The long and winding road back to reality

Hi Friends-

Quick update on our last night in NYC. We ate dinner across the street at Bubby's. Mainly Brett and I just wanted to go there because that's what we call our dogs :) It was close, convenient and the food was ok. Not as good as my salmon kebobs...but I had some roasted veggie chili that was served with chips for dipping so that was good. On the down side, I also had a "salad" that was literally a giant mound of lettuce with two cherry tomatoes. I'm not at all a fan of plain lettuce- I get it from my dad- so this was not quite up my ally. But the best part was it was only about 20 steps to get home! No long subway ride :) And we had mini cheesecakes and snickerdoodles waiting for us at home! YUM!! Next, mom and I played beauty salon and she dyed my hair. Roasted chestnut! I needed something exciting to get my fall off to a good start. The down-side? Most people probably wouldn't notice unless I told them! But I can tell :)

Today began a slow journey back to reality. We got up early and headed to the airport. Pretty much as soon as we walked in the door, I was overwhelmingly tired! I could barely keep my eyes open while we waited for the plane, I was asleep before we even pushed back from the gate and I didn't wake up until we were taxing to the gate in Columbus! Yikes. Anyways, we made it home and then headed to Bob Evans for breakfast. The good thing about me doing such a good job cleaning out the fridge before we left is that we didn't waste anything. The bad thing? We had NOTHING to eat when we got home! I spent most of the day printing out syllabi for my classes that start Wednesday and generally trying to return some semblance of order to my life. Brett tiled the bathroom.

Since it is now after 9pm and we have yet to eat dinner, I thought I'd just share a few information nuggets/things I am excited about with you. I am "on edge of my seat excited" about some of them:

1) Menus! When we first moved into our apartment, I was super organized and excited that we were finally living on our own. I made a pretty little menu for each week which showed what we were going to eat each day that week and made notes about how everything turned out. This only lasted about 2 months, but it was fun while it lasted! As a result of us having a filing cabinet that doesn't get cleaned out very often...I was able to find some of the first ones I did. Evidently I had a lot of time on my hands back then :)

Anyways...the whole point of this is that I've decided I need to hop back on the menu-planning train. This quarter is going to be moderately to extremely insane for me and I'm whole-heartedly embracing anything that can help maintain my sanity. So today I spent some time looking through blogs and lists and cookbooks and figured out what we're going to eat for the next several days. Sorry to disappoint...but it doesn't look quite like the ones I made 3 years ago, but at least it is planned out and written down:

2. Grocery shopping. Sorry...got a little long winded on the first one...I bet you forgot you were even reading a list! Considering that our fridge looked like this (the milk was added after I got back from the grocery store and I took the chicken and turkey out of the freezer when we got home...so mentally remove those items to get a true picture of the bleak scene that was our refrigerator innards):

So, a trip to the grocery store was definitely in order:

I LOVE grocery shopping! Especially when I go by myself and can take my time and look at labels and wander around somewhat aimlessly. This does not happen every time I go to the store, but tonight was one of those nights. I was probably gone for and hour and a half...the hubby said he was starting to worry about me :) but I had a lovely time!

3. Broccoli slaw! I had my coleslaw on my list of things to buy because the fish sandwich recipe calls for it...but while I was looking, I came across this little gem:

Even better than coleslaw! Packed with lots of vitamins A & C, potassium, and even some fiber and protein. I have plans to use this in two different dinners this week!

4. My new apple corer! This is one of the edge of my seat-ers. I came across this Apple, PB & Granola Sandwich on one of my favorite blogs today and I have literally been thinking about/drooling over it ever since. I immediately added apple corer to my grocery list and I can't wait to have one of these for lunch. Ahhh!!! So exicted. In case you are living in the stone age and don't know what an apple corer is, see the picture conveniently placed on the packaging:

5. Homemade granola! You know the recipe...this time I'm trying it with peanut butter...or almond butter- I haven't decided yet- and I loaded up on some supplies tonight.

6. Pumpkin muffins! Another edge of my seat-er! When we were at Bob Evans today, I so so so wanted some pumpkin bread. But I was good and got Egg-lites, a dry english muffin and a blueberry-banana mini parfait instead. But i've been thinking about pumpkin bread ever since we left. I scoured the blogs and found a pumpkin muffin recipe here and I CANNOT WAIT to bake them tomorrow. I also decided to roast my own pumpkin for the pumpkin puree....mainly because I couldn't find the canned pumpkin when I was at the store tonight. But good news! I just learned that pumpkin is a vegetable the loses very few of nutrients when canned! So if you come across some canned pumpkin, feel free to use that instead:

Aren't they just so cute?!? You know me and my love of minis!

7. Flat outs! The final edge of my seat-er! I found these cute little things when I was searching for things that I can pack in my school lunches. They're the perfect size, a good source of fiber and protein and great for veggie and hummus wraps or pb, granola and  banana wraps!

I think that's all that's on my list...but I'll leave you with this:

Here's what the dogs are excited about! I loaded up since they were on sale:

Here's what the hubby is excited about:

Sigh...I'm only excited about these because this is one of the few times when individual packages are a better deal than big bags.

What are you excited about?!

Enjoy!
--Lindsay--