moving through jello

Working weekends will do good things for your bank account, but bad things for your sense of time, or so I've learned in my 1+ year(s) working on a weird schedule of, essentially, 2 slow months and 1 really crazy, 10 to 12 hour day, 7 days a week, consider sleeping at the office month. Today, for example, in my head, is something along the lines of Thursday or Friday. Which would be disappointing, since it's Wednesday and all, but I have to work all of the upcoming weekend anyways, so I suppose it doesn't really matter, right? 

The only thing that helped me remember that it is, in fact, Wednesday, was that I had to go to class tonight. I was pretty worn out prior to a 2 hour lecture about Northeast Asia and the Islamic world, read in monotonous staccato from a powerpoint, no less, but now I'm pretty much sleep-typing. It feels kind of like I'm moving through jello, which hopefully explains why it kind of feels like I knocked back a pre-flight Xanax, followed by a few shots of espresso, follow by a glass or two of wine. 

Speaking of wine, I'm sitting here drinking a glass of it, even though I should have gone straight to bed when I got home from the aforementioned lecture. But I find that if I go straight from bed to work to bed, it just augments that time warp business, and I'm enough of an airhead during the busy months as it is. I'm also trying, in vain thus far, to solve the mystery of why part of 16th Street is shut down, and, in seemingly related events, a police helicopter has been circling the Logan Circle area for over an hour now. 

Soon, though, I hope to be sleeping like a baby, pretty much just like this old picture (one of my all-time favorites). I'll also settle for sleeping like my Dad, who looks like he's down for the count, too. 

nostalgia wednesdays: an ode to warm weather

After a cruelly prolonged winter in DC, the weather suddenly zoomed from the mid 50s to the mid 80s, making me daydream of bathing suit weather and lake weekends. It was also the perfect weather to go visit the finally peaking cherry blossom trees around the Tidal Basin. Naturally basically every other DC resident and visitor had the same idea, but we still managed to take a few requisite bloom snapshots and carved out some space for a picnic of subs, chips, and covert mini bottles of wine poured into Starbucks paper cups (which, I suspect, made the aforementioned crowds far more bearable). 

 

After the picnic, on my walk home from the metro, I kind of fell in love with my neighborhood all over again. I don't think I've lost sight of how great it is or anything, but there was just something different about last night. Thanks to patio heaters, the outdoor dining scene here never really completely shuts down during the winter, but last night was really the first time all the local restaurants' sidewalk tables were jam-packed since winter set in. Everyone seemed more raucous and spirited (even the dogs seemed more excited about life), like they knew spring is here to stay, and haven't yet thought about the soon-to-arrive oppressive humidity and return to sub-par window AC units. Instead, they were just reveling in the warmth with an infectious enthusiasm that is much needed as I head in to a stressful 3 week span. 

I'm looking forward to wrapping up my current grad school class and the latest quarterly report to Congress, and penciling in some time of my own to join the patio revelers and to pick out a new bathing suit or two (that won't be nearly as fashionable as my one-year-old self's version, I'm sure) and hit the lake or beach. 

working for the weekend

It feels like it's about mid October right now. Chilly, rainy, overcast, generally icky weather. It all started Thursday night with a crazy window pane-rattling storm that brought constant lightning and cracks of thunder that felt like they were originating right outside my building. I'm normally a huge thunderstorm fan unless they're keeping me up at night. And this one was. But, it helped dispel the 100+ degree heat that was making me wilt. 

If it has to be disgusting outside on any given weekend, I'm glad it happens to be one I'm stuck in the office so at least I'm not missing gorgeous weather. Yesterday I worked so late I had to cancel happy hour with a friend of mine (the horror, I know), today I had to miss a friend's birthday celebration, and oh yes, I have this little final exam coming up on Monday. 

About that... I had every intention of going home from work last night and studying (contain your envy, folks). I even stopped at the nearby 7-11 to get a box of Kraft mac & cheese to facilitate minimal dinner prep time/maximum exam prep time. I feel like the 7-11 guy was totally judging my sad purchase, but maybe he was just pitying my tired face. I have no doubts that it was obvious how drained I was, by the way, because one coworker said to me "you look really stressed" and the other said "wow, you look exhausted" all within an hour yesterday. Thanks boys.  But I was so, so sleepy that I barely made it through a half-dozen flashcards before I called it a night.

how awesome of a Friday night does this appear to be?

Even though I willingly transferred to a part of my agency that has a super crazy workload every third month, I always forget how much it drains me! I'm really, really looking forward to next Thursday, at which point I will conclude twelve straight days in the office, and take a few much-needed vacation days. Until then, I'll be hugging a mug of coffee, wishing my sis and I still owned these awesome 90s sweaters for this freaky weather, and daydreaming about some family time.

 

the final stretch

(Advance warning: it is far too hot, and I am far too stressed for cooking. Therefore this is general rambling about life, and not life+food, as most of my meals lately have been cereal or toast-based)

At about 10:45 Tuesday morning, apparently DC was the hottest place in the US. Probably because the sun was still rising over places like Death Valley. Either way, I think we can all agree that 100 degrees or more is HOT. And once again I blame the heat for my brain functioning on a seriously compromised level. 

Last week, I got off the metro at the wrong stop on the way to work, then Monday, I paid no mind whatsoever to the color of the train pulling in to the station and got on the wrong line on my way to class. And Tuesday? Tuesday I left work with the intention of going home to study for my final, and found myself instead buying four, yes FOUR, sweaters. On a record-breakingly hot day. When I had just finished complaining about being broke. And today might actually be the most embarrassing of all: I commuted to work with mascara ALL OVER my eyes.

Because, to circle back, the heat is melting my brain. In my defense, all four sweaters cost me $20 as part of an odd, off-season buy one/get one free sale on winter wares. I have no way to defend myself on the "should've web studying" front.  Definitely have no excuse for the raccoon eyes.

Speaking of studying, with my final exactly five days from now (the same day, by the way, that the quarterly report to Congress I work on goes to press), I'm right back in the grumpy place I was pre-midterm. I'm always like this before exams, public speaking, and doctor appointments. I spend far too long thinking about just how much I don't want to do the task at hand instead of just growing up and preparing for it. I daydream about skipping it, not preparing for it, avoiding it somehow. Extremely mature, really. So anyways, final exam stress + work stress + crazy heat = sad, defeated little Jenny. Much like actual little Jenny years and years ago. Not sure what heinously dreadful task I was facing this particular day, but I think my little four-year-old face says it all, no?  

The original version of this, which includes my equally bummed-looking little sis, was posted months ago, but I really don't think there's any better way to capture my current state of being, minus a present-day photo, and I look as rough as I feel right now, so no camera is coming anywhere near my tired face.

For now, I'm going to continue on in my general state of denial and think happy thoughts about escaping to someplace a little like this...

(taken summer 2007 on the last family Maui trip)

shudder

Happy birthday to my dad! He's already beat the odds and gotten a hole-in-one twice, but I wish him another one just for his birthday! Once again, I would love to be home celebrating with the family, but, the busy cycle at work kicked off yesterday, so I'm basically tethered to my artificially lit little cubicle unless I'm at home sleeping, in class, or on my way to or from one of those two places.

Speaking of commuting, wmata was tough on me yesterday. I had to stop by the cardiologist's office on the way to work (yes, cardiologist. yes, I'm awfully young to be saying that word. yes, that story is to come). The cardiologist is, in fact, on the way to work, but, I ended up waiting 15 minutes for a train, which then sat in the station for 10 minutes before carrying on towards Arlington. Not exactly how I was planning to start my Monday, but at least it was a good excuse to buy a pick-me-up in the form of a fancy cappuccino this morning. 

My favorite wmata-related thing that happened yesterday, though, was easily being asked out by an old man. {Note: "old" in this case means over double my age. I realize my parents are that age, and I don't think of them as old. However, when it comes to being asked out, anything more than 10 to 15 years plus my age is "old."} 

Anyways, I was minding my own business, listening to music, rushing to class, and then it went something like this:

Old Man: "How are you today?"

Me: maybe if I ignore this person, he will think I didn't hear him {then, I made the fatal error of glancing in his direction}

Old Man: "I said 'how are you today?'...{I hesitantly remove one earbud} oh, are you talking on the phone?" 

Me: {then I made my next fatal error by being honest} "oh, no, music"

Old Man: "where are you headed?"

Me: this is how an episode of "Criminal Minds" starts, right? maybe if I tell him I'm going to class, he'll realize I am WAY TOO YOUNG for him. "I'm headed to class"

Old Man: {obviously undeterred} "oh where do you go, GU?"

{Interlude of me talking extremely vaguely about where my campus is, despite his probing questions, then the train pulls up}

Old Man: "do you mind if I join you?"

Me: do I have a choice? is this a bar? no, it's a metro. get on the train, you idiot, and let's just get where we're going, which, hopefully is NOT the same place.

{Interlude of me making obvious attempts to talk about ANYTHING but myself. See: "Criminal Minds" reference. I got on a pretty great tangent about the new Rush+ thing on metro and how it was ruining my life. Train rolls in to a station where, praise the heavens, the old man is disembarking} 

Old Man: "so could I interest you in lunch some time?"

Me: {fatalist error of them all} "maybe"

I wrote my work number on his metro card {apparently I at least had the presence of mind not to give him my personal number}, and off he went. Once the metro doors firmly shut behind him, I immediately started wondering a) why I'm incapable of either being honest and saying "heck no you creeper" or lying and saying "well, my boyfriend wouldn't like that very much," b) if I'd just met a serial killer, or just a late fifties dude who really likes younger girls. {And I shudder to think just how young he likes them, since I was just hit on by a middle schooler a couple days ago, which goes to show that I don't exactly look my age} 

So yeah, if I go missing, it was a silver-y haired man in his fifties who was wearing a jetblue pilot's uniform and toting a wheely suitcase. I don't remember his eye color, because I was avoiding eye contact like my life depended on it. I think I need to stop watching so much tv. And being so nice to strangers.  

boozy bread

First of all, happiest  father's day to my awesome Dad, who is the most patient dude around. I wish I were home to celebrate with the family, but long distance calls and gifts will have to do this year (not quite as cool as attending the US Open together last father's day...!). 

love you, and your 80s aviators!

This weekend was the worst kind ever for productivity. After a couple of boiling hot, oppressively humid weekends, this weekend saw two straight days of highs topping off in the 80s and no noticeable humidity. That make for the kind of days when you just want to give your city a big hug and take a million cliche monument+blue sky photos. It's almost enough to make you forget that weekend track work on the metro made your 20 minute trip last for an hour, or that you just spent 50 bucks on one round at a pretentious bar. These are the good days, the days you don't quite worry so much about your dead end job and your mortgage.  

the only photo I snapped on this gorgeous weekend (but you totally get the idea)!

Anyways, naturally the long days with perfect weather make things like living at the pool and/or on a rooftop bar far more appealing than the 200 pages of international relations theory reading that needs to get done before work tomorrow.


So after two days in a row of (responsible) roasting in the sun, instead of coming home and reading, I came home and tried a new banana bread recipe. Normally this one is my go-to, but this one was introduced so convincingly on a blog I read that I wanted to see if it was better than mine. Like I said a few weeks ago, I need to be more conscious of trying new versions of recipes. May be a disaster, but I also may find my new go-to.


The whole adventure nearly was a disaster, as my little sun-fried brain full-on melted the butter instead of softening it. I decided "hmm, might as well see if you can cream melted butter and sugar." Ahem, I think the recipe says "soften" for a reason, because my experiment was a grainy, gritty failure. Into the trash it went, and out came another 1/2 cup of sugar and another 1/2 stick of butter (I was making a half batch). Then, my hand apparently had some butter left on it, because I nearly hurled the entire batch of batter into the sink instead of the prepared loaf pan. Somehow it all made it in to the oven, and not my garbage disposal. As it was baking, it smelled like the most amazing mix of bread and bourbon EVER. 


The loaf itself is still cooling, but I snuck a few crumbles, and it's pretty amazingly tasty. In a very admirable attempt to further delay reading for class tomorrow, I also penciled in some laundry time and decided to make the red wine risotto from a successful Monday dinner past (one new recipe a day is plenty, thanks!).      

mine never does end up looking like this snapshot from the recipe...

Maybe now I'll get on to that extremely compelling reading...after I sit on the roof deck for a while...

lagging

Hi friends, sorry for going radio silent this past week. Life got a little crazy to put it mildly. Plus, my family just got back from a trip out west for my cousin's wedding in Denver. Speaking of my cousin, this is maybe one of my favorite pictures ever of the two of us, snapped on the family farm in Michigan. 

Anyways, now that I've put that horrible flying business behind me (at least for now), we'll get back to my regularly scheduled rambling any day now.  Until then, here are some pretty pictures of mountains to distract you. 

And, bonus!, here's a shot of the 45 pound, 4 month old wild animal that some moron had on a leash (like it was a normal pet!) at the nail place where the ladies were getting dolled up on Friday before the rehearsal dinner. It looked both terrified and ready to pounce. So, so weird to see in suburban Denver. 

ps-I think it's so funny that when people find out I'm terrified of flying, their first instinct is to say "oh, you'd have hated this one flight I was on....," clearly gearing up to impart some horror story about landing gear failure or extreme turbulence. I always want to hold up my hand and say "was it on an airplane? then yep, you're right, I would've hated it. No details necessary, really." 

nostalgia wednesdays: sister birthdays

My sister and I were born two years and five days apart. Growing up, people even mistook us for twins, which, honestly, is hilarious, because we fell pretty far apart on the appearance spectrum (blond haired, blue eyed, pale vs. brunette, brown eyed, and tan), and I don't think we were ever that close in size until we got older. Aesthetic differences aside, we tended to celebrate our birthdays as if we were, in fact, twins. My parents always made sure to get us essentially the same things, just in different colors, so that no one felt favored or left out. 


I don't know if we fully appreciated the proximity of our birthdays at the time, but I really, really miss celebrating my birthday with her now that we're grown up and live apart. This year we'll be in Denver for our cousin's wedding a week after her birthday, so I imagine we'll attempt a belated celebration. 


If we were home in NC, I'd totally make her/us these cookies. 

I've had a go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe since I was in middle school. In general, I'm very "no, this recipe is acceptable, decent or good, even, but I'm not going to branch out from the safety of its mediocrity." Analyze that as you wish. I'm busy eating my new recipe's cookies. 


I'm not sure what convinced me to put my old recipe aside and take a new one for a spin. Maybe it was the effusiveness of the blogger's description of the cookies. It certainly wasn't the universe, which was clearly trying to tell me something the day I decided to make these suckers. 


I had forgone my lovely bright pink rain boots that morning in favor of flip flops, deeming the 30% chance of rain negligible. A comically torrential downpour set in shortly after my detour from the metro to the grocery to get the last few ingredients, when I was about 2 blocks from my apartment, nearly safe and dry. In a mere two blocks, I was soaked up to my waist, even with an umbrella. It rained so hard so quickly that the rivers of running water were ankle-deep. I was so tempted to toss my umbrella aside, kick off my flip flops, and just splash around like a kid.  


The two new bags of flour, cake and bread, that I had just spent $8 on to concoct these supposedly life changing cookies, were soaked. I had forgotten, again, to restock my toilet paper supply, and had to meet one of my Venice friends for dinner in two hours, but by God, I was going to make those dang cookies. Or rather the dough, for the recipe demands that you wait at least 24, but preferably 36 hours, to bake them. 


You should check out the original blog post about the recipe. It lists all sorts of secrets to the success of the world's greatest cookies, all of which I attempted to adhere to strictly. I even followed the blogger's lead and tested the dough at various points in the process. 


I can't lie, my go-to recipe will always hold a special place in my heart, and I'll always think of the cookies as the dessert that stoked my love for baking. But these newbies are pretty amazing. They're an awfully significant time commitment, and there's the whole need for two types of specialty flour, but they are awfully sinfully good. Sister birthday good, you might say.


I hope you have an occasion to give them a try, even if the universe does its best to dissuade you, too. In the meantime, happiest birthday to my beautiful sister. See you in a week!

a diplomatic pub crawl

First, happy mother's day to this lovely lady!

Second, happy embassy open house weekend! Yes, that's right, I just made that a thing. Try to control your jealousy over my overt cool-ness.  


But really, if you live in DC and haven't heard of, or haven't been to, the embassies' open houses, you're really missing out. As we overheard one man say, it's like a diplomatic pub crawl! One of my friends introduced me to the concept last weekend when the non-EU embassies hosted anyone who cared to stop by. 


In the spirit of acquiring hobbies that don't involve baking desserts that call for more than two sticks of butter or meeting all the wrong men, I agreed to join her. Also, I'm preternaturally curious, and especially now that I live near a hand full of the gorgeous buildings, I've only become more interested in seeing the interiors of the many, many embassies that call DC home.


This weekend, a whole slew of the EU embassies opened their doors all over the District, and we covered many, many miles, making it to Belgium, Finland, Sweden, the UK, Ireland, Croatia, France, Germany, Denmark and at least one other that I'm forgetting. It seems to be a bit of a competition amongst the staffers, which works out to the visitors' advantage. 


I'm now the owner of half a dozen cloth grocery bags, pens, brochures, and key chains bearing countries' touristy slogans. And my friend and I needed neither cocktails nor lunch for all the free food and drinks the embassies were offering visitors to show off their countries' various claims to fame (think Belgian beer and waffles, British whiskey, etc). Given that there's no admission cost, it's pretty much an overall win. Even if the hidden cost is a touch of sunburn for this pale embassy hopper. 


Anyways, I was too busy nosily checking out the decor and gulping free snacks that I pretty much fully failed on the picture-taking front. But, here are a few from the UK embassy, which has some of the most expansive, impressive grounds I've ever seen within the boundaries of the District.    

British ambassador's home. I know. 

Diplomatic pub crawl aside, I also had a non-mother's day brunch with my friend Neha, who, like me, sadly couldn't be with her Mom today. But more on that later (spoiler alert: it involves that two stick of butter hobby of mine).

(f)easter preview

Easter at the lake, circa 1994. So glamorous, I know. 

The idea of a Thursday happy hour is great, especially in the spring, I think. Slipping out of work a little early for a drink on a patio is one of my more favorite things to do when it gets warm. And I'm lucky in that I'm really happy with the group of friends I've made through work. My former offices in DC weren't as conducive to extra-office socializing, which has its benefits, of course. But I prefer the atmosphere in which there's always a group, or at least a person, to grab coffee, lunch, or a drink with at any given time.

No matter how nice the weather or the group at Thursday happy hour, I must say that the Friday post-happy hour reality is not always so great. Let's just say we were all a little slow to get going this morning, which sounds an awful lot like my complaints of exhaustion from last Friday. 

So while I have a great pesto recipe to tell you about, and a few cool kitchen-y links to share, I am just too darn lethargic to properly articulate either point. 

See, I've devoted all my (limited) energy today, and really for the past couple of days, to being so very excited for a new little tradition that my aforementioned work friends and I are starting this weekend. "(F)easter" dinner. It's a play on "Friendsgiving," which ended up being such a great experiment/adventure/success that Neha and I have been itching to throw another food-centric party (on a smaller scale, this time). We had a great holiday party in December, but decided to keep it simple on the food front, so we're long overdue now that it's April. 

This little dinner party just so happens to fall on Easter weekend, hence the (awful) pun. We're also celebrating one of our coworker's first trips back to the states after a long four months in Afghanistan. And indulging my odd and infrequent desire to cook a whole lot of time-intensive things. Win win win.

I won't spoil the surprise of what I'm cooking (most if it isn't new, sadly, but old favorites are favorites for a reason). I know you're on the edge of your seat, really. If you're at all interested in Italian food or a long overdue homemade ice cream recipe, check back next week!

For now, I'll leave you with one cool Easter related link. NPR's food blog published an article today on why Catholics don't eat meat, but can eat fish, on Fridays during Lent. Being a lifelong Catholic who does her best to observe that rule, I always was more than a little embarrassed when friends would ask me "why does that exist?" and I wouldn't be able to answer. But now I can!  

Happy "whatever you celebrate" this weekend! Family, I hope you're having a lovely time in Georgia without me for the holiday. Eat a waffle or two for me?     



 

oops ("dinner tonight" link)

"oops!"

After consciously employing the awful noodle pun in today's earlier post, I forgot to use mine, and didn't include any sort of link to help you subscribe to the awesome "dinner tonight" emails I rambled on about at length. Even worse? I didn't even notice the omission myself! One of the friends I met for happy hour tonight pointed it out. Anyways, if you'd like to subscribe, just click here. 

nostalgia wednesdays: waffle weekends at the lake

I hit that "must get out of DC now" point last week. I thought I could hold out until this coming weekend to head for home, but it turns out that I just couldn't. Well, that and I remembered a friend of mine was driving to Charlotte on Friday, which solved 50% of my logistics issues, and after happy hour on Thursday, 50% sounded a lot better than 0%. 


The other 50%, that'd be the return trip, ended up being solved by MegaBus. Not because I was dying to spend 8 hours on a bus, but because Amtrak was sold out and a flight was prohibitively expensive. The adventure was spearheaded by our driver Mo-reece. Yes, Mo-reece. I know he spells his name this way because we all spent plenty of quality time together when the bus broke down in the parking lot of a McDonald's in Mebane, NC. 


Believe it or not, that wasn't actually the worst part of my trek back to DC. But much like the fire alarm incident, I'm just not ready to go there yet, especially because I just got my hair done, which I always find that to be an expensive but incredibly effective mood booster, and I don't want to deflate that bubble just yet. Want to get my money's worth and all. 


Anyways, being home was exceedingly restorative, as it always seems to be. I got to snuggle with the dog and catch up with my family (+ some of our Charlotte family). I also got to sleep in, eat out, watch lots of basketball, and introduce my Mom to Ikea. One of the other great things about being home? Mom always makes me some sort of syrupy breakfast. This time we had chocolate chip pancakes and waffles, which probably explains why my new pair of pants no longer fit. Despite my sister's claim that I'm a "human Fiat," the weekend of carby eating seems to have caught up with me.    


The hip augmenting waffles were good, but I don't think anything will ever compare to the waffles we ate by the half dozen at the lake house in Georgia growing up. I have no idea how we first discovered the brand, nor do I actually know what it's called to this day. All I know is that it comes in a burgundy box, is only sold in random grocery stores, and produces the best waffle you'll ever eat. For a while, whatever parent(s) woke up first would be on waffle duty, and would have the difficult task of deciding whether the older or the younger kids got waffles first. At some point I took over the waffle iron, probably because I'm the most type A of the bunch and one of the earliest risers. 


For years and years, especially in the summer, that routine would happen on pretty much a weekly basis, kicking off a day of sunscreen and swimmies. Now that the cousins are mostly all grown up, or at least older and living further away, we don't get down to the lake as often anymore. I only make it there once or twice a year at this point, and while that's good news for my hips, I miss the weekend waffle routine. 


On a related note, I know I haven't baked or cooked in a good, long while. Life has been insanely hectic, mostly of my own doing, and I kind of like it that way, but I'm really itching to get back in the LKTC. Pinterest is full of recipes I want to try, so stay tuned and maybe, just maybe, something current and cooking related will pop up here. 

nostalgia wednesdays: naivete

Oddly enough, lately my Venice nostalgia hasn't been raging at quite the same levels it typically does. Instead, I've been steeping in a different type of nostalgia all together. One much harder to articulate. 


I miss being naive. You know, the days when my biggest problems were along the lines of not having as much hair or as many teeth as my toddler peers, and my baby doll was almost as big as me and yet I still had to tote her everywhere (see above). And let's not even talk about my ruffled bathing suit, which only accentuated that diaper situation. 


I miss the days when I didn't realize that there were bigger transgressions in life than hogging the Play Doh kitchen set in kindergarten. The days when I thought the worst thing in the world was my fourth grade boyfriend telling me he loved me. The days when my world was so small that I thought all I needed was a few American Girl dolls, my sister, and a long afternoon to craft endless stories at our fictitious "American Girl Academy."


I still need my sister, my whole family for that matter, but life, as it's designed to do, has gotten so much more complicated. As time seems to have sped along in fast forward lately, I've become increasingly conscious of how totally impossible it is to do everything you want to do. There are so many recipes I want to try, places I want to visit, books I want to read, projects I want to take on, jobs I want to try on for size. 


Being an adult now (whether I like calling myself that or not) is empowering in the sense that I get to decide, to some extent, which things I do and try. But as an extremely introspective person who is prone to fretting, every decision also brings me a sense of mild panic as I close the door, temporarily or otherwise, to the option I eschewed in the process. 


And the scary part is, this is just the beginning, right? The decisions I make right now are constrained mainly by my budget, my work, and my fears. There will be a point in my life (theoretically) at which a significant other's input, budget, work, and fears will also have to be taken in to account. And if he and I decide that our definition of "family" includes kids, that will, naturally, change everything forever. 


I'm not saying it isn't exciting to think about what's to come, whether it's things I try in the LKTC, places I think are worth the fear of flying to visit, choices I make in my career, or people I let in to or chose to remove from my life. 


But there are times when I feel like I have to make one too many of those choices at once.  Times when I'm convinced I can't possibly make the best decision based on the information or timing. Times when I'm fed up, and just want a reprieve from being the lowest woman on the totem pole at work without seeming ungrateful. Times when I want to throw my bowl of plain pasta down the sink and have someone there to cook something different for me for once. Times when I just need to marinate in the bad day. 


When that happens, I let myself, just for a little while, go back to the days of sitting on the floor of the playroom with my sister, where our toughest decision was what outfit to dress our dolls in that day.  


And since I can't actually go back, I bake. Most people leave it all at the gym, or the bar maybe. But I leave it all in the kitchen. Tonight, I leave it all in these ginger spice molasses cookies. 

gratitude and glazed carrots

 

grateful for the countless lake house weekends when i was growing up

(slightly less grateful for these sunglasses...) 

I realize that both Friendsgiving and actual Thanksgiving have passed now, but it's still the season to be thankful if you ask me. Sometimes I forget just how good I have it, so I've been trying not to lose sight of that this year, even though things don't always go just as I'd like. 

I'm grateful for the big things, like my crazy family and their unyielding belief that I'm someone to be proud of, my amazing friends and their consistent grace in the face of my many quirks,  my childhood full of weekends at the lake house, my comfortable (if small) apartment, my (relatively) stable job, and the freedom and means to do what I please most of the time. 

I'm also thankful for silly little things, like the Bose noise cancelling headphones my Mom decided she didn't need, my bright pink rain boots, the holiday parties that give me an excuse to dress up this season, pictures of my sister and I from when we were younger that make me laugh, the Starbucks solo espresso macchiatos that remind me of Italy, the days I don't have to set an alarm clock, and the realization about a year ago that I can actually cook for myself if I put my mind to it. 

That last one is what brings us to the glazed carrots bit. A couple weeks ago, I was supposed to have plans with a friend, but bowed out last minute (see: their grace in the face of my quirks). I was so exhausted from one of the innumerable pre-7am meetings we have here at work, and just wanted to go home. I was headed for a night of cereal and soy milk, but my guilt complex kicked in, and instead I made garlic naan (from Trader Joe's, so good!), roasted potatoes tossed with this Moroccan spice mix and some olive oil, and these curried glazed carrots (both recipes from a favorite of mine, Dinner a Love Story). 

It involved only a tiny bit more effort than pouring myself cereal and milk, and was far more satisfying. I'm thankful that those sort of choices are becoming more normal in my life. It gives me hope that maybe some day I'll actually be capable of turning out edible dinners on a regular basis for my future family. Now I just need to work on more internet-worthy pictures...

 

ps-I've been adding any referenced recipes to the "LKTC-tested recipes" tab at the top of the main page, including those we used at Friendsgiving, even though I haven't detailed that adventure yet, so if you're looking for a comprehensive list, head over that way. 

nostalgia wednesdays: the OBKB lodge

one of my favorite pictures EVER from the early days at the lake

(no clue what we were doing!) 

Since I was incubating, my family has had a lake place, fondly referred to as the OBKB Lodge. My mom was about my age when she and my dad went in with her brother and their parents on a "weekend place" in south Georgia. Now that I am that age, it boggles my mind to think of being a)married, b)pregnant, and c)a dual homeowner. I can barely afford ONE place right now, not to mention two. And don't even get me started on the whole married/pregnant thing. Let's just say that's a heck of a long way off.

But I'm so glad that somehow my parents had it way more together than I do at this age, because the lake house has become the crux of our family gatherings for decades. When my sister and I were little, and our family still lived in Georgia, we'd be down here every weekend with our cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. Now, it's become more of a compound than just a lake house, since my grandparents built their own place next door to the original lake house and retired here a few years ago, and my mom's second brother and his wife moved down here full time, too.

Every time we come to the lake, and turn in to the neighborhood where our house is, I remember how my sister and I would be SO EXCITED that we were finally allowed to take our seat belts off for the last mile to the house. The weekends were always a blur of my grandma's great cooking, endless hours swimming in the lake, and the cousins always getting in trouble for staying up late talking in the room where we shared a set of bunk beds. 

We've long since graduated from wearing swimmies and playing with American Girl dolls, but we still come back here at least a few times a year for the big holidays. Our already big family is slowly expanding, but it seems like yesterday that we would squeal as my (now-married) cousin Matt would grab mud off the floor of the lake and hurl it at the girls.  

Although our lives have all changed one way or another since the OBKB Lodge was first built, it is still a place of spotty (at best) cell phone service and minimal internet connectivity (aka a slow connection at my grandparents' house, next door to the lodge). When you come to the lodge, you eat, you sleep, and you talk. While that used to drive me a bit crazy, I've become so much more thankful for the chance to check out and relax since I moved to DC.

Anyways, I'm on dinner duty tonight, and I have meatballs and sauce to attend to back at the main lodge. So, Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Hope you're surrounded by as much love, good food, and nostalgia as I am right now.

newton (not fig)

I was always particularly abysmal at physics, so I'm probably going to oversimplify this in a way that would make my high school science teacher shudder, but here goes. I am the perfect example of Newton's law. When at rest, this lazy little body is very likely to stay at rest. And that's on a good (read: easy) day.


Lately there've been some less than "good" days. Nothing tragic has happened (unless you count getting my favorite high heel stuck in a grate and then accidentally kicking said pump across a busy intersection during rush hour), I'm just much busier than normal. I'm trying to balance a two week draining audit seminar with finding a new place to buy or rent and popping around town to catch up with various friends (while trying to kick an on-coming cold). I really like staying busy and seeing friends, but there are some things I really need to take care of in front of a computer, and not at one of DC's many bars. 


So I rescheduled tonight's plans, and came straight home after training let out. Not nearly as interesting as my past two nights (which have involved sitting in the park looking at the White House (+protesters) for a few hours while trying to figure out what in the world I'm doing with my life before going to a rain-soaked happy hour, and watching the District's drag queens race down 17th Street in higher heels than even I aspire to own), but more conducive to answering three days worth of emails, eating real food for dinner, and figuring out how best to handle looming eviction. 


To accomplish at least 2/3 of those tasks, I couldn't let myself sit down on my couch, not even for a second, when I got home. I did dishes, I put my clothes away, I picked up the living room (I mean really, how many Bed, Bath, and Beyond coupons can one girl accumulate??). I then made the terrible mistake of pausing on my couch, which led to the laziest dinner the LKTC has seen in a while: instant rice and some sort of Bengali lentil concoction that gets boiled in its bag for five minutes. Stupid Newton, and his stupid law. 


So now I'm comfily ensconced on my couch, and daydreaming of Halloween parties and other holiday adventures to come (Friendsgiving, anyone?) instead of getting intimate with realtor.com and/or craigslist. Since I inhaled my (very un-photogenic) lentil-tastic dinner, I'll leave you instead with one of my favorite pictures from Halloween back in the little Jenny days (because nostalgia is never out of season). 

make it a double

Lately Fiona and I have been spending a lot of quality time together, and I know Kitty the Kitchenaid [stripper] was feeling lonely and unloved (yes, sometimes I assign not only names, but feelings, to my inanimate kitchen gadgets). So when I had a day last week when I just really needed to bake, it was time to put Kitty to work.


I had grand plans to try and fit in three different chocolate-based recipes: chocolate chip cookies (my go-to), chocolate chip banana bread (quickly becoming a go-to), and the afore-discussed Hello Dolly bars. The grocery near my metro stop, however, does not stock sweetened condensed milk, which is crucial for the third dish. After a near meltdown in the grocery (not at all about milk, that was just the final straw of the day), I relented and nixed the Hello Dollys. 


Turns out two chocolate chip-laden sweets were more than enough to keep my coworkers stopping by my desk all day long. Never one to resist chocolate, I did my fair share to decimate the supply, too. I may or may not have been contributing to that effort when my new boss stopped by our offices for the first time ever. It's about as awkward as you might expect to have a mouth full of cookie when you're meeting the new guy at 7am. 


I've really been slacking on the cooking front lately. I thought life would slow down a little once summer came to an end, but time is skipping along with the road trip coming up so soon. I'm already sitting here wondering how I can be watching Sunday football and planning for the work week again. 


Speaking of the end of summer, since I don't have any recent cooking/food photos, I'm bringing back the nostalgic little kid snapshots. Here's to the beginning of fall!

baby steps

Yesterday after work, I forced myself to go to the Pentagon gym annex that is literally one block from my office.  The happy hour Allie and I were due to attend was postponed, I had a fully-stocked gym bag, and nothing to get home for.  Did I mention it's one block from my office? The guilt I would experience by not going would far exceed the slight awkwardness inherent with trying a gym for the first time.  I had. To. Go.

Despite a slightly comical, less than top notch work out, I type this with leaden arms.  Yoga tonight should be a joy...

But I digress (which, really, you should be used to by now).  So by the time I emerged from the slightly pathetic gym annex into the humid  pea soup of an evening, I was really longing for the "good old days" of peanut butter sandwiches that someone else whipped up for me.

Yep, the good old days looked just like this. 

In fact, the good old...new...days look pretty similar, minus the Peter Pan collared shirts (this was my obviously child-friendly meal last night)

See, when I walked in to my apartment, I was starving, and I had already planned to have a turkey sandwich.  But I thought to myself "why not take it up a notch?"  The options were endless...toast the bread and roast some peppers? Get George (Foreman) fired up and panini press the bread? Make a grilled turkey and cheese on the stove? Throw some sort of chili garlic spread on the sandwich? And what side should I have? Maybe a salad?...

Finally the ravenous lunatic voice in my head quieted the budding foodie voice, and I went the simple turkey route.  It seems really, well, amusing, I'm sure, that such a quick and minor debate made me kind of proud of myself. But it wasn't a particularly long time ago that plain turkey (or plain pasta) every night was the status quo.  I never bothered questioning my simple, rote food choices.  Now I'm at least trying to diversify things in the LKTC.  In fact, tonight post-yoga, I'll be calling on George to help me grill up chicken kebabs with a curious spice rub that I pre-made last night (minus the chili powder, which I seem to be lacking...let's hope that's not the crucial element...). Baby steps are pretty much the way I operate (except flying, which is unfortnately kind of an all or nothing gig, I'm afraid).

But in times of extreme hunger, my newfound dilgence tends to fly out the window. Last night wasn't a dire situation, but I was quickly approaching it.  Once I'm there, it's difficult to recover, and no one likes ravenous Jenny.  She can't form complete sentences, and she may or may not stab you with a fork if you try to derail her from the pursuit of food.

Case in point, my hair appointment last week.  I thought I'd left myself enough time to metro to the general vicinity and get a snack first.  Then I had to work late.  Then the metro had one of its many infamous meltdowns.  So one frantic cab ride later, I blew in to the salon, announced that I would be back in a few minutes, and jogged to the nearby Safeway. 

I picked what I thought would be the shortest line (always a huge, huge joke) to buy my animal crackers and dark chocolate Reese's cups (see: loss of diligence in the face of extreme hunger).  The woman in front of me and her bajillion children were nearly done paying.  OR SO I THOUGHT. 

Turns out the ground beef she was buying was buy one, get one free.  So of course one of her innumerable toddlers got to go pick out a second package.  While we all stood at waited.  The kid finally reappeared and the mother paid.  After taking possibly lightyears to put her food in reusable bags, she decided she needed another couple bags.  Well, here in DC, we pay 5 cents for bags.  So she had to intiate an entirely new transaction.  Finally the man starts ringing me up, and another employee comes to ask him a question.  Instead of, oh, I don't know, multitasking, the man stopped to talk solely to his coworker.  I finally paid and quickly ate, staving off a total meltdown, but I was dangerously close to making a scene in Safeway and/or shoplifting for the first time in my entire life.

The bottom line here is, sometimes I need to revert to the good old days (turkey sandwiches, animal crackers) and forgo the attempts at creativity, or it could get ugly.  Fast.

(I think I'll leave the Peter Pan collars to my five year old self, though)

zen busters

(apparently I have not always been a big lazy bum)

The minute I thought of that title, the Ghost Busters song popped in to my head for reasons unbeknownst to be (I've never so much as seen it).  And now it's in yours, too.  You're welcome. 


Inspiration?  The rapid decline of my first post-yoga zen in, shudder, nearly a year.  When I left DoD last summer, I had to give up my awesome gym membership.  While at State, I never quite found a replacement for either the Pentagon gym or its staggering array of free group classes.  I think we've discussed that I'm on the lazier side of the spectrum, yes?  But now that I'm back in the DoD fold once again, I'm able to re-join the much-loved Pentagon gym.  I did so on day 2 at the new gig, feeling some odd sense of healthy momentum that I feared would swing back in the direction of my comfy couch far too quickly if I didn't wholeheartedly embrace it.  And I ate a couple dunkin donuts that morning and was feeling guilty.  Details. 


Since I don't work at the Pentagon proper, I plan to make the trek over there a few days at week for what I fondly call Pentagon yoga. If I can't do something, anything, healthy two days a week, well, that's just shameful (I never would have guessed my waistline would benefit from my Catholic guilt).  Other days, I'll try to use the little outpost of the PAC near my office.  If it's anything like the PAC, I will be one of the only female, non-military people sweating it up over the lunch hour.  Even yoga, which I think of as being much more popular with women, was roughly 85 to 90% male tonight. 


I digress.  So, since this was my first yoga class in nearly a year, it took every ounce of strength (not much) and energy (even less) that I had to keep my balance and not just give up when we did the bajillionth plank to downward dog.  Not only did I feel proud of myself for making it to class even though I was exhausted and had missed the shuttle (meaning it would have been easy to go on home and just forget it), every last ounce of my concentration was spent trying to do all the moves.  Normally one of the hardest parts of yoga class for me is keeping my mind clear the entire hour.  Tonight, it flew by. 


I floated out of the studio, feeling a little sore already, but in that good "I'm sort of doing something healthy" way.  I floated right on down to the metro, where I read my way through what would have normally been an obnoxiously long wait on for the train (thanks again for that Nook, parents!). I didn't even mind that my phone was dead, meaning I couldn't check to see if a bus was coming.  I'd take the much longer walk home from the metro.  See me being all healthy?  


As I emerged from the station, I was suddenly not so over the moon about my trek home.  I knew it was hot today, but I don't think I had acknowledged just how hot it would still be at 7pm.  Correction: I didn't realize it'd be like walking through pea soup.  That was still simmering on a stove. 


And then I found myself walking between the real zen busters.  


The couple in front of me was carrying large, greasy bags from Five Guys.  I don't even like burgers and fries that much, but I was so hungry that I briefly debated tackling them and making off with what I could. My sore muscles (and maybe some good sense) won, and I accepted that I'd be following the scent of dinner all the way home (where I had, of course, forgotten to defrost something to cook).  


The woman behind me was on her phone the entire 10+ minute walk (apparently she lives in my building).  I'm the first to pick up the phone to help a long walk pass more quickly, but I am hyper-sensitive about what volume I am using.  I loathe strangers hearing me talk on the phone (and generally assume most people don't want to hear me yammering away, either).  This girl, however, had no qualms about giving her friend a detailed play by play of her disastrous dates of late, her fears of being alone forever, her curiosity over why guys aren't fond of her etc.  Based solely on what I overheard on the walk, I could give her a few ideas regarding her more, umm, off-putting, qualities.  In case you're worried about her fate, she plans to (and I quote) "just join the dark side and become a lesbian." 


Between my hunger pains and the Dr. Phil episode unfolding behind me, I felt the yoga zen quickly melting away.  I think this means I'll just have to go back for more next week.