Sunday Snippets

Today I was actually too lazy to take pictures, but I have some snaps of Friday night and Saturday. Hope your weekend was as restful and creative as mine. 

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Sunday Snippets

This weekend included, but was not limited to: farmers market, birthday party, painting, goodbye brunch, grocery shopping, and art journaling. Some of that is depicted below. Have a great week! 

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Sunday Snippets

I thought about using the pictures I took intending to use each Sunday in the last month, but that felt like too much work. Heh. This is a 3-day weekend for many of us in the US, so it hardly even feels like Sunday. I'm going to a show at The Casbah in an hour or two, to see my friends, the band Transfer. They are really wonderful, you should buy their album, if you haven't already.

Though I've been relatively busy this weekend so far, I have barely remembered to take pictures. But here are my Sunday Snippets, for what they're worth. :)

January morning

I took this picture from my balcony this morning, after my morning walk with Matt. Yep, that's right, we've been waking up and walking while it's still dark. Are you impressed? I hope so! It's nice starting the day together, though in a week or so we'll start separate running programs, so we'll have to go at our own space. Still, nice this week.

What is motivating this bizarre behavior? Just the usual new year stuff I guess. Or the usual home-after-weeks-of-travel stuff. Oh, and our typical too-much-junk-food-and-booze-for-the-last-month stuff. It feels good to clamber back up onto this wagon, but I'm also quite sleepy.

I am a bit disappointed in myself for not blogging the December festivities. In the last month I have been sick around 15 days in total (including the last day of 2011 and the first week of 2012). I have spent 4 days traveling. I've spent time in 2 time zones. Each week I took pictures, planning to share with the Internet world, and each weekend I couldn't bring myself to touch a computer. Oh well. Y'all won't mind a few "Christmas in July" posts eventually, will you? I hope not.

Happy New Year a bit late. This is going to be a good one, I just know it. 

"Restorative" Rice is Right

Why hello, December. Yes, I know, we're halfway through the month and I'm only just catching on--but I can't be the only one, right? Thanksgiving melts so quickly into the Christmas season, it's rare that I am able to keep my head on and really focus on... well, on anything in particular. So many pretty lights! So many sweet treats! So few shopping days! 

Apparently the lights, sweets, and shopping take the place of my common sense and healthy diet. There's limited space in the Christy Life! If we're going to have sparkly lights, we can't have grocery lists. That's just how it goes.

To be completely honest, our diet has been pretty terrible since Beer Week at the beginning of November. Eating out way too often. Too much beer, too much cheese, not enough vegetables, and virtually no exercise. Why am I so committed to putting on 10 lbs right before the only time I see most of my family every year? It's a mystery I may never solve. But it's clearly TOP PRIORITY.

I'd been craving this tofu rice dish for a month now, but I finally made it for dinner last night. Ele, The Kitchenist, introduced it on her blog this time last year, calling it Restorative Rice, and that's exactly what it is. I had a fennel bulb and all of the sauce ingredients on hand, so Matt picked up some kale and tofu while he was running Christmas party-related errands yesterday afternoon. It felt good to get back in the kitchen. So good, in fact, that I put my laptop on the counter and just stood around watching Suburgatory and Pan Am on Hulu during the down time. It felt even better to eat comforting, nourishing, replenishing food. 

Since I basically followed the Kitchenist recipe and you should too, I'm not going to re-post the recipe here. I did use more tofu than called for (I just used the whole package instead of measuring it out), so I probably should have increased the liquids as well, but I'll remember that next time. It still turned out great: spicy, comforting, just-hearty-enough. A successful marriage of Asian and Italian flavors. 

I hope your holiday planning is going smoothly. I hope you're eating your vegetables and taking time to exercise (I will try to follow your good example if you are) and are generally more focused than I am this time of year. But whether you are or not, I highly recommend restoring your health and sanity with a meal like this one. Even if you follow it up with peppermint bark, like some of us did.