Goodbye April!

Since today is the last day of April, I am going to do a recap! Things I liked about this April:

Person of the month: Jennifer. She is the owner of the apartment we are moving into! It is official. We are able to start moving in on the 8th! Woohoo!

Moment of the month: The lovely nap I took with Stephen this afternoon. It felt so good and completely restored me.

Favorite outing of the month: Drag races in Houston. We always have fun at those!

Favorite book: The Flavor Bible

Favorite movie: How to Train Your Dragon. Awesome movie, and the girl has my name!!! If you haven't seen it, see it! Please!

Favorite accomplishment: Getting checked out on the EBSD. Now I can actually collect data whenever I want! Huge deal.

Favorite thing I cooked: It is a tie between two of my pizzas: barbecue chicken pizza or squash pizza. So yummy! This was hard tho, I love most things I make.

Tonight was the OPAS banquet!


It all started with some mingling and awesome food.

A spinach salad with delicious honey mustard dressing for starters.

Daisies are my favorite flower! They always look so happy and pretty.

Cinnamon butter with the bread! Come to think of it, I actually didn't have any. I love bread by itself. Is that strange?

There was key lime pie, but I am not a key lime pie person. For me, any other dessert trumps pie. Except for cookie pie. But that is more of a cookie.

Chicken for the main course. Delicious!

I had some of the chocolate cake. You can't go wrong with chocolate cake. They definitely didn't go wrong this time!

Here is our Public Relations team. Looking amazing. Can you tell I died my hair? It is a dark auburn. I straightened for tonight, too. I love it!

Well, that is all for now. I will see you in May. Wow, that is terrifying. Has anyone found January, yet? This year of flying by.

Light at the end of the tunnel

Today was a pretty interesting day. I could have chosen to be sad and disappointed all day long. But I wasn't! Why would I be disappointed? I got an email from Exxon first thing this morning telling me that I wasn't invited for a final interview. So there goes my chances for my high paying job (that I really didn't want, but I loved the option).

I still got up and did my workout, and then I made oatmeal, because I ran out of cream of wheat.



It was pretty amazing, actually. At some point, I will make something other than hot cereal for breakfast. But this is working. I like it. It fills me up and makes me happy. I need more of that in my life!

I have made a decision today. There has been much talk of bucket lists lately, and I actually made one on Monday. A full one with 50 things I want to do. It includes a list of places I want to visit, accomplishments I was to...accomplish, and activities I want to do. One of the accomplishments is to get my 200 hour yoga certificate from Kripalu. I like the idea of a residential training program, and I have been to Kripalu twice in the past. I am going to print out an application tomorrow for the october to november month-long intensive, and apply! I will hopefully be finished with my thesis by then, and I can go get a certificate. If anything, it will enable me to teach yoga and get extra cash that way. Or start earning cash, if I still haven't found a job. It is something I want to do in my life. So why not this year?

That is my light at the end of the tunnel today. Something to keep in mind. My life if what what I make of it, not what other people choose for me.

Remember, my giveaway is still on!

Stupid Magazine Headlines and my morning run

I have to get something off my not so ample chest. Many bloggers have been talking about phto shopping and other special edits on magazine photos and covers. Yes, this is pretty bad. We deserve to be shown actual images of women's bodies, especially when we are reading healthy living magazines such as Shape and Self. But what really bothers me are the headlines on the covers. Everytime I go to the magazine section of a store, the covers are screaming at me to "LOSE INCHES" or "GET MY DREAM BODY". Excuse me, but I don't need to lose any inches and my body is pretty awesome, thank you very much.


Why do magazine need to focus on all of our insecurities and assume that all of us "need" or "want" to lose a few inches. Why do they keep promoting this idea of thinner making you happier? Why does weight loss need to equal health and happiness?

I wish there was a magazine out there that focused on being sexy and confident without any emphasis on weight loss. A magazine that talked about delicious recipes (some healthy, some not), different work out routines to promote healthy exercise, fashion to promote self expression and confidence, and different activities and hobbies that help people stay at their happiest and truest selves. No mention of losing inches. No before and after pictures. Just pictures of real women doing what they love and most importantly of all, smiling.

I want to start sharing some of my morning workouts. Today was a long cardio day. On these days, I either hill walk, elliptical, or run from anywhere between 40-60 minutes. Then I do some planks and abs. Here was my morning treadmill run! All at an incline of 1.0 %.

Treadmill Speed	Time
4	0-1:00
6	1-2:00
6.4	2-4:00
6.6	4-6:00
7.0	6-7:00
6.5	7-8:00
7.0	8-9:00
6.5	9-10:00
7.0	10-11:00
6.5	11-12:00
7.5	12-13:00
6.5	13-14:00
6.0	14-15:00
6.4	15-17:00
6.6	17-19:00
7.0	19-20:00
6.5	20-21:00
7.0	21-22:00
6.5	22-23:00
7.0	23-24:00
6.5	24-25:00
7.5	25-26:00
6.5	26-27:00
6.0	27-28:00
6.4	28-30:00
6.6	30-32:00
7.0	32-33:00
6.5	33-34:00
7.0	34-35:00
6.5	35-36:00
7.0	36-37:00
6.5	37-38:00
7.5	38-39:00
6.5	39-40:00
6.0	40-41:00
6.4	41-43:00
6.6	43-43:55
7.5	43:55-44:45
8.0	44:45-45:25
4.5	45:25-47:00
4.0	47-50:00

I ran 5 miles in 45:25. I usually run really fast as I near my distance goal. It gets my heart pumping, and I am always amazed at how much energy I still have at the end of my run. It feels amazing! You can probably tell that I have severe treadmill/running ADD, so I constantly change up the speed, and keep the progressions consistent. It makes the workout go by faster, and I know what to expect.

Well that was fun! Hope you are having an awesome Thursday!

Please enter my giveaway!

Beer and nachos

Hello!

I hope you had an excellent Wednesday. Mine had some surprisingly great moments and some surprisingly annoying moments.

Surprisingly great:
While I was giving my students their lab exam, I felt like I was going to fall asleep. So, another student who was in the room studying came and let me listen to his IPOD with him. And then he said, "Astrid, now you've got the funk." That made my day and certainly woke me up! I have the funk!!
As an extra credit question, I asked my students to come up with a cheesy geology joke or pun. One of my students drew me a picture of the bake of a person just wearing underwear. The underwear said, "GNEISS" (which is a type of metamorphic rock, pronounced, "nice". So, the picture says, "Nice 'butt'". Pretty great!

Surprisingly annoying:
A guy was still on the EBSD when I went in to use it. I actually yelled at him and called him rude for still being on there. He didn't suht the machine down correctly, so I had to spend an extra half an hour just setting up.

So now I am home and relaxing after the best snack ever.


Flax nachos with an awesome beer.

The nachos.

The beer!

Hope your Wednesday is ending nicely.

National Hairball Awareness Day

"First, I do not sit down at my desk to put into verse something that is already in my mind. If it were clear in my mind, I should have no incentive or need to write about it. We do not write in order to be understood, we write in order to understand." ~Cecil Day Lewis

Today is: National Hairball Awareness Day and Tell a Story Day

The quote resonates with me, because it is while I am writing that things hit me square in the chest. I figure things out about myself that I hadn't really thought of before. Yesterday, as I was writing a comment on Abby's blog, I realized that I have always put a huge emphasis on "pretty" and perfect things. I make sure to eat the prettiest crackers, pieces of cereal, etc., first. And I always gave preference to my prettiest dolls and toys. I always find the prettiest kids cutest. And when I was little, I wanted to grow up to be pretty. It is no surprise, then, that my first word as a tiny little thing was, "pretty".

As the story goes, my parents took me to a Christmas ornaments store. The store owner picked me up and went around the store with me pointing to everything and repeating, "pretty. pretty. pretty." When we got home, I went around our apartment, pointed at everyting, and said my own version of "pretty".

For most of my life, anything that was less than pretty was not good enough. When I looked in the mirror and saw lots of blemishes, I felt bad. When I saw "extra weight" I felt bad. Now, I look at myself, and I look pretty. More importantly, I feel pretty, because I am finally figuring myself out. I am treating myself well, and giving myself the permission to take joy in the things that I love! Good, right? Right!

Here is what we had for dinner tonight!


Sweet potato, salsa, black bean balls coated in ground flax seeds. Yum!

Scrambled eggs, vegan pancakes.

Steamed broccolli.

And bacon! I focused in on the balls. They were pretty phenomenal, in my opinion. But I adore sweet potatoes and black beans.

My dessert was a small piece of brownie and banana "ice cream" from my vita-mix. I continue to be impressed by this machine every time I use it.

I worked on my painting more today and added some details while sipping on a new beer that I ust bought. Another Samuel Adams, but one that I haven't tried! Coastal Wheat. Verdict: Not bad. Not my favorite, but really good!

The painting definitely looks more alive now.

I added some planty things.

Some detail along the border.

And little splashed of color.

I may or may not be done, we'll see how I feel about it in the morning.

Be sure to enter my awesome giveaway!

Moving in May and a GIVEAWAY!!

How is your Tuesday going?

Is anyone else terrified by the fact that this Saturday is the first day of May? Do you know what that means? I need to start cleaning our apartment and packing everything up to move to a new place. I am kind of excited, because the home we chose has the nicest kitchen out of the two places. There is even room for a table or some bar furniture, if we want! I would love to have some seating right in the kitchen so that I can enjoy a nice breakfast and feel civilized. I currently eat right in front of Fred's (my chinchilla) cage. At least he is adorable!

What would be especially nice would be a pub set, such as this one:

You can find this set, as well as lots of other furniture at Allbarstools.com. It is part of CSN stores, which offers so many different products, from baking sets, to plates, to couches, to anything you could ever want in your home!

My First Giveaway: The generous people at Allbarstools.com and csn stores have offered one of my readers to win a pretty awesome prize from their stores. I am going to give you the option of two equally awesome presents.

Prize behind door number 1:

Frieling Nonstick 9" Handle-It Glass Bottom Springform Pan

I would be pretty jealous of whoever got to take this home! What would you make with it?

Prize behind door number 2:

Chef's Choice International WafflePro "Five-of-Hearts"

Really cute waffles, right?

To enter: Leave one comment that answers the following question: If you could be a hybrid of two animals, what would those two animals be? Go ahead, play along. Also, indicate which prize you would want to win. Please remember to leave an email, or else you won't win anything!

For one extra entry: Become a follower of this blog, and leave a comment telling me that you did.

I will be picking a winner using Random.org on Monday morning, May 3rd. So, you have until 10:00pm on Sunday to enter. Please eneter my first give-away!

Thanks!

Give me permission

"When you have a dream, you've got to grab it and new let go." I do have a dream. My dream is to get my masters degree to prove myself that I am smart and can push myself to finish something I started. My research is actually "going" now. So when people ask how my research is going, I can actually answer that it is! I also dream of becoming better and better at cooking and painting.

I have always thought in order to be a chef or an artist you needed lessons. You needed someone to tell you that you are amazing. You needed someone to give you "permission" to cook and paint for a living. But how do painters get discovered in the first place? How do chefs develop their signature dishes? Through practice. Practice, and the act of doing the things they truly love to do.

"Some men have thousands of reasons why they cannot do what they want to, when all they need is one reason why they can" ~Martha Graham.

This is something I need to keep reminding myself. I am a chef. I love to cook and do it often. I am an artist. I love to paint and do it often. The above painting is in progress. I painting it for someone's birthday present!

I got free blog business cards in the mail today. They are mini cards and pretty awesome. Maybe I will give them to people? Or maybe I will hoard them to myself. They are just too adorable.

The inside of a fairy tale

A very productive Sunday! I ran five miles, collected data for 3 hours in the afternoon, made homemade pizza dough for dinner tonight and sandwiches tomorrow, made brownies, and played with my pastels. Stephen declared that this piece looks like a secret garden. Maybe he is right. I have been so torn lately in my thoughts. I hate feeling so uncertain about things, and tend to get lost and forget what I actually want.

Somewhere in my core, I still believe in fairy tales. I believe that one day I will meet "the prince", fall in love, and "live happily ever after" for the rest of my life. No one ever tells you about what happens afterwards. No one ever tells you that there is much more to life than meeting the perfect person and being perfectly happy with them forever and ever. There will be confrontations, disappointments, broken hearts. There will still be the happy moments, laughs, awesome memories, of course, but part of me still believes that life should only be the happy moments. It is so HARD to accept the fact that I am imperfect. Now, I know that no one is perfect. But I think that I should be perfect. No matter how many times I tell myself to be kind to myself, I still wake up some days and want to cry because I am not "perfect".

Truly, it isn't the 'perfect' idea that bothers me the most. I have always been a show-off. When something awesome happens, I want everyone to know. I want to validate myself to everyone and make sure they know how great I am. Right now, I feel like I have nothing to share with the world that is of substance. I am doing my research, but never made a name for myself in my department. When people I graduated ask me what I am doing with my life, it kills me to tell them that I am still in grad school, and am not exactly sure what I am doing next. I yearn to impress. Who? Anyone. Everyone. Why? No clue.

Onto happier things. Food.

I made an awesome pizza today! The dough had raw honey instead of sugar in it. It tasted amazing.




On this pizza:

• Barbecue sauce
• Mozzarella cheese
• Caramelized onions
• Pineapples
• Bacon
• Chicken

This pizza was heaven.

It is a good thing there are two pieces left in the fridge!

Now, onto my brownies. I still had a chocolate bunny from easter.

He is now in the brownies. I melted him with some butter to make milk chocolate brownies.

Of course, I threw in a few Reeses Pieces, only on the top.

These were surprisingly great. It is the first time I have made brownies with milk chocolate. Very very satisfying. It is gooey chocolate cake. That's what it is. It bet it would make an awesome (and ultra rich) layer cake. Hmmm...an idea for the future?

There is something about the smell of the chocolate, butter, and sugar melting into each other as you mix the batter that makes everything right in the world. The kitchen is my sanctuary. Except for when it needs to be cleaned!

Art, Sausage, and Chick Pea blondies

I went to the silent auction where my painting was displayed today. Something funny happened. I heard a woman talking about me. She said, "That's the artist that made the tall painting over there." It felt so odd to be referred to as an "artist". It's not a word I use to describe myself. But maybe it's a word I should use. I mean, I do create art. I tranform what is in my head into colors on paper or canvas. I guess I don't consider myself an artist because I have no formal training and my paintings are very rarely planned out. They simply happen. That is my art. Raw. Real. I like it that way!

Thank you for being so supportive of my dream of getting somewhere with my art and food. It is what I LOVE to do. So why not? Right!

I made some homemade peanut butter today in my Vita Mix. I love this blender. I just took a big bag of dry roasted peanuts and threw them in. Then, about one minute later, ta-dah!! Peanut butter. Delicious peanut butter. Definitely worth the money, in case you were wondering.

Lunch was a grilled cheese and apple sandwich on Sesame Ezekiel bread with some brussel sprouts, a pickle (yum!), and the rest of the apple slices.

I decided to join in on the trend of making "blondies" out of chick peas.

My version:

1 can chick peas

1 green apple peeled and chopped

2 tbsp honey

1/4 cup peanut butter

1 tsp vanilla

1/8 cup wheat bran

1/4 cup wheat flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

I mixed this all up in my Vita-mix and baked in muffin tins at 350 F for 23 minutes.

Not bad at all.

Looks good right?

Dinner was great, too!

I cooked up some buffalo chicken sausage in some beer. Not just any beer.

Arrogant Bastard!

I also baked up some oven fries.

The chicken sausage in a hoagie roll with cheese and tomato.

A very awesome meal. Simple, yet amazing.

I bought new art supplies today, and here is what I made tonight!

Hope you had an awesome Saturday.

Oh Life

I have made a decision. I am going to have a booth at a craft fair this summer. I am going to have my paintings and some baked goods there. I filled out a tax permit today and am going to mail everything in tomorrow.

This is what spawned this decision. I have a friend who is in Jordan for the Peace Corps. He sent me an email today where he asked me what my mission is in life. He asked if my life mission was to be a Geologist. I immediately thought, "No." He also asked if my mission was to own my own art gallery. This is when my heart skipped a beat. That would be awesome. Just showing my art to people would be awesome! But I really thought about it, and I came up with an idea. I am going to get "serious" about my cooking, baking and art. By serious, I mean, write down my recipes that I come up with, and come up with themes and ideas and goals for my art. I want to have a recipe book, a portfolio, and maybe something to help make a career out of!

My dream: Own a bakery/cafe that also serves as an art gallery for my art. It would be a place to have workshops to teach cooking, painting for therapy, and such things.

I am still going to work my butt off to finish my research. But I just want to become serious about my "hobbies". And make them into something more!

Did you have a good Friday?


I made awesome cookies today. I wanted to make sugar cookies with Reeses Pieces in them
This is what I came up with:

Wet ingredients:
1/2 stick unsalted butter
1/4 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup canola oil
Mix together until smooth
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla
Mix together

Dry ingredients
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
add to wet ingredients

Mix in 1/2 cup reeses pieces

Bake at 350 F for 12 minutes.

These came out really cute. They are little balls of amazingness. Nice and soft and chewy with reeses pieces. I love these!

I just spent almost 4 hours collecting data for my research. Yup, on a Friday night. I am really really cool.

So I wanted a fun snack once I got home. I made a half a grilled cheese and had a pickle with it. I also drank a Samuel Adams Imperial Series Double Bock. Sam Adams is one of my favorite breweries. I have never met a Sam Adams I didn't like. My favorite: Cherry Wheat.