This past Sunday, before heading out to a birthday party, Adam and I were about to do our (sometimes) weekly big cleaning, when I looked around our bedroom. We usually ignore our bedroom during our weekly cleanings, because no one sees it but us and we can just shut the door on the mess. There was just stuff everywhere. Piles of clean and dirty clothes, boxes of things that needed to be unpacked or returned, clean gym clothes hanging on the drying rack because our drawers are too full, half-unpacked suitcases and bags, just stuff. And it was bugging the hell out of me. So, we filled up one garbage bag full of clothes to donate, one full of undonateable clothes to trash, and one full of old sheets to donate to a local animal shelter. I eyed the suits I've been meaning to donate for over a year now, decided to see how far the dry cleaners that accepted the suit donations were from the place where the party was going to be held that afternoon, determined that they were only five minutes apart, and plopped the suits on top of our donation pile. It felt good to get rid of that clutter. Our bedroom actually has a floor!

Lately, I've been feeling like life is moving along without me. Days, weeks, months just flying by in the blink of an eye without my even really noticing. My life is starting to feel like the bedroom floor... things, events, obligations, ideas just piled up haphazardly. Instead of taking the time to tackle them, I usually just shut the door and pretend they're not there. I just don't feel, for lack of a better word, present in my life. (That sounds so crunchy, granola-y.) It's March already... March! My birthday, my thirtieth birthday is in just four days! I swear it was just the holidays.

I wonder if it's turning 30 that is causing me to realize that I want change some things about my life. Not big changes, I'm overall quite happy with how things are and where I'm headed... just the little day-to-day things. Or maybe it's because Spring is just around the corner and I've caught the spring-cleaning and organizing bug. I've been thinking a lot lately of how I could fit in all the things I want/need to do. Mundane tasks (cleaning, laundry), necessary tasks (exercise), fun activities. But I also want to be able to do nothing... to lie on the couch, watch television, blog more. And get 8 hours of sleep. I keep contemplating setting up a daily/weekly schedule. Is it crazy to schedule almost every moment of your day? To set a "bedtime" and a "workout time" and a "dinnertime" and a cleaning schedule and a laundry schedule? To write "relaxing" into the 9-10pm timeslot?

How do you find a way to fit it all in?

Vegetable Hot Pot
Ingredients:
4 cups vegetable or chicken broth (I used No Chicken Broth from Whole Foods)
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp. (or more to taste) red pepper flakes
2 carrots, thinly slices into disks
1/2 medium green cabbage, shredded
1.5 cups bean sprouts (I used a can, which wasn't that bad, although I'd prefer to have had fresh)
1 can water chestnuts (I think I might leave these out next time... I didn't really notice them)
1 block extra-firm tofu, diced into approximately one inch pieces
4 scallions, sliced
1 tsp. sesame oil
2 tsp. soy sauce
2 tsp. rice vinegar

Directions:
1. Pour broth into a pot and add garlic and red pepper flakes, bring to a boil, then reduce to a fast simmer.
2. Add carrots and cabbage and cook for 5 minutes.
3. Add bean sprouts and water chestnuts and cook for a few more minutes.
4. Add tofu and cook for a few more minutes.
5. Add scallions, sesame oil, soy sauce and rice vinegar and cook for a few more minutes. (I know, "few more minutes" is not very helpful, but I didn't check my watch or anything.)
6. Serve (with Sriracha sauce if you like it extra spicy, like I do.)

This was the perfect thing to eat with my cold... I could actually taste it even through my dulled taste buds! It was so easy, I may not have to go out to Spices anymore. (Just kidding... they make yummy spring onion cakes and I haven't figured those out yet!)

Yes, it's only a cold. It's not like when I had the flu last year. But I can get pretty miserable when I have a cold, especially if it becomes a chest cold because it can hang around for weeks and I get super tired and lazy from the lack of oxygen. This comes at a terrible time, when every weekend in March is jam-packed with activities, I've got a birthday coming up that I want to be able to celebrate with full force, and I really, really need to pick up the motivation to work out after a not-so-hot February.

So! This is where you can help me out... do you have any sure fire ways to stop a cold before it really hits? I've got some Halls zinc throat drops and I'm planning on drinking lots of tea to ease my sore throat, but I want to kick this cold before it has a chance to settle in and take over my body. I want to show this cold who's boss.

Year-Long Goals:
1. Run an 8:30 mile. Yes!
2. Run a half marathon. Currently training for one.
3. Get back to my law school graduation weight. No weight loss this month, but no weight gain either. So there's that.
4. Take a class, any class. Nope.
5. Handle stress and anxiety better. I think I am still doing fairly well with this.

Five Monthly Goals:
6. Send my grandmother a card or letter every month. Yup, a thank you card for my early birthday present.
7. Remember to send birthday cards to friends and family. Sent out my mom's birthday card at the end of the month for her March 8th birthday.
8. Set a monthly fitness goal and accomplish it. My February fitness goal was to run 50 miles throughout the month. Unfortunately, I fell short. I was having a lot of trouble getting motivated to exercise this month. I only ran 34 miles. I think I'm going to aim for 50 again this month (I'm more motivated now that race season is almost upon us!).
9. Clean the apartment once a week. I am pretty certain we did this. Maybe not a total thorough cleaning each time, but we picked up and cleaned the kitchen and bathroom. And we bought a fancy new vacuum!
10. Read two books a month. Fail, again. I finished one (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay) and got halfway through two others (Middlesex and The Help).

It's insane. Adam and I are on dueling laptops ALL evening long, and I know it's mostly my fault. If I wasn't on my laptop, he probably wouldn't be on his. This is absolutely no way to spend time together. Not at all.

So, I'm changing things. I just dropped about 10 blogs from my Google Reader (and then promptly added three more blogs to try out from Jennie's list... sigh). I hope to cut out a few more as time goes on, and whittle my blog list (other than the many food blogs I read) down to just those that I am really interested in following -- those where I regularly leave comments (or would if there weren't a gazillion hoops to do so, I'm looking at you Blogger!), or with whom I "converse with" on Twitter, or those I've been following for many, many years and can't imagine not reading. I also want to make sure that I continue to check out your blogs, so if you don't know whether I already follow your blog, please leave me a link so I can check it out. I like getting to know my readers.

My plan is to check Google Reader just a few times a day -- in the morning, while I eat lunch, and in the evening. I'm going to try to limit my internet time at home at night to just checking my email, logging my meals and workouts, and a limited period of blog reading/writing. No more "hanging out on the internet" instead of hanging out with the real life human being that is on the couch next to me.

Hopefully, I can start to reclaim my real world life back and stop feeling like time is just easily slipping away from me... when I'm pretty sure it's just slipping into that great black hole of The Internet.

Perhaps wishing the groom got a bouquet too? :-)

And now I have a vase full of pretty flowers!

So far, plans include meeting some friends for dinner (location TBD) on Saturday night, then going out to meet up with another friend and his crew, who are also celebrating his birthday that weekend. I think I want to go to Top of the Rock and hopefully to a Broadway show. I'm looking for any recommendations for a cool museum/touristy thing to do, as well as good (and not crazy expensive) places to eat and get drinks -- brunch and dinner options. Anywhere in Manhattan is fine... I doubt we'll be venturing out to the other boroughs that weekend.

You know, your average Sunday.

We're not really Valentine's Day people. We don't do gifts. We don't make reservations at a fancy restaurant. No chocolates or roses. But we did decide we were going to make a "fancy dinner," which basically means it's not a one-pot meal of some sort and we were even going to have dessert!

We decided to make Rachael Ray's "You Won't Be Single For Long" Vodka Pasta. We left out the chicken stock (obviously, but we didn't substitute anything for it and I think it would have been too watery a sauce if we had), used whole canned tomatoes (all Trader Joe's had) that we crushed ourselves, and added some crushed red pepper flakes and freshly grated parmesan cheese at the end.

It was really good! We don't eat a whole lot of pasta, but vodka cream sauce is one of my favorites. I would probably add the crushed red pepper flakes into the sauce while it's cooking next time for the flavor to be more incorporated throughout the sauce.

On the side, we had another Rachael Ray dish... Arugula Salad with Pear, Blue Cheese and Apricot Vinaigrette. We used apricot preserves we already had on hand instead of the "all fruit" spread, and used all arugula (one bag) for the salad greens. It was so yummy. It made a huge bowl of salad, but we ate almost all of it! (Two helpings for me, and three for Adam.) The only mistake was that I dumped the whole amount of dressing on the salad and it definitely didn't need that much.

Dinner was served with some champagne we received from the jeweler from whom we got my engagement ring. So sweet!

Finally, for dessert, we made a modified version of Martha Stewart's Meyer Lemon Mousse Cups. (Our version is after the jump.) Main modification: serving it in bowls, rather than hollowed-out lemons.

It may not have been as pretty as Martha's, but it was delicious.

Zest of one Meyer lemon
1/4 cup Meyer lemon juice (we needed 2 lemons)
3 large eggs, separated
1/2 cup sugar, divided
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled and cut into pieces
1/2 cup heavy cream
Pinch of salt

Directions:

1. Zest one lemon and set the zest aside.
2. Juice the lemons to measure out 1/4 cup juice and set aside.
3. Separate 3 eggs, whites into one bowl and yolks into another. Put the egg whites into the fridge.
4. Make the lemon curd: Place egg yolks, 1/4 cup lemon juice, and 6 tablespoons sugar in a small heavy saucepan. Whisk to combine. Set pan over medium heat; stir constantly with a wooden spoon, making sure to stir sides and edges of the saucepan. Cook until mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon. (Martha said this would be 3-5 minutes, but it took us about 8.)
5. Remove saucepan from heat. Pass mixture through a fine sieve set over a medium bowl. Add butter, one piece at a time, stirring with a wooden spoon until smooth. Stir in reserved lemon zest. Place plastic wrap directly on the surface to prevent a skin from forming, and chill until firm, at least 1 hour.
6. In a medium bowl, whip cream to stiff peaks with a handheld electric mixer. Cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate.
7. Clean the whisk attachments. In a second medium bowl, with a handheld electric mixer, whip egg whites and a pinch of salt to soft peaks. Sprinkle in remaining 2 tablespoons sugar, and continue whipping until stiff glossy peaks form. Set aside.
8. Remove lemon curd and whipped cream from refrigerator. Stir 1/4 of the whipped cream into curd to lighten the curd. With a large rubber spatula, gently but thoroughly fold in remaining whipped cream. Fold in whipped egg whites.
9. Divide into serving dishes. Chill until set, a minimum of 1 hour or overnight.

Adam knew that I was not really interested in a "traditional" diamond ring. Many are quite beautiful and I have nothing against them for other people, but they really aren't "me." In fact, I didn't really care much about receiving a ring at all, but he insisted... and who is going to turn down free jewelry? :-)

When Adam proposed, he used a birthstone ring that I had that he knew I had wanted to have reset anyway. He had even gone to a jeweler to talk to her about different options for resetting it before he proposed. We went to the jeweler the day after we got engaged and chose a setting that would have my birthstone (aquamarine) in the middle and a small diamond on each side. In the original ring setting, all three stones were diamonds. We were going to come back after the holidays to finalize some things.

(By the way, Adam had picked out three settings he thought I would like, and even though the jeweler told me to make sure I looked at all of the ones they had, my favorite was one he had chosen. Good taste, that man.)

Then, on Christmas Eve, my grandfather gave me my grandmother's engagement ring and wedding band and said that we could use them however we wanted. (My grandmother passed away when I was 11.) The settings were not really my style, but I knew right away that I wanted to use the stones from her rings in mine. Her engagement ring had a round diamond (in a square setting, oddly) with six small diamonds (again, round diamonds in square settings) on the side. Her wedding band had seven small diamonds set in it (same square settings). I decided to use the main diamond from her engagement ring in my engagement ring, and the 13 small diamonds in my wedding band. (Particularly fitting, as my birthday is on the 13th and 13 is my favorite number.)

I still loved the original setting I had picked out for my birthstone, but instead of having my pale blue birthstone in the middle with accent diamonds on the side, I decided to use my grandmother's stone as the center ring and with two light blue sapphires on the side. I really loved the idea of having a punch of color in my ring. Plus, even though it was based on a setting they had, my ring was truly custom and unique.

And, now onto what (some of) you have been waiting for... photos of the ring. (Please ignore my scary scaly looking hands... it's winter!)

Year-Long Goals:
1. Run an 8:30 mile. Not yet, but I am getting faster! This month, I ran a 9:01 mile.
2. Run a half marathon. Took the first step... I signed up for one!
3. Get back to my law school graduation weight. Headed in that direction. I lost four pounds this month (although two of them were "holiday weight".)
4. Take a class, any class. Not yet.
5. Handle stress and anxiety better. I think I'm doing a fairly good job with this. The biggest stressor of 2010 is going to be wedding planning and so far it's been mostly stress-free. We had to deal with some family issues, but at least Adam and I are on the same page and can present a united front for why we want to do things our way. Also, the process of finding a venue and photographer was pretty painless.

Five Monthly Goals:
6. Send my grandmother a card or letter every month. Check!
7. Remember to send birthday cards to friends and family. Got my friend Sarah's card out the last week of January for her February 2 birthday.
8. Set a monthly fitness goal and accomplish it. My January fitness goal was to work out four times a week, which I did. (Even though I had to get up super early on January 30 before driving up to NY to do it.)
9. Clean the apartment once a week. Alas, this did not happen. I think we did clean it three times total, but not once a week. I've already got the first week of February down, though!
10. Read two books a month. Fail. I read 500+ pages of a 600+ book. I need to finish that one, and then hopefully read two others for February.

Definitely RA asked: Why did you start blogging?
I started blogging the summer after my first year of law school because I was miserable and I needed a hobby to distract me from how miserable I was. A pretty depressing reason, actually. I had never really even heard of a blog until Nick (of the question below) told me what one was. (Although, back in college, I had created my own website -- I think it may have been on Geocities, but I am not 100% sure on that one, as it was over 10 years ago! -- which I randomly updated, although not with discrete posts, just changing content.) Nick had his own blog back then, knew that I was going through a really rough time and needed something new to focus my energy on, and gave me the idea that I should start a blog. He helped me set up this blog back in the summer of 2003... six and a half years ago! I really had no idea what I was doing. I basically saw having a blog as a way to keep in touch with my high school and college friends who, by then, were living all over the country.

What's pretty funny is that Nick, who was into this blogging scene long before I ever was, has started and abandoned so many blogs in the past 6.5 years, and I still have this one going. :-)

Corey asked: What made you decide to blog and why anonymously? How do you find the time?
I blog anonymously because I don't want to be Googleable. Mostly for job reasons... I don't want my coworkers or clients to see this website, and in the event I ever want to change jobs, I don't want prospective employers to read this site before they get to meet me in person. (Also one of the many reasons I am not on Facebook.)

Clearly, considering my last post was almost two weeks ago, I am not very good about finding the time. :-) If work is slow, I will sometimes write out a post on my "lunch break." (We don't get real lunch breaks, but I figure that I can do whatever I want while I take ten minutes to eat my PB&banana sandwich at my desk, thankyouverymuch.) I will try to keep a list of topics to write about in a draft email. Really, it ebbs and flows. Sometimes, I'll be on the ball and write a few posts a week (or even one every day for a month), and other times a week or two will pass before I get back around to it. Sometimes writer's block is the cause for the delay, but usually it's because I've become preoccupied with something else. (This time, work and wedding planning).

Nick asked: Here's a question for you, when is TS going to start his own blog? (For those new to the game, TS = Adam.) I highly doubt Adam will ever start his own blog. He has enough hobbies he doesn't find time for, plus he's not such a great speller.

* I haven't really had writer's block, so much as I just haven't set aside any time to devote to writing on this blog. Or reading many blogs, for that matter. The "unread" count on my Google Reader has been higher than it's ever been.

(Wow, I totally would have spelled minuscule wrong without spell check there.)

Anyway....

Happy DeLurking Day, folks! (Folks? I never say that.) Anyway, I would love it if any of you readers out there (whether you are a lurker or not) would leave me a comment today. So far I've gotten bunches of comments from spammers, but not from any actual readers. (Not on this post, just in general. Spamming has been out of control lately. Yet another reason I need to update to a newer version of MT.)

So, just say hi and (I'm totally stealing this idea from Jodi) suggest one of your favorite blogs (or food websites, love those!) to read. Or ask me a random question. Or tell me the best book you've read recently... I'm trying to read more this year. Or all three! Or just say hi!

I'll make sure to make the rounds tonight and do my part in delurking. :-)

(My goodness, what is up with this post? It's as if I had way too much caffeine or something, when in fact I've had none. Being holed up in depositions all the live long day can make you a bit punchy, I suppose. Also, what is up with all the parentheses?)

Cod with Raymond Beurre Blanc Sauce (pan-fried tofu with the sauce, for me)
Orzo Salad with Peppers, Onions, Shallots and Parmesan
Salad with Homemade Balsamic Vinaigrette (I can never spell Vinaigrette without the help of spell-check)
Steamed Broccoli (which I also covered in the sauce, it was SO GOOD)

Our friends Carolyn, Mike, Megan and Omar came over and we managed to make the perfect amount of food. I love when that happens! We had just enough leftovers for us to have lunch the next day.

Then, we turned to the game portion of game night. For Christmas, we got Guesstimation, which is a trivia game where all of the answers are a number or a date and the closest guess wins. There are some really random questions on there! (For example: How many females in the world read Harlequin romance novels?) I thought it was a lot of fun, but I also really like trivia games.

Our next game was Harry Potter Clue, which I picked up at Marshall's just before Christmas. I used to love playing Clue and this seemed like a fun little twist on the game. The mystery takes place at Hogwarts, and instead of weapons you use spells, and the secret passage ways change. There are a lot more elements to this game than the regular Clue, which may be why it took us TWO HOURS. I enjoyed the game with its new twists, but my advice is to not start it after 10pm!

More and more, I keep hearing from different friends that they are interested in starting regular game nights. At this rate, we may end up with a game night a week! That's fine by me... I have a closet full of games to break out!