small things...

Merry Xmas!!

I hope all are enjoying a happy holiday season!  A few glimpses of what the holidays look like in my home

The secret to that “real” tree smell…when you ain’t got a real tree

I just noticed now that that little bird is flying straight into the wall. 

These 3 kings are holding court.

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When we were growing up our mom was a big (and great) gift giver.  She still hid our gifts way into our 30s and it was still fun to wake up to see gifts piled high under the tree when the night before there were none.  This year I spent the holiday with my sister and nephew and we had a sleepover waiting for Santa to arrive.  We tracked his whereabouts online and wondered if he’d stop at the cookies and chocolate milk, or would he make his way into the kitchen and cook himself up a meal.  We figured burgers might be something santa’d be hungry for on Christmas eve.

We woke up bright and early to check out high the presents under the tree grew overnight and were delighted to see our stockings full with gifts from the big guy.  This year I was able to include an extra special gift from one of Santa’s elves stationed in San Francisco.  It arrived just in time Christmas Eve and was a BIG hit with the little guy:

 

I had made a special request of this elf to save the future of breakdancing.  He delivered with 2 CD’s worth of B-Boy Anthems. With my own Punk-Master Flash gracing the cover.   Watch out 2011, you will not know what hit you.

But first we gotta watch a little more of the christmas cartoons and race our new motorcyles. 

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a poppin’ and  lockin’ good night!

xo

Erin

ps – a special thank you to my favorite San Francisco Elf!

math skillz

I am busy this morning making this recipe for dinner for the next few nights:

If you look closely you’ll notice this recipe makes 12 servings.  Holy what? What’s a single girl to do in times like this?  I’ve made the mistake many, many times before of cooking recipes as is and ending up with so much food that I would want to punch brussel in the sprouts before eating another.

It’s all about division, ladies and gentlemen.  And for this one I figured 4 servings would be cool. So I third-ed the recipe.  Only that kind of math is completely confusing.  Why didn’t I just halve it or quarter the recipe??  who knows…I want what I want.

If you look closely again you’ll notice that the recipe counts for 2 lbs of butternut squash (yum).  Below that it called for 1.5 lbs of brussel sprouts (unharmed as of yet).  I don’t own a kitchen scale.  Do people really own kitchen scales?  What I did have was a 1lb bag of brussel sprouts and some counting skills.

one for the recipe, one for the fridge, one for the recipe, one for the fridge…and so on.  I figured that would be close to 1/2 a lb.  Then I minused 2 from the recipe pile to equal 1/3.  That’s probably not accurate….but what about this method is, fool!?

Also, I swapped tofu for chicken because I’m having chicken in my salads for lunch this week and I don’t like to eat meat 2x a day.  Vegetarians of the world – can you just swap tofu for chicken like that?  Without repercussions?  I’ll let you know.

 

annnnnnnndddddddddd….you’re welcome.

curry and squash,

Erin

Speaking of violet skies

::the view from my bedroom

Some people around these parts were excited about the first snow.  They rhapsodize about cozy fireplaces, mittens and cocoa or something.  Not me.  I stomp around from house to car to office and back muttering, “stupidsnowsocoldihatethesnowitssodumb”

They implore, “But isn’t it beautiful, Erin??”  And I just can’t see it most days.  What I think about when the first snow hits is, “NOT YET!!?!!!”  Early snow = long winter.

But then will come a morning, like on Wednesday when I’ll wake up and see this out my window.  A winter sunrise is it’s own thing of beauty.  I don’t always see the sunrise, but it’s made easier with the dark mornings of winter.  And when this happens I don’t mind so much the snow or the cold.  Some times you need the beauty that surrounds you always to jump up and slap you in the face. 

Mother Nature, you can be a cold, cold mother-trucker, but you sure are pretty

snow and boots,

Erin

Why don’t you like me? I could be vi-o-let sky

I don’t know if you love Mika as much as I love Mika.

I guess it doesn’t really matter.  Let’s all love Mika!

I was happy to see that the Whippenpoofs clearly love Mika as much as I do:

and here is Mika’s version.  i love EVERYTHING about his video…especially the Mika bits.

and

done.

thanks and goodnight.

Food trucks and tree hunts

Following in the footsteps of foodies and foodie-towns across the country – Evanston has it’s very own food truck!  Hummingbird Kitchen opened it’s truck doors this fall and has been serving delish food even through the first cold snap of the season. 

I don’t know if they’ll continue all winter, but hopefully! On Friday my friend Sarah and I checked their twitter page to find out where they’d be, bundled up and headed out to grab some lunch.

On the menu:

• garlic fries
• tuna melt (w/capers and red onion)
• short rib tacos
• chicken and rice soup

I ordered the melt and sarah had the tacos.  We both had the fries obviously. 

As evidenced by the very bundled up folks in this photo…it was cold! Luckily they were parked right outside of Kellogg school of business at Northwestern.  And I just happened to know where the cafeteria was! so we headed in.  My appetite wasn’t all there on Friday, so while the food was good I wasn’t super into it.  bummer.  I’ll go back for sure and try again.

Later that day I headed up to Michigan with my sister and nephew for our annual Christmas tree cut-down.  Also later that night, I got sick.  Apparently it wasn’t that I didn’t have an appetite or that the food wasn’t good – I had a virus. boo. 

So no pictures were snapped.  If this makes you sad you can look back at last year’s trip and get happy again.

These days I’m busy trying to get my belly feeling normal again.  Belly, why you treat me so bad?