm really going to do my best to cook this week. Homemade meals are the best. And I just love having leftovers to bring to work. Speaking of which...I'm off to eat some lunch.

A letter (to myself)

Dear Leah,

I'm not going to beat around the bush here - it's time for me to just come out and say it: you're getting a little pudgy. Especially around that middle area. I know you are aware of the situation, and I think now is a great time to take action! You know maybe some exercise, better eating habits, or even just cut back on the smoking/beers. It's time to lose some of those squishy bits.

Love,
Leah


Okay in all seriousness - I need to do something to get healthier!

I really have gotten squishy and I don't like it at all. Someone recommended that I try the "from couch to 5k" plan. Maybe I will! I'd like to be able to run a 5k sometime in October. I think that's a pretty realistic goal, don't you? I wonder if I could get there on 3 workouts a week. Shall we find out?

Saw this picture. Let's find out if it's true ;)

Desktop

I have finally organized the files/folders on my work computer. It was getting out of hand there for a while. I even gave myself a new wallpaper as a reward ;)




Okay this is embarassing I guess.

Dearest internet world

Coming back to work from vacation is difficult. Went to Door County, Wisconsin Saturday morning (early! Left at 7:45 a.m.!) Came back on Tuesday night around 11 pm. Thankfully I've only got to work a short week, but damn....it ain't easy. I knew when I left work last Friday that I would have a ton of stuff to catch up on when I came back, but really I didn't care. You know, with vacation on the brain, haha. But now...OOOOOOhhhhhhh now. My to do list is out of control and I just keep avoiding it all! *cough* writing a blog entry *cough*.

Anywho - I've got myself a somewhat reasonable to do list, and I am posting it here. As a "fun" thing to do! You better believe I'll be checking things off as I go. Yay, list!

11:15-12:15
work! (begin working on scary pile)
12:15-12:45
lunch!
12:45-1:30
donate blood!
1:30-3:00
work! (continue working on scary pile)
3:00-3:15
break! (go to market, pick up supplies for tonight)
3:15-4:15
work! (again...scary pile)
4:15-4:45
plan top secret birthday adventure for Amanda :}

Woo!

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