New Orleans

Back in January, I saw an ad for a Southwest Airlines sale and clicked through to see what they were offering. There were a few deals to cities I'd never been to, and after deciding on some dates and looking at the number of stopovers, Keizo and I purchased tickets to New Orleans.

We arrived around 9 PM last Saturday and left just after lunch on Tuesday, which ended up being a good amount of time to get oriented, learn a bit about the city's history and indulge in its rich food, drink, and music.

We stayed in a rental apartment a few blocks from the French Quarter in Faubourg Marigny, which aside from being located along the route the horse drawn carriages took from the stables to the Quarter worked out perfectly (I've gotten pretty used to living above the metro in DC, but horse hooves on pavement were pretty disruptive). We enjoyed breakfast at two neighborhood places, each less than a block from the apartment and were surrounded by traditional, colorful houses.

Highlights of the trip included watching and then participating in an Easter parade, a bike tour that took us to a cemetery and introduced us to a sliver of City Park, and the live music on Frenchman Street. Our last day, we saw a bit of the Garden District, but we'd love to go back to spend more time in City Park as well as experience more of the history and nature outside of the city.

Top to bottom, L to R: Streetcar near CBD, shrimp po'boy; enjoying our beignets, Jackson Square, shrimp and grits, hand grenades on Bourbon Street, cemetery and joining in the Easter parade.

Currently - March '16

March means another Currently link up with Anne and Jenna. Please be sure to stop by and say hi!

wishing - I could clone my favorite pair of pants in multiple colors. I've gotten pickier when I go shopping, which has both its pros and cons. Pro - fewer unworn items in my closet, saves money. Cons - shopping tends to be less fun as I search endlessly for the right pieces. Cloning the things I have and love seems so much easier!

craving - Popcorn?!? I took care of things today and bought a big bag to snack on at work.

going - To New Orleans for 4 days at the end of the month! Not much planned yet, but very excited to get away for a few days of warmer weather, delicious food and exploring a new city.

wearing - Fewer boots and sweaters, and the occasional ballet flat. Spring must be on its way!

learning - Always something. Recently, I've become more interested in relationships, both personal and professional, and trying to learn better ways to manage them. A few episodes of the Labor of Love podcast have kept me company on a few walks lately, and I have found the combination of new subject matter and fresh air to be a good way to unwind.

Currently - February '16

January was good, but for once I am glad to see the start of another month. Things are picking up at work, there's work and fun travel in the weeks ahead, and there's plenty of chocolate and other sweet things to be had for Valentine's Day. 

Please be sure to visit the hosts of the Currently link-up, Anne and Jenna for their takes on this month's prompts. Thanks for visiting!  

sending - Mostly work-related emails...boring.

eating - Chipotle mango slow cooker pulled pork. For the first meal this week, we followed the serving suggestion and ate it with grits, while for the second meal, we drained some of the liquid and added tortillas, avocado, cheese and salsa to make some tasty tacos.

dreaming - Of longer days and warmer weather. I am already heartened by the fact there is some light left in the sky when I leave work these days, and while 2 feet of snow two weekends ago was a bit much all at once, the winter has really been pretty mild.

smelling - Pickled daikon (radish). We made pickled daikon for inclusion in some bento box lunches we shared with friends last Sunday. Although there was still snow on the ground, it was warm and sunny and we ended up eating outside! The pickles taste great, but they are really pungent and the smell takes over every time we open up the fridge.

hearting - The friends I've made through a small running group. We've had a hard time meeting up lately with the winter weather, but when I said I was headed out this evening after work, I had a running buddy to meet up with almost instantly.

Recipe Roundup - 1/2016

It's been a while since I've written about food on this blog, which at one time was all about food.

In part, I attribute this to the fact I do less cooking and have assumed more of a management role in the kitchen since Keizo moved in. I plan the menu and make a grocery list while he takes care of the shopping and a lot of the prep work. This doesn't always work out quite as planned as he's much more of a free spirit in the kitchen, using recipes (or a photo) as inspiration, and then making things up as he goes along. While I wasn't particularly thrilled when he substituted black beans for lentils in a curry recipe, at least he's been experimenting in the kitchen long enough to make completely edible, and usually pretty tasty dishes.

Recipes were followed pretty closely for each of the standout meals from January, including taco/margarita night, a flavorful deep dish pizza, a creamy pasta dish and some homestyle Japanese cooking.

Shrimp Tacos - Another winner from Real Simple. Keizo made the filling, and I assembled the avocado creme and made a quick salsa from some odds and ends we had on hand: onions, bell pepper, lime juice and thawed pineapple chunks. The margaritas were basic, but oh so tasty after a busy week at work.

Moroccan Spiced Deep Dish Pizza - I bought Keizo a cast iron skillet for Christmas, and it quickly became a prominent player in our kitchen. This was our first ever attempt at deep dish pizza as well as the first time we used the skillet in the oven. The flavors in this recipe are intense and rather different from what we usually cook, but really my only complaint was how chewy the dough turned out.

Salmon and Lemon Bucatini - Back in December, friends gave us a code for a free Blue Apron delivery, and we ended up using the service for the rest of the month. This was one of the recipes we really liked, and decided to buy our own ingredients to make it again. The dish is tasty, comes together quickly, and hits all of the major food groups - what's not to like? We found this to be true of about half of the recipes from Blue Apron. We also got to try some new foods, cooking techniques and only shopped for breakfast and lunch staples. On the other hand, with the two-person option there were never any leftovers, and the pre-portioned ingredients arrived in a ton of packaging. We paused our deliveries through the end of January, but we're thinking about trying it again, maybe one week a month for new ideas.

Nikujaga - Literally "meat and potatoes" in Japanese, nikujaga is a simple, yet oh so tasty dish that really banishes the winter cold. Keizo mastered this meal, serving the nikujaga, miso soup, salad, and pickled daikon the traditional way on different plates. Maybe I can get used to this new management role after all ;-)

Real Life Resolutions

I've been thinking about my resolutions for 2016 for nearly a month now, and it seemed like time to finally put them down in writing.

I started the month by creating an elaborate chart with different goals grouped by themes, but never finished filling it out. In some categories I had a goal for every month; in others, only one or two goals for the year. What was supposed be to a super organized way of looking at my goals quickly became a mess I didn't want to look at.

Three weeks later, I am abandoning the ridiculous chart in favor of the handful of goals that have stuck in my mind throughout the month.

6 things for 2016

1. More yoga
2. Exercise in the morning
3. Volunteer
4. Make time for hobbies
5. Travel every month
6. Date my husband

Even as I am typing this, I have to remind myself that having a short list of resolutions doesn't limit my ability to accomplish other things. I still want to read more, try new recipes, get my finances in order, organize the kitchen drawers, improve at work (and on and on and on). My hope is that the shorter list above, and the first two items in particular, will help me do all of those things too. When I get a bit lost and overwhelmed, I can return to my word for the year, CONTRIBUTE, and the six things above to help me find my way again.

To a happy, healthy and fulfilling 2016!

Currently - January '16

Happy New Year! I hope everyone's 2016 is off to a good start. Need some inspiration? Go visit Anne and Jenna and see what others are up to this month. 

resolving - For the first time, I have picked a word for the year. In past years, the thought of boiling everything down into one word was terribly overwhelming. Although it sounds terribly cliche, this year's word just came to me while I was out on the first bike ride of the year. My word for 2016 is CONTRIBUTE, and I am working on a list of goals/actions that fit this theme.

reading - Trying to finish up Freedom by Johnathan Franzen and just started my first non-fiction book of the year, Washington: The Making of the American Capital.

organizing - After a few years of keeping a dedicated log of my spending (and saving receipts until I manually entered them into my budget worksheet) I am trying to embrace new technologies and stop bringing all those little scraps of paper into the house. If anyone has any money management tips or favorite apps, please share in the comments :-)

loving - The homemade tamales a friend gave us for New Year's. It had been years since I've eaten homemade tamales and Keizo had never tried tamales, period. The tamales lasted for two meals, and are now a delicious memory. Thank you Allison for making them and driving eight hours to bring them to us!

craving - Travel and adventure! One of my goals for the year is taking a trip every month. Reality dictates that most of these will be shorter, local adventures but even a small change of scenery can lead to new discoveries and offer a welcome respite from the day to day.

Thanks for stopping by!

30 before 30: Final Report

September 24, 2015 marked the beginning of my third decade, and December 31, 2015 was my self-imposed deadline for wrapping up my 30 before 30 list. While this list was created to be a fun motivational tool, I have analyzed the results nearly to death in a detailed accounting below, following a few ruminations on the experience as a whole.

• Slightly better than resolutions? Making this list was more fun than making resolutions, and having two years to cross things off gave me more time to accomplish some of the bigger tasks.
• One and done.  If I make a similar list again (40 before 40?) I will focus on more "one and done" type accomplishments, which made crossing things off and moving on to the next thing a lot easier and more fun.
• Categories. I liked having the different categories for the items in my list, something that I plan to carry over to my resolutions/goals for 2016.

Blog - 2.5/4 
1. Edit labels  12/2014

2. Participate in a link up (edited 12/2015) - Without the 'Currently' link up at the beginning of each month, I would have barely blogged at all the past 6 months. I am grateful for the inspiration and easy-to-follow prompts each month that have kept this blog afloat.

3. Aim for more professional appearance -  What does this mean? A classic example of the importance of setting specific, measurable goals!

4. Post 1X/week (edited 1/2015) - 2014=29/52; 2015=19/52; 48/104 - If at first you don't succeed, try, try again! This one is going to make another appearance as part of my goals for 2016.

Cooking - 2.75/5
5. Make a soufflé

6. Bake bread from scratch - 4/2014; Chocolate Almond Swirl

7. Host non-potluck dinner party - I have come to realize that this rather challenging when you don't have an eat-in kitchen. I'm adding "dining area" to the ever-growing list of wants for our next living space.

8. Try 5 new/unusual foods - 7/5; This was one of the funnest things on the list, and apart from the seitan, I would eat all of them again!

• 10/2014 chipotle chiles in adobo sauce
• 12/2014 dragon fruit 
• 3/2015 seitan 
• 6/2015 chia seeds
• 10/2015 rabbit bolognese
• 11/2015 sunchokes 
• 12/2015 celeriac 

9. New recipe 1X/week - 2014=33/52; 2015=45/52; 78/104. All in all, I am really impressed with this one. It's hard for me to even think about remembering all 78 recipes, probably half of which are worth repeating. We got a big boost at the end of 2015 by trying Blue Apron - three new recipes a week!  

Fitness- 3.4/5
10. Run color/electric race - 5/2014, Rainbow Rush "5K"

11. Run a 10K - 3/2015, St. Patrick's Day 10K

12. Train & run 10 miles or half marathon

13. Try new activity - 6/2015, 6 AM Bootcamp class

14. Yoga 1X/week - 2014=33/52; 2015=12/52; 45/104

Personal Growth - 4/6
15. Study and take JLPT - For someone with a Japanese husband, my command of the Japanese language is pathetic. Unfortunately, it's something that I haven't made a priority and honestly have trouble seeing where it fits in with all of the other goals I have.

16. Complete 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - I read "You Are a Badass" instead. Good advice delivered with a dose of humor. 

17. Attend 2  professional conferences - 3/2014, National Women's Bicycle Bicycling Forum, 10/2014, Safe Routes to School National Partnership Regional Meeting

18. Find & commit to a regular volunteer opportunity - Spring 2014, Girl Scout Troop 788 Cookie Manager/Volunteer

19. Read 12 non-fiction books - 12/12 - Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choices, Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Bikenomics, Blink, At Home, The Rolodex Network Builder, Walkable City; How to Win Friends and Influence People, Hidden Power, Lost Washington, District Comics: An Unconventional History of Washington DC; You are a Badass

20. Donate blood  - 7/2014

Relationships - 3.5/4
21. Plan wedding - Joined Pinterest 11/2014; planned and executed wedding weekend including civil ceremony, segway tour, happy hour and brunch 10/23-25/2-15.

22. Get married - Engaged 8/29/2014; Fiance visa paperwork filed 10/2014; Notice of Action 6/3/2015; Fiance visa approved 8/2015; married 10/23/2015!!!

23. Live in same time zone - As of 9/2015

24. Write letter 1X/week - 2014=37/52; 2015=18/52; 55/104. Not included in the counts: approximately 50 holiday cards and all the thank you notes from the wedding. After having this goal on the books for the past couple of years, I won't be including it in 2016. I will still make an effort to write, but I've found keeping track of the letters I send really isn't that meaningful.

Travel - 3/6
25. Go camping - Not owning any camping gear has been a bit of a hurdle for this one, but now that Keizo is here, and somewhat obsessed with REI, I have high hopes for this one in 2016.

26. Beach vacation - 8/2015; My first trip to the Outer Banks did not disappoint, and was a fantastic way to forget about work for a few days. I'd like to make a beach trip every year for my mental health.

27. New York City - 7/2015; I believe this was the hottest weekend of the year and I was still hobbling around in a knee brace, but I had a grand time exploring NYC's enviable public places, eating everything in sight and catching up with my hostess with the mostest, Margot.

28. Utah - Both sets of friends that lived in Utah when I made this list have since moved, moving the state down in my list of top destinations.

29. Renew passport (edited 6/2015) - 8/2015; yet to be used for travel.

30. New or repeat passport stamp (not Japan) - With a new passport, any and all stamps count! However, I am concerned that I haven't added a new country since Spain in 2010.

Total = 19.5/30