Day 2: Cilantro and Lime Chicken

Okay so real fail on yesterday. Complete fail. I ended having a huge ordeal with the AD that kept me at work til about 7-7:30. Got it in the day after without issue. Not one of my better Ads so a little disappointed but such is life.

Failed at yoga since I had to stay at work super late. Anyways, signed up for Wednesday yoga class. Hopefully that happens.

Did not end up doing Rockville football because 1. Late day at work and 2. Realized a sale at Lowe’s was going to be over at midnight and we needed to get lots of stuff! Turns out that was a fail as well since we could not figure out what material and how much to get, so we missed out on football and the sale. Very upsetting Monday evening.

I did get home around 8:30 after stopping by grocery store and throw together slowcooker Cilantro Lime Chicken. This meal was actually one of my favorite dishes I’ve ever cooked! Very easy to do too.

Here are some pictures from Day 3:

I ate it over a bed of cilantro and lime rice with some cheese sprinkled on top!

At least one thing was successful (and delicious)!

Here’s to hoping today is much more productive. 

Getting Back on the Yoga Train

A real to-do list today. 

1. Play in Illustrator and create a new AD, due by COB today! (I really love this part of my marketing job)

2. Run home and throw together Day 2 of CrockPot week. Thinking Cilantro Lime Chicken tonight since I have the necessary ingredients for that meal.

3. Rush over to Yoga this afternoon from 6:00PM-7:15PM

4. Trek up to Rockville via metro to meet up with AJ and Sketchy for MNF! Stupid fantasy. I need RGiii and Santana Moss to completely screw up in order to win this week -- a win I really need!

Yoga is something I never tried until a random summer in college. I went to one class and absolutely fell in love. At the time I was also running regularly so was somewhat in shape to get through a yoga class. I did Vinyasa yoga which is just constant flow between poses/stretches. I always describe yoga as the one and only time in my life when my brain is seriously completely blank. It is the most incredible and stress-relieving feeling one can have. I then went on to take semester long classes at GW which made life a lot better in all respects! Then two years ago I just stopped yoga and running and everything! 

Trying to get my shit together again and starting with something I know I once loved -- Yoga. A couple weeks ago I reached out to a couple friends (one of whom got me INTO Yoga in the first place -- Catherine) to see if they would go to a class with me. I feel going with other people makes you more motivated to actually go! I was so disheartened to see how much had changed in two years with my body. I could hardly get through the first half of the class and was very far from being able to do the stretches properly. The next couple of days I was super sore. 

BUT this made me even more motivated to get back on the Yoga bandwagon and challenge myself to get back to that place I was so long ago! Catherine regularly attends classes and passed along an amazing Cyber Monday deal from the place she goes -- Meridian Yoga. I bought some deals and now have about 17 classes to use. I'm signed up for today and Wednesday. Hoping things get better by the 10th class. I feel that is a reasonable goal. At any rate, there are awesome introductory deals: http://www.meridianyogadc.com/. Hopefully once I build up the breathing and endurance aspects through Yoga I can start running again. This past weekend I registered for a simple 5K Color Run at National Harbor for mid May. I'd really love to be able to run that race by then. 

Here's to making goals, sticking with them and accomplishing them (also to getting my ass into gear to be able to wear something amazing for the wedding and to love my wedding photos!). 

CrockPot Week Kickoff

In all the excitement of yesterday, I completely forgot to go grocery shopping and did not have my Day 1 ingredients handy. As I was sitting in the bar getting ready for 1:00PM kickoff I realized I completely dropped the ball on CrockPot week! Determined not to postpone the challenge I decided to head to the grocery store after the 1:00PM games (stupid rainy football games) and put something together that could cook in 4 hours vs 6-8 hours!

Day 1:

I went with slow-cooker Chicken Stew. Kind of made up my own recipe.

Ingredients:

-chicken (thigh meat/dark meat)

-celery

-carrots

-red potatoes 

-packet of gravy mix 

-chicken broth

-cream of chicken

-green onions

-red onions

-cilantro

-random spices

Of course there are pictures:

To add to my excitement, I decided to break out some festive dishes I bought last year at an after-Christmas sale (been waiting a whole year to use these!). It's an entire 24 piece set but just using the bowls tonight:

Finished product:

Verdict: So this was definitely more of a "Hearty Chicken Soup" rather than "Chicken Stew." Note for next time: more cream of ____ ingredient and less broth/water to make it thicker! But as far as soups go, it was pretty good! The veggies and potatoes were very tastey independent of the broth -- I can taste that the veggies/potatoes were infused with flavor of the broth/spices! 

December!

I have no idea when it became the last month of the year. I swear this past year has flown by! I am looking forward to so many things this month. Getting LSAT out of the way is a great way to begin this awesome month of festive merry happiness!

Because I'm a 5-year-old child, these (pictured below) are what I used on my test -- and what kept me pushing through the damn thing with a smile on my face. The judge-y looks from fellow test-takers were great. Meh.

Then I spent a couple hours shopping for festive things for the Tacky Sweater Bar Crawl. Went to Ross for the best cheap ugly sweaters and a random party store for hats, garland and various jingly things. The final product was beyond amazing.

Sketchy (who was not at all thrilled by his outfit I put together):

kind of a dark picture but I love the Bow-Tie!

Now, me (extremely thrilled to be a festive reindeer!):

First picture is kind of dark but I was trying to show off my garland bracelets and jingle rings!

AJ was the best sport ever. He wore a crazy ugly sweater vest and elf hat -- worked very well with his Movember Mustache!

I don't really like this last picture but I think it's the only one of all of us:

Exciting first day of December. SO.Very.excited for all the other festive events to come this month!

The Final Countdown to a Bitter Sweet Weekend

Bitter: 

LSAT on the brain. LSAT t.o.m.o.r.r.o.w. 

Helpful tip of the day: If you're ever taking the LSAT, this web site is phenomenal for studying -- http://lsatblog.blogspot.com/p/lsat-logic-games-tips.html

Sweet:

Starting tomorrow afternoon life will be so miraculous, especially this weekend! Tomorrow afternoon I'm going to allow myself to forget what happened in the testing room, enjoy the "Tacky Sweater Bar Crawl" in downtown DC and begin to bask in the impending holiday season! Kicking off holiday season with a festive bar crawl is just about right for me. Hopefully Monday we'll get our tree and decorations up! Super excited to make sketchy be festive and happy. He hates it -- Mr. Grinch. =)

Also, hopeful for a back to normal routine of football Sunday with friends at a local bar -- I'm more excited for this than one can imagine. I feel like I haven't seen anyone or watched football properly in weeks! My fantasy league is a little OOC right now too. Anything can happen in the next two weeks of regular season play! Sorry DC, I love ya, but thanks to AJ (opponent this week) gotta hate on RGIII and the Skins just this one week in hopes of pulling out a much needed fantasy win. 

Sunday also marks day 1 of CrockPot week! Gonna let meal one cook as I enjoy some football out and about. 

Here's to hoping I don't slow-cook the kitchen this weekend! 

Christmas is in the Air!

Too much has been going on in life the past two weeks between impromptu cruise, being unbelievably sick, funeral, Thanksgiving, home buying and LSAT in two days. I think with things calming down and LSAT hanging very heavily on my mind, things started to actually sink in and my brain and life got a little more than very overwhelmed. My pick-me-up -- ignore all important things going on in life and focus on happy things -- like Christmas! I thought about my first real Christmas and how happy it makes me just to think about it.

Two (almost three soon!) Christmases ago, in my first adult apartment (where GW could not kick me out) I made the decision to stay in DC for the holidays. I purchased and put up my very first Christmas tree.

 I took a million pictures and felt like a little child. I spent Christmas eve on my couch with a cup of hot chocolate and a good book, watching the snow fall outside my window illuminated by the lights of the Pentagon. It was perfect.

Natasha was staying with me to extend her DC living before hopping on a plane with her one-way ticket to California (she graduated a semester early). We went out to Bethesda on Christmas day and hung out and had Chinese, naturally, as all minorities do on Christmas. 

It took me a solid 22 years before I had my very own Christmas tree but it happened and it was amazing. 

That Christmas was also the day Sketchy was tossed into my life. =)

Best.Christmas.Ever.

CrockPot 7 Day Challenge

I've been holding out to get a digital touchscreen CrockPot because they're a thing of beauty but I finally broke down and just got a regular CrockPot on Black Friday. It was such a good deal -- 10.00. So now I'm going to make sure it gets some use. I'm challenging myself to make a meal in the CrockPot for seven days straight! Shouldn't be too difficult given the meal cooks itself.

I tried to get a good variety of dishes -- different meats, styles and cuisines!

Here's the line-up so far. May add and remove as I go:

Day 1: Chicken Tikka -- http://pinterest.com/pin/20055160811350601/

Day 2: Jambalaya -- http://pinterest.com/pin/20055160812371450/

Day 3: Cilantro Lime Chicken -- http://pinterest.com/pin/20055160811632472/

Day 4: Chicken and Wild Rice -- http://pinterest.com/pin/20055160812371493/

Day 5: Meatball Stew -- http://pinterest.com/pin/20055160812371470/

Day 6: Paella -- http://pinterest.com/pin/20055160812371457/

Day 7: Lasagna -- http://pinterest.com/pin/20055160812371459/

Day 1 begins Sunday. Have to get some much needed grocery. Our fridge is so sad right now.