Thankful Thursday

Hey look, it's Thursday and I'm actually remembering to post!

This week was our annual floor cookie exchange. I put this together a few years ago for our floor at work on a whim, and it's taken off. This is the 4th year (I can't believe how fast time has gone by!) and we had a great turnout and amazing treats. Unfortunately, they were also super unhealthy. So other than enjoying one of my healthy black bean brownies (delicious, but didn't win a single vote - not surprising!), I only had a few crumbs of the others. The winner was one called "gooey butter cookie" and involved butter, cream cheese, sugar, powdered sugar, you name it. Here's the damage halfway through the day:

I also got an interesting letter this week. I've been called all sorts of things, but this is probably my favourite title. Someone was desperate to get my attention.

 I'm still enjoying my egg kick. Count for today is 8 eggs. Whew. This is what my afternoon snack often looks like...with my 5th egg of the day:

Best news of the week so far was just another reason for me to be immensely proud of my rockstar husband. Oh no big deal, he was just chosen to be a Chief Resident next year for the Emergency Med program! I wish I had some kind of exciting picture to celebrate, but the only recent picture of Nolan that I have is one I took of him in bed to try and wake him up with the flash. I'll save that for another time :)

And guess what? It's almost Christmas! I am so crafted out, I don't know if I'm more excited about being ALMOST done than about being close to the holidays, hah! I had a great idea I was going to make for a baby shower right after Christmas that I'm going to, but NOPE. I'm not touching my sewing machine for a long time after this. And with that:

1. I'm thankful for Nolan's amazing new position next year! It's so gratifying to see other people recognize how incredible he is. See? I'm not just biased. Plus he's going to make a truly great Chief.
2. I'm thankful tomorrow is the last day before the holidays! I would be more thankful if I hadn't just gotten a mandatory meeting on my calendar for tomorrow at noon. Isn't that too many faux pas in one meeting? Not only on a Friday afternoon, but the last day before extended vacation, AND during the lunch hour and not serving lunch? Boo. But still (not to get sidetracked)! Thankful tomorrow is the last day before fun and family time!!!
3. I'm thankful our neighbour is going to take care of FDR for us. Milo's going to stay with Harley for Christmas, and FDR is SUCH a pain to take in the car down to Mountain View. Every little turn or bump and his water sloshes out of the bowl all over my lap. Also: thankful for Harley's family who watches Milo when we're out of town! So awesome and convenient.
4. I'm thankful for the ice scraper I bought last year. I thought I wouldn't even really use it. Lo and behold, it's saved me a significant amount of time and frustration in the mornings, as my windshield is generally iced over with how cold it's been here in the mornings!
5. I'm thankful for my car and how reliable and safe it is. This morning it told me that the tire pressure was low and should be checked...I love that it warns me about stuff like that! Normally I would have checked once I saw that light, but since it's been so cold I knew that's why the pressure dropped. Sure enough, after 10 minutes the light clicked off. Thanks for taking the precautions, car!

What are you thankful for?

black beans and baked apples

I finally finished our stockings! There's no guarantee they'll look like this next year, what with me deciding to leave bits of scrap on there and all, but here's what they look like this year! Milo's is admittedly wonky-looking. I'm okay with that. He's a wonky guy. Yesterday he rage-peed on the floor because there was a toddler in the house and he has NO IDEA HOW TO HANDLE A TODDLER. That will need to change someday. Anyway. The stockings:

 I've also been savouring the cold mornings doing crafts, because they're usually accompanied by breakfasts like this:

 A delicious, hot baked apple with pepitas, some oats, sunflower seeds, and a dash of spices and squirt of honey. It's the best. I usually have a glass of water with protein powder to go with this too because this is filling enough as it is, but I need to get protein somehow!

On Sunday, I hosted a gingerbread house party. I was overly ambitious and made the gingerbread and icing myself this year. It took ages. And I overdosed on the gingerbread dough (a tiny piece here and there while rolling it really adds up), and ended up moaning on the couch. I'm not used to that much sugar!

But the party was awesome. We watched ignored Holiday Inn playing  merrily in the background while we munched on appetizers and attempted to keep our houses in tact.

Love these girls! It was a great way to close out the last normal weekend of the year!



Tonight: my mission is to make my DELICIOUS black-bean brownies embedded with cherries. I'm telling you: they're so good that even Nolan wasn't ashamed of their relative-healthiness. We brought them to the ugly sweater party and he would jab his finger at them when someone grabbed one and say "those are (kinda) healthy!" Here's the recipe (I press half a cherry into the top of each piece (8x8 pan = 16 pieces) to make them pretty) - it's delish. Good thing, too, because these are for the cookie exchange at work tomorrow. One of my coworkers already walked into my cube and said "If I hear that any of your treats have veggies or healthy stuff in them, I'm not eating them!". Oh dear, I've got a reputation.

I'm going to make my own sugarless chocolate chips for the recipe sometime too...but I'd better not push it for tomorrow :)

Thankful Thursday

The countdown is on. Just a little over 10 days until Christmas! We are officially in that part of the year where I want to slow time down - even at work-so I can enjoy every second. I love the music at my desk, the decorations, the warm drinks, the holiday parties, everything. And yet the next week will go painfully slow since I can't wait to see our families, spend time together relaxing, playing games, eating good food...and so:

1. I'm thankful it's here! The best time of year. You can't not feel jolly these days!
2. I'm thankful for the progress I've made with crafts. It's taken a lot more time than I've realized! But I'm getting there! One of these days I'll actually stop the other crafts, and attach the last finished piece to our stockings so I can take a picture.
3. I'm thankful for Nolan's last call tomorrow night! He's worked so incredibly hard. I have absolutely LOVED visiting him those nights for our impromptu picnics at the hospital, but I'm ready for him to be done with those dangerously long shifts too.
4. I'm thankful for time with our families coming up! We love spending time together, and it will be nice to have a day or two to just relax after Christmas too.
5. I'm thankful for holiday lunches this week and time to enjoy my coworkers outside of actual working. They're good people :)

What are you thankful for?

Fud

This weekend, Nolan was home both evenings, so we had little dinner dates and I actually had time to cook tasty things (It's been awhile - salad and tofu has been our fare when I'm in a rush.)! He was so enthralled that he demanded to take pictures both nights. So we did. Nothing fancy, but delicious nonetheless! Saturday night we had sauteed scallops, leeks, and shallots over roasted spaghetti squash with a white wine reduction (and put some of the leftover wine in our glasses!):

Sunday night we had some extra spaghetti squash (my bad for buying a 2 lb one for just the 2 of us - I've been adding it to my lunch this week too!) and a green salad on the side of an avocado and almond crusted chicken parmigiana. A healthier version of the classic dish:

I've had this in my lunches this week too - who knew that CostCo chicken breasts were the size of whole chickens. I made 3 and halved them and now even a half is humongous.

I even broke out my greek yogurt and tofu cheesecake for Sunday night's dessert. It was a good thing.

This is N's last week on this rotation, and he has just 2 on-call nights left. So far we've managed to have a little picnic each time when I've visited him, bringing coffee and treats. It's one of my favourite parts of each week and I'm just so glad he has been able to get away each time to spend a little time with me! Last time he tried (and almost succeeded!) to convince me to stay overnight, since it was Friday and I had nowhere to be Sat morning. "You can sleep in the on-call room  - they have bunkbeds!!!" Because of course, that is the selling point right there. Tempting, but I went home to my nice warm bed and cat to cuddle.

Crafting is coming along slowly, but surely. I finally finished my stockings (but haven't taken pics yet!), and am plodding along on gifts. Some I'm really proud of, and some I want to keep myself. But all of them are taking a lot of time, and I'm becoming very intimate with my sewing machine, hot glue gun, and embroidery needles, not to mention crochet hooks! The other day I looked in my purse and found random bits of thread, a pack of needles, and some industrial scissors along with some cardboard cutouts. This means I've been spending too much time crafting. I can't wait to post pics (after Christmas, of course) of my projects! Best holiday idea ever.

Thankful Thursday

This week has been a hectic one at work. It's been harder to remember what I'm thankful for when my mind is clouded with stress/frustration! Nevertheless, I thought of some things, because truth be told, I have a lot to be thankful for.

1. I'm thankful for friends. I met a friend for dinner last night, and was 25 minutes late on top of an already murderously bad day. It took me an hour to drive from Millbrae to Palo Alto. AN HOUR! As soon as we sat down and started eating and chatting, I started feeling much better, and by the time we left and I drove home, I was cranking up the Christmas tunes and singing my heart out. Good friends can make you forget the stressful stuff!
2. I'm thankful for our bed. Even though I've been sleeping terribly lately, the best thing in the world is crawling into our big, super comfy bed with Nolan after a long day and wrapping ourselves in our giant down comforter. Bliss!
3. I'm thankful for time - my schedule after work has been clearing up a lot lately and it's giving me time to catch up on stuff around the house (and gifts!) that I've been holding on to-do lists. Ahhh.
4. I'm thankful that Nolan is just about 2 weeks away from a block of time-off! It'll be so great to spend time with him during the day (what a novel idea!) and give him the opportunity to actually get bored again. Bonus: it falls over Christmas! Can't wait!
5. I'm thankful that next week is recovery week for P90X! I think I've said that many times before, but my muscles need a break! I'm also a little bit sad that next week is not only recovery week, but the LAST week of this P90X doubles cycle. So...debating ad hoc daily workouts after that vs. the structure of Insanity again. We'll see. But for now: glad next week is recovery week!

I hope you've had a fantastic first week of December!

What are you thankful for?

Public Shaming

Friday night we went to the annual ugly sweater party. I've known about this for a long time, and I distinctly remember thinking the last time I was at my parents' house: should I bring my ugly sweater back to my house with me? Nah, I'll be up again before then. NOPE. So we had to improvise. I thought of the ugliest sweaters I've ever seen, and found that they all had a general theme:

So we rolled with it. This had me running to the printer to make sure nobody saw that I was printing pictures not only of my cat, but of random kittens. SOB.

On Saturday, I was persuaded to go see the last installment of Twilight with a friend. After severely what time I'd finish my morning workout, I was running really late. So I grabbed what I thought had potential as a cute, appropriate outfit as I was frantically shoving chicken and veggies into my mouth. Turns out, it wasn't cute. But I nailed "appropriate" on the head. What else would a teen going to see Twilight probably wear? So Erin took a picture of me so that I could shame myself, after a lengthy discussion on why I would think it was okay to wear this. See for yourself:

If you can't see them, my tights had hearts on them too. What! It was a pair Nolan brought me from China!

Sure enough, when I got home, Nolan swiveled in his chair to greet me and stopped humming to say, "Whoa. Wait a second. What...what is this...did you wear this outside?"

Consider me shamed.

Sunday, we were getting ready for church, when we decided that since it was practically a monsoon outside, what sounded best was a peaceful morning at Peet's, with hot drinks, sitting outside on the covered porch and watching the rain. This is possibly the worst picture ever (does it even show anything?), but the storm was so bad that a gigantic tree fell across all of the Camino Real and blocked it off. So we took the scenic route.

And commenced our morning. It was lovely and peaceful and wonderful.

After coffee, we walked across the lot to the pet shop...just to see what cat stuff they had. If that wasn't pathetic enough, we bought something totally unnecessary for Milo. We have to keep up his tradition of a new costume each year! So this year, he got a top hat:

And oh, does he hate that thing.

When we got home, Nolan had a skype-chess date with our friend in Scotland, and so I made us a nice hot lunch of leftover ingredients. Which translated out to coconut peanut curry over riced cauliflower! So tasty, and nothing beats curry on a rainy day.

My goal this week is to finish sending out Christmas cards, work on more family presents, and try to SLOW DOWN so that my favourite time of year doesn't just pass me by. We'll see how it goes.