pulchritudinous lunch

I have to say that I discovered the word pulchritudinous in high school. I was writing a paper for Aunt Vernetta's English class. Not sure which one. I thought I was the most intellectual thing that graced the planet when I found it, and actually memorized its spelling. What a word. That no one uses. I've seen it here and there. But I swear I'm not using it to sound obnoxiously intellectual (otherwise I would not have told you when I found it). The fact that I remember the discovery of a word is interesting in the first place.

(It means beautiful, by the way.)

I feel like everyone has those words that they actually remember learning.

Plethera.

Mrs. Marilyn Penner, 7th Grade, Word of the Week.

That whole tangent is not even why I'm writing this post.

(Because I've already spoiled you beyond what you're allotted, as far as blogposts go.

I will regret that someday when I have far less time on my hands.

You'll all hate me.)

I'm writing it because I overslept and didn't bring my lunch to work.

I thought about Roly Poly, but for perhaps a dollar or 2 more I could eat at Marinated Mushroom, again. :)

And I gladly did.

Tomato basil soup, Turkey and swiss panini, sweet potato fries.

Also, you'll notice their open kitchen. I love that you, as a customer, can look straight in there and see what they're doing. Plus the stacks of homemade artisan bread.

Cranberry nut bread included.

So I had this very beautiful lunch all alone.

They had a great Pandora station on.

I sat at a little two person table and took turns staring at a bookcase of cookbooks and a New York Times article about chemicals being basically on everything that babies touch.

Despite the upsetting article, it was a fantastic break in the day.

If you've never watched the video,

"How To Be Alone,"

You should go to YouTube right now and check it out.

I felt like that today.

And it was really nice.

new digs

Two new shirts from Old Navy.

Oh, and I woke up at 6:56 am today. Not my usual 6:15-6:30 am. I immediatley thought to myself,

"Why do I feel so well rested?"

I forgot to set my alarm. Whoops.

But I made it! I did not get my full lunch put together. I know I should have done it last night, but I didn't want to do ANYTHING last night. Luckily, my gym bag was packed, I managed to make my smoothie and coffee to-go, put on make-up, sort of did my hair and off I went. Because I'm wearing this sweet new blue shirt, I feel quite put together. And luckily most of my earrings end up in my purse because I take them off when I go to the gym after work and leave them there.

I am trying not to think about the absolutely amazing fact that my friends will be here late tonight. I REALLY shouldn't because I will sadly not even see them until tomorrow evening as I'll be in bed by the time they arrive (unless they want 6:30 am breakfast). ;) We had a fantastic little thunderstorm last night, leaving the morning to be sunshiny, lush and green. There has been little for me to do at work this week due to an audit (Ugh, one after the other since January!). So I hope I can keep myself occupied enough for the day to pass quickly.

ADDENDUM: Also, check out this article that my boss wrote about mental health here.

feeling good

Sunshine!

Clear skies.

High of 83 today.

Green as ever.

I was just telling Sharon this morning that I feel much more generally happy since moving to Florida. 

I KNOW this is because of the sunshine. It totally reenergizes me on very normal, boring days where nothing exciting happens and all I have to do is go to work. Seasonal Affective Disorder did a number on me back in the Midwest. I think it took other things in life to make up for it. Spending time with friends, family, food, music, shopping, events, coffee :). I realize how much more work it took to create motivation. Of course I adore nice days in Kansas and South Dakota. They are truly beautiful. Toby Tyner always sang the first couple lines of South Dakota Morning to me by the Bee Gees. I have many wonderful memories of waking up on a cool SoDak summer morning and going to find dad doing chores somewhere on the farm or going to feed those dreadful 4-H sheep that had been calling since 6 am. (sigh) But that kind of weather could be so far and few inbetween at times. For that reason I am very appreciative of the huge, glorious window I sit next to at work that oozes with sunshine. Some people in my building don't have ANY windows. If anyone hits a slump in the office, they just simply take a few minutes to stare out the window and chat with Taisha and I. I know that when we move away from Florida I will miss the sunshine the most of all, but I will utilize it while I have the chance. I WILL say that the humidity here works in the same way that snow and dreary weather works in the Midwest...but then you just go to the beach. :)

So, sunshine, coffee and the pure excitement of friends...that will be here TOMORROW evening. I will actually be in bed when they get here, but just the thought of them being in Tally is fantastic.

I was going to clean the house last night...but I made chocolate chip cookies for Ben and Derek instead. :)

leftovers

Good morning. Don't know if everyone is feeling the effects of daylight savings. I notice it because I get hungry at weird times and I have trouble falling asleep at the appropriate hour. But I was tired enough last night when 10:30 pm hit; I gladly climbed into bed. Kind of wish that I had decided to make coffee this morning, but I thought I just needed to drink more water rather than further dehydrate myself.

 I had not slept all the way through the night since Tuesday, and I woke up a few additional times on Saturday night. We had been cat-sitting Amelia all week and kitties like to disturb your sleep quite often. The problem was that we don't really have a door to our room. The stairs just go straight up into it. If we ever get a cat, he/she is staying in the activities room with the door shut. I thought it best to let her roam since she was a visitor kittie. I didn't want her getting antsy and spite-pooping on the carpet for not letting her explore during the night. She was a wonderful cat to take care of anyway. Very loving.

So I really hate when I cook/bake something and I have extra ingredients that don't get used and eventually end up in the trash. Last night I made a few "saves" that I was quite proud of. We've been trying to eat more vegetables since viewing "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead," a very interesting health documentary that I highly recommend. In my mission to incorporate more veggies into our diets, I bought a few zucchini to create something with. I was struggling to find a recipe all week

 and just as they started to shrivel,

I realized that they could find new life in my lasagna that I made last night. Save!

After that, I remembered that I had about 12-14 egg yolks stored up in the fridge. I'd been using a lot of egg whites, and just couldn't bare to throw the yolks. I hate wasting. Luckily, I had some leftover cream from another recipe and cooked up some maple custard, based loosely off of this recipe. I searched specifically for a recipe that used mason jars because I only had two ramekins to work with. I can't tell you exactly what I did because I kind of just eyed everything and decided that the yolk/milk/cream consistency looked right. (I think it was 1 1/4 cup whipping cream added to 1 3/4 cup 1% milk. I decided to go for thicker rather than thinner.) I tasted one this morning, as it had fully cooled, and it was awesome! More saves!

I hope this week goes rather quickly. Ben and I made wonderful cleaning progress yesterday, so not TOO much work left. This last weekend felt too short and I am dying for my friends to show up late Thursday evening. I have been spoiling you all with daily posts, so don't be upset if I hit a wall all of a sudden. Having an iPhone has made it too easy to share the super-mundane, which I think is nice to take note of sometimes.

maclay botanical gardens

Ben had the idea of exploring Maclay botanical gardens for our anniversary. The old Maclay estate (Yes, this was someone's home!) is just located on the north edge of town. It was a gorgeous 60-some degrees throughout the morning. I could not resist putting up the majority of photos. Afterwards we went for a sandwich and coffee at Atomic Coffee. Then we just spent the remainder of the day watching basketball games, Portlandia on Netflix and not doing chores. We checked out a lebanese restaurant for supper, but we would both have to say that it wasn't that good. We finished off the night with Bruester's Ice Cream (I had Bananas Foster ice cream) and a run to Target to buy a beach umbrella. :) Could not have had a more beautiful day in Florida. Now we're just trying to clean in preparation for Austin and Alyssa's arrival on Thursday!

So many textures.

Magnolias everywhere.

Lake by the property.

Palm tree.

I want one of these little pantheons, by a lake. 

Lake view from the front of the house.

I loved the color of this room.

Pretty flowers.

Huge tree to the right.

Taking a break. Enjoying the view.

Love spanish moss.

He stands like an impatient child. 

five

Prior to dating, January 2007

Oh boy. Time for old photos!

That's right. Today makes half a decade of dating. We are super-experts.

Spring 2007, First photo as a couple

We like to watch documentaries together.

We like to eat ethnic food together.

We like trying out new restaurants together, in general.

We like to recommend interesting books and articles to each other.

The first Freeman Folkfest, Summer 2007

We like to cook together.

We like to exercise together (and separately). :)

We like being sarcastic with each other...

...which can later result in apologizing to each other.

Winter Gala 2007

We like to secretly watch mindless television shows together.

We love jazz, folk, four part etc. music together.

We like to love Obama together.

We like encouraging each other to be independent thinkers and doers.

We like to support each other.

At Pages Books and Coffee, Fall 2008

We like to take long walks in nature together.

We like trying new craft beers together.

We also like trying and commenting on wine together, despite knowing so little about wine.

We like being Mennonites together.

Winter Gala 2008

We like to eat junk food together and reassure each other that the calories don't matter.

(Especially chips, ice cream and donuts.)

We like to move to new states together, where we don't know anyone. 

But at least there's a beach. :)

We like long discussions with each other, about anything and everything.

We REALLY like to talk about getting not one, but two cats together.

Someday.

Thank you for cleaning the kitchen when I'm stressed out.

Thank you for allowing me to leave my knitting, sewing and assorted art projects all around the house. 

Thank you for arguing with me, because for some reason, I want to argue.

Thank you for taking me out for whatever dessert I am craving.

Thank you for making me laugh...all of the time.

Thank you for letting me rant about the house being messy.

Thank you for hugs, just because I want one...all of the time.

Thank you for balancing me out.

I like this very intelligent, witty, talented, creative, handsome, hilarious guy very much.

 I am lucky to have him in my life.

Um, yeah. It was good.

Fish tacos, mango salsa, fresh avocado, sweet potato fries.
Shame I had to go back to work after this.