My love / hate relationship

I love to cook. I hate to cook.

I love to cook when I have time to flip through my cookbooks, select a recipe and go to the store to buy the ingredients. I visit websites like VegWeb, Epicurious, and the Food Network so often that it borders on being unhealthy. The pictures of delectable meals are like pornography for me.

I hate to cook when I have to make up something based on the random ingredients in my pantry. My fiance hates it to. For example: pita pizza with sliced fake chicken nuggets and canned pears. Oh yeah.

So, I'm reluctant to cook when I don't have time for the whole "recipe search/grocery store excursion."

Hello take-out...its nice to see you (again).

Now imagine my delight in finding this site. You simply enter 4 ingredients that you already have in your pantry and it will generate a recipe for you. No more last-minute trips to the store for that absolutely necessary 7oz jar of roasted sweet red peppers.

I think this could be my new obsession.

My favorite place

My favorite spot this week is absolutely my front porch.

The weather is finally nice enough for us to enjoy sitting out there in the evenings. Our street is relatively quiet (being that so many people don't know it exists) but there are enough people walking up and down it to satisfy the "people-watching" hunger in me.

There is the cross-dressing man who always seems to be in a hurry. And the homeless guy who walks down the street collecting cans....while singing at the top of his lungs. He walks past the stylish young mom who is walking with her kid in the stroller and talking on her cell phone at the same time. And there is my neighbor who calls his wife by her first (and last) name when he greets her before rushing out to work on his eternally broken-down car.

I can see all of these things by just sitting on my front porch with a glass of wine. It is better than any reality tv show. It is perhaps the reason why we rented this apartment before realizing there were no closets. (Two porches seems a fair trade for zero closets, in my book.) So our bedroom floor is covered in clothes and our porch is covered in plants...and I couldn't be happier.

(If you do not have such a front porch and must resort to reality tv for your entertainment, might I suggest Manor House? It arrived on Netflix and I watched the first two episodes today. My reaction? Quite smashing!)

Make A Second Better

This weekend was crappy overall. I had to work both Saturday and Sunday and it wasn't the "it feels good to be useful" type of work. It was more along the lines of "if one more person says something negative I'm going to slit my wrist with a plastic spoon" type of work.

When I came home today, I had a large gulp of this to bring me back to earth. Ordinarily, I don't "gulp" wine. I sip it...while enjoying a delicious meal. That was not the case today but, nonetheless, it was delicious and I highly recommend it. (How's that for a wine review?)

Somewhere in all this craziness, I was able to sneak in some fun. (If your version of fun is sitting through a 3-hour long Quentin Tarantino inside joke.) But Adam really wanted to see Grindhouse and since he saw Pride and Prejudice several times with me, I felt it was only right to return the favor. In retrospect, I think I went a little overboard in my generosity. Love can make you do foolish things.

We were also able to go over to our friends' house to see their new-ish baby. You know your weekend was bad when the most relaxing thing you did was hold a crying baby in your arms.

But I'm being whiny and I hate being whiny. At the end of the day (or in this case, the weekend) I'm sitting here in my favorite comfy pants with the best guy a girl could ask for and my cats on either side of me. So life is good, all in all, and I'll close with a quote from my favorite author.

"There will be little rubs and disappointments everywhere, and we are all apt to expect too much; but then, if one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another, if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better: we find comfort somewhere."
---Mansfield Park

Shampoo/ Conditioner of the Month

I have a weakness for shampoo and conditioner that I cannot explain. Ordinarily, I'm a pretty simple gal. I don't wear makeup, I don't wear perfume and I don't really have a hairstyle...it just kind of hangs off my head.

But I love shampoo and conditioner. To me, the shampoo aisle at the store is like a chance to make my life better. How will my life change if I have ylang-ylang in my hair? Will I feel more confident if my hair smells fruity instead of flowery? Do I need "shine boosters" or "curl enhancers?" (The answer to that one, my friends, is both.)

I rarely make it to the end of the bottle. Usually, there will be a few tablespoons left when the lure of a new shampoo/conditioner combo hits. There are rules too: I never get the same shampoo/conditioner twice in a row. I don't mix and match. I don't buy shampoo/conditioner that comes in the same bottle (a la Pert Plus) no matter how much time it could possibly save.

I've decided to turn this weakness into an activity. Hence, my shampoo of the month feature.



This month's shampoo is "Brilliant Brunette Shine Release Volumizing Shampoo with Light Enhancers." The conditioner is "Brilliant Brunette Light Reflecting Daily Conditioner with Light Enhancers." Both are from the John Frieda Collection. Say that five times fast.

Both shampoo and conditioner are for "Chestnut to Espresso" colored hair. That was the tricky thing: am I "Hazelnut to Chestnut" or "Chestnut to Espresso?" The shampoo aisle is all about introspection.

I like the smell of the products...not too fruity/flowery/baked goods-y. My hair seems kind of flat today but that isn't necessarily a result of the shampoo. My brunette hair doesn't seem any more brilliant but I'll give it more time. The bottles were $5.15 each (on sale). I've seen cheaper (and better).

Bloggity blog blog

Despite the fact that the word "blog", in my mind, better describes a particular mood rather than an actual thing, I've decided to start one. The only blog I've read on a regular basis is Belle de Jour but I'm afraid mine will not be nearly as exciting as that (mainly because I'm not a London prostitute).

At this point, all I can say is that it will include my great loves: my family/friends, animals, books, cooking, wine and anything involving Jane Austen.

It will probably also include a large number of my great hates: people who stand directly next to me in the grocery aisle, Quentin Tarantino movies, cooking, smoothies and anything involving George Bush.

Also, expect grammatical errors galore.