Yoga Pants Life

Not that my life is particularly busy these days, but it’s been a while since I’ve had a totally relaxing, super lazy weekend. Other than meeting friends for dinner on Friday night, I had no plans and decided to let myself do whatever I want. As it turns out, what I wanted was a whole lot of nothing.

Well, maybe ‘nothing’ isn’t the right term – I did my requisite ‘adult chores’ of cleaning and laundry (I can’t relax if my house is a disaster. I just can’t) and experimented a bit in the kitchen, but I certainly wouldn’t consider either of those things to be especially taxing. I also hit up the gym for a much-needed speed workout.  Other than that, I spent lots of quality time with Tucker and Baxter (when I wasn’t shoo-ing them out of the kitchen.) Of course, I did everything in either yoga pants or PJ pants. Any day I can wear elastic-based pants is a good day, indeed!

**They may look sleepy and innocent, but don’t let this (extremely cute) pic fool you. These two are nothing but trouble!! But seriously, this picture slays me. I just can’t get over the cuteness. It makes my cold, dark heart burst.

God, I’m bored just reading the above paragraphs!

But sometimes boring is good. Being ‘boring’ is how I recharge. After working six days a week for over a year, I’m still amazed that my weekends have two free days now. Those two days of freedom make me yearn for more (hence, my desire to retire early and/or cut my hours.) It’s so nice not to have to cram cleaning, cooking, prep for the week, visits with friends, workouts and wine tasting all in to one day (I’ll take ‘most first-world problems to ever be written in one sentence’ please, Alex!) Things will probably start to pick up a lot in spring and summer (with marathon training and all) so I’m just enjoying being lazy when and where I can.

As I mentioned above, I didn’t spend my whole weekend sitting on the couch, as I spent a lot of time in the kitchen – I made sourdough bread from the starter I created and have been feeding for the last six days. This was only my second attempt at fresh bread and my first sourdough and baguette attempt. The bread wasn’t as sour as I wanted (I’m all about the extra-sour style that California is known for) and I still need to learn the art of kneading, but it was pretty darn tasty and something I want to continue to work on (I forgot to grab a pic…but trust me, you’re not missing much.) 

And really killer crock-pot black beans (1 pound of dried, organic black beans, two jalapenos, a whole head of crushed garlic, dried oregano and cumin, with salt added at the end) I’m so stoked with how they turned out and combined with a Tortilla Land flour tortilla (seriously – the Tortilla Land ‘cook it yourself’ tortillas are awesome and probably the closest I will come to making my own tortillas) with a bit of aged cheddar and fresh cilantro (cilantro is one of those polarizing herbs…people either love it or hate it…mostly hate. However, I happen to love it!)  made for a perfect Sunday breakfast. I will most definitely be making these again!

**Please ignore my crappy food photography.

To round out my weekend, I made a batch of my ‘famous’ whiskey carrots (carrots sauteed in grass-fed butter, honey, salt and pepper with a healthy pour of whiskey mid-way through the cooking process and garnished with a bit of fresh parsley) as well as balsamic roasted Brussels sprouts to go with the rest of dinner, which was corned beef and mashed potatoes (I always thought I hated corned beef and I’m not a big meat eater in general, but it turns out if it’s quality stuff and not the $1.99 per-pound factory farmed stuff, I actually like it. Smug, for sure.)

**More crappy food photography

To top everything off, I was so in love with the whiskey carrot sauce, that I decided to make a batch of whisky sauce to drizzle over ice cream. I didn’t snap a pic, but OMG! I added a little salt to the top of the ice cream whiskey sauce and it really took everything to the next level. I will most definitely be working on perfecting the sauce soon. I could eat it on it’s own, it’s that good.

I’ll head back into the kitchen later today to make Reubens and baked fries (not the healthiest, but a nice use of leftovers. Eating left overs also = more money in my wallet. Win-win!) Unfortunately, my weekend is over – but hopefully this week will fly by (it’s a short work week) On to the next, my friends!