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Hey there! I'm Holly. A 40+ year old insurance-nerd wife, mom, beauty lover, and about a million other things in between.
This is the place where I share about our lives, what I'm currently loving, books I'm reading, plus-size style, beauty recommendations, health + fitness endeavors and anything else I'm finding interesting at the moment.
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Monthly Archives: February 2010
Reading Rainbow
Well, my books from Amazon arrived yesterday, so hooray for finger crossing! They also happened to come on the same day that I picked up a bunch of books I had reserved at the library, so I think it’s safe to say it’s going to be a Book-A-Palooza around my house for a bit.
The Positive Power of Over-Thinking
So I bought three fun books from Amazon this week and I am eagerly anticipating their arrival. I’ve been checking my doorstep every single day even though I totally picked the cheap-o free shipping offer because…well, I’m cheap…and each day I think to myself, who knows, maybe Amazon will accidentally overnight them. I mean it could happen, right?
Right.
Anyway, the first book is the new Booklushes selection (Have you joined yet? What are you waiting for?) and although I’ve been dying to read it, I’m sort of scared because a lot of people have already said they are having a hard time getting into it. I’ve been on quite the bad book spree lately so I don’t know if my fragile little heart can take a tough-to-get-into type of book but we’ll see. Hell, it was only $5 so whatever.
The second book is a book about marriage…yes that’s right – I have no ring, no wedding date, and we are not married, yet I bought a book about how to make a marriage work. Hi, I’m not eager or anything. Oh and you just wait until you hear about the third.
The third book is a book about fertility. Yes as in for babies. That’s right, again let me remind you that I’m not married and surprisingly enough I am not even thinking about having a baby this year.
**Awwww, look at your confused face. It’s so cute.**
Trust me, there was a second after I submitted that order where I looked over my shoulder a little self-consciously and said to myself “I can’t believe you are making this purchase.”
But let me let you in on a little secret about me – I am obsessed with planning. As for execution, well I can be pretty good at flying by the seat of my pants, but truth be told usually if I even get to the Execution Phase on something it is because I have spent a ton of time analyzing or researching. And when it comes to marriage and family planning over the next few years – well let’s just say that it is a “topic of importance” on my mental radar.
Actually Jess wrote a post recently about her penchant for analyzing, and I swear it could have been a page right out of my own diary. Especially this part:
I don’t feel the need to be prepared for every possible eventuality, and so I don’t freak out about the possibility of outrageous scenarios. But if I know something IS going to happen, or is LIKELY to happen, or I WANT it to happen…well, yeah. I think about it. I process it. I analyze it. And I try to move forward with as much awareness as possible.
This is exactly how I feel — especially the awareness part. If I know something is in my future, I’m going to try and prepare myself. And it is not because I think I will necessarily be more or less successful if I have done research or looked into certain options – I mean certainly I am goal oriented and of course I like to be right just as much as the next person — but even more important than all that, I really want to live a life where I am conscious in the decisions that I make. I know that sounds a little woo-woo, let’s all hold hands in a drum circle while we sing, but I think it’s actually more practical than it seems.
Something Ariel said today in one of her posts really resonated with me in light of all this thinking I’ve been doing about the motivation of my analytical tendencies. First, a little back story. As someone who had prided herself on being conscious about who she is and not a real consumption-monger with respect to her pregnancy, Ariel felt sort of uncomfortable the first time she took her new baby for a walk in a super-fancy-pants stroller that was gifted to her. It seemed so against everything she was to be pushing around this Cadillac of strollers:
Identity definition is important to me, and I want to make sure that the shift to motherhood doesn’t include blindly stumbling into things just because that’s supposedly how they’re done. I push a stroller now because I’m a mom, and that’s what moms do. Like so many other things in my life, it’s a question of intent and trying to stay truly alert to make each decision thoughtfully. I’ll take the discomfort of feeling like a self-conscious adolescent if it means I stop and take the time to truly consider what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. That discomfort tells me I’m not sleep-walking through this time in my life.
That really spoke to me – especially about making decisions thoughtfully and doing things the way I want to do them, not the way I think they should be done. Being aware of the choices I make is a process, and one that ultimately makes me feel empowered. Analyzing things a bazillion years before they happen for me is less about making the right decision and more about knowing that I am making the right decision for me at the time.
And yeah, sometimes that does make me feel uncomfortable. Sometimes that does give me a moment of panic where I say – “Holy hell who is this person thinking about retirement accounts and car safety ratings before my next purchase and strategies for marriage and planning physically to have a baby? Who is this person that comes home on a Friday night after a long week and prefers to curl up on the couch with a new library book and go to bed early rather than bee-line to the bar with friends?” And while I am definitely aware that life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans and all that — I like to think that for me it is less about actually making plans, and more about ensuring that for those few hours that I am awake each day that I’m not sleepwalking through my life. Though all this thinking sure has made me want a nap….
If You Need Us, We’ll Be Getting Ferg-a-licious
So tonight Garrett and I are heading to the gym together after work. You know business as usual, right?
Except that it’s totally not business as usual because tonight is the first night that Garrett has ever set foot in a gym as a card carrying member? Can you believe this? I am having a hard time wrapping my brain around this because he is almost 30 and has never had a gym membership EVER, whereas I have probably had at least 20 different gym memberships over the last 15 years in the different cities I have lived and I’m almost certain I can’t even count on one hand the times that I have broken up and got back together with 24 Hour Fitness alone.
So this Blows. My. Mind.
The other thing that blows my mind is that when Garrett was doing his 7 day trial a few months ago (because my Garrett does many things, but he does not Buy Before He Tries) we showed up, grabbed a couple of treadmills, and while I got my walk on he got up right on the sucker and ran for something like 4 miles straight, with hardly a drop of sweat trickling down his little face when he was finished.
And this was his first time ever setting foot in a gym, like, EVER.
SOMEONE TELL ME HOW THIS IS FAIR?
(As an aside, he can also eat pasta all week long and then go out and do yard work for a few hours on a Saturday afternoon and come inside with the outline of a six-pack on his abdomen. And in those moments I want to say ARE YOU SERIOUS, GOD? REALLY? Also, YUM! — but that’s not the point here. I never really believed in the whole “it’s genetics” thing until I met this Garrett and it DRIVES ME CRAZY on the regular. You know, in a totally loving and totally non-competitive way, I swear.)
:::twitch:::
Anyway, my fitness failures aside, I think I’ve told you before that I’m a group fitness junkie so I have talked Garrett into coming to a weight lifting class with me tonight. It’s not that I don’t like to workout alone — sometimes there is nothing better than just getting into the zone with your machine and your iPod – but for me there is a level of discipline involved in attending a class (I mean it is in a group full of people and I don’t want to look like an ass) so I usually push myself harder. This particular class is usually a good mix of men and women, and apparently that was the key for Garrett, (he didn’t want to be Turbo-Dancing to the Oldies or something) but I still think he is a bit nervous. I’m kind of interested to see what it’s like hitting gym on a regular basis with The Boy.
I figure we know how to play together, live together, and work together – how tough could it be to work out together? You know I’m gonna let you all know….
Brussels Sprouts with Bacon and Walnuts
Ah, Brussels Sprouts! Nature’s cruciferous little cast-off. How can you hate something that is so cute???
Growing up in my house, brussels sprouts (and please note the ‘s’ at the end of brussel so that you won’t be rudely corrected by some bitchy cooking aficionado as I was) were strictly verboten. My father had an unfortunate choking incident with them after being forced to eat them as a child, and let me tell you if there is anything more powerful than a traumatic childhood food memory, I don’t know what it is.
Just about everyone I’m acquainted with has some story about a time they were forced to eat something, and now as adults they staunchly refuse to partake if for no other reason than ‘because they can.’ As a child this meant no brussels sprouts in our house, at the request of my father, and no seafood of any kind at the request of my mother. The latter is kind of a humorous story for another time, but rest assured I have all but overcome my mother’s hatred of fish and now could live happily as a pescetarian.
But today I want to talk about brussels sprouts. Deeply delicious brussels sprouts. And if right now you are thinking that I am at least one card short of a full deck — I urge you to resist judgment, at least until the end of this post. I mean, it involves bacon, people. We can reserve judgment if it involves bacon, can’t we? Okay, so let’s get started with these little delicacies…
So the first rule of Brussels Sprouts Club is Never Talk About Bruss…wait, that’s not right.
The first rule is No Boiling or Steaming. If I can impart even a small culinary nugget of widom on you today, let it be this: If you think you do not like a vegetable, please try it roasted at a high temperature with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper. If you think you REALLY don’t like a vegetable — roast it in bacon drippings. This is sound advice, I swear.
You see that shiny goodness on your brussels? That is the magic of bacon! And it is the result of you rendering about 8 slices of chopped up bacon (or “lardonnes” if you want to be snooty about it) in an oven proof pot or pan (I use a 7 qt Dutch Oven) and then removing those slices of bacon and adding about 2lbs of cleaned brussels sprouts. While you are at it, give them a little shower of salt and pepper…and don’t be shy about it. Good seasoning is key here — especially with the salt.
At this point you are going to pop that bad boy in a pre-heated 400 degree oven for about 30 minutes — and the trick here is that you want the sprouts to be in a single layer so they actually roast, not steam. Steaming makes for a soggy sprout and we want ours to be crusty and delicious when it’s done. After about 30 minutes your sprouts should be cooked but not completely browned, and at this point you will take them out and throw in what is left of the bacon bits you rendered earlier (c’mon…you know a couple of those pieces made it into your belly, you are only human after all). Then you want to throw in a little more than a handful of chopped walnuts (whatever looks good to you, you can’t screw that part up) and put them back in the oven altogether for another 10 minutes.
After 40 minutes of roasting they will look about like this:
And they will smell even more incredible! At this point, Garrett and I just grab forks and go straight for the pot. I will assume you are far more civilized than we are, but if not — I really can’t blame you.
Caramely, nutty, roasty, and of course BACON-Y people, BA-CON-Y. I just can’t emphasize that enough.
Can you give them another shot? Seriously. This recipe might change your life.
Standing Knee Deep In A River Dying Of Thirst
I drive the same route home from work everyday — no highways, down a long busy street, through a kind of expensive neighborhood, through a not very expensive neighborhood, and then through to our neighborhood which is a nice hybrid between the two. It’s a monotonous commute, but a short one (20 minutes tops — and that’s if I hit traffic) so I am grateful. I don’t pay attention too much to my surroundings, but when I’m just about home and I drive through that fancy schmancy neighborhood, there is one house that always sticks out. It’s a nice big colonial house, with sturdy dark colored shutters and a cleanly landscaped lawn. It’s a beautiful shade of gray with white trim and the most striking feature is the big red door.
You all, I LOVE this house.
And each day when I pass it, totally depending on the type of day that I have at work and depending on what mood I’m in, I have one of two thoughts:
1. I love this house — I’m so happy I live in such a beautiful area and get to see this house everyday.
OR
2. I love this house — WHY CAN’T I HAVE A PRETTY GRAY HOUSE WITH PRETTY WHITE TRIM AND GORGEOUS A RED DOOR AND WHEN WILL I EVER GET A BREAK, AND WHY IS IT ALL SO HAAAAAAAAAAAARD??? WAH!
*I’ll let you decide which mood is which*
So recently I had a bit of a rough day, and I drove by the house as I always do, and sure enough said to myself pretty much everything in Option # 2 (plus a few melodramatic explatives, I’m sure) and then just a minute later I was pulling into my own driveway. I reached over and grabbed my purse, my lunch bag, my coat and got out of the car, and all of a sudden I looked up at my own house and really saw it — my pretty gray house with the pretty white trim (granted it only has a regular old brown door) — and I thought to myself, holy moses, I’m really only a coat of paint away and I’m sure I can hire Great painters from the Alex Trend Painters company to repaint our house. Sure it’s not a sprawling colonial with a freshly manicured yard (BAHAHAHAHAHA!) but it’s so close. And this one is mine. And this one is perfect, right now.
And I wondered how often do I do this?
How often do I make myself feel like something is so monumentally far away — so far out of my reach that it is impossible — when really the difference between the life that I have and the life that I want is as simple as a coat of paint? Because seriously, even on my worst day I could probably handle a coat of paint.
It was a strange moment of consciousness that afternoon, and one that I now think of almost daily on my drive home when I pass that house. Half of the battle of getting where you want to go, is being able to truly acknowledge where you are — and letting that to be okay.
Monday Morning Musings
- So last night as I was devouring a bag of a Chocolate Chex – which by the way is the only type of store bought Chex Mix I will eat, the rest of them all taste like a bad knock off – and I was reading the back of the bag (I also enjoy the backs of cereal boxes, I’m not really a picky reader, clearly) and became sort of befuddled reading the advertising claim on the back. “Chocolate Chex – 50% less fat than potato chips!” Which just seemed kind of weird to me because, I don’t know about you, but when I am eating Chocolate Chex? It is not because I am craving something salty, you know? The two do not scratch the same itch, right? To me it just seemed as arbitrary as saying Brussels Sprouts — 50% less fat than Chocolate Chex! I wanted to say to the Chex Marketing People, Yeah…and your point? But instead I just kept chewing
- On Saturday we had my cousin and her husband over for dinner and I used them as guinea pigs (aren’t I sweet?) so I could officially test Pioneer Woman’s Perfect Potatoes Au Gratin, and can I tell you? I am not sure those potatoes are legal in all 50 states! The cheesy, creamy, potato-y goodness is so worth the extra calories. (Note: I added an extra cup of cheese because I’m crazy like that.) I wouldn’t eat it every night, but man those were a good weekend delight. I’m so far gone on the Pioneer Woman bandwagon, that woman can do no wrong. Tonight Garrett and I have some steaks that need to be grilled (February grilling! I love living in California) and I think PW’s Whiskey Glazed Carrots will be making an appearance. Yum!
- So I finally got 500 Days of Summer from Netflix — I have been waiting for it FOREVER, but Garrett’s addiction to The Wire was taking priority — and I watched the first 20 minutes the other night and kind of hated it. Can it be?? Tell me it gets better because I wanted it to be so cute and everyone I know says it’s so great, but so far besides the music, there’s nothing great jumping out at me. I have such a girl crush on Zooey Deschanel (although who doesn’t?) and yes her clothes are cute and we all wish we could wear ruffles without looking like dorks, but something about this movie…I don’t know, I remain suspicious. But I still have hope…
- Speaking of movies, I saw Shutter Island on Friday night with Jeremy and Katie because they were kind enough to let me crash their date night and join them. I probably would have dragged Garrett but he had other very important events to attend to (see: Beer Pong Tournament. We are classy around these parts) and was not available. I thought it was pretty entertaining but it sure is getting kind of panned. Whenever I see movies that are based on books, I always end up wondering if I should read the book? 9 times out of 10 I prefer a book to the movie if I have read it beforehand, so when I see a film adaptation and I am luke warm on it I always want to pick up the book in an effort to rescue the story (most recently I felt this way about The Lovely Bones. The movie was just so…cheesy.) But since I know all the plot twists, I’m torn about wasting my time getting through the book. Hand wringing, people. Hand wringing. Have you read this book?
What’s on your mind this morning?
To Everything (Sneeze, Sniff, Cough) There is a Season…
The second the sun comes out I get all excited for spring because there is nothing I love more than the delicate heat of spring sunshine on my back. As any local does though, I quickly remind myself that the sun in Sacramento is a slippery slope. You see, one day it’s beautiful and sunny and the wind is blowing through your perfectly coiffed hair, and the next day you are in the 9th Circle of Hell and your normally straight hair turns into a frizz basket, and you better just get used to it because you will look this sweaty for at least 3 straight months! And I think I’ve clarified before exactly how I feel about that. So although the sun has been nice the past few days, I’m sort of scared of what’s to come. Climate Control is not really my bag. But now I also have ridiculous worsening allergies to contend with. I know most people have a sneeze or two when the flowers are in bloom, but I recently found out that when it comes to the ability to deal with histamines, my body is taking a long ride on the short bus.
I went to the doctor at the end of December because I had a dry cough that had been persistent for about a year. It wasn’t really bugging me, but apparently the decibel level of my cough was somewhere between Indoor Megadeth Show and Airplane Engine Symphony (who knew? I’ll put that on my resume). As you can imagine Garrett was lovingly nudging me to get it checked out. After dealing with a lifetime of mild allergy issues at various times during the year (spring and summer being the times I don’t have the luxury of living without anti-histamines in my system) I was not surprised when my doctor examined me and almost immediately determined (unless any other diagnostic tests came back with other indicators) that year round allergies were causing post-nasal drip and this was the most likely the culprit causing me to cough. As for the decibel level? Well that’s just my god-given talent apparently. My levels of sexiness are reaching sky high proportions right now, aren’t they?
So she sent me to have a chest X-ray and my lungs looked just fine. Then I had to have a CT scan of my sinus cavity to make sure that there weren’t Alien Life Forms growing in there or something, and sadly it came back completely normal. I say sadly because I was secretly holding out hope that the CT scan would show an insanely large sinus cavity because I have a super-hero sense of smell that plagues me (Lord Help Us All one day when I am pregnant) and I was hoping for once and for all to find a reason for that, but alas No! — normal sinuses on all accounts.
The final step was to go through a lung function test. I was kind of scared of that to be honest with you, but mostly the fear was derivative of the fact that I was expected to be at the hospital:
1) At a very early hour
2) Having not consumed any caffeine
3) TESTING A FUNCTION????
BAHAHAHAHAHA. A Function? Pre-coffee?
Obviously the Doctor did not get the memo that I don’t do ANY functioning, lung or otherwise, without coffee — but since she asked me so nicely I showed up and did as I was told and breathed into a crazy apparatus and chatted with a lovely and considerate gentleman who was drinking a piping hot cup of coffee across the table – so help me god, he was lucky he lived to tell about it. But in the end I was delighted to hear that not only do my lungs function, but they function “at the level of a professional athlete” and you know, I felt an nostalgic sense of pride in that moment. But that quickly turned to defeat when I realized that since this was my last diagnostic test, it was official: I am allergic to pretty much everything in the free world, all of the time.
So if you thought I was sexy before, you should just see me now that I have this prescribed “Allergy Cocktail” of pills, inhalers, nose-sprays and neti pots. It is an ear-nose-and-throat disco inferno up in here with all the hotness, my friends. After almost 60 days on the wagon the cough has subsided a bit, but not all the way. Both specialists I saw warned me that it would not be a quick fix and they think it will take months for my irritated throat to heal since I left it “severely untreated” for over a year. The dramatics of that statement make me chuckle a bit. I don’t know exactly what I think about this diagnosis yet, since I am definitely NOT a fan of taking medicine at all, let alone daily just to function. (Let me insert a Quick Disclaimer: I am not making a judgment about you if you need medicine to function. Many people do and I am happy to live in a time where it is readily available). It’s just that I do not subscribe to the general philosophy of Western Medicine that every problem with the human body needs a little yellow pill to solve it. I’d prefer to let my immune system do its job correctly and not micro-manage the whole situation. But obviously my body is failing me a bit, so this is kind of a challenge for me.
I would love to hear of any kind of natural remedy worked for you when it comes to allergies. What have you got for me internets???
Too Short To Blog, Too Long To Tweet
- Last week my friend Jeremy and I made an impromptu decision to see a local theater production of Glengarry Glen Ross. Even though I have never seen the movie, I thoroughly enjoyed it, but more importantly it reminded me that I really miss theater! I feel pretty lucky that growing up my parents took me to do that kind of thing quite a bit. We had season tickets to one of the local repertory theaters, and although I always thought it was kind of a drag growing up, now it is singlehandedly the reason I kick Garrett’s butt in any musical/theater/opera questions on Jeopardy! Hey, it’s the little things, people.
- I have run into a couple of bad eggs lately when it comes to books — a couple in a row I just couldn’t get into — and seriously I start questioning my own intelligence when I can’t get into a book. Am I the only one who does this? Like, for a minute, I feel like a bad reader (college flashbacks, maybe?) and that I am obviously out of line since I don’t have an appreciation for the book at hand, and then I have to remind myself that reading should be a pleasurable hobby and does not have to be a demonstration of discipline. If I don’t like something I don’t have to read it, DAMMIT! To remedy this I went to the library and picked up a bunch of cheesy books and as soon as I finish the book I’m reading now (which is delightful, finally) I’m going to go on trashy reading bender. Coming soon to a Goodreads Page near you.
- Random Internet Etiquette Question — say you follow someone on Twitter or Facebook or Whatevs, although this is someone you know in real life. This person decries they are going through something awful, having the Worst Day Ever, bitching about something terrible that is going on in their lives, all of the above. You, being concerned about said friend’s well-being, respond in some way — email, text, etc. (and more than once, but not every single time they cry/complain/vent). If they NEVER respond — like not even once — not even a “hey thanks for thinking of me…” response like their mother taught them! Is that offensive? Or am I mostly being oversensitive? I think I know the answer to this but am always interested in another perspective.
- I’m starting to plan Garrett’s birthday vacation in May and I think we are FINALLY going to get to Seattle. At least that’s what we are leaning towards, and OHMYGOD you all, I am peeing my pants with excitement. I have never been there, but I swear to you, I just know we are going to live there someday. Is that weird? Do you have a place like this? A place that you have never been but are just: A. In love with or B. Feel like you will end up there someday. Seattle is that place for me, and luckily Garrett feels the same way. Weird, right? (And convenient I guess, since I think I’m gonna keep him around for a while hehe). The weirder part is that we saw an Astrologer recently (wow, that is totally another post, I should tell you about that, it was super interesting) and without any input from us basically came out and said geographically Seattle was a place that both of us were very connected. Also, The Dalles in Oregon, but I don’t know a thing about that area except for that it was mentioned in One Flew Over the Cukoo’s Nest, which isn’t like a great selling point in my opnion, but you never know.
What’s new with you, peeps?
