going to see Barney

No, not that Barney. A better barney. On my way to Santa Monica to check out the semi-annual Barney's warehouse sale (oh, and to see the boy too). I'll let you know how it is.

40 days and 40 nights

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. During this time, you're supposed to give up something such as chocolate or candy or smoking or drinking. It's a sacrifice you're making. In the past, I've given up soda, coffee, and chocolate. I've been trying to think of what to give up this year. I was having a hard time coming up with something. I don't drink soda or snack as frequently as I did in the past. I don't smoke. So instead of giving up something, I decided I would DO something everyday instead. I'm going to do some kind of exercise every day. Some sort of exercise for at least 10 minutes a day. I won't necessarily go to the gym everyday, but I will at least do one of my work out dvds or yoga here at home. In a way, I'll be sacrificing my time. Lately, I've been too lazy to go to the gym and I come up with a gazillion excuses to not go. I have to much to do. I'm hungry. I'm tired. I don't feel good. It's too cold outside. It's raining, etc, etc, etc

Burger Lounge

Last night I ate at Burger Lounge in Kensington with the boy. I was looking forward to it, as I've heard so many good things about the place. We both had the Grilled Lounge Burger with cheddar cheese. We also had french fries, onions rings and a chocolate malt. The food was good, just not amazingly good. Nothing that I'll find myself craving. I'd go back if someone else wants to go, but I probably won't go back on my own. It's basically fast food, only higher quality ingredients such as tall grass fed beef. Maybe I just had high expectations going into it. I was expecting a mind-blowingly good burger. The fries and onions rings were really good, probably my favorite part. The breading on the onion rings is nice and light. Both the fries and the rings were seasoned with parsley and kosher salt, making them deeeelish.

I hear the turkey burger is better than the beef burger. If I go back, I'll try that instead.

Happy Super Tuesday

Well, I didn't technically vote today. I sent in my absentee ballot awhile ago. I've never been to an actual polling place. I've always voted via absentee.

Suggestions, please

A group of my friends would like to go wine tasting in Temecula. Any suggestions on wineries, tours, or hotels we should look into?

It's picture time

My lazy butt finally found my camera and its cords and stuff. Here's some pictures of what I cooked over the weekend.

Lemon blossoms

I would highly recommend the lemon blossoms. They are probably one of my favorite things to bake. Plus, they are super simple to make. Anybody can do it. No special baking skills necessary. They are lemony, sweet, and just a bit tart. I could eat the whole batch in one sitting. They aren't the prettiest mini-muffin, but they are soooo good.

Here's the recipe (from Paula Deen):

18 1/2-ounce package yellow cake mix
3 1/2-ounce package instant lemon pudding mix
4 large eggs
3/4 cup vegetable oil
Glaze:
4 cups confectioners' sugar
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1 lemon, zested
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 tablespoons water


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Spray miniature muffin tins with vegetable oil cooking spray. Combine the cake mix, pudding mix, eggs and oil and blend well with an electric mixer until smooth, about 2 minutes. Pour a small amount of batter, filling each muffin tin half way. Bake for 12 minutes. Turn out onto a tea towel
To make the glaze, sift the sugar into a mixing bowl. Add the lemon juice, zest, oil, and 3 tablespoons water. Mix with a spoon until smooth.

With fingers, dip the cupcakes into the glaze while they're still warm, covering as much of the cake as possible, or spoon the glaze over the warm cupcakes, turning them to completely coat. Place on wire racks with waxed paper underneath to catch any drips. Let the glaze set thoroughly, about 1 hour, before storing in containers with tight-fitting lids.



BBQ chicken pizza

I like making this because it requires very little prep and effort on my part. Just cover with toppings and put it in the oven. Done. The hardest part is chopping all the ingredients.

I wanna rock and roll all niiiiiight and party every day

I played Rock Band for the first time this weekend. SO. MUCH. FUN. I have Guitar Hero 1, 2, and 3. I could probably just get rid of all those games now that I'm the proud owner of Rock Band. (I'll keep them though, just because they have some good songs.) Rock Band is better than Guitar hero, I think. There's drums, guitars, and singing so more people can get involved. It's a blend of karaoke and guitar hero - it's 2 games in one. Is karaoke a game? Not really, but for arguements sake, we'll say it is. I guess you could say Magic Mic is a game. You get scored on it. Tangent, I know. The drums were really hard for me at first, but now I think I'm better at the drums than I am with the guitar. The game is a tad bit expensive, but it's worth every penny (especially since I didn't technically buy the game - my roommate did).

Here's a recap of the rest of my weekend:
Last night I had dinner with my friend, Lana. We ate at a Thai restaurant in Hillcrest called Celadon. The food is good and the atmophere is nice - classy and clean, yet chic and trendy. Then we hung out at her place, drinking wine, eating lemon blossoms that I baked, and chatting. Good times.

Today I didn't even bother watching the Superbowl. Lame, I know. I guess my heart's just not into it. I played Rock Band, did some grocery shopping, and did accounting homework instead. Can it get any more exciting than that? I don't think so.

Snickerdoodle what?

I've been cooking and baking a lot lately. I've been meaning to take pictures of my results to post here, but I always forget and/or am too lazy to get my camera stuff out. I moved over the summer and during the move I seem to have put my electronic/camera stuff in different boxes. Since then, I've been too lazy to gather it all together and I just rely on other people (aka the boy) to take pictures. I'll just have to post links to what they should look like.

The other night I made a batch of snickerdoodle muffins. I got the recipe here.Here is a picture of what it should look like, courtesy of Peabody.



Mine didn't come out looking quite as pretty as those. They were mighty tasty if I do say so myself.

Over the weekend I baked chocolate espresso cookies. I woke up with a craving for freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. I wanted to bake something a little bit different though. Something with a twist. I searched on the Food Network website and allrecipes.com. On both sites I found a recipe for the "Neiman Marcus" cookie. I must live under a rock because I've never heard of this cookie before. I decided to try it out. I went to the store and I couldn't find espresso powder. I decided to substitute some instant coffee crystals since I have some in the pantry. Since I've never tried the Neiman Marcus cookie, I can't compare to how it tastes to the original, but they turned out pretty good I think. Now I just need to get me to Neiman Marcus and try out the real thing.

The ULTIMATE couch potato

Yesterday as I left for work, the boy was laying on the couch watching Heroes season one on DVD. Yesterday, when I got home from work, the boy was laying on the couch watching Heroes season one on DVD. He had been watching Heroes the whole time I was at work! To be fair, I didn't go into work yesterday until noon, but still, that's a good 6 hours of dvd watching. He didn't even shower! He was supposed to go back up to LA yesterday too, but he was "too sick" to drive. He claims he's sick, but I think he's just being lazy and wanted to watch Heroes all day instead of driving 2 hours back home.

I'll take a small popcorn with butter, coke, and some bon bons. Oh, and some dramamine please

Last night the boy and I watched Cloverfield with a few of our friends. Here's a plot synopsis I pulled from IMDB: Five young New Yorkers throw their friend a going-away party the night that a monster the size of a skyscraper descends upon the city. Told from the point of view of their video camera, the film is a document of their attempt to survive the most surreal, horrifying event of their lives. I couldn't watch half the movie. I started to feel very nauseous. Because of the hand-held camera point of view, I had to look away from the screen every now and then, which really sucks because I missed seeing a lot of what was going on. I thought it was just me, but when I looked around the theater there were a lot of other moviegoers looking away too. Everyone I was with, except the boy, complained that they also felt nauseous. I seriously thought I was going to throw up there in the theater. The movie itself was alright. Nothing too exciting. Predictable.

What's on tap for the weekend?

I am so glad the weekend is here. This past week was a lot longer and harder than I had expected it to be. Don't you just hate when that happens? This week was supposed to be easy breezy, but things got busy at work and we put in extra long hours.

Today is one of my cousin's birthdays and there is a party for her at my aunt's house. The boy is driving down from LA and we'll be heading over to the party around 2. We'll probably hang out there all day and then come home and watch some tv or something else equally boring relaxing. I may try to sneak in a quick visit to the gym before the boy gets here, but my lazy self may win over my wanting to get back into shape self.

Sunday is church, bright and early at 10am. Afterwards, we'll probably head back home, have some lunch, and be lazy some more. Maybe we'll go to the gym. In fact, the boy will probably make me go. He's not as lazy as am I. I'd also like to go shopping - just one store so that I'm not too tempted to buy stuff. For dinner we're going to 1500 Ocean at hotel del! For the past few days I've been obsessively checking to see if they had any last minute openings and they did! Not only did they have an opening, but we able to get reservations for 6 people. It'll be a triple date. The boy and me, my sister and her husband, and another one of my cousins and his girlfriend. I wish it were Sunday night already. Well, not really because then the weekend would be over, but you know what I mean.

Give a little

Take 5 seconds of your day and help provide food to those in need. Visit The Hunger Site and click. Two little clicks. It's that easy.

Changes

My post last week about the sample sale and how I wasn't going got me to thinking about how much my life has changed over the last year and a half. It's amazing how different your life can over such a short period of time.

A year and a half ago I was living in LA with my cousin. Now we both have moved - me to San Diego and him to Oregon. This move has changed a lot of my relationships with people. With some, I've gotten closer to and with others we've drifted apart. A lot of this has to do with logistics and ease of getting together and hanging out.

My sister is married now. I have a brother!

I have a new job, but now I'm poorer than before. In fact, my closest friends are all poorer this year than they were last year. This is due to job changes and school. This has significantly changed our lifestyles. There are fewer weekend shopping trips with the girls, fewer nights out on the town. We used to party like rock stars almost every weekend. Now we're all too poor, too busy, and too tired to go out like that. A typical night of us getting together now is eating dinner at my place and watching movies on On Demand. Not that it's a bad thing, just different from before. We do go out every now and then, but only on special occasions. My Coffee Bean ice blended consumption has also gone down significantly.

The boy was in school in Miami and I only got to see him once every 3 months or so. Now he's back in LA and I get to see him just about every week.

What will this new year have in store for me . . .

Gotta love Restaurant Week

Next week is Restuarant Week in San Diego. For those of you that don't know what that is, it's a week where a bunch of restaurants offer prix-frixe dinners for $30 or $40, depending on the resturant. This is great since dinner at many of these places would normally be well over $50 a person. I know I said in one of my previous posts that I've been trying to save money, but this is one thing I just HAVE to splurge on. I can't help it. I love eating. I really really do. I'm always looking forward to my next meal. The boy gives me a hard time about it a lot, in a joking and loving way of course. This year I'm trying two places, Market Restaurante and Bar and Azul. I really really really wanted to go to 1500 Ocean at Hotel del, but they are already completely booked on the nights I wanted to go. Oh well, there's always next time.

There are so many restaurants in San Diego that I've been dying to try. I enjoy cooking at home, so I rarely go out to eat. When I do go out, we always go to some nearby places(read chain restaurants). If we do venture outside of our comfort zone, we tend to hit up the same places, such as Rama or Casa Guadalajara. What can I say, I'm a creature of habit. Here's a partial list of places I want to try soon:

Jayne's Gastropub
Burger Lounge
Mama Testa's

Any suggestions on what I should add to my list?

Here's to a great season

Sadly, the Chargers lost yesterday. They were the underdogs and they played very well. It was a respectable loss. The Patriots are undefeated and, due to injuries, LT only was in for about three plays. The Chargers did great this season. There are a lot of doubters out there who say the Chargers suck and they always choke. And so to those people, I have to say: Shut it. They DID NOT choke this year. The Chargers are an awesome team. Next year, baby, next year.

Sample sale anyone?

There is a premium denim sample sale in San Diego this weekend and I'm not going - Boo! It makes me oh so sad. I love me some premium denim. True Religion, Frankie B, Rock and Republic, William Rast, oh how I love thee! The reason I'm not going is a lack of funds. The job I'm at right now doesn't pay as much as my previous jobs. Plus, I've been trying to save money for the future, which is the responsible grown up thing to do. The not responsible and not grown up part of me really really wants to go. I tried to see if my sister and our friend H wanted to go, but they are both in the lacking funds department too. H just recently went back to school and no longer works so she's living off her savings and student loans now. My sister has a mortgage to pay and in a few months her husband will be leaving his current job for a lesser paying job. Had it not been for all of these situations, the three of SO would've been there. A year ago we hit up all the sample sales there were from here to L.A. What a difference a year makes, huh.

p.s
I should show you my jean collection some time. It's so pretty! Although there have been no new additions in an incredibly long time. :(

p.p.s
Dinner with my friends got bumped up to last night. My friend's boyfriend, Fisher, ended up not coming. Since it got moved from Saturday to Friday, no other boyfriends were able to make it and Fisher didn't want to be the only guy there.

My life expectancy

What's yours?

Case of the disappearing engagement ring

No, not mine since I don't have one. One of the boys best friends recently got engaged. We will refer to the newly engaged couple as Choco and Cheena. Here's some background on their relationship. They live together and have (what I'd consider)somewhat of a rocky relationship. They are fighting/bickering constantly. They both get jealous easily and they keep each other on very very short leashes. They are probably the most co-dependant couple I know. Because of all this, Choco has had his reservations about getting married. He's always complaining to the boy about how Cheena gets "crazy" when they fight and that she is spoiled and lazy. He wants her to change before he marries her *cough* yeah right *cough*. Choco bought a ring for Cheena awhile ago and Cheena was aware of this. Choco finally gave her the ring for Christmas, but she's supposed to not wear it. It's like a "secret engagement." The other night the boy was with Choco, Cheena and some other friends and Cheena was wearing the ring. One of their friends said congratulations to them and Choco just brushed it off. Yesterday was the first time I've seen Choco or Cheena since they got "engaged." I was excited to get to see her ring, but she wasn't wearing it! I didn't want to ask about it because I know it's kinda sorta a secret and they don't want a lot of people knowing. I suspect that she purposely didn't wear the ring in front of me because Choco probably didn't want me seeing it and asking quetions. Is this not the strangest engagement ever? If I was Cheena, I'd be a little upset. I wouldn't want to hide my engagement. She should be able to proudly wear her ring and share the good news with everyone she knows. I love Cheena and think she's a really great and fun girl, but I don't know if these two should be getting married . . . at least not yet.

Three day weekend . . .

but not for me.

Boo: I have work on Saturday :( My weekend will only be two days.
Yay: All is not lost. Saturday should only be a half day with me heading home by 3:30. The boy will be coming down to hang out with me this weekend. He has a big test to take Friday and Saturday will be his first worry free day in months. He's taking the first part of his medical board exams, which he's been studying for for months.

Yay: The Chargers have won TWO playoff games this year.
Boo: They play the undefeated Patriots next. LT, Rivers, and Gates are still hurt.

Yay: I'm having dinner with my friend H on Saturday night in downtown.
Boo: She's bringing her boyfriend, Fisher, with her. Not that I don't like the guy, he's just not very much fun to be around. He's hard to talk to and doesn't engage in conversation, so it makes me uncomfortable. She's been dating this guy for over a year and I still don't feel like I know him. Maybe it's just a little hard to get him out of his shell, but come on - talk already! I'll ask him a question and he'll reply with the shortest answer possible and then that's it. He doesn't ever talk unless you talk directly to him, otherwise he just sits there quietly. It's just weird to me that I hardly know one of my best friends boyfriends. Especially since we live in the same city. It'd be one thing if they lived out of state or even in another city, but they don't.

Yay: I have tomorrow off!
Boo: I have to pick my parents up at 8am! They are coming home from a 5 day cruise. AND I have 3 chapters to read for my advertising class I'm taking.

BOO: I have to get back to work now.
Yay: There is no yay response to having to do actual work now.

Happy happy joy joy!

My Chargers won! Without LT nonetheless! Well, he played for the first 2 quarters and then was out due to a knee injury. QB Rivers sat out the entire fourth quarter because of an injury too. The rest of the team really stepped it up during their absence. It was SUCH an exciting game! I think my voice is a bit hoarse now from all the yelling. I don't think I've been so nervous watching a game before.

I feel kinda bad for Peyton Manning. He's such a great player and he seems like such a good guy. Today's loss must be hard on him. Next week the Chargers face the Patriots. This game will be much harder, for sure.