He Is...

Happy Anniversary to my Hubs. Today is our wedding anniversary and our together anniversary as well. After being together for the better part of a decade, we didn't think that introducing a new anniversary date would work out too well. Lucky number 13 would pull through again for us(me) and allow our wedding day to fall on our anniversary. In honor of this special occasion, I dedicate this post to him and why I am lucky to call him my Hubs.

He is the calm to my storm. He may be the ginger in this relationship, but I am definitely the one with the fiery temper. One statement taken the wrong way can usually lead to cacophony of slammed cupboard doors as I stomp around the kitchen cleaning, and a pout that can last for the better part of an afternoon/evening. It's become a running joke, that whenever he wants me to clean, all he has to do is piss me off, and the house will be spotless. Side note, I can't clean anything now without being asked what I'm mad about and is it his fault. Fortunately, 11 years has provided him with some insight as to how to deal with my rages. He can deal with me calmly and effectively without aggravating the beast even more. I'm sure he is ready to put a fence around me with a Beware of Irate Wife sign and go hunker down in the underground bunker.

He is the eldest to my youngest. If any of you have read anything about child psychology and birth order, then you would know that eldests and youngests is one of the better matched pairs. Partners who are the eldest naturally tend to take the lead and like to be the "boss" while youngests are used to having things done for them and are willing to follow. I think you can see why these types of people would make good matches. We are a textbook example, especially when we travel. Hubs is on the ball researching EVERYTHING. If I tell him what I want to do and when I want to do it, he's on the internet for hours with how we're going to get there, how long it's going to take to get there, etc etc. You get the idea. Hell, he even figured out the subway system in Prague. And while I am perfectly capable of doing this myself, if he's willing to do it, why would I deny him? But to be clear, he's not some chest-banging caveman that drags me by my hair expecting me to follow blindly. He's very perfectly willing to let me be in the driver's seat when I want or to consider any alternatives that I point out. But he's so good at what he does; I think I'll just continue to let him drive.

He is the comedy to my drama. He makes me laugh. Plain and simple. He makes me laugh when I don't want to laugh and that's usually when I need to the most. When I am particularly feeling low, a well timed, off-colored joke from him is all it takes to clear the gray and get me smiling again.

He is the love to my hate. Hate is a strong word, but I'm working with a theme here. Hubs and I are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. We do have our disagreements. Sometimes those disagreements are loud. Sometimes those disagreements can be silent....for a few days. But what he has never failed to do was say I love you to me, and then make me say it back. This has got to be, hands down, one of the most important and hardest things that I have learned from him. You always say it back because you never know what can happen. Oh, how I resisted though. The last thing I wanted to do was tell him, "I love you", when what I really wanted to do was hurl the nearest frying pan at his head (see that temper?), so usually he had to settle for a grunted, "you too", in response. It's still a work in progress, but I've managed to go from grunting to saying the whole damn phrase with as much civility as possible, AND, without gritting my teeth. Progress, people, progress. That's what's important.

I could go on and on, but for the sake of brevity, I will cut myself off here. All in all, my hubs is a rockstar. He is a supergenius, gentle souled, not hard-to-look at rockstar. Does he have his faults, sure. Who doesn't? Do I wish that he wouldn't turn every room of the house into his personal hamper? Of course. Do I wish that he would learn to put dirty dishes into the sink and not on the counter catty corner to the sink? You betcha. But at the end of the day, they are faults that I am willing to live with, because to live without them, would be to live without him, and I just don't believe that I would want to or could do that. Hopefully, he feels the same way about me and mine. Or else he's in for a long 50+ years.

Okay, the cliches are done. Promise.

So, here's to my Hubs.
Happy Anniversary!
I love you so very much!

Onward Paleo!

I have to admit. Eating paleo for a majority of the time isn't that bad. You just have to plan. I think I have stumbled onto a few things that I will keep in the rotation.

Breakfast:

A sweet potato frittata with veggies. This is so versatile. You just change up the veggies, or even add meat, when you feel like a change. I started with asparagus/onions/garlic/mushrooms. This week, peas and mushrooms. I had this in my previous post about paleo eating, but it's served me well for the last couple of weeks.

Snack:

Fruit and nuts. Again, versatile enough to where you can switch up the fruit and nuts when you get bored. Before I leave for work, I pour in coconut milk. A sweet little treat mid-morning. Would probably work well as a dessert too. To give credit where it's due, I totally stole the idea from the website LeanMachineNYC.

Lunch:

Sweet potato chowder with chicken, corn, and mushrooms. Boil the sweet potatoes, throw into a crockpot with two cans of coconut milk and blend until smooth. Throw in the chicken, mushrooms, onion, garlic, corn, and any spices you want, and let her rip on low for 6-8 hours. It was sooo good! It had a taste of coconut soup that you can get from Thai restaurants, but so much heartier with everything else thrown in. A great fall soup. And can I just say that the new immersion hand blender that I just got is now one of my favorite kitchen tools.

All in all, for about a week and half worth of food, took me about 2 hours total from prep to closing the lid on the crockpot. Not bad.

I haven't been as great about preparing dinner as sometimes, I honestly just don't have an appetite for dinner so I will munch on some nuts or veggies. My attempt at zucchini spaghetti last week was a disaster because I'm not talented enough to "julienne" with just a knife. I have now bought myself a julienne peeler and will be attempting again to make the zucchinis my bitches later this week.

Apologies for the crappy photo quality. The lighting in my kitchen isn't great.

Stay tuned to see what I come up with next week! I think I like doing these posts better than the weekend in review collages. Let's face it, I'm a boring old suburbanite that has no weekend life outside of sitting on my behind catching up on the dvr, and food is just much more fun.

On the Cusp

Finally, it is October. Do you ever have those months that you can never seem to get out of? For me, getting out of the month of August has always been just tortuous. As a native Georgian, by the time August rolls around, I am so freakin' tired of the triple digit temps and extreme humidity. I am ready for summer to be done and fall to roll in with the pretty colors, the fall festivals, and being able to go outside and not be drenched in sweat two seconds out. Summers are just slow and getting out of August usually marks that whatever I am waiting for to happen will happen so much faster.

This year, life bucked tradition, and August was upstaged by September. As busy as hubs and I were during this month, it is amazing how September seemed to never end! And I know exactly why. Hubs and I are on the cusp of finally being able to figure out the rest of our lives. Okay, well maybe not the rest of our lives, but at least for the foreseeable future. What can I say, I have a flair for the dramatics.

I shall explain.

Hubs is currently in the final stages of his PhD in finance. He has been working towards this for about 5 years. And for those 5 years, we've been forced to dance to the tune of "if this happens, then we'll do this" because we literally had no idea what would happen when it would be time for him to finish. Would it be a bad job market, and he would have to stay for another year? Would we have to move to another continent altogether? Would we be able to stay here with our families and friends close by? The possibilities were endless, and it made planning for ANYTHING impossible.

And because we enjoy having a roof over our heads, and we also really enjoy that pesky habit of eating even more, I've kept myself chained to my alarm clock and cubicle in an endless cycle of Office Space meets Groundhogs' Day. As a result, we've had to put starting a family on hold. His program is so demanding, and that makes his schedule, while flexible, so unstable, that it would have seemed as though I were a single-working mother, and I just plain didn't want to do that. When I have children, I want to be able to devote my full energy and attention on him/her/them with the option of being able to do anything else I want to when I so choose. I won't lie. I don't need to juggle a job and a family to feel fulfilled. I couldn't juggle in gym class at school, not going to attempt it now at the expense of my children. I am probably a disappointment to the women's lib movement, but hey, it's all about choice, right? Fortunately, we will be in a position for us to have this choice that a lot of families don't have. But I digress. Now that we are finally so close to figuring out what our next move is going to be, we can start to plan more concretely for when this baby thing can happen. Thank jeebus, too. With all the pregnancies and newborn babies that I am surrounded with, I was starting to channel Marisa Tomei, in My Cousin Vinny, stomping her foot on the wooden porch trying to explain to Joe Pesci that her biological clock is not just ticking, but pounding.

So hopefully, we should know fo' sho' where we are going by February. If everything works out like we hope it will work out, we might even know by November. For now, we will sit and wait for the phone calls for interviews to come. At least the if-then game has settled down a little bit, and we've had a chance to focus on some specific areas. What was now a chance to move between 50 states and two continents, has now been whittled down to about 20 states and this continent. We will fly out to Denver later this month for the first round of interviews.

Let the games end begin.

Walk Like An Egyptian, Eat Like A Caveman

It is no secret that I love all the foods that are totally bad for me. It is also no secret that I am not the most active of humans. Obviously, these two non-secrets do not provide for a healthy existence. Last week, a blog in my local paper discussed if it was plausible for families with young children to convert to a completely vegan diet. In one of the comments, someone mentioned "Paleo eating" or in other words, eating like the cavemen. Meats, fruits, veggies. No dairy or grains. I was intrigued. And then I was terrified. Could I really give up the two greatest food loves of my life? Luckily, I was able to find a couple of sites that avoided the preachiness that sometimes comes along with advocating certain diets, and they assured me that you don't have to be 100% paleo if you don't want to. The key is really to try and get away from any sort of processed foods and back to basics. I have made a goal to be at least 75% paleo.

My first attempt was a fritatta that would provide me breakfast and maybe a couple of dinners. Ingredients: eggs, shredded sweet potatoes, asparagus, garlic, and red onion.

Sautee all the veggies until tender:

 

Combine eggs with veggies, pop into the oven and ta-da:

 

 

Not only was it super easy, it turned out pretty tasty, too. I still have some food items to get rid of before I can get serious with the paleo meal planning, but next week, I attempt zucchini spaghetti. Stay tuned!

This Weekend in Collage

NYC Invasion 2011

I thought I would spare you the play-by-play of every minute of our trip. So, in the spirit of David Letterman, I present to you:

Top 10 Moments from NYC Invasion 2011

10. First class seats/Delta SkyClub- Thanks to hubs’s silver medallion status and my hoarding of skymiles, we were able to travel first class and get into the Delta SkyClub. It’s always nice to have people treat like you’re someone important, and being able to cut in front of the little people stuck in coach.

 

 



9. Jimmy’s Corner- A dive bar in the middle of Times Square. In the middle of Times Square and serving $3 drafts. The owner is a former boxing trainer, so there are lots of memorabilia to look and awe at. His wife really got on Ryan’s good side when she carded him and then exclaimed “really?!” when she saw how old he was.

8. Central Park- This was my first time actually roaming through the park itself. It’s hard to believe such a beautiful green space exists in the smack dab middle of the city. Of course it wouldn’t be NYC if there weren’t a strike/protest going on at the Boat House Restaurant. We made our way to Cleopatra’s Needle, a 5000 year old obelisk where you can still see the hieroglyphics.

 

7. Bella Vita Pizza- Ryan found this little joint the last time he was in the city, and judging by the line that we encountered the first night we tried to get in, this place would not disappoint. The service is kind of slow, but all so worth it. Some of the best pizza I have ever had. We also tried their fried zucchini, which was yummy, too. I mean, really, how can you go wrong with fried vegetables?

6. Mom and Pop Eats- I love that the city is made up of non-chain places to eat at. I didn’t understand the unbelievable crowds that were at places like Crapplebees, places that you can go anywhere, anytime. Hello! You’re in the one of the best cities for food, and you’re eating there?! WTF is wrong with you? Although the decision was quite difficult at times, we found some really great places to eat with some really good deals. One place in particular that we really liked had $1 sliders and $3 cheesy fries.

5. MacBar- I saw this place featured on an episode of Food(ography), and it was like the mothership was calling me home; a restaurant with nothing but mac and cheese on the menu. After some schlepping in the rain, a couple of subway stops, and more schlepping in the rain, we arrived at what I now refer to as heaven. It literally took me 15 minutes to figure out what I wanted, which was everything. It would have been perfection if they had a sampler so that wishy-washy out-of-towners (ME) could get a taste of everything. In the end, I finally decided on the “Lobsta Mac”, and it was like a cheesy party in my mouth. Yeah, I finished the entire serving. I was on vacation dammit!

 

 

 

4. Awesome hotel room- We stayed at this place called Yotel in the middle of Hell’s Kitchen. It’s brand new and very boutique-y. I told the hubs that he should have been wearing a pair of skinny jeans to fit in. You check-in on a kiosk, the rooms are bare minimum, but still very comfy, and there is a free coffee/espresso/cappuccino/hot chocolate machine on every floor. The roof-top bar is pretty awesome at night when the weather is good.

 

 

 

 

 

3. Having a hubs who is not directionally challenged- I am not ashamed to say that I have no sense of direction whatsoever. You can’t tell me east or west, you have to tell me left or right and give me landmarks. Not my hubs. If it weren’t for him, I probably wouldn’t have ventured more than 5 blocks past the hotel. I love that he takes the initiative to figure out where we’re going, how we’re going to get there, and that he can figure out just about any subway system in the world. We are definitely a testament to birth order relationship matches with him being the oldest and me the youngest.

2. All You Can Eat/Drink Brunch- The food highlight of this trip. OMG, for $35 per person it is all you can eat and drink for 2 hours. The food is served tapas style, so you can order two plates per person at a time, and everything we had was ah-may-zing. This was truly a gluttonous moment for hubs and me. We made up for it by a 4 mile walk up to, through, and back from Central Park.

1. Roger Federer- Ah, the reason for our jaunt to the Big Apple. Hubs surprised me with tickets to the U.S. Open to see my favorite player. We were so lucky that we got to watch him at all. The impending arrival of Hurricane Lee did not provide much comfort that we would be able to get in Roger’s match before it started pouring on us. It seemed that everything was working against us: the men’s day match had gone long, and then the women’s night match went all 3 sets with a couple of tie-breaks to add to the match time. Finally at about midnight, Roger took center court, and my butter was melted. Good fortune was finally on our side and kept the rain at bay and allowed Roger to dominate and finish his opponent in straight sets.

To sum up: I had a fantabulous time eating my way through the city, as you could probably tell by half my favorite moments being food related. Also, a HUGE thank you to the hubs for orchestrating it all.

It was great NYC, hopefully, I'll see you next year!

Where is the Love?

**Note: usually on Mondays I would post a weekend in collage, but I have been editing this silly post for darn near a week, and I'm sick of looking at it. So, I needed to post it before I drove myself crazy.**

There is nothing quite like people-watching at the arrivals lobby at the airport. I love seeing people waiting with anticipation and excitement as they wait for their loved ones to come up the escalator, and the utter joy that crosses their face as they finally connect after their time apart.

Last Sunday, I got to be one of those eager beavers as I was down at the airport waiting to pick up hubs. He had been out of the country at a conference for about a week hobnobbing with some bigwigs in his field. It had been a long week of silence with only being able to exchange a few emails. Time changes, internet outages, and bogus fees all prevented actual live conversation, and if you know my hubs, then you know that the silence was deafening. And, lord, do I love my dogs, but they just weren’t cutting it as a hubs substitute. I truly believe they only tolerated me because I was the only one left to feed them. But I digress.

When I arrived at the airport, I realized that I would have ample time to witness these happy reunions as Delta Tracker had failed to inform me that hubs’s plane would be landing later than scheduled. Like a whole hour later. So, I settled in and watched as wave after wave of passengers came up the escalators. There were hugs, there were kisses, and there were some tears, but overall, there was just happiness. I. was. luurrving. it. (Sidenote: Let me just clarify that while I love the love, what I don't love is the out of control PDA). And then it all came crashing down.

There were a couple of kids standing next to me waiting for their dad. To say they were excited would be an understatement. They were jumping up and down and nearly bowled him over when he appeared. When they finally let him come up for some air, the adult female (which I can only assume was his wife) barely glanced at him before turning and walking towards baggage claim. Way harsh. I shivered from the icy cold wind that had blown through. Now, I don’t want to judge, ‘cause I don’t know what was in her head. And it could very well be that she was just distracted with the logistics of keeping her sanity while trying to navigate baggage claim with two excited children and getting home. But sheesh, not even managing a hug or a smile? It reminded me of those couples that I wrote about earlier that I spy on see at restaurants just sitting there not smiling, not talking, looking everywhere else but their companion. It’s just so sad to see. Where is the love? You are married to this person, for Pete's sake.

I don’t proclaim to be a marriage expert after only 3 years and 10 months of marriage, but I can safely guess that being in a marriage where spouses act as if it’s a chore to be married; is not fun. Doesn't it take more energy to hold on to all the negativity than not? Why not use that energy for more fun purposes, like adult-rated fun purposes? (Sorry, parentals and parentals-in-law). Talk about getting some aggression and stress out. If you did that, then you probably wouldn't treat your spouse as an after-thought. Just sayin’.

Shortly after my awe at the happy airport arrivals reunions had been thoroughly sqaushed like a bug on a windshield, hubs made his appearance. Was I going to throw caution to the wind and become one of those PDA exhibitionists that I gag at in an attempt to make up for the lack of love that I had just witnessed? Heck, no! I may love the hubs, but I'm not about to maul him in front of complete strangers! But, I will say that hubs definitely wasn't disappointed.

So, what about you, people of the interwebz? What's your favorite people-watching moment at the airport?