Day 15: First Time Thrifting

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. 

Day 14: I am a Nosy Neighbor

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. 

Day 13: Case of the Mondays

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.

Day 12: Sunday is for S'mores

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. 

Day 11: Rainy Saturday is a Lazy Saturday

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.

Day 10: Friday Night of Games & Movies

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. 

"I Am The Best" by 2NE1 

Day 9: New Year's Day!

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.