Distracted

I have been incredibly distracted this week.

Especially yesterday. Don't get me wrong, I did plenty of work...but I'm WAY OVER one particular deal that I feel like I've been working on for ages, and it's been taking its toll on me. I did more than a little bit of Google-reader-stalking and twitter-refreshing.

I also spent about half the day fantasizing about the dinner I was going to make. See, I think I mentioned yesterday that the only groceries we really have in the house are frozen chicken and a giant Costco-sized bag of broccoli florets. For some reason, I became obsessed with the idea of making broccoli with pasta sauce. And I mean OBSESSED.

I went home, walked and fed the pups, made a new playlist and hit the gym for a sweaty and somewhat painful half-hour on the treadmill...while thinking about the broccoli that was to come. I did three miles of half-mile repeats at 7.5mph, with recovery at 6.0mph, totaling about 26 minutes and some change. I was a red-faced sweaty beast, but I was happy. And during my cooldown and stretching, I just could NOT stop thinking about my broccoli pasta. And how I could post about it.

So, I made my dinner. I steamed up a buttload of broccoli, drained off the salted water and added a chopped onion. While that was sauteeing together, I sliced up a few chicken breasts, seasoned with garlic, onion, salt, and Mrs. Dash tomato basil pepper. Dump in the chicken, stir to sear on all sides, dump in jar of whatever marinara-style sauce I had handy, bring to boil, simmer, done.

And yet...you'll notice that there are no pictures. Of anything. No pictures of the bright green broccoli, no pictures of my finished bowl (I served my portion of the broccoli-chicken-sauce conglomerate over a couple handfuls of baby spinach and topped the whole thing with a couple shaves of sharp provolone and some grated Locatelli), nothing.

I haven't blogged a dinner in...I don't know, a long time...and yet I couldn't even remember to pick up my stupid camera to document my broccoli bowl. Told you I was distracted.

But it's okay. The longest week ever is coming to a close. I have my iced coffee (though I need a second one this morning, I think), I have my Fage 0, and I have a growing checklist of things to do today that don't involve much human interaction...so I'm happy. PhillyGuy and I are probably going to dinner tonight...maybe Pub & Kitchen, where we haven't been in ages? Maybe Resurrection Ale House, where we go ALL.THE.TIME. (but it's so tasty!).

Or maybe we'll stay home and I'll drink wine and wear sweatpants. The possibilities are endless.

Happy friday!

Snowphie

Don't worry, this is from last year.



There's no snow on the ground here in Philly at the moment.

Also, we got her a new coat shortly after this surprise blizzard. She was about 7 or 8 months old in this picture, and baby puppies grow FAST. Her coat is no longer cropped.

Things I've been up to this week:

- copious amounts of work
- forcing myself back into a regular workout schedule (averaging 3-4x per week - yes, I should be going more like 5-6 times, but baby steps...this is better than my 2-3x that I'd slipped into)
- running shorter and faster - I LOVE INTERVALS! they're good for avoiding the hamster wheel syndrome
- hosting a dinner party
- making holiday treats
- hunting down Candy-Cane Joe-Joe's (sold out everywhere - EXCEPT for the store by Allison's parents' house! HOORAY FOR FRIENDS!)
- attempting to make my own Candy Cane Joe-Joe's...which was an epic fail.

I'll share my adventures with everyone shortly. SWEAR!

Cupcake

So shortly after I posted my last entry, wherein I bragged about wearing sweatpants to work...you guessed it. In rolls my boss. Even though she TOLD ME on Friday that she WASN'T COMING IN.

Oh well. No one said a word all day, so I'll just pretend that means she didn't notice I was wearing Luon.

Of course, even though she decides to come in on the day I rock my sweatpants, she took TODAY off instead. When I wore, you know, functional pants with a tab waist and zipper and made of fabric that did NOT contain 80% spandex.

Whatever.

Today, one of the big legal research powerhouses came in and hosted a "cupcake party" for us. Since it's late summer and everyone and their sister is on vacation (except me...boooo), it was a small scene. Just me and a couple of partners. I rarely have to do research, as I do mainly transactional work, and partners...well, even if they need research done, they aren't exactly the ones logging in to do it.

But I did have a specific question, so I ran in, asked it, chit-chatted with our rep, and then grabbed a cupcake on my way out.



I really, REALLY wanted to like this. You can't really tell from the picture, but it's miniature - base is probably a little larger than a standard bottle cap (soda/water/whatever; smaller than a Snapple cap). There are little sparkly bits of red sugar.

Um, but...I don't know. It's wrong. I thought it was going to be a cappucino-type flavor, and maybe it was. But all I could taste was butter. That frosting literally tasted like someone whipped a packet of Via in with a big ol' stick of butter and maybe a gallon of sugar.

Blech. Not for me. Give me my Lindt Fleur de Sel any day.

Happy Saturday

It's been a good one so far.

A day is always great when it starts with an early (7:45 IS early for a Saturday!) walk to the grocery store in your sweats, with low humidity and tons of sunshine.

It helps when your grocery store has a nice backdrop.

Hi there, skyline! I needed to get a couple odd and ends so I could make breakfast this morning. Most importantly, though? My lil' corner store has the new Larabars!

I grabbed a couple of each. Breakfast was the usual mushroom/spinach frittata with bacon.

My secret to making the frittata nice and fluffy? Beat in a generous dollop of plain Greek yogurt.

And a cinnamon chip scone from Cafe Lutecia, which I toasted up, covered in butter and split with PhillyGuy.

Afterwards, I headed out to King of Prussia to do a little shopping. I did pretty well, actually -- bunch of Theory pieces on sale for work, new oven mitts to replace my (really nasty) $2.50-bin-specials I picked up at Target about four years ago...but my favorite thing? My new shiny rose gold MK watch:

Oh, I love you, pretty little watch.

When I got home, PhillyGuy and I did P90X Yoga, and then the pups and I spent some quality time chillin' in bed watching the Kardashians.

Sooooo happy. We grilled pork chops for dinner, and I made my usual roasted veggies. Except I might have left them in for a liiiiiiittle bit too long.

I really gave it a shot, but trust me when I tell you these were completely inedible.

Blech.

Tomorrow's my "long run" -- at 6 miles, I finally feel like they're getting to a not-embarassing-distance. After my five-miler (take two) went so well on Tuesday, I'm hoping to keep it up and crossing my fingers for the morning.

Hope your weekends are going well!

Eggs FAIL

Last night was exactly the kind of relaxing Friday night I needed.

PhillyGuy and I got the chance to hit the gym together for the first time in a couple of weeks. I went with the intent of doing 25 minutes on the bike, followed by P90X shoulders/biceps/triceps. Except that, once I wrapped up my cardio, no fewer than FIVE GUYS were scattered in front of all of the dumbbells, taking up every piece of the lifting area. I killed a few minutes BSing with PhillyGuy, who was still on his bike, but no dice -- no one was moving.

I was hungry, I was tired...I generally did NOT feel like sitting on my butt for an indefinite amount of time waiting for random dudes to finish their workouts and free up some space. So, I did the logical thing: packed up and headed back home.

PhillyGuy and I ended up getting Chinese takeout. I got my usual: steamed shrimp and mixed veggies, no sauce, brown rice, with copious amounts of soy sauce and fish sauce.





Wait...what? WHITE RICE? What IS this crap? My favorite husband forgot to specify the type of rice that I wanted, and I'm assuming they default to white. It was the first time I'd had white rice in years...and I was NOT impressed. No amount of fish sauce and soy sauce could make that tasty. Blech -- not for me. So, I just did the reasonable thing, and ate all of the veggies and shrimp instead. I probably had about 1/4 cup of rice altogether -- just so not worth it.

This morning, even though poor PhillyGuy had to run off to an all-day seminar, I decided I still wanted to make eggs. No idea what I had -- so I stood around in front of my fridge and pieced something together. Hmm. Baby spinach, mushrooms, feta and bacon? Um, yes please.



Two things to note about this picture:

1 - Cosmo lurking in the background, in his standard "maybe, just maybe, if I hang out here, something will come my way" spot, and

2 - the bowl of berries and yogurt, ALSO in the background.

Both of those items have a purpose.

See, while my bacon crisped up in the pan, I went outside onto the balcony to water my flowers. When I came back in, I noticed a tiny bit of smoke coming from the pan. Odd, I thought, since I didn't have the heat up that high -- but I pulled the bacon out and set it aside to drain, hoping that it was just crispy.

Um, not so much. It was DEFINITELY burnt. And do you know what happens when you cook mushrooms and spinach in a pan that just had bacon burning in it? Even if you wipe out all of the grease?

If your answer was "the other veggies will taste exactly like burnt bacon," you are correct. And for the record? Burnt bacon is NOT tasty. At all. I didn't want to waste my food, so I gave it a shot. I covered it up with a ton of mustard, hoping that it would disguise the burnt butt taste...not so much.

I had suspected it would go that route...hence the "back-up breakfast" of berries and yogurt back there behind the eggs. But don't worry, SOME household residents don't mind the taste of burnt bacon:



My plans for the day involve hitting the gym and the dog park, and doing some serious deep cleaning of this house. When you have two dogs and hardwood floors and don't stay on top of things, you end up with tumbleweeds of dog fur...not really a way to live. Gah.