time flies when you're swamped!

It's practically mid Feb and I haven't updated at all!

#14 - I joined my work's Culture Kommittee (CK) and mentioned my idea about an art/craft gallery night auction type thing! It won't be til like September or so, so we'll see...hopefully I can really make it happen!!

#17 - I treated myself to some expensive new hair color and a massage! $100 later...sheesh, see my Give Up for Feb!

#45 & 50 (cranberries and Brussels sprouts) - The following is my parade of new recipes!


Baked Cranberry Squash
Combined chopped pear, fresh cranberries, a little apple cider vinegar (but a couple TB of OJ would be better!), TB or so of honey, cinnamon and allspice. Cut a butternut squash lengthwise, carved out the seeds and stuff, and spooned the pear cranberry mixture into squash cavities. (Used extra liquid to brush over cut edges) Put squash, cut side up, on a baking sheet and baked for about 45 mins.
--made two meals out of it, the cranberry mixture was fab, I loved how it soaked into the squash when it baked!!


Caramelized Brussels Sprouts with Pistachios
Sauteed chopped onions in butter and added some white wine vinegar. Added separately steamed Brussels sprouts, some sugar, and a little more vinegar until the sprouts were caramelized. Seasoned with S&P and topped with the pistachios.
--I've never really had pistachios before (I know right?) and now I'll never NOT have them again...where have you been all my life?!? Likewise for the Brussels sprouts! I don't know why they get such a bad rap!

Crispy Salmon Burgers
Combined drained salmon (the can kind), crumbled whole wheat crackers, garlic, mayo, lemon juice, green onions and formed into patties which I browned and served with a lemon garlic mayo.
--Salmon in a can is interesting...it's seemingly convenient and cheap, but really hard to pick out all the bones and skin and stuff. Plus I can't make any kind of seafood cake without it totally falling apart on me!


Lime Biryani
Quinoa, mixed with curry, shredded carrots, chickpeas, green onions, sliced almonds, and golden raisins...dressed with a lime/lime zest/olive oil combo.
--Keeping with the "new foods" theme, I've never had Quinoa either and what was I thinking?! It's delicious and SO versatile! This little salad was something I could eat every day. It would be perfect for a light dinner or side for something like Jazz in the Park!

In any case, I liked Quinoa SO much that I made an extra new recipe for January...

Quinoa with Butternut Squash and Red Bell Pepper
Sauteed the cubed butternut squash, chopped red bell pepper, sweet onion, garlic, and jalapeno pepper. Then stirred in chicken broth, quinoa, and salt; brought that to a boil. Then simmered 20 minutes, covered. Topped with green onions.

Did I mention I like Quinoa? Because I also made another new recipe to start February!

Curried Quinoa Mango and Coconut Salad
I made a dressing with curry, olive oil, lime juice and zest, white wine vinegar, coconut milk, and diced mango. Then mixed it in with cooked quinoa, the rest of the chopped mango, and green onions. The best was the combo of cold and hot ingredients! I topped the salad with Z's Coconut Lime Tilapia recipe!

MEANWHILE my atypical produce item for Feb will be broccoli rabe. I'm running out of options!

#51 - virtually a success (if he was mentioned it was because someone else mentioned him first haha!) My Give Up for Feb is NO BUYING THINGS FOR MYSELF! I gotta seriously save me some monies. But alas I already kinda cheated and bought tickets to the Ray LaMontagne concert that's in April. But the tickets were gonna go fast and I wanted good seats!! Fifth row balcony, little left of center here we come!!!

#68 - I don't seem to ever have a problem with splurging anymore. But let's see, let's just count the part where I ate out a LOT between Z's and my birthdays! And I don't think I worked out at all.

#85 - I've had SO much to do at work it isn't even funny any more!! I like it though :) Recently I've done new web landing pages for one of our clients, and just this week did new print concepts and a new landing page concept for a pitch the General Agency side is working on! Exciting stuff!! OH and for more work news, read on below!

#95 - I finished Lolita which was amazing. I wish people still wrote novels like Nabokov. His style is an art form unto itself! In any case, this takes care of my final "classic"...now while I'm done with the 10 books, I mistakingly forgot to read another non fiction?? I mean I read Floyd Collins' bio and Mere Christianity, but I think I counted the latter as a Philosophy book instead of non fiction. Whoops! But I have a book on Meditation that I'm going to start after Alan Moore's The Watchman...it'll be perfect for the Lenten season!

And that's that! What a month! So on that note, let's check out my progress for this new and improved 2009:

Real good stuff so far! Things are a LOT better at work! I fiiiiinally officially got the new position! I mean basically I've been doing all the work...just without the title. Now, my title is, well, it's really no different. "Production Artist, Interactive" instead of just a Production Artist. Small steps though! At least I HAVE a job! But I certainly SHOULD have a job because I've been bustin' my ass over there lately, as I mentioned earlier! I do hope that one day my title could reflect the part where I design websites, write code, etc, because I don't know too many people who know what "Interactive" actually means. HOWEVER beggars can't be choosers and I pretty much begged, or at least appropriately hassled, my bosses for the new title ;)

Working with John has been better too! I swear, life is hilarious because I don't know any two people who have to work closer together, aside from maybe my mom and her boss? But it's just funny to me that it ended up this way! We didn't really work together all too much when we were dating, but now I kind of consider myself his assistant! I read/proof his emails before they go out to groups/important people. I advise and make suggestions on certain actions. I kind of act like a liaison between other PA's and himself. I feel like I'm his voice of reason and organization. Yet he's technically my boss now (he got promoted to our supervisor), which is on the verge of inappropriate, but what are ya gonna do? It's pretty crazy. Now if ONLY he'd stop with the OVER abundance of personal calls all freaking day. They drive me NUTS!!!!

MEANWHILE, and I don't know why I'm even writing this because ya'll know all about it, but for posterity's sake: Thanks to my mom, I entered this Single in Milwaukee contest. I answered like six questions from a group of twenty...no photo or anything...and a few weeks later I got a call and they chose myself and like 31 others...out of like 350 people!! So I sent in my photo and they put up this voting feature this week, open for a couple days. I placed third! (just like the Safety Drawing contest in elementary school and Science Fair in middle school!) So the woman who wrote the feature called to congratulate me and then said I have to come in for a photo shoot! Apparently they're creating a whole 'Single in Milwaukee' blog. She even mentioned that they might ask us to contribute! In any case, my photo, etc will appear in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Cue Friday/Weekend section next week (for Valentine's Day). Such a riot!! I do hope they ask me to contribute though...I like writing! And maybe they'll have like a restaurant review thing or something. That'd be fun!

So YES. I've got myself a good start to the year, mos def! And it appears as though everyone else around me is pretty happy and satisfied TOO which makes me happy!!

It's been a long time coming, but I think we've arrived :)