MIA

I know I have been missing in action for a while now…but I’ve been working on some things, so stay tuned for details!

Menu: October 1st

The last two weeks have been crazy. Things have taken priority over updating the blog, but I’m back and this is what we are eating:

Monday: Playing it by ear. We are spending time with my family. If worse comes to worse, hello Trader Joe’s Orange Chicken and Rice!

Tuesday: Eating at Brady’s parents’ house.

Wednesday: Spicy Chicken Rigatoni (or other kind of pasta)

Thursday: Buffalo Chicken Casserole (recipe still to be decided)

Friday: Taco Salad

Home is Wherever I’m With You

I have an itch. I call it the seven year itch.

Growing up, I moved; Orange County, Upstate New York, the Bay Area, and back to Orange County. All within 17 years.  I’m 24 now and there has been something in the back of my mind for a little over a year now.

I think I would like to move for the sole reason of experiencing something new.

What’s funny about my itch is, I hated moving as a kid. It rocked my world. Looking back though, I love the experiences that I have had because of the locations that I have lived in.

This time though, I would be moving on my own accord. My dad isn’t going to tell me where to pack up and go to (well, actually that could probably still happen).

Who knows if we will actually move though. Who knows if I will settle down my modern day nomadic roots and have a “forever house.” But still I know that it would be a house I could quickly pack away in boxes onto a moving truck.

Wherever the wind may take Brady and I, I will go because I fully believe that home is wherever we are together. Yet, these places or regions would be my top picks:

1. New York City (or another East Coast city): What writer doesn’t want to be in NYC? The best writers have lived and wrote there. I don’t think it would be a forever house kind of place, but a year or two there might be nice.

2. The South: Give me country roads, miles and miles of green grass, and farmhouses; I am sold in a heartbeat. It is also a known fact that writers, go to the country to escape and write away from busy city life.

3. Hawaii: I’ve never really wanted to actually live there, but I think I should. My grandparents are there and really, the North Shore has been calling my name. Who thinks I could become a surfer?

If only we could win the lottery, I could have places all over the world

 

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A Letter to the Writer

It is time to awaken the writer in me. I can’t promise that great works will be flowing from my hands, but I can promise it’s a work in process.

Dear Writer,

When you were five years old you decided you were going to be a writer when you grew up. Now you are almost 25 years old, are you that writer you dreamed you would be or are you watching that dream fall to the sidelines of your life?

There may have been a few things you might have forgot along the way, while you were focusing on Creative Writing workshops, starting a “big girl” job, or getting married…it’s okay because today’s a day you can begin again.

1. For you, writing words have always been better than writing numbers. Numbers could only tell one thing, but words could show people the world. (circa a journal from 8th grade)

2. Ideas are forever running through your head. It’s time to let them play on paper (or the screen). They will never be shown which way to go if you never write words for them.

3. Stop caring about others when it comes to writing. I know you’re worried about offending someone with somethings you may write, but what art doesn’t offend? Like Professor Cooper  once advised, write what makes you uncomfortable because those are the best stories.

4. Write what you know and what you want to know, research. There is always more to learn and observe. Open your eyes and ears, a story will find a way to them.

Go on a write. There’s no excuses anymore.

And when you need to be motivated, I’ll be here.

Nicole

 

N’s Kitchen: Week of 09/16

I try to plan a weekly menu for these reasons:

1. I hate thinking about what to eat for dinner after while I am starving. Half the time, I just want to go eat out.

2. All the ingredients will be in the house. After figuring out what to eat, there’s nothing worse than having to go to the store to complete the meal.

3. It helps us eat healthy and try new recipes.

Monday: Pasta. Usually I just start throwing things in the sauce. Peppers, onions, herbs, whatever sounds good to me in that moment.

Tuesday: Taco salad

Wednesday: Korean BBQ and rice

Thursday: Leftovers – Usually by Thursday, we have a few leftovers to eat since I usually cook for four when there is only two.

Friday: Garlic chicken and potatoes

 

 

Play With That Ball

The first thing you should know about me is I LOVE MY FAMILY. I know everyone loves their family (or should), but I like to brag and talk about mine a lot!

Water polo is a big deal in the house I grew up in. I never played. But my brothers, boy do they play.

My oldest little brother started playing for the Air Force Academy Water Polo team this year. He shipped out to Colorado Springs earlier this summer for basic training before class started. The best thing about my brother playing water polo is that most of the games are in California!

This past weekend we were able to watch him play about an hour from where we live. I’m starting to “get in” to taking photos after buying a Nikon D5100 with some wedding money Brady and I received. There’s still a lot to learn about shooting water polo, but these are my favorite. He is number 16. White Cap.

The best thing about this game was we got to say hi to him after the game. The sun and chlorine were in his eyes and he probably hated me because I made him take a picture…but he knows to listen to his sister.

Just Do It…before 2013

The fall season is just around the corner, even if in Southern California it still feels like the middle of July. Soon, I hope that 70 degrees will join us soon!

For some reason, I always find myself the busiest in the fall: holidays, family gatherings, my birthday, brothers’ water polo games, hockey, and football. It seems the calendar fills up fast for us. To focus, I am writing 4 simple goals to complete before 2013.

Before writing out this list though, I set some ground rules for myself:

1.  Be simple. Not outlandish. I need to set goals that would be joy and make me feel as if I am accomplishing something.

2. Be realistic. Do not be an overachiever. The goals I set need to be ones that I know I can accomplish.

Goals:

1. Write everyday.  This is probably most important to me, being a writer and all. The days fill up quickly with work, household chores, cooking, and relaxing, sometimes writing takes a back seat. The hard truth in this is, in order to be a writer, one most write.  An hour a day, may someday publish a book.

2. Eat clean, non-processed foods. Even if I am pretty good at this, I can do better and I want to do better. Mostly, it’s snack foods. Microwave popcorn, chips, granola bars…the list goes on. I want to try one “replacement” recipe a week.

3. Organize and Decorate. Over the past two months, we have done a pretty good job with placing things in our new house. There’s still work to be done. See this post. The corner downstairs with all the boxes, has been cleaned up! Progress. Three more rooms to go.

4. Make a list of fall/winter clothes that should be added to my wardrobe. So, maybe this should be done before 2013 gets here, but I need to shop for things I need rather than things I see. I tend to buy things I am unsure of and never wear, if I go shopping without a purpose.

Is there anything you want to do before 2013?

Me on a Budget.

I have always been on a type of budget, but I’m not going lie, it’s never been very strict.

However, it is now. Don’t get me wrong, I’m typically a frugal person. Yet, having to be frugal and being frugal are two different things. I’m learning and applying it mostly to food and other things you could buy at the grocery store. (Don’t even get me started on clothes, shoes, and accessories. I have a weakness for expensive material) Here is my plan:

1. Meal Plan: Make sure we eat what we already have, first and foremost. Then do meals with same ingredients.

2. Coupon and watch for sales.- My one problem with couponing though is that the food that I like and buy don’t typically have coupons. I hardly buy anything that is processed, we try to eat clean in this house.

And finally, I have found that the best prices on produce (for me, at least) can be found at my local farmer’s market:

This is the haul from Saturday’s trip to the market (I also walk, saving on gas. Yay budget!).

3 kinds of lettuce, a bunch of green onions, 2 Maui onions, 3 red peppers, and 3 green peppers.

I do realize that if I went to three different stores all over town, I may have been able to save even more money, but I’m happy with what I got. I am also a huge believer in knowing where your food came and at the farmer’s market, it’s easy to get an answer.

This haul of veggies last us all week; lunches and dinners, plus the cost of other ingredients (most of them, already in the kitchen). I’ll give myself a pat on the back.

Now to figure out how we’ll eat this week!

Slowly, But Surely

A month and a half ago (give or take a few days) we moved my stuff and wedding gifts into the house. I’m not going to lie there are still items in cardboard boxes, wedding gifts still stacked in the corner,  empty product boxes waiting to be recycled,  a second bedroom dying to be organized, and an office begging to be used.

Working forty hours a week, finding time to write, read, have fun, cook, clean, and organize is not an easy task. I’m not complaining, it’s just sometimes I wish there were more then 168 hours in a week or that I could surive on 3 hours of sleep like Martha Stewart.

I may have gone crazy, but I am sharing my messy disorganized  quirky house with you. Don’t judge, it’s a work in progress.

This is the downstairs. It is in disarray to say the least. My goal is to buy a new coffee table, get rid of unnecessary boxes, find places for gifts, move the “office” that is on the dinning room table upstairs, and get things organized. I’m hoping that if I give myself two weeks, I’ll get it done in one.

This is the loft area of the upstairs aka the office. More boxes and a desk that needs some TLC (pardon the risers, it needed to be higher) and organization. If I get this done sometime in September, I’ll be happy.

The second bedroom that has become overflow from my closet and other loose ends. To be realistic, this room may not get cleaned up until December….since everything without a place ends up here.

Our bedroom isn’t so horrible. We need coordinating bedding, a home for the shoes, a rug to cover the cable line, and real night stands. Please notice that our bedside tables are cardboard boxes.

Keep an eye out for “after” photos and nag me, if you don’t see any soon. No pictures mean I’m not organizing or unpacking!

Hello world!

Hello world is the title that WordPress gives the first post on a new blog and you know what, I am sticking with it! With a first post, I am saying “Hello World, my name is Nicole and I am a writer.”

I’m not sure what my plans are for the blog itself. Right now, it is simply a blog, that will be personal and hopefully help me to someday become the successful writer I dream of becoming. However, the perfectionist creative person in me is caught up in the visual aspects of where my words will shine on the internet. There are so many themes and options, I just don’t know what direction I want to go in. In a way, I am dressing my blog and while I have a closet full of options, I still have nothing to wear.

So, if you see my blog get a face lift or begin to look like a bit of a mess, I am still working on finding a perfect outfit.