Smack in the middle
Most of the time, I love to cook.
I can’t wait for a chance to try out a new recipe or make an old favorite for dinner (all while singing “Bringing home a baby bumblebee,” doing a ridiculous dance or orchestrating a Tupperware drum solo). Other times, I want my food delicately placed on the table in front of me, while Liv sits in the high chair next to me eating puffs and waiting for bites of my food and a side of avocado. In this type of situation, I’m not wearing pajamas, and neither the Pilot nor myself have to do the dishes.
That’s pretty much what I was in the mood for yesterday, but since the Pilot was home last week, we went out to eat more often than usual, and the cost adds up quickly. We have plenty of food in the house, I figured we should eat dinner at home.
Even so, I wasn’t feeling anything labor-intensive (like the original eggplant curry I had planned), so I grabbed this jar from the pantry (curry destiny),
and let something else do the work:
All I did was add the sauce to the slow cooker with 1 C veggie broth,
chopped eggplant and zucchini,
1/2 diced onion and two cloves of garlic.
Set it (on high)
forget it (for 5 hours)
then feast.
An easy, healthy vegetarian meal, accompanied by quinoa (cooked in the rice cooker) and Malbec. I wish I could say it was insanely delicious, but it was ok. Usually when I make random on-the fly-meals, they end up being gold stars or golden fails. This one was smack in the middle. I wonder what would have made it taste better.. probably some of my own spices added in and some lemon juice to cut the jar flavor? I dunno.
It ended up being a pretty low-key evening and the Pilot had to take it easy with his ankle. I spent some time reading, catching up on emails, and painting my nails orange. I ended up skipping the gym since I might have to teach more classes the next couple of days (our schedules are posted every morning and while we have an idea of what we’re teaching, it could always change. We have to be prepared to teach any class), so I’ll be extra refreshed.
This morning, I’m off to do the work thing but in the meantime, some randomness:
1. I’m trying to teach myself how to glide. When I’m joking around with the Pilot, I pretend to glide around him, except I look like a giant goober because I have no idea what I’m doing. I watched and studied a couple of YouTube videos like this one and have been practicing so that eventually, I can glide around him in a circle and blow.his.mind.
2. We get asked this fairly often, but we have no idea where we’ll be living 2 years from now. It’s thrilling and kinda scary at the same time.
3. Usher and Shakira are replacing Xtina and Cee Loo on the Voice next season. I’m kind of excited about it- I LOOOOVE Shakira (would love to teach an entire Zumba class to Shakira songs one of these days) and Usher… well, he’s nice. Very, very nice, indeed.
4. I’ve lost a lot of my Spanish-speaking abilities, but still understand it like I always have. I lived in Tucson most of my life and my family speaks Spanish fluently, but when we lived in Georgia, I rarely heard it. It seems to be kinda like “use it or lose it” because after that 4 years away, my Spanish is choppy, even though I can always understand what everyone else is saying.
5. This article is fantastic– a great reminder to live in the present and focus on yourself.
So tell me, friends, will you be living in the same place in two years? Do you speak any foreign languages? Read anything lately that inspired you?
Hope you have a very happy humpday!
See ya later on the Fashion page.
xoxo
Gina
New on the Family page: 1 month of baby food- round 2!
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I find it adorably hilarious that you are trying to glide!
i’m determined. haha
Gina, love your blog- I read often. I’m glad that I can relate to your “never knowing where you’ll end up” philosophy. I’ve just relocated to Australia (my husband’s job), and it’s certain that we’ll be all over the globe before we actually settle in one spot again. It’s super intimidating giving up your career, starting a family, and having no real personal “direction”. It’s definitely challenging, but as you’ve said, you just have to find a focus for yourself and a niche that will work for you, no matter where you end up living! I’m was sitting here, feeling a little bummed out about being so far away from everything/everyone, but your comments helped me re-gain focus 🙂 Thanks!
thank you so much, kelly!
hang in there <3 it's definitely challenging moving constantly and having to uproot yourself, start a different life everywhere you go, but it definitely makes things exciting 🙂
My job is rotating my between three divisions for the next 2 years in three eight month rotations. The locations are either my dream city or the worlds smallest town…. I sleep at night telling myself my permanent placement will be in my dream town!
Normally I get bored with singing shows but basically I want to be Shakira, so excited!
Also, your nails look fab! You should do a vlog with the products you use!
wow that’s amazing !keeps life exciting huh? i’ll keep my fingers crossed for you
and yes, i have a crazy girl crush on shakira too 🙂
thank you! maybe i will, but i’m so awkward on film unless i’m doing something exercise-related. the only way to get better is to practice though!
I love your hair videos! You aren’t awkward at all!
thank you <3 it kills me to watch them, i feel like i sound like a robot, so thank you for the kind words
I will be living in the same place for a long time, god willing. We moved around a lot as kids so I would like to stay put in GA and not move my kids. I heard something this other day that I loved. My grandma suffered a stroke not long ago and has trouble not dwelling on the past. Her friend told her “What ever happened in the past has already happened. The past is the past. Look forward to the future and live each day for what it is now, in the present.” I loved it. It also seemed to help my grandma move forward a little.
Gina–I am addicted to your blog! I absolutely love it!
And the Essie orange nail polish is perfect for the fall-I love it!
thank you so much for reading, chelsea!
I feel the same way about my spanish too after moving from Tucson to, oddly enough, Georgia as well! We’ve been here for four and a half years and like you mentioned, you don’t hear spanish over here…ever. It’s definitely easy to kind of lose it, unfortunately.
I have lived in Dublin, Ireland for the past 5 years, and I’ll be moving back to the US this June! I’m so excited. I’m originally from California, but we’re (Irish boy in tow) looking to move to a different state first. It’s really fun to research different cities and try to see which ones we could see ourselves living in!
gotta love a meal made in the crockpot that’s ready when you are. and doesn’t it just scream fall?
not sure where we’ll be in two years – my guy’s job moved us from jacksonville, fl to johnson city, tn in july 2011 and he just got a promotion that will move us to orlando, fl soon (yay! i’ve been re-reading meghann’s blog from the beginning to get myself psyched up for orlando running! any other orlando bloggers you can suggest?). so i’ve been doing a lot of applying for positions online and stalking craigslist and realtor sites for places to live (we’re hoping for winter park or somewhere in that general area). we could potentially be in orlando for the long haul, which is fine because our families are in the jacksonville area, but we’re open to other locations too. i’m just excited to be headed back to a big city! with publix! where you can buy wine in the grocery store and on sundays!
i can’t picture the voice without xtina and cee-lo (and his animal props lol).
We think we will be in NYC, but maybe DC. Not sure….kinda scary to be honest. While I can’t speak any other languages besides English, I am fluent in American Sign Language. Receptive skills are always better than productive skills when it comes to foreign languages just so you know 🙂
Haha I love that you’re learning to glide! I’m pretty sure I would fail miserably if I tried, but that’s okay! I know what you mean about the Spanish — I’m mostly fluent in German, but I haven’t had a chance to speak it much lately and I can already feel myself losing some of that knowledge. I’ve actually thought about buying some novels in German to help expand my vocabulary some more… I might just do that! I also know exactly how you feel about not knowing where you’ll be in 2 years! My hubby is in the Army, so we’ve definitely been down that road many times. We found out a couple months ago that we’ll be moving to Alaska next summer, so that’ll be an adventure! 😉