It's the End of The World as We Know It

Happy 2012!  The Mayan calendar ends this year and people are freaking out.  My thought is that they just had to finish sometime so why not 12/12/12?  There will never be a 13/13/13 so why not end on a 12/12/12? But anyway...

Venice Beach

Here are a few of my resolutions/goals for this year-- keep me honest:

1) Run another half marathon, faster than the other two

2) Perform live somewhere

3) Massively improve piano and ukulele skills

Happy New Year!

Note on 02/22/13: We made it!  Also I obviously had no idea when The Calendar actually ended since it was 12/21/12.  Numbers are confusing...

California here we come, right back where we started from

Well, I started this blog just as I was leaving Trio Films in Los Angeles and now I'm back!  Not at Trio, but in the Greater Los Angeles area!  I'm staying with Joy and Jesse in my very generous aunt and uncle's house in Santa Monica.  Jesse and Joy are pursuing careers in production and I, as soon as I start earning some cash so I can pay rent (well, first find and move into a place), am finally getting on my game music wise.  In fact, here's a picture of me singing back-up with a couple other ladies at the playboy mansion:

Ha, well I guess I'm dancing back up in that one...
Here are a couple of pictures my aunt Kathleen took before the three of us went to a holiday party this month:

AND EXCELLENT BONUS OF COMING BACK TO LA:

Nicole's here!!!!!  Wahooooooo!

I'm still your man for the roaming For as long as there's roamin' allowed

Happy Spring!  As always, I've had several adventures since I last put text to computer (doesn't sound as good as "pen to paper", huh?).   As pictured below, I work at a 50's diner for a spot.  Happy Days Diner opened in November and I just recently left to go to one of their sister restaurants, Boca Bay.
Jesse and I drove up to Pennsylvania to visit his family in December and my parents were able to come down to Wilmington for both Thanksgiving and Christmas -- 'twas excellent!
Joy and ran the Quintiles Wrightsville Beach Half Marathon in the middle of March and now we're gearing up to knock a couple of minutes off our pace time for the Bix7 back in Iowa in July!  Hmm, what else...Well, on top of Boca Bay I'm also working at BlueWater Grille because Joy, Jesse and I are trying to save as much money as possible so we can head out West come fall!  I'm excited to get back to California..the East Coast has been fun but the job market here is just pathetic and unless I want to be waiting tables the rest of my life I've got to leave!
Well I'm off for a run, have a FANTASTIC April!  Hopefully I'll start posting more, but I'm not going to make any promises ;)

Well I'm a-running down the road trying to loosen my load

(next time I'll use photos of the meals I make instead of snagging similar looking dishes from the internet)

This is close but I sauteed sliced tomatoes and red wine so it looked a bit different

Well this week I ran and walked my little heart out - - but also I cooked my little heart out! Fall has (sort of) hit Wilmington, we're still hitting the 80's in the afternoon but, thankfully, the humidity has subsided!  There's a nice chill in the air at night and it's cool in the mornings - - perfect.   Fall is my favorite season and a big part of that is the seasonal food I get to eat!  These last two weeks were all about squash - spaghetti, acorn and butternut, yum.  My first fall dinner was a roasted spaghetti squash with a great tomato based sauce I threw together using a little red wine, sauteed onions, garlic and spices.   It was easy and delicious- and my guinea pig, Jesse, really seemed to like it too!

Mine kind of looked like this (mine looked better hehe), minus the tofu and dried fruit

 Next up was acorn squash!  Yum, I flip back and forth whether this or butternut is my favorite...But anyway - this recipe was inspired by a video I watched from the Compassionate Cooks on chooseveg.com.  I'm not a huge fan of dried fruit though so I just served jellied cranberry sauce on the side (canned from Oceanspray I think, oooo I have always loved that stuff!) and left the dried apricots and frozen cranberries out of the recipe.  I took a few other liberties but let me tell you the cardamom gives a fantastic seasonal feeling to this dish.  I didn't realize I was out of cloves so I added a little chili powder (I have no idea why but it was great!) and a few extra veggies too cause that's how I roll...This was a mouth-watering discovery - definitely will be making this again and again!     (And jellied cranberry sauce and lightly seasoned brussel sprouts were perfect sides)


Helpful hint on cutting the thick skinned acorn and butternut squash:  before you cut - microwave it for 1 minute, sooo much easier!



Lastly was last night's feature butternut squash.  I usually just make this with a little Earth Balance vegan butter and brown sugar but after the previous stuffing I was still in the mood for a completely hearty and savory dish.  This time I was lazy and just bought Pepperridge Farms Cornbread Stuffing and suped it up to save a little time.  I cut the squash in half, roasted it cut side down for 35 minutes at 350 degrees and started cutting up my veggies.  After removing the butternut squash from the oven to let it cool for a few minutes, I added my onions and celery to a (vegan) buttered up pan and sauteed until translucent.  Then I added 2 cups of vegetable stock (well for me a boullion cube and 2 cups of water), brought to a boil, removed from heat and then mixed in my chopped carrots, mushrooms and the stuffing mix.  After it was thoroughly mixed I de-seeded the squash and scooped in big servings of the stuffing into the hollowed out centers, placed the squash back on the pan (stuffing side up this time), covered it with Reynold's Wrap and put it back in the over at 350 for 25 minutes.  This is another savory treat that I will be making again!  And I didn't even bother with a side this time, half a butternut squash is pretty large on it's own, add the stuffing and it's more than enough to fill me (and Jesse!) up.

Hope I've inspired my readers (Hi Mom, haha) to make some seasonal goodies.  Til next time - Take it easy!

I'm doin' my thing, rollin the Midwest side

Jenny, Me and Heather at our 10 year reunion!

Well, last week I was a little bit of a slacker.  I started out with an awesome 6 miles on Monday (ran 3 then walked 3 with Megs) but the rest of the week I did a minimal amount of effort... Ended with 17 miles total.  My little excuse is that I was out of town Friday through Sunday....But I know, I know, I could have ran in Iowa...Speaking of Iowa, I was in town for my oldest friend Jenni's wedding to the fantastic Josh AND my 10 year high school reunion.  Both events were a great time - - I finally got to meet Jenni and Josh's little guy Colton and I am proud to say that Jesse was able to control himself and not steal the boy!  He's an adorably chubby little 4 month old and Jesse, Joy and I tried not to hog him the whole time.  It was difficult but I think we contained ourselves.
Onto the reunion, my other dear Jenny planned for us to go to the BHS homecoming game on Friday, a fun family picnic Saturday afternoon and some drinking at Blue Cat Saturday night.  I was only able to meet up for Blue Cat but still got to catch up with a few people.   Then Sunday Megs, Jesse, my parents, grandma and I went to the fantastic Sports Fans for lunch before we headed out of town.
I'm back on the beach now, sitting here hoping the lightning stops soon so I can go on a run.  It's not looking promising....til next week!

She's Going the Distance

Amanda, Nick, Jesse, Me and Joy out on my birthday!

Well I made it through week 1- I didn't run everyday, but my total mileage was 18 miles!  Now, two of the days I walked 3 miles but I'm including it because GEEEEPERS my leg still hurts and I couldn't run those days. 
Anyway, other than that - - my volleyball team at  Captain Bill's Backyard BBQ is on a 5 game winning streak going into next week's tournament;  had a fantastic time eating and enjoying drink specials at Bank's Channel, per usual; enjoyed delicious coffee from my favorite girls Sara and Emily at Cafe Del Mar; AND watched a marathon of Community on Hulu....oops.  Well, it was a pretty active week ; ) 
Tonight I'm attempting a spaghetti and "meat" sauce using Gimme Lean Vegan Sausage - - it is a tasty side to my breakfast tofu scramble, and I think it'll do well as a dinner treat!
Til next week!  May not write until Monday as I'm going to Iowa for the weekend for a double dose of fun:  my ten year high school reunion and dear friend Jenni's wedding!  Buh bye.

Hello anyone who reads this. I have too much time on my hands and not enough hobbies. I have no television. But I do have hulu, which actually gets me into trouble on occasion because I can watch 4 episodes of something I like in one sitting. I read a book in a few hours, front to back, which seems like a neat little parlor trick but it's rather annoying really. I need to get a library card so I can indulge for free rather than pay $14 dollars for something to entertain me for an afternoon or evening. I love to sing for hours at a time but can really only do this when no one's home because Oh My God that's got to be annoying for anyone to have to listen to. I have an obsession with a few blogs. I read GoFugYourself and PinkIsTheNewBlog as if they are posting for me alone, if I don't show them the courtesy of reading right when they post something then I'm being rude. I love to cook but because of a tiny little budget I can only do fun things a couple times a week. And then, what I'm getting to here, I run. But not enough. I run 3 times a week if I'm honest, last week was great because I ran 4 days and walked the other 3 because people asked me to go walk with them. Otherwise I would have run then too, I'm just sure of it (ha). So my challenge to myself is to run at least 5 times a week, and at least 15 miles a week. Really, I would love to get up to running between 3 and 5 miles everyday. Wake up and go run 5 miles before work? That's committing less than an hour in the morning! That's awesome and definitely doable. So anyway, today my leg's a little messed up from walking 4.5 miles with Megan yesterday and then trying to get Rocky to swim in the ocean, only to have to nearly pick his 75 lb butt up and remove him from the water. He was FRIGHTENED. And was hopping instead of trying to swim, ha. Anyway, somewhere around there I hurt my leg. So I'll start tomorrow. Kidding, but I am just going to run 2 miles today. Just means I have to do 4 another day. I'll check in weekly. Ha, see all the challenges I'm starting for myself?