Category: Personal / Information / Etc.

The Bright Side (5/29)

The Bright Side (5/29)

As we’re all going through the same global pandemic with various levels of “stay the F home,” I thought it would be fun to highlight the good things in each week, instead of dwelling on the negatives, the unknowns, and the uncertain future. I tend to do some kind of wrap-up or rundown of my week/month/etc. on Fridays each week (often linking up with Friday Favorites/Currently) so this isn’t too much of a diversion from that. ✨ AEW Double or Nothing Wrestling is the only sport that’s really continued through this pandemic. Say what you want about it (and your opinions are fully valid, it’s not the smartest thing for them to be doing by ANY means) but it’s brought me a lot of joy, entertainment, and distraction during all this. (For the record too, most things were filmed back-to-back and not aired live for the first two months.) AEW had their Double or Nothing PPV on Saturday and it was SO DAMN GOOD. Pretty much everything on it was fantastic and we had a wonderful Saturday night watching it. ✨ More Recipes from Cravings We’ve continued to make recipes from the Cravings cookbooks and have really enjoyed it. We made some of John’s breakfast sandwiches (well the homemade sausage patties at least) and omg they were so good. We made the mistake of using ground pork sausage instead of ground pork, so we added salt (per the recipe) and they were a bit too salty. We chopped them up […]

A Day in the Life // Work From Home (5/22/20)

A Day in the Life // Work From Home (5/22/20)

Another round of a quarantined work day in my life! It’s Friday y’all, right before a long weekend, and I have to say… I am in desperate need of a day off. So, this is a very welcome Friday!! If all this corona stuff didn’t happen, I would have had a day off last weekend for my friend’s bachelorette trip so I am definitely feelin it right now. Here we go! I woke up early this morning and dicked around on my phone as usual. I downloaded the Philo app to the TV so I could watch my movie. I had to pee (lol) so I got out of bed somewhat quickly, compared to usual, and came down to find Chris making our now traditional morning smoothies. Our Vitamix is amazing! He usually delivers it to me in bed when he leaves for work around 6:30 but I snagged it from him, grabbed my piece of banana bread, and decided to try a cappuccino with my new coffee machine. Yes, we’ve upgraded all of our appliances basically lol. I took my two beverages back up to bed to watch the latest Aurora Teagarden movie from Hallmark on demand. I tried to watch the other day but ended up getting distracted with other things, so I restarted it to catch up and finish. It was a solid one as usual! I don’t know why I’m such trash for these movies. I did a bit of meal planning on a new app (Favoreats) […]

Full Day of Eating Cravings by Chrissy Teigan Recipes (and a Bunch More Since!)

Full Day of Eating Cravings by Chrissy Teigan Recipes (and a Bunch More Since!)

It’s not a secret that we’ve been super into cooking and baking lately, so I decided to go ahead and finally purchase the Cravings cookbook by Chrissy Teigan. After legit hugging it all weekend, reading the recipes and her funny stories, listing the recipes I could make from what I have on hand, and meal planning over the upcoming weeks, I decided we should do a full day of Cravings recipes to kick off this new obsession. I also immediately bought her second cookbook, FWIW. Some recipes come from book one and some are book two! It’s interesting timing as well because I had drafted this post a couple of weeks ago, not realizing that Chrissy Teigan would end up with a shitstorm of nonsense. I’m happy to make this post now so hopefully you can see the tasty recipes she’s developed all by herself and with her mother. Everything we made has been utterly delicious and just a slight step up from what I might usually make, meaning it challenges me enough to feel like I’m learning something new and trying something super tasty… while not being too overwhelming. These two cookbooks are exactly what I’m looking for in a cookbook, basically. A Sunday of Cravings Breakfast I started Sunday with her Dutch Baby Pancake, which is truly one of the easiest breakfasts I’ve made. Way easier than normal pancakes! You need a cast iron skillet or oven-safe pan and some basic pancake ingredients. You blend it together, pour it […]

The Bright Side (5/21)

The Bright Side (5/21)

As we’re all going through the same global pandemic with various levels of “stay the F home,” I thought it would be fun to highlight the good things in each week, instead of dwelling on the negatives, the unknowns, and the uncertain future. I tend to do some kind of wrap-up or rundown of my week/month/etc. on Fridays each week (often linking up with Friday Favorites/Currently) so this isn’t too much of a diversion from that. ✨ Vitamix Blender We didn’t love the experience of using our crappy blender for the Dole Whip recipe so we finally bit the bullet and bought a fancy ass blender. We love smoothies and (now) making our own sorbet, so why not get something that makes life super easy?? It has been a gamechanger so far. It’s genuinely so easy to blend anything and everything. ✨ Socially Distant Visits in Beautiful Weather Chris’s sister came by to hang out outside last weekend and it was really nice to see someone new! It’s obviously been hard to not spend time with friends in recent months, so it was good to hang out with her. The weather was totally gorgeous all weekend, so we got some tasty food and drinks to hang out all day, from a distance! ✨ Takeout: Pizza and Ice Cream! We were watching a show about pizza the other night (as one does) and of course they referenced Frank Pepe’s and other New Haven pizza shops – the best pizza in the […]

The Bright Side (5/15)

The Bright Side (5/15)

As we’re all going through the same global pandemic with various levels of “stay the F home,” I thought it would be fun to highlight the good things in each week, instead of dwelling on the negatives, the unknowns, and the uncertain future. I tend to do some kind of wrap-up or rundown of my week/month/etc. on Fridays each week (often linking up with Friday Favorites/Currently) so this isn’t too much of a diversion from that. ✨ Cooking and Baking I know I’ve been talking about this a lot (probably too much for a book blog??) but we’re still making a lot of good stuff! We did a lot with the Cravings cookbooks (post to come, sorry not sorry) and I made Zucchini Bread finally. I can’t believe this only called for one cup of shavings (one zucchini) because now I have two more ready to go for more bread 😉 It looks terrible and ugly because of the parchment paper creases and folds, but good lord – it’s SO tasty. Also pictured are two Cravings recipes – the chipotle-honey chicken with mango-avocado salsa and blueberry cream cheese pancakes. ✨ Mother’s Day We did a run around to our three parents’ houses on Mother’s Day to distantly say hello and drop of our traditional flowers. My mom has a brown thumb for sure so she loves a hanging plant for her front yard each year – nothing else. Chris’s mom and my stepmom both have impressive gardens, so we get […]

What I’ve Been Watching

What I’ve Been Watching

I did a post like this back in 2017 but haven’t done many since – I usually am watching wrestling and a few TV episodes in between everything, plus I have my monthly wrap-ups for things like this. Since life has been mostly the same and I’ve been doing more weekly “positive things” posts instead of monthlies, I thought it would be a good time to bring this back around. Here are some of the shows and movies we’ve been watching since I last updated you, or in general during quarantine! Watching Solo Virgin River I’m not fully in love with this one but it’s been decent background TV for when I’m cooking or dicking around the house. I know the whole point of the show is “big city nurse has to win over small down misogynistic doctor” but the doctor seriously annoys me here. I don’t know if it’s because EVERYTHING is annoying me lately? But I can’t stand him. I ended up falling a little more for the show once I got rolling though, so I’m glad I decided to watch. Outer Banks I am the first one to tell you how much I love watching so-bad-it’s-good TV shows and movies. We do this allll the time. I will say that this show definitely veered into this-is-actually-bad territory and I kind of hated it? I am not exaggerating when I tell you I wanted to punch EVERY single character in the face. Even the decent ones like Kiara […]

The Bright Side (5/8)

The Bright Side (5/8)

As we’re all going through the same global pandemic with various levels of “stay the F home,” I thought it would be fun to highlight the good things in each week, instead of dwelling on the negatives, the unknowns, and the uncertain future. I tend to do some kind of wrap-up or rundown of my week/month/etc. on Fridays each week (often linking up with Friday Favorites/Currently) so this isn’t too much of a diversion from that. I’m back after taking last Friday off for my Bookmark Lit Bulletin monthly wrap-up, so here are two weeks’ worth of good things! ✨ Brad Leone / Bon Appetit I know I’m behind on the craze but our latest obsession of cooking-related YouTube has brought us into the wonderful world of Brad Leone and the Bon Appetit test kitchen. We were already watching Epicurious (under the same company umbrella) so this has added another fun element. Brad’s “It’s Alive” videos are SO funny and genuinely all we watch most Friday nights. His tomato ricotta toast is something I spotted a few bookish friends eating recently and was wondering where it came from… and now I know! I quickly added tomatoes and ricotta to my grocery order to test it out. It was so tasty! I can’t believe how much flavor tomatoes have when you cook them just a little bit?? ✨ Pickling Chris and I have really been diving deep into cooking shows lately and one of the main things we decided to try […]

Planner Streamlining

Planner Streamlining

I talk a lot about my planners and how I use each of them for various things, but it’s always a work in progress for me. I buy something with the best intentions and end up forgetting it, using it for something completely different, or half-ass the whole thing. I recently streamlined how I use my planners during this quarantine period because yes, there ARE still things to do. There are definitely less events out of the house, but I still need to plan (now more than ever!) meals, groceries, house chores, work, and reading. Here’s how I’m doing it all now. Artful Agenda: Blog/Books, Calendar-Based, On-the-Go Lists My online planner is the best place for me to include anything that I’d want to reference while on my computer or phone (on the go). I traditionally use it for easily adding appointments (like when I’m leaving my hair appointment and schedule my next while I’m there) or events when I’m with friends (determining our next holiday party or something). While this will be true again someday, right now it’s mostly helping me from a blogging perspective. If I have a few posts I want to plan out and complete, I’ll include them in the to-do sections. I’m able to leave this tab open on my computer and reference it whenever. The second thing this planner is currently helping with during quarantine is planning out my grocery shopping and lists whenever necessary. Obviously I’m shopping less often than the million times […]

May Currently

May Currently

I’m linking up with Anne In Residence for this month’s Currently post! I usually include these in a Friday post but I’m trying to spread the wealth with content when needed (and I’m working on my The Bright Side posts on Fridays)! What I’m…   Making Ummm, everything?! Like everyone else in the world, it seems, we’re doing way more homey cooking and baking. This past weekend I spent Sunday making three meals from the Cravings by Chrissy Teigan cookbook, and we have a handful more to make right away too! I finally put the boxed cake mix I’ve had forever to good use by making snickerdoodle cake mix cookies too. Lots of home-cooked meals around here! Missing Oh man… aren’t we all missing juuust about everything right now? We don’t feel like much is different on weeknights since we generally stay home 3-4 nights after work, but we find ourselves more sad on the weekends. If we go out to run errands on a Saturday, we always wish we could spend time out at a brewery or restaurant. We picked up hard cider from a favorite place last weekend and were dying to stay in and do a tasting the whole time. Learning How to make pickled things! We’ve been obsessed with everything cooking-related online, like The Chef Show on Netflix and anything Bon Appetit/Epicurious have to offer on YouTube. We learned how to pickle the other day and put it to the test with pickles and onions. Both yielded very […]

The Bright Side (4/24)

Posted April 24, 2020 / Personal / Information / Etc. / 1 Comment
The Bright Side (4/24)

As we’re all going through the same global pandemic with various levels of “stay the F home,” I thought it would be fun to highlight the good things in each week, instead of dwelling on the negatives, the unknowns, and the uncertain future. I tend to do some kind of wrap-up or rundown of my week/month/etc. on Fridays each week (often linking up with Friday Favorites/Currently) so this isn’t too much of a diversion from that. ✨ Too Hot to Handle Good lord. We were inspired on Saturday to randomly start this show. Chris promised we’d watch ONE EPISODE ONLY and we immediately watched three. We essentially watched 2-3 per day until we finished up the show on Monday. Woof. It’s interesting and addicting like Love is Blind but it’s about singles who apparently just love having sex and can’t control themselves. They did a few workshops, which were fun, and tried to get them all to find meaningful relationships instead of just hooking up. Each time people hooked up, money would be deducted from the prize fund. It was so frustrating to watch people constantly fuck it up for everyone else!!! ✨ Erasable Pens for Planning I’ve been really trying to get better about using my paper planner. I still love the digital planner I’m using because it syncs my calendars and includes a lot of my blog-related to-do’s, which I don’t keep in my paper planner. This planner is more about meal planning, prep, and workouts. With everything in […]