Sorry that I have to change the title of my posts because since school started I have barely had time to cook let alone blog about my life. My weeks are crammed with studying and various school related activities on top of my sorority stuff.
But, what I will say is that so far I really like school. I am in a cohort with 25 other ladies and they are all really nice. I am the only East Asian student in the cohort and there is another South Asian student. We do not have any dudes in our group, but that is okay. Most of the ladies are working with children or just working. There is a good mixture of undergraduates and graduate students.
First day of school was officially the 26th, but I don't have classes on Mondays and Wednesdays only Tuesday and Thursdays. Monday and Wednesday of this week was for orientation for the Early Childhood Education (ECE) program. I met some of the girls that will be doing the same schedule as well. They even suggested that we take a multiple intelligence test for homework. I put in a link if you wanted to see what your strengths are and what you need to improve on. We also made a pie chart representing our areas of strengths and needing improvement.
I clearly need to work on my spacing because 5% looks getting than my 10%s.
Starting school has been me want to get myself into gear, so I made like a weekly assignment doc. I hope that this will help me keep organized and on top of the various assignments that I will have to do.
This doc took me about 2 days to complete since I was waiting for my syllabi from my professors.
I already got my field placement which is apparently similar to a preschool that I went to when I was 4-5 years old. When I told my mom about it she mentioned that to me. I don't remember preschool other than that this girl kept calling me a liar and didn't want to be friends with me.
What I learned about this week? I need to plan better with food. I would come home and have to made a whole meal and do homework. Or I would be running out of the door with little to no food because I didn't time my morning correctly. I decided since Fridays are my off days minus work, I will do laundry, clean, errands, and blog. It will be my catch up day, plus the weekends depending if I am traveling or going home to my parents' house or no. I am planning on leaving early afternoon on Sunday to come back here to Severn since there is snow and I need to cook food for the week.
Today is my travel day to Georgia, so last night I laid out all my outfits and accessories for the weekend. I rolled them all into a large packing cube that I have. It left so much room in my suitcase for my toiletries and make up. I guess I can bring home souvenirs? I never really buy them.... I think I am a terrible friend actually.
This morning I woke up knowing that I only needed to pack my backpack and switch my wallet which wouldn't take very long. So I took my time this morning with making my breakfast and cooking sweet potatoes. I waited until about 1PM to start my yoga workout, which was so much more painful than I thought it would be. Jillian Michaels is an intense instructor, I totally get why she was a coah on the Biggest Loser. After 30 minutes of that, I got distracted by Natalie Tran of Community Channel and her hilariously awkward videos. I absolutely love her humor.
I think Sunday night when I get to my laptop I will add links and the YouTube videos. The hotel we are currently at does not let me access internet for free. This makes Princess Kim very sad.
Anyways back to my "I Got This!" moment, I had a 7:05 PM flight to Atlanta, GA today. I planned on driving myself to the airport and parking in the Daily Parking lot. I totally missed the lot when driving and left late. I got super cocky since I now live about 15 minutes from the airport. So I left my house at 6 not accounting for the bus that needs to take me to the terminal. I was late checking in my bag, so it was going to be on the next flight to Atlanta leaving at 8:10 and arriving at 10:10. This is an hour after I land, I debated whether I should carry on and thought, "Meh this means I can wait for my friend, Diem and travel with her." My flight was boarding at 6:35, I was at security by 6:37. So I was late. Just so late because I was cocky and thought I could do things at my own time. Life lesson: Always arrive at the airport at least 15-30 minutes before the flight boards & always check when your flight is going to board.
I got priority check in for Southwest meaning that I got A section boarding, but since I was late... I was after C section boarding. The last few people in the plane.
I feel awful for my friends I traveled with since two of them from NY waited an hour before I arrived. Their flight landed at 8PM and we didn't leave the airport until about 11PM since we waited for Diem who arrived at 9:55, and my bag didn't arrive to about 10:30. When we got there, my bag wasn't on the carousel; I began to panick on the inside. I had to go to the baggage claim office to ask them about my luggage. They had it! I was so relieved!!! I have learned about when I need to leave for my next trip to Austin in about a month. I know that this won't happen again.
Today was a high chance of snow, do my boss at Brickz for Kids let me know yesterday that there was a high chance of my preschool class being canceled.
So this morning I had to be productive to make up for yesterday's just nothingness. I had to clean my bathroom and do my laundry. The laundry was most important since I am leaving for Georgia in a day and I like to pack early to make sure I have everything. Lists are the best for packing, I honestly think they are my salvation. They super help me keep organized.
By the time I was done with cleaning my bathroom and starting my laundry, it was around 12. This is when I would start debating on working out and getting ready for work. Young and I made plans to work out at 5:30-ish, so I didn't have to think about that. Luckily I got a text from my boss saying that classes were canceled since it started to know at 10-11 AM.
Since there was no work and it was snowing, this meant that I could bake the Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie n' Fudge Brownie Bar. This I, of course, found on Pinterest, my pictures do not do it justice, but wow it is delicious.
I actually didn't have enough Oreos since this week and last, Hyman and I have been eating them. So the original has so much more.
I left this out to cool for about 3 hours before cutting it and it was still hot and fudgey in the middle.
I had it as a dessert treat with vanilla ice cream and chocolate fudge on top. I will say that I do not do it justice like the website does. I am just not that artistic.
Currently as I am writing this, I am in absolute pain from the work out Young and I did, plus no recovery from my work out yesterday. We did a 30 minute dance work out from PopSugar Fitness on Youtube. My thigh are just fatigued to the point of pain. I know that it is worth it and it is healthy, but wow. I am beat. Tomorrow I am doing yoga without a doubt or I might continue the pain depending on how much packing I get done to night.
I wish the music matched the moves we learned today and towards the end I was really dizzy and worried about my vertigo; but all in all it was a lot of fun.
Young and I was laughing a lot during this. It didn't feel like it was too crazy of a work out. I think the best part of having a work out buddy is that you don't feel like you are working out you are having fun together. You are achieving a goal with someone, I think it is more fun. But I don't want to be solely dependent on Young. I was last year and when she moved I just stopped working out which was bad. I want to continue no matter what. That is what I would like to achieve.
Today was supposed to be a productive day, it was not. I was supposed to do laundry, clean my bathroom, and meal prep. I totally forgot. So I will be doing all of this tomorrow in the morning and working out with Young in the evening. This is what happens when I do not make a To-Do List for the day. Lesson learned today, I am more productive when I know what I am supposed to be doing within the day.
I was prepping my fruit and veggies this week; I got strawberries and cucumbers so I cut them and placed them into storage containers. I got an awesome water infused from my graduation orientation, so I wanted to try a infuser recipe. I have seen a lot of strawberry, mint, and lemon or cucumber, mint, and lemon.
So after looking at this on Pinterest, I thought I would make it with cucumber, strawberry, lemon and mint. It turned out pretty well, I only let it seep for about 30 minutes before drinking it during my work out.
It is actually really refreshing and just kept refilling it with water through out the day, but it was not as pink at it was the first time. I made it again tonight, since I prepped three days of infusing ingredients into a sandwich bag in the fridge.
I did a "30 Minutes to a Brazilian Body" work out today. This is Capoeira, which is Brazilian martial arts. I was interested in trying it mainly because of Bob's Burger's Season 1 Episode 3, "Sexy Dance Fighting"
This is the actual video I did.
This is how I feel like I looked. Like Tina.
It was a very intense and a lot of low to the ground movements. I honestly get why Brazilians have a nice butt because this was mostly squats. I felt like a breakdancer, but not as coordinated. The GIF of Tina is an actual move, which is amazingly hilarious. Proudest moment of my day: doing capoeira like Tina.
Thursday was an awesome day because of the fact that it was my Graduate School Orientation at UMBC. I was really excited to go and make friends. It started at 2PM, so I wanted to get there around 1:45-ish to make sure that I would make it in time so I can mingle and try to make friends. I really want to make friends at UMBC since everyone that I knew graduated. I know two people one is working full time and the other is in his own Ph.D program... so yeah. I am trying to make new friends especially with the people in the Education Program.
I got there around 1:45PM, I thought it started at 1:30... so I thought I was late, but I checked in and got my name tag, I got papers and a drawstring bag from the GSA. I waited for the campus tour, but no one wanted to talk to me. I also realized that my last name was not write on the name tag. It was "Truing" so I went to the check in and asked whether this was a permanent thing. They apologized and said that they copied it from what I wrote my registration sign up. So it was me. I wrote my own last name wrong. After 25 years of having the same name, I still can not manage to write my last name correctly. Life Lesson: Always proofread everything you type, especially your name.
The orientation was great, I needed up meeting a few people and wanting to be more involved with UMBC's GSA. I met a few people in the Education Program, which was great. I even gave someone I met there a ride home. It wasn't until we got to my car that I thought, "I don't know this person very well. They could murder me." So I brought my cell phone to the front just in case. I think have a stranger danger problem, the problem is that I don't have stranger danger. I believe in people and the good within them. Luckily, the person I took him was a nice guy nothing bad happened and he even friend requested me. I panicked a little over nothing. Am I the only one that does this though? I want to help people in need as much as I can. I have been trying to be as nice as possible and I feel like sometimes that is crazy hard.
Friday was a very fun and chill day. I started to get ready to go home for the weekend. I was able to work at Brickz for Kids that day too. We were teaching Robotics which was super cool. The kids made a claw and programmed the claw to open and close. It was really interesting. I was talking to one of the instructors (who is 17 years old) who told me that I need to get a hobby and stop working so much. I told him in order to get a hobby I needed money. He suggested instrument, cooking and streaming TV. I laughed at the last two since I need to cook to survive as I stream everything. I guess when you are 17, you don't understand the struggles of life and there is the cushion of your parents and of home. Oh yeah, he even asked me if I was going to go clubbing. I SUPER laughed at that one. Hilarious. I wish I was back to being 17, I miss it.
After work, I made plans to eat Bon Chon with a sorority sister from Dallas who was in town for a residency interview. She didn't have a car and was in Downtown Baltimore so I offered to pick her up before we got dinner. Young met us there and we ate a large combo of soy garlic and some spicy with two orders of fries and kimchi. It was delicious. I got a coke since I knew it was going to be a long night of driving. After we went to Shilla's Bakery to get some dessert, but we were all too full to eat it. So we just sat and chatted. It was nice.
Today, MLK day, I went grocery shopping with my cousin Vicky to get a reign on my spending. I am happy to day I only spent $30 on a weeks worth of food. I was really proud of myself. I think she did really help me and the fact that I am not spending that much time at the house this week since I will be going to Georgia over the weekend.
I am currently blogging from home on a Saturday night so... super behind in schedule. I honestly don't remember much about Wednesday besides the bigger aspects: the killer work out Young and I did and the disgustingly salty risotto I made.
I have made quinoa risotto before, so I thought that I didn't need a recipe. But wow, it was a killer I feel so bad that I not only was cocky about making it and offered to make it for dinner for Young and myself; I offered some to Hyman as well. It was gross, I was offended when they told me it was good. They are clearly liars and don't want to hurt my feelings. It makes me think, "What else have they lied to me about?!" Well I figured out that my chicken stock was salty and it didn't help that I added more salt before tasting the food.Life Lesson: Always taste your cook as you cook. Weight watchers will explain that you shouldn't and if you do you need to track, but wow. Always, always taste your food because if you don't want to eat the food why would any one else? Sadly, that night I did not want to eat my own food, it was gross my dinner that night did not get touched.
Our work out was a Turbo Fire HIIT 15, which is 15 minutes of per death. Just heart pumping anaerobic work outs. On top of that we did a PiYo: Upper Body Define, I am still feeling the after effects of this work out. It has been 4 days. I don't think it is normal but wow. It was a killer. I am actually enjoying the fact that I am working out more and trying to be healthy. I think I need to be more independent about working out just in case Young can't work out or our timing does not match up. I have a FitBit Charge HR and I haven't had a consistent 10K steps a day yet. I hit it once in a while when I work out but I don't normally hit it. I think I should try to either working out 30 minutes a day or walking/running/ biking 3 miles a day. I feel like saw that goal somewhere like: Every day do 3 miles or 30 minutes. If any of my readers have a FitBit and want to be my friend you can use my email to add me, I believe my username is KimTruongIll. I accept all friend requests.
I feel like I am so much lazier at my parent's house than I am at my house in Severn. But I have no work out equipment here. I guess it is just my mindset at home, I am a princess at home so princesses don't have to work out. But I am changing my mindset. I am going to work out tomorrow... I really am... right? Ugh self doubt gets me a lot of the time. I am trying to be more positive.... Sometimes it works and sometimes I tell myself, "Kim you are the the fail princess."
I honestly late being two days behind, but I think by Friday I will be caught up. Since today I am not doing anything special besides my graduate school orientation, which I am insanely worried about. I just want to make friends. I think my housemates are getting a little tired of me and I feel like I need to get out of the house more. I don't think I have left since Monday. That is three days of not seeing the outside world without a window. I am leading a sad, sad life.
Anyways, Tuesday was a a great start to the morning. I had oatmeal in the morning with meatballs and tomato sauce. After eating my breakfast. I started to prep my berries in the fridge to eat with my yogurt or whipped cream. I started to prep my green beans too, I chopped off the ends and cooked them in chicken broth. I saved the broth to cook pasta noodles as well.
I combined a box of pasta, chopped green beans, cherry tomatoes, spinach and 4 tablespoons of pesto sauce in a large mixing bowl. It has lasted until today and there should be another bowl too. I have also been sharing it with Young, which has been super helpful or I would have never finished it.
Each time I have been cooking something, I send a picture to my mom. She told me that one day I will be a great cook like my dad, that is honestly my dream. I would love to be able to cook like my dad. He can make anything and it tastes awesome. She is a little jealous that I don't cook for her, my mother is just too cute sometimes.
This week I have been super missing my parents and family. I am actually looking forward to going home this weekend to see them. I know they miss me too... even thought my dad hung up on me when I called him. But I know it was a hang up out of love... Haha... at least that is what I am telling myself.
I would like to promise that I actually read the recipe the whole way, it was really simple. But of course as I was cooking the smoke alarm starts to go off again. Even though I had the fan on so I opened a window. I think the sauce began to burn a little in the oven so... when Young came home she told me to open the balcony door since it stilled like burning. I swear this time... I did everything right. The fan was on... I guess I just don't have skills with the oven. I didn't take a picture of my chicken, but wow it looked nothing like that photo... It was like brown and black... and not a pretty sight. It was pretty delicious though.
I feel like the oven HATES me. Luckily it all cleared out by the time Hyman came home. I think I need to cool it with the oven and only use the toaster oven for the next... I don't know... MONTH! Young didn't want to eat until about 6:30, so I watched Commando as I waited and the area smell cleared out. Just... Kim is a fail. Life Lesson: The oven and Kim are not friends.
But that night we watched Pain & Gain, since Young and Hyman hadn't watched it. About 3/4 of thew ay Hyman went upstairs but we continued without him.
I woke up around 10 since we had a late night of watching the Raid 2 and I had to facetime with my brother at like 10AM. The movie didn't end until like 1AM, my housemates were super tired after we were done watching. They seemed to like it.
I woke up to no real food that was good for me. So I made Shin Ramen Black with an egg (yolky) and a cup of kale. I then added some kimchi for more veggies, Sriracha, and lemon juice. It was pretty delicious. It just came to bite me in the butt later, much later. It was not pretty. Young actually came home and found me in the bathroom. Ramen retaliation. I love spicy but spicy does not love stomach.
I started to wash my sheets and clean my bathroom. I tried cleaning it with a dryer sheet since on Pinterest I saw that it would cut the cleaning in half. It was like the same but my bathroom smelled awesome and I didn't have to scrub since the dryer sheets were scruffy.
After showering, I went to Safeway to go shopping, and from my previous post, my groceries ended up being $118. I got about 43 items. I got lemons, tater tots, green beans, sweet potatoes, spinach, italian seasoning, string cheese, parmesan cheese, cheddar cheese, greek yogurt, hummus, cucumbers, baby carrots, berries, sweet onion, chocolate chips, brownie mix, cupcake liners, cool whip, frozen broccoli, chocolate sauce, oreos, sausage, panko bread crumbs, ground turkey, red wine vinegar, parsley flakes, chicken, and steak.
I think I get too much, I need to work on how much I get since I feel like I am sharing my food, which I don't mind. But I need to work on getting food for just me. But I feel like that is a selfish thought. I just need to work on actually getting things I need for that week. I think I need so much but in the end I only use about half of it.
After I put the groceries away, I started to work on making turkey meatballs which was going to be by meat for a couple of days. I used a large mixing bowl to combine ground turkey, italian seasoning, egg, salt, pepper, panko bread crumbs, cheese, cayenne pepper, garlic, and onion powder. I used my hands to make balls and baked them in a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes.
I don't think the cheese was a good idea since it oozed out. But they came out great and can be added to any pasta sauce. I like using tomato sauce with it. I also made about a liter of pesto sauce as well to finish off what was left of my kale in the refrigerator. I put the extra sauce in the freezer to save for a later date.
Young invited me to go to Zumba at Gold's Gym with her coworker. It was a ton of fun, this was the first Zumba class I took where instructors were white. It was fun, there were little to no Asians like I am used to at other Zumba classes. We even talked about going to an Xpose class that is free for a trial since it is a pole class.
We came home and realized that we left our IDs at the gym so we had to go all the way back to gym and get it. So we didn't get home until about 9 and started to finish making our dinner. We decided to watch Big Hero 6 while we ate. Young was able to finish making her food first, so I let her eat first. Once my stuff was done which was pasta, red sauce, and meat balls, I sat with Young to watch the movie. I forgot to turn off the stove, luckily Hyman caught it and turned it off. I didn't know at all. He didn't say anything to me until I asked though, which I thought was weird. I would have told myself something a long the lines of: "Hey Dummy, learn to turn off the stove!" Yeah I apologized a lot for almost causing a fire. I am just not the smartest. Life Lesson of the day: Always turn off the stove.
I started on Wednesday waking up and making a To Do List for the day to keep me busy and see what I need to do with my life. I tried to do it on my wall calendar desk organizer? It has a cork board, monthly calendar, weekly calendar, and a white board. The To Do list was harder to see, so I started to use post its. I think it really helps to sit and think about what I want to accomplish in a day.
Thursday's To Do List was:
Work out with Young for 30 minutes
Laundry
Pack for New York
Get 3 gift bags
Update agenda for sorority phone conference
Update budget sheet
I was able to accomplish everything but the gift bags. I did not feel like leaving the house on Thursday; it was just too cold to leave the house.
As I was putting my thrift store finds into the laundry, I noticed that one of the dresses I bought had a broken zipper, luckily I only paid about $2 for the dress, so I did not feel terrible to throw it away. One of the pants has a hem on the leg that is coming lost, which I can sew. After finishing the laundry, I started to pack for my weekend trip to NY for my sorority's national conference.
I am not a fan of NY, it confuses me and I am just... yeah not a fan. Everything is crowded and overpriced in my mind. Plus going to the conference I have to dress in business casual and before Wednesday's thrift trip, I had only about 3 things that were business casual. I just don't like dressing up, it makes me feel comfortable since that is not who I am. It is not my style.
After packing everything, I started to work on sorority things for my phone meeting at 9PM. I was starting to make sure that I had everything in order.
When Young came home, we were going to do a work out. She wanted to try out a PopSugar workout. We tried this one:
Pop Sugar's 30 Minute Bootcamp Work out
This work out killed Young and myself. My legs were shaking after and it was just an intense workout. I suggest if you are on a budget and want to work out from home, PopSugar or Youtube in general is a great way to go.
After the work out I had to get on the phone meeting, I am going to be honest and say that I am not the best person to be on the phone with since I just side tracked about halfway through the call and start thinking about something else or doing something else. So while on the call, I was updating my budget sheet. I do it on Google Drive Sheets. This is what it looks like: (This was updated today which is why it has NY stuff on it.)
I am clearly spending above my means right now. I need to really start working...
But I feel like since I started doing this I can really see where my money is going... and I waste a lot of my money on things, and I spend way too much on groceries. But I think I am going to try and do this throughout the year to keep myself in check.
After my phone meeting and some facetime with my mom, Young, Hyman, Sarah (Hyman's lady friend) and myself hungout. We ended up watching the Raid, this is definitely one of my favorite action movies. It is just amazing fight scenes and enough gore for me that it isn't too much. Everyone seemed to like it and wanted to watch the 2nd one.
Friday was the day I was going to NY, so I asked Young to drive me to the train station. My train was leaving the BWI station at 6:33PM. I was going to meet a friend on a train, she was coming form Union Station, so she was able to save me a seat next to her.
Before leaving for the weekend, I wanted to make sure that food was all eaten before the weekend. I also wanted to make sure not to spend too much money over the weekend. I luckily did not spend any money on food since my sorority paid for the lunch on Saturday and the hotel has free breakfast. To reduce on travel expenses, I packed 2 PB&J sandwiches, 2 clementines, 4 chewy bars, and a bag of Cheez Its. I did not have to eat on Friday night since I had a large meal in the afternoon at home. This really ended up saving me a lot since I only spent about $32.36 in NY and that was just taxi. I did not spend any money on food which is really expensive in NY.
I am not sure if I was being frugal this weekend or just a cheapskate because on Saturday night I did not do anything in the city. I ended up getting a free chipotle burrito so I ate that in my room and went to bed at like 9PM. It got me a grandma label by my fellow national board members, but I was the only person super refreshed on the entire weekend. I just love me some sleep.
Wednesday started off really casual and chill. I didn't have to do cook at all which was really nice so I just started off my morning relaxed with an easy breakfast of leftovers. I had the leftover green smoothie that Young made the night before, pesto pasta, chicken, and cabbage.
I am starting to realize that I don't like to eat heavy dinners or sweet breakfasts. So I am trying to have my heaviest meal be either breakfast or lunch, while dinner is rather light. I am definitely trying to have veggies and protein with each meal. A lot of either.
After finishing my sorority stuff my emailing it to be printed, which ended up taking about an hour. I decided to work out I did three different PopSugar workouts: I did a 10 minute Cardio Barre, 10 minute Tabata, and Pilates Inner Thigh work out. It was like 30 minutes which was great. I showered and started to get ready to meet Young for my first thrifting shopping trip. If you haven't seen her blog yet, it is a fashion blog about shopping smartly. She has an awesome wardrobe and she gets everything affordably.
So I went to meet Young at the Salvation Army Thrift Store which is about 20 minutes away from our house. Since I am on a major budget due to my lack of income, complete lack of income this week especially, I told myself that I could not spend more than $10 on an individual item and no more than $50. Young told me that her goal was always to spend less than $30 each visit. We spent an hour and a half in the store looking for clothes for each other. I will say that Young has a better fashion sense than I do, she loves prints, patterns, and colors. I love stripes, and black or grey. We have different tastes, but it made shopping with each other very fun and interesting. I getting up leaving the store with 2 pairs of Ann Taylor pants, two dresses, 1 panda tee shirt, 2 sweaters, 1 button down and 1 3/4 sleeve shirt. I was hoping to find a half zip sweater, but maybe next time I will find it. I ended up spending 31.40 in total, which was way under my budget and I went home with a ton of clothing. Luckily on Wednesdays, the thrift store is 50% off, which really reduced a lot of the clothing. I think it was funny that Young was searching for more casual clothing since she has mostly business attire. I was looking for more business attire since all my clothing is casual.
I think I was especially not willing to pay too much for the clothing since I paid for school that morning and cried a little as I was paying for it. For my first time thrifting, I really liked it. I learned to better inspect the clothing since one of the dress's zipper was broken and a pair of pant's hem was coming apart. The hem can be easily fixed, but I threw the dress away, sadly. I would definitely go away with a better view and mindset about the whole ordeal. I am actually going to a conference this weekend and I will be wearing a lot of the clothing I got to the conference, so I am especially happy that I didn't have to waste a bunch of money to get clothing.
When Young and I went home, Hyman was home too and wanted to each dinner together. So we each started preparing our dinner. I had vanilla yogurt with berries and Honey nut Chex for dinner. It was delicious. I was trying to have little to no carbs for dinner. We sat and talked during dinner, but then Hyman had to leave to take care of his business.
Young and I cleaned up and watched Horrible Bosses 2 since we watched the first one the night before.
I woke up the snow and hearing my neighbor shoveling the snow. Well that was the 3rd time I woke up that morning. Young called me at 7AM because she accidentally locked herself out of the house, I know she really wanted to see my face in the morning. I look like this:
Honestly, who wouldn't want at this in the morning? Sike, I wish I looked as semi-put together as Hot Mess Morning Anna from Frozen, I am definitely a lot worse. The 2nd time I woke up was because I heard Hyman talking to one of our neighbors. She told him not go out in the snow.
Since it was soooo cold and snowing, I decided to have Udon for breakfast. After eating that I realized that I needed to cook my broccoli in the fridge. I found some recipes on Food Network and went with Alton Brown's Roasted Broccoli with some modifications. I didn't have any panko bread crumb and I added some onions since I needed to get rid of it. I feel bad cooking so many onions since Young is allergic to them, I feel like I might be killing her slowly. So I made roasted broccoli and I tried to pan roast it as well. That didn't turn out well since I added water and it ended up being steamed and I might have over cooked them. Since I was worried about the smoke alarm going off again, I decided to roast the broccoli in the toaster oven instead. After cooking that, I had to finish cooking my Lemon Garlic Dump chicken.
Oven roasted
Pan Steamed
This picture doesn't look amazing, but it tasted really lemony which I loved.
Young came home from work early around 1PM because of the snow, and she liked the pan steamed better. I sat with her as she ate lunch and talked about different things. She said that she wanted to take a nap then we could work out, have dinner and watch a movie. I told her that was fine since I had a lot more sorority things I needed to complete. I did that until Hyman came home around 6PM. He went down to eat dinner, and I texted Young to join us.
For dinner I had chicken, cabbage, broccoli, pesto and oatmeal together. This was uber filling and I didn't want to eat that much after. Just a marshmallow on a chocolate chip cookie. I don't know why, but I thought it would be delicious. It was.
I just thought the caramelization on the marshmallow was amazing. There is a chocolate graham cracker for Young.
After dinner, Hyman went upstairs to do work and other things. Young and I decided to watch Dredd on Netflix since she hadn't seen it and I thought she would enjoy it. After, she wanted to watch a comedy and we went with Horrible Bosses, since she hadn't seen it. In the middle of watching the movie, we ended up hearing a neighbor getting into an argument with a random guy. He was banging on their door so loudly that Young and I thought it was our door and they lived across the street. We went to the window to see what was going on; the man was knocking on the door and screaming at the homeowners. He started walking to the back of the house and kicked a car parked on the street. I called the non-emergency number for the police to let them know. The operator asked if I would be willing to talk to the cops and I said that I was. Young and I continued watching to see where the gentleman walked and did to let the cops know. He disappeared into the woods across the street before the cops arrived. Unfortunately, they didn't end up talking to us, but it was really terrifying to watch. I am really happy that Young was awake with me since I don't think I would have handled it well by myself.
I will be doing two posts since I am really behind on my posts... I know you guys are waiting for them because my life is uber interesting... not. But I am glad that people are reading.
Monday... oh Monday. Everything was going great, I woke up with a plan to cook my allusive cabbage that I bought on New Year's Eve. I ended up searching Pinterest for different cabbage recipes. I knew that for one of my recipes would be cabbage cooked with bacon fat, which ended up pretty delicious. I found this on Pinterest:
So I went to this recipe, and read it and substituted some recipes because I didn't have any fennel seeds. As the cabbage was roasting in the oven, I was cooking the bacon. I think the heat from the oven and the smokeyness from the bacon caused a lot of heat... and the fire alarm went off. So I turned on the fan, fanned the smoke alarm, and opened a window. So, I tried to make sure that it would not go off. I started texting my housemate, Young, about the situation. She told me not to tell Hyman about it since that is something he would not be happy about. So I haven't, I just fail at roasting cabbage I guess. Lesson learned: Always turn on the fan when cooking!
Roasted Cabbage
Semi-steamed cabbage with bacon and onions
After making both sets of cabbage, I went upstair to work on some of my sorority things. Around 12-ish, Young came home for lunch and she had some of my cabbage. We talked during her lunch and I further explained what happened. She invited me to go to Zumba with her and her coworker at 7:30PM and that we would get back in time for our friend to come hang out and eat s'mores.
I declined since I didn't want to spend money on a Zumba class. After she left for work, I started working on more sorority things. At 2PM, I went to take a walk around the neighborhood for about an hour. I explored more of the neighborhood, which was nice but freezing, absolutely freezing. But it was a nice walk, I came back and showered in time to watch The Taste while FaceTime-ing with my brother. We like to watch it together to comment about the contestants and to predict who's going to be eliminated next.
At around 5:30PM, Young came home and I suggested that she start cooking her food before she goes to Zumba, so that she could have her food right away when she got home. She was cooking her dinner and I began cooking mine. I started to make pesto with kale since I had a lot of kale that I have not been eating. It ended up being really bitter with a weird after taste so I added lemon juice and it turned out pretty good.
Hyman came home in the middle around 6:30PM and he started doing his laundry. Young left around 6:50PM, and I started cooking my dinner. I finished cooking around 7:10PM and finished eating around 8PM when Hyman came down to eat his dinner. I sat with him and talked. He wanted to Plex to see The Interview, which I have now seen three times. We sat and watched as he ate dinner he was in and out of the movie to do his laundry. At about 8:30PM, Lacey came over to surprise Hyman, but also to hang out and eat s'mores. I offered her some dinner and cookies. She ate most of the cookies and once Young came home I offered to make everyone some s'mores. I made two each for everyone. Young ate hers after her dinner. Hyman only ended up eating one so the extra went to Young. After The Interview was over, Young wanted to show me The Man from Nowhere on Netflix. During the movie, I kept seeing people that we knew, which I think ruined Young's life since she was super into those characters and I related them to people we were friends with. I thought it was an interesting movie, it was like Man on Fire and The Equalizer but with consequences for the main character. After the movies, it ended up being around 12AM, so everyone went home and to their rooms. I folded my laundry that I did that morning.
I started off the day late, I was just exhausted for some reason. I knew that Young was going to go back home to see her mom and I didn't have anything planned to cook for breakfast. So I started on a Pinterest recipe: Lemon Garlic Dump Chicken. I actually read most of this recipe, but made it more of my own.
I put zest and juice of 2 lemons, 5 finely chopped garlic pieces, onion powder, poultry rub, cilantro flakes, cayenne, and salt and pepper into a gallon bag with 5 chicken breasts. You are supposed to freeze it, but I just wanted to marinate to cook either that evening or the next day. I actually had it on Monday night for dinner, it was delicious!
Young came upstairs in the middle of my making dump chicken and we talked as she watched me making it. We ate Honey Nut Chex for Breakfast. After she went to get ready to go home and I worked on this blog. She left around 3PM, but returned around 3:30PM-4PM since her mom was feeling sick. We ended up going to Lima's Chicken for lunch/ dinner. I got 1/4 dark meat chicken with yucca fries, green beans, and lot and lots of green sauce. I always have to ask for more since they don't give me enough. I think the lack of carbs ignited my hunger. I wanted to eat more, so I just ended up having some more of my chocolate chip cookies. We watched Guardians of the Galaxy because... well.. Chris Pratt is gorgeous. As we were letting the movie buffer by pausing, I made oven S'mores for Young and myself, another recipe that I just glanced at on Pinterest.
I put broke up 2 graham crackers into 4 pieces and placed 2 pieces of Hershey's chocolate and a marshmallow on top. I put it in the toaster oven for about 5 minutes (I set it on lightly toasted setting). I think it was too much chocolate since it was spilling over the sides when we smooshed the s'more together. There is that nostalgia about a campfire, this is just sooo much easier since the marshmallow and chocolate are melted.
At around the same time, Hyman came home and my cousin, May who lives in Canada FaceTime-ed me. So I was talking to May and Young asked Hyman to reset the router. After it was reset everything was working swimmingly. Hyman brought back a shelving unit from PA, which increased pantry space. He started to eat dinner after building it and we ended up watching Edge of Tomorrow, I conned him into hanging out all night since the move pulled him in. He told us that he had things he needed to take care of... Oops!
Monday everyone is going back to work, and I will be home during the day solo, back to the routine of life.
I will say that when it rains, I do not want to leave the house or move. I am not sure if I am only one out there that is like this. But wow, rain makes me a lazy hobo. Waking up to rain hitting the tree next to my window lulled me into a sleep like state for most of the morning. I was feeling groggy in the morning as well. I finally got out of bed around 12PM and got ready to start the day.
I started to make grilled cheese sandwiches. I got the idea from looking on my Facebook 's New Feed and seeing the 26 Food You Should Learn To Cook in Your Twenties by BuzzFeed. The first item is grilled cheese:
Honestly, doesn't that look amazing. I had to see the directions because my mouth was watering from looking at the picture. The directions are so simple, yet I never thought about it. My grilled cheese is usually semi melty in the center and almost burnt on the outside. I skipped the salt step when I made it, this is mostly because I completely forgot. It is a good thing too since Young does no like too much salt in her food. I clearly love all the salt, butter, sugar, cheese, and fat. They are alllll delicious.
So I used butter, whole wheat bread, and pepper jack cheese (2 slices per sandwich). They turned out delicious. I gave Young the sandwich with thinner slices of cheese since she does not love cheese as much as I do. I love it. I would put it on everything if I could. We ate that with green smoothie she made, it had pear, Granny Smith apple, kale, and frozen pineapples in it. It was really refreshing and delicious. I don't normally like green smoothies, but the kale was masked by the pineapples. Sweet, delicious pineapples.
We waited about an hour or so until we worked out. Young went to work on her blog, and I just went to my room to look at Pinterest. Our work out was Turbo Fire Low HIIT 20 and PiYo Legs. It was an intense work out. I am still feeling the effects and it has been two days. After showering, I changed into loungewear since I thought Young was going to go home after the work out. She came up and asked if I wanted to go to Target, so I got changed and we went.
I am not sure if it was an off night, but the Target we usually go to was completely bare. There was nothing in t the $1-3 bins. We got some things that we needed. I always forgot something I need, so I might just stop by Walmart this week to get gift bags.
After Target, we were starving so we heated up the left over NYE Tacos and pasta from our friend, Lacey and ate that. Young decided to stay the night at home, which was awesome. We each ended up staying in our rooms and working on separate things. I finally got to FaceTime my mom, which was really needed; I hadn't talked to her since I came back here on Tuesday. I also worked on my blog and things for my sorority. I called it a night around 11AM, I was exhausted... probably from the rain.
Friday morning started off with me waking up late around 11AM, and relaxing in bed until about 11:30AM. I was talking to my brother and cousin in the morning since my cousin Vicky was coming to visit that evening. It would allow me to get stuff from my house that I forgot: trash can, laptop charger, trash bags, sharpies, dry erase markers, and a pair of khakis. My brother was gracious enough to gather all those things for me to give to my cousin, Vicky.
After setting all that up, I went downstairs to start cooking breakfast for Hyman and Vicky. First, I put 8 slices of turkey bacon on a baking sheet in a 350°F oven for about 20 minutes. It turned into the chip again, which I know that Young likes, but I totally forgot to ask Hyman what he likes. I am clearly a terrible housemate. I started on the french toast batter again. To the normal eggs, milk, sugar, cinnamon batter I added brown sugar and a flour & water mixture so that the flour would not just stay in clumps on top of the batter. Young told me that she liked day 2 french toast better. They each ended up with 3 slices of french toast and 4 slices of bacon. In the beginning stage of making the french toast, Hyman came down for breakfast. He seemed interested in what I was making and asked me questions about the batter and what went in it. He also seemed a little worried about the amount of food that I was putting on his plate. He does not eat that much; he ended up eating all the french toast, but only 3 slices of the bacon. They were both nice enough to wait as I made my breakfast of leftover pasta and sausage that I ended up cooking for myself. Hyman helped me flip the sausage when I ended up getting distracted in the middle of cooking. He even washed the dishes after we were all finished too.
Hyman then got ready to go home to Philadelphia to see his family. Young and I ended up watching Maleficent on Plex and another movie or TV show. I am not 100% sure. But we ended up snacking on chips, salsa, and guacamole too. After the movie, we each got ready to go to Shin Chon and tried to go to Target earlier, but I take too long to get ready.
We met Huy and Vicky at Shin Chon in Ellicott City, which is Korean BBQ. It was a lot of fun seeing them and eating delicious Korean meat. The only downside of Korean BBQ is how you stink after. The smell gets into your hair and clothing and does not leave. At the dinner, we talked about how Hyman seemed sad that he could not be joining us. After dinner, Vicky and Huy came back to the house to see it for the first time. We gave them a tour and showed off our rooms. They seemed to like the house. We then played Telestrations and watched Mean Girls.
I absolutely love board games or games in general, but this is definitely my favorite one.
If you have never played or heard of it, it is like pictionary and telephone had a baby. It is a hilarious game especially when you are playing with a larger group of people. You start off with a secret word, someone has to draw a picture of that word then pass it to the person to their left. That person needs to guess the word from the picture then pass it to the left. The new person needs to draw the word and this continues until it ends back to the original person. It can be on point the whole time or just go somewhere completely different. Once I played the original word was moonwalk, which turned into Michael Jackson and then Super Saiyan. Everyone seemed to like the game, which I was happy about. I think the best one from when we played was graveyard to garden.
Vicky, Myself, and Young
After Vicky and Huy left, Young and I stayed up watching The Equalizer and then we started watched K-POP music videos. Specifically, we were watching 2NE1 to see the evolution of their plastic surgeries then we moved to Big Bang. It ended up being 3AM after that and we went to bed.
This will forever be my favorite 2NE1 song and music video.
Happy New Year! I am a little.. okay let's be real... a lot late. I have been busy hanging out with my housemate, Young. She has had the week off so we have been hanging out all week. It has been great and fun not to be alone in the house all day long.
On New Years, I got up around 11AM and started to change my sheets. I wanted new sheets and a clean room for the new year. I febreezed the mattress, pillows, and blanket. I put them in the washing machine, which was my first using the machine. I don't think it put the correct settings since the machine sounded like it was unbalanced and it was really really loud. I was really worried about walking up my roommate.
I started making french toast since it is Young's favorite breakfast food. So I tried making it based on what I saw on Pinterest.
This was all I saw from it so I thought, "Okay I just need some flour," so I added about a teaspoon to my batter for the french toast. the flour stayed on top and clumpy even after more mixing. When I dunked in the slices of bread, I would just spread the flour over the bread. I will say that this helped make the bread browner with a crispier crust. I also made scrambled eggs and turkey bacon with it. I semi-killed turkey bacon in the toaster oven so that they ended up like bacon chips. It was interesting since they were not greasy, the whole cooking process for the bacon was simple. I would rather cook bacon in the oven. It takes longer, but it is so much less greasy.
After eating together, Young was nice enough to wash the dishes after. As she was washing, I started to bake the chocolate chip cookie batter I made and chilled the night before. Young watched as I did this. I wanted the cookies to be a little crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside, but I think I made them way to big for that so they are soft all over. Young said that they were good. But I was still worried.
We watched part of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the Chromecast using Plex, but our internet was being crappy so we ended up watching Ultimate Spiderman on Netflix. Then we worked out by doing a Daily HIIT workout. We did a animal based work out for two rounds and Young did an extra core workout and I sat there and watched her. We then showered and got ready to go to a New Year's Day Party at our sorority sister's boyfriend's house. We also saw Hyman before we left and offered from him to come but he declined. He wanted to get Pho for dinner with us, but I told him to eat the leftovers from the New Year's Eve part from the night before. He seemed okay with that.
We went to the party, which was full of food and Filipinos. The host's friends seemed a little stand offish but I still had a good time talking to people. They watched the interview too.
After the party, we went home to finish the rest of TMNT. Young seemed to really enjoy the movie. I think it reminds me of the 90's movies of TMNT, which I uber loved. It was just enough of the goofy-ness with all of the fighting scenes. I just hated how they changed the story line.
This is the first picture I took of the New Year: Young and I.
I came back to the house on the eve of New Year's Eve aka December 30th in the evening. Thank goodness my housemates were home because I had so much stuff it was like I was moving again. I brought a printer, my clean laundry, two pots, wok pan, two crates of clementines, case of Honey crisp apples, six water bottles, instant noodles, over the door hooks, laundry supplies, Ziploc bags, Sperrys, L.L. Bean boots, and Chromecast. I brought all these things back, but totally forgot important things like: trash can, sharpies, dry erase markers, and the most important thing I forgot was my laptop charge. As I am writing this, I am on 22% and going down. I am willing to risk it to update the blog.
I am so thankful for Young who helped me carry all my stuff in and organizing it in the kitchen. Hyman helped me bring the stuff from the living room to the kitchen. They are both great for helping me carry my things into the house and around the house. Hyman, Hyman's lady friend, and Young hung out in the kitchen for about an hour talking about our Christmases and mutual friends. Around 11PM, Hyman's lady friend went home and we continued talking until about 2:30AM. It was nice, I feel like they missed me.
On New Year's Eve, I woke up around 11AM. Young and I made plans to work out, go grocery shopping, and prepare for friends coming over for New Year's Eve. I started cleaning my bathroom when Young came upstairs to see if I wanted to work out. We did Turbo Fire's Fire 30 and a Daily HIIT work out that she had. It was intense, I am started feeling sore by that night. My legs were heavy and sore. After the work out, we got ready to go shopping at Safeway, Bed Bath and Beyond, and the liquor store.
I made a list of the groceries we would need for the tacos for our potluck party and my groceries for the week. The total for the groceries was $150, I really need to start rethinking what I need for food and stop buying like I am feeding a family. I am feeding me. At Bed, Bath, and Beyond we got cookie sheets, liquid measuring cup, and cooking utensil rest. I love those 20% coupons from BB&B, they never expire and you can use as many as you want during your purchase.
Around 5PM, Young was hungry and cooked us some lunch. As she was doing that I was prepping for the tacos by dicing the tomatoes. I was going to shred the lettuce, but as I was opening it I realized I bought cabbage instead of iceberg lettuce. So I had to go back to the store, which I did after making chocolate chip cookie batter. Young was nice enough to come back with me as I picked up bell peppers, cumin, and the much needed lettuce. It was about 7PM when we got back from the 2nd shopping trip. The guests were coming by 8PM, so I needed to get into gear cooking the tacos. Young made guacamole for the first time and she did a great job. The taco bar seemed like a great idea, I think that everyone enjoyed it and we have supplies for another taco night if needed or a burrito night. This was my first time making tacos. They all seemed to like it, I wish I gotten more taco sauce to mix in with the ground turkey.
We had about 4 people came over. They brought pasta dish, pie, and alcohol... lots and lots of alcohol. They seemed to like the tacos and pasta. It was a chill night of talking, listening to music and watching the TV once it was midnight. I didn't turn the TV onto the right channel so we didn't see the ball drop.
I kept making a joke to Young about how when it was 12:01AM everyone had to go, but they actually did leave by that time minus one closer friend. She stayed until about 2-3AM. Young and Lacey (our close friend and sorority sister) forbid me from cleaning the taco bar since they wanted a midnight snack. It took me and Young about an hour of on and off cleaning to get the kitchen back to where it was. It didn't seem like there was a party at all.
I hope that you all are having a great new year. Are you guys making any resolutions or goals? I am going to make goals for this year, but more about that tomorrow.
