This blog turned 17 at the end of December. SEVENTEEN. Though, I'm not sure the mere 12 entries in the past 3 years really count. But I'm going to count them anyways. SEVENTEEN!

I've read a few things lately about how social media is an edited version of people's lives, and it paints an inaccurate picture of what someone's life is actually like. The version we see is all the good, beautiful things that are happening while the mundane, not so pretty things are left out. It makes other people feel inadequate, like their lives aren't as good or don't measure up and that's terrible. I don't think anyone ever intends to purposefully make others feel that way by presenting an edited version of their life, it just happens.

If you're following my loose train of thought on this, it may sound like I'm trying to say that I've rarely posted to this site in the past three years because things have been bad. That's not entirely true. There's a whole list of reasons I could give about why I haven't updated this site: too busy; out of the habit; too tired; feeling like I have nothing to contribute; etc. I could go on, but I won't. What I'd like to do is briefly try and catch you up on the last three years. The good stuff and the bad stuff, because even if isn't documented, it does happen to all of us.

2015 Highs: Started a new job (which I think I actually mentioned way back here), celebrated a milestone birthday by going to Chicago for a week, dusted off my sewing machine and started making some of my own clothes, finally stayed at the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo
2015 Lows: my dad died unexpectedly

2016 Highs: Completed my first (and so far only) Whole 30, celebrated a birthday by going to Cambria and visiting Hearst Castle (I had never been!), bought a house and moved to Santa Cruz (!!!), spent Christmas in Hawaii
2016 Lows: had to have another throat surgery (but it was thankfully less traumatic than the first one), packing up the entire apartment and moving (this one really deserves its own post), the election

2017 Highs: women's march, it finally started raining (real fill-up-the-reservoir type rain), nesting chickadees in our backyard, Fourth of July trip to Bellingham, took a girls trip to Tahoe, participated in Inktober for the first time
2017 Lows: my brother died unexpectedly

Oh, and in between all that, one of the cats developed an anxiety issue and has completely licked his stomach bald of any fur (he's totally healthy aside from that), and I've gradually gained back about 20 of the 50 pounds I had lost by the beginning of 2015. And that feels like a major defeat. Between the stress of, well, a lot of things, and a nearby beer garden with multiple cider offerings, I probably shouldn't be so hard on myself. And I'm slowly learning not to be, but it's not easy.

So, there's three years in a large-ish nutshell. I do plan on writing about some of that stuff at length, but I need to get back in the habit of doing this first. I think it had been kind of therapeutic for me in the past, and it might help to start doing this again. We'll see.

So, uh, how are you guys?

So, we moved and we have a little backyard area now. As a little housewarming gift, we received a small green bird house. We hung it on a post that already had a nail, just to get it off the ground, figuring that it was too close to the house to actually be used by any birds.

About a month or so later, I noticed a little chickadee hanging around near the birdhouse. I can see it through the window when I'm sitting at my desk. But I thought it was just a fluke. But that bird was hanging around a lot. And then one afternoon, I actually saw it fly right out of the house, and another bird head popped out. Not only were a couple of birds using it, THEY BUILT A NEST.

And now, we can hear the wee baby birds inside the birdhouse! We watch the parent birds fly back and forth for a good part of the day with food for the babies, and you can hear the little peeping of the babies get way more excited when one of the parents comes back to the nest. As much as I would LOVE to get some photos, I also don't want to disturb them. They get upset enough when we're out in the yard, though that doesn't seem to stop them from delivering food. (There's a very short little video over here.)

With the success of the birdhouse, I thought a bird bath might be a good idea. So we bought one this weekend, and so far - no birds. I'm guessing it might take a little while for them to discover it's there. Though, I'm also figuring that since we had such great unexpected luck with the birdhouse, that the bird bath will be an utter failure. We'll just have to wait and see!

I don't know if you've heard, but it's been raining a little bit in California. The sun had been a very rare sight until last weekend. We were graced with a gloriously sunny Saturday, and I took the opportunity to sit on my patio, eat lunch and get a little Vitamin D.

My lunch that day ended up being my current favorite salad. I discovered it at Mixt Greens (who appears to now be called just Mixt), which used to have a location in the Valley Fair mall but is, much to my dismay, now gone. Thankfully, I had made note of the ingredients in "The Orchard" salad, and have recreated it at home a few times.

But last Saturday, when I was sitting in the sun, enjoying my favorite salad, it occurred to me that I should post about it here. If only for the sole purpose of having the salad ingredients documented somewhere other than in a note on my phone. I also just realized I can go to their site and look it up, but if for some reason they go away, I'll always have it documented here.

Without further ado, I present to you my adaptation of the Orchard Salad...

The Orchard Salad
Adapted from Mixt

• Greens of your choice, a couple large handfuls (I usually like a spring mix, or something with a bit of arugula)
• Cooked chicken, diced or shredded (an eighth to a quarter of a cup, depending on how hungry you are)
• Sharp Cheddar, grated (a small amount, a couple tablespoons?)
• Cooked Bacon (2 slices, crumbled or chopped up)
• Avocado (I usually use half)
• Toasted Almonds, roughly chopped (a handful)
• Apple, a quarter to a half, chopped (I like a Granny Smith)
• Balsamic Vinaigrette

Put everything in a bowl, and toss together. Add salt and pepper to taste. I never really measure ingredients when I'm making this, but it makes enough for an entree sized salad for one person. You can adjust amounts to feed more people.

Clearly, I don't know what to say in this space anymore. I don't exactly forget that this thing is here, but I don't really remember it either, despite paying for hosting fees every month for the past 16 years.

That's right, this blog is 16 years old. And I think the only reason I haven't completely scrapped it is because SIXTEEN YEARS. I've documented some parts of my life here for over a decade and a half, and it just doesn't feel right to end it. However, is also seems a little silly to keep it around when I only posted twice last year.

I'm definitely not the same person I was when I started this blog. A lot of things in my life have changed and recently there's been some "life events". One of which was my Dad dying somewhat unexpectedly. Which is not the only unexpected death I've had to deal with in the past three years. It's been rough and this hasn't felt like the right place to talk about any of that. But blogging has also evolved in that time, which I know I talk about every year, but I just can't seem to get past it not being the way it used to be. I feel like when I put something here, it's needs to be useful, helpful or informative in some way, and I just can't manage that anymore. I think it's also a matter of habit. I'm just not in the habit of writing anything here anymore, and I honestly don't know if I'll ever get back in the habit.

I'm much more comfortable posting things on Instagram now, which feels safer and easier I guess (at least on my private account). I'm going to try and be better about posting on my public Instagram, which is still quicker than posting things here, but I can't make any promises.

For those of you that do end up reading this, thanks for sticking around. I'm not going away, but I'm not necessarily promising that I'm going to post with any regularity either. However, this site won't go anywhere anytime soon. I actually come back here to look up things every once in awhile, so even if nobody else is reading, at least I'm finding it useful that it's still here.

And with that, I wish you all a happy new year. Here's hoping for a little bit of good in 2017.

I spent most of the past weekend and part of this week messing with code to make this site responsive (which is a word that I never seem to remember when I'm talking about it). It makes me a little giddy to pull the site up on my phone, and it's actually readable! Not that I've offered up much to read lately, but let's not talk about that.

I did not completely overhaul the design on the site, I mostly adapted the existing layout to the new template. I did move things around a bit though. There's a lovely top bar navigation that actually sticks to the top of the page. You might also notice that there's a search bar up there too. There's always been a search function, but it was on a separate page. The new location is so much more convenient. Maybe not a huge deal, as I know I'm probably the one that gets the most use out of that. But the fact that I have over a decade of things archived here, it's nice to be able to look up what year my husband did the AIDS ride, because we can't usually remember what year that was (seven years ago!).

Of course, it may all be for naught, because I don't know if anyone actually goes to sites to read them anymore? Ah well. It makes me happy and I learned things in the process, so I think it was worth the trouble. If you do come to the actual site, I hope you enjoy the updated layout!

It finally happened. After nearly three years of green smoothies for dinner, I got tired of them. Also, it's winter. I wanted something warm to eat. Which is just one of the reasons I decided to finally try a Whole30. Let's not talk about the KIND bar I was eating for breakfast every morning or the jars of candy on my co-worker's desk that I was regularly raiding.

Basically, I needed a food reset.

So I ordered this book, which has been my guide through the past two weeks. Well, three weeks if you count the trial week I did before I officially started. (I decided I needed to ease into this a little, and I think it helped.)

Honestly, this isn't that far off from how I normally eat. Except I was eating what is essentially a candy bar for breakfast every morning (I got lazy). I also wasn't diligently checking labels except for gluten. Now I'm also checking for dairy and sugar (IT'S IN EVERYTHING).

So what am I eating?

For Breakfast:
I've been making this Fiesta Egg Casserole, cutting it into 5 portions and storing it in the fridge. I made this recipe to the letter the first time, but the second time, I used some leftover ground turkey and roasted butternut squash. That's become my new favorite version.

For Lunch:
I make 5 days worth of food on the weekend, so it's grab and go in the mornings. I've been relying on my Well Fed cookbooks for recipes. I already had a couple of favorites in the first book but received the second one for Christmas and there's a bunch of recipes I want to try in there, too.

For Dinner:
I've been making what I affectionately refer to as a "food pile". Sautee some protein (usually ground meat cooked with onion that I made on the weekend), add some vegetables (chard, spinach, cauliflower rice, butternut squash), and top with some sort of sauce (guac, pico de gallo, etc). Since I've pre-cooked everything, this is a super quick way for me to make dinner.

I'm finding that I'm snacking less than I used to, but if I do need something, a handful of nuts (cashews, macadamia) is usually enough.

The hard part? Going out to eat. Any time someone suggests going out to eat, mild panic strikes because it can be hard to figure out where to go that will have something I can eat. I end up ordering a lot of salads with dressing on the side and then not using the dressing. Which actually isn't so bad. Thankfully, friends and family have been pretty agreeable about where to go so I can eat with them.

What about caffeine? I've seen some people mention that it's not allowed. In the book I'm using as my guide, it doesn't say anything about no caffeine, unless you're trying to eliminate IBS or IBD symptoms. Since that doesn't apply to me, I'm still drinking caffeinated beverages. I had been a one cup of coffee a day person and I couldn't drink it without milk and some sort of sweetener. During my trial week, I switched to green tea. I don't need to add anything to that to make it drinkable, and so far, it's worked out well.

Things I've discovered:

• I like sweet potatoes way more than I thought I did
  
• Same goes for butternut squash
  
• Ground turkey thigh meat is actually really tasty
  
• All this planning ahead makes meals a no-brainer, which is nice

Today is day 14, and I guess I feel pretty good? I think I'm less groggy in the morning when I get up, which is nice. I'm hoping I feel even better in the next few days. After tomorrow, only 15 more days to go!

I missed the 15 year anniversary of this blog (it was December 31st). I've written so many blog entries - in my head - in the last 6 months. I just can't seem to sit down and type them out. I'm sure there's at least part of a 15 year anniversary post in my brain somewhere, but it seems a little silly to write it out now, on the 24th of January.

I'm not going to lie. It's been a rough year. I thought last year was rough, but this year was...I don't even know if I can find the right words.

I have, of course, learned a few things in the past year. Like I'm REALLY out of the habit of posting here. And I thought setting up a public Instagram account might help, but that's been a major fail. Until Instagram makes it easier to post to multiple accounts, I just can't manage more than one account. Unfortunately, it's the one that I keep mostly private. My views on sharing things have morphed over the years, I guess. Which may be another reason I'm not making the time to write here. When I was cooking, knitting and taking photos all the time, it seemed I always had something to write about it. When most of what I'm doing is working, it's not just about finding the time, it's about finding the content, too.

However! I started a Whole30 last week and I've been doing more cooking than I have in years. And I keep thinking about things I want to document during the 30 days. I should start taking notes, because I feel like I may actually want to write down some of what I'm thinking and learning, and this might be a good place to do it. I can't guarantee it's going to happen, but I'm at least going to try.

So, rather than write an enormously long post about it, I'm going to save some of it for next time. Which should hopefully be soon.

I never intended to take a five month break from blogging, but here we are.

I feel like there's some unspoken (or maybe it has been spoken/written) rule about not apologizing for blog neglect. I, however, feel like I need to apologize (to all three of you that are still reading). I could blame my new-ish job that's got me a little keyboard shy since there could be some potential googling from coworkers. Or, we could blame the fact that I'm really busy because of said job (it's good busy). We could blame a lot of things, actually. I've reached a point where I often feel a little bewildered by the state of the internet and blogs. Instagram is much more comfortable for me, so that's where I spend most of my time these days.

I get self-conscious about my writing here, and if I think about it too much, it's just easier not to write. But Shauna pointed out that there's so many people on the interwebs now, that some get lost in the crowd. There's so many voices that mine babbling over here in the corner is still pretty small and quiet and I don't think anyone is going to notice much. At least that's what I'm hoping.

ANYWAYS. I digress.

I have actually done more than just go to work in the past few months. I took a short vacation to Chicago (which I'm going to save for another post) and I've been going to a pottery studio and doing some pottery things. And...I'm sure there's more. When I remember, I'll try and actually write about it.

I think it's about time for another "catch-up" post, isn't it? Let's get to it.

Six years ago yesterday, I got engaged. It seems like it was so long ago. We celebrated by staying at home and watching old SNL clips and 30 Rock episodes while I made a nice dinner that took way longer than expected. Starting the whole process to make gnocchi (for the first time ever) at 6:30pm was perhaps not the best plan, but some cheese and crackers helped soften the blow of dinner served at 8pm. Also, there was ice cream for dessert.

I started a new job a week ago. I'm not usually one to choose a big life change (I left my last 2 jobs due to lay offs) but it was an opportunity I couldn't say no to. So far, I like it.

I opened up a shop over on Society6. I took a couple of favorite photos and sized them for phone cases, pillows, prints, etc. I'd like to add some non-photography artwork items at some point, but that might take a while.

I have not forgotten that I promised a post on brewing kombucha. I'm still doing it, and it's been working out pretty well so I have LOTS of notes and links for you. I am going to compile it all. SOON.

Things I am enjoying on the internets:

• I'm finding Holly's Grocery Haul posts kind of fascinating. Partially for the cost aspect, but I also like seeing what other people buy at the store.


• This post over on Not Martha is great for so many reasons, but the reason I'm linking to it is the plastic caps for canning jars. I had ordered some the day before I read this post and now that they're here, I want to order MORE. They make using canning jars for short term storage so much easier.


• The Wednesday chef posted a recipe for what I think might be my dream brownies. I want...no, NEED to make a gluten-free version.

I'm sure I had more to tell you, but that's all my brain can come up with at the moment. Let's do this again soon?

I'm sure we've all seen the salad in a mason jar thing going around the interwebs. I know I've pinned a bunch of different versions but didn't have any motivation to actually try this method of salad prep until a few weeks ago.

I fell in love with a salad. A Trader Joe's pre-packaged salad with kale, shredded broccoli, sunflower seeds, dried cranberries and chicken. I knew it sounded familiar, and there was a reason. It's this Broccoli Kale Slaw that Tracy blogged about ages ago. I've become obsessed with it and wanted to recreate it for my lunches, but knew that I'd need to find a way to prep a few days worth without it going all weird in the fridge. Cue lightbulb and subsequent scouring of pinterest for all those salad in a jar pins.

In Tracy's post, she uses a different dressing, but I actually like the dressing that comes with the salad, so I did a little googling and found a close approximation to that spicy/sweet dressing. I had a vague idea of how I should layer everything, but consulted some guidelines over on the kitchn to get a better idea.

I bought almost everything I needed at Trader Joe's, except a head of red cabbage (though you could probably leave this out if you wanted to). I don't actually own any quart size mason jars, but I did have some quart size ziploc containers with screw on lids and they worked just fine. The kitchn mentioned separating out soft proteins (like cooked chicken), but I decided to layer it in there anyways. I wanted to see what would happen, and if I really could layer everything in there without adverse effects, I would be much more likely to use this prep method again.

This is the layer order I used (from bottom to top):

• dressing
  
• red onions
  
• broccoli slaw
  
• red cabbage
  
• chicken
  
• dried cranberries
  
• kale
  
• sunflower seeds

I did this all on a Sunday afternoon, and put the "jars" in the fridge. On Monday morning, I grabbed a jar, a fork, and a large bowl and headed to work. When lunch time rolled around, I dumped the jar of salad into the large bowl, tossed it around a bit, and ate. Same drill on Tuesday, and the salad was totally fine, just as good as Monday. Same thing with the Wednesday salad. But Thursday, we went out to lunch, so the 4th salad ended up sitting in the fridge for 5 days. I brought it to work on Friday and didn't get my hopes up. I could always buy lunch if everything in the jar had gone to mush, but I'm happy to report that it was absolutely fine.

So I would say there's definitely something to this layering ingredients in a jar thing if you want to prep salads for lunch ahead of time. It was a bit of a pain to bring an extra bowl with me every day, but not so bad that I wouldn't do it again. The only ingredient that really changed at all through the week was the sunflower seeds. They were the very top layer, and they got a little soft. They didn't taste bad, they just lost some of their crunch. Not that they're super crunchy in the first place, but their texture was a bit lost once they were mixed in with everything. I might separate them out into a smaller container next time, or just add them to the jar each morning.

I'm super happy this worked and that I can now prepare and eat my favorite salad for lunch during the week!

Most of you know how much I love Instagram and my love for the app is still strong. But not too long after I started actively using my account, I made it private. With social media, I've found that if I have the option to make my account private, I will. I post photos of my husband and other family members who don't want to have photos of their mugs publicly available and I want to respect that.

However, there's a social networking aspect to Instagram that just doesn't work as well when your account is private. The majority of the food I cook is from recipes I find on the internet, and I like to be able to give a little shot out or hashtag to those recipe creators when I post a photo of one of their recipes. Unless they're also following me, they may see that I've tagged them somehow, but they won't be able to see the photo, which is kind of a bummer. So I decided to finally create a public Instagram account!

I'm going to try and keep content on the public account different from my other account. Which means that the UGC account may be lots of food photos and maybe a cat or two. The difficult part about this whole scenario is that Instagram doesn't make it easy to switch back and forth between accounts without logging in and out of each account. There's apps that let you switch between accounts for viewing, but not for posting. I may just have to change my posting behavior and not instantly post everything. We'll see how it goes.

The other reason I did this is because I post to Instagram almost daily. I post to this spot on the web once or twice a month if I'm lucky. So hopefully I can manage to post to the Instagram account that's now connected to this blog...

Please feel free to follow along!

Today marks the 14 year anniversary of this blog.

I'm not even sure what to say about that. I did write here a little bit more than I did last year, so I guess that's a good thing. Thank you, those of you that stop by to read and leave comments. I know there's still a few of you out there, and I'm so glad you've stuck around.

It's been a difficult year, not just for me, but for SO MANY people. 2014, don't let the door hit your ass on the way out. But then there's also the idea that the bad stuff makes the good stuff seem that much better.

I spent more time in doctor's offices this year than I have EVER. The good part was figuring out what was causing my breathing issue. The bad part was the outpatient procedure that turned into an overnight stay in the ICU. The end result is that I can finally breathe like a normal person. Sometimes good and bad travel together. And that's just one example. I could fill up a page with examples, and I'm sure you could all contribute.

I'd like to think that the hard stuff we've dealt with this past year has paved the way for some good stuff in 2015. I hope that for each and every one of you.

Here's to a happy new year!

Oh, you guys, this year has been hard. I have more to say about this, so I'm going to wait until I do the annual very-end-of-the-year-blog-anniversary post (14 years! eep!), but until then, here's what I've been doing:

• Making this Carrot-Coconut soup.
  I've made it three times so far, and I will happily make it again. The first couple of times, I only made half the recipe but last week, I made the full recipe and I think I'll do that from now on. We both love this soup so much, and it's so easy to throw together. The hardest part is peeling and chopping all the carrots (and really, that's not very difficult). I also leave out the sriracha because we're fairly spice sensitive around here. Also, I didn't have any in the house. I have since rectified that problem and have been adding a tiny bit when I reheat a bowl and find that I like the tiny bit of heat.
• Watching Parks & Recreation from the very beginning.
  We were looking for something new to watch and I had only seen a couple of seasons (middle of season two to the middle of season four) and the husband had only seen an episode here and there. I remembered really liking it when I was trying to watch it regularly, but the first couple of episodes had me questioning that a little. But, around the 3rd or 4th episode, the characters all start to take on their own personalities and each episode gets progressively better. I really do love this show.
• Trying to doodle and draw more.
  There was a time when I did this a lot, but being an art major in college sort of beat it out of me. In the past couple of years, the urge to create with pen a paper has become more pronounced so I decided to give in. I've got a small moleskine notebook and some nice pens and it makes me feel like less of a couch potato if I'm doing something while we're watching a little tv in the evenings. The hard part for me is looking at a blank page and not knowing where or how to start, so I refer back to this doodling manifesto frequently for inspiration.
• Realizing that every year I am woefully unprepared for the holidays, and that it all ends up okay regardless and to just stop worrying about it so much.

And with that, I wish you all a very happy holiday!

Thing 1
This whole being able to breathe like a normal person thing is amazing! Stairs are no longer my nemesis! I'm able to clean the apartment without sounding like I'm recovering from running a marathon! Walking downtown to go out to dinner is something I actually want to do! And yesterday, I finally went to the lunchtime pilates class at work and I didn't feel like I was going to die! (That part is happening now - every muscle is sore.) I think a bike ride or maybe a hike might be next on the list of things to try...

Thing 2
I had part of a can of pumpkin taking up space in my fridge so I made these Paleo Pumpkin Carrot Muffins on Sunday. The texture was not completely like a regular muffin (I don't know why I thought it would be), but the flavor is good. Not completely like a carrot cake, but close (the thought of putting some cream cheese on one has crossed my mind). They were tasty at room temperature, but they also make a pretty decent breakfast straight out of the fridge.

Thing 3
I'm trying one more batch of kombucha, with a change to the amount of sugar I've been using. This is the last thing I want to try before I type it all out for you...

Thing 4
My step-dad sent me this video of a baby armadillo playing and it's kind of the best thing ever.

Happy Wednesday!

That outpatient procedure that turned into an overnight stay at the hospital I mentioned in my last post? That was me.

For the past, oh, two years or so, I've had a breathing problem. Sitting at my desk, or anywhere else, no problem. Once I started doing something beyond that, well, I could still breathe, but not well. Doing stuff around the house (cleaning, vacuuming, etc.) had me out of breath pretty quick. Walking up stairs was not fun, and it would take me a while to recover. I couldn't walk around and hold a normal conversation, I'd need to stop and gasp for air. And there would be coughing and some wheezing during all of this. As my breathing was getting worse, I stopped doing anything active because it was so taxing, especially if there were other people around. I was embarrassed by how much huffing, puffing and coughing I was having to do.

I was sure it was adult asthma. Because what else could it possibly be? I had so many of the symptoms when I looked it up. So I tried a rescue inhaler from my doctor and it did...nothing. Didn't help at all.

Finally I went to a respiratory specialist, which started a chain of events:

• breathing test before and after asthma medication (no change)
  
• CT scan (showed there might be something around my trachea)
  
• brochoscopy (camera down my throat to confirm that there was webbing around my trachea)

The webbing that they found had made the opening in my trachea much smaller than it was supposed to be. So yeah, definitely NOT asthma. It's probably something I was born with but just starting to cause me problems in the past couple of years.

So a week and half ago, I went in for an outpatient procedure to remove some of this webbing. I was completely under anesthesia, but near the end of the procedure, while there were a bunch of tubes down my throat, I took a breath and ended up with subcutaneous emphysema. It's something that can happen during endoscopy procedures, and it usually clears up on its own, but the surgeon wanted to keep me overnight in the ICU for observation.

While an overnight stay was completely unexpected, I'm glad they did it because it didn't feel great to have air trapped in my chest and under my skin. Thankfully, by the next morning, a lot of the air had been reabsorbed and I was feeling much better, so they sent me home.

It's taken me a over a week to feel fully recovered from all of this but I'm also happy to report that the procedure worked, and I can breathe! I can go for a walk like a normal person, I'm taking the stairs again at work, and I even went to a yoga class on Friday. I may even try a pilates class in a couple of weeks. BECAUSE I CAN BREATHE!

Who wants to go for a walk?