Pop the Bubbly!

I submitted my application for grad school last night!!

I didn't actually have any champagne, but I definitely had a glass of wine to celebrate :)

I've known I wanted to get my master's since I was in undergrad, but wanted to take a break right after graduation to get some real world experience. And be able to afford not living with my parents :) I'm glad I did because back then I had no idea what I wanted to do and probably would've just gotten an MBA, thinking it was broad and sort of universal. I now know exactly what I want my career to be, and even though I did debate an MBA versus this program, in the end I knew what I wanted to do.

I applied to the Master's in Nonprofit Management and Leadership program at the University of San Diego!

Hoping to call this home for the next 2 years!

The school is beautiful, set right on a cliff overlooking San Diego, and the program is well regarded by the community and its alumni. The program is also very competitive, they usually get about 80 applications and only admit 25 students. It was such a relief to hit submit, but now the waiting begins!

Hitting submit also let me cross off an item on my 28 in 28 list which was exciting. A few things on my list are ongoing and I've been doing pretty well on most of them so far. One thing on my list that I'm planning to do this summer is do a yoga month, meaning go to a yoga class every day for one full month. The interesting part is that, because I don't belong to a yoga studio at the moment, I'm going to take advantage of the free week most studios offer to new potential members and try out 4 local studios in the process. Free yoga, different styles of yoga, and maybe I'll find a studio that I like to join! Plus, of course I'm sure my body will thank me.

I took this week off from my Couch to 5k program to let my hip heal, an injury I think is due to the fact that I haven't been stretching enough. I've lost a lot of my strength and flexibility in the past 6 months, so starting tomorrow I'm going to do a mini-yoga month in March that will hopefully help me get it back and get me ready for my real yoga month.

I've downloaded 10 new (and free) 20 minute yoga workouts from YogaDownload.com, I've got my new mat ready - somehow the old one didn't make the cross country trek with us - and I've got a quiet, cat-free space to practice.

If you want a daily dose of cute, Google "yoga cat" :)

Ty and I are embarking on another challenge that is semi related to a few of my 28 in 28 goals, we're not eating out during the month of March! We've been eating out a lot since we moved, sometimes out of convenience, mostly out of laziness...so in an effort to cut down on our expenses, and force me to actually cook, we thought it would be a good challenge. The only exceptions are for social situations, like we'd already made plans to go out to dinner with friends this weekend. We don't go out to eat with friends often, and since we're in a new city we don't want to completely outlaw ourselves from going out. We also are planning to split an appetizer and entree to save a little money when we do go out with friends, which I'd guess will only be 3-4 times in a month. Our problem is the random Tuesday nights when we don't feel like cooking so we walk down the street and get tacos! Baby steps :)

Happy Leap Day!

Cincinnati Style Chili and Our Cat Gets a Manicure

No seriously...

Basher is obsessed with nail files! One day a few years ago I was filing my nails and Basher would NOT leave me alone. So I grabbed his little paw and started filing. He didn't care one bit, just sat their like a princess at a salon. So now occasionally instead of clipping his nails, we just plop him down and do a little mani/pedi.

Nope, not spoiled at all.

Beyond kitty hygiene...I don't know what is with us and craving cold weather comfort foods recently, last week it was soup and this week we really wanted to make homemade chili. Maybe we're just missing winter on the east coast? I can't say that I am, the weather was once again beautiful today, although it did get cloudy and a little cold this afternoon.

On our afternoon walk we were talking about dinner options. In an effort to eat more meals at home, we've also been making recipes that have plenty of leftovers, and chili fits that perfectly. Ty is from Ohio and a few years ago he introduced me to Cincinnati style chili, which is basically chili over pasta. It's like having spaghetti with a really thick, meaty sauce, delicious!

I found this Cincinnati chili recipe online that looked easy. This is the picture from the site, I promise there is chili under than mound of cheese. 

I love cheese, but that seems a little unnecessary.


Sometimes chili recipes can have crazy long ingredient lists but this one wasn't too bad, and I had all of the spices on hand already. A trip to the grocery store for the meat, onion, and pasta and we were ready to go!

The only thing I did different than the recipe was using Garlic Gold nuggets instead of fresh garlic. No particular reason, we just happen to have a lot of it right now :) Ty was a little nervous that the spice combination which included cocoa powder and cinnamon, and I assured him that was pretty standard in chili recipes I'd seen, but I was a little worried too when I dumped it all together. It seemed like an awful lot of those two ingredients and I felt like you could taste the cocoa a lot when I tested it halfway through cooking, so I also added in a little bit of seasoning salt to balance it out a little.

It ended up perfect! The flavors were really rich and the cayenne gave it that really good, makes your cheeks warm but doesn't burn your mouth, kind of spiciness. I can't wait to have it again as leftovers tomorrow!

Chili is probably one of the most debated recipes in the country, there are so many different styles and everyone has their own way of making it or their own secret ingredient. This recipe didn't have much out of the ordinary except the cocoa and cinnamon, but I did make a recipe once that included a whole bottle of beer - definitely gave it a unique flavor!

Do you have a favorite style of chili or a secret ingredient that you always use? You're secrets are safe here :)

Veggie, Bean and Lentil Soup

Even though the weather out here in San Diego is significantly warmer than what we're used to back east, last week we were having serious soup cravings. I've only attempted soup once or twice and both times they were...just not good. Also, soup is sort of complicated. So much chopping, bean soaking and pre-soup making work! I just literally want to throw things in a pot and have them taste good in a relatively short amount of time, right? I figure if I can get a base recipe down, it'll be easy to tweak it and change it up whenever we need to.

I looked at a few recipes online for inspiration and decided to take a chance - I was going to wing it. No recipe, and I was going to use almost all canned, boxed or frozen ingredients because I wanted things I could always have on hand to throw together. And you know what? Ty ate 3 bowls of it!!!

Yeah, I made my own recipe up, it tasted good, was healthy AND was cheap. Maybe I can cook on the west coast? I don't know, but we'll definitely make this again.

Veggie, Bean and Lentil Soup

1/2 pound lentils
1 can of kidney beans
1 can of pinto beans
1 can diced tomatoes
36 oz chicken broth (or veggie broth)
2-3 cups frozen veggies of your choice 
1/2 cup white wine (I used pinot grigio)
1/4 cup diced onion
Italian seasoning

First, Ty almost gave me a heart attack when I got home for work to make this and he said he thought the lentils had to soak for multiple hours before you cooked them. Thankfully, this is not true BUT they do need to be cooked for 30 minutes or so first, so follow the instructions on the package and to make it easier, cook them in the same pot you're going to make the soup in, less dishes!

Then, dump all of the next 5 ingredients (kidney beans down to frozen veggies) into the pot with your now cooked lentils. Keep the heat on medium high. While that's warming up - you're using stuff that doesn't technically need to be cooked, score one for Jess - saute the diced onions in a pan until they start to get a little brown. When the onions are ready, pour the 1/2 cup of wine into the pan with them to deglaze it. This is the only cooking step in this recipe and you get to use a fancy term too!

Let the wine reduce down by half and then dump it and the onions in the pot too. Add in some Italian seasoning, or whatever you're in the mood for, cover the pot and let it come to a boil. Once it boils, all of the frozen veggies should be cooked and the beans plenty warm. I also added in a little Louisiana hot sauce to spice it up a little :) and I believe Ty topped his with shredded cheese.

That's it! Minimal cooking, minimal dishes, and it was really good. You can use any type of beans that you want and I think next time we'll probably add even more veggies, but I feel pretty confident about this soup. Bonus, all of the ingredients are things I can keep on hand without worrying about them going bad before we eat them. Also, it makes plenty for leftovers, we even froze some of it to reheat later.

Do you have an easy soup recipe that you love? Or have you tried soups before and they never come out quite like you want them?

Couch to 5k Week 4 Update

I've been doing pretty well sticking to the Couch to 5k running plan I'm doing, with the exception of one week off when I was sick. So far I really like it, it was a great way to ease back into running! The first two weeks you're actually only running about 8-9 minutes out of your 20 minute workout. That doesn't sound like much but when you're out of shape it's plenty! The 2nd week I tried to treat the workouts more like a HIIT workout and run fast during the run intervals. Fast is a relative term, a fast pace for me is a 10 minute mile :) but it's better than nothing. I set a goal this year to run a 5k in under 30 minutes, which would be just below a 10 minute mile pace. Now that I've completed week 4, I'm feeling pretty confident that I can do that.

Ty told me to "look fast" :P

Week 4 of the program and really ramped up the running intervals, I ran 16 minutes out of the full 21 minute workout! The first 5 minutes of most of my runs are really uncomfortable. My body takes a long time to warm up I think? Once I get past that my workouts have felt really good, but also really challenging at the end. And I feel like I'm going pretty fast even though I have no idea what my pace is. Based on my own calculations, I think I averaged about a 10:30 pace the other day and that included walking intervals!

Yesterday I got a little crazy and actually did the workout twice for a total of 42 minutes. I had planned to run up to the beach, which takes about 20 minutes run/walking, run on the boardwalk a little and then walk home. Instead, I just kept on going! I ended up doing a 4 mile loop around PB that took about an hour with a pretty good warm up and cool down in there.

You want to know one of the best things about running in San Diego, besides the obvious near-perfect weather?

If you run on sidewalks, you probably can tell what that is. If you've ever face planted in the middle of a run because the sidewalk jumped up and tripped you, you definitely know what that is. They city of San Diego takes the time to shave down the edges of the sidewalks when they stick up!! Revolutionary. City of Richmond, are you seeing this? I've only tripped on the sidewalk a handful of times in my life (almost all on Monument Ave. or in the Fan in Richmond) and somehow managed to catch myself before I actually fell, but I really appreciate this small gesture when I'm out running here.

I started week 5's workouts this week and I can tell they're going to be tough for me, but I feel like I'm getting back into the routine of working out. I'm also having a little bit of hip pain, "diagnosed" by a friend on Twitter as most likely a hip flexor issue, so I took it easy yesterday and today in the hopes that it will feel better tomorrow.

Good night!

Wild Parrots and Sweet Potato Hash for One

The wild parrots were not part of the meal I promise :) The other night Ty and I were out on a walk when we heard this really loud squawking coming from overhead. We looked up, and there was a parrot! At first we thought, oh my gosh someone's pet bird got loose! There is a guy that we've seen walking around PB with a bird, just like he's out walking the dog. So we're looking at this bright green parrot, squawking away in this tree when we hear more of them that must've been hiding in the next tree. Being the nature nerd that I am, I whip out my phone and start Googling 'wild birds of California' and there you go:

Source: http://www.amazornia.com

There are wild parrots here in Southern California! They aren't terribly common I don't think, once the group we were looking at started getting louder, a lot of people came out to see what was going on. One woman said that they migrate up the coast from Mexico, but I needed to do a little research of my own. I'm now obsessed with The California Parrot Project which says that actually, "parrots are an increasingly familiar sight in many urban areas in the southern United States, having become established from escaped or released birds that were imported for the pet trade." I really don't care for birds as pets, but I do think birds in the wild are totally interesting to watch. The next day after our first parrot siting, the flock of about 8 of them were flying right over our head on our balcony! It's so cute, they fly in pairs like little love birds :)

This guy had his back to us but he looked very similar to the picture above.

Ok, on to the food! It's only been in the past year or two that I've started liking sweet potatoes. I think it's because growing up, the only form sweet potatoes came in that I knew of was smothered in marshmallows and maple syrup. I love sweet stuff, but that was never my thing. I've discovered that I do like sweet potatoes in savory form though. Since they can take a long time to cook and we don't have a microwave, dicing them up into smaller pieces and sauteing them in a pan seemed like the easiest thing to do. Ty is not really a fan of sweet potatoes so I only made 1/2 a potato at a time and it was still more than I could eat in one sitting!

We're trying to incorporate more vegetables into our meals and one thing I'm finding is that you can pretty much throw a handful of spinach into anything you're making in a pan, so that's what I did here. It cooks down so much that you don't even notice it, and there you go - you're eating veggies!

Sweet Potato Hash for One

1/2 sweet potato, diced (I stuck the other 1/2 in a Tupperware for later)
1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
1-2 tablespoons diced onions
1 cup or a handful of fresh spinach

Saute the onions first because they seem to take the longest to cook. After about 5 minutes, throw in the mushrooms and diced sweet potatoes. To speed up the process even more, I put a lid on the pan at this point to steam the potatoes a little bit. After 4-5 minutes, take off the lid and flip everything around a few times with a spatula. Test a piece of potato to see if it's pretty soft, you may want to put the lid back on depending on how big you cut up the pieces. Once the potatoes are soft, toss in the spinach and keep flipping everything around in that pan until the potatoes start to brown and the spinach wilts down. Rhymes in this kitchen :)

I ended up eating most of this for breakfast and then later putting the rest of it on top of a salad. So good! I love breakfast and will eat pretty much anything with eggs, but this was a special treat.

Do you like sweet potatoes? What's your favorite way to cook them?

Did you know we had wild parrots in the US? Being from the east coast I knew about the Carolina Parakeet which is extinct now, but that's it. I don't know why I find this so interesting :)

Getting Settled In

Look what we found on our doorstep when we got home yesterday!

Yummy Buckeye themed treats from Ty's mom. I never turn down a tin full of sweets :)

We've spent the past few weeks getting settled and learning our new city. I joined YNPN San Diego (Young Nonprofit Professionals Network) which has been a great way to meet new people, and their events are held at different restaurants around the city which is a great way for us to try new places. We've also been going on tons of walks around Pacific Beach (remember this?), spending time at the beach, and Ty started a new job!

I've also done a little cooking here and there that I can't wait to share, I made a really easy and very tasty veggie, bean and lentil soup last week as well as sweet potatoes hash browns! I still haven't gotten to break out many of my new kitchen gadgets though. Our living room is pretty much the only room in the house that is fully functional. Unpacking sucks, but eventually we have to do it! We spent a few weekends scrubbing our new place down and unpacking most of the important stuff.

Here's a little tour of the downstairs of our new apartment:

The fridge was a little funky, it needed a good scrubbing!

Living room before we filled it with furniture and boxes.

Basher was SO helpful during the moving process.

Uh. Dining Room?

Kitchen/Dining Room. I promise it doesn't look like that anymore!

Living room, we have unpacked most of this at this point!

We've actually made a lot of progress since I took those pictures a few weeks ago. The thing is, before we moved out here we were house-sitting in a sense at my aunt's house. Since her house was fully furnished, the majority of our stuff stayed in storage for over a year. What's left to unpack is pretty much crap we don't need, but it still needs to be gone through and sorted into what we want to keep, sell, donate, or throw away. I happen to LOVE cleaning out junk like that, one of my favorite TLC shows of all time was Clean Sweep. Ty is the opposite, he hates getting rid of things! He's not a hoarder by any means, but definitely has pack rat tendencies. I think I can safely say that what is in those unpacked boxes is 90% his, he just needs a little motivation to get it out of here!

It's a 3 day weekend for me so while Ty is off playing beach volleyball today, I'm working on a few blog posts and my grad school application (yikes!) before meeting up with a few girls I met through YNPN this afternoon. We're getting a knitting lesson from our friend Andrea who started this cute nonprofit Yarning 4 Youth. We figured if we're going to get together to drink wine and chat, we could help Andrea out in the process!

Any tips on getting motivated to finish unpacking??