random

You may or may not be aware that I don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day.  I could go on a long criticism about how it’s an unemotional commercial scam forcing people to feel obligated to buy tacky items to ‘profess their love’ for someone….but i’ll stop there.

My husband seems to be glad that I have this opinion—no pressure on him.  And while we don’t celebrate the ‘holiday’, we do wholeheartedly appreciate any cards or gifts that are sent our way by those who love us (ie: our parents).   

I was pleasantly surprised to receive a special package in the mail this week.

cereal in a can!

My mom knows me so well.

In a past blog post I mentioned how this cereal had piqued my interest, and being the thoughtful person that she is, she ordered me a tube of my own cereal.  Aptly titled, Katie & Goji. My very own custom cereal—How exciting! 

I promptly opened it and had a taste test (no matter that it was mid-afternoon. ANY time is cereal time).  Mmm…yummy!

nutritious & delicious!

I love that it comes from a small company, they personally mix your cereal and add their signature, as though they’re a long lost friend sending you a care package.  The canister is twice the size that I expected it to be.  It’s huge.  Even so, I’ve been doing my best to not have my usual giant servings so that I can keep this around longer than just 3-5 days like I tend to do with any cereal.  

I especially enjoy the dried blueberries and goji berries, and there certainly is no shortage of them.  Not only is it tasty, but I feel good knowing that I’m putting awesomely nutritious foods into my body—artisanal cereal, almonds, goji, blueberries, wheat germ, and chia.

I’ve never had chia seeds before, but they’re like poppy seeds, fairly tasteless, and are apparently excellent nutrition for runners.  I just hope I don’t start sprouting like a Chia Pet!

Thanks, Mom & Dad!  You’re the BEST!

I know….what an enlightening title!

Ah, Cereal.  America’s favorite breakfast food.  Perhaps one of my favorite foods, no matter what time of day it is.  And no, I’m not talking about Lucky Charms or Fruit Loops, or any other sugary nastiness which is marketed as edible food.  (thank you, mom, for not allowing us to eat that stuff)

I prefer the fiberful, whole grain, low sugar cereals.  I normally rotate between 4 different cereals, depending on where I do my grocery shopping.  Trader Joe’s High Fiber cereal, good ol’ Kroger brand Bran Flakes, and 365 Organic High Fiber or Barbara’s Bakery Ultima Organic High Fiber Cereal, both from Whole Foods.  Obviously, I like to keep myself ‘regular’, and these do the trick.  But really, they’re tasty.  Bonus, these are all under $3.

My perfect way to start the day:

1. big bowl.  
2. berries. 
3. cereal.  
4. berries.  
5. 1 tablespoon of organic sugar.  
6. 1% milk. Pour in until you see the milk peeking through the cereal. That’s the perfect amount, leaves just a little bit over to slurp up at the end.
7. maybe a few more berries on top, just for fun.

Anyways, what got me thinking about my cereal fascination was this new custom cereal company I’ve been reading about— [me] & goji.

Not only can you create your own healthy concoctions with natural and organic ingredients (berries & more berries for me, please!!), but you can give your cereal a name.  Perhaps that’s the most appealing aspect to me.  I do love to name everything I own.

I’ve been playing around with my custom cereal and this is what I would order as my first batch:

Granted, I haven’t quite convinced myself that $12.50 (+shipping) is worth it for a custom cereal, but if I cut out a couple of coffees and put that money into a special cereal fund, then maybe I’ll feel more justified.   

Until then, I’ll keep enjoying $3 boxes of cereal with my beloved berries.

p.s. oh look, they have gift certificates!  * wink *

I mentioned in a previous post that I really wanted an iphone for Christmas.  

Well, Santa (ie: husband) did well, and took me on a trip to our local Apple store to pick out my new toy before we left for Christmas in Idaho.

I also felt it was necessary for me to get a protective cover since I have a past history of dropping my phones.  I know, it’s not likely that this cover will save my phone if I drop it on our concrete floor, but it is now less likely to slide out of my hands or pocket and much easier to grip onto, especially when I’m wearing gloves.  

I would highly recommend the incase Protective Cover if anyone is looking for a case for their iphone. They have a rainbow of colors to choose from. I love my green one.

Behold….my poor quality photos of my iphone 3G.  I’ve named him Oliver. 

He has become my new close friend and addiction.  I’m already telling myself that I should try to go a whole day without using him for anything other than phone calls, but when I think too much about it, that just sounds completely ridiculous

i’ve been m.i.a. from blog posts recently because we are in the process of moving into our new townhome and shuffling back & forth between our two places trying to get everything transitioned before the end of the month.  

i’ll be sure to post some pictures when we get all settled in.  it’s bittersweet— we’re losing an awesome view (bye bye sunsets, space needle and Olympic mountains), but gaining more space and quietness (sayonara tiny kitchen and obnoxiously loud recording studio)  i we finally get to start unpacking and using some of our wedding gifts instead of keeping them piled up in the closet!!  i’m excited about that beyond what any exclamation points can say.

well, i better keep on packin’—these xbox games aren’t going to box themselves up.

I read a LOT of blogs.  Between my two Google Reader accounts I have close to 100 blogs that I read on a regular basis, and am frequently subscribing to newly discovered ones.  Some I just skim through, but others reel me in and provoke me to find out more about their causes and inspirations.  

Here’s a recent blog, One Dollar Diet Project, I discovered about a San Diego couple who decided to go for one month of eating on $1/day each.  Check it out, it’s an interesting read about how they succeeded and raised awareness for the billions of people around the world who live on $1/day and don’t have the option to resort back to spoiled eating habits.

It made me realize that we unconsciously eat and eat until we’re full, and we throw food away when it’s only a couple days old, and don’t even think twice about paying $3 for a latte.  I’m just as guilty as anyone. Part of the reason why I run and exercise is so that I can eat whatever I want and enjoy eating out at restaurants or fixing the more expensive/less healthy pre-packaged foods at the grocery store without the worry of gaining weight. 

And to think that there are people around this world, this country, this city who have never had the ‘worry’ of eating too MUCH food or not having organic food available or concern over gaining weight. They’re more concerned about getting any food to eat and not dying from starvation.

Makes you think twice about the food we eat.  I’m not sure yet where I’m going with this whole dilemma, but I think I’ll start by being better at making more foods from scratch instead of buying them.  Being in charge of our budget now (and the one who does the grocery shopping), I’m challenging myself to reduce our food spending and reducing waste.  

I’m pretty certain that Todd would resist doing any $1/day food diet (and I honestly wouldn’t want to either, with not being able to enjoy fruits the way I like to), so I’m not thinking of doing anything that drastic.  Just starting with small steps and moving forward from there.  We’ve already made changes to our coffee and dining out habits since I’m not employed right now, but I know there’s so much more we can do.  We’ll see where I can go with this.

Hopefully this will prompt you to think about your own eating/spending habits and make changes of your own.    

Our good friends Ryan and Aubrey recently went on a European cruise and had a wine night this past weekend as a thank you for being their chauffeur to/from the airport and for helping out while they were away. But mostly, just for being cool people.  They brought back 2 red & 1 white Italian wines to share with friends.

And unfortunately, I don’t recall the names of any of them, except that they were pretty much the best wine I’ve ever had.  Between the six of us, we knocked off those 3 bottles and finished a couple more (not so tasty after you’ve had Italian) bottles they’ve had sitting around, as well as about 50 pounds of cheese and cookies.  

Good friends and good wine—doesn’t get much better than that.  Some 3D glasses were discovered, which we felt necessary to use for modeling purposes and we ended the evening with a game of FRIENDS Scene-It.  Girls won. Of course.  (the competition wasn’t too fierce)

(today’s title NOT to be taken literally)

ooops, got a little delayed in posting Halloween pics. I better do as promised now, in order to free up subsequent blogs for other fun events and randomness coming up.

our friends Davey and Kristen hosted a Dead Man’s Chest murder mystery party loosely based on the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.  Everyone was assigned a character and given fact sheets and bits of info to clue us in to the evening’s events.  My character was Elizabeth Stanforth, the ‘highly desirable’ British Governor’s daughter.  I was excited because I’ve dressed as a pirate before, so this year I got to be the pretty princess type girl.  

(sorry for the grainy image, but this was the only full body shot we got and it was from Todd’s phone)

I fashioned my costume from hoop skirt, brocade tablecloth, wire (couldn’t seem to find any needles and thread…), and a lace corset top I found at Value Village.  My pirate medallion was pieced together with a gold necklace and my state cross country medal. Total cost was approx. $30 (and 2/3 of that cost was the hoop skirt).  

I did not win for best costume, but was told I lost by the flip of a coin.  Oh, also, I was not the murderer, nor did I figure out who the murderer was, nor did I manage to play the game right and get on a ship off the deserted island….obviously, I am not good at those types of games.  ’Tis okay with me, I enjoyed being all dolled up for the night.  

Probably the most fun of the night was that Todd’s character was a Spanish aristocrat who my character was engaged to, but despised, so he was wooing me while I got to act like I hated him.

He did an excellent job as ‘Don Inigo de Velez y Contrera’, but it was refreshing to go back to loving him after the game was over.  It was hard work pretending not to like him.

Some other photos from the evening:

Oh, also I was assigned to bring Brain Cupcakes (LOOK like brains, not MADE FROM brains) so after the very time consuming and messy frosting job, I just had to take a picture of my handiwork.  Helping my mom frost thousands of cupcakes and cookies while I was growing up paid off somewhat, though I’ll never have the skills she has.  Next time I’ll use red velvet cake mix.