Milky Way in the morning

Okay, not really.  But I do have a little problem in that my friend at work just introduced me to the Milky Way flavor for the Flavia machine.

Let me tell you something.  These things smell just like cake batter.  I love the smell of cake batter.  Especially in the morning.  It nearly beats Starbucks, except it doesn’t make nearly enough and then I have to keep refilling my cup and that is a lot more sugar than I really need at 9am. In other words, I am typing really, really fast right now.

Anyway.  I haven’t really mentioned any wedding planning on here, mostly because there hasn’t been much wedding planning.  However, we did book a location, which is not a church, and therefore had to find someone to marry us.  Well, I did a little research and discovered that you can get ordained online.  So, Chris and I asked our good friend to do that, and when he said yes (quite joyfully, I might add), I sent his name and address – that’s all – off to the Universal Life Church.  Instantly, I received an email with his printable credentials.

Seriously.  That’s all it takes?  He can now perform baptisms, weddings, and even start his own ministry if he so desires.  Just like that.  Does anyone else think that’s a little weird?  I mean, I’m not religious, obviously, so I’m fine with it, but I just wonder who the hell else is out there starting ministries from their couch with a beer in one hand (if he was going to do it, which I’m relatively sure he’s not, this is how I imagine it would happen).

Whatever.  I guess it’s fine.  I mean, I double checked that we’d be legit and all that.  But I’m tempted to buy him the Ministry-in-a-Box or the Minister’s Car Kit just in case.

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Give me the penne

I think I’m over spaghetti squash.  I was never really that into it, but I felt like I should be into it, so I kept trying and forcing Chris to try even though I could tell he didn’t understand why he was eating squash that is shaped like spaghetti and not just real spaghetti.

I don’t really understand either.  I know it’s good for you, but I just don’t really like it that much.  I’d rather have the pasta.  I’m sorry.

Anyway, I’m talking about this because last night I tried to make the Spaghetti Squash Mexicana from Veganomicon:

I didn’t have a few of the ingredients, including pretty much everything required to make the Tropical Avocado Salsa Fresca.  So I just left it out.  I also left out the red wine, because we didn’t have any.  Wine goes pretty fast around here.

Anyway, it was okay.  Not Veganomicon’s fault, because I obviously skimped on the recipe.  But I think it would have been better without the spaghetti squash.  Then it would have been, essentially, chili again.  But I like chili, so I’m okay with that.

I also had some tea yesterday, notable because I’m not really a tea drinker and also because there is a pup in the background of the picture:

After I took this, he proceeded to remove the tea bag from the cup when I wasn’t looking.  He is one sneaky little guy.  And talented, too, because he didn’t even spill the tea.

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Getting it done

I felt extra productive this morning because it’s sort of a holiday, so some people are off work.  Why it is a holiday, I don’t know, because Christopher Columbus was not quite the kind of guy I like to spend my free time commemorating, but I don’t make the rules.

Anyway, so Chris is off work and so are a lot of other people, but alas, not this girl.  I got up this morning, as I always do, and went to spinning where I felt great about myself because there were only about seven people there and I was one of them.  Then I went home, got dressed, made and ate my breakfast, and walked semi-empty sidewalks to a semi-empty train so that I could go in to work.

Pretty productive, right, considering that many people, my boyfriend included, were still in bed?  Except that when I was on the way to the gym at 6am, I passed a man sitting on his front porch carving a pumpkin.  Now that’s what I call getting a jump on the day!  I bet he didn’t even need coffee, but I did:

That’s a recycled picture; my blackberry froze when I got to work.  Apparently it doesn’t want to work today, either.

Anyway, I’m going to try to post more snacks this week, and recipes, but from now on, let’s not assume you’re seeing everything.  I don’t want any hate comments from people saying I don’t eat enough.  Trust me, there’s plenty of peanut butter on the side.

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Worse blogger

Yikes.

Okay, so yesterday kind of got away from me…but I do have some pictures.  Afternoon snack was cottage cheese:

That’s the Trader Joe’s cereal that Chris buys.  I think it’s called Raisin Clusters or something? I don’t know, I am all out of plain raisins.  Sad.

And then, I had to run into this organic store by my apartment to get some things, and I got intrigued when I saw this:

I have no idea why I bought this.  I don’t even like soda.  But it was okay.  I thought it tasted like watered down Coke, but I haven’t had an actual Coke in years, so maybe that’s what it tastes like.  I wish they made root beer.  I could get into some root beer.

Anyway.  Then I went over to Jaclyn’s for dinner.  She made this awesome baked tofu and butternut squash/sweet potato puree, and Kate brought over margaritas.  Needless to say, I am not exactly feeling top-notch today.  I didn’t take any pictures, but if you’d like to see me catch tofu in my mouth and possibly even eat some off the floor, check it out.

And, because he’s very nice and romantic and because I said “wouldn’t it be nice if you took me to dinner and a movie” at least four times this week, I woke up this morning to a note from Chris saying to meet him to see Religulous and go to dinner after work.  So that’s exciting!  But right now I have to fight through my margarita headache and get some stuff done.

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Bad blogger

I forgot about you yesterday!  Isn’t that mean?  I’m sorry.  We had a friend over for dinner and I made black bean cutlets and roasted potatoes and then we drank some beer and watched The Island, which I am shamelessly addicted to, and then I completely forgot to post about it.

I think it probably had a little something to do with the beer.

So, we’ll just pretend yesterday didn’t happen.  Hope that’s okay with you.  And unfortunately, today is not going to be all that exciting.  Not that my days are usually exciting, but this one is particularly lame so far.  All I have is a little cup of coffee from the Flavia machine:

I forced myself to walk past Starbucks because I finally found a Flavia flavor that is halfway decent.  It’s called Espresso.  I take it you’re supposed to use it for espresso, but apparently I like my coffee rather strong.

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My shoes are wet

Hit up Starbucks this morning:

I normally get a misto, which is half milk and half coffee and involves the barista.  Or, maybe it doesn’t. Maybe I just like saying the word barista.  In any case, I know it takes longer than a regular coffee, and there was some sort of school field trip or something involving lots of people with backpacks in my Starbucks this morning, so I went for the speedy option.

Anyway, it’s a shame because the plain old coffee is rather hot without the addition of milk, and so it kind of burned when I spilled half of this all over my legs.  I have this weird arm thing going on that involves some shooting pains down the front of my shoulder, and my friend, who knows about things like arms and shoulders, told me that it’s because I always carry my bags on my right shoulder and my left arm is screwed up because it’s overcompensating when I walk.  Or something.

All I know is that I’ve been advised to carry my bag on my left shoulder for a bit, and then alternate, which totally confuses my body and makes me fall down at random moments and spill coffee on my feet.

And so that was my morning.  I also went to the post office to mail my passport information off.  I imagine they’ll probably be contacting me in a few days for my shoe size and SAT scores.

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Yikes!

Sorry, I’m way behind.  We’re going to go ahead and skip yesterday.  You didn’t miss anything.  Well, maybe an ice cream cone.  But I’ll have another one tonight.  You know, not because I want to, but to make it up to you.

Today all I have so for is this:

Somehow my foot made it in there, and I didn’t notice until right now.  Oops.

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I am dumber than I thought

So yesterday, after my post about the cold-pressed iced coffee, someone commented that I didn’t need coffee filters – I could just use my French press.

Duh.

So I did that for today:

It worked out fine.  The coffee tasted the same, but my paper towels didn’t soak up the majority of it, which is a major plus.

We are going away this weekend, and I had to pick up our rental car after the gym because I do all the work around here.  I knew it would take a long time because Enterprise is slow as hell, as is my driving, so I ate this Kashi bar on my way there:

Being in a car always makes me feel so free.  I mean, you can go anywhere, and you don’t have to worry about where the closest subway stop is, or whether you’re going to have to walk 42 blocks and develop near-fatal blisters, or if your arm is going to fall off from the six bags you have to carry.   It’s really crazy!  It also always makes me want to go through drive-thrus, just because I can, so I’m glad I had a snack.

And…I got the last parking space on my block, directly in front of my apartment!  I have mixed feelings about this.  I am sure it’s too good to be true and I’m going to get towed at some point today, so I keep looking out the window every five seconds.  So far, so good.

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Better late than never

Last night I decided that it was stupid to go to Starbucks today when I had the recipe for free iced coffee in the palm of my hand.  Stupid in that an iced coffee at Starbucks is $2.70 or something similarly outrageous.

So, I measured my little 1/3 cup of coffee and put it in a plastic container with 1 1/2 cups of water:

Sorry, I took these pictures with my Blackberry because I wanted to post this at work this morning and I didn’t feel like bringing my camera.  Lazy.  But I didn’t even have a chance to post them, so now I have no excuse.  I knew that would happen.

Anyway, I shook it up and let it sit on the counter for approximately 12 hours, give or take an hour or so.   It was when I got home from the gym this morning that I realized that I had a small problem:  No coffee filters.  I am a French press girl.

So, I took two of those lovely paper towels that you see in the background and tried to strain it through them.  And, surprisingly, it worked out okay, except the paper towels soaked up a good portion of my coffee. They apparently really are the quicker picker uppers.  This should have been a commercial.

But I managed to salvage some, and so here we have iced coffee:

It tasted really good.  I would probably add a little more coffee next time because I like it really strong, but it was way better than cooled-down hot coffee, which I didn’t even know was bad before I had this.

Now I don’t know whether to be happy that I have this new way to make iced coffee, or mad that I found out about it the day after Labor Day.  I think I’ll just go eat a Z Bar to take my mind off it.

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NYC Transit is top notch

It took the train I was on 45 minutes to go five stops this morning.  Some business about smoke or fire or something silly like that on the tracks.

Here is a little something about me:  I am obsessed with time.  More specifically, being on time.  I am never late.  I know this because I wear my watch at all times, including in the shower, at the gym, and while I am sleeping. When I get married, I will wear my watch during the wedding and I will look at it more than once to make sure that the ceremony is not running too long.

So needless to say, I was not happy that I was late to work today.  But I was more upset about the fact that I was late for work because I was stuck on a train with my head in the armpit of a man who forgot his deodorant this morning.  Luckily, I was also in close proximity to a woman who was wearing Old Spice.  Yes, a woman.

Because of this, I didn’t have time to go to Starbucks.  So, here we have some Intense Italian Roast from the lovely Flavia:

I’m on my third cup and I’m feeling rather intense myself.

Earlier this morning, I had another one of those fruit bars on the way to the gym:

Except today I realized that there are actually two thin strips in the package.  Yesterday I ate both at once by mistake, but today I only ate one, thus cutting the resulting number of cavities in half.

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