holiday weekend & what's on the menu - week 3 (abridged version)

happy labor day y'all! i've been spoiled with a l o n g four-day weekend. definitely much appreciated. and much, much needed.

i feel like i haven't done much. probably because i took last week off from the gym to get over that danged cold. and yet, i feel like i've done a ton this weekend. my thoughts are in about a million places right now, so i think i'll make a list of 7 things that happened over the past few days.

1. i finished reading Yoga Bitch. you can find a full synopsis here. i found it to be Eat-Pray-Love-esque, but with a much more twisted, outlandishly sarcastic, and boldly honest tone. i literally LOL'd several times while reading it.

2. i started reading my new "book club" read (posted a pic of it on saturday). a few girls at work started a sort of book club last fall. we tapered off after the holiday season, but are ready to pick it back up. the first book, The Passage, was selected by one of the girls. i've never really been a fan of fantasy, or zombie/vampire novels, but this one actually sounds like a legitimately good read. i'm about 85 pages in and find it hard to put down so far. aren't those the best kind?

3. went house hunting yesterday. we're moving to the opposite side of town. roughly between 20 and 25 miles away from our current apartment. our lease is up in october and with rent getting out of hand (and they want to raise it again if we resign!!), we thought it'd be a good move to relocate to a house. more space for sadly about the same we're paying for a two bedroom apartment. what is this world coming to? ugh. economy woes...
oh, and i had to stop for coffee and a sweet treat. my favorite doughnut shop is on that side of town. since i only get to stop by everyone in a blue moon, i figured this was as good as a blue-moon-kinda day.

my guilty pleasure

4. did my weekly Target run and grocery haul. surprisingly, i made out with only spending $40 at Target!! hallelujah!! happy dance!! stuck to my list and refrained from doing a lap around the store. that's usually how the add-ons end up hopping into the cart. :D
TJ's was a madhouse today! as was Whole Foods. it's like everyone in the city opted to all do a year's worth of grocery shopping on the same day, at the same store, at the same time LOL.

5. i should probably apologize ahead of time for #5... i just can't get it out of my mind. i saw a lady relieve herself. in the grass. in front of a bus stop. less than a mile away from my house. she just did it. right there. not 10 feet from the street. so casually! like she does it all the time! without a care in the world. not an ounce of shame! as though it's perfectly normal! as though we all do it!!! now, i'm not saying i live in the fancy part of town, but i do live in a nice neighborhood. stuff like this just doesn't happen!! i'll say it again, what is this world coming to?!!

6. the highlight of my day. week. year. okay, maybe not quite year haha. i mean, it's not over yet! went for a little trail run before dinner. there's a MUP path just down the street, and alongside it runs a drainage wash. the city built a few little trails down in it, but mostly it's just all sand, rocks, small boulders and scree. perfect for those off-road crazies like myself. the mileage was short. just 2.82mi. the pace, relaxed (read slow haha). but it was delightful. rock hopping and plodding through wet, and in some places deep, sandy terrain mostly. also lots of splashing lol. there was a very mini river running from the recent rain storms. not a ton of water at all. i'm smart enough not to run down there when there's a sizable amount of runoff. we get crazy flash floods here. anyways, i'm a sucker for running through water puddles, mini rivers, etc... descended 69 feet. climbed 89 feet. the air was heavy and wet. hello humidity! and, oh hi asthma!! turned back when i did because a) the dude strained his ankle last week and it began aching a bit, and b) because dark storm clouds came rolling in, and a light rain began to fall. these summer storms are known to start pouring without much warning, and again, being in a drainage wash, we were erring on the side of caution.

the Kinvara TR2 is my go-to trail shoe right now

testing out my new Tifosi shades... & of course no trail run is complete
without a minor scrap. ironically, it started bleeding heavier right
after this pic... i'm a born klutz. 

7. each time jared cooks on the cast iron grill, the whole house fills up with smoke. it's pretty funny and annoying all at the same time. tonight he opted to use coconut oil instead of olive or safflower... and he set the smoke alarm off!!! hahahahahaha... in the three years we've lived here, i've never heard so much as a beep out of it. tonight though, he learned that coconut oil smokes at a much lower temp than some others.

and now a little, what's on the menu (week three) update. i've got a few things in the fridge that i must do something with, so i'm keeping things pretty simple. being resourceful. green and thrifty. :)

breakfast: french toast. no recipe here really. i have about half a loaf of gluten-free bread left, and since i'm all sandwiched out, i figured why not turn it in to something else? french toast was the first thing that popped into my foodie brain. plus, i have a few eggs to use up as well. i use unsweetened vanilla almond milk, a dash of cinnamon, and voila! french toast. i was terrible at capturing a single pic of last week's food goodness, so this week i will make an honest effort not to disappoint. 

lunch: keeping with the simple meals and making burrito bowls. you could probably wing it, but i like to use this recipe i found on the Food Network site a while back. i'm making mine meat free and vegan, so i'm using vegan sour cream and cheese as substitutions, and skipping the meat entirely.

dinner: i'm using an old, all-time favorite, go-to, cheap recipe. it's a pasta toss. i found in an old issue of Self magazine. you can find it here. for this dish, i'll be subbing whole wheat pasta with rice pasta (it's gluten free and tummy approved) and vegan cheese for parmesan. i also prefer to use heirloom tomatoes.

what's on your menu this week?

anyone have a fun, exciting, or productive holiday weekend? or did you have to work?

any good books you've read recently?