Allow me to introduce...
My NEW colorful apartment!
I'm really excited about how the purple turned out.
My kitchen is a wonderful light sunny yellow now too, but it is too long and narrow to get a decent picture.
I also went to the futon outlet and ordered a pine frame futon that will arrive Thursday! (yay!) Imagine it beneath the tulip pictures...
I chose the smallest frame possible but I'm afraid it will still overtake the tiny room!! Oh well. It also folds out into a full size bed SO if you want to come visit me...
My weekend consisted mainly of painting, and running random errands in the rain.
This is my new best friend, Foamy:
I have been DYING for a foam roller to roll out my quads/IT bands.
It hurts so bad, but feels so good
(that sounds like a Greg Smithey quote hehe)
I have been rolling my legs out allll day; I know it will be good for my hip. I discovered my IT bands are TIGHT!!! yesterday I went to the fitness center on campus and tried the (awesome!) stationary bikes with a t.v. that programs you into intense video-game like courses and also one of the FIVE different kinds of ellipticals (some freak me out!!) and then lifted so my body is sore from all that too.
Today my hip felt like...nothing! (go figure) so I tried a slow 2 mile run up and down my street to loosen up and get outside. Success!
On my trip to get paint I stopped at Wegman's (the "fancy" grocery store) for the first time.
HOLY FOOD!
That place is daaangerous.
A warehouse-sized produce section, organic anythingyoucanthinkof, there is a whole room for just tea, and also for candy, and ethnic foods, AND they (probably the only grocery store in PA) sell beer! (because they also have a restaurant).
[If you didn't know, alcohol is severely regulated in this state...you can only buy it at liquor stores, but only if you want wine or liquor. Beer must be purchased at special "bottle shops" or restaurants, and you can only carry out one sixpack at a time. Now I am not a huge drinker, but I miss Hy-Vee!!!!!!]
So this is what I am eating for dessert:
Yay fall! Yay candy corn! Yay beer+sugar!
Speaking of food, I went outside of my ethnic and social boundaries tonight and made Otsu, which is evidently a Japanese noodle dish, with tofu. I have never cooked tofu before...it is one of those things that is weird, but in a good way. Like Kitchen Cooked potato chips. I also cooked soba noodles for the first time, aka Asian noodles made of buckwheat. Tastes like spaghetti, looks like spaghetti, but cooks in 3 MINUTES! And is somehow better for you, I think.
Anyways, it was delicious.
The recipe came out of Heidi Swanson's cookbook again. [If you want to make it, go here (I didn't have sesame seeds but they make it look 100x prettier)]. I am pretty obsessed with her right now!! and getting into natural foods cooking. I LOVE having all this free time to cook and experiment with food, now that I don't have my 16 hour days of extra-curriculars and jobs like I did in the undergrad years ;)
Also, I came across a food revelation that shook my world. Ginger is one of my faaavorite spices, but I always saw a hefty price of $4-5 on fresh ginger root at the grocery store so I never splurged. Well evidently, the price was per pound, and ginger is very light! So I bought fresh ginger for the first time, a huge root for $1, and my life will never be the same again.