Golden Globes red carpet

Here are all of the dresses I liked on the red carpet. I decided not to list the ones I disliked because I'm trying to be a little nicer.

Leslie Mann - love the lace although peplum might be on it's way out
Guiliana Rancic - her haircut is adorable! And I love the color of her dress but that's about it
Sarah Hyland - she's so cute and I love that color
Lupita Nyong'o - gorgeous!
Melissa Rauch - love the cut of that dress
Lena Dunham - best dress I've ever seen her in
Zosia Mamet - great haircut but the dress is a little too mature
Amy Poehler - her hair looks beautiful and the cut of that dress is so flattering
Robin Cranston - love that column dress and her hair completes the Greek-goddess look
Kaley Cuoco Sweeting - love the style, nut I don't like the muted watercolor effect
Juliana Marguiles - love the cut and style, very Victorian, and the golden coral accents!
Sofia Vergara - duh.
Cate Blanchett - I didn't love it until I saw the back...wowza
Reese Witherspoon - gorgeous color and so slimming
Julia Roberts - her hair looks gorgeous but didn't she JUST wear something identical to that?
Olivia Wilde - her baby bump is so cute!!! Emerald is so flattering on her. I just adore her
Camila Alves - same dress as Olivia?
Jessica Chastain - gorgeous and classic, as usual (by the way, the shortened term for usual is usjz, I just taught my mom that about a month ago)
Kelly Osborne - love that but I feel like I've seen it before
Usher - Ryan gave me a hard time for not commenting on the men's outfits but I love his jacket

I am just doing the red carpet because I want to pay attention to the awards but I will blog later about....all kinds of things!

Multitasking

This is what I've been up to this morning:

The movie: Clueless. One of my hands-down, have-to-watch-every-time-it's-on, favorite movies.

Computer: Checking email and voting on who I think will win the Golden Globe for each category tonight on People's website.

Book: The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts by Dr. Gary Chapman. A friend of mine told me about this book when she and I were walking about a month ago. She told me that when she and her husband were engaged, they went through marriage counseling with a pastor and worked through this book together. Since Ryan didn't grow up in the church, I have yet to find one here in Charleston, and I would never force Ryan to go to church if he didn't want to, I thought it might be a good idea to just look into going through the book on our own. It has been so interesting to learn these different things about each other and the different ways we feel loved and the ways we prefer to express love. Luckily, we have the same primary love language - physical touch. But the ways we rank the other 4 love languages is vastly different. If anyone is reading this and wants to know how we ranked the other 4 and he is okay with me sharing, I'll fill you in. The one thing I have loved the most out of this experience is that he was the first to open up the book and look through it after we purchased it. Until last night, he had actually bypassed me in how many chapters he'd read! I would really like to get the 5 Love Languages Devotional book next.

Today is going to be a busy day once I finish my coffee. Now that I've setup my Fitbit Flex (more on that later), I plan to take a big walk through the neighborhood where Ryan and I are building our home (hopefully more on that later) with the same friend I mentioned above so that I can indulge in Sunday night dinner/Golden Globes watching (also, more on this later)!

Kale Chips

Kale. It's all the rage. It's full of vitamins and minerals and all of that other stuff that's good for us.

However, I am a fan of salty snacks. Like chips, pretzels, crackers, and popcorn. Or anything with soy sauce. So I decided to make a chip-version of kale. I know I am not a revolutionary voice here, but I had yet to try them elsewhere, so I made my own.

I used baby kale because that's what I had in my fridge. I originally purchased it for the intent of putting it in smoothies (which I did!), but since it was going to go bad, I made chips.

Next, I tossed the leaves with about 2 tablespoons of canola oil. Make sure you coat each leaf so they get crispy, but not so much that they are dripping with oil. Just...glistening.

I then laid them out on a baking sheet and sprinkled some kosher salt on top and popped them in a 300 degree oven for 20 minutes. They turned out crispy but pretty thin. I had to use my fingernail to get them off the pan since they were too fragile for a spatula! I originally thought about making a curry-lemon dipping sauce for them but decided the thin crispy chips couldn't stand up to the thick creamy sauce, so I made a second batch and sprinkled curry powder on top with the kosher salt. 

MMM look at this salty bite!

And they're so thin!

I basically stood in the kitchen and ate half of the pan before I could put the rest away.

These were so delicious and crispy. I will definitely make them again, except I'll use big kale instead of baby kale so that the chips are a little more substantial and will stand up to some dip!

Turkey Pasta

Tonight, I made turkey pasta.

This is a recipe I used to make a lot when I was house-sitting for my uncles. I would make a big batch the first night I was there and then have it for either lunch, dinner, or a snack until I finished it off. Tonight, I decided to make a slightly different, slightly healthier version.

My first swap was using extra-lean ground turkey breast, instead of lean ground turkey meat, since the "meat" could really be any part of the bird. And I mean any. Also, because I'm absent-minded, I forgot to take a picture of the turkey meat I got, but just remember: extra-lean, turkey breast.

Second, I decided to use whole grain pasta. I couldn't find rigatoni, which is what I used to use and is so perfect because the sauce gets all inside the noodles, so I had to use penne instead. Whole grain pasta has a nice, nutty flavor, but takes a little longer to cook than regular noodles. Think 12-14 minutes instead of 8-10.

My last switch was using a heart-healthy pasta sauce. I used to use a mushroom pasta sauce but somebody doesn't like the deliciousness that are mushrooms (are? is?). They also didn't have a heart-healthy mushroom pasta sauce, but I could always make my own...

So, to make everything...I put a pot of water on to boil and added a tablespoon or two of canola oil to a separate pot. When the oil was hot enough, I tossed in the turkey meat and started breaking it up, adding salt and pepper along the way.

(This was right after, when the meat was still pretty raw)

Once the meat was pretty much cooked through, meaning it was mostly white, since turkey meat doesn't really "brown" unless it's on the bird and covered in butter and roasted in the oven a la Thanksgiving, I added in the entire jar of pasta sauce.

I also added in about half a jar of water. When this was at a good simmer, I added in some garlic salt. Meanwhile, Ryan was doing this:

At this point, my water was almost at a boil so I threw in some salt followed by the entire box of noodles. 

Note: I made a full batch just like I used to do with my old version because I intend to snack on this all weekend.

While my pasta cooked, I added about a 1/2-1 teaspoon of the stuff in the green can. Please forgive me, it is by far my favorite form of Parmesan. I hate the skinny shreds. It's the green can stuff or big slices or nothin'.

(Forgive the blurry picture, it was all the steam, y'all!)

By this point, my pasta was cooked and I added it to the sauce, stirred it around, added about a tablespoon more of parm, and dinner was ready!

So delicious, although it could have used stronger seasonings. Maybe a little more garlic salt, or maybe some Italian seasoning, but it definitely could have been a little more flavorful.

Now I'm making kale chips! I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow.

Sunday Night

On Sunday nights, I like to have a nice dinner. Sort of an end-of-the-weekend treat, a family dinner. There is always an appetizer and some sort of bubbly. However, Ryan works shift work, so half of the time, I am on my own for these dinners. While that usually makes me sad, sometimes it's nice because I get to eat things he doesn't like. Like mustard!

So tonight, I made two of my favorite things. Roasted shredded Brussels sprouts and grilled chicken.

Okay, so I don't really like grilled chicken, or chicken at all really. But I do love mustard and that makes it worthwhile.



For the Brussels sprouts, I bought a bag of the steam-in-bag kind from my local Target, and just took about 5 out. I finely shredded them with a knife, throwing away the stems. Usually, if I get my Brussels sprouts fresh, I take off the outer leaves because they tend to be bruised or dry or dirty. I figured if these were good enough to steam in the bag, I didn't need to take off the outer stems. I tossed the shredded sprouts in a tablespoon of light canola oil, salt, and pepper and threw them in a 400 degree oven for about 10 minutes. I then turned the oven off, tossed the sprouts around in the pan, and put them back in the (turned-off) oven while I grilled the chicken.

By the way, if you have never roasted Brussels sprouts, especially if they are shredded, you should. They get crispy and so full of flavor and just....mmmmmmm.

For the chicken, I cut a chicken breast in half, since I didn't want that much, and put each half in a resealable bag. The half I wasn't going to use, I put in the freezer. And the half I did use, I added about a half tablespoon of dijon mustard, a quarter teaspoon of lemon pepper seasoning, and a dash of seasoned salt. This is a slight riff on the grilled chicken recipe of a catering company I used to work for. I threw it on my non-stick grill pan (that I brushed oil on because I'm paranoid that way) for about 2-3 minutes per side since it was so thin.

I pulled the sprouts out of the oven and sprinkled on a little grated Parmesan cheese, which is divine, if you've never tried it....and then poured myself a glass of Bota Box Malbec!

Cheers to the week ahead and that my stomach issues have finally died down....despite my sinuses still acting up!

Sold

A few weeks ago, after Ryan got off the night shift, he and I went to the Ryland office and...signed all of the paperwork!

There were a lot more decisions to make than we anticipated. I don't really understand any of the financial stuff (mortgages, deposits, etc.), which is why I won't be blogging about that part. Ryan may be willing to do a guest post if you ask nicely :) The decisions we had to make that I did understand, however, were all design choices.

Here is the link to our floorplan so you can follow along: Virginian II

We had to decide on what we wanted the exterior of our house to look like. We chose a mix of siding and stone (style F).

We had to decide on how many of the optional windows we wanted to have. We opted to get a third window in the upstairs portion of the open floorplan living room. We chose not to get the three extra, small, windows in the dining room, nor the window in the water closet in the master bathroom because, no thank you. We also chose to have one window per bedroom as well, because in the walk-through of the house with the drywall, we learned that some of those windows opened right onto the roof of the front porch, and I could just see some teenagers sneaking out of the house someday....

We chose to have a single sink in the master bathroom, but later changed our minds and opted for a double vanity.

We chose to have a small patio off of the breakfast room instead of a sunroom or a larger patio, in case we decide to tear it down and build a screened-in porch someday.

We decided we could live without a fireplace since it doesn't get terribly cold here in Charleston, although I've been looking at electric ones that have a mantle so we have something to put the tv on top of/hang stockings from at Christmas.

That's all I can remember right now but all of our other decisions will be made when we go to the Design Center in two weeks and I cannot wait!

We drove by our lot today and all of the other lots that have been sold around it are being cleared so ours is next!

Friday

I went to bed early last night. Early enough to wake up this morning to do 30 minutes of yoga before I had to shower and get ready for work. My stomach had a very different idea. Needless to say, I was not fit to do a single sun salutation, much less go into work. So I laid in bed and drank lots of water in hopes of the nausea passing. I eventually dragged myself out of bed thinking getting some food in my stomach might settle it down a little. This is what I made:



Scrambled egg whites with a pinch of garlic and half a slice of Monterey Jack cheese melted on top, half an avocado with lemon juice, salt & pepper, and 4 cherry tomatoes. Even though I'm not a fan of eggs, the cheese helped, as did having just the whites (kept my stomach stable). I love avocados and tomatoes so that was the easy part.

And did I mention this is on a salad plate? Yay portion control!