We Made It!

We're alive!!!

We made it through two thirds of the continental United States, driving a not very direct route of 2826.6 miles in six days and seven nights. Holy poop, I'm surprised we're both alive!

The route that we took! This is a screenshot from Road Trippers which I highly suggest for planning purposes if you're thinking about doing a road trip anytime soon. Or also just a vacation, it shows a lot of lesser known places to stay/visit. 

We got back yesterday, 7/5, a little after 6pm. Today has been a day of not entirely settling in. I haven't unpacked anything not related to my daily routine and all my stuff stuff doesn't arrive from the movers for a couple weeks. I suspect I'll be doing these updates semi-slowly as I ease into a routine of normal life again; but normal doesn't really get normal for a couple of weeks.

My crazy schedule is as follows:
This week - a different doctor appointment every day (car doctor (aka oil change), dentist, eye doctor, foot doctor, standard doctor. Basically all maintenance I didn't do this past year is getting done this week)
This weekend - going to Lake Geneva for Bobby's cousin's wedding
Beginning of next week - start a whole brand-spankin new job
Later next week - head to Colorado to stand up in my friend Hannah's wedding
Week after that - first kinda normal week back at home with Christmas in July party on the weekend
Weekend after that - another random get together/party that has a title but I can't remember
Weekend after that - wedding of a family friend
Weekend after that - My birthday and grandparent's 55th anniversary party
THEN I'M FREE

Moral of that story being that if you want to see me before the middle/end of August it may have to be on a week night or you may need to book me ahead of time. I'm not kidding, I'll make a date to see people if I need to.

I hope to be able to blog about the trip during this week and next, being finished before I head to Colorado. That's the goal anyways.

I'll start tomorrow (probably) but for now I am going to edit pictures and chill in the recliners here. I've missed recliners.

Having a Crazy-Fun Time!

Hi all!

I know I said I was going to blog throughout this trip, and I really really wanted to, but then we got busy having too much fun and seeing all the sights! First two nights were Vegas so obviously the nightlife was really important to see and that cut down significantly on blogging opportunity.

BUT I am keeping a list of topics to hit when I do recap posts so the random funny little things that commonly get forgotten when doing a recap but could deserve a post all of their own will be written about! For example in future posts you will hear about the best watermelon on earth and our near disaster today driving at night in elk country (no worries Mom, not a very close call but close enough to get the adrenaline pumping).

So far we have had 2 nights in Las Vegas and now tonight just south of the Grand Canyon. All the pictures we have taken are on my real life camera, not my phone, so the recap posts will have all the pictures.

See you all so super soon, we will be home Saturday!!

My Last Visitors

This past weekend I had my last visitors in California before I move back to the Midwest! And of course we got to cross a few things off my California bucket list.

My mom, Heidi, and Calvin arrived in Thursday night (really Friday morning), I took off work Friday, and then they just left this Monday morning. Things got off to a bit of a rocky start when their flight was delayed FIVE HOURS on Thursday night. They were supposed to leave at 6:45 but didn't get out until 11:30pm from Chicago. At that time they should have been arriving in San Francisco but instead were just leaving. I set an alarm to wake myself up at 1am so I could go and get them when the flight finally landed at 1:30am, feeling to them like 3:30am, and feeling to Calvin like almost time to be up for the day!

On Friday we went to Muir Woods to see some Redwoods! I have been wanting to see them since I've been here but just haven't. Lazy ole me.

These trees were huge. Obviously we knew that going in but they were just SO TALL and really straight for being so old/tall. There was also charring on the bark of many trees so we asked a park ranger when the last forest fire was. 150 years ago. ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEAR OLD CHARRING. That's just bonkers.

To do the walking around the park Heidi had put Calvin in this Mobi wrap thing so we didn't need the stroller. We had him facing outwards and with some cute little sunglasses on. He was the star of the park that day. I felt like I was walking with a celebrity. Everyone was laughing and "aww"ing at this adorable little baby with sunglasses.

Best picture from the whole weekend

Muir Woods was great and afterwards we headed back to my neck of the woods where we grabbed dinner and a movie from Redbox and called it an early night after the not very restful night before. We mostly watched the movie because 6:30 was too early to go to sleep and the sun didn't set until 8:30pm...

On Saturday we headed out to my favorite stomping ground, Livermore, to do one last wine tasting! Before we got to that we met up with my mom's friend Val for lunch and it just happened to be her birthday! Then with a full belly we set out to add some alcohol to top it off. We first went to a place I had been once before, Page Mill Winery, because it is pretty and nestled in with the grape vines running along the driveway up to the tasting room. Since it was Heidi's first time I wanted to go somewhere that we could see the vines up close. You could even see the little grapes starting to grow! And of course my mom was enamored with the little kitschy stuff you could get at their shop so we got Calvin this souvenir: 

"I'll have a glass of the house white"

Then we went to my favorite winery, that I'm also a member of, and I always take people to, Ehrenberg Cellars. I got to say goodbye to my buddies there, and I am just now realizing I should have taken some pictures. The first woman who greeted me and made me feel at home wasn't there so they called her up so I could say bye. We ended up buying a ton of wine and changed my address in their system so I can still be a member via shipments 3 times a year. We even upped the level I'm at so it's 4 bottles instead of 2 and Mom and I are going to split the costs since I can no longer be her supplier. If I ever come back here for whatever reason some day I will be sure to stop by and say hello again.

While we were at Ehrenberg one of the ladies suggested we go to a local brewery, Working Man, to try the craft brews they make there. Mom and I aren't big beer drinkers but I enjoy it enough and Heidi had been tolerating the wine for us so we went to the brewery for her. We met a nice middle aged couple who are bout to be grandparents for the first time so they were drooling over Calvin. The beer was good, I'm not a huge beer person but there were a couple that I could see myself enjoying. 

Then as the day dwindled we made our way back to my apartment, got some fried chicken on the way, and watched a bit of Netflix before all falling asleep by 9:30pm. We are party animals. 

Sunday was a day we didn't really have solid plans for. We had originally thought maybe making it a pool day but it wasn't very warm and the breeze was strong so we vetoed that one pretty quick. After lounging around all morning we got hungry and headed to get some lunch. While at lunch I remembered hearing about a lake with a park nearby called Lake Elizabeth. We took Calvin on a walk around the lake, about a 2 mile loop, and said that was good for our outdoor activity. We then got some veggies at the grocery store and cooked ourselves dinner to try and use up some of the frozen chicken I have. Then that night we lounged again! It was great!

I took them to the airport this morning and said, "see you in 3 years!". We had been joking this entire weekend that I was never going to get to come home because my background check for the new job was taking FOREVER to clear. It took almost 2 weeks! Finally this morning I got the all clear and was contacted by the relocation company to schedule a time for them to come and whisk my things away. 

It's finally becoming more of a reality now that I have less than a week to prep for this road trip and move. Thankfully the movers are packing most of my things but I still want to clean most everything and decide what I want to take in my car with me vs what the movers can take. I've started to contact my utility companies to disconnect service and am sitting at my desk here thinking of what exactly I want to tackle tonight in terms of organization. 

Tomorrow is my last day at the current job. This is all moving so quickly but I am so thrilled that it finally is moving at all! There were times where I never thought I would leave this state. This job has been a great first stop in "adult" life but I cannot wait to get started at the new place! 

Of course I'll be blogging along the way on the road trip but don't want to post our plans beforehand in case of psycho stalkers. Stay tuned next week for lots of fun and updates!

Drum-roll Please.....

I am moving back to Illinois!

I am so extraordinarily happy that I am at a loss for words. My current level of joy can only be understood by seeing the spring in my step and ear-to-ear grin. I'm just so happy.

Quite a few of you have known of my unhappiness in California for quite some time. My distaste for this state is not well masked. It would be a great vacation spot but living here is not for me. I started casually looking at what was out there job-wise back in October, seriously looking since about February. The goal being to bring me back to Chicago, or within decent driving distance, by the end of the summer. I was firm in deciding not to renew my lease or find somewhere else. I was coming home at the end of August with or without a job! Thankfully I'll be employed and coming back early.

My last day at the current job will be June 24th. Then I will road trip it back to the Midwest and start the new position on July 14th. I'll be a catastrophe modeling analyst for a reinsurance company in Schaumburg. Right across the road from Woodfield Mall. Very dangerous location for my bank account. Basically I'll become a user of the software I currently work support for. This position is more along the lines of what I thought I would be doing currently but was woefully wrong. Everyone I have met at this new company seems wonderful and I am so thankful to not be compromising on environment or career just to be back close to my family and friends. I would have, you guys are great, but it's nice that I didn't have to.

So does anyone have ideas of good places for me to stop along the way back home?! My only "must see" destinations are the Hoover Dam and a magic show in Las Vegas. Thankfully those two are very close to each other. I also want to see a decent bit of Utah because I've heard it is the prettiest, so picking one out of Bryce Canyon, Arches, or Zion national parks. Current plans are to have the Bobby Boyfriend fly out here and then ride back with me so our timeline depends on how much time he can get off work and when I am actually packing up and moving my stuff.

There is still quite a bit up in the air but I am so happy to finally be able to share this wonderful news :) And since no post is complete without a picture, my adorable nephew:

He's so happy I'm coming home!

My Lemons are Ripening!

It's finally happening, the lemons are starting to change color!

Look how yellow they are compared to the baby green one!

I couldn't get the best picture of color but you can see how they're a green-yellow here

I couldn't really tell if they were turning and was getting rather impatient but thankfully the new baby lemons came along and showed me how yellow the old timers are getting. It's all so exciting!

Also exciting: Calvin is 3 months old today! The little cutie pie is chunkin up smiling all the time now, I can't wait to snuggle him!

The Final Day!

After two surprisingly short weeks, I have finished the BuzzFeed Clean Eating Challenge. I overwhelmingly failed at the challenge but I did it. Mostly.

Day 14, in two parts:

This day was done in two parts because yesterday my friend from high school, Lia, was in town for a conference so I went into the city and hung out with her in the evening. Therefore, part one, Saturday, was breakfast and lunch while part two happened today, Sunday, and is the dinner dish. 

I was so happy when I saw what breakfast was for day 14. Instead of making me slurp down a kale-chia-flax-whatever smoothie I got to have the green onion and feta omelette! Yum yum yum

I will definitely keep eating this post-challenge

Lunch was roasted mushroom caps with roasted tomato and feta. It was just eh, and it looked even more eh. 

This may have been my saddest looking meal.

That also left me hungry and I wolfed down the apple snack before heading downtown. 

INTERMISSION: Girl date with Lia!

Lia was in town for a conference over this weekend so I met her at her hotel and we got pizza and frolicked around the classic touristy places. After getting pizza near the hotel we took the Powell-Hyde cable car all the way to Ghiradelli Square. I've lived here for 9-ish months and still hadn't ridden a cable car! Finally got to knock that one off my SF bucket list, we even rode standing up on the outside!

And even had a lovely woman photobomb us

Once at Ghiradelli Square we walked around the shop, got our free sample, and got some snacks. Lia had an ice cream cone as big as her face and I got salted caramel hot chocolate. From there we walked along the warf and went into a museum of old coin operated machines. You may remember it from Princess Diaries.

It took the two of us to beat it on the easiest level

We walked a little farther down to Pier 39 to check out the sea lions and all the touristy shops over there. Then we walked back to the cable car turn around to ride back towards Lia's hotel. On the cable car ride back we were sitting (lots of walking made us tired) but we had the most fun operator guy ever. Every time we passed another cable car we shouted and cheered! And we made sure to sit on the side that looked down Lombard Street as we passed and had a great view of the Bay Bridge.

It was so fun to get to hang out with Lia and I learned I know a lot of random facts about San Francisco now that I was able to share. I should have charged for the little tour haha! It was so nice to just hang out with an old friend and be my weird self, not need to pretend to be normal around new people. Thanks for visiting, Lia!

END INTERMISSION!

Part two: dinner of day 14

Dinner tonight was a weird sorta stir-fry, that seemed to be the theme of this past week. Weird sorta stir-frys almost every night. It had toddler bok choy, carrots, red pepper, garlic, mushrooms, zucchini, and a comically small amount of chicken. I did make a small substitution with the zucchini, it was supposed to be snap peas but I must have used all the of them not thinking I had more things to make...whoops

The chicken marinated all morning in a sauce of olive oil, honey, and tamari. The chicken was quite good and I think i'll marinate chicken in that again but it was just such a small amount of chicken for the massive amount of vegetables that there was.

Nice and colorful!

I did eat around the red peppers and most of the bok choy. It was alright but not my favorite dish of the whole thing. Snack tonight is supposed to be chunks o chocolate but I believe I'll be having some popcorn instead.

And just like that my mission of the past two weeks is done! Its so strange. I need to go grocery shopping again but this time without direction. I'm a little terrified of falling back into eating just crap food again but I already am planning to remake a few things I liked from this dealio. I guess I'll just start there and see where it goes.

Thanks for sticking with me if you've been a regular reader. While I've been told this experience was quite comical from the reader's perspective I just tried to give my honest opinion. I can't help if I'm hilarious (chuckle chuckle chuckle) 

The Homestretch! Days 12 & 13

I think I've eaten too much fiber today, my tummy is making moves as I type this.

Sarah's flowers were delivered! Thank you Priority Unit of 1800Flowers for making this problem right! Still never going to use them again but at least she got the flowers...finally

I even got them to upgrade to a larger size than I had ordered. BOOM BABY!

Now onto.....Day 12!

Breakfast today was supposed to be the berry/yogurt "parfait" again but I ended up with potato chips and apple juice at my desk. Not my proudest moment but at least they were the popchips that are like baked and stuff. I wasn't in a yogurt mood. 

Lunch was supposed to be the chili I didn't make when I didn't feel like cooking so that one was out too...whoops? You can really see I'm being disciplined here and sticking with it.... Instead I had some Chinese food because it was free lunch Thursday at the office and that's what was catered. At least I still stuck with my goal of not thinking about what I was going to eat?

I did have the pear for my snack! And it happened to be a perfect pear. It was everything that every pear hopes to be.

Dinner was talapia cooked on a bed of green onions and baby bok choy with some sauce stuff I whipped up and all folded into a parchment packet. I was a little leery going in but it was actually very good. The recipe called for 6 heads of baby bok choy and I think they meant the very smallest of small baby bok choys. Even when I was grocery shopping I did not buy the recommended amount because my options for baby bok choy were more like large toddler bok choy. I started out intending to use 3 but only used one once I realized how small a parchment area I had to work with, and that was even making a bigger parchment packet than they suggested. 

This is what large toddler bok choy looks like

The recipe also called for shallots instead of green onions but I again forgot to buy more shallots on my way back from work. I think the green onions were a fine stand in and they worked with the color scheme. I completely forgot to take a picture of the pretty finished product so you unfortunately get a picture of the not so pretty almost fully eaten product. 

This was quite delicious and the quickest/easiest meal I've made so far and it didn't even involve the use of leftovers. I was actually surprised by how quickly I was able to make and eat a good for you meal. 

Night time snack was supposed to be the home made hot chocolate again. I still stuck with the chocolate theme but with a little more sugar/calories.

Then came my last weekday of clean eating, Day 13: 

The day started out with overnight oats again except this time with strawberries instead of black berries. Since my strawberries went bad prematurely in the week I used some raspberries I had on hand instead. AND I made sure to smash them up before adding the other ingredients so the flavors could mingle overnight. Well they weren't nearly as bad as my first overnight oat attempt where I had one bite. By the time I called it quits with this version I was surprised to see I had made it half way through. Although I did dig around to find the biggest chunks of raspberry so I don't know how much credit I really deserve. 

There is just something about the texture that continually irks me about this breakfast. It's thick enough with enough chunks that I want to chew it but if I do that then I'll really be grossed out by how much I don't need to chew. Then if I just kinda slurp it down it feels all slithery thanks to the weird jelly like quality of the chia seeds from sitting overnight. It's just too weird and I can't find a good way to eat it. Food should be eaten on instinct, not by figuring out the best way. 

For lunch was supposed to be some of the leftover salad I didn't make because I wanted real food for dinner. So I made a quick sorta version of it without adding some steamed snap peas. No loss there, I don't care much for cooked snap peas. I'll eat them forever if they're raw and I have ample ranch dressing but they're not my thing once cooked. 

The salad I had consisted of aragula, sliced raddish, a little mint, some feta, and leftover quinoa all topped with a balsamic vinaigrette. It was quite tasty and I ate the whole thing. And I completely for got to take a picture. I'm just now realizing it. I could take a picture of the empty container but that's just sad. Just know that it was good, I ate all of it, and it looked like most other salads I've had so far. 

Snack today was supposed to be carrot sticks and hummus but I wasn't feeling like putting in the effort to peel and cut the carrots this morning. Instead I had another one of those perfect pears that was at the peak of flavor awesomeness. 

Dinner today was again surprisingly easy and quick to make without leftovers. It was a quick stir fry type dealio of mushrooms, shrimp, green onions, and some garlic. Tossed with some of the sauce used on the fish yesterday and then served in romaine lettuce leaf boats. Well it was supposed to be served in the boats. Unfortunately my lettuce got funky on the outermost leaves and the inner ones weren't boat material. Instead, I chopped up the smaller leaves and just topped my salad with the stir fry mixture. It was way easier to eat like this anyways!

Again it was very good and I ate all of it! Thankfully after being bad for the past two days I feel like I redeemed myself a little bit today. Snack tonight is apples with a bit of honey. If you look at the summation picture for the day you'll see their version of putting honey on apples is complete chaos. Seriously, are you then going to eat it with a fork or get insanely sticky hands? I just don't understand.

Sheep update: they're still in that field but there is only a fence on one side. This morning I saw animal control wrangling some sheep that had gotten onto the road. What the heck! Why are there free range sheep? California, I will never understand you....

Happy Memorial Day weekend everyone!