Goodbye June!

I have spent a lot of time putting together the month wrap up. Why was it so hard? I feel like June didn't even happen. I blinked and it passed. I spent each day simply trying to get through the day. Yes, I painted and cooked, but I definitely just went through the motions each day. Stephen and I just promised each other to not "fail' next month and to enjoy it more! Not that this will be difficult. I did come up with answers for the wrap up, though...eventually.

Person of the month: Steph at Eat Paint Sweat. She is always so sweet, and it is very inspiring to read another blog with awesome artwork. I love her art work and think she is so talented. Thank you Steph for being amazing!

Moment of the month: Coming back home to Texas to my boyfriend, cat, and chinchilla. Oh, and today I had a great hug and tackle from Stephen. That was AWESOME!

Outing of the month: We went to First Friday in Bryan, the town right next to College Station. It was cool to see local artists and walk around the really cute down town area.

Book of the month: Kripalu Yoga: A Guide to ractice On and Off the Mat. This book is awesome. It doesn't read like a text book and has me hooked. It has great exercises, and even teaches you how to put together your own flow of postures. It has been fun playing with it.

Movie of the month: White on Rice, with Lynn from The Actor's Diet. This is a great movie, I actually watched it a few times.

Accomplishment of the month: Crossing something off of my list! I got an easel and have been painting on it. I love my paintings so much, especially my bird painting, and the heart painting from yesterday.

Restaurant meal of the month: We just realized that we went on all boring date nights this month. No new, or really great restaurants at all. Actually, we had awful service pretty much every week. And our last lunch date was very disappointing for both of us. We did enjoy going out for beers at the Fox and Hound, if that counts for anything! We ordered their baked pretzels one night and loved them!! Their beers are pretty excellent, which leads to a new category.

Beer of the month: Fullers ESB

Cooked meal/dessert of the month: This one is actually hard, because if I did anything this month it was bake and cook my little heart out!! For dessert, I loved the chocolate covered cookie dough that I made today, the dark chocolate gelato, and the orange pineapple cupcakes. For an actual meal, I loved the salmon tacos I made, and the bbq dinner with baked beans and sausage. There was a lot to choose from, though!

 Today's dinner was delicious! I made gorditas with apple guacamole, turkey, and black beans.

The guacamole has tomatoes, onions, apple, avocado, and lemon juice. It was really yummy.

Homemade gorditas! These are essentially very thick corn tortillas. They actually came out delicious, and I will be making them again. I will not post the recipe, because they were a little messy and difficult to make.

But it came out nicely. A very very satisfying dinner.

Have a bite? I wish there was better lighting.

Dessert was incredible. I checked out Joy the Baker this morning, and did not hesitate on making these cookie dough balls. They are phenomenal. Seriously, best dessert I have eated in a long, long time. It's a little embarassing, because they are very easy to make.

They are so cute.

And delicious. And dangerous, too! I can't wait to eat more of them. And then make more of them.

I want to address my goals from the beginning of the month. Again, I will say that this month flew by and I am a bit disappointed by how little I took advantage of the time. Honestly, it is summer! I should be enjoying myself. But for some reason, June has been my least favorite month for the past 3 years. That just means that next month I will be mindful and aware and enjoy it!

Goals:

Yoga at least 3 times a week: I started to meet this goal at the end of the month, and I am loving it! So I call this goal a success.
Meditate for 20 minutes at least 2 times a week: I am incorporating more relaxation at the end of my workouts. I do want to add a seated meditation into my routine eventually. I will start this next month. Not quite a success, but not disappointing either.
Create 2 new cupcakes and 2 new cookies: I created one new cupcake recipe, my orange pineapple cupcakes, one new chocolate chip cookie recipe, and one new brownie. Not quite a success again, but not bad, either!
Cook one new thing each week: Definitely a success. I was constantly trying new bread recipes, and being creative in the kitchen!
Try at least one new restaurant: Fail. Complete fail!
Have 2 days a week where I eat something besides oatmeal for breakfast: Success!! I have been having french toast, pancakes, blended oatmeal, as well as my usual oatmeal.
Find a part time job: I still have my little writing gig, but that doesn't really count. So a fail.
Turn in my proposal and write an outline for my thesis: I worked on it. Does that count?
Give more: Another fail, but something I plan to work on next month.

How was your June? Do you feel like it flew by?

A quote to leave you with:

"Don't be afraid to feel as angry or as loving as you can, because when you feel nothing, it's just death." ~Lena Horne

Would you like some chocolate gelato?

My latest piece was done without paintbrushes. I used cotton balls, and q-tips, before painting my hands and figertips and going crazy. It was so much fun and I adore this piece. I am keeping this for myself and hanging it in my apartment.

I have learned something the past few days. No matter how lost I am, I can be vibrant and happy. No matter how blah and bored I am, I can still have energy. For me, it needs to be about accepting where I am right now. Not waiting for what my life will be in five years. Life doesn't start five years fom now (or five pounds from now, or a masters degree from now, or a new outfit from now), it IS now. It's that simple. I am attmepting to take this approach in my workouts as well as in my general life.

For the past many months, I have been woring on finding a balance in my workouts. I end up doing a lot of cardio and some strength. I hadn't been doing any yoga.

This past week, I have been doing an awesome Jillian Michael's DVD, "No More Trouble Zones" and I have been working on putting together new and fun yoga routines for myself. I must say, even though I am not getting a severe huff and puff session dripping in sweat, my body feels the exercise all day long. Jillian's video is great. The only downside (or maybe it is an upside) is that the first weight circuit is nearly impossible for me! But the rest of the video is fairly easy. The first time I tried it, I was considering shutting it off, because I thought it would get harder!! The reason it got easier? I have really strong abs and thighs. It's just my shoulders that were week and that first circuit was all about the shoulders. I guess I am going to get them nice and strong! Yoga has been feeling AMAZING! The best part? Corpse pose. Allowing my body to relax for a good 5-10 minutes after the workout. I am even incorporating it after my Jillian Michaels/strength training days. It makes a huge different for me. I can actually feel energy coursing through me. Weird, right? But very real.

I haven't been blogging lately.

Here is why:

I find myself focusing too much on comments and worrying about why people don't read my blog. Then I think about it. Really think about it. I am blogging for me. To make myself feel good. To see my accomplishments and babysteps on the screen. To have my little corner of the internet. So I am back.

This is what I have been up to:

I have been trying to piece my life together. I started working on this 1500 piece puzzle today. I finished the entire border and the section you see. Puzzles are difficult. But so is life. If you work at it, eventually everything comes together.

I've been eating delicious breafasts and yummy raspberries.

I have been baking desserts, such as this chocolate chip cinnmon rum poundcake. It is pretty yummy!

I have been eating plenty of green things. And corn. I am still on a corn kick.

I went to a really good local grocery store and found Crofter's jam and ate it on fresh bread with cottage cheese. I got the cherry kind and adore it. It tastes good with everything, and I fear that this jar will not last me very long. Oh well, at least I know where to find it now!

I had a finger food night with Stephen. It included freshly popped popcorn, which I also decided to tackle for the first time. I have never made popcorn on th stove before, and I must say, it is so much fun! I must also say something else: melted butter on popcorn is HEAVEN. Honestly. I usually keep things pretty clean and skip the butter, but sometimes you need it. Plus, a bit of butter will not kill you. Ever.

Bacon wrapped shrimp are amazing. This was also learned.

I learned that gelato can be made in your freezer. I made my own dark chocolate gelato. Here is the recipe! It is very adapted from this recipe from Bakng Bites.

2  cups whole milk

Scant ½ cup packed brown sugar

1/3 cup dark chocolate cocoa powder

1/3 cup dark chocolate chips

1 tbsp cornstarch

Bring 1 ½ cups of the milk to a simmer.

In a bowl, whisk the rest of the milk with the sugar, cocoa powder, and cornstarch. Add this mixture to the simmering milk. Add the chocolate chips and stir constantly until mixture comes to a boil. Cook for one more minute and then remove from heat.

Place in a freezer proof bowl and refrigerate overnight if possible. If not, a good 2-3 hours will be okay.

Place the bowl in the freezer and let freeze for 1 hour. Using a hand mixer, mix the liquid gelato. From this point on, check the gelato every 30 minutes to an hour and beat with your hand mixer until the gelato is frozen enough and ready to scoop.

This gelato is now gone. Already, and I made it this weekend. To be fair, it wasn't a big batch. But to be fair to its amazingness...it was really really good.

I attempted to make some white beans in a tomato sauce. I couldn't get the beans to be as tender as I wanted, so I poured the mixture into my Vitamix, added some milk, and turned it into a very thick soup! It was actually delicious.

I made bread. Oatmeal molasses bread from my Joy of Cooking book.

It slices nicely.

And makes for a great grilled cheese on the side of the "soup".

Here is some inspiration and fun stuff from my Awe-Manac:

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author of The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince, which I read in French class!!) was born today in 1900. Two quotes from him:

"It is in the compelling zest of high adventure and of victory, and in creative action, that man finds his supreme joys."

"It is such a secret place, the land of tears."

It's interesting that he addresses both laughing and crying, which are such extreme reactions, but sometimes you laugh when you are sad, because you do not know what to do. So you cry. And sometimes you laugh so hard that you start crying. When was your last good cry? And better yet, when was your last good laugh?

Today is also Flower and Camera day! Hope you had a great one

Mint Chocolate Chip Blondies

Have you watched the show, Work of Art, the next great artist? I watched it for the first time last night. Their assignement was to create a work of art for a book cover for a specific book. One of the options was Alice in Wonderland. I love love love Alice in Wonderland (book, movies, etc). Stephen suggested that I do my own version of this challenge and create a painting based on Alice. I must say, this was pretty fun. It gave me an excuse to watch the new Alice in Wonderland twice in a row, and it gave me "purpose" to my brush strokes. The quote says, "Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle."

I need more ideas or themes for paintings. Any ideas?

A random mess I created before I dove into Alice. It's fun, and definitely got all of my jitters and craziness out.

A yummy egg sandwich with hot sauce and blue cheese. The other piece of bread had plenty of greek yogurt to add a "cooling effect" to the sandwich. Served with roasted corn and some zucchini.

I made blondies for dessert tonight, even though we went out for date night. You see, Stephen had a great idea and took me to a coffee shop for tea and a dessert. We ordered a toffee chocolate bar, with hopes that it would be delicious. It wasn't. I won't eat a dessert unless I love it, so I stopped after the first bite. So did Stephen. Yup, it was that bad.

I had to make up for the dessert, so I whipped up some blondies.

Mint Chocolate Chip Blondies

1 stick unsalted butter melted

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp mint extract

1 cup flour

1 tsp sea salt

3/4 cup chocolate chips (I used a mix of semi-sweet and dark)

Preheat oven to 350 F and butter and flour a 8x8 baking dish or a cake pan.

Cream together the melted butter and sugar. Mix in the egg, and then the mint extract. Stir in the flour and salt until well combined. Stir in the choclate chips.

Pour into the baking dish/cake pan and bake for 20 minutes. I put the blondies into the freezer for 20 minutes and then sliced it into 16 pieces.

Super satisfying! Blondies may be one of my favorite treats, because they are like a cookie but with a budgy texture like a brownie. Plus, they are so easy to make and easy to adapt to whatever flavors I am craving. Plus, only one bowl to clean is a huge benefit!!

Random good/exciting things (to me):

I got my books in for yoga teacher training and am in love with one of the books. It is so fun to read and learn about Kripalu Yog, and I am realizing how perfect it is for me. It embraces meditation, breath, and movement and teaches that you just need to be yourself, nothing more or less. I am also realzing that when I'm doing yoga, I am not paying as much attention to my breath as I should. I mean, I make it a point to breathe with my movements, but I don't incorporate breath work into my practice, which is something I will strive to do!

I also got in a set of weights and the Jillian Michael's No More Trouble Zones DVD, which I may try tomorrow. I am excited to have her kick my butt again.

Stuck in summer

I know why summer usually leads me into ruts. During the school semester, I know what is expected of me and I can get into a comfortable schedule that keeps me satisfied (enough). During the summer, there are no guidelines, so exact schedule, and especially this summer when I do not know what next year is going to bring, I am feeling so uneasy! Thankfully I have my painting, cooking, and I am looking forward to yoga teacher training. Why do I want my life to be so structured?

This post is going to be a nice summary of the past 2 days in art and food.

I have a large piece of canvas. I tried to create a painting on Monday. I got really frustrated because it looked finished, but I did not like it. I had no idea what to do with it. I had used a lot of paint and a few hours. But I just couldn't stand being in the room as it. So what did I do? I took my jar of Gesso and painted right over it. Yesterday I started over and it slowly turned into the piece you see above. I usually don't like birds, but I painted one anyways. I love this piece. I want to be in the same room as it.

Monday was not a great day for me mentally. As the Mad Hatter says, "I don't like it in here, it is much too crowded!" This painting shows that I am coming out of the bad head space. We will know things get bad when I am not painting or cooking. But neither have happened!

Here are some of my food highlights over the past few days.

A Pancake Breakfast

A stack of chocolate peanutbutter pancakes with greek yogurt and bananas.

BBQ Dinner!

Homemade beer bread.

Brats simmered in beer and then coated in delicious bbq sauce.

Baked beans. By the way, this was my first time working with dried beans. It was so much fun trying my hand at baked beans. They tasted fantastic!!

The bbq meal, in its entirety. Quite the little feast. I was pretty proud of this one!

Salmon Tacos

Salmon all flaked up for the tacos

The spread. Looks good, right?

My second attempt at cooking dried beans. These black beans came out awesome, too! There is definitely a taste difference in fresh beans. They taste slightly earthy and more real. I think I will work with dried beans from now on. It is cheaper and tastes better!

My taco before folding! I love cooking the tortillas by soaking them in egg and milk and then cooking them on a skillet. Its like french toast, but in a tortilla. It works best on the tortillas you buy from a bakery, or homemade ones. It makes the tortilla nice and pliable and really really tasty!

Fresh wheat tortillas

1 cup wheat flour

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 tbsp canola oil

1/3 cup warm water

Mix the wheat flour and salt together. Stire in the canola oil. Then stir in the water. You may need to add a little bit more water to ensure that the dough is still a bit wet. Roll into a ball and let sit in the bowl, covered, for 20 minutes.

Knead the dough on a floured surface and divide into 4-5 balls. Cover the balls and refridgerate for at least 20 minutes, or until you are ready to roll them out and cook them.

When you are ready to cook the tortillas, heat a skillet and lightly butter it. Roll out a dough ball until nice and thin and round, and then cook for about 1-2 minutes on each side.

Delicious!

I roasted corn in the oven! So good!

My lunch. I filled one of my tortillas with black beans, pumpkin, and cheese. I also had some cole slaw and the roasted corn.

Dinner tonight: Chicken Wings and Aranitas

The plantain spiders (aranitas) frying up.

Buffalo sauce! Yum.

The wings are amazing! When you steam them for 10 minutes and refridgerate for an hour before roasting them in the oven for 425 F for 40 minutes, they come out so nice and crispy. Alton Brown is a genius for this recipe alone!! I love crispy foods that are not actually fried.

Good things that happened today:

• I found a book I've been wanting forever in the bargain section at Barned and Noble. I bought it!
• Travelzoo had an awesome special to buy a 25 gift certificate to a Dallas restaurant for 2 bucks. So I bought one!
• I am going to start writing for a restaurant review site!
• Amazon gave me a 4 dollar credit Amazon on demand, so I ordered White on Rice! I have been wanting to watch this. It has Lynn from The Actor's Diet  in it.
• I got one of my yoga books in the mail today

Hope your day was good, too!

New yoga mat

This post is going to be exciting. There is a review, a granola recipe, and some pizza!

Review:

If you remember back a couple of months ago, I had a giveaway from CSN Stores. They offered me the chance to review an item of my very own, so I jumped at the opportunity!

This site is a little overwhelming, because they have over 200 stores. Whatever you can think of needing, from furniture to work out equipment, you will find it here. And what it awesome is the fact that many of their products come with free shipping. Shipping costs usually deter me from buying an item, so for me, this is a needed bonus!

I decided to explore their sports and fitness store and found a natural yoga mat to try. I have been needing a new yoga mat for far too long, and wanted to do something good for the environment by buying a natural rubber yoga mat. They are more expensive than I would like, so having the chance to review one seemed like perfect timing!

I ordered the Natural Fitness Natural Rubber Mat. It is 75" L x 24"W.

I was so excited to do a nice yoga routine on my new mat this morning. I love the feeling of doing yoga and being on my mat. I don't breath heavy or work up an awful sweat like I do with cardio and strength training. But for some reason, my muscles feel it later in the day and definitely the next day. I think my body has missed being stretched out and inverted. It is nice to have a new mat to motivate me to get back into my practice!

A huge plus side of this mat is that it is extra long, which makes it comfortable to practice on. Also, I love the green and purple colors. These are my two favorite colors, so the mat is welcoming when I unroll it first thing in the morning.

The one downside of the mat is that it smells like rubber when you unroll it. Simple fix: hang it up somewhere in your apartment or home and wait about a day before using it. The smell will be mostly gone. Other than that, I am very pleased with this mat. It has a thickness of 3/16", which is plenty of padding for my hands, feet, and knees. The mat is also double sided, which will minimize the footprints I ended up leaving on my other yoga mat!

The mat is extra long, which is appreciated. I am not super tall, but I am 5'8" with abnormally long arms (my nickname in rugby was Long Arms), so it is nice to have a mat that I rarely hang off of.

I found the mat to be slightly slippery on the purple side, but when I flipped it over, there was plenty of traction. It is pretty common for a new yoga mat to be slightly slippery, so this doesn't concern me too much.

Overall, I love my new mat. CSN Stores delivered my mat in about 2 days. Thank you CSN stores!

I worked on a painting today that came out a little chaotic. By a little, I mean a whole lot!

I like it. It represents where my mind has been today. Have you ever looked around at your life and wondered how you have gotten where you are? Lately I have been feeling like I have nothing to show for the last 3 years that I have been in Texas. So I took it upon myself to come up with a list of things I have done to make me feel better about myself, my life, and the last 3 years down in the heart of Texas.

• I fell in love with someone I want to spend the rest of my life with. He has taught me that life and lov are not perfect at all. What makes things worthwhile is the desire to work through anything.
• I joined OPAS and was public relations manager. I got to see cool shows!
• I was in The Vagina Monologues.
• I had an internship at Encana Oil and Gas
• I learned that I love to paint! I have donated 2 paintings to auctions and will hopefully sell some. (Check out my Etsy page. The link is on the side of the blog.)
• I started this blog.
• I have been cooking and baking more than I could have ever dreamed.
• I have a cat and a chinchilla. My first real (non-fish) pets ever!
• I was an awesome teaching assistant!

Those are my little things to be proud of.

Now for breakfast!

Oatmeal with banana, almond butter, cocoa powder, maca, with some chocolate almond milk poured on top. It was so comforting for some reason!

I decided to do a kitchen experiment!

I made some Peanutbutter and Molasses Granola.

2 tbsp almond butter

1 tbsp molasses

2 tbsp apple juice

Heat up and stir until almond butter has melted into the liquids. I microwaves everything for 30 seconds.

Pour over:

1 1/4 cup rolled oats

Mix together and spread on a baking sheet

Bake at 325 F for 25 minutes.

Allow to cool and serve however you like! I added 1/3 cup chopped dried apricots, some cocoa powder and cinnamon.

I put some in a little bowl and mixed it with greek yogurt. A great snack!

I used the rest of my pizza dough. Here is what I made: A pizza!

I cooked up some chopped onions and garlic in olive oil and toasted up some pancetta. The pizza also had goat cheese.

It was a simple white pizza, that truly let all of the flavors and textures stand out.

This is definitely my favorite pizza crust yet. It is so delicious, and this crust bubbled up, too. I think I am actually getting the hang of this pizza crust thing.

Hope you had a great weekend!