Tuesday Morning

After last week's craziness, coupled with being on my deathbed all weekend, I'm quite thrilled to have a fairly quiet week ahead of me.  But for the love of GOD, can it please warm up to at least 50 degrees for longer than one day at a time?  I'm so sick of wearing a winter coat.  It's March 25th, for crying out loud.

When I was coming up with my weekly meal plan on Sunday, I decided to check my Pinterest boards for inspiration.  I found this little gem on my Food From the Homeland board.  I'm allowed to call it that because I have an Asian husband.  The recipe has since been relocated to my NAILED IT. board, because, well, I totally did.

General Tso's Chicken - better than takeout.

It was seriously SO good.  Marinating, then coating, then frying the chicken was kind of a pain in the ass, but definitely worth it.  You could also complete those steps, and then add whatever sauce you wanted to it - or possibly paint thinner, because the chicken was that good.

Tonight I'm making pork chops in the cast iron skillet, and some kind of sauce/seasoning...it's probably going to be one of those nights where I use all 8761345 bottles of condiments in our fridge.  That number is only slightly off; I would estimate that 2/3 of the refrigerator space is occupied by some kind of salad dressing, sauce, or pickled item.

I'm also going to join the cauliflower craze that appears to be sweeping the Pinterest world, since I scored two heads of it for about $3 at Weis.  I have a few recipes in mind, but I'm a little skeptical on any recipe that uses a vegetable for its main ingredient, and claims, "Tastes EXACTLY like buffalo wings!!!"  Um, kay.  I'll be the judge of that.

Oldhead

I am officially old.  I was home by 8:30 last night, on St. Patrick's Day, and in bed by 10:00.  I had five-ish drinks or so, and I was at work, on time, and functioning this morning.  And I'm totally okay with that.  It seems like it's been a decade, when in reality it was only three years ago, that I started my day at 7 AM drinking green beer and eating an Irish breakfast before work.  Once the workday was over, on that same day, going out for "happy hour" turned into something more like a Happy Evening, and quite an Unhappy Morning.  Good times, but I'm glad that stage of my life has ceased.

Moving on...this past weekend included all of my favorite things: food, family and friends, drinks, and sunshine.  Friday night, we tried out a new-to-us restaurant, Smoked BBQ, and it was great.  I'd highly recommend it to anyone looking for authentic barbecue, without an overly smoky taste.  That's one of my biggest pet peeves; I prefer my meat to taste like meat, not woodchips.  I got the Bleu Rachel sandwich, which had thick-sliced turkey breast that was smoked perfectly, topped with bleu cheese and a creamy apple slaw, on the biggest pieces of toasted rye bread I've ever seen.  Amazeballs.

On Saturday, my mom, sister, and sister's BFF/basically my other sister, came down for lunch and outlet-shopping, so we hit up our favorite wing joint, the Boro.  It was outstanding as usual.  Later in the day, an impromptu cookout turned into an all-night gathering at my brother-in-law's house, which was super fun.  It was so nice to be outside, even if it was a tad chilly. 

Emma's first outdoor soccer tournament of the season is this weekend, here's hoping it's above 50 degrees and the sun is shining!

Spring is in the Air

FINALLY.  I'm beginning to feel more like a happy person again.  It was still daylight at 7:00 PM last night, and it was fabulous.  It's amazing what a little extra sunshine and above-freezing temperatures will do for a girl.

This weekend was quite productive, and the sun was out!  After spending an hour and a half deciding where we going to eat on Friday after work, we ended up at the Parkside, which is always delightful.  Saturday morning, I woke up early and headed to TC for the day, making stops at my grandparents' house, my BFF's parents' house to pick up a few bottles of the best water ever, and the elementary school to see my mom, before heading to another BFF's house to play arts and crafts and drink wine.  Sunday was spent cleaning and organizing, and I also made one of my favorite meals in the world, Ham and Green Beans. 

We went to the gym this morning for the first time in probably two months, and it was great.  I started a "running for beginners" plan, since I'm in terrible shape.  It's a 12-week program, so we'll see how long this lasts.  Also, my co-workers and I started a 30-day "arm challenge" at the beginning of the month, which includes various amounts of push-ups and chair dips, plus planks, for anywhere from 15 to 90 seconds.  I like it, and even if I don't do a whole workout, it's a quick thing that takes less than 5 minutes to do every day.

In addition to all of that, I've been going to physical therapy for 4 weeks now, and I feel like my back is going to be #beast this summer from all of the exercises.  Also, my back/neck pain is actually going away, or at least feeling better, for the first time in almost six years.  Win!

#Wah.

I just can't, with this winter any longer.  It's affecting my mood on a daily basis, I'm sick of looking at this disgusting, dirty snow.  I'm tired of my winter clothes, coats, scarves, and gloves.  I don't want to do anything but watch 13 hours of Netflix every day of every weekend.  I promise I won't complain too much this summer when it's 104 degrees.  I just want to be sitting by the pool, in a bathing suit and sunglasses.  That's all.