Sky shopping

If you ever want a good laugh while on a flight, just open up the Sky Mall.  Seriously.  The stuff in there is almost purposefully ridiculous.  On a flight awhile back, I ran across this product and snapped a photo to text to friends.  One glass can last you the whole night!

Each glass holds a full bottle of wine!

Who would ever buy this?  Well I'll tell you who - the St. Regis.  Evidence below: my room service dinner from last week - this glass is holding half a bottle!

Word

I know this is random, but...

Whilst facebooking last evening, I found this quote (posted by a "friend" I haven't spoken to in about 10 years) and really liked it.  Good reminder of the futility of dwelling on negative thoughts:

"Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies" - Nelson Mandela

Green chili mac & cheese

Okay.  Y'all.  Deliciousness awaits...

The perfect comfort food for a cold winter night.  And it's Christmas, so no need to worry about silly stuff like calories.  This was easy to make and words cannot describe how good it is.  Recipe here.

I used canned fire-roasted green chilis and it was yummy, so I bet it'd be even better with fresh chilis.  I promise you won't regret making this!

Sauteed broccoli with garlic on the side

Noisy

This is a teeny bit embarrassing but too funny not to share...

Last night I got a phone call from the hotel front desk saying they'd received a noise complaint and to please tone it down.

I was alone.  In my room.  Singing along to this:

Retreat

Grumpy work day.  harrumph.  What can make me feel better?

Listening to the Bob Marley Pandora station and going on this mini photo retreat:  corner of our porch with a Highlander romance novel and hot chocolate :)

Recommendation

One of my favorite things about coming home from a week away for work is coming home to my bathroom toiletries! Is that weird?  I just have so many products that don't fit into that damn <3.5 oz, quart size bag rule.  If only people at work knew what I could look like with access to my whole bathroom.  I've always loved trying out different facial skin care items and have a regular routine that I love (more on that later).  The one area I never paid much attention to was body soap or moisturizer.  Well that has changed!

A couple months ago, I started getting itchy, red skin so I went to the dermatologist.  It turns out I'm allergic to the Westin (not really, just their hotel soap and body lotion).  He recommended I switch to natural, calming soap and body moisturizer to clear up my allergy and keep my skin healthy.  Expecting a sales pitch for some ridiculously expensive dermatological product, I was surprised when he recommended some of the cheapest products available:  100% glycerin bar soap and Cetaphil Moisturizing Cream.  HOW did I not know about this before now?  Let me tell you, after a couple months of using these I am never going back to anything else.  My skin is happier and healthier than ever!

I got the soap from Whole Foods -- it's important to get unscented to minimize the additives.  It was literally like 95 cents.  You can get Cetaphil pretty much anywhere -- the derm said it was important to get moisturizing cream, not lotion.

Proof that more expensive doesn't necessarily mean better!

SF

Beautiful sky in San Francisco this morning

Fail

So I have a confession to make...  I still haven't written my wedding thank you notes.  I keep telling myself that *officially* I have a year (haven't verified, but I think I remember someone saying that), but I know I've got to get my butt in gear soon.  But here's the thing - I did have a reason for waiting.  I had this bright idea that with each thank you note, I'd include photos of that person/family from the wedding.  Hence the delay; I had to wait for our sloooow photog to mail me a disc of all the images and then I had to find time to go to Target and print.  All.  1000.  Photos.  I did, and last weekend I finally went through the process of sorting all the photos.  The living room rug looked like someone had vomited wedding photos all over it.

The sorted photos

Yay!  So everything is sorted and ready to get matched up with thank you card.  But oooooh no, of course it's not that easy.  Because look what I discovered when I was done sorting

The photos don't fit into the thank you note envelopes!  D'OH!!  Now I've got piles of sorted photos and no procrastination excuse for writing thank you's.

I'm thinking I'll still send the good photos to people and just include the thank you note in a larger envelope.  It just won't be as pretty!  Life is hard, I know.

Tinsel

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!  I know I am not unique in this, but Christmas is my absolute FAVE holiday.  Christmas day is fun and all, but it's the lead up to Dec. 25th -- shopping for gifts, decorating the house, baking cookies, lighting the fireplace -- that really does it for me.  We are planning to go home to Texas this Christmas, which I'm so excited about!!  We weren't able to go home for Thanksgiving this year, so I really can't wait.  Given hubs and I won't be around our apartment for the week leading up to or after xmas, there was really no point in getting a tree.  Not to mention the pain of carrying a tree up three flights of stairs.  So I opted for a more minimal decor look and am very happy with the results.  So without further ado, get ready for tinsel overload!

The candy-cane candles are a DIY project I got from Sweet Something Designs

The floating vase is a DIY project I made this summer, how to here.

The rest of the supplies are from oh-so-wonderful Target!

Verse: poetry pause

Every once in a while, especially when I'm feeling frazzled or just out of touch with my self, I like to open up a book of poetry.  Now I definitely would not consider myself knowledgeable about poetry.  I haven't studied poets, nor would I know the first thing about writing poems.  But I do like to think of myself as a casual appreciator.  Like I am with tennis -- I kind of know the rules and watch Wimbledon every year, but that's it.

The point of all this is I plan to occasionally post a poem on Les Gourmandises.  I've found that taking a minute to read a poem or two does something amazing for my soul (cliche, I know, but it's true!).  A good poem takes me out of the present and can make me smile, think of things in a different way, bring up an emotion, or every remind me of my humanity.  And I want to share that!

Let's kick things off with my favorite poem by Robert Frost.  In only two verses, it captures the story of my life:

The Secret Sits

We dance round in a ring and suppose,

But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.

Thanksgiving meal

Hubby and I spent our first Thanksgiving together out here in Cali.  He had to work all week (and Thanksgiving night 8p - 8a the next day!), so I decided to stay here to spend it with him.  I was sad not to go home, but actually kind of excited about trying to cook my own Thanksgiving meal.

Some backstory -- up until this summer, I did not "cook".  Ever.  I made trail mix (still my favorite recipe) and that's it.  But then the wedding happened and all of a sudden I had a kitchen full of cooking tools!  So I did what anyone with time on their hands and a new husband would do (oh those glorious days of summer post-wedding, pre-back-to-work) and tried to learn how to cook something.  A few months and many you-tube/googling of "how to ____" later and I feel like I'm actually pretty decent!  I stay away from any complicated or time consuming recipes (more on that later) and usually turn out good meals.

So now for Thanksgiving.  Everything I tried was a new recipe I found online, and I have to say it was all delicious.  I had prepared myself for at least one dish not turning out well, but everything turned out great!  We had two friends over and feasted.  Recipes below... ALL EASY AND FAST*!!

Our menu (with links to recipes):

Sweet potato casserole - this is really sweet so I halved the sugar in the recipe.
Green bean casserole - just the classic
Bread and celery stuffing
Gravy
Cranberry sauce - canned
Strawberry tart
Turkey - kept it simple and roasted the 12 lb turkey for ~4 hours at 325.  Put an Apple inside (thanks Mrs. Bagwell!) and rubbed salt/butter on the skin before putting it in the oven.  Covered with tin foil for the first 2.5 hours and then basted about every half hour with turkey drippings.  Took it out of the oven when the turkey thermometer hit ~170.

* Except for the tart's pastry cream, which took 3 tries :)

Centerpiece of faux berries, sunflowers, and mini pumpkins

The line-up of sides; Spinach on far right was brought by guest

So mad I didn't get a photo of the roasted turkey!

Say what??

One of my co-workers went to Hong Kong last week over the Thanksgiving break and brought back snacks for the team room.  I just had to share this:

Looks good, huh?

Me - "Oh, are those like crackers or chips or something?  I want to try one!"

Coworker - "Actually no, it's not crackers... it's DRIED FISH.  JUST LIKE BEEF JERKY, BUT FISH."

I can confirm it tastes and smells just like you'd imagine it would.

Journaling

I always wished I was good at keeping a journal.  You remember all the Lisa Frank diaries we got as birthday presents when we were little girls?  Well when I look back through them, they look something like this:

8/30/95 -- I'm so glad I got you as a present!!  I'm going to write in you every day
8/31/95 -- Today, I ...
3/1/96 -- Sorry I haven't written in you for awhile...

And that's it.  Nothing's really changed as I've grown into adulthood - I'll randomly write journal entries every year or so but then forget about it or lose the spiral I was using.  Despite never really making an effort, I know there are huge benefits to journaling.  I mean, Oprah used to talk about it all the time.  I even attended a journaling workshop at Stanford during grad school.  Not quite sure how you become a journaling expert, but these people were really interesting and made me want to journal!  Why I think journaling would be good for me:

1. It would force me to appreciate all the small things that are so wonderful in my life.  My career is rather stressful and requires me to travel every week, Monday - Thursday.  Ever since I rejoined the firm after grad school and getting married, I've kind of been struggling.  Journaling every day after work would be an escape and forced reflection -- and every time I take the time to reflect, I remember how wonderful my husband, home life, family, and friends are and how my career is only a small part of who I am.
2. Sometimes when I write a negative thought down, it's like shifting the weight off my shoulders and onto the paper (or computer screen).  I feel like I can process it and then put it away in storage forever.
3. I love writing!  And I don't really get to do it much now, unless you count writing PowerPoint slides.
4. One of the best things about journals has got to be that you have a record of memories that otherwise could be forgotten.  I'd love to capture this time in my life for me to look back on when I'm an old granny.

So here's what I'm going to do:  Les Gourmandises will be my pseudo-journal!  As the Stanford journaling experts taught me, it doesn't have to be about outlining every step of your day in your diary.  A good journal entry can even just be a word or drawing that is meaningful to you in the moment.  (Random side note - for those of you who keep handwritten journals, they also suggested writing occasional entries using your non-dominant hand to stimulate your brain differently, which I thought was cool).  There's nothing like the Interwebs to keep me accountable!  Happy journaling...

Inspiration

The inspiration for the blog name Les Gourmandises:  our wedding menu!  See the bottom, which has all my favorite food items of the night.  Cake + macarons = nom nom nom

Photo of our "gourmandises"; the macarons in the blog title are also from our wedding!

Blogger

So I've finally done it... jumped on the bandwagon and started a blog.  I've been thinking about it for quite awhile, as I've been a blog reader for years, but always in the abstract "that would be fun" kind of way.  But this Sunday morning while lazing in bed, I suddenly had an oddly clear idea of exactly what my blog would look like, what my posts would be about, and even what the name would be - Les Gourmandises.  Who knows what I dreamed of last night, but I figured I'd better go for it since these early morning inspirations are few and far between :)

I hope this will be a fun place to visit for momentary distractions from the daily grind.  That's why I named it Les Gourmandises, because I want it to be a source for small treats of escapism and inspiration.  (And I have a huge sweet tooth.)

I also hope this can be another way to stay connected to the family and friends I miss so much from back home in Texas.

So here we go... Love, D