After some Starbucks to warm us up, we came home, took a few hours getting cleaned up slowly, and headed up to Charlotte to meet Katie and Stew for an incredibly decadent evening out. We saw some interesting cars on the way up…

And we met the famous Weaz (and Ralphie and Waldo!).

We sampled Stew’s hummus and salsa (too much cilantro…any cilantro is too much cilantro) and had a beer or two.

Then we headed out for wine and chocolate at Petit Philippe. We got their tasting flight for the night (3 Italian reds) and I was the only one who liked the most expensive one best. Whatever guys. We were fascinated by the silt in our glasses…

The “OMG” (salted caramel) chocolate and especially the Earl Grey one were life changing. Get you some.

I had really wanted to try The Cowfish, but they were all booked for the whole night (maybe next time?) so we went for Mexican at Cantina 1511 instead.
I had a blood orange margarita…(and a camera that gets angry in low light)

..and veggie fajitas (way too much food!)

Alex’s…chimichanga? Who even knows?

And finally we rounded out the night with another famous Charlotte place, Amelie’s.

I tried one of each flavor of macaron they had (grape, lemon, and cinnamon sugar, I think?)…and they were stale and kind of gross. I also had a famous salted-caramel brownie, after the OMG chocolate at Petit Philippe got me all excited about salted caramel. It was every bit as good as they say.

When we finally got back to Katie and Stew’s place we were all in calorie-and-not-enough-water comas, so we took a few mint Tums for the road…and then drove home. In the pouring rain. Way too late at night. Not fun. But totally, totally worth it! We’ll be back, guys!

On the agenda for today: water, a smoothie, quality time with Hippo and Achilles, and dinner at my in-laws’!

Yesterday I finally roasted some broccoli. I’ve been buying broccoli with the intent to roast it for some time now and somehow it just never happens.

To roast broccoli, chop it up into even sized pieces and toss it with enough olive oil (or oil of your choice) to coat, and some salt and pepper. Spread it out on a flat baking sheet and bake for about 20 minutes, until crispy and a little brown, at 425.

Deeeelicious. I had my roasted brocc with roasted red potatoes and some veg baked beans. Perfect comfort lunch.

I’d like to direct your attention to Sweet Tater’s Nicaragua Bakesale! Katie is going on a service/learning trip to Nicaragua very soon and was suddenly unable to afford the full cost of the trip – bloggers to the rescue! You can bid on my vegan chocolate chip banana bread (or a sleepy kitten?), and the rest of the treats that are making me drool, from 10am to 10pm EST on Katie’s blog.

A not-too-sweet muffin from a bakesale at school

I’ve been really, really digging salads lately!

A sandwich from a deli that more than exceeded my expectations…

So what if it’s from the freezer…it was delicious!

On Friday I finally got to have the famed Pita House for the first time…my boss brought falafel, pita bread, and hummus to work!

And today’s salad, half of which is still sitting in the fridge waiting to be eaten for lunch tomorrow. Time to sit on the couch with the Hubs and watch the Oscars!

While I understand that Valentine’s Day is a made-up holiday, THIS V-Day is pretty special to me.
Today is my parents’ 31st wedding anniversary.
Tomorrow is my grandparents’ 53rd wedding anniversary.
Tomorrow is also my grandma’s 73rd birthday.

Aaaand….
Today, Alex and I have been married for exactly 6 months!

I started my day with a pink(ish) Valentine’s smoothie (banana, frozen strawberries, berry juice, almond milk, spinach) and coffee in my Forever And A Day mug. I always have a hard time deciding whether to drink my coffee or my smoothie — luckily, both were delicious!

I skipped my first class (chemistry) to catch up on homework for my accounting class, but it’s okay because it’s an elective. And because it’s senior semester. And because it’s Valentine’s Day! Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself…

Tonight Alex and I have a last-minute reservation at The Cazbah downtown. I’m super duper excited we got a reservation at all, we called so late! This week is the true start of my oh-man-there’s-no-time-for-anything season (I have two scenes due on Thursday!), so I’m trying to pretend that’s not real for the rest of today. :]

Have a great day, friends! What are your Valentine’s plans??

Aren’t you? :]

This week has felt never-ending, and I’ve been pretty stressed the entire time, so I’m very happy to be relaxing at home with nothing to turn in tomorrow!

Last night I wasted precious homework time by taking my three-days-old-but-chipped-to-heck sparkly pink nail polish off and replacing it with my favorite bright blue. While I probably should have just used that time on that assignment I turned in a day late today, seeing this every time I looked down today sure helped keep me awake:

We’re kicking off the weekend with the first Furman improv troupe show of the year a little later tonight, followed by a hot vinyasa class for me in the morning. Hope you have some smiles and relaxation planned for your weekend!

Anyway, lunch was delicious: leftovers from last night’s dinner. Spaghetti with Newman’s Own Cabernet Marinara (my very favorite jarred pasta sauce), chickpeas, and a little shredded cheddar mixed in.

And some cinnamon apples


Yummy. I couldn’t eat the whole apple, though. Today’s afternoon snack will a serving-sized pouch of baby carrots sometime during or after work, and then I have absolutely no idea what dinner will be… Alex’s company is attending some fancy pants MLK weekend catered dinner tonight and I get to be his date. I’m told there’s definitely a vegetarian option of some sort. Here’s hoping it’s more than a side salad!

I decided I need to start keeping track of the food I’m eating during the day because being home all day every day for break left me snacking pretty much constantly. So here’s the first installment… first day of class breakfast.

Store-brand whole wheat Cheerios, some kind of blueberry granola (it’s good), a banana, almond milk, and tons of cinnamon

And a mug of coffee I nearly choked to death on.

Well, it’s about time for me to get off my butt and get to class. My first class is Chemistry and the science complex is pretty much a creepy maze, so it might take me a while to find the right room… happy Friday!

Yesterday was more of the same – except that now there was a quarter-inch thick sheet of ice covering all the fluffy snow!

We managed to get out of the house for a walk down to the gas station, mostly to see what the conditions were on the main road.

This is the parking lot in our apartment complex… a sea of ice.

And the street our complex is on… definitely not doable. It’s hilly, too! No way.

But at least the snow is pretty, right?

Today Alex had to go into the office, even though everything that melted during the day yesterday refroze with the 16-degree temps last night. I can’t tell you how unexcited I was about it. All of the news reports have been calling the main road we live off of “treacherous.” Treacherous! Like the ice is out to get us! We spent about half an hour, maybe a little more, smashing and scraping and brushing the snow and ice off the car. After he left I made some pb&j&cinnamon toast to occupy myself until the time he should be getting there, and luckily as I was eating it he called me to say he was in and safe and hadn’t smashed any cars to bits. Whew.

All of my professors (and everyone else’s, too) seem to think that although both the bookstore and the post office are closed, we should still be able to get our books and start reading. And you know what? Even if the bookstore was open and I could get there, I wouldn’t buy my books from there. My chemistry book is $150 from the bookstore, USED, and I bought it on Amazon for $25. There’s just no contest! My chem professor’s email Sunday sounded like we can expect a QUIZ on our first day of class, whenever that will be. I’m really hoping the two chem classes I took in high school and the for-non-majors class I took two years ago will get me through!

I’m starting to get a little stir-crazy and I have no idea if we’ll have class tomorrow or not. I’m really hoping to be able to get out of the house tonight or tomorrow and get a yoga session in — unfortunately my studio is a thirty minute drive in normal conditions, meaning at least an hour now, and I don’t know if I have the nerves for that, so it’s probably not likely. I’m really wishing I had a treadmill at home right about now, but nothing’s stopping me from doing a yoga podcast besides myself, is it? :]

- I got married to my best friend. This one takes the cupcake, and my 2010 wrap-up post can almost be complete with nothing else!

- (Before I got married), I didn’t move back “home” for the first time. Having “my own place” that wasn’t directly owned by my university has been AWESOME. Yay, cats!
- Shortly after the wedding, Alex and I got our first dog. He’s had dogs, but I’ve only ever had cats. Luckily we got a cat-sized dog :]

-Earlier in the year I felt moved to do a fruits-and-veggies-only fast. I didn’t last more than a few days, but it had the long-reaching implications of me eventually becoming a vegetarian and cleaning up my diet a LOT.
- After several years of dabbling off and on with Couch to 5k, I finally committed to actually becoming a runner….and completed my first race without walking!

-In November I finally got to try hot yoga because of a ridiculously cheap Living Social deal. It really is changing my life and my body, albeit slowly, and I LOVE it.
- This is something I’ve been hesitant to talk about, but as a result of my new diet and my new activities, I’ve actually lost 15 pounds this year. This is by far the most weight I’ve ever lost, ever, and I wasn’t even trying. Living healthy is worth so much more than the numbers on the scale, but it does feel pretty awesome to fit into my senior prom dress even better than when I bought it!

I’ll be back with my goals for 2011 tomorrow… after Alex and I start our first New Year together with a little home vinyasa yoga session led by yours truly! I hope this year has been as rewarding for you as it has for me, and that 2011 brings you every happiness. Have a happy and SAFE new year!!

We started yesterday with about 18 presents under our tree — some of them had to be hidden from the pets, though (namely, the pets’ presents!) — and it made maneuvering through our tiny apartment a little difficult. We were very happy to take six of them over to Alex’s parents’ house last night for Noche Buena dinner!

We had Cuban food, including black beans (which mom-in-law and I decided at last minute to turn into more of a chili, with the addition of peppers, onions, carrots, and tomatoes!), rice, pork (none for me of course), and tostones! Tostones, if you’ve never had one, are green plantains, sliced about an inch thick, fried in oil til golden, then smashed and fried a second time until crisp. They are amazing, and I got to take over the production of them – yum! I’ve got no pictures of dinner (my camera doesn’t do well in low-light, at all) but it was delicious. After the massive amounts of m&ms and crisp rice treats I prefaced dinner with, I had zero appetite for actual dessert — Alex’s mom’s traditional almond cookies, fudge, or his uncle Jules’ famous “Chewy Cake.” But we got to take some home in a cute Christmas tin!

We started Christmas morning with chewy cake and almond cookies for breakfast! It’s not often we do that and it was fun and holiday-ish. Then we packed up the car again for dinner with my family. We’re lucky enough to live within thirty minutes of all of our family except for some extended family members, so we do holidays with both. We only brought three presents this time (my family is much smaller than Alex’s) and again, no pictures of dinner. Oops.

I did, however, manage to give my grandparents a gift which I had received one of the night before…. a JUICER! We got them theirs with the hopes we’d be receiving one from Alex’s parents, and they did not disappoint! So when we got home tonight, it was time to set it up and get to work on the tangerines in “my” stocking from my parents’ house!

Ingredients: two tangerines.

I had five, but I didn’t want to use them all in case I didn’t like it… and I wasn’t really sure how much juice they’d produce, either.

Peeled, sectioned (roughly), and into the juicer they go. Whirrrrrrr…

…and out comes fresh juice! Only a little juice, but that was fine. This was just to get my “I WANT TO PLAY WITH MY NEW TOY!” shakes out :] Verdict: Yum, although there was a little tangerine “kick” I’d like to try cutting with something else.

Some more highlights from the gifts I received, other than the juicer, are…

…a Lululemon Yogitoes towel from Alex!!, a new super-heavy, oven-proof, super-high-sides skillet from my Gramma (definitely the nicest pan I own), a VACUUM CLEANER! (so now I can give my old roommate Aly hers back!) from Alex’s parents/grandfather, these cute and easy-to-detach-from-each-other measuring spoons also from my Gramma which I actually squealed over when I unwrapped them:

…And three pairs of teal earrings.

Guess you can tell what my favorite color is, huh? :]

Now I’m sitting on the couch next to Achilles, who is sleeping in his Christmas present (a new fuzzywuzzy bed), chomping on some Christmas snacks – almond cookies with a little blueberry pie filling – and hoping Alex will go out and play in the snow that’s been falling since 2 o’clock this afternoon! Yay, our First Christmas is a White Christmas!

Hope you all have had as merry a Christmas as we’ve had, and that you feel even a fraction as blessed as I do. Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!