Lately I've Been...

Lately I've been thinking of how I need to stop neglecting my little blog here! I've been cooking and cooking and cooking but am always so concerned about trying to get a good picture of my food that I get frustrated and end up not blogging at all. I've decided to relax and not stress about the perfection of the pictures (since I'm still a very beginner photographer, although that's something that I really do want to work on), and the perfection of what to say about the recipe, and so on and so forth. I just want to enjoy this space, be able to record a good recipe, and also be able to use this space as a place to talk about other things that are going on in my life- things I'm enjoying lately, books I'm reading, things I'm obsessing about on Pinterest, etc. I just want to be a little more relaxed in general.

So that said, here are some things I've been doing recently.

1. Reading Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn for my book club and loving it so far!! I'm all for suspense and thrillers so I'm super excited about this pick and I've read so many good things about this book!

2. Trying to put some of my Pinterest pins into action (if you are on Pinterest and want to follow me, you can find me at www.pinterest.com/emilycirrus/). My first project was inspired by a few coffee bar pins. I thought this was a great idea and perfect for me because I love coffee, and I had a perfect spot for this in my kitchen already! It never occurred to me before that I didn't have to have my coffee maker on my counters! Not only does it look much better, it saves counter space! It is still a work in progress, but it's getting there! Oh... Also, I finally got a magnetic knife rack!! I've been wanting this forever! My boyfriend and I went to ikea on New Year's Eve and finally bought one! I also bought some nice, plain white dishes! Such a bargain :)

3.I'm starting to work out regularly again after the laziness of the holiday season! One of my New Year's resolutions is to work out at least 3 times a week. So far I met my goal last week, and as long as I work out tomorrow, I will have met it this week as well! Today I ran for 2.5 miles (at 6 mph)! It was hard, but I did it and I feel so proud of myself! Now that I have an iPhone it is even better to run because I can listen to Pandora radio! Today I listened to Cold-Hearted Snake radio- Paula Abdul, Madonna and Janet Jackson all made appearances! Also, I made a Green Monster for the first time last weekend to have after my workout... I used unsweetened vanilla almond milk, vanilla Greek yogurt, banana, peanut butter and spinach. I loved it!!

4. This week my menu consisted of Skillet Pork Chops and Rice with Parsley Butter, Mushroom Bacon Swiss Burgers with Curly Fries, Lemon Chicken with Potatoes au Gratin and Dirty Risotto! There wasn't a bad recipe in the bunch, but my favorite was probably the burgers... What can I say? I love a good burger!

5. I tried Panera's new big kid grilled cheese last weekend! Soooo good! How can you go wrong with three types of cheese and bacon. Yum!!!!

I hope you enjoyed this little update! I have a feeling the blog is going to be more like this in the future. Don't worry though! Recipes will be included still :). I will post those soon!