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ntries in the past 3 years really count but i m going to count them anyways seventeen i ve read a few things lately about how social media is an edited version of people s lives and it paints an inaccurate picture of what someone s life is actually like the version we see is all the good beautiful things that are happening while the mundane not so pretty things are left out it makes other people feel inadequate like their lives aren t as good or don t measure up and that s terrible i don t think anyone ever intends to purposefully make others feel that way by presenting an edited version of their life it just happens if you re following my loose train of thought on this it may sound like i m trying to say that i ve rarely posted to this site in the past three years because things have been bad that s not entirely true there s a whole list of reasons i could give about why i haven t updated this site too busy out of the habit too tired feeling like i have nothing to contribute etc i could go on but i won t what i d like to do is briefly try and catch you up on the last three years the good stuff and the bad stuff because even if isn t documented it does happen to all of us 2015 highs started a new job which i think i actually mentioned way back here celebrated a milestone birthday by going to chicago for a week dusted off my sewing machine and started making some of my own clothes finally stayed at the madonna inn in san luis obispo 2015 lows my dad died unexpectedly 2016 highs completed my first and so far only whole 30 celebrated a birthday by going to cambria and visiting hearst castle i had never been bought a house and moved to santa cruz spent christmas in hawaii 2016 lows had to have another throat surgery but it was thankfully less traumatic than the first one packing up the entire apartment and moving this one really deserves its own post the election 2017 highs women s march it finally started raining real fill up the reservoir type rain nesting chickadees in our backyard fourth of july trip to bellingham took a girls trip to tahoe participated in inktober for the first time 2017 lows my brother died unexpectedly oh and in between all that one of the cats developed an anxiety issue and has completely licked his stomach bald of any fur he s totally healthy aside from that and i ve gradually gained back about 20 of the 50 pounds i had lost by the beginning of 2015 and that feels like a major defeat between the stress of well a lot of things and a nearby beer garden with multiple cider offerings i probably shouldn t be so hard on myself and i m slowly learning not to be but it s not easy so there s three years in a large ish nutshell i do plan on writing about some of that stuff at length but i need to get back in the habit of doing this first i think it had been kind of therapeutic for me in the past and it might help to start doing this again we ll see so uh how are you guys comments view last time april 30 2017 birds of a feather birds of a feather april 30 2017 so we moved and we have a little backyard area now as a little housewarming gift we received a small green bird house we hung it on a post that already had a nail just to get it off the ground figuring that it was too close to the house to actually be used by any birds about a month or so later i noticed a little chickadee hanging around near the birdhouse i can see it through the window when i m sitting at my desk but i thought it was just a fluke but that bird was hanging around a lot and then one afternoon i actually saw it fly right out of the house and another bird head popped out not only were a couple of birds using it they built a nest and now we can hear the wee baby birds inside the birdhouse we watch the parent birds fly back and forth for a good part of the day with food for the babies and you can hear the little peeping of the babies get way more excited when one of the parents comes back to the nest as much as i would love to get some photos i also don t want to disturb them they get upset enough when we re out in the yard though that doesn t seem to stop them from delivering food there s a very short little video over here with the success of the birdhouse i thought a bird bath might be a good idea so we bought one this weekend and so far no birds i m guessing it might take a little while for them to discover it s there though i m also figuring that since we had such great unexpected luck with the birdhouse that the bird bath will be an utter failure we ll just have to wait and see comments view last time february 19 2017 who loves the sun who loves the sun february 19 2017 i don t know if you ve heard but it s been raining a little bit in california the sun had been a very rare sight until last weekend we were graced with a gloriously sunny saturday and i took the opportunity to sit on my patio eat lunch and get a little vitamin d my lunch that day ended up being my current favorite salad i discovered it at mixt greens who appears to now be called just mixt which used to have a location in the valley fair mall but is much to my dismay now gone thankfully i had made note of the ingredients in the orchard salad and have recreated it at home a few times but last saturday when i was sitting in the sun enjoying my favorite salad it occurred to me that i should post about it here if only for the sole purpose of having the salad ingredients documented somewhere other than in a note on my phone i also just realized i can go to their site and look it up but if for some reason they go away i ll always have it documented here without further ado i present to you my adaptation of the orchard salad the orchard salad adapted from mixt greens of your choice a couple large handfuls i usually like a spring mix or something with a bit of arugula cooked chicken diced or shredded an eighth to a quarter of a cup depending on how hungry you are sharp cheddar grated a small amount a couple tablespoons cooked bacon 2 slices crumbled or chopped up avocado i usually use half toasted almonds roughly chopped a handful apple a quarter to a half chopped i like a granny smith balsamic vinaigrette put everything in a bowl and toss together add salt and pepper to taste i never really measure ingredients when i m making this but it makes enough for an entree sized salad for one person you can adjust amounts to feed more people comments view last time january 08 2017 sixteen sixteen january 08 2017 clearly i don t know what to say in this space anymore i don t exactly forget that this thing is here but i don t really remember it either despite paying for hosting fees every month for the past 16 years that s right this blog is 16 years old and i think the only reason i haven t completely scrapped it is because sixteen years i ve documented some parts of my life here for over a decade and a half and it just doesn t feel right to end it however is also seems a little silly to keep it around when i only posted twice last year i m definitely not the same person i was when i started this blog a lot of things in my life have changed and recently there s been some life events one of which was my dad dying somewhat unexpectedly which is not the only unexpected death i ve had to deal with in the past three years it s been rough and this hasn t felt like the right place to talk about any of that but blogging has also evolved in that time which i know i talk about every year but i just can t seem to get past it not being the way it used to be i feel like when i put something here it s needs to be useful helpful or informative in some way and i just can t manage that anymore i think it s also a matter of habit i m just not in the habit of writing anything here anymore and i honestly don t know if i ll ever get back in the habit i m much more comfortable posting things on instagram now which feels safer and easier i guess at least on my private account i m going to try and be better about posting on my public instagram which is still quicker than posting things here but i can t make any promises for those of you that do end up reading this thanks for sticking around i m not going away but i m not necessarily promising that i m going to post with any regularity either however this site won t go anywhere anytime soon i actually come back here to look up things every once in awhile so even if nobody else is reading at least i m finding it useful that it s still here and with that i wish you all a happy new year here s hoping for a little bit of good in 2017 comments view last time july 09 2016 the ugly green chair now mobile friendly the ugly green chair now mobile friendly july 09 2016 i spent most of the past weekend and part of this week messing with code to make this site responsive which is a word that i never seem to remember when i m talking about it it makes me a little giddy to pull the site up on my phone and it s actually readable not that i ve offered up much to read lately but let s not talk about that i did not completely overhaul the design on the site i mostly adapted the existing layout to the new template i did move things around a bit though there s a lovely top bar navigation that actually sticks to the top of the page you might also notice that there s a search bar up there too there s always been a search function but it was on a separate page the new location is so much more convenient maybe not a huge deal as i know i m probably the one that gets the most use out of that but the fact that i have over a decade of things archived here it s nice to be able to look up what year my husband did the aids ride because we can t usually remember what year that was seven years ago of course it may all be for naught because i don t know if anyone actually goes to sites to read them anymore ah well it makes me happy and i learned things in the process so i think it was worth the trouble if you do come to the actual site i hope you enjoy the updated layout comments view last time january 31 2016 whole30 whole30 january 31 2016 it finally happened after nearly three years of green smoothies for dinner i got tired of them also it s winter i wanted something warm to eat which is just one of the reasons i decided to finally try a whole30 let s not talk about the kind bar i was eating for breakfast every morning or the jars of candy on my co worker s desk that i was regularly raiding basically i needed a food reset so i ordered this book which has been my guide through the past two weeks well three weeks if you count the trial week i did before i officially started i decided i needed to ease into this a little and i think it helped honestly this isn t that far off from how i normally eat except i was eating what is essentially a candy bar for breakfast every morning i got lazy i also wasn t diligently checking labels except for gluten now i m also checking for dairy and sugar it s in everything so what am i eating for breakfast i ve been making this fiesta egg casserole cutting it into 5 portions and storing it in the fridge i made this recipe to the letter the first time but the second time i used some leftover ground turkey and roasted butternut squash that s become my new favorite version for lunch i make 5 days worth of food on the weekend so it s grab and go in the mornings i ve been relying on my well fed cookbooks for recipes i already had a couple of favorites in the first book but received the second one for christmas and there s a bunch of recipes i want to try in there too for dinner i ve been making what i affectionately refer to as a food pile sautee some protein usually ground meat cooked with onion that i made on the weekend add some vegetables chard spinach cauliflower rice butternut squash and top with some sort of sauce guac pico de gallo etc since i ve pre cooked everything this is a super quick way for me to make dinner i m finding that i m snacking less than i used to but if i do need something a handful of nuts cashews macadamia is usually enough the hard part going out to eat any time someone suggests going out to eat mild panic strikes because it can be hard to figure out where to go that will have something i can eat i end up ordering a lot of salads with dressing on the side and then not using the dressing which actually isn t so bad thankfully friends and family have been pretty agreeable about where to go so i can eat with them what about caffeine i ve seen some people mention that it s not allowed in the book i m using as my guide it doesn t say anything about no caffeine unless you re trying to eliminate ibs or ibd symptoms since that doesn t apply to me i m still drinking caffeinated beverages i had been a one cup of coffee a day person and i couldn t drink it without milk and some sort of sweetener during my trial week i switched to green tea i don t need to add anything to that to make it drinkable and so far it s worked out well things i ve discovered i like sweet potatoes way more than i thought i did same goes for butternut squash ground turkey thigh meat is actually really tasty all this planning ahead makes meals a no brainer which is nice today is day 14 and i guess i feel pretty good i think i m less groggy in the morning when i get up which is nice i m hoping i feel even better in the next few days after tomorrow only 15 more days to go comments view last time january 24 2016 happy fifteen years little blog happy fifteen years little blog january 24 2016 i missed the 15 year anniversary of this blog it was december 31st i ve written so many blog entries in my head in the last 6 months i just can t seem to sit down and type them out i m sure there s at least part of a 15 year anniversary post in my brain somewhere but it seems a little silly to write it out now on the 24th of january i m not going to lie it s been a rough year i thought last year was rough but this year was i don t even know if i can find the right words i have of course learned a few things in the past year like i m really out of the habit of posting here and i thought setting up a public instagram account might help but that s been a major fail until instagram makes it easier to post to multiple accounts i just can t manage more than one account unfortunately it s the one that i keep mostly private my views on sharing things have morphed over the years i guess which may be another reason i m not making the time to write here when i was cooking knitting and taking photos all the time it seemed i always had something to write about it when most of what i m doing is working it s not just about finding the time it s about finding the content too however i started a whole30 last week and i ve been doing more cooking than i have in years and i keep thinking about things i want to document during the 30 days i should start taking notes because i feel like i may actually want to write down some of what i m thinking and learning and this might be a good place to do it i can t...