I mentioned last week that we are moving! After we got the keys last week we were so busy measuring things that I didn't take any pictures of our new place. Saturday we started taking things over but before we brought anything in I took a few pictures of the place empty.
The living room:
Not totally sold on the curtains but they came with the place. I am planning to take them down and put up something else but I will wait until we get a new couch to do that. Behind the curtains is a sliding glass door that leads to our patio which I didn't take a picture of. Good news about the patio is we are allowed to have a barbecue on it so grilling is in our future.
Dining Room:
Second bedroom:
Not the largest bedroom but should fit a twin bed nicely and hopefully some other furniture will be joining this room eventually.
Master Bedroom:
What you can't see from this picture is that I am standing in the doorway and the doorway has double doors. The room is very much a rectangle but should fit all of the furniture we plan to put in there without any trouble.
Master closet:
I can never have enough closet space but we will make it work. Norman can always put some of his stuff in the second bedroom closet...
Bathroom:
Kitchen:
Super excited about the kitchen! More than one person can fit in this kitchen at one time and there are so many more cupboards than our current kitchen. I finally get to use all of our wedding presents in my new kitchen.
We cleaned our our storage locker this weekend and took all that stuff over so slowly but surely we will be moving in over the next few weeks.
What we're eating this week: I was at my parents house over the weekend and my mom made the best potato soup. It is actually Weight Watcher recipe and it is so good that you wouldn't even know it. The rest of this week we are eating some fun meals from Marley Spoon and then just trying to eat what we have in our fridge so we won't have to move it.
What I'm reminiscing about: I am reminiscing about getting to see my little sister over the weekend while she was home at my parents house. I went to lunch with my mom, my aunt and my sister and then we did a little wine tasting.
What I'm loving: I am loving that soon I will have a whole new place to decorate. (see below) What we've been up to: My husband and I went to look at a 2 bedroom townhouse to rent a couple of weeks ago and Monday we got the keys. I am excited about living somewhere with more space. While this is not quite as exciting as if we had been able to buy something bigger but it is bigger place and that is a step in the right direction. I have a feeling there will be many posts about our new place in the future.
What I'm dreading: I am excited to be moving to a bigger place but I can't say I am excited about the whole packing up part of moving. Packing up all of our possessions is not going to be fun but it will be worth it in the end.
What I'm working on: Other than the whole moving thing and all that goes along with that I am working on eating healthy and continuing to go to the gym consistently now that my foot has pretty much healed. I am finally starting to see my body getting stronger though I have not really lost much weight. This week I have been really focusing on my food since I am doing a pretty good job with the whole move more thing.
What I'm excited about: I am excited to be moving obviously but I am also excited about a couple of long weekend trips I have coming up in August. My husband and I are going to Vegas for a couple of days in late August and I am going with my parents to meet my sister (possibly both sisters) in NYC over Labor Day weekend.
What I'm watching/reading: My husband and I have started watching Game of Thrones. I know I know we are a little late to this party but we are enjoying it so far. I think we are just starting the second season.
What I'm listening to: Mostly whatever comes on my Pandora which is usually a mix of country and a random mix of 90s-00s pop music. Everyone needs some Britney in their life every once in a while.
What I'm wearing: If you are new around here (or haven't read a blog for the last 2 weeks) then you won't know that the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale is going on. I have done my share of shopping the sale in the last few weeks. In addition to buying a years worth of my favorite underwear and stocking up on the best workout pants I have bought a few fun items. This great basic tee comes in a ton of colors and is under $20. I may or may not have bought it in 3 colors and already worn them all.
In addition to basics I bought a really fun pleated skirt that I am looking forward to wearing all fall. There were tons of pleated items in the sale so it seems like pleats are going to be in this fall. There were also tons of bell sleeves and cold shoulder tops but I can't quite pull those off so I will stick to pleats.
What I am doing this weekend: We are going to be moving some of our non essential thing to our new place along with moving everything we have in our storage locker. If we get enough done and still have any energy left my husband and I are hoping to have a little date night to see the new Spiderman.
I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that my husband and I were going to an open house of two bedroom townhouse. Well, we liked it so much that we put in an application and we got the place!
We got the keys to our new place yesterday so now we begin the moving process.
We are not selling the place we live now so that does give us a little more flexibility since we don't have to be moved by a specific date.
I didn't take any pictures of the place (yet) but I will be sure to take some before and after pictures of the place.
Even without pictures I am sure everyone is super curious about our new place so
It is a 2 bedroom townhouse
1 bathroom
2 car garage (yay for storage space)
Much bigger kitchen (not that it was hard to be bigger than our current kitchen)
Open concept living and dining area
A patio that allows barbecue pits (husband is very excited about this)
We are the end unit so we have extra windows and only one neighbor next to us
I can't say that I am excited about packing up all of our stuff and moving but I am excited to be moved into a larger space with storage. The next few weeks are going to be a bit chaotic but it will be all worth it once we get settled into our new place.
In the past I have a done a day in the life posts and it is fun to look back at those posts so I decided to do a weekend in the life. I probably should have picked a more exciting weekend (and remembered to take more pictures) but here is my weekend.
The weekend started off on a fun note with dinner and an escape room with some of my coworkers. We didn't end up actually escaping from the escape room but we had fun anyway!
After sleeping in a bit on Saturday morning I got myself up and packed up to go to the gym. There is always such good energy in a 10:30 AM class on a Saturday morning. Just late enough that you can still sleep in a bit but not so late that it kills your whole day.
After a quick shower and a change of clothes I took a detour to Starbucks to grab a Berry Prickly Pear Cream thing before heading out. I was meeting some friends for lunch but I didn't need anything at Target that couldn't sit in the car for an hour or two so I headed there before I had to meet them. I actually managed to stick to my list so I think that should count as a successful day right there!
My friend has some temporary dietary restrictions so we decided something where she could make her own salad was the easiest place to meet. Conveniently there is a Sweet Tomato nearby so that fit the bill. After a nice lunch they headed off to Santa Cruz and I went to finish off my errands for the day.
I am actually going to be out to dinner a couple of times this week so we didn't actually need too much this week at Trader Joe's. Always nice to have a cheap week at the grocery store. My husband and I both eat bananas on a regular basis so I feel like every time I am in a grocery store I am buying bananas.
I got home around 3 PM and can honestly say I pretty much did nothing else for the rest of the day other than try to stay cool. As I have mentioned (just a few times...) we don't have air conditioning so when we have a hot day that falls on a weekend we pretty much melt. Once it finally cooled down at about 8 PM my husband made us some tika masala and I a made some naan. Not the best food for a hot day but oh well.
Sunday morning started pretty much the same way Saturday morning did with a bit of sleeping in and then the gym.
I usually shower at the gym during the week before going to work but on the weekends I usually just run errands in my gym clothes. You never know who you are going to run into when running errands so I have been using Game Face Grooming wipes after my workout just in case. They are 4 varieties of wipes but for my needs the deodorizing ones are the ones that address my concern. I may not look good (see picture) but at least I smell good. I love that they are big enough to only have to use one wipe and then I am on my way on on with my day.
My husband and I have started to accept the fact that there is just no way we are going to be able to afford to buy something with 2 bedrooms at the moment in the market we live in so we are looking in to renting. We went to look at a 2 bedroom townhouse today so we will see what the future holds.
The weather was a few degrees cooler on Sunday but it was still in the high 80s at 4 PM. Not my favorite!
By 6:30 the weather had cooled down enough to make a delicious chicken dish from Blue Apron. It had a round pasta with peppers and summer squash and a lemon butter sauce. It was super quick to make and nice and light which is great for summer.
Hope everyone had a great weekend!
I received the face wipes to try but all opinions in this post are my own.
I haven't shared a recipe here in quite some time so I decided it was high time to share one of the best recipes I discovered through my meal delivery service. These tacos are a super fast weeknight meal and are great on a hot night because between the citrus and the jicama they are super refreshing. This recipe is originally from Marley Spoon.
You need:
2 limes
1 naval orange
2-3 tablespoons of chopped cilantro
2-3 scallions or green onions sliced
8 oz jicama peeled and chopped into matchsticks
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tbsp guajillo chili powder
12 oz pollock filets or cod filets
6 small flour tortillas
2 tbsp oil
Salt and pepper
To make the slaw:
Zest the orange and one of the limes into a large bowl. Zest the other lime and set the zest aside. Juice the orange and both limes into the bowl and add the chopped cilantro, sliced scallions and jicama. Also add 1 tbsp oil and the red pepper flakes. Using a knife cut the peel and pith off of the orange and then slice the orange into pieces. Toss and season with salt and pepper.
To make the fish and tortillas:
Combine the reserved lime zest, the guajillo chili powder and a teaspoon of salt in a small bowl. Rub this mixture on both sides of the fish. Cook the tortillas in a dry cast iron pan on high for about 1 minute per side to get a little charing on them. Wrap them in a towel to keep them warm while the fish cooks. Using the same hot pan add 1 teaspoon of oil and then cook the fish for about 4 minutes on the first side and then 1 minute on the second side or until the fish is fully cooked.
Making the tacos:
Slice the fish into strips. Take a warm tortilla and add the fish followed by a good helping of the slaw. There is usually enough slaw to have some on the side of the tacos too.
Note: You can find the guajillo powder at hispanic grocery stores or you can easily order it from Amazon. Gotta love Prime shipping!
I have to say that having a holiday on a Tuesday kind of throws thing off for the whole week. While a lot of people took the 3rd off to make it into a 4 day weekend I didn't have any grand plans for the 4th so I worked on Monday.
Friday after work the husband and I headed home from work and were looking forward to a nice quiet night at home after a long week but our neighbors had other plans for us. We live on the second floor of a condo complex and share a landing with another condo. We went up the stairs to head inside and there was painters tape blocking the top of the stairway. Our neighbor rents out his condo and the renters had recently moved out so he had been doing some work on the condo. As part of this work apparently he (or his property management company) decided that the landing needed to be painted. Ummmm painting a shared landing without telling the other people who you share a landing with is not a good idea! There was no one around and we didn't want to risk walking on wet paint so we went over to the food trucks and had dinner before venturing into our house. Good food but not quite what we had planned for the evening!
Saturday after the gym I headed up to a few towns north of me to meet up with a friend, her fiancee and her mom to do some shopping. We were shopping for her wedding sari! California has a couple of freeways that I just hate and of course I ended up having to take one of them. This freeway is extra narrow and always seems to have traffic no matter when I am on it. It is noon on a Saturday. Why is there traffic?!?!?!? Either way I sat in some traffic and then arrived to help with the shopping. She picked out the most beautiful sari and I can't wait to see her all done up at the wedding in October.
Sunday I declared war on my kitchen cabinets! I pulled all the food out of all of my cabinets, put it on a sheet on my living room floor and then with the help of my husband we put it all back in a logical order. We threw out expired food, wiped down things that had leaked and put everything back in a manner that makes it much easier to find everything.
Tuesday I woke up and put on my best red, white and blue workout clothes to head to the gym. Before and after selfies! Looking super glamorous in my patriotic hat after class.
Since we were heading back to work again the next day we decided to stay home and have a quiet 4th of July. We are not allowed to have an actual BBQ in our complex so we made do with out cast iron grill pan to cook some hot dogs for dinner. Add a little bit of watermelon and it almost feels like we were at a BBQ. When it got dark we headed outside to the street where we are able to see multiple fireworks shows in the area. The view is a little bit blocked by trees but it is still a pretty good view.
Even with working on Monday it almost felt like a 3 day weekend!
Almost caught up with my Stitch Fix posts! This is my box from last month and my new box only arrived this week so I am not too far behind.
These earrings were cute and nice and lightweight (which is always good for larger earrings) but they didn't seem like anything too special. I ended up sending them back for this reason.
This royal blue shirt was super comfy and flowey with cute lace sleeves. I liked that I could wear it untucked with shorts or tucked into a pencil skirt for work. I kept this shirt.
It is a little hard to tell from this picture but this is a dress. This is actually the back of the dress since that was the more interesting side of the garment. I liked the color of this dress but the way it draped on me it showed every bump and ripple so I had to send it back.
This is one of those dresses where my first thought when pulling it out of the box was hmmm that is cute but I think it is going to be too short. I put it on and not only was it too short but it was too tight in the hips and chest so it was an easy decision to send this one back.
This was another piece that had a more interesting back than front. The shirt draped so that the back was partially open. I like the idea of this but in reality having to wear a tank top under a shirt meant to be worn in the summer didn't really appeal to me.
As I said earlier my next box just arrived so I will be back soon with one more review to get all caught up on my Stitch Fix posts. For now if you want your own box head on over to get your own.
