12 of 12 - February 2011

One of the things I am trying to do is working more on my blog, you can only write more if you just do that, write more. I decided to start doing this 12 of 12 challenge. You take 12 pictures during each 12th of the month and narrate what you did that day. The unfortunate thing is that my February 12th wasn't that exciting! But hey, at least I took the pictures. Here we go:

Started the morning getting ready to get out and run some errands. I was really happy to be able to wear my purple sneakers instead of snow boots!

First stop, Trader Joe's. We haven't been there in ages and there is one on Cambridge, very close from where we live. Obviously, as many places in Cambridge, the parking lot is horrible and people that go there live on their own little heads without concern about other people. My husband got very upset with the whole situation so I was only able to take a picture from the car!

Next stop, haircut. I got a haircut and my red highlights retouched. I love the feeling after seeing myself in front of the mirror with my hair perfectly done for the day. I wish I could keep it like that every day. I have been going to this place: Bella Hair for a year now. I found them when I recently moved to MA and so far so good. Michelle is good as far as asking you what you want, listening and offering suggestions.

After two hours of being pampered it was time for lunch. Henry and I usually don't have fast food but once in a while we crave it so we stopped at Wendy's for some quick lunch. I had the Southwestern Salad that has chili on it. Pretty fulfilling and one of the only ways that I eat chili. Henry can eat whatever he wants, since he is sooo slim (damn genetics) so he got a double burger.

After that, we headed home, took a nap and started cooking dinner. We realized we were missing some ingredients so we headed out to Sophia's Greek Pantry for some Feta cheese and Greek yogurt. Then we stopped at Eastern Lamejun Bakers right around the corner from our apartment to get some pine nuts. This is one of the things I love about our apartment's location, there are so many things that are at our reach within walking distance.

We wanted to make empanadas so Henry cooked the stuffing. One was apples with cinnamon and sugar and the other one was spinach with mushrooms and feta cheese. Here is the apple one:

Here is the spinach with mushrooms:

Then, prep came in place, chopped cheese and started working on the puff pastry:

Henry mixed the cooked apples with some goat cheese and the spinach with some feta cheese:

Then we started stuffing the empanadas and getting them ready for the oven. Sorry but I forgot to take a picture of how we stuffed them, here is one where Henry is working the borders of the empanada:

It took around 35 minutes for these things to cook. We were starving by the time they came out from the oven, but it was worth the wait!

And finally we got to try these babies. They were delicious! Of course, throughout this process, Luci was our loyal assistant cleaning every morsel that hit the kitchen floor!

And that is all for my 12 of 12! It is kind of difficult to come up with 12 pictures when your day is not that exciting!

See you soon!

Update on wishes

Even though I am still digging deep inside to find some inspiration to write about how my life in this snowy city has been I thought a good start is a short update on my wish list.

As my friend Jonathan said, living debt free is going to propel your other wishes, so last weekend I sat with my husband and we went over the stuff we need to pay off in order to start working towards the other wishes. It was a liberating experience since that allows me to stop worrying about my future and start chipping in one day at a time. We finally put together a master plan for the next 5 years. It sounds daunting but the funny thing is that it wasn’t at all. It just took two hours of our lives and I was very pleased with the fact that my husband and I are on the same page that is always good news.

Also, the eating healthy part has been work in progress, we watched Oprah last week and her interview with Kathy Freston, she wrote a book called Veganist where she talks about the benefits of a vegan life style. We are not going to go 100% vegan because I just love fish and cheese too much but we decided to clean up a little bit our daily diet taking some points from her. So I guess that is also a good point.

Lastly, I have been taking bootcamp classes since November and still going strong. I don’t know if I have lost any weight but I am for sure not gaining which under the weather conditions I am living on right now is a BIG plus. You know, when it is freezing cold outside, half of the streets are covered with ice (they look and feel like a skating rink)  and sunset happens around 4:00pm you really don’t feel like moving too much, you are bored and the closest thing to you is the kitchen…so I am giving me some points for this too.

And that is all for now folks! Here are some pictures taken from my backyard and of me with Luci walking through the neighborhood (check out the height of the snow banks).