Eat right through the menu

Day 7 – What’s your favorite thing to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner? If you have children, what are their favorites?

Strawberry-

Breakfast: My usual is a kashi cherry dark chocolate granola bar and home-brewed coffee with cream and sugar. My favorite is a Belgian waffle topped with a mix of fresh berries, served with a side of crispy bacon and a cappuccino.

Lunch: My usuals are typically yogurt, a turkey or tuna sandwich or a salad with grilled chicken. My favorite is mac n’ cheese with bacon (sense a theme?) or Pasta Fresca with parmesan chicken, both from Noo.dles & Co.

Dinner: We usually have chicken, pork, steak or pasta dishes. My new favorite is a pepperoni stromboli Nutella recently made, although I am always game for filet mignon, maybe wrapped in bacon, with a side of potatoes and a glass of red wine. Did I mention I like bacon?

Nutella-

Breakfast: I’m a carbs girl in the morning, although I don’t have a usual.  Could be cereal, could be a granola bar. I drink either coffee with splend@ and cream or black British tea with milk and sugar. My favorite is fresh buttermilk pancakes with real grade B maple syrup.  And I love a good hearty steel cut oatmeal.

Lunch: I’m very inconsistent with lunch.  I will often get to 2 pm and realize that I haven’t eaten.  I’m not a big sandwich eater, I’d prefer a hearty salad.  In cold weather I love soups and chilis.

Dinner: I’m the main cook in our household, but my favorite things to eat are ones that I don’t cook or don’t cook often.  My favorite meal was one we had on our honeymoon.  Steamed lobster and an amazing dessert featuring pomegranate sorbet, an almond tuile and fresh berries.  Did I mention that I love sweets, too?

Curly-

Breakfast: I would say his favorite is what we give him most days- a whole grain toaster waffle with a side of fruit (strawberries, blueberries, peaches or banana usually). He’s also a big fan of scones.

Lunch and Dinner: He eats the healthy options his daycare serves, or whatever we’re eating at home. But his two favorites by far are chicken shawarma with hummus and fruit & veggie squeeze packs by Plu.m Orga.nics that he can suck out of the container himself (they’re our secret weapon to get him to eat veggies…he even likes the broccoli one!)

Try me

Day 6 – When was the last time you tried something new? What was it and what was the result?

Strawberry- The first thing that came to mind was kayaking. I went kayaking for the first time with my father-outlaw last year. Woke up early and met up with him and a group of others for a half day kayaking lesson and trip down a river. The result? I loved it. I liked having my own little “vehicle,” loved the freedom and peacefulness of being on the river. I wouldn’t attempt non-flat water kayaking because I don’t need quite that much adventure, but I’ve been thinking about doing it again ever since. I just convinced a couple friends to go with me again in 3 weeks so I’m super excited about it. Nutella doesn’t like anything to do with water, so it’s nice to have found others that enjoy it.

Nutella- I love to bake and I adore trying out new recipes and taking liberties with them.  For Strawberry’s birthday, I tried a new (complicated) recipe for a Black Forest Ice Cream torte.  Except that I didn’t need to serve 10 people, only 2, and I didn’t have exactly the right size pans specified.  So I modified it by baking the cake in a jelly roll pan, cutting out 4 circles of cake, and then assembling 2 mini tortes in some kid-sized plastic snack containers.  I was pretty pleased with the end result, even if they weren’t magazine cover pretty. (Strawberry adds “I was really pleased with the result!”)

House arrest, house party

Day 4 – (for parents) What has most surprised you about parenthood?

Both- We never thought we would feel so trapped.  We knew that our schedules would change, but We never thought that we’d have a kid whose nighttime sleeping habits would keep us confined to home at 7pm every night or whose napping habits would restrict outings to less than an hour’s drive away and then confined to home from noon-ish to 3ish.

We always saw babies and children out and about.  Napping in the stroller or car,  playing outside or eating at 8pm.  Now on the occasions that we’re out past 7pm and we see such a thing we’re honestly stunned.  HOW is that child awake and functional?  For example, we will be at home for the 4th of July this year and there are fireworks at dark in a park within walking distance.  But we won’t be going, because “dark” in the summer is WAY past his bed time.

Day 5 -What do you prefer to do on your birthday? If you have children, what do you prefer to do for their birthday?

Nutella- I am a social person.  My ideal birthday celebration is a night out for a good meal with a group of friends.  It must be somewhere we can hear each other talk.  When it comes to presents, I’m easy to please.  Sparkly things, luxury items that I won’t buy for myself, and experiences such as theatre tickets.

Strawberry- I prefer to be on vacation on my birthday, or to receive a getaway as a present. I definitely prefer to have the company of Nutella, a sitter for Curly, and it depends on what I’m doing if I’d like friends around. My birthday is always celebrated on Memorial Day weekend, so sometimes it’s hard to get a group of friends together because lots of people are out of town. For my most recent birthday, I was able to get a couple of friends to have dinner with us in the city and we had a sitter at home. It was a lot of fun having a good meal, chatting and drinking…I definitely like lower key parties for the most part. I was a little sad about not getting to travel though, which is harder now that Curly is in the picture. For gifts, I like books, music and gift cards, but I’m totally not materialistic so presents aren’t a big deal.

For Curly, we ended up doing big family-packed outdoor parties both years, but that is NOT what we want to do moving forward.  Ideally, we’d want a low key party with a few kids his age.  We like to do themes and Nutella loves to party plan, make favors, and bake. We do love celebrating birthdays and look forward to fulfilling Curly’s wishes in the future when he has more of an opinion about what he wants. And when he turns 5, we want to surprise him with a trip to Disney World.

Guilty as charged

Day 3 – What are your guilty pleasures?

Nutella:

Baked goods, both eating and baking (and then eating).

Pedicures, because it’s money spent on myself.

Strawberry:

The candy dish at work. I can’t resist when there are things like Hershey miniatures and rolo in there. My admin asst thinks she’s doing us a favor, but then I totally feel guilty after indulging.

Specifically Survivor, Big Brother, the Real L Word, etc. I know I shouldn’t watch but it’s like a train wreck.

Sudden purchases, especially online. I’m not very frivolous, but every now and then I’ll make a spontaneous purchase without thinking much about it. If it’s over $10 or $20 depending, I’ll feel a little guilty.

Glory days

Day 2 -Describe your high school self.  What extracurricular activities, if any, did you participate in during high school?

Nutella: I was that really weird girl walking the halls singing.  I was in the show choir, a few other choirs, every play, and every musical.  I was very smart, but not very focused on school work unless it was music or theatre.  I did enough homework and studying to pass my classes. My “crowd” was the super involved outcasts.  Band, orchestra, newspaper, debate, It’s Academic, student government,  theatre, and choir.  The same 30-60 or so people did all of those.  We were often in the same classes together, too. The music and theatre classes were only offered once a day so by default you ended up in the same English and History classes.  I never ate lunch in the cafeteria.  And years later I still occasionally run into people that I went to school with.  They ALWAYS know me and I almost never know them.  I didn’t date, came out to the world at the beginning of my junior year, and went to prom with my best friend.  People left me alone because I was just too weird.

Strawberry: I was fairly shy in high school. I did well in classes, mostly A’s and B’s, but I wasn’t good at math. My “crowd” was the smart kids (but not the nerds) who were mostly involved in Honors Society, Language Honors societies, Odyssey of the Mind, government, Debate, Key club, the school newspaper, etc. Interestingly, theatre was mostly for stoners. Personally, I was secretary of Key club and in Honors and Spanish Honors societies. I wasn’t driven enough to partake in any of the other clubs or activities but a lot of my friends were in them so sometimes I went to a meeting here or there to hang out. I had 6-8 close friends and a lot of acquaintances I wasn’t really friends with, but my friends were (they were in larger social circles than me). I did my best to be an extroverted introvert. I dated three different guys during the span of high school and only the last actually went to my school. I never “came out” publicly but there were rumors about me in senior year because one of my close friends must’ve let it slip. By then it didn’t matter much because we were about to graduate. I went to my senior prom with a good male friend from another school and had a blast, even though I wished I were with my best female friend instead (sigh, teen angst/unrequited love filled most of my high school years. It was hard.)

Where the magic happens

Day 1 – Provide a picture of the space where you normally blog

I typically blog from work (don’t tell!). I have a nice office that I share with a coworker- there is a wall partition between our desks for privacy. I wish I had my own office, but I hate working in a cube so this is much better. Plus my coworker is usually very quiet. My space generally looks like this (excuse the crappy phone pic):