Kale, Banana, & Chocolate Oh My!

Hi. It's a very warm Thursday. I'm got my laptop set up in my new dining room, just because I can. Love it. And, I'm enjoying a yummy kale, banana, chocolate smoothie. Does life get better than this?

I'm not sure it does.

Oh, but wait! More goodness.

Check out my living room. They still haven't delivered my awesome new sofa, but we got the rug and the end table. LOVE.

It gets better! Ryan and I were at World Market the other day and we saw a section of clearance art. We were browsing mostly, when we came across this:

(Obviously, we bought it, since you can see our living room rug, but play along.)

The original price is $100. So, we ask how much it is on clearance. The lady says "half off," making it $50. We tell her we'll walk around and think about it. She finds us a few minutes later and says, "How about 70% off since it's damaged?"

She was referring to this:

SOLD! Can you believe that? $30. Obviously, we drive a hard bargain.

Speaking of bargains... I was at the 99 Cent Store the other day with JGago and we found cute t-shirts there for, you guessed it, 99 Cents. Check out this cuteness:

That's right. I'm wearing a t-shirt from the 99 Cent Store. Don't judge. This is a recession people. :p

So... that's it for now. I've got to go put the sheets in the dryer.

xoxo 

**Silly Survey**

Very Random:

What's the best clothing bargain you've ever found?

What's your favorite smoothie combination?

What kind of fabric softner do you use?

Wall Art & Breakfast All Day

What does a food blogger put on her new kitchen walls?

Food, of course!

Okay, I can't hold out any longer to show you guys this. Guess what? Guess what?

Remember what our dining room looked like when we moved in? No furniture, nothing. Well, we finally got our dining room furniture delivered!

AMAYzing. Fabulous. Seriously. We opted for three different style seating options. A fully leather chair, a leather seat with wood backing, and a bench. The second leather chair sits in our bedroom, but we can bring it out to make this table a six-seater. And, what about that buffet? Do you love it or what?!?

Have I mentioned how much we love our new apartment?!?! Yay!

Today I've eaten breakfast all day long. Just call me Ihop.

Breakfast: Poached Eggs (with sea salt) and a buttered Ezekiel Muffin

Oats for Lunch.

I'm breaking out of breakfast for dinner, though. I've got chicken wings cooking in the crockpot. Caribbean Jerk marinade. Yum!

**Silly Survey**

Do you like to decorate?

What would you say is your decorating "style"?

Where do you get most of your decorating ideas from?

Updated Pics of the New Place. and An Unexpected Deluge of Family Stuff

Hi guys!

I know, I know. Two posts in like two hours?!? How obnoxious! How do you stand me? :p

I went around and took some updated pics of our new place.

My new office.

I'm thinking about putting up my shelves on the wall to the left of the window. I want a de-cluttered office, so I'm keeping my office supplies in the hall closet, which is huge!

There's even more storage up top. Oh Storage, how I love thee.

There's a bath right next to the office, which is "mine." Ryan is using the master, which is in our bedroom and has a shower, not tub. I wanted the tub!

Our bedroom is still pretty much a blank canvas. Did you catch what I did on the dresser? tehe...

Porn cam! :p

I'm so completely joking. I did that as a joke for when Ryan gets home. He he.

Kitchen is pretty much the same. Notice all the red!!!

The dining room is waiting on its new furniture.

Our view of Mt. Helix from the front window.

The living room currently still has our old couch in it. (Cannot wait until the new furniture gets here!) It also contains our old dining room table, which actually, looks rather cool right there in the corner. We might leave it for a game table for guests or something. I love it.

Obviously, we've still got boxes here and there, but we're getting there. This is our bookshelf. Ryan and I agreed that we shouldn't completely cram it full of books as I'm wont to do. :p I'm a writer... What can you expect?

"This is what it looks like to fall in love." This is a (dusty) drawing my friend made for us. She drew it from a picture. We were first dating at the time, and I love how you can tell that we're falling in this pic. :)

Wedding pic.

Another wedding pic and an oil painting that a reader of my blog on Obesity Help painted for us, also from a picture. Isn't it amazing?

Our wedding invitation.

Can you tell we really like to look at ourselves? :p

This is my brother's senior picture. He's a muscian, a true tortured artist. I don't think he'd mind me telling you the story behind the image. Today, he's a recovering addict, but at that time, he was a full-blown one. A few hours after this picture was taken, he drove his truck through a brick building and disfigured his face (among alot of other injuries). I got the call late, maybe 10 or 11 that night. I was studying at a coffee shop. My best friend took one look at my face and began stacking my books. She took them home with her and I drove like a mad woman to Indianapolis, where Britt had been taken by helicopter.

When we saw him, it was devastating, unbelievable, yet somehow, he was conscious. He was black from head to toe, which at first, we thought were burns. It was blood. I didn't want him or my parents to see me visibly shaken, so I went to the bathroom to throw up. They hadn't even stiched him up yet. It took everything I had not to cry. Can you imagine getting your face stitched up? In addition, he had damage to his spleen and various other organs, a broken arm, something wrong with his foot, etc. While he was in the room, his two friends that had been with him in the truck also arrived. They both had minor brain damage, though at the time we didn't know the severity. It was so scary.

Addiction is terrifying. I wish I could say that was the last time he almost died, but there were many many many more times. Many more hospital visits. Many more calls in the night. Many more moments where you look at your cell phone and see its your parents and wonder if this is the night that they tell you he's gone too far.  

But, all that's to say, drug addiction and food addiction are not that much different. I nearly ate myself to death at 343 pounds. It took a doctor telling me I might only have 5 years left to live to really wake me up. The older I get, the more I realize how right Ms. Maya Angelou was when she said, "We are all more alike than unalike."

Wow. That was possibly too much, huh? How's that for a "deep" blog? Here you were thinking I only think about food, decorating, and writing. ;-)

PS. If you are just here for the daily Silly Survey post (and I can't say I blame you), go here. xoxo

I Heart Saturdays

It's Saturday again! My favorite.

I had a writers workshop today, so I'm just getting around to blogging.

Last night, we had dinner with Ryan's friend, Kelcey. I made Peanut Chicken and Tofu again. Recipe here.

This morning, I had an egg and cheese breakfast sammy.

Then, I ran off to my workshop. Always fun. We did some fun prompts. One of them was a poetry prompt. I wrote my first haiku ever.

empty and blind she

lived under a tree that grew

fruits she could not eat

I'm not the best poet, actually, but it was fun.

Afterwards, I picked up Ryan and we went to see the new apartment. The woman that was living there just moved out, so it was finally empty.

Here's the view out my new office window.

Big "apartment yard" that needs a ton of work, but we're so excited about it!

I'm not sure what the rest of the day holds. We shall see. I hope your weekend is going great!

Do you write or read poetry?

A Smiling Sunny San Diego Day

Guess what we got today!!? Our dining table! We finally have a place to sit and eat all my concoctions instead of the living room couch (I'm a big proponent of eating at the kitchen table). We bought our table like 2 months ago at Ashley's Furniture, but its taken this long to come in! Yay! Unforunately, it didn't come pre-assembled.

Hubby to the Rescue

We had to go pick up the table at the warehouse in Rancho Bernardo. It was lunch time by the time I was cleaned up from the gym, and I become extremely cranky if I go too long without food (anyone else get cranky like this?). So, I took a PB&J sammy and an (unpictured) apple along for the drive up to North County. It was a REALLY beautiful day here in SD. About 80 degrees. I loved it.

We also picked up some much-needed chocolate when we were getting gas. He got a Kit Kat and I got Reeces Pieces. Hit the spot. Saved the wrapper for you. :)

After picking up the table, we thought we'd hit up downtown. We parked at Horton plaza and walked around the Gaslamp. We walked it literally from one end to the other. Maybe 2 - 2.5 miles total. It was warm, but so nice to see the sun smiling. We talked future talk. Careers. My school. Babies. The weather. All the important stuff. ;)

Thanks to giving into our candy craving, we were starving when we got home. It happens. Afternoon snack was a bowl of cheerios, a banana and a cheese stick.

Dinner was awesome blossom. Since we ate our snacks late, dinner wasn't until nearly 8pm, which I don't usually like to do. It's Saturday. We can make an exception. I still had leftover yams, so I made ground turkey and yam (whole-wheat) quesadillas with peach-mango salsa.

Hubby doesn't like yams (or weird concoctions), so I made him ground turkey, grape tomatoes, and onion quesadillas.

It's a Quesadilla Sauna

They were verrrry tasty and will definitely find their place in Jasmine's Cooking Concoctions. lol.

Salad on the Side

Nothing else on the agenda for tonight. We're just hanging out trying to beat the heat of the day, which is still hanging around the house even though it's now 9pm. Hubby is chillin' on the couch listening to music and waiting for me to finish this post. So, that's my cue. I'm outtie.

xoxo

-j

Next Purchase... What think?

I'm a posting fiend lately. Oh well. I have a lot to say.

So, check this table out. We're considering it as our next purchase. Our small, rickety kitchen table went to Washington DC with Amanda, so right now we're table-less.

What do you think?