On a roll.

Last night I went with friends from work to Lawrence for sushi. Um, so freakin' good!!! Three of us were completely onboard with the sushi situation (love it), one hater and two new kids that were willing to try it. We got LOTS of rolls to try (pink lady was one of my favorites, it involved mayo; and another with mango was excellent). Very fun to hang with coworkers outside of the walls of work; looking forward to doing it again sometime soon! :) Here are some of the friendly faces and some of the GLORIOUS sushi rolls!!

Inspired.

Friday night my mom and I went to the movie "Julia and Julie". So very good. If you haven't had the pleasure, the premise is that Julie is a late-20s character who feels lost in a less-than-satisfying life and decides to cook her way through Julia Childs cookbook and blogs her journey. Now people, that is a blog!

I loved the movie as it shows how cooking is an adventure and sometimes things don't go right, or as planned, but you can try again or a different way. It was fun to go with my mom who I think is a fantastic cook. I attribute my love of cooking to how she included me in it when I was younger.

I made a pie yesterday for a bbq last night and there is something worthwhile about starting with a bunch of ingredients that separately don't mean much, but put them together and mmmmm. My favorite thing about cooking is having family/friends over to share a meal together. I think that comes from growing up where my mom put a great value in dinner time for our family. As a general rule, we didn't watch TV and it allowed us to connect and find out how everyone is doing. Something that I try to do still (super easy to do now that I currently don't have cable hooked up). As someone who loves cooking, this movie was incredibly enjoyable! I would highly recommend it for any of you that love to cook. :)

Velvet Birthday.

One of the other speech therapists that I work with at the hospital had a birthday today!!! Since there are only 3 of us....I offered to make cakes of their choice for them. I love baking but also love to have somewhere to take those calories and sugar....my coworkers seemed pleased. In a recent post, I mentioned that my mom gave me Betty Crocker's baking book....and Jason requested red velvet cake.....so I used the recipe out of there. Pretty good, not my favorite. It was my first attempt at red velvet, let alone scratch....so not sure what it should taste like, but they are very dense. Made a cream cheese frosting that I was pretty into....My favorite part of the whole experience was having a reason to use my new cookbook stand that I bought with a giftcard from my mama to a local cooking store. It completes my kitchen. :)

So, my coworkers tell me that red food coloring is made from beetles' shells....this called for 2 bottles!!! Mmm, Beetlejuice!

Mini Reunion

I graduated from KU's grad program for speech therapy in 2006. Hard to believe it has been over 3 years that I have been a part of the work force! Many of the girls (there was only one guy) are still in the KC area, but with schedules and busy lives; it's hard to get together. However, last night I got to see quite a few friends from school! We got together since our friend Jaclyn was in town from Corpus Christi, Texas. Her husband is in the Navy and they spent the last almost 3 years in Hawaii and were transferred to Texas. It is her hubby's 10-year reunion this weekend in KC so we got some girls together to get caught up! We went to Baja 600, a mexican restaurant on the plaza in KC and then had some drinks. We went through a lot together in those two years of school and it's exciting to see where everyone is now and what is to come. Hope it won't be so long before we can all get together again!

Leah (who just bought her first house), Jennie (who just moved back from San Diego), Angie (who just moved into her first house with her hubby), and Gena who is having a baby girl in Dec.

Teresa who is moving back to her hometown in north central Kansas next month, me and Maha who recently traveled to Spain.

The whole group at dinner.

Jaclyn who was in town from Texas!!

Jennie and Leah

My ex-roommates: Leah and Danielle


Angie, Jennie, Jaclyn and Teresa catching up.

Standing in order of heighth apparently....at the Gran Falloon on the Plaza. :)

Dying.

My mom had this on the fridge when we were growing up and I always thought it was something good to keep in mind. The chaplain department at the hospital send out an email every day with scripture or a poem....they sent this today and I wanted to share; made me think of reading it when I was younger.

First I was dying to finish high school and start college
and then I was dying to finish college and start working
Then I was dying to marry and have children
And then I was dying for my children
to grow old enough
so I could go back to work
But then I was dying to retire
And now I am dying....
And suddenly I realized
I forgot to live.

This very much resonates with me as I spend my days in the hospital with many people who are literally dying and I think how quickly their lives have passed and how many of them feel like they were my age just awhile ago. I also like this as we all need to remind ourselves to slow down and enjoy what we have in our lives today. In our culture, it's very much the trend to look forward to what's coming up down the road, but you never know what the next day will bring. Some days I wish that I was already married and having kids, but I try to make a conscious effort to enjoy this free time in life with little responsibility and many options still open. Hope each of you relish the people, expereinces and joys in your life today.

Unplugged.

When I moved into my house a month ago and I made the decision to wait on getting cable until new TV comes on this fall (can hardly wait). So, not that I would normally be trying to watch a lot of TV in the summer, but like many of us, I have the tendency to get sucked into shows or reruns that I don't really even care about. It's amazing how much more time I have....and how quiet it is! And if you have ever spent any amount of time with me, you probably know that quiet isn't really my thing. Kind of refreshing. Anyway, so with this new freedom of being TV-less, I have had more time for some activities that I have really enjoyed and some that I have needed to complete. Such as:

I have been able to really enjoy my hammock that I bought when I moved. Lots of summer reading here, including "Breaking Dawn" that I just started, which is the fourth book in the Twilight series.

Tonight I took the time to finally pull a BUNCH of weeds in some flowers/trees. This is actually my neighbor's property but it's on the outside of her fence and land that she can't see. The lady I bought my house from planted all of this stuff and she took care of it....so I am trying to get it together and follow suit. Wish I had a before picture of how bad it looked! I got two HUGE bags of weeds out.

Last week my parents gave me this cookbook.....that is pretty fantastic. I have spent a fair amount of time drooling over the recipes and trying to figure out an occasion that will pass as a good excuse to use something from it. Stand-by for hopefully some shared recipes from here!

Hope everyone is enjoying their summers too! :)

Some things just make life better.

...like whole carrots instead of baby ones, days that include chocolate and adding cream cheese to anything. Seriously anything. Having your favorite song come on the radio and reading a good book. And sisters make things better. See below:



This weekend I drove to Dallas (yes, 8 hours) where I encountered all the traffic from a 4-state radius, it's insane, totally worth it thought to spend some quality sister time. Now, I'm not saying brothers aren't fabulous, but I don't have any of those....all I can go with is that sisters are like the icing on the cake in life. Like, even if you have a really really great life....throw a sister in the mix and it just got 10 times better! Hope everyone that has a sis feels this way....especially mine. :) There is no one that I can be as honest or gruff with or that I laugh with more.

We had two days filled with shopping, pool time (yes, I used sunscreen), pedicures, good food and tasty drinks. Meg just moved into a new great apartment and I wanted to go check it out. Didn't capture any pics of it, but it's nice and in a super location of Dallas....near lots of shops and restaurants. Thanks for a fun weekend baby sister! Looking forward to our trip to Jamaica to visit friends in December that we booked together while I was there. :)