beautyfoodnerdrunningshoptravel

July 23, 2014

comic book love - vol 1

happy comic book day! i love the big bang theory. i jumped on the bandwagon a little late but i'm totally caught up and still enjoying the reruns. some of my favorite episodes are when the girls venture to the comic book store. while i have yet to encounter a store packed with the stereotyped comic book nerds frequenting the store from big bang, i have gotten a few "what's she doing here" looks. luckily my favorite store, house of secrets, has a resident nerd girl so i feel right at home.

house of secrets comic book

my taste in comics is about as far reaching as my taste in music. i'll read / listen to just about anything someone i trust is willing to sell me. here's a few suggestions i'll try and sell you.

July 8, 2014

matcha mochi yogurt pops

on monday i proudly posted to instagram ...

matcha mochi yogurt pops
i made mochi!

posting that was much easier than the actual making of the mochi. what began as a lark to make some popsicles i saw on pintrest turned into a half day scavenger hunt around santa monica.

July 3, 2014

lentil curry chicken

as lorelai gilmore once said "with tater tots i can just rip and dump." this isn't tater tots (tho i do eat those on a near weekly basis) but it's pretty much rip and pour.

i claim to be a big fan of crock pot cooking. i say "claim" because tho i'm a "fan" i don't cook crock pot meals very often. the main reason is that the 8-6 hour cooking time isn't always convienent. i have to have this cook overnight and if i'm just a few minutes late putting it on, morning ruined. i really shouldn't blame the crock pot, it's poor planning on my part really.


lentil chicken curry crockpot meal
all you need

July 1, 2014

i've been stuck in a toy box

it's been awhile and i don't really have an excuse. not much has been going on, except for the awesomeness at the end of this entry. welcome back!

as a kid i had a small box of legos, just enough to build a house with half a roof. legos were a tad pricey and i spent most of my time glued to my game boy. there weren't nearly as many kits as there are today, i think pirate ship and robin hood were about it. my best friend had robin hoods castle, i played at her house a lot. i'm super jealous of kids today as the massive options for legos, but silently laughing b/c there's no way my mom can say no when i just have to have some. (ok, i laugh out loud)

if you read my first house guest entry, you know that i have a little thing for legos. if you haven't read it, go have a look b/c lego land is awesome! also, there's me with lego luke sykwalker --->

the last year has been all about the legos for me. first there was the to scale star wars x-wing in ny.

star wars lego new york nyc chewie r2d2 c3po darth vadar boba fett
x-wing in times square

May 14, 2014

blue apron meals

i'm sharing these 3 meals at once. mainly b/c since the recipe links have pictures already, i didn't feel the need to photograph the experience. if i was more comfortable on camera, i should have recorded it. there were some "are you kidding me?!" moments.


blue arpon home cooked meals food delivery
"instructions"


my overall impressions

taste: tasty but a bit bland. i'm guessing this is due to having a mass distro product. you want to please a wider audience so you have to tone it down a bit. much like the current landscape of network tv. (but that's another rant entirely)

ease: the faq page says each meal is meant to take around 30-45 min to prepare. yeah, if you have superior knife skills. i do not. the most difficult/annoying part was that every large onion, clove of garlic and veggie needed to be "small diced." this takes time and skills, both i was lacking at the time. (luckily i had club w to ease my pains)

May 5, 2014

food clubs

a few months ago while doing my morning round of blog reading: into the gloss, peanut butter fingers, the nerd machine, you get the idea, i came across an interesting piece on a food delivery service called blue apron. julie at pbfingers.com had gotten blue apron as a christmas gift and was posting some seriously delicious pics.

as luck would have it that day blue apron was a gilt city deal for los angeles that week, dinner for 2 at half the price. i'm just one so, more food for me! i bought one straight away. after signing in to my blue apron account another deal came up for a wine club they were partnering with, club w. food and wine, gilt.com, you have my heart.

drinks!

April 18, 2014

friday favorites 4.18.14

box cloud storage

box.com
some of you may have seen the stories flying around the last 2 weeks after dropbox announced they added condoleezza rice to their board of directors. i've used dropbox for years and have loved it, but i made the switch this week to box.com for 2 reasons. 1. personal political views, 2. more space for free. clearly, in the course of normal life, more space for free would have been my first reason to switch, but if not for the "rice" of it all, i would never have sought out an alternative. box.com works just like dropbox but with 7gb of storage more for free. it does require a higher os on my laptop than i current;y have in order to have a synced folder on the desktop, but i'll be upgrading that soon as well. even if rice's appointment doesn't bother you, it's still worth checking out box.com.

April 16, 2014

protein pancakes

nearly every fitness/health food blog i read has a recipe for protein pancakes. also a trend, these bloggers seem to have enough time to make one fresh every morning. sadly, i do not have that luxury. whether la traffic, work sched or inability to wake before 6:50, there's no way i'm getting showered, dressed and fed before i head to work.

then last weekend as i preheated my oven to warm up my trader joe's blueberry waffles i thought, i wonder if the protein pancakes would reheat? guess what, they do!

banana oatmeal protein pancakes nerd machine
you'll also need milk

April 14, 2014

pop physique

if you're not following mindy kaling on instagram, you should be. the sartorial pics alone are enough to brighten your day. a few weeks ago in a refresh i saw this

via instagram.com/mindykaling

it was like something out of speed racer. i had to google away. pop physique is yet another exercise class created by a former ballet dancer, but this time, the music is rockin! i found one in my neighborhood and decided to give it a whirl. lucky me, groupon had a 5 classes for 50% off deal, score!

April 11, 2014

friday favorites 4.11.14

zombies run app fitness

i started a mission with zombies run 1 way back when i was training for the disney half. now that the sun is up long enough for a short run after work, i'm back to the zombies. in season 2 there's now an online community and base building within the app. there's also 5k and 10k side missions to help get ready for a race, rather than just interval training. the app also integrates your playlist in between instructions. it's been 2 years so i've reset the game, runner 5 is on a mission!

April 9, 2014

chicken quinoa broccoli casserole

yeah, i know, there's been a lot of quinoa lately. i found a bag in the back of the pantry and i just had to use it. years ago southern living posted a recipe for "invent your own casserole." you basically picked a pasta, meat, frozen veggie, can of soup and added them to milk, water and sour cream. perfect casserole every time. this is the same principal, save the sour cream and canned soup.


April 4, 2014

friday favorites 4.4.14

trader joe's channa marsala

this is one of those items i pick up every time i go to tj's. i got it first when a friend was going out of town for 8 months and emptied the contents of his fridge/freezer into mine. this is my go to quick dinner with some batsimi rice. i pour half the channa over rice and save the rest for later.

trader joe's

April 2, 2014

apple cinnamon quinoa bake

i'm always looking for something quick and portable for breakfast. i'm not really hungry, or even able to eat breakfast before i land at my desk. the oatmeal with an apple got a bit ho hum and i happened to stumble upon this treat on popsugar.com

smelled so good while cooking

March 31, 2014

will run for chocolate

but seriously, that's what i did.

hot chocolate run 5k 15k san diego
totally worth it

i had a few criteria to meet when picking a race to start the year
  1. supports a charity
  2. longer than 5k
  3. something i wouldn't mind doing alone

March 28, 2014

friday favorites 3.28.14

run keeper app
i love this app b/c it not only tracks my run, but i can share my runs with selected friends. i'm not posting all this to social media, but i do have a cross country friend i share my runs with. we occasionally comment on each others workouts, good or bad.


March 26, 2014

salted pretzel chocolate chip cookie dough snickers bars

no, these are in no way healthy, but they taste sooo good!

we got a new co-worker on our team at the beginning of the year, sadly this meant he missed the holiday bake off. lucky for him i was in a treat fixing mood when his birthday rolled around last week.

back in september i'd made bars for my boss that were basically: chocolate chip cookie, chocolate, rice krispy treat, oreo, reese cup, rice krispy treat, chocolate. i felt i needed to up the ante. thank you pinterest, behold!

chocolate caramel pretzel cookie dough
try not to lick the screen

March 24, 2014

everywhere in la takes 20 minutes

or so said cher's father in clueless. for the most part, it's true. what is also true is that many of us may work in la, but we live just outside. i live in santa monica and work in hollywood, my commute to work is about 30-40 minutes. luckily for me, it's not in stand still traffic, that would drive me nuts. with half an hour spent in the car, what should i listen to?

when i first moved out to la i tried seacrest in the morning, it seemed like the "la" thing to do. i quickly got really annoyed and switched to the npr station. sadly the time i'm in my jeep splits up morning programming. i catch the end of one segment and the beginning of another, no resolution, grrr. sirius satellite channel flipping it is. until a wonderful thing happened on tumblr.

via tumblr

March 19, 2014

chunky monkey protein bars

i have a theory that there's no situation in life that cannot be improved by the presence of a monkey. so when this recipe showed up in my feed, i had to try it. didn't hurt that it's flavor was compared to ben & jerry's, my favorite ice cream makers. gods actually.

super simple

March 17, 2014

"run with the herd" or "virtually there"

one day while trolling pinterest i saw quite possibly the coolest medal ever. let's be honest, swag is one of the first things we look at when we're picking runs.

jedi challenge nerd run virtual run
i must have it

March 14, 2014

friday favorites 3.14.14

nike miler tank

loose fitting but not baggy, loop at the back to control head phone cord and there's a long sleeve version. i actually wore both on my 6 mile run in vancouver last weekend, didn't over heat and didn't freeze. it's the running top combo goldilocks would have worn.

via nike.com

March 3, 2014

1st house guest

back in october my friend robert came to visit. he'd been working like a dog fixing people's mac's and desperately needed a vacation. after a few months of begging, he finally flew out here. i had a whole weekend of nerdy awesomeness planned: comic book stores, video game stores and of course, lego land!!!

lego land legoland


there are a few trips i have yet to make since i've moved to ca: wine country, comic-con and lego land. when comic-con finally rolled around last year, and again i couldn't go, it was made only more depressing by the announcement of the exclusive lego delorean. i wanted one sooo badly. i begged everyone i knew who was going to bring one back, sadly they sold out.

February 28, 2014

new year, new food contraption


like ariel, i've got gadgets and gizmos of plenty. heaven forbid i fall asleep on the sofa watching network tv and wake up to a late night infomercial, night sleep ruined. when i was 17, my boyfriend and i totally bought some cham-wows after a demo at the nc state fair. so when i saw this demonstration at my neighborhood sur la table, i was hooked. santa was kind enough to drop one under the tree for me, as well as one to my friend kiki (@alovelypuzzle).



February 25, 2014

new gear for 2014

started off the year with some new duds. my shoes were beyond old and i really just "needed" some stuff.

brooks running shoes

shoes: brooks pure flow 3
the sales associate at frontrunner fitted me in these after i told him "i hate shoes." they're lower profile than any i'd had before, i love them! the swoosh is actually pretty white/reflective in real life.

February 14, 2014

hot chocolate 5/15k


true story

having already done the happiest run on earth i figured i should do the sweetest. i was hoping to do this run in los angeles, when it's frozen hot chocolate, but i was out of town for 2013. i fully support any system where chocolate is given as a reward.
america's sweetest race

February 11, 2014

"get up and go" or "just 5 more minutes"

i have said it before, i will probably say it forever: i am not a morning person, at all. i just love being in bed too much. i've spent the past week pouring over countless articles on "how even you can become a morning person." sadly, there's no easy way, like everything else in life, you just have to do it.

usually my sleep cycle alarm goes off and it's actually not that hard to wake up. guess it really does work with my sleep rhythm. the hard part is getting out of the bed. first there's trying to get the cat off my legs, 10 llbs feels like 50 at 6 am. then there's prying my head off the pillow, it's just so cozy.

once i'm awake i go thru the list of things i need to do to get out the door: shower (never long enough), get dressed (i have nothing to wear), breakfast (who needs it there's coffee at work), lunch (i'll buy something near work), run (maybe tomorrow). this either puts me back to sleep or bums me out so much i set an alarm for 10 more minutes. i am now making a real effort to try and make my morning run days less of a bummer by doing a little prep the night before.

February 7, 2014

"breaking in" or "breaking bad habits"

so, i got seriously lazy last year. all my get up and go from 2012 when i ran the disney half marathon was gone. i don't know what happened, it rolled under the sofa or something. 2014 is going to be different, seriously, soon, for reals.

knowing i'm only motivated by concrete deadlines, i wish i had signed up for the tinkerbell half this year. my hopes were that i'd be out of town on a job, no such luck. so i've decided my first run will be the hot chocolate 15k in san diego in march. time to get myself moving.

http://www.hotchocolate15k.com/sandiego