Let's all try being a little more appreciative

So my Gramma or G'ma as she signed her cards, died this past Saturday. She was 90, we knew she would die soon. But its so interesting how when it happens its still a shock.

My mom called Saturday morning 10 am EST, which is 7 am her time (Pacific) and I knew something was wrong as soon as I saw her face on my cell phone screen. I answered and could tell by the background noise she was in the car...she said that G'ma had died in her sleep last night. She had a "soft landing". My mom was on her way to her apartment to get her ready. I didn't understand.

The nurse had called that morning and told my mom that when she went into G'mas apartment she wasn't breathing. My mom and her sister went over there and bathed her, washed her hair, powdered and dressed her to leave the apartment. She was cremated on Monday.

My mom was there all day Friday. Mom usually goes there a few times a week, for a few hours, but usually not the whole day. They looked at old photos all day she said. At times G'ma knew who people were, at times she didn't. They talked about the people in the photographs and reminisced about when they were taken. She said when she left she kissed G'ma each time for all of us. "kiss - this one is from Allie - kiss - this one is from Maggie - kiss - this one is from Nora..." She said "I love you mom" and G'ma said "I love you too dear"...this is so extremely rare that even into their 60's my mom and her sisters still vie for these key words from their mom. I'm overwhelmed that my mom got to hear her mom utter those rare words one more time before she passed.

G'ma and Bella, Summer 2013

This has effected me in the most peculiar way. I've mourned the dead before, but this death made me appreciate those still living more.

I feel like I can't remember enough about her. I wish I could remember more.

So we will be unexpectedly traveling to Oregon next week. Even though she was cremated on Monday we're going to put her in the mausoleum with Grandpa on his birthday 8/29 and share a meal together. And probably go to Trader Joe's because as she got older, that was all she wanted to do! :) I'm very much looking forward to celebrating this brilliantly strong and beautiful woman with all of the other brilliantly strong and beautiful women in my family.

On a much lighter note we shared a beautiful meal last night with our good friend Ali and 2 new friends Sam and Ruthie! Such a fun evening at Garces Trading Co. topped off with beautiful cocktails at Charlie was a sinner. Unfortunately we were having too much fun to take photos! But believe me, the food was suburb and the cocktails were creative and expertly mixed.

I love being busy, but this is a little excessive!

This week was super busy in my house!

In addition to our regular jobs during the day, we've each had additional responsibilities outside of the home every night this week. I've had a volunteer meeting each night and N has had a variety of work meetings/training's. I'm surprised at how exhausting it is.
Our nights are almost never low key and boring. We're usually getting home from the gym, walking the dog, feeding the dog, feeding ourselves, organizing and packing up breakfast and lunch for the next day and doing a rando household chore then its 10p and we're off to bed! But I'm surprised that when you add in an hour meeting, and throw off my schedule, how tired I am!

I still found time to continue my experiments with low carb granola. N wants big crunchy clusters, which I've been having a hard time achieving without sugar. But I found this Bon Appetite recipe and this Smitten Kitchen recipe and mashed them together. The egg whites in the recipes were the trick to the clusters N wanted and I subbed sugar free maple syrup and coconut oil. It took much longer to brown, probably 50 minutes at 300, next time I'll up the temp to 325. N likes them enough, I don't. I need to double the spices and salt, then I'll like them :)

It hasn't been all work and no play though. We had a great meal last night with a beloved long-time friend at Erawan, the first Thai restaurant in Philly. They have this fabulous week night dining menu, 3 courses for $16! And its a BYO. Love them. The food is always good. Its quiet enough in there to have a nice conversation and the staff is unbelievably friendly.

Also, we participated in a Sangria house crawl (last Saturday). Think of a pub crawl, but sub the beer for sangria and the pub for neighbors homes and that's it! It was a lot of fun, met a bunch of new people and got to scope out their design styles! (Now I don't feel that bad about my homes lack of style!)

John Legend at the Mann Center 8.2.14

We saw John Legend at the Mann Center this past weekend (8/2/14)
I heart the Mann Center. It will be a place I miss when we're no longer living in Philly.

On our way to the Mann Center to see John Legend.

And there's something about the view of the city from there that I love.
Reminds me of the Emerald City from the Wizard of Oz.

You can catch a glimpse of the city back there...it was humid that day, there was a haze over it.

Ha! This woman looking at her phone was also eating chicken wings and waving the bones in the air mid bite! #onlyinphilly

Summer of 2014 at Long Beach Island

We happily spent more time at the beach this summer than we had in years past. (THANK YOU Smith Family!)

It seriously revives my soul.

All Smiles! We're on the beach!

Katie likes to dig big holes at the beach

Bathing beauty!

Nothing better than some ice cream after a hard day sunning at the beach

Yeah!

Our awesome friends Katie and Sara made this art for us!

Saw The Book of Mormon last night at the Forrest Theater in Philly.
Loved it! Very funny!
Also paid $15 for a cocktail at the theater and got to keep the plastic cup, the bartender told us, bring the cup back next time and you'll get a discount! Woo! (not.)

Sneak Attack!

Trying to figure out the camera on my Nexus 7

35 thoughts on 2012

I stole this from a friend of mine, I thought it was a great idea to answer the same questions at the beginning of each year...we'll see how it goes!

1. What did you do in 2012 that you’d never done before?
2012 brought quite a few firsts for us: we got a dog (ok, technically we got the dog in the last week of 2011, but its still alive!), we bought a house, drove to Cape Cod & Florida...
2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I always make resolutions...sometimes even in the middle of the year! I did keep my 2012 resolutions; I write them down and keep them in a drawer. 
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Not exactly, my neighbors had a baby...
4. Did anyone close to you die?
Thankfully, no.
5. What countries did you visit?
Oh! We went to Mexico, I almost forgot!  One of my resolutions is to leave North America in 2013.
6. What would you like to have in 2013 that you didn't have in 2012?
A serious salary raise. The lack of financial appreciation at my job is marring my happiness there. I would also like to have a larger savings account at the end of the year. I guess it goes hand in hand..
7. What dates from 2012 will be etched upon your memory, and why?
April 25th - We closed on the house; November 10th - I chopped off all my hair and donated it! Thanksgiving 2012 - Our first Thanksgiving without the whole family; Maggie was here! (side note: we took an awesome bike ride too!)
8. What was your biggest achievement of this year?
This is a hard one! As mentioned before, we purchased a house! As a non-profit worker, this is a huge accomplishment. I've also become healthier and gained a TON of muscle mass. I can say that I've made some totally awesome, and I believe, long term friends. Bella is 80% my perfect dog, thanks to one of those friends, and getting better every day. I faced a fear of mine: biking in the city and now bike to work daily.
9. What was your biggest failure?
My biggest desire is to feel accomplished and appreciated at work, unfortunately, I still can't say that.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Short story, no. Long story, I was sick with god-only-knows-what the entire month of September, that was miserable. In October, Bella and I were attacked by a pit bull; neither of us were seriously injured, but it was REALLY scary and required a trip to the ER.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
Uhm, aside from the house...
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
I don't know and can't name all of the selfless individuals who give themselves to the causes they believe in every day. I'd also like to celebrate everyone who has made significant strides to better themselves. Taking that first step is hard, congratulations. 
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Anyone who acts as if they deserve something appalls me. Anyone who preys upon another person's goodness, appalls me.
14. Where did most of your money go?
The mortgage! and probably beer/food.
15. What did you get really excited about?
Probably all of the same things I always get excited about; seeing friends, fireworks, live music, the theater...OH! I know, I think this was the first summer I had abs! yes multiple! they weren't large and there was only barely 4 of them...but ya gotta start somewhere, right?!
16. What song will always remind you of 2012?
 Carly Rae Jepsen "Call Me, Maybe"  
17. Compared to this time last year, are you: a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer or poorer?
I'm so thankful I have the time hop app so I can answer this question! I am happier, thinner and poorer...haahaa, 2 outta 3 aint bad.
18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Eating out, blogging, reading, traveling
19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Making excuses, accepting excuses from others. Guilt trips.
20. How did you spend Christmas?
I spent Christmas 2012 at my dad's house with the whole family. We ate too much, drank too much, went for walks in the snow, saw friends...it was great.
21. Did you fall in love in 2012?
I did not fall, but remained. 
22. What was your favorite TV program?
My guilty pleasure is TMZ by far. I try to watch The Good Wife. I still love CBS Sunday morning. In 2013 I'd like to try to finish watching Grey's Anatomy. 
23. What was the best book you read?
I'm currently reading The Art of Racing in the Rain, I like it a lot. I read The Hunger Games, that was a fun series. I also really liked Firefly Lane.
24. What was your greatest musical discovery?
I just like music...I don't care too much about discovery. But, I would like to add more music into my life in 2013.
25. What did you want and get?
I checked out my 2012 resolutions for this answer. I gained muscle, and great friends, grew my savings account, learned how to ride a bike safely in the city, and maintained the happiness in my relationship. As for Christmas/Chanukah gifts, I got a bike, a tablet (Nexus7), a couple outfits and a bunch of odds and ends for the house.
26. What did you want and not get?
I wanted a major raise (10%), instead I got a title change and a 4% raise. 
27. What was your favorite film of 2012?
I don't watch many movies...Lincoln was good...
28. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 34 in 2012! My birthday was on a Tuesday, I don't think we did much. Nicole may have forgotten it. We hosted a big bar crawl the weekend before for Nicole's birthday...
29. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Wow, there isn't one thing I can think of which would have made my year better..not which I could control at least.
30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept of 2012?
HA! Fashion concept...uhm anything at Ann Taylor Loft. Is that a concept?
31. What kept you sane?
My dog. The gym. My great friends.
32. What political issue stirred you the most?
One? The presidential race, the whole thing.
33. Who did you miss?
My family! And my LI pals...
34. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2012.
Its important to recognize that you can change your life at any time. ANY TIME!
35. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
Uh yeah...I'll never be able to answer this question, in any year, so I'm not going to bother now!

NYE 2012 at Pumpkin

For whatever reason, disappointingly, I didn't photograph our new years eve.
But we did have a fantastic meal at Pumpkin.

First the oddities:
The place is small, very crowded and loud.
Cash only...but needed a deposit on a credit card.
They couldn't tell us anything about the menu, even the day before!

Now that that's out of the way on to the fantastic evening!

The service was superb, as was the meal.

Servers appeared calm and were clearly well informed; they could speak about the dishes with ease.
Even though we were told before we sat down (late) that we were allotted an hour and a half for our meal, we never felt rushed.

Our meal:
A miso, butternut squash soup
Escargo
Quail (I will say that with the sour cherry sauce splashed on the plate, it looked as if they killed the poor little thing right there.)
Duck with pork belly
Beef Cheeks
Chocolate cake
Butterscotch pudding

As elementary as my listing of the menu looks, each dish was beautiful in appearance and taste.

We're looking forward to going back again!

Rancho la Puerta de los Caballitos

Found this post from May in my draft folder! The trip was amazing. The Ranch was out of this world...a million different exercise classes each day, fantastic food...I wish I had kept up with the blogging while we were there because now the memory is fuzzy. :(

5/19/12
Our 1st day in Mexico!
Woah its different from the states.
Everything is dusty.
The store fronts are small & most seem run down, but my aunt assures me, inside you find fantastic foods and crafts.
We get our visas, and stop by her home: "Ranchito de Mi Cabllios".
A beautiful wooden gate is slid aside to display a pebbled driveway which leads to a modest home.
This place is really about the horses. Along the drive way is a custom made fence with various apparatus for horses; areas to tie them to, rest their saddles, custom-made gates to walk through to pasture. There's even a specific bathing area for the horses tucked behind a small tack house.
As you pull up to the house you notice the dogs, 4 of them; Gabe, Sam, P and BC, and a cat, momma. They all run & jump & play together. BC & P have to be tied up; BC is a puppy & eats everything & P kills chickens...so funny, she is one of the oldest members of this pack and can still catch & kill a chicken!
Momma is the leader of this pack & let's everyone know it. She does not play around with the dogs. She suns herself on a patio chair or on the car, but don't be fooled she's watching you & if you get too close or do something she doesn't like, she will definitely let you know!
So we meet all the animals & head inside to find our room & leave our bags.
Inside the house is all tile, keeps it nice & cool, there is large open, living room & kitchen area & off to your left is a hallway which leads back to two bedrooms and a bathroom. There are ceiling fans in each room to help circulate the cool air.
We drop our bags & head out for lunch. We stop at M and feast on Biera (a beef stew), Po (a pork stew with hominey), a beef torta & a taco.
They give you a condiment platter when you sit of chopped raw white onion, hot sauce, cilantro, Spanish oregano, chili flakes, & .
Everything was delicious! The Biera was deep in flavor, but had a very light broth. The sweet flavors of the cinnamon & nutmeg mixed with the meatyness of the beef & mild spicyness of the peppers creates this fantastically complex dance on your tastebuds. The poslito was salty with pork & hearty with hominey.

Devil's Den

Looks can be decieving...
Poor service & poor seasoning in this quiet bar make for an unpleasant experience.

Long island weekend!

Didn't realize how much I missed it until I came back...

Working from home lunch :)

Pulled pork taquerittas! (I think I just made up that word) :)

TGFSC - The Weekend

Another forgotten about post...I think one of my 2013 resolutions needs to include blogging better...
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Oh My Goodness!
The end is in sight, finally!
Its not that its hard, its just that its annoying to have to total everything up.

Saturday was cold and overcast, but we had brunch plans. Instead of going out we invited a friend over for brunch and she offered to bring the pancake mix!
She showed up with pancake mix, strawberries, bananas & oranges...awesome!
All we had to do was provide and egg, some oil and some milk.

Our Saturday Menu:
Breakfast: WW pancakes with strawberries, bananas, and oranges
Lunch: chicken sandwich...yadda, yadda
Dinner: Chicken

Our Sunday Menu:
Breakfast: Cereal w/milk ($.75)
Lunch: Chicken sandwich...
Dinner: Chicken, rice, cabbage

I'm so glad this is over, not because it was difficult, but because its exhausting to count cents on every meal. I imagine that its easier when all you have you can eat. While I was sad that we were not able to eat out with our friends, I struggle with, whether or not, if you need food stamps, if you should be granted that luxury on the backs of others...

I still think about this and how much my meals cost and it is still a deterrent to eating out. But I feel extremely blessed that I have that option.

TGFSC - Day 5

Just to further enforce the fact that I'm a poor excuse for a blogger, I found this in my drafts folder, having never been published from APRIL! whoops!
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Day 5! Woo!!
So it's Friday and again I didn't plan ahead, so I was starving and cranky at one point.

Today was abnormal, I volunteered at an event at Citizens Bank Park. They promised breakfast, but only provided 1/2 a Dunkin Donuts bagel for each person and coffee; I don't drink coffee. I knew the event wasn't going to last all day, and thought I'd be home by 1pm to eat lunch, but 1pm turned to 2pm and I was a cranky witch.

I rush out of the event...gotta meet the lock guy at the new house at 2...N left her phone at work, so I'm waiting (starving) in the new, empty, house with Bella and some guy who is trying to explain the different locks to me.

N was a life saver and came back with a $1.25 chicken sandwich. Happy girl! :) She also talked to the lock guy so I didn't have to.

Our Menu for Friday:
Breakfast: Cottage Cheese ($.50)
Lunch: chicken sandwich, ww bread, lettuce, tomato ($1.25)
Dinner:
We were invited to a BBQ and all we had to bring was a side dish!
So a $1.99 box of tabouli did the trick!
I added in a $.25 tomato, bringing our grand total for the day to: $3.99

WooHoo!

Molly Malloy's does brunch?!

The cinnamon french toast was great!

TGFSC - Day 4

I can't believe we've made it this far! I thought for sure we'd cheat here or there, but we haven't! And we've even gone to bed 'hungry' aka no dessert.
More and more each day this challenge is making me realize how gluttonous I can be and how truly thankful I am, that I have that choice.

Our Menu today:
Breakfast: Yogurt ($1)
Lunch: Chicken Sandwich on ww bread with cheese, lettuce & tomato ($1.25)

Our typical lunch sandwich - Grilled chicken, ww bread, cheese, lettuce & tomato

 Dinner: Ground chicken, roasted red peppers, cabbage, onions, corn, beans, rice and a tomato ($1.35)

Dinner Day 4 - A bit blurry, but you get the idea.

No snack today, there was food left over from a meeting at work and I had a plate of salad for free!

Total for today: $3.60
A new record!
But will this savings of $1.40, I of course will spend it on dessert!
2 Peeps and a scoop of ice cream will set me back $.63

TGFSC - Days 2 & 3

I couldn't write about the food stamp challenge we're doing this week last night because I was busy baking my self silly.

Day 2
Again pretty easy. But I notice that I've gone from counting calories to counting cents. Its just as annoying and tiresome.

Our Menu for Day 2:
Breakfast:
Yogurt ($1)
Cottage Cheese ($.5)
Lunch:
Chicken sandwich on WW bread with cheese, lettuce and tomato ($1.25)
Snack:
Apple ($.17)
Dinner:
Chicken, broccoli rabe, mushrooms and onion with pasta ($1.67)

Our #foodstampchallenge dinner day 2

Dessert:
Peeps (2/$.016)

Total for the day: $4.58
$.42 cents left!!

This was great...seriously. I can't believe how cheap it was!

Day 3
Today was harder. We had some running around town to do and didn't have time to eat breakfast, so by noon we were both hungry and cranky, but knew we had another 2 hours until we could get home to eat something...it sucked!
Another reason today was particularly difficult, a new restaurant opened up in our neighborhood and we had made plans to meet friends there prior to agreeing to this challenge. We decided to have some cottage cheese after the gym to hold us over while we met our friends and shared a drink. When they were ready to order dinner, we left.
I feel very privileged that I do not have to make these scarifies on a routine basis.

Our Menu for Day 3:
Breakfast:
None :( $0
Lunch:
Chicken sandwich on WW bread with lettuce and tomato ($1)
Pretzle ($.12)
Snack:
Summer Sangria from SoWe ($2.5)
Dinner:
Chicken, brussel sprouts, sweet potatoes ($1.34)
Total for the day: $4.96
$.04 left

Chicken, brussel sprouts and sweet potato for $1.34

Unfortunately, I'm still hungry today...damn that drink with friends! ;)

'We' baked...and baked...and baked...till we fell asleep!

I didn't end up blogging yesterday because 'we' (I) had to bake thank you gifts.
'We' (I) made: 4 dozen S'more muffins, 2 loafs of cinnamon bread, and 2 dozen peach scones
This kept me up until 1am, and I got a bit delusional, I forgot to take a photo of the scones and the final project. FAIL.

The photo is a bit dark, but this cinnamon bread came out AWESOME!

S'more muffins...we bagged and tied all the goodies for our thank you gifts.

TGFSC - Day 1

I'm not gonna lie, I was nervous that we were going to be hungry...But we weren't!
Although the constant fear of being hungry just makes me want to eat more...I found some control and stuck to our $5 diet.

Here is what we ate:

For Breakfast: ($1.17)
yogurt & apple (I also had two cups of tea which work provides free of charge)
For Lunch: ($1.40)
grilled chicken sandwich on ww bread with cheese lettuce and tomato
For Snack: ($.50)
cottage cheese
For Dinner: ($1.85)
grilled chicken, rice, broccoli, cauliflower, eggplant, zucchini, water chestnuts and bamboo shoots.

This whole plate cost us $1.85!

With $.08 left for the day, I opted to have 2 (!) Peeps ($.008/each) and a cup of tea ($.1), which actually leaves me with some change!

Even better than some change in my food pocket, my little food tracker app tells me I ate adequate carbs,  and received plenty of protein, calcium , iron and vitamin A & C.
38% Carbs
23% Fat
38%Protein

I had a pretty tough workout at the gym tonight and I feel pretty good. I was worried I'd feel more run down, or that perhaps my body wouldn't recover well, but so far so good. And I'm full!

Bring on Day 2!

Food Challenge Prep Work

We started by looking through all the circulars, and coupons in the Sunday paper. Based on what was on sale we created our menu for the week. Some things we were not willing to compromise on, our bread and yogurt.

We decided that we needed to have our daily greek yogurt, the amount of protein alone, just can't be beat;  And the bread we usually purchase is 1/2 the calories of other bread. With summer coming, we were not willing to compromise on this.

Already in our the fridge:
Bread - $4
4 Yogurts - $4
Broccoli Rabe - $.50
Sweet Potato - $1
Sweet Peppers (4) - $1
Onion (3) - $1
Brussel Sprouts - $1
Eggs - $1

This is what we purchased:
6 Greek style yogurts - $6
2 Cottage Cheese - on sale for 2/ $5
Coffee Creamer - on sale $2.50
Coffee - It was on sale and we had a coupon, $4.50
Chicken Breasts - on sale for $1.49/lb!, we bought 6 pounds for $8.95
6 Apples - $1
4 Tomatoes - $1

This is what we're thinking our daily menu will consist of:
Breakfast
  1 yogurt
  1 cottage cheese
  Possibly a hard boiled egg
Lunch
  Bread
  Chicken
  Tomato
Snack

  Apple

Dinner

  Chicken

  Rice or Pasta

  Veggies from the $1 rack

Dessert

  Peep

Last week we randomly picked up 2 cartons on Peeps left over from Easter for $.10/each making each one .008! A saving grace for my sweet tooth. :)

Tonight (Sunday) knowing that we had some produce and meat which would go bad if we did not eat it by next week, and knowing that because of the price of it we couldn't eat it during the challenge, we had a fabulous meal which cost $3.75 each.

Martin's chicken sausage with jalapeno & cilantro; homemade guac, refried black beans and grilled corn, sweet peppers and onions.