mmmmmmmm

So in honor of Christian coming home, I made him dinner. (Side note: currently sitting in my living room breathing in my neighbor's marijuana. Lovely.)

Back to Christian. I made him dinner. Too bad he's not here. But he can have some when he gets home at 10:30pm!

I was looking up ideas for my fresh mint. Yes, I know you can use mint in all sorts of things, but I wanted something special. I came across a recipe for spring rolls and my mind was set. Granted, I didn't even use the recipe, but the idea was what counted.

So here are my spring rolls (mango, avocado, cabbage, radish, peanut sauce), tofu in peanut sauce (a la Rich--Ashley's friend), and rice. As you can see, I completely forgot to use my mint, so I used it as garnish. It was so yummy! And the mint really did top it off just right. I hope Christian likes it in 3 hours!

he'll be comin round the mountain eventually

Christian is on his way home! He has been in Alabama for the last week hanging out with the Derbys. Ok, he was working part of that time, but I'm still jealous. And after a week, I'm certainly ready for him to come home.

I have a feeling he's not exactly going to be a happy camper by the time he gets here. He left Huntsville at 9:40am (7:40am California time). Then he went to Atlanta and hung out there for a few hours. Now he's flying to Las Vegas. After an hour he'll head to Salt Lake City. THEN he'll head to San Jose--arriving at 10:00pm. Talk about the flight from hell, huh?

(Trivia: Can you point out all those places on the map?)

vegetable jackpot

Today I hit the vegetable jackpot. A spot opened up on the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) of Two Small Farms (a farm in Watsonville and a farm in Hollister). I was a member of another CSA, but I was really waiting for a spot to open with this farm, because it's much closer and where I grew up.

Tonight I picked up my first box of vegetables. Jackpot! No offense to the other farm (my last pickup was two weeks ago and maybe their crops weren't at their peak yet), but this farm's stuff is amazing!

Here is a picture of my produce and flowers in this week's delivery.

Mei Quin Choy, Bianco Di Maggio Onions, Baby Erbette Chard, Mint, Beets, Cabbage, and um, two mystery items. They are literally called "Mystery" in the newsletter, which means whatever happens to be ripe that morning. Unfortunately, I know nothing about veggies, so they are still mystery vegetables to me.

Looks like I'm going to have to eat a lot of veggies this week!

playpumps

This is so cool! I had never heard of these PlayPumps, but came across them while looking up articles in National Geographic Kids (to use in ESL lessons). They are just like equipment we all played on as kids, only they pump water for an entire village! Kind of interesting that we all ran around and around and around these kinds of things as kids and they could have used our energy for something useful!

Having these PlayPumps near the villages eliminates the need for women and girls to walk long distances and haul back 40-pound buckets of water. They say the average distance an African villager walks to draw water from wells is five miles. I normally have to walk about 10 feet to the sink. Kind of puts things in perspective, huh?

Anyway, you can read more about them (and donate) at the PlayPumps International site. Cool!

the perfect morning

Even though I was up until 12:30 last night (spent a little too much time at the Cheesecake Factory with Erica, Denise, and Trinity), I got up at 6:00 this morning.

This was my morning to relax. Not sleep in--but relax. Sometimes I forget to relax.

First, I went on a walk around the park. I went around and around and around. The air was the perfect crispness and the grass was covered in dew. The smokey sky made for a bright orange sun coming up behind the bright green park trees. I really enjoyed walking for a change. I noticed all the squirrels--fat, skinny, scraggly, bold, jumpy, grey, brown, red, black. We have some serious squirrel diversity around here. The lichen on the trees was so bright it almost glowed in the morning sun. The huge oaks looked like giant umbrellas. One man was doing laps around the park running backwards, and it reminded me that running backwards is really good for your muscles. Remember that for my next workout. The lady meditating in the amphitheater was in the exact same position everytime I passed. Hadn't moved an inch. She was amazing. And the groundskeeper's face was so familiar that I spent a great deal of my time trying to figure out how I know him.

Of course, I got bored of walking after 5 laps and did some lunges. My instinct after lunges is to start jogging (like we do at track workouts), so I decided I had gotten my relaxing walk in and I jogged/lunged/squatted from then on out. It was refreshing.

My morning continued with stretching, scripture reading, praying, breakfast, and meditation. I used to meditate in a religions class back in college and I loved it. This morning I only meditated for five minutes, but that was plenty. My mind is constantly moving, and trying to quiet it is pretty hard. So five minutes of zero thought was a challenge. Perhaps I'll try more again tomorrow.

Of course, after getting ready, doing dishes, taking out the trash, and getting to work, I was totally late. But it was soooo worth it. Have you relaxed lately?

i love lindsey

I love Lindsey. Do you know why? Because she is amazing. In addition to how fun, cute, authentic, athletic, and sassy she is, she is also a miracle worker with hair!

I took her a bunch of pictures of hair that was "not quite right" and somehow she made my hair look just right!


Ok, now everybody ooh and ahh and tell me how cute it is, because you're really complimenting Lindsey!

becoming a rock star

Today I'm becoming a rock star.

I rescued my guitar from the dungeon that was Richard's closet and now it's safe again in my room. I have decided to re-teach myself to play. Not that I was any good before, but at least I knew a few chords. I don't seem to know anything anymore.
Here is my 10-step program for becoming a rock star.

Step 1: Look up some songs online.

Step 2: Find my "Gig Bag Book of Guitar Tab Chords" and re-teach myself how to stretch my poor little fingers into the right positions.

Step 4: Remember that I can't play the guitar with nails and chop my nails off. Yeah. I'm hard core.

Step 5: Figure out a couple chords.

Step 6: Start singing along as soon as I possibly can since that's really all I want to do.

Step 7: Why the heck is B so hard to play? Do I need longer fingers? More fingers? Should I just buy a piano?

Step 8: Have no idea how to strum. Remember there's this thing called a pick. Ah, much better. (I learned to play flamenco guitar, which is all plucking and um finger flicking, so this whole strumming thing is about the hardest thing I've ever done.)

Step 9: Feel sorry for Christian in the other room. This must be painful to listen to.

Step 10: Fingers hurt. Back hurts. Christian's ears probably hurt. Call it a day and try again tomorrow. I'm gonna be a rock star.

quality time

Well, we are now officially empty-nesters...well for the next 7 weeks, that is.

Dianna is in her new place enjoying her new life with BFF, Jill.

Richard is on his way to spend 7 weeks with his BFF, camp.

And I get to spend the next 7 weeks with my BFF, Rose. I mean, Christian.

I made Richard french toast this morning to celebrate going off to work at scout camp.

He was so excited to go that he could barely sleep last night, and he walked around all morning with a perma-grin. He made fun of me and said the breakfast was just to celebrate that I was so excited he'd be gone. After I assured him that the breakfast really was just for him, I reminded him once again that it has nothing to do with him. We love Richard. We love Dianna. We have a lot of fun with them. But regardless of who is living with us, sometimes we like to be home alone.

But do you know what Christian is doing to celebrate our first week alone? He's leaving on a business trip! So my first week alone will literally be spent alone. Lovely.

happy anniversary, love!

Happy Anniversary, Christian! Four years, baby. Goes by fast, doesn't it?

Here are just a few reasons why I love you:








I came out this morning to find a new watering can for my garden, new gardening gloves, an adorable little fat bird statue, and a tennis racket with tennis balls. I already have a tennis racket, so the best part about this gift was that he bought himself a racket because he knows how much I want to play tennis with him. What a sweetie!

And all you people out there with Wii, Rock Band, Guitar Hero, etc -- We now have a dart board. You know you all want to hang out at our house now.

And a Happy Anniversary to some of our favorite people in the whole wide world, Scott and Denise! We love you guys!

anyone know who this is?

This isn't Natalie Portman. But who is she? Her picture is labeled as "Rosie" at the X-Games 12 party. Do you know who she is? I want to look up more pictures of her hair.

Nevermind. I figure out who she is. (I'm the queen of googling, in case you weren't aware.) Not that anyone really cares, but she's Rosie O'Lafferty, the model (ambassador?) for the Hurley clothing line, and she is not anywhere else on the web except Hurley.com and myspace. Her hair is super cute on the website, but not the length I was looking for.

back in the game... almost

Ok, so I'm almost back into running. I haven't run in 23 days. (15 minutes on a treadmill doesn't count.) That's pushing a month, people. And I really have no excuse other than laziness. As Kaylynn pointed out on the Love to Run blog, sometimes a break is good for you. But it's time I got off my butt and back onto the trails.

To motivate myself, I signed up for a 10k in the Santa Cruz mountains. Anyone want to join me? http://www.theschedule.com/EventInfo.cfm?EventID=17772

The last 10k I ran was horrible. This 10k is going to be fabulous. A 10k is 6.2 miles, and my goal is to finish it in under 55 minutes. That gives me 25 days to get my "speed" back.

Ready.... set.... get your game face on...

thoughts from a bored molly

1. I want to go camping. I'd really like to actually use our tent and sleeping bags and lantern and whatever else is hiding in that closet. I love camping. I love waking up early in the morning under the trees. And I love the fact that we can zip our sleeping bags together. That way I can totally sleep on Christian's side and annoy him.

2. It's time to buy a new bra. I hate shopping for new bras with a passion. Nothing fits. Last time I had to venture into bra territory, the lady at Victoria's Secret had me try on every single bra in their magic little box of bras and I walked out of there with nothing. So when I find a bra that fits, I wear it into the ground. And mine are now worn into the ground to the point that I can't read the tag, so I can't even just buy the same one again. Sheesh. You'd think I'd learn.

3. Clothes for Hawaii. Deirdre's wedding is in one month. A few months ago Christian suggested that we go buy me a bunch of cute summer clothes when it got closer to leaving for Hawaii. (Not so subtle hint that the 3 outfits I wear over and over aren't Hawaii worthy.) I obviously thought that sounded like a marvelous idea. So yesterday I reminded him that it's time to go shopping. Looks like he's not so keen on the idea anymore for $$ reasons. Blasted! We should have gone shopping right when he suggested it.

4. Alone time. In 6 days we will officially be alone in our apartment. Richard will be off having a grand ol' time working at scout camp, and we will be home alone for almost 8 weeks. Although last Friday we were home alone with nothing to do. We sat around being bored until 10:45 when Christian looked at me and said, "Can it be time to go to sleep?" and we both happily killed the boredom by going to sleep. So life may not be all that exciting on our own. Does anyone want to come over and hang out with us next week? (And the week after, and the week after that...?)

5. My porch is perfectly set up for my plants, my table/chairs, and my vegetables. Turns out the spot where I put my vegetables used to get a ton of sun but doesn't anymore due to the sun being so far North now. Crap. Now I have to figure out how to rearrange my entire balcony so my veggies are in the sun. Grrrrrr.

6. My grandma just told us yesterday that she once dated the grandson of the then-president of Mexico. Not sure if that's 100% accurate, but it makes for a good story. The only problem was that she was also dating another guy and she mixed up their names. She's pretty sure she called the Mexican kid the wrong name for a long time until she introduced him to some people and he had to tell the people that wasn't his name. No wonder it didn't work out.

6. We went to a hoppin' birthday dinner for one of my favorite peeps, Jenni, and she was kind enough to let us play her Wii. I LOVED the tennis but didn't so much love the boxing. Christian and I boxed. He kicked my butt. So I hit him in the stomach. Literally. It was just supposed to be a friendly tap, but I realized I was holding the Wii and had to use my left hand. Since my left arm isn't as strong, I swung a little harder. And totally caught him off guard. Turns out my left arm is strong enough even without the extra effort. Poor Christian. I felt horrible all night. Note to self: don't beat up husband.

congrats to dianna!

Oh! I realized I never posted Dianna's good news! (In case you're out of the loop, Dianna is Christian's sister who has been our roomie for the last 10 months). Well Dianna landed a sweet nanny job for a family in our ward! (Special thanks to Kristen for forwarding us the job post!)


Dianna gets her own apartment and a car to use. Not to mention a default membership at the country club where I used to take the kids I nannied. Seriously--getting a tan and eating free food from the food stand was not exactly a hard life.

She gets to move into her new apartment tomorrow (and will be joined by her long-lost BFF from Arkansas in about 5 days). Although I'm not sure how she's going to pull off the move since it looks like her room got hit by a tornado and then vomitted into the hall. Ha!

Dianna--You will do great and you will love it. Sure, you'll have days when you think you're going to go crazy, but just remember that you get to leave after dinner and go play with your friends while most moms just keep "nannying" all night long. Congrats!

(PS--To those of you who used or were thinking about using Dianna's babysitting services, have no fear. BFF from Arkansas (Jill) is ready to take over.)

rent

Oh my gosh! We just signed a 2-year lease and I am ecstatic! Normally I wouldn't be so excited about a 2-year lease because it kind of ties you down. But we made a commitment last year by having Richard move in with us. He wasn't exactly stoked about leaving his high school and starting all over again living with us, so we made a decision that we wouldn't move him again. It was all or nothing. We were lucky enough to find a great place at a (very) affordable price and were quite worried about our rent skyrocketing after a year. Our lease was going to be up next month, so we went to the manager and asked for another year. Turns out rent wasn't going up very much, so we went out on a limb and asked for 2. And they said yes!

I am a firm believer in being nice. If you're nice to people, they're nice to you. We're nice to our manager. And now we have to be extra nice.

But something hit me even stronger than the golden rule. Everyone keeps telling us that we are going to be blessed for bringing Dianna and Richard to live with us. I always joke that the amount I complain is going to cancel out any blessings that might be coming our way. It wasn't until I started looking at other 3-bedroom apartments around here that I realized how incredibly blessed we have been. Most 3-bedrooms in Richard's high school boundary cost $500-700 more than we are paying. And I'm not exaggerating. We have been very blessed, and I think I need to work a bit more on the whole complaining thing, because I'm not big on taking things for granted.

summer garden

Christian found my camera cord. Bless him.

Some of my new plants:

My garden:

Work it, plants, work it.

My vegetable garden:


I have two kinds of tomatoes, a kung pao chili, a habanero chile (Christian picked this out, of course), one pole bean (the others died in the heat), basil, and oregano. It's a small vegetable garden, but it's a start!

(Scratch that. I lost the pole bean. I knew I should have watered before I left this morning. Oops!)

pathetic

I was looking at my Goodreads page just now (I rarely look at it) and realized that I have 3 books on my "have read" list and 5 books on my "currently reading" list. What's pathetic is that the 3 books I have read since I signed up with Goodreads were audio books we listened to on the way to Alabama, so technically I didn't even read them. And the 5 books in my "currently reading" list mean that I started reading them some time in the last two years and just haven't actually gotten around to finishing them. I think that clearly means I'm not a reader. In fact, I've been reading Retrato en Sepia for exactly a year and a half now. Who takes a year and a half to read a book? I could use the excuse that it's in Spanish, but that's not a very good excuse considering I read Spanish just fine.

I think my newest goal will be to walk to the train more often. If I walk to the train instead of riding my bike, I get read the entire 20 minutes it takes to walk to the station. And the same on the way home. It makes me feel so relaxed and lazy and like I don't have a care in the world. I walk extra slow because it gives me more time to read. But seriously--if you've never had the chance, go read a book while you walk. I have only hurt myself once (severely stubbed my toe on a curb--it came out of nowhere!), which is way better than my track record while riding a bike.

Ok, this is too funny. A wiki site on how to read while walking. The tips and warnings are hilarious. http://www.wikihow.com/Read-While-Walking.

I am finishing Retrato en Sepia before the month is over. Just watch.

camera cable

I worked on my "garden" for 3 hours last night. It's not that I had 3 hours of work to do--I'm just slow. And I definitely took my time. It was very relaxing and my patio looks very nice now.

BUT. But but but. I can't find my camera cable so I can't transfer any pictures to share with you. Boooo.

last night i went to mars

Last night I dreamt that I was vacationing on Mars.

It was beautiful! The beaches were amazing. Complete with islands you could walk to in shallow water. The water was bright turquoise and the sand was a yellowish-orange. And if you looked up the sky was a swirl of orange and brown colors. It really was beautiful.
(Imagine this water with bright sand and a bright orange-brown sky.)

I met a man early on in the dream who was incredibly rude and mean to us. But I ran into him and his family at the beach later in the dream and it turns out he and his family were really nice. And I remember thinking in my dream that I need to not judge people based on first impressions.

Anyone up for a trip to Mars? It's quite lovely.

salads

Salads would be way better if they were bread.

lazy

I'm too lazy to walk 20 feet to the water cooler, so I never end up drinking enough at work. And I'm too lazy to walk 50 feet to the bathroom, so I end up sitting here holding my pee for WAY too long. And I'm too lazy to walk to the cafe 3 buildings over, so I end up waiting until I'm about to keel over with hunger.

But I'm also too lazy to work, so I'll walk 15 minutes to Andronico's just so I can take a lunch break that I know is going to waste at least 45 minutes of my work day.

It all makes sense in my head.

Michael Douglas and Friends Celebrity Golf Tournament

Christian is watching the Celebrity Golf Tounament.

Kenny G just said, "Even though I'm just a flute player, I'm just as tough as Alice Cooper."

Ummmmm...

100% not pregnant

As my lovely lady friends so kindly pointed out, I posted 2 posts in one week about smelling things. Sure sign of a pregnant lady, right? Ha! Rest assured that if I were pregnant and smells were bothering me, I sure wouldn't post about it. And if I were feeling sick because of pregnancy, I definitely would't post about that either. So if I post that I'm sick (which I am--cold) or tired (which I'm not--just bored) or smelling things (which I was earlier today), you can be 100% sure it isn't it's not because I'm pregnant--otherwise I wouldn't tell you. So enjoy my smelly posts!

Ooh, speaking of smelling things, has anyone been out for a walk lately? The star jasmine is in full bloom and smells wonderful! Go outside, everyone. It's nice out.

Oh, and Julia--I'll get pregnant when you get pregnant. Deal? :)

smell detectors

People should not be allowed to wear cologne or perfume to work. Period. When you work in a cubicle, there are no smell boundaries. And I am one of those people who easily gets a headache from the smell of perfume and cologne. Sometimes I try wearing perfume, but I usually end up with a headache within a half hour.

But to have to sit at work smelling someone's fragrance is just not fair. Somtimes coworkers come into my cube to talk to me and it's obvious they used their perfume as body wash. Luckily no one has come into my cube yet today, but come on! If I can smell it from my where I'm sitting, it's too much. It's only 9:40am and I already have a headache.

We should create smell detectors. Just like a metal detector. And have them at the entrances of work and church (and race start lines for that matter). If it beeps when you go through, you're not allowed in.

i'm too sexy for this blog

Christian and I just started going to the gym, and I love it! I'm usually an outdoors kind of exercise gal, but deep down inside I know the gym can do great things for me. That and I've been a total bum when it comes to exercising, so I couldn't use the excuse that I get plenty of exercise outside of a gym.

At Stanford we have free access to the nice new(ish) gym. Yep. That's my gym. Isn't it pretty?

Oh! That picture brought back a lovely memory. Inside those big windows is a very big room where they do group classes. When Christian and I walked in on Tuesday, there were at least 50 people lying with their backs on medicine balls doing pelvic thrusts toward the ceiling. I cannot tell you how incredibly funny it looked. I think Christian was ready to disown me when I looked at him and said, "Come on! That's like 50 people fake humping at the same time! How are you not laughing?!"

Moving on. It's really a shame that we haven't been using the gym on a regular basis. So now we go and Christian uses all the big weights while I struggle with 10- and 15-pounders. But I kicked his butt when we worked our abs doing plank on the mat. Take that, Christian! My abs can beat up your arms any day! Ok, maybe not.

Now I just need to figure out how to jump-start my running, biking, and swimming again. But for now I'm using my cold as a nice excuse to take it easy. Next week will be a different story.

So here's to getting buff and sexy.

pee stinks

I hate the smell of pee. Hate it. And something in my house smells like pee. I'm sure it's not pee, because we're all adults here and we don't have pets. So no one is peeing in a corner or anything.

Maybe it's the vegetables I cooked. Sometimes vegetables stink. But not as bad as pee. Bleh.