Food Bucket List

I love food porn.  I am the kind of person that gets down right giddy when my Food Network magazine arrives and I eagerly flip through the pages for mouth watering recipe ideas.  However, I have piles and piles of these magazines all with dog-eared pages and every color sticky note marking recipes I want to try and I have tried notta one!  So last year I had a food bucket list item that I wanted to conquer.  The ever-so-easy (so everyone told me) salsa.  I love me some Pace, but who doesn't love them some home-made salsa?!  So last year that was my goal.  Own a salsa recipe.  Own one I did!  I now make salsa by the bucket loads and while I tweak my recipe each time I can call myself a salsa maker with pride!  With the boom of Pinterest (I love you Pinterest) I pin recipes all the live long day!  Some are easy, some not so easy, some involve expensive ingredients like lobster and truffle oil, and others involve super cheap stuff like a jar of pickles and some flour and eggs.  I have put it upon myself to not only ogle at the food porn I find in my magazines and on Pinterest (once again I love you Pinterest) but to actually make these things!  So once a week I will make an item I have pinned on my food board, or see in a magazine or online.  Give it a whirl, and let you know how it turns out.  Tonight its fried pickles!!  They should be delicious!  I will let you know!

Why is this b*tch yelling at me???

Recently some girlfriends of mine have been getting together once a month for a game night, we open some wine...ok lots of wine but I thought we talked about how we weren't going to judge...and eat some nibbles and after the first few glasses kick in we head to the living room and play a board game.  Oh the fun we have.  The first game night we all laughed so hard my face hurt the next day.  Inhibitions are thrown out the window and slight edges of competitive personalities surface which makes game nights something I wish we did every night.  Last night I was thinking about how often we get so wrapped up in our lives and our day-to-day of bustling to and from work that we forget to make time for some good old fashion belly aching laughter.  Right now with so many "adult decisions" going back and forth in my head (to school or not to school? what subject? can I get a job with that degree? can I get a job anywhere for that matter? why do I hate Syrah so much?) it was nice to let go, act like a kid, and laugh.  I know that I started this journey because I firmly believe that life is too short to spend 6 minutes (let alone 6 years) doing anything that makes you unhappy and while a big part of me becoming less miserable is getting a new job, I also need to remember that I also need to laugh more.  Laughter through the tears...lots and lots of wine :)

....half way....

We are half way my friends!  6 months ago I started this journey desperately trying to scratch my way out of this state of mind numbing misery I have found myself in.  Originally I had blogged that I wanted to start a career in Pilates instruction and while I have not given up that hope, I have refocused my sights on going back to school.  I love school.  I am that person that gets down-right giddy when buying school supplies.  I can actually get lost for hours in a a pen section in the university book store.  Oooooh gel pens!!  I have always loved learning, and even though I didn't get amazing grades in high school, I loved soaking up new tid-bits of new information.  So this combined with my morbid fear of waking up 10 years from now, 40 (HUGE GASP), and still being employed as someones pee-on assistant gave me the idea to go back to school.  I have been pounding the pavement looking for a new job to deliever me from evil for over a year now (really since about months 3 in this place) and every job I want requires more school or years of experience in that specific field.  While this seems like a "duh" notion it chaps my ass that I can't walk into an interview and say TRUST ME I CAN DO THIS JOB.  I know I can do it, its just getting in the door in front of the 100 other people (thank you recession) that are also applying for the job.  Harg.  So my dear friends, I am going back to school.  What school?  Who knows!  To study what exactly??  You've got me!  Not quite sure on all of the details yet...but I have my financial aid worked out and heck isn't that half the battle?! :D  I am sure I will figure it out.

 Aren't new adventures fun??!!!

Where's the wine?

eewie gooey lovey dovey land

Love.  Love is when you take a half chewed Jelly belly out of your mouth and say "ick this tastes awful...try it" and he does.  Or even better when you get your favorite flavor Jelly Belly and you say "mmmm baby this one is my favorite!" and you take it half chewed out of your mouth and share it.  Sharing is love.

I love Jelly Bellys.  I love being in love.

and like that....she was gone

My sister is my best friend.  We are thick as thieves and not a single day goes by when I don't speak to her.  I wake every morning and either call her or text her, and we spend all day talking and texting and chatting online.  So needless to say I am having a mild freak out attack that she just left for Argentina for 6 weeks, during which I will talk to her maybe every 3 days and usually via email.  Freaking.the.eff.out.  A few months ago my sister got laid off from her job and after pounding the pavement for a month solid looking for a new job and not finding anything she took this as a sign that she needed to do something she has always wanted to do but never has had the time to; travel.  She is on her way as we speak to spend the next month and some change traveling around Argentina, Chile, and Peru in search of an adventure.  I am excited for her, I am nervous for her, and I am going to miss her every single minute she is gone. 

I love you Megs.  Enjoy being a wilderness explorer!!

Love.....

Have you ever hear a song for the first time and realized instantly that you love that song.  You listen to it over and over and over and over again.  Well I was at the gym the other day and "Beautiful Mess" by Jason Mraz came on Pandora (Jack Johnson station) and I nearly melted off of my treadmill.  Not a song you would think to work out to...or station for that matter, but I was in a mood.  Recently MP and I used those fateful words "I love you" and henceforth I have been transported into lovely dovey land.  So I have been listening to this song over and over and over.  I love you Jason Mraz.  Not as much as I love my MP...but close :)

Enjoy!

Pinning.

I have recently discovered the glorious world of Pinterest.  Its amazing.  Its wonderful.  Its straight up magical.  I don't know how my life existed without it.  I truly am a new person. 

Its funny though trying to explain Pinterest to someone.  I attempted to do that the other day and I just ended by saying....oh never mind its just too effing splendiferous to put into words.  (Splendiforous?)  That really is the best way to explain it though...kind of like: if I have to explain what it is and why it is as important to the human race...then you don't deserve to know what it is.  The whole idea is (dare I say) kind of silly if you really think about it (but then again so is the word "once" when you say it over and over again...try it...once, once, once, once...weird).  Its just a bunch of peeps "pinning" things to a virtual pin board that they like.  For no other reason then to share an "ooooooooh pretty" or "mmmmmm that looks yummy" or "HAHAHAHAHAHA that was funny" thing they saw and share it with other pinners.  I mean really.  So all day you are glued to your computer or your phone (or in my case both at once...I have an addiction people I get it) and you lustfully look at billions of pictures of pretty, yummy, funny, neat, crafty shit.  Its amazing.  I am in love. 

Thank you Pinterest for giving me yet another reason to not do a lick of work today.  Thank you very much.

Pinning.