O-mazing!

I wish every day was Inauguration day! I had the live feed streaming in on my laptop all day and was overcome with pride, excitement, history, HOPE,.... and a little regret and envy that one of my closest friends and brother were down there in the midst of all that (crush of humanity) and that I turned down a ticket in the name of responsibility to my job/school/budget. It turns out that those two had kind of a crazy time and, like thousands of other people, they got turned away even though they had tickets (poor security planning for the ticketed area, overflow of people, etc.) but I'm sure it was CRAZY exciting being down there. It was all I could do not to answer my work phone: HAPPY OBAMA DAY! but it sort of didn't seem professional. Instead I only half paid attention to any conversation, meeting, etc..... and half hummed the national anthem and prayed that obama would stop walking outside his vehicle (WHY do they let him do that??)

Also I was sad I didn't have red, white, and blue fruit to put in my oatmeal. Actually I was pretty sad I didn't have a giant 4th of July jello cake with blueberries/strawberries on it, and an uncle sam costume.. THAT's how patriotic I was feeling yesterday. I did, however, use one of my absolute favorite food combos ever. When my brother and I were little we concocted a 'banana parfait' with bananas, PB, and chocolate...give or take marshmallows and honey. (he'll tell you it was all his idea, don't listen to him). Parfait sounded fancy so we used it, never mind that it's really only supposed to be applied to things with whipped creams and yogurts. whatev. Anyway I used all of those ingredients in my oatmeal and it was heaven. The chocolate melted right in and made it soooooo good.

The other day for lunch I had a turkey sandwich on wheat with Brie and apples. SO RICH. and really really good.

Today for lunch I had three of these veggie rolls.. YUM. I took sprouts, carrots, red peppers, zucchini and tossed it in Italian dressing. I put 2 Tbsp hummus on a wheat wrap and topped with spinach and the veggie mix. It hit the spot after last night's indulgent sushi outing with John where we consumed anything and everything deep fried and with cream cheese (so good and made me feel SO gross).

Tonight is class and then LOST season premier!!!!!!!!!! Get excited... Sawyer, I've missed you soo!

Taking the Skank Train to Skanktown

(Gossip Girl Style) Spotted: a former, now infamous, college friend of mine making scandalous news. Did you ever meet my friend Laurie? She was really more of a friend to my friends. I never was that close with her.. mostly because by the time I met her she had made a few stops on the skanktrain to skanktown. Case in point, she was a petite white girl from the suburbs, who one night at dinner was greasing the cornrows she had given herself (my internal monologue said…. Stop being friends with this person) Seems innocent enough but unfortunate.. right? What about the time she wanted to go dancing in a bikini top and clear plastic light up heels. yeah, who does that? Anyway, after college we all lost touch with her but it was pretty well known that she was into some sketchy business sure to result in making the top of the casting list for Flavor of Love’s 10th season: the skankiest truck stop girls we could find. Where is this going? Apparently Wednesday this off-the-map former friend was ARRESTED on three felony counts for pimping. That’s right, running a prostitution ring. And not the Elliot Spitzer high class ones either. HOW does that even happen? How in the world do you get into that? This is a girl who graduated from college as a math major with honors who was raised in the suburbs by a normal family (as opposed to, say, raised in a brothel by porn stars and vegas showgirls). Where does the skankiness come in?? Where we… former classmates/friends asleep at the wheel here? Should we have been ready to have an intervention at the first sign of a overly-penciled eyebrow? Craziness. And now she’s gellin like a felon and will be supplying me with my next set of Missouri plates. What a topsy turvey world we live in. (note: I realize this sounds a bit harsh, but DUDE, she was allegedly profiting from exploiting the low self esteem of other women. SO not okay)

Whew. Enough of that. Here is Aunt Sara's Oatmeal combo of the day. I had 1/2 banana with approximately 1/4 cup blueberries in my Kashi vanilla oatmeal. Warm on this cold and snowy day.. just what the doctor ordered.

Last night I microwaved an acorn squash. I halved it, scooped out the seeds, rubbed it with earth balance margarine and cinnamon, put the halves back on (secured with a toothpick) and covered in saran wrap. After microwaving for 6 minutes... Vwalla! yummy squash ready to eat. I also made couscous (Israeli type pasta) for the first time. I had it once in a restaurant and was obsessed with the idea of little round pasta balls, even though I had no idea what exactly it was. I made approx. 3/4 cup and cooked it with little sauteed onion, sea salt, ground pepper, and parsley flakes. It was the quick cooking kind which was ready in under ten minutes... take THAT spaghetti noodles.

I enjoyed my dinner while watching the President's farewell address. I'm a little over him these days... is it Tuesday yet??? Good thing 30rock came on soon after and pretty much made my night.... could Tina Fey get any funnier?

Speaking of gossip girl, I am wearing a headband today and have been taking it off to rub my head every ten minutes. I forgot how headache-inducing the pressure can be. No WONDER Blaire Waldorf is so mean all of the time... she needs an advil and to rethink her trademark headband in favor of other plaid accessories.

In other news.... Happy Friday to you, my non-skanky peeps!

Back to school..... back to school... to show i'm not a fool

Ahhhh... Billy Madison. Wouldn't it be lovely to be curled up on the sofa watching Adam Sandler movies and soaps today? Alas, today was one of the days where I packed breakfast, lunch, and dinner in one bag, schoolbooks in another bag, laptop/work supplies in yet a third bag, and grabbed my purse to have a total of four bags (think mule with saddlebags on each side). If this keeps up at least one of those will need wheels before I get all lopsided and hunchy. I think my chiropractor and/or all of those who have seen the hunchback of Notre Dame will agree... not pretty.... no matter how fancy the accessories.

Because my school schedule is all kinds of crazy and I now leave work early to get to campus, my entire day starts earlier. This morning I needed some fuel to justify the pre-6am alarm so I made instant oats. I had semi decided for this blog I would show new veggies/new recipes I had tried. At christmas my Aunt Sara inquired about oatmeal combinations, so the following breakfast incorporates a bit of both (and I made a mental note to try other creative ones i had seen... stay tuned). The last time I was at the grocery store I picked up some dried figs. Let me tell you.. amazo! I had always liked fig newtons, this time it was minus the cake (and hfcs) which you didn't miss at all. Same tough, gooey texture. I used Kashi vanilla instant oatmeal and threw in some dried cranberries with my figs. In one minute I had a warm, fabulous meal-at-desk. Last night I was LOVING spending a long time in the grocery store. I hadn't been home (impromptu STL stop for the weekend, catching up with LOTS of friends (yeah!) class for 5 hours Monday, and that pesky full time job) and had been in dire need of some fresh veggies. There is something so theraputic about spending time evaluating the overwhelming veggie/food options available to you and thinking of all of the possibilities. I love taking my sweet time up and down every aisle and having the satisfaction of crossing off the items on my list (about the only list i can manage to work my way through it seems) Last nights meal (featured below in soft focus, compliments of these shaky hands) was based on this cooking light recipe. Thai coconut shrimp used the following ingredients:

• chopped onion
• red curry paste
• sugar
• large shrimp
• light coconut milk
• fish sauce
• chopped green onions
• chopped fresh basil

I served it with jasemine rice and snow peas sauteed in EVOO, salt and crushed red pepper. (p.s. one of those plates was for John)

Rookie mistakes I made include forgetting to chop the tails off the shrimp before I threw them in the pot and using too much coconut milk. What can I say... I love coconut milk. I was excited to cook with it (or finally make some purchases from the ethnic food aisle in the store for that matter), it is definitely my favorite part of thai flavored things. I used 'green' curry paste instead of 'red' because it's what they had and the descriptions, etc. looked similar. However I was so concerned with not making it overly spicy that I don't think you could taste it at all. Better safe than sorry, right?

I was still hungry afterwards so I made some butternut squash fries. WHAT HAVE I BEEN WAITING FOR all of this time? I love these things! My only regret was having too small a squash that made a small batch. I sprayed them with EVOO spray (probably a little too much) and them covered them with sea salt. I was in love with them and forced John to try, and he bunched up his face like he was completely grossed out... sucks to be him.. more for me!!

Oh man, my classes are nuts. For my law class we had an assignment due before the first class and she had already posted about 200+ pages online for us to print out. I kept thinking I was SO glad I'd double checked so I didn't have an Elle Woods moment on the first day with my big pink fluffy pen being 10 steps behind. I think I'm going to really like my entrepreneurship class but holy reading each week. This means less booze-filled spare time and more studying and food time. Shoes too, obviously, because what am I ... an animal?