Love #3: Love in a Mason Jar

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After planning to go out for dinner we scrapped it, ordered takeout and drank a bottle of wine. Absolutely perfect Valentine’s Day with Leo – my best friend and the theme of Love today. He’s the best, makes me laugh, always cures a bad day and is my partner in crime on all the good days! Love in a mason jar.
Hope you are all having a great Valentine’s Day!

Don’t call me a foodie

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Alright, so if you’ve been reading or know me at all, you know that I actually don’t like food very much. For reference to my lack of food-aficionado-ness take a look at this old post… Leo, on the other hand is a dude. They LOVE food and lots of it. I’ve gone from being a non-big-dinner eater (two eggs and toast), to accommodating a bigggg dinner eater. Ah, the adventures of co-habitation! Going awesome, by the way. 

While I don’t love food, I love taking care of people and making them feel special. In fact, that is on my perma-list of life to-dos – be kinder, help people more and make someone’s day brighter everyday. I’m starting to wonder if food bloggers actually only like cooking/baking because it brightens the days of the people that get to eat it. Right, back to the point – FOOD. First night actually cooking, not throwing food together, I made me potions, not dude potions. Within an hour, I had a hungry boyfriend on my hands. 

Second night? I made the salad pictured above based loosely on a salad recipe from Once a Month Mom. You’ll notice the size of the second plate is a monster, but I was so scared of not feeding Leo enough that I sided with big. Needless to say, he laughed, ate quite a bit and I had a huge lunch the next day. I suppose this is called learning?

Meet the Bathroom, Part 1

Oh bathrooms – how I love to dream about what you could look like! But with only a day and a strict budget, I had to improvise. My mom had been holding on to some bathroom stuff for me, and she was my lifesaver! Essentially, she sent me a bathroom-in-a-box for lack of a better term. She’s a total champ. So, here is where the bathroom stands:

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Note that nice rosy glow behind the shower curtain? I forgot to get a liner, but Leo bought a bright shower curtain to get by for a few days. Put the bright red and orange together behind a soft white linen shower curtain? Just like a mullet, business in the front, party in the back. So, here we have a white and blue bathroom, but we need more – storage, style and something on those big white walls. There are lots of things I’m thinking about purchasing in the near future. I wish I could build some cabinets in myself, but living in an apartment means nothing can be permanent. Oh well! 

The bathroom has pretty tall ceilings, but everything is very grounded and white. I don’t love unfinished wood around the door that is peaking out in that top photo, but I’m going to ask the landlord if I can paint them. Just need to pick a color!  Secondly, I’d like to purchase an above the toilet space saver – because under the vanity is best for cleaning supplies, not cotton that will touch my precious face. Kidding? No. 

White Bathroom Space Saver, $107 – pretty, but a bit too country.

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Fairview Space Saver, $250 – pretty, but way too expensive.

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Greek Key Space Saver Cabinet, $100 – pretty and perfect! Just so happens to be the best price, love it when that happens!

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I’m leaning towards the Greek Key pattern, love that pattern and thinking I could bring it in even more with some art on the wall. 

Do you like above the toilet cabinets? Which one do you like best?

 

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Moving on up and moving on

So, remember a couple months back I shared some big, exciting life news? It is finally almost June 1st! After a weekend spent packing, realizing I have too much stuff, so unpacking and purging (donating) everything that I don’t love or haven’t used in the past 6 months, and then finally finishing packing, the day is here! I move out of my two bedroom shared with my wonderful roommate of two years into my first beautiful apartment with Leo. 

Things I’ll miss: Closet size – monstrous and all to myself, brand spanking new rehabbed bathroom, living less than a block from the el in to downtown. And, in retrospect, I had a huge room which was pretty nice, but totally unnecessary. 

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Things I will miss only a little: one hour commute to work each morning (I loved it for a while because of the reading/relaxing time, but it got to be troublesome if I ever wanted to do something fun after work), and packing. I won’t miss that at all! I’ve said it before, I have too much stuff, and I still do! I got rid of a lot, but my goal for the next chunk of life is to bring in more quality items versus quantity. I’m a sucker for a sale, but jeeeeze do I need to cool it on the clothes shopping. 

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Anyways, moving on to a new place, can’t wait to share pictures. Probably from my mobile cuz you know that’s what I do. 

Can you tell I’m excited?!

Cohabitation means cohabi-dining

If you know me, you know I have some food weirdness. I don’t see it that way, I see it as I like what I like and I get sick from most other things. I’m guessing that my food sensitivities have something to do with my non-existent desire to cook fancy dishes. Oh please, who am I kidding? I love simple, delicious foods! Personally, I think I’m lucky! Breakfast anything, pasta anything and fruit and veggie anything. Easy to please, and I don’t get bored with my faves. To you foodies out there, this might be blasphemy but it is the truth – I really only eat ten foods. Here’s the rundown;

I eat about a dozen eggs per week – I freaking love the little suckers! My roommate laughs at me because I crave eggs like a mad woman, when I want them, nothing else will do! Sunny side up with toast is my fave, close second is hard-boiled and scrambled are in third place on the regular menu de chez Nukem. Sometimes I’ll cook an egg in a red pepper and an onion and put it on an English Muffin. Deviled eggs? Don’t even get me started on how good these are. You get the point, I love eggs, and I eat a lot of them. 

Eggs are separate from my love of breakfast food.. sort of? I love French toast, waffles, pancakes, crepes, bacon, eggs, fresh fruit, oatmeal, cereal,  quiche, etc. LOVE it all! That’s a no brainer.

Pasta – another staple, although not what it used to be. For more than a year in college, food made me sick. No joke – I ate pasta and sandwiches for more than a year because those were the only dishes that didn’t have me running to bathroom between classes. It was rough, but no food allergies were identified. What was identified? A serious love of pasta – even plain noodles with a good olive and parmesan – makes me happy. Now, I’ve limited my pasta intake to every other week. I stopped buying it as often in hopes my dietary desires would expand. I eat eggs now, slight improvement?

Here’s the point of this post – my eating is totally strange. I eat the same dinner four nights out of the week because its what I’m craving at the end of the day. I vary my lunches more than my dinners – yogurt, hummus, sandwiches, frozen things, pasta, quesadillas, couscous, throw some shrimp with any of those, and I’m a happy camper. What I don’t do? Make dinners.

In less than a month, Leo and I move in, big life stuff for sure. Going out on a limb here, Leo won’t be so happy with over-easy eggs and toast four nights out of the week! 

I’ve been watching some of these other blogger ladies and stockpiling recipes, shouldn’t be a problem cooking any of them, but I hope my tummy troubles stay FAR away. For my dishes, I might have to eliminate most of the meat, but a dash of meat hasn’t seemed to bother me lately and I want to make sure Leo is well-fed when I cook. He’s a carnivore fur sure, have you seen that facial hair? Requires meat. 

Janetha’s Sweet Potato Black Bean Enchiladas (Leo is Mexican and his mom makes delicious food, hopefully I pass the taste test!)

Breaking down the Big Beige Box’s Eggplant Parm (read the recipe and how she prepares it, then laugh because this girl is hilarious.)

Paige Spicer’s World’s Easiest Vegetable Lasagna (if I cook like her, I hope to be able to run like her. Oh, and read the title, PERFECT.)

Everything on Rachel Wilkerson’s blog – the girl thinks like me, eats like me and lives in sin like I will be in a few weeks. I dig her for sure. 

So maybe only one of these has meat but if it is tasty enough, Leo will never see the non-meatness coming. Unless he reads this little blog thing. Hmmmm, this will be interesting.

 

Big, exciting life news!

As of June 1st I have a new roommate in my dream apartment. Wanna meet him?

Leo

 

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That’s LEO! He’s my best friend 🙂 and almost three years to the date that we started dating we signed a lease to our first apartment together. Exciting stuff! Doesn’t hurt that the apartment is a dream come true either. More details to come!

– E