I Miss Snow Days

One of the bad parts of working in a hospital is that no matter what the weather, you have to go to work. We had a little bit of an ice storm here, so the schools in town were closed. Luckily, the roads never really froze. I'm just not used to chipping away at the 1/4 inch accumulation of ice on my windows! Give me 6 inches of fluffy snow any day! Anyways... here is a glimpse of what I have been up to of late. I tried out a couple of new recipes!
Not too long ago, I stumbled across this great vegetarian blog called, Oh My Veggies. The author does a great job of making vegetarian recipes approachable - there are no difficult to find ingredients or complicated directions. I had a couple of random lemons languishing in my produce drawer and was craving some brussels sprouts, so I made her Lemony Wheat Berries and Roasted Brussels Sprouts recipe.

 So what are wheat berries? They are wheat kernels - the stuff they grind up to make flour! Cooked whole, they are chewy and remind me a little of rice. This recipe turned out... ok. Part of the reason I was a little disappointed had to do with the fact that my wheat berries were a bit too chewy. I had take them off the heat a little early because the fire alarm in our building went off! I had tried a couple before I evacuated the building and thought they were close enough to done. However, when I sat down with a whole bowl, my jaw was tired by the end! Ha. I will definitely be interested in trying another recipe with this fun new grain again though.

Baked oatmeal!!! I used a random recipe online to cook up a pan of apple cinnamon oats. I love making this on Sunday so I have an easy heat-n-eat breakfast all week! I have been topping mine with sunflower seed butter (my new obsession!), brown sugar, and a bit of milk. This is definitely a great breakfast for chilly winter mornings. :-)

Jenna from Eat Live Run suggested this book The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey last week. I went to the bookstore to pick up my next book club selection but they didn't have it. I saw The Snow Child on display, so I decided to grab it instead. I was not disappointed! I loved this book! It's based on this fairy tale where an older, childless couple builds a girl out of the snow and she comes to life! In this enchanting novel, Jack and Mabel, each seeking to escape the grief of their own struggle with the inability to have children, move to the Alaskan wilderness. One night, on a whim, they build a little girl out of snow. The next morning, a mysterious blonde girl appears from the forest. With each passing winter, they get to know the girl, Faina, until she becomes like their own child. Throughout the novel, Ivey keeps returning to this fairy tale as both Jack and Mabel struggle to reconcile magic and coincidence with each reappearance of Faina. Highly recommend this one! Which reminds me... I recently discovered the site Good Reads.com. It reminds me of a combination of Facebook and Pinterest for books! This bookworm was definitely happy to find this site! 

Around Here

I've been neglecting this little blog the last few weeks and I have been trying to come up with a good reason why. Part of it is that I have been spending some of my time lately doing oh-so-fun things like job searching and revamping my resume. Ugh. I haven't applied for very many positions yet since neither of us is quite ready to leave Memphis...

-I've been seeing this mural frequently on my cross-training day bike rides on the green line. I think it's funny that everyone only has one leg - not sure how they're riding those bikes... lol.
-I did a 16 mile run-walk for marathon training in the rain on Saturday! That was the farthest distance I have ever "run". The next two weekends it just gets longer...
-Sometimes I feel like all I do with my spare time is go running. (See above.)
-I am working on putting together a blog for the local dietetic association - MDDA. It's a work in progress... www.eatrightmemphisblog.blogspot.com
-After our Elvis-ventures the other weekend, Will and I have had a few quieter ones. This last weekend we spent a couple fun nights hanging out with friends. It's going to be tough starting all over!
-I leave for Ireland in less than two weeks! I am kind of freaking out a little. There is so much I need to do before then!
-The other day I picked up the next book we are reading for book club - Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. Let's just say I spent a lot of quality time on the couch with this one!!! I just couldn't put. it. down.
-I totally made soup the other week even though it is still summer... and it's all Joy the Baker's fault. She posted a roasted tomato and zucchini soup that just sounded delish! Plus, both of those things are so abundant at the farmer's market right now. :-)
-The fire alarm for my apartment building went off this morning - exactly as I stepped out of the shower! Worst nightmare. Luckily it's not as bad as in college where you do have time to put something other than a towel on without your RA trying to corral you out the door. Haha.
-I can't stop listening to Two Door Cinema Club lately. Check this out...

Let's Talk Books

So, I have been updating my "25 Books While 25 Page" but I haven't spent any time talking about some of my latest reads!

Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir by Jenny Lawson. This book was absolutely hilarious! I think it just might be my favorite book on my 25 books list so far. Jenny spins great stories about growing up in the country with such a comedic spin - almost like a female David Sedaris. :-) One of my favorite stories in the novel is this one where her family's chickens follow Jenny all the way into school one day and the hilarity that ensues when the librarian finds them. Ha! To give you an idea what you are in for with this book, here's a great quote from a chapter about dating her husband, Victor.

"It wasn’t really that [Victor's parents] disliked me. They just seemed uncomfortable around me. They were polite and kind, but baffled. It was as if their son had unexpectedly shown up with a neck tattoo that read 'MAKE ME SOME BASKETTI.'" (Lawson, Penguin Group Inc. 2012)

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford.  My friend Emily kept telling me how great this book was, so when I happened upon it at the library the other week, I snatched it up. It's a touching tale about young, forbidden love between a Chinese boy, Henry, and a Japanese girl, Keiko, growing up in Seattle during World War II. You'll have to read this one to see if their love can survive long-distance when Keiko's family is placed in an internment camp until the war is over.

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward. We had talked about reading this one for book club at one point but then decided on something else. I was curious to see if it was good since it won the National Book Award for 2011. Definitely worth it. A superb story about a rural Southern family prepping for Katrina. The story is told through the eyes of Esch, a teen girl learning what it is like to be rejected by someone you love and coming to grips with the secret that she will be a mother soon.
Ward is such an excellent writer. I loved some of her descriptions of life in Bois Sauvage and what it is like to be a teenager in love. Here's a passage that I just love:

"Manny begins flipping the silver and red lighter again when he mentions Rico. The image, which looks like a tattoo, reads Hearts on Fire, and pictures two hearts diagonal to one another going up in flames. His lips kiss the cigarillo and he pulls... There is a movement behind my breast that feels like someone has turned a hose on full blast, and the water that has been baking in the pump in the summer heat floods out, scalding. This is love, and it hurts. Manny never looks at me."  (Ward, Bloomsbury USA, Copyright 2011, pg 94)