april love

Things that made me happy over the past week...

• A few sunny days with temperatures into the 70s
• Bright pink smoothies
• Homemade scones and tea in my new favorite mug
• Daffodils blooming in our front yard
• My first day working a job where I will get to be outside all the time
• My second mixed aerials class at the circus studio
• Watching our collection of seedlings grow and grow
• Sharing a pint of salted caramel of gelato and watching Top Gear
• The potted ranunculus that now lives in our sunroom
• Planning what to do and see on our trip to Asheville next weekend

It was a pretty good week. I think April has all the makings of a stellar month.

epic snack time

A perfectly ripe pear and some very dark chocolate... if only every afternoon snack could be this delicious. 

monday music: stornoway

Today is turning out to be a quiet, lazy Monday to follow up my quiet, lazy weekend in bed with a cold. It's the sort of cold that lingers and pushes you back into bed just when you thought you would be all better. The past few days have consisted of tea, books, and a truly disturbing amount of time spent playing galactic gems 2... embarrassing, yes, but what else is one supposed to do when sick? The only slightly productive thing that happened was the discovery of some new music. New to me, that is.

Stornoway an indie/alt band from Britain who, apparently, have a new album out March 19th on 4AD's record label. The first song is off that release, but the songs I've mostly been listening to are from their 2010 album, Beachcomber's Windowsill.

So, if you too are looking for some enjoyably bright and catchy tunes to distract you from the fact that you can't breathe through your nose or taste anything, look no further! I'm here to help.

snow days

As you may have heard, certain areas got quite a lot of snow dumped on them over the weekend. We live in just such an area. The amount of snow we woke up to on Saturday morning was truly astonishing. I can't remember ever getting this much all at once. I think we got over 2 ft, and because of the wind it drifted into piles much larger than that in some spots. Our cars nearly disappeared. We shoveled and ate cookies and watched netflix and then shoveled some more.

Today it's rainy and grey and I'm starting to feel a bit of cabin fever, but I'm attempting to enjoy one more day of indoor activities like baking and Downton Abbey before going back to work tomorrow. Hopefully February doesn't have any more big surprises like this in store for us!

monday music: oliver

This song made me get up and dance like I haven't in far too long. Here's hoping it does the same for you. 

daily food

Almond milk has been a staple in my kitchen for quite a while now. I like it over cereal and in my tea and smoothies. I figure if I go light on the dairy in certain areas it will help make up for the times when I just can't resist a bowl of ice cream. Unfortunately store bought almond milk has a bunch of additives that I would really rather not ingest, so I've been experimenting with making my own. But it always came out too... almondy. And a bit too gritty. It was alright mixed in with things and I could live with it in tea, but any type of cereal I tried it with ended up just tasting like soggy almonds. Between that and the effort involved, it made it really hard not to just reach for the carton in the store isle, despite all the gross stuff I know is hiding in there.

But I think I have found a solution. Cashew milk is my new favorite thing. The flavor is much milder and closer to milk and the cashews seem to soften up more than almonds after a night of soaking so they blend up better, leaving less of a gritty texture. It passes the cereal test and it tastes nice in tea as well. Win!

Cashew Milk

1 part cashews
3 parts milk

Soak nuts overnight or for at least 8 hours. Rinse and put in blender. Add 1 part water and blend thoroughly, then add rest of water and blend again. If you have a nut milk bag then use that to strain into your storage container. I don't have one yet so I just passed it through a fine mesh sieve a few times until all the cashew bits were strained out. Cheesecloth would probably work too.

There are all sorts of flavors that would be nice to experiment with: vanilla, dates, cinnamon, chocolate, maple... so many possibilities.

end of january days

Finally putting away the Christmas decorations (with a little help).

Leftover tomato barley soup and homemade bread for lunch.

Green smoothie with spinach, banana, ginger, carrot, pineapple, almond milk and ice. 

Afternoon view.

My new favorite mug, full of lemon water. The boy made this in his ceramics class.

I'm trying to enjoy the last of these January days by doing cozy, indoor things... but I sure will be glad when this cold snap is over. February may be chilly too, but at least we can start a few seeds and plan for warmer times.

daily food

I've been doing my best to give up both dairy and sugar this month. Just a month, how hard can that be? That's what I keep telling myself. But it is hard. These two things are very hard to avoid... it's very hard to want to avoid them. Overall I think I've done well. There have been a few lapses (brownie crumbs don't count as sugar if you didn't actually eat the whole brownie, right?), but I feel good about my efforts.

The only problem is that my recipes folder has nearly tripled in this time. Instead of eating cookies and cupcakes and cheese, I've spent a great deal of time drooling over recipes that I want to make when this month is over. I'm pretty sure anyone who follows me on Pinterest must hate me for the constant stream of sugary goodness. There have been some healthy recipes mixed in there as well, but I'm afraid they are in the minority.

The above picture is proof that (when I'm not overcome by the crazy sugar cravings) I have actually been enjoying my healthy menu. My breakfast of choice lately has been quinoa. This morning I topped it with almond milk, apple, chopped walnuts, cinnamon and coconut oil. And a tiny bit of maple syrup. The picture doesn't quite do this breakfast justice so you'll have to take my word for how delicious it was.

2013

Here we are, well into the new year and I'm only just now getting around to sharing these images from our New Year's celebrations. The night was full of card games, drinks, good people and sparklers. A good start, I think.

I'm having trouble this year coming up with any resolutions. This time around all I can think of are things like "take yoga classes" or "go someplace new" and that stuff is just so boring and basic that I can't bring myself to write it down. It's all stuff I've written down before. This year everything feels like such a great big unknown that I can't even think of what I might want to be doing a month from now. I've seen a lot of people choosing one particular word for the year and I think perhaps that might be the way to go. One word to bring a little bit of intention to my day to day life, though I don't know what it is just yet.

In any case, 2013 feels like it might be exciting for me, and I'm ready to see what it has in store.