A Great Day to be Alive

Reasons yesterday was awesome

1.  Finding hash browns hiding in the freezer + this new sausage from Costco

equaled breakfast inspiration

2.  Not screwing up when making omelets

Seriously, isn’t your life a little happier when they look just right?

3.  Date nights!  We took a walk by the river, then went out for dinner + a movie

4.  Giant flatbread things at dinner

This sucker was easily like two feet across.  Delicious.

5.  Hummmmmusssss.  And falafel.  And other things.  But mostly hummus and falafel.

6.  Delicious lamb and rice

There was cinnamon in there.  Cinnamon in savory things is easily one of my favorites.

7.  Baklava

In high school I had a friend whose mother would sometimes make baklava and send my friend to school with giant boxes of it to share.  I need a friend like that in Portland.

9.  The movie theater was next to a Whole Foods.  That had kombucha on tap

Where that employee is standing, those taps are kombucha.  He kept taking samples, which made it hard to get a picture without being a creeper.  But you can get a growler of it.  Crazy.

10.  The movie theater had beer.  And cheap popcorn.  (ticket+ beer + popcorn = 9.75!)

11.  While we were waiting for the movie to start, the fiance got a call.  From New Seasons.  Saying…

We won BEER from their anniversary drawing we entered a few weeks ago.

I love New Seasons. I love them extra now.

What was good in your day?

Snack attack

There’s a HUGE problem in my house right now.

I am OUT of spinach.

OUT.

I have no idea what I’ll eat.

Yesterday’s breakfast was an omelet with spinach, onions, black beans, and avocado and sour cream on top

Then my cousin’s family came over so that the men could work on the fence.  It’s resembling a fence now!

It’s rather corral-like at the moment.  Which I’m pretty sure means I’m getting a pony!

Unpictured lunch of pizza and a gigantic salad.  More spinach in my tummy.

After my cousin’s family left, I got suppppper snacky.

First I had corn, black beans, onions, sour cream, and avocado

But Very Hungry Caterpillar style, I was stilllll hungry

So then it was sliced banana with chocolate

And honestly, I could’ve eaten more, but I knew the last bit of spinach was waiting for me at dinner.  Needed to save room.

Dinner was pot pie plus another big ol’ salad

apples, walnuts, olives, and other delicious things on there.  Romaine added in because there was hardly any spinach left.

And, after dinner I was stillllll snacky, so I made this

Popcorn + mini chocolate chips.

Sooooo good.  Sweet + salty = happy.

Now I’m off to kill time till Costco opens so I can hook myself up with another pound of baby spinach.

Snowpocalypse

To all of you who asked, yes, we’re going to make that wine cork thang into a bulletin board.  Although I’m kinda not wanting to cover it up with papers-I like it too much!  We still have more corks too (not kidding!  there’s a lot of wine in our lives I guess) so I think we’re going to do trivets next.

As I told y’all yesterday, we got an awesome snowstorm here in Portland. I was loving it.  I settled in with some quality reading, tea, and yogurt in front of the fire

Oh!  I almost forgot-I made granola yesterday.  And didn’t manage to take a picture of the final product (whoops!) but check out my pretty new bowl and measuring cup!

I now have matching (bright, multi color) measuring bowls, cups, and spoons.  Pretty fab.

So playdate with Mama Pea, pretty snow, homemade granola to stuff my face with… Pretty great day.  The only problem?

My fiance works in Salem.  Google maps tells me it takes 51 minutes to go from his office to our house.  Normally, he takes a van pool, and I pick him up.

Yesterday, he left work at 4.  And got home at 9:30.

Turns out snow isn’t so awesome when you have a commute.

When the poor man finally got home (bus to Willsonville, train to Beaverton, car ride from there thanks to a stranger, walking the last few blocks) he was FREEZING.  I did my best to warm him up

Hot cocoa.  (Yes, massive amount of splenda.  Someone gave it to me.  Waste not want not.  And possibly get cancer someday.)

Homemade bread

And some turkey soup

(Made from the stock I cooked on the Little House on the Prairie stove! )

Since most of his office had similar commutes last night, they worked from home today. That meant we could hang out over breakfast

(yogurt, half a banana, and homemade granola)

It’s a lot nicer than our normal morning routine of me microwaving him some oatmeal to eat in the car.

Then we worked from home Target

(BTW it costs 1.25 for a fountain drink, or 1.50 for a drink AND popcorn.)

Christmas clearance for 75% off?  Heck yes.  But they didn’t have ANY sourpatch candy canes.  I cried.

And tomorrow is New Years Eve!  Weirrrd.  What’re you doing for New Years?  We’re going to see Pink Martini downtown.

Intuitive

Our first day back (that’d be yesterday friends) we were lacking in food to eat… But I managed to scrounge this up before I went to babysit

Added to some whole wheat pasta with parm?  Totally a meal.

The Green Giant boxes of mixed veggies aren’t too expensive when you pair together a coupon and a sale (which, um, I do, cause I’m cool like that) and I love this mix-a solid amount of protein and a nice variety of veggies

I got my first teaching paycheck last night (and my second today!) so we went out to dinner as the fiance felt we should celebrate.

I wasn’t going to argue.

I saw this on the menu,

and I’m a 8 year old boy, so I thought it was hilarious and had to have some.  We got our golden sac with won tons, spring rolls, and shrimp.  So not healthy.

But I had curry that was broth, veggies, and chicken, so it all kinda balances out.

They brought this bizarre but amazing thing with our check.

I think it was tapioca, coconut milk, and corn?  Super weird but I loved it.

And today has been an exercise in intuitive eating.  Mostly in that I have some weird intuition.  I had chicken nuggets for breakfast.  Then a hot chocolate for a snack.  And mid day I decided I was starving for lunch.

What did I eat?

Um

Popcorn.

and right now I really intuitively want some chocolate.

WebMD

I’m feeling a heck of a lot better right now.  Although I’m seriously craving another smoothie.

Only sad thing is that I found mold in the cheese

That we used on dinner last night.  Gross.  And I realized it after I’d put some into lunch #1.  So I made lunch #2 instead

Rice, olives, squash, peas, parm, ‘banzos.  Super random, but it worked.

I went to Les Schwab (they sell tires and things-getting the fiance’s car battery charged).   And Les Schwab means popcorn!

I love popcorn.

Know what else I love?  All of you!  And your love of WebMD.  I’m glad I’m not the only WebMD addict!  Seriously, I am all about the symptom checker.

But you guys wanna hear a sad story?  (the correct answer here is yes!)

One time, WebMD FAILED me.  Like, failed me, and I went to urgent care because I thought I was dying.  Wait and you’ll see-the solution to my ills was so easy.  And WebMD MISSED it! Here’s what happened:

Last Halloween, I was lazing around, waiting for the fiance to get home.  I was so proud of myself for resisting the candy at the class party while I was student teaching AND my bowl for the trick-or-treaters.

But then I realized I hadn’t eaten… like, most of the day.  Whoops.  So I grabbed the nearest snack-some salt and vinegar chips.  Took a bite and-weird!  My mouth was suddenly shooting with pain.  Huh.  I tried again.  Ouch!

Didn’t think much of it… maybe I had a little cut or something, and the acidity of the chips was bugging it.  Ran some errands, came back home, and by then I was HUNGRY.  Tried again.  HOLY CRAP.  It hurt.  Tried eating something else.  Pain.  Weird.

Started trying to pinpoint the pain.  Only one one side.  Then I started feeling around on that side of my face and found A HUGE LUMP.  It was a big ol’ face tumor.

I didn’t take a picture, but immagine my puffy weird face post wisdom teeth

But only on one side (god that’s an attractive picture too.  I should be a model).  My cheeks are not normally that gigantic.

So,  I got on my computer and tried to look it up.  WebMD told me I had lots of things.  Mostly, it told me if I was having sharp jaw pain (which I was) to seek immediate medical attention (seriously, go do the symptom checker)

I called the best second opinion there is, my mommy.  She said to go see a doctor, and thought maybe it was TMJ, which would mean I wasn’t dying, but needed pain meds. And you gotta understand, I’ve been to the doctor twice in the past 8 years.  So when my mommy told me to go, I figured I should go.

So, it’s about 6:30 on Halloween, and I go into an urgent care clinic.  The doctor looks at me for like ten seconds and goes “you’ve got a blocked salivary gland.”.

WHERE WERE YOU ON THAT ONE WEB MD?

So, here’s why this man was the best doctor I’ve ever been to.  He continued:

“You know the old fashioned lemon drops?”  I nodded.  “Go buy a pack of those.  Sour flavors make you salivate, which will help to push the obstruction out”  Ok, perscribing candy.  My kind of man.

Then he added “And I’m going to prescribe you some Vicodin for the pain”.

Candy and prescription painkillers.  Doctor of the year.

WebMD, where were you when I needed candy?  That said, I still adore WebMD.