Closets

As I mentioned before, I took a week off at the beginning of June to relax a little at home. I had a lot of plans and projects for my time off but most of that fell to the wayside except for a few things. I really wanted to get a couple of my closets in order and managed to do it. First was the bedroom. So crammed full I couldn’t see the clothes in the back and had no idea what was even in there. I started by pulling everything out of the closet to dust and vacuum it out. Then I pulled all winter clothes from the pile and put them into storage under the bed and up in the closet. After that I went through each article of clothing looking for stains, damage and fit (for my stuff), weeding out clothes I no longer liked or used (like skirts from BSF!) and hung everything back in order by article type and then by color (ROYGBIV).(Greg's were not hung in color order because I know he will never maintain it. It just doesn't matter to him that much. He has more items than this but a lot of stuff needed to hit the laundry first! I am glad I checked.) This was really great because I could see instantly which colors were underrepresented in my wardrobe. Yellow, orange, purple and greens in my case. I went to the outlet mall with the girls from work the next day and found some cute pieces that fit into these color ranges instead of buying more black, brown and gray which I apparently love according to my closet! I then moved on to the dressers and even my jewelry box decluttering and getting everything in order. It feels so nice to open my closet now and be able to step in and think, “what color do I want to wear today?”. Greg even likes that all his short sleeve shirts are hung together, long sleeves together, etc. No photos of my underwear drawer but I put some small boxes inside to keep the different groups of items separate and it also looks really nice and organized and I can find everything really easily. The best part is that it makes it really easy to pick out my clothes the night before to streamline my morning routine.

The other closet I really needed to tackle was the upstairs hall closet. Since we moved in it has been a jumble of stuff. I had things kind of organized but the boxes I used in the old apartment were the wrong size for this place and weren’t really working for me. I bought new containers ages ago but never had the time to work on it. I forgot to take a before picture but I emptied the entire contents onto the office floor and began sorting into my different containers marked travel, medicines, refills/new items, household, etc. Then I made cute labels for the boxes and re stacked them on the shelves. The other thing that made a huge difference was going through all the linens. I had 3 sets of towels from 3 apartments in 3 colors, multiple odd blankets and duvets, and more. I cut that way down to what we really used and donated the rest. Now everything fits neatly on the shelves and floor is cleared out for just a few items instead of a mountain of old towels that constantly tipped over. I picked up a canvas basket for the blankets that are stacked on the floor in the picture making the closet look even better. The basket has a little window in the front where I slipped in a matching card labeled "blankets". Now the closet it totally usable again. I love it.

This just in!

First of all, the new hair. The hot hot hot weather here prompted me to take drastic action Tuesday to cut my hair off (and get some summer highlights). I desperately wanted the hair off my neck and not just up in a pony tail for 3 months. I love the way it turned out thanks to Chie my awesome hairdresser. I took in a sort of boring photo I had found to show her the length and she totally rocked it. This the best picture I could take of myself at my desk so I hope you can get a good sense of it. I feel much more spunky with the new do.

Second of all, I received notice yesterday that I have been accepted to the Stern part-time MBA program at NYU for the fall! Of the 2 programs I applied for this was my first choice, though I didn't have high hopes that I could get in. I knew I was a good applicant but not a great applicant and it is a very competitive program. But God can work with a bad GPA, non-ivy league schools, and an alright GMAT score to accomplish his purpose! I am still very much in shock from the news. I am still waiting for my official application package to arrive with all the details I need to fulfill over the summer. This news makes it even more important for me to enjoy a relaxing summer and spend as much time with Greg as possible before the fall.

Thanks to everyone who was praying for me during my test time and through my application process. On a funny note about 5 min after I got the news from Stern I received notice from Wagner that my application was incomplete and not forwarded to the admissions committee because my UW transcript did not arrive in time. Talk about clear direction! My response "who cares, I'm going to Stern!".

Special Ice Cream Note

I just had to post a special note about the ice cream in yesterday's post! We tried this new style of non-dairy ice cream on Saturday which was AMAZING. It is made with coconut milk instead of soy milk which produces a rich and creaming and very ice cream like substance. It does have a distinct coconut flavor but I thought it was to die for. Greg hates coconut flavored sweets but he thought it was fabulous too. It has a mellow coconut flavor like you would have in a curry and not like you would find in a coconut cake or coconut filled chocolate. We had vanilla flavor with our strawberry cake but will be trying the chocolate variety next time we are at the store. If you see this at your store, give it a try!

As for the toaster oven, so far so good. The kitchen seemed to stay fairly cool while the cake baked. At least cool enough that the air conditioner could keep up. I think it is a keeper (much to Greg's dismay!).

Newest Toy

We have been talking a lot about how to keep up our home cooking over the summer. It gets so hot it is impossible to use the oven and even stove cooking is tough. We have an air conditioner in the kitchen so some cooking is manageable. I decided to try getting a toaster oven. My friends who have them swear by and love them. Greg of course rolled his eyes when he saw that I had purchased yet another appliance but I found a space for it and gave it a try on Saturday night. My hope is that I can toast, bake and broil without heating up the entire kitchen. My first test was strawberry cake. We joined a local CSA in our neighborhood. Community Supported Agriculture, in case you are not aware, is when you buy a share in a local farm (ours is an organic farm on the North Fork of Long Island) and then pick up your dividends weekly in your neighborhood. It is kind of cool because the share fluctuates with the weather, farm conditions (like pests) and with what is in season. For instance this is only our 2^nd week and because of the cool spring we had our shares have been small in the beginning. Then this week we got the world’s smallest head of broccoli because of an outbreak of root maggots that killed part of the crop. No worries because we got lots of other things. We were supposed to get rhubarb this week and I was going to make rhubarb cake but instead we got strawberries. I was bummed but just subbed them in for the rhubarb and it turned out really fabulous. Here is the super easy recipe:

Rhubarb Cake

4 cups of Rhubarb cut into ½” pieces
¾ cup sugar
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
½ cup butter
1 tsp vanilla
¼ tsp almond extract
2 eggs
1/3 cup milk

Preheat oven to 375F. Mix the rhubarb and sugar and set aside. Mix flour, baking powder, and salt and set aside. Cream the butter, add the wet ingredients, and then add the flour mixture. Grease a 9x9 pan and put the rhubarb/sugar on the bottom, then add the batter on top. Bake for 35 minutes or until golden.

(I subbed strawberries, Earth Balance Margarine, Bob’s Red Mill egg replacer, and soy milk and the cake turned out great and vegan.)

I cut the recipe in half to fit into 2 ramekins and slid them into the toaster oven, set the timer and walked away to enjoy a movie. They baked up perfectly and we enjoyed them with some non-dairy ice cream. I can’t wait until this Thursday when we should finally get some Rhubarb in our CSA so that I can try the cake again as it was meant to be.

Summer Fun

This summer Greg and I have committed to doing more fun things together around the city. We are trying to do one weeknight activity and one weekend activity. This week was our first real attempt at this new plan and it went great. We met with our small group in Bryant Park this week for a picnic dinner on Wed. I had never actually been there before (this is a popular park and sight of fashion week if you watch Project Runway or follow fashion). Then on Friday we went out to a movie. We saw You Don’t Mess with the Zohan. It was about what you would expect from an Adam Sandler movie, lots of potty humor but I barely noticed because the movie theater’s air conditioning went out. As the movie went on we got hotter and hotter and kept asking ourselves, should we stay or go. It was so distracting and uncomfortable that when the movie ended and people were literally running out of the theater to get some air we went and asked for a refund. I would say the movie was worth about $0, so we got our monies worth. I’d give it 2 stars

This weekend we fared better. We went to a church picnic on Roosevelt Island and got to see some of our friends we don’t run into very often. Then the rain started and kept on going into the night. We opted for movies at home. One of which was Live Free or Die Hard. I would give this one 4 stars. It was right in line with the Die Hard series and fairly entertaining (I like Die Hard movies). We had other fun plans which we postponed till Sunday because of the rain. We hit the Renegade Craft Fair again this year and found lots of fun things and some good craft ideas. Then we went to PS1, which is part of MoMA, to see a show of contemporary Finnish art. I really liked this one particular exhibit which was clothing made form feathers, leaves and bark. There were some shoes made from pussy willows that I especially liked. They were still working on the annual big outdoor installation that will be open in the evenings this summer. Not sure yet what they are going for but it looks interesting. We had dinner in the café before heading to church. All in all it was a great first week of summer fun.

Happy Father's Day

I found this cute photo of me and my dad right before heading out for Father Daughter bonding. I used this photo to make a card for my dad that turned out really cute (though I forgot to take a picture of the card). I love you dad and and remember lots of fun adventures together. Happy Father's Day! Here is a photo of Greg and his Dad at Christmas time playing with a new toy. I just love the excitement on Greg's face and little body as he plays with Dad. I hope you all had a nice day honoring your fathers!

Promises promises

What did I say? New posts starting in June? Oops! I guess I forgot. Actually I went on vacation for a week starting June 1st with a huge list of things I was going to accomplish and then promptly got swept away in sleeping in, TV watching and relaxation and blogging fell to the wayside ... again. Well I have a camera full of photos of various events and lots of blog posts in my mind which I have vowed to put into writing this weekend, especially today as the rain has cut our Saturday plans in half. So look for fresh posts starting Monday. And this time I will keep my word!

Pretty pretty placecards

One of my projects at work right now is planning our annual Genomics Symposium. There is a big dinner after the meeting for speakers and faculty and every year I make place cards for the tables. My boss is impressed with just printing and paper but this year I wanted to do something a little more interesting. I made about 8 prototypes but settled on this one. It features our logo and and the guest's name like always but this year I cut out a little smaller arch and stuck it on top with foam tape for a little 3D appeal. I think they turned out really cute. Too bad the only creative play I get these days is for work!

Happy Birthday Bridge

The Brooklyn Bridge turned 125 years old last Thursday and there are summer long events to celebrate. In our almost 8 years in the city neither of us had ever walked across the Brooklyn bridge on the pedestrian walkway. Well, it was pretty crowded probably because it was a holiday. The view was really nice but you are just a few feet above the cars which are pretty noisy but it was a nice way to spend the late afternoon in the setting sun.

Weekend Warrior

How am I spending this beautifully sunny holiday weekend? Working of course. I was in the lab all day on Saturday putting the finishing touches on the project you see in the photo. My boss signed on almost a year and half ago to edit a book. That means that I got to edit a book. 31 authors contributed and at times it was like wrangling cats to get them all to keep to the schedule (which they never did since this book is a year over due!). Then it was up to me to do all the technical editing on the 500+ page manuscript. Saturday I finally had all the chapters and contracts in and edited and was ready to paginate and print the whole thing. The publisher is a British company so they required the whole thing be printed on A4 paper which I had to buy special for the project. I am really glad it is done and will be in the mail on Tuesday. Of course it will be back to haunt me as a proof needing to be indexed. I'm not sure how I will get out of that one!

As for my Sunday, it was spent putting together my last application for grad school. I had to rework my resume to highlight my public service experience and find a way to rewrite my essays for business school to work in this public service school application. So far so good. I will have my mentors/bosses take a look this week and then it will be done. One essay uses this thing they call a visual explorer. You pick a photo from the 23 available and write about how it represents to your passion for or dream of public service. I chose a row boat. Let me tell you, the Stern essays were much easier because they were so straight forward. No row boats or zippers or tiger's underwater (all options for photos).

Today (Monday) we hit the grocery store to stock up on food for the week, and we are going to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge for fun as it celebrates its 125 birthday. Then I have to come home and make place cards for my next big project due on Friday, our annual Genome Symposium and Dinner. May has been a crazy month for me and I have been working 6 days a week for 5 weeks but all in hopes of making my summer a relaxing and peaceful one. Look for more regular updates starting June 1st when I start my "summer" with a week off from work and plan to do lots of projects around the house!

One down and one to go

Well I did it. The application just went in with 25 minutes to spare! Greg and I both probably have ulcers from that one. At 6:30pm tonight my mentor called me from her car to say that she thought the essay we had been working on all day was boring and that I should go with a genomes and genes angle. That was my original idea that I had abandoned because it wasn't coming together and now she wanted me to start over and incorporate it with only a few hours to work! Well i did and it turned out so much better than I expected. I didn't end up doing a scrapbook like I had wanted (no time) but I incorporated some cool illustrations to make it a little more interesting than a plain essay. My friend Suzan helped me come up with the illustration of DNA to use (above). So many people helped make this application process happen. Thanks to you all for your help and/or your prayers. I wish I could say I was done but I have one last application due on June 1st. This time I have learned my lesson and will get it done early! I am heading off to bed before midnight for the first time all week!

Home Stretch

My application is due in T minus 9 hours (midnight) and I am nearly done. My boss and mentor has been hacking away at every word which is both infuriating and incredibly helpful. I hope to be done before 9pm so that I can enjoy the Office season finale (in HD!). I think Jim is going to propose and I don't want to miss it!

Applicatons

It is almost 2am and I am still up working and reworking my graduate school application. I thought I was nearly complete with all my essays and my CV, but my boss wanted to meet with me today to discuss my letter of recommendation and in the process told me she didn't like my essays the way they were written. She actually made some really good suggestions so I knew it was back to the drawing board. Then not 40min later I got a call from my other referee who said she had just looked at my CV and felt it was all wrong and needed to be completely reworked. She too made some good suggestions so I feel compelled to incorporate them. Problem is my application package is due in 3 days! And my job is as busy as it possibly could be. Toss in a late night at BSF with our last discussion group of the year and final fellowship and you have me up until 2am. I totally revamped my CV (now it is a resume) and have just updated Essay 1. Greg will proof it in the morning and then I will just be left with essay 3. It is an optional essay that can either be written or submitted in a more creative way such as a portrait or collage or anything you can imagine. I am really thinking of doing a mini scrapbook but the conversations I had today with my bosses are really making me doubt that idea. I want to show my creativity and stand out from all the boring essay writers but am worried that the project will be to hoaky or cutsie. I am praying for clarity and direction for tomorrow when I really have to pound out the design. But for now I am off to bed! I have to be to work early tomorrow to supervise a move in the morning.

Blogging from Work

Sorry for the lapse in posting. I am blogging from work today! Yes, I am working on a Saturday trying to get a handle on some very big projects. I am hoping that my ultra busyness in May will lead to a nice and mellow summer full of days off! We'll see! My day started out with this:Isn't it gorgeous. I loved the bright purple and green colors in contrast (it looked even better in real life). This was a spinach smoothie for me and Greg (hence the pitcher instead of the blender cup) which included blueberries. I wanted a shot before the bright green spinach made it kind of brown. It actually became kind of eggplant colored but it was so pretty before. Still loving these and am having about 4 oz of spinach in mine each day. So cool!

We have been spending all our free time lately watching our new flat screen TV! It came almost 2 weeks early which was a huge surprise. We don't have cable so we were skeptical about how good TV would look on a big screen especially since it looked pretty bad on our little screen! Well Greg went out to Radio Shack and got us a new antenna that can receive digital signals over the airwaves. HOLY COW! The picture is amazing. Here is a before using the analog signal (totally grainy and sometimes warbly) and an after shot using the digital signal. And this is without cable or a roof antenna. Can I just say we couldn't read words on our TV before! And little did I know that there are extra channels! NBC for instance has NBC 1 which is the high def version of the regular channel plus 2 more channels. One that is all weather all the time (so handy!) and one that shows random other stuff. We are in heaven. I am sure everyone who gets digital high def says the same thing but we sit around saying stupid things like, "did you see that? Did you see that bead of sweat? I bet we wouldn't have seen that before!" or "whoa, look at Tina Fey's shiny hair! It never looked that shiny before!". Pretty pathetic. And my husband who is never into really "guy" things was supposed to go into work late on the day of delivery but ended up taking the entire day off so he could set-up and play around with the new TV. He went to Radio Shack twice to get special cables so that the DVDs would blow my mind too. So cute! We felt kind of guilty about spending money on a new TV when our old one still worked but it was 12 years old and only 19". We don't feel bad anymore!

More additions

Last weekend when our new couch was delivered we agonized about what to do with our old couch. It was pretty old and beat up but not horrible. Some friends had planned to take it and then backed out at the last minute. We decided to put it out on the street on Saturday with a sign that said "free to a good home" and figured if no one wanted it the garbage men would take it on Monday. Well, the sign was up for about 5 min when a couple walked by and stopped to sit on it and decided to take it home! I was so glad. I hated to see it just go to the dump. Well that got our downstairs neighbors thinking and they started cleaning stuff out and putting it out on the fence to give away. We joined in and put some more stuff out (little things) too. It was sort of an impromptu stoop sale/giveaway. Then the neighborhood kids came by and we chatted with them and with people stopping to look at our stuff. Then the landlords showed up to deliver some planters for our front yard area. It was a nice way to spend a sunny day hanging out outside in the hood. So a little back story, the kids who live in the basement had been collecting wood because they wanted to build planters to grow vegetables out front. I had my doubts but Greg said he would help out if they wanted. When the landlords found out about the plan they were not happy. They forbid them from building anything but after much coaxing they did agreed to supply some planters. Of course they also decided what to plant in them leaving very little room for anything else. I find the whole thing funny but I think the boys were disappointed. The wood in the photo is some of the collected wood. You can see why the landlords were afraid of what might be built. This last photo is of our 3rd air conditioner. We are living the high life now! The basement kids were selling it dirt cheap so Greg and I picked it up to put in the office. This way when my mom visits this summer she can sleep comfortably! Don't mind the mess, you can see I have very little time for crafts these days!

New couch

Sorry, sorry, sorry. Greg had the camera for a few days so I had no photos to post. But it is back so I can share our weekend excitement. We finally got a new couch. We have been talking about getting one for over a year. In fact we almost didn't bring our couch from the Bronx because we were definitely going to get one last summer. Well, we never seemed to have time to shop together and the places we went to we didn't agree on the couch or the color. Fast forward to April and we happened to be at a meeting for Church which was right by Macy's so we decided to swing in and see if they had anything. We stumbled on one of the only modern looking sofas they had and instantly liked it and even agreed on the color (it is deep brown). It was delivered on Saturday so Greg and I spent the day arranging and rearranging the other furniture in the room. We also ran out to IKEA to get a new coffee table and a new cover for our chair so it would match. The coffee table didn't work out but the chair cover did and it looks like they are meant to go together. Greg even got a fire in him to deal with the other purchase we had been stalled on for over a year, a new TV. That will be delivered in a few weeks. For now I am delighted with the new couch and am already planning new curtains, wall color and pillows. Yippie! This last photo is for my mom to show that we moved the cabinet that was by the door into the dining room. We need more space by the door for guests to leave their shoes (they take them off even when we tell them they don't have to. I think carpet scares New Yorkers!) and we are thinking of getting a bigger TV stand for the new TV. I just plopped it down next to the other cabinets for now.

Spring has sprung

Just a quick weekend recap. We had a quiet weekend at home. Saturday was a really beautiful warm day so we decided to go out for dinner. At one point we were also going to see a movie at the movie theater in our neighborhood. We walked all through Sunnyside but all of our favorite restaurants were all full! That never happens. When did Sunnyside get so popular? Well it was probably the excellent weather. We ended up going home and getting take out from one of the places that didn't have any empty seats for us and we opted for a movie on video.

One of my favorite parts of spring in the Bronx was when the magnolias would bloom. You see almost every house between ours and the train had a magnolia tree and when they bloomed (the blooms only last a few days before they turn brown) the entire walk to work was so lovely. I was really going to miss the magnolias this year since there is far less foliage in our current neighborhood but while we were out walking on Saturday I found this beautiful tree in full bloom so I snapped a picture.
Spring is definitely here. I can tell because the house is cold in the morning. The weather is too warm to make the heat kick on but not warm enough to remove the chill in the air. I am so glad as I can already feel my mood lifting as the temps increase.

Earth Hour

Here is a photo from our impromptu Earth Hour celebration last month. I took a break from studying, shut off all the lights and non-essential appliances and invited the kids downstairs up for some dice and Uno. We pooled what little snacks we had and had a great time.

Using only candlelight really makes me appreciate the pioneers! It is so hard to see anything! Did you participate in Earth Hour?

Union Jack

This is a photo of little baby Lucy who was born just 6 weeks ago to a co-worker of mine. And she is modeling a little onsie that I embroidered on the sewing machine for her baby shower. Her parents are British so I thought they would like a onsie with a Union Jack but now I think I should have made a little US flag since this girl is a citizen! The machine embroidery on the onsie was not as easy as the other shirts I did because the fabric is so stretchy, thin and soft. A stiffer/thicker fabric holds the design much better.
Enough with the photos! A model needs her privacy!

Spring Hair

While in Maine visiting my friend Karen I woke up one morning and looked in the mirror at my snarled, dry and ratty hair and knew it was time for a change. I have really enjoyed long hair but I was ready for something lighter and need to remove a lot of damaged ends. I wanted to wait until the weather warmed up but caved in right before my test and got about 5 inches cut off. It is almost shoulder length and can be put up in a tiny little pony tail but it is much shorter and much thinner. I think my hairdresser took out about 5 pounds of hair as she thinned and layered it (to give it more body). Of course I am never happy with things as they are so I continue to curl it (like in the picture).

Seattle Trip

Since I mentioned the Seattle trip in my last post I thought I might as well elaborate. We were in Seattle in March for a few days to see the families and celebrate my Mother-in-law's 60th birthday. She didn't actually know we were coming so it was a huge surprise for her. She wasn't really excited to celebrate this birthday but in the end she had a really great time. We had been sending her 60 birthday cards before we arrived and she had been waiting for the last card to arrive (which we hand delivered out of the blue). Here is a photo of her card display:The other fun thing was that Greg's aunt came to town armed with 60 gifts for the birthday girl and we hadn't seen her since our wedding 7 years ago. We were really excited to get to spend some time with her.I drove down to Olympia to see my friend Katie and her oh so cute Ava. Greg had some time with his friends too including a trip to the bowling alley with Jeremy and his fiance. It was pretty surreal for us to be there since it was the sight of our 1st date and IT HAS NOT CHANGED IN 14 YEARS! So weird.
In addition to all the birthday festivities I managed to do some shopping and picked up 3 pairs of cute shoes at the Rack, some new clothes, craft and sewing supplies, and lots of cute papers, bags, and ribbon at Packaging Specialties. Also got to spend the day with my sister who is expecting a baby (the first Howard grand baby) this summer. More shopping for us girls! Even Greg did some shopping and got new used clothes at Value Village. That was another trip down memory lane since I worked there in high school. The store has changed a lot since then.Greg and I also went out to Mercer Island to cheer my mom on as she ran a 10K. It was supposed to be a half marathon but she is nursing an injury and her doctor told her no more than a 10K. We couldn't get to the finish line because of a mad parking situation so we camped out under the I-90 bridge and rooted for all the runners. We chatted with a nice race volunteer (who took our picture). We were right before a big hill (the course is really hilly) so we would yell "you can do it" "don't look to the right" "enjoy the downhill". It was really fun. We erroneously told people they were about half way (when they asked) only to find out later we were acutally at more like the 3/4 mark. Oops!The rest of the trip was spent hanging out with the families and working on a few small projects. While we were there we learned how to play my parent's new favorite dice game. My mom picked this game up while visiting my great aunt and uncle in Wisconsin last summer. My parents have played cribbage during meals for years and years but like this dice game so much they switched over. That's how you know it is fun! It is called "Oh Sh*t" or as my mom said while we played "That's too bad". It does involve gambling for quarters but it is a lot of fun and Greg and I have been playing at home during dinner ever since we got back. Here is a little video I took while we played. You can't see Rachel but she was still there (coming in last place!). Fun times.

I am sure I am leaving something out but we had a very nice visit and will be back again in August for Jeremy's wedding and to meet the our new nephew (we can't wait!).

Kale Smoothie?

Well I did it. This morning I washed and chopped up a bunch of kale. As I was drying it and putting it into my big half empty spinach container I was noticing how rough/stiff kale is and I was really doubting it would be good in the smoothie. That didn't stop me from piling it in and whizzing it up.....

It was great! A little less smooth than the spinach smoothie but still tasteless. I used lots of OJ in this one so it was very sweet and fruity tasting. And in case you need reasons to eat more Kale take a look at this powerhouse of a vegetable:

Kale (100 Calories) (3cups)

455 mg Calcium
9.46 g Protein
3.1 mg Iron
59 mg Magnesium
1059 mg Potassium
6.7 g Fiber
47 mcg Folate
.38 mg B2
2.2 mg Niacin
.59 mg Zinc
83 mg Vitamin C
21,159 IU Vitamin A
1 mg Vitamin E
0 g Cholesterol
0 g Saturated Fat
Tons of Phytochemicals and Antioxidants

I had over a cup of kale in my smoothie!

I'm Back!

Sorry for the long delay in posting. I did nothing but study for so long I didn't have much to say or time to say it. I took my test last week and it went very well. I had total peace and calm while doing it and came out with a decent score. I am debating whether or not it is worth taking it again in order to raise my score a few points. I am not allowed to take it again for 30 days so I have a little more time to think about it.

I took the rest of the week off to relax and read something besides test prep books. Next I have to begin working on my applications which are due in just a few short weeks.

Today I thought I would share something that got me through all the studying, my new favorite smoothie!

This is a green smoothie, or a blended salad. It may sound a little gross when I describe it but trust me, it is dynamite! I first read about the smoothie here on a food blog. I was intrigued and intended to try them sometime but skeptical that a smoothie with spinach blended into it could be yummy. And we are talking over a cup of spinach per serving, not a couple leaves. Well I was in Seattle and stopped in to see my friend Katie who was trying to whip up a green beverage to take to her recipe club. It had to be green for her St. Patty's day theme. She was working on this really odd concoction made of applies, avocados, mint, apple juice, and lime juice. It was not good. I won't say it was gross since I didn't barf or spit it out but it wasn't good. She was a little desperate for another option given her short amount of time and that she didn't have the opportunity to shop for new ingredients. I mentioned the green smoothie I had read about and we looked it up online. She happened to have bananas, mango, orange juice and spinach on hand so we whipped up a batch and would you believe it, it was fantastic. You really couldn't taste the spinach at all, just the fruits and juice. She took it to her recipe club and they loved it too and now apparently the green smoothie is making its way around town and even kids love it (take note moms!). It is a great way to sneak spinach into your diet and spinach is loaded with nutrients. I was just reading how leafy greens are the most nutrient dense food on earth. I have been having one of these every morning for breakfast and I love them. I am told you can use any greens even romaine or kale. I bought some kale and am going to give it a try this week. So here is the recipe adapted to the hand blender. You can use the link above to find the recipe for a regular blender.

Green Smoothie
Scaled to be made in the hand blender cup or right in a glass

1 ripe banana
4 chunks frozen mango
3 chunks frozen pineapple
1 fistful of packed fresh spinach or as much as will fit in the cup
water or juice to fill the cup and bring it up to the fill line. I like OJ and water in mine.
(Sometimes I add a scoop of protein powder to my smoothie too)

Put all ingredients in the cup and blend until smooth. You can use any fruit you want. Bananas make it creamy and berries make it more brown than green but all make it yummy.

Get up to speed!

Many of you may not know this but it is the main reason I have not been blogging these days. I am studying day and night to take the GMAT next week. It is sucking up all my free time so I have not been able to blog like I have wanted.

I am thinking about going to graduate school part time for an MBA or an MPA and this test has been both an opportunity to see if I have what it takes to focus and study again after all these years and it is required for one of my applications. So that is why I have been MIA.

Greg has been wonderfully supportive and really picked up the slack so I could focus all my attention on the test and remembering all that math I learned but apparently never use in real life.

On an unrelated note our mouse problem seems to be under control. We got a new threshold under our door so that the foil could be retired and no little critters could just walk right in. We also put out a bunch of traps with really delicious bait on them and have caught nothing (nor seen any "evidence" if you will).

My test is next Wed and then I hope to be back with updates on my Seattle trip, my new favorite smoothie recipe, my new haircut!, and many other exciting projects that are waiting in the wings!

I'm back!

I am back from a lovely vacation in Seattle with family. I will have lots of updates in the coming days but we returned home to find some little mice had moved into our apartment and we are having to deal with that. In fact the night we were back a mouse (perhaps the one who had been roaming around our kitchen) walked right in under our front door. We spent the evening emptying our entire front closet (where he ran and hid) to find him and chase him out. Now we are working with the landlords to get the gap under the front door fixed. Such a pain!