Links and Thinks

Is the title too twee and/or dorky?

1. I've been making good headway on a few of my resolutions already. My 45th birthday (!!!!) is this March, and the day falls in the middle of the week. I had a few grandiose plans for celebrating but those usually end up getting scrapped. Instead I decided to give myself a gift I sorely need: I am taking the entire week off. A birthday staycation!

I am already counting down the days: 45 business days to go. Seriously.

2.  Also from the resolution front: I dropped off a couple of bags of food at the Food Pantry, added this Donate page to my bookmarks, did my monthly edits/purchases post, and got the 3 posts in last week.

3. I am also working on the budgeting. For years I used Quicken on Windows, and loved the program. It was linked to all my accounts, I could categorize all my purchases easily, and setting up budgets was a breeze. Switching to a Mac changed all that; Intuit refuses to make a good version of Quicken for the Mac, so I had to abandon my beloved program. I've been half-heartedly using Mint, but my Nordstrom account doesn't link to it, and after all this time, I just don't love the idea of doing all of my financial planning up in the clouds. I have online banking so it seems like a weird tic, but when I pull all my accounts together in one place with their account numbers, I just feel better if it is on my computer.

So I have been comparing programs and I am torn between two: iBank and Moneydance. Anyone have any experience with either? Thoughts?

4. I want to add Helen's dinner-table "aspiration" as an addendum to my own New Years resolutions; we have a great kitchen table, and we only use it with company. Not only is it a great way to truly slow down and appreciate our food (when I did Core we sat at the table all the time), but it is a way to spend more time together, take a breath between working and laying on the couch watching TV, and most of all, will eliminate most of the food stains on our clothes, laps, computers, and rug. ;-D

5. Lest you think all of this resolution business is a waste of time, a recent study showed that our personalities are changing all the time even though we think they are not. Science! (TM Jessie) It's never too late to change yourself.

6.



This is what I needed the plastic shoe boxes for. ;-D

Yes, those are all of my frozen bagged foods. I made tomato sauce and a batch of Sheila's green pasta sauce, and froze them flat on a cookie sheet.



Then I stacked them in the plastic boxes, alongside another container of soups. They had been scattered throughout the freezer, and I realized we weren't eating them as much as we should. This should help with that.



That's chicken noodle, smoky black bean, Tuscan bean, and butternut squash-carrot soup on the right. My friend Amanda created another recipe for a savory parmesan-nutmeg muffin that I am going to try, and I think we will be making quick work of some of these soups this week. (I will post the muffin recipe once I have tried them out!)

P.S. I stole the shoebox idea from Kat at Corporette, from a post from many moons ago. The frozen baggies idea I incorporated immediately, but I waited on the shoe box until now. It felt way too anal-retentive organized, but...that's what I am! Might as well make it work for us. :)

7. Meal planning frequently falls apart for me when I try to do it over the course of a week, and sometimes (like this one) even Sunday Cooking doesn't get done. I think sometimes I am just too ambitious; I buy all the ingredients but for whatever reason I just don't feel like doing the work, and the food goes bad and we order pizza instead.

So when my friend A linked this cooking challenge, it was a light bulb moment. OH! Not every meal is made for the same reasons, or with the same amount of effort -- and even comfort non-cooking foods have their place in meal planning!

I can use my own lists of known classics and my Pinterest board for new ideas, but this categorization from that post is one I want to use over and over:

• Classic Weeknight – Exactly what it sounds like. Quick, simple, healthy, meals that require minimal effort when you are charged with getting dinner on the table fast.
• Make-Ahead – Some of these would also fall under “Classic Weeknight,” but the beauty of them is that you can do a large chunk of the work on the weekend and store in the freezer.
• Keep the Spark Alive – These are a little more involved than regular weeknight dinners, but they are every bit as crucial to your psychological health because they take time and love and have the potential to get you excited about cooking again.
• Security Blankets – These are not recipes, per se, but suggestions for finger-foody things (peanut butter, hummus, baby carrots) that don’t need to be cooked.

The challenge is that you look at your calendar for the week, and see which nights should be Security Blankets or Make Aheads, which are ones that you have time to try new things (Keep Spark Alive), when you can prepare Make Aheads or just Classic Weeknights. You are supposed to pick a couple from each, and Security Blankets for the rest of the days.

I LOVE THIS IDEA. I can tweak it for us so easily, to ensure we definitely do more home cooking, with a reasonable mix of new, favorites, easy, hard and pre-made, or just a happy PB&J or baked potato.

8. Doesn't this sandwich look amazing? I don't know why it never occurred to me that we could make reubens at home. We can make reubens at home, OMG. And it can be a healthier version too: turkey pastrami, good sauerkraut and rye bread, a light Thousand Island...my husband is going to love this one. Oh my yes.

9. Did everyone see Ally's trick for wearing collared shirts under crewneck sweaters? She doesn't button the shirt underneath except for the top and bottom buttons, and tucks the rest to the sides. As I commented on her blog: Woman, you are a genius.

10. Is it time for my birthday staycation yet?

Weekend Shopping

Aaaaaaand this is how I end up not posting for a week. Good thing I caught it by Tuesday!

So let's start with Friday.



Reduced to snapping photos in the bedroom mirror, UGH. But I loved this outfit, simple but still with a little zip. The blouse is from Gwynnie Bee, which I am LOVING. It is Netflix for clothes, and best of all, for clothes for plus-sized girls. I signed up for the 2-piece out at once deal, and I am busily rotating through them as fast as I can. I've had a few bobbles, mostly my own fault for not looking at the measurements closely and ordering something too big, but their customer service is absolutely the best I have ever experienced from a store, ever. EVER.



This one was a Style&Co layering top. The drape was excellent, the color a nice cobalt, and it added just the right punch I needed to my outfit. I liked it so much I repeated it on Saturday.



If you are interested in signing up for Gywnnie Bee, leave a comment with your email and I will send you an invite. (Disclaimer: the referral option does net me a free month.) I know a layering top isn't the most exciting promotion for a new service, but I am actually finding I like the subtler pieces best because they work so well with my closet, thus expanding the usage of what I already have without having to buy anything else. I've learned so far that I am a sucker for the draped neck tops. Love 'em!

Here are some of the pieces I have either coming to me or that I have added to my closet for them to send to me.



Back to the weekend! Sunday I went food shopping with my girlfriend J. We hit the Sunday farmer's market (one more to go before it is closed for the year, alas), and my favorite grocery store, Tony's Finer Foods.






Brussels sprouts! Still on the stalk!!





I had to get them.



Teeheehee. And this was my outfit for most of Sunday. New brown Target cardigan which breathed new life into a pink Gap v-neck tee and an infinity scarf. But I know you are just looking at my Brussels sprouts stalk.



Here, I removed the distraction. :)

Over at Tony's, there were many other equally mind-boggling foods, but these I managed not to buy.

For instance, fresh olives. Yes, FRESH. I don't even know, do you?





I want to try artichokes but it seems like a lot of work for very little payoff.



Chinese long beans. I barely like regular green beans, these seem like three times more.



My curiosity did finally get the better of me, so I bought two cactus pears. Then my friends had a random email conversation today that included this tidbit from Wikipedia:

The fruit of prickly pears, commonly called cactus fruit, cactus fig, Indian[6] fig or tuna in Spanish,[7] is edible, although it has to be peeled carefully to remove the small spines on the outer skin before consumption. If the outer layer is not properly removed, glochids can be ingested, causing discomfort of the throat, lips, and tongue, as the small spines are easily lodged in the skin.

"Glochids from prickly pears (Opuntia species) can cause an extremely pruritic, papular eruption called sabra dermatitis, which can easily be confused with scabies or fiberglass dermatitis."

Sooo...I will probably be throwing them away uneaten. I am not that brave!



Persimmons. Maybe I should try one of these while I wait for orange season to start.

Anyway, after all that we went to a sweet little breakfast joint near the market. I indulged in "potatoes Benedict" which were eggs Benedict over potato pancakes. Yummy, especially because the hollandaise was a nice light version instead of the usual congealed mess it can be.



Aaaaand that was my weekend. How was yours?

My hair is bouncin' and behavin'

I dub Day/Night 1 of the Night-Shower Experiment a success.



All I had to do was brush it in the morning. !! Apparently bed head is a good look for me. I did make one mistake in letting it air dry the first night; it was a little flat on the top of my head, which a good volumizer and a quick blow would have fixed. I will work on that.

I also liked the outfit; the pants are a grey pinstripe, so it's not as all-black as the photo would indicate. You guys know me, I'm not a all-black person so it feels like when I do wear it, it packs a punch. The turquoise Blogger Necklace helps soften it up around my face, too, which I need.

The shoes are Circa Joan & David kitten heels from several years back. Shopping Friend will remember them; they're the first "heels" she convinced me to buy! When the pointy-toe look faded the last few years, I tucked them into the back of my closet, but now that it is making a comeback -- and frankly I needed the kitten heel height for the pants, and these were all I had -- I pulled them back out. They've held up well; guess spending a few extra dollars on quality shoes instead of Target/Payless cheapies pays off.

Speaking of spending, this is now following me around the internet.



The two-tone brown booties are the ones I was talking about the other day, and the wedge casual booties on the left are a fabulous find from Angie at YLF. Now that I can wear jeans a few other days besides the weekend, and I do have a good number of said jeans with long hems for heels, I think I can justify a fun bootie like that.

I may scrap the fall/winter purse idea for another year -- since none are jumping out at me as The One -- and go for some solid bootie additions instead.  And maybe a smart daytime clutch -- it's very on-trend, and the only clutches I have are summer woven ones.

Dammit, the ads win again.

More Purse Options

First, can we talk about how creepy/tempting/jarring it is to see your most-recently-viewed items from Zappos and Nordstrom appearing in ads on other sites? My usual MO for my daily internet walkaround is that I skim through my Google Reader, catching up on my fashion, news and friends' blogs and websites, opening up links in new tabs as I see something that catches my eye or that I want to comment on. Then I go through the new tabs more closely, checking out deeper links to recommended shoes/purses/whatever. If an item really interests me, I might save it to my shopping bag or wish list. Then I close up the tabs and go to my personal daily sites: Facebook, Twitter, new sites, etc.

Later that day or the next day, all of a sudden there are the shoes I had randomly linked to showing up under my Lexulous and Slingo games on FB, or on the side frame on YLF, or really, anywhere on any news sites. This last week, it has begun to feel like that Rebecca Minkoff bag is stalking me!

Now, I know it is all done with browser cookies, and the sites that have these ads need to make money to survive, but sometimes it feels very Big Brother-y. As well as extremely tempting (as all well-done ads should be); even though I decided not to go with the oxblood bag when I saw it in real life, the continued appearance of it everywhere I go on the internet has created several moments of doubt.

Dammit, the ads are working.

So I won't be surprised when the following bags appear in the corners of my non-fashion sites this next week. I am considering one of these for my new fall purse. What do you guys think?

Fossil Maddox satchel, in chestnut. I like the shape, and I can easily untie that twee-looking key from the strap. The color seems a bit off; I was hoping for something more brown and fewer yellow undertones. But the Espresso is too dark.

Fossil Maddox Bucket, in cordovan. LOVE the color, and I adore the bucket shape; I would have snapped up a Coach Legacy one if the leather had been better. I just wonder if the strap is too short and how it would look on the shoulder.

Michael Kors Uptown Astor Medium Crossbody Satchel, in Bordeaux. LOVE the way it looks as a crossbody, and as a satchel in the hand; the versatility would be ideal for work.

I need to touch this one before deciding; the feel of the leather and the width of the bag could knock it out of the running.

The Rebecca Minkoff Mac Daddy. The lure of the internet ads keeps hope alive!

Cole Haan Crosby - Woodbury bucket bag. Everything about this bag is perfection...except the color. Neither the Tango Red or the Woodbury brown are appealing to me. But I will keep my eye out in case Cole Haan does this in other colors.

Seeing them all like this, it's the Michael Kors that is highest on my preference list. I will try to track it down at the store to see it in person.

Any others I should consider?


P.S. You know I love a good bootie/shootie but I am very picky about adding new ones to my collection. My Franco Sarto Deers are still going strong in their 4th winter season, and my black Naturalizer cuffed booties are celebrating their 3rd birthday this winter. I didn't find a good new brown one to add last year, but I think I have now.

LOVE the reasonable heel, the simple cuffed style, and most of all the smooth two-tone brown leather. Amazing. I can't believe it is a Munro; that brand always looks so stodgy and orthopedic when I see their displays at Nordstrom. This is not stodgy at all, but classic and minimalist. The reviews are all very positive. Hmmmm, it's expensive but it might be worth it. Heck, maybe I should give up the bag search altogether and just get the booties!

Dress me, internet!

I swear, I get all my outfit ideas from the internet lately.

Last week, Angie over at YouLookFab posted about how to wear the Sassy Sweatshirt. Obviously, wearing one at work is a no-no for me at the Nun Factory, but it did spawn an idea for Saturday casual.



I picked up the sweatshirt at Old Navy this spring, but have mostly been wearing it as loungewear. We've finally reached a cool point in the summer, though, so I suspect this will be getting a workout, especially on vacation next week. I am ready!



Next it was Ally at Wardrobe Oxygen who provided the inspiration. She wore a fantastic striped blazer from Karen Kane with a hot pink cami, and I was head over heels. Look at how amazing she looks!

I will definitely be duplicating it during the week too, with my own striped blazer, but I also did a version over the weekend with my trusty White House Black Market striped cardigan.



This was the first rendition, when I took Hubby out to breakfast for his birthday on Sunday. But it was a little too warm for long pants and a long sweater, so I went back to my boyfriend jeans. Loved them with the chunky wedge sandals.






Thanks, ladies, for the continued inspiration!

Internet Magpie: LowFatDressing edition

Things around the web that made me want to link and babble on.

1. Jif Natural peanut butter in to-go packets. Peanut butter is a food I will eat the entire contents of, no matter the size of the container. If it's a big jar, I will eat a big jar; if it's a small jar, I will eat that. (My husband has the same thing with chips.) It killed me to pay more for the packaging for these, but it works. I eat an entire to-go cup, and then stop.

It's not a stingy "100-calorie" cup, either; it's a good amount that leaves me satisfied, so I'm not digging through the cabinet to have a second one, (and a third and a fourth...). Just one is enough to make two PB&Js!

2. The Hairpin posted an amazing entry: Be Less Crazy About Weight. Some excerpts:

Our entire culture is freaking right the fuck out, in fact. An epidemic of stories about the obesity epidemic! Cookie Monster rapping about vegetables! Fat cats and skinny dogs, lying down together! The message is Way Too Many People Weigh Way Too Much And That’s A Problem. But I’m not sure that’s accurate. I think it’s more a symptom of what happens when a couple of powerful forces come together.

First, the world is currently overflowing with more mind-bendingly salty sweet awesome disgusting food than has ever been witnessed before in human history. This food we have is positively diabolical in its deliciousness! Engineered to be extra irresistible! Of course it is hard to resist! We are not used to it!

Second, the way we live leaves us feeling thin and stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread. In between work and laundry and trying to have some fun, we barely have time to sleep, let alone confront the Balrog. Unconsciously, we’re led into a life of further unconsciousness, distracted and hurried and often on auto-pilot. It takes a strong will to snap out of it.

+++++

In addition to paying attention, you also need to see yourself as someone who’s worth paying attention to. As you are right now. You are going to be putting a lot of effort into this project, and you won't be able to sustain it if you feel like some kind of jerk. No, if you want to succeed, you have to get 100% on your own side from the get-go, and the best way I know to do that is this: construct a story about your life that positions you as an imperfect but lovable adventurer — someone you want to root for! — who’s boldly going someplace she hasn’t been before.

Because that is exactly what you are! A beloved heroine in the midst of a rollicking good tale full of scrapes and jokes and lessons learned! So make your story thrilling — make it one you can’t put down, one you can’t help being excited about, one that fills your heart so full you want to throw your head back and ROAR.

I know it seems goofy, but this story you tell yourself is serious business. And it’s precious, because it sets up how you experience everything else in your life.

Like, if you say stuff like “There is something inherently wrong with me and that’s why I can’t have what I want” or “I am but a pawn in the cold dance of chemicals we call life,” well, that shuts things down pretty thoroughly, right? It may be accurate to acknowledge that you have certain disadvantages, or that certain cultural systems are working against you, but you can’t stop there. That place is like a windowless room at the top of a lonely tower. It leaves you absolutely nowhere to go.

+++++

This experimental, experiential attitude is a crucial ingredient in the formula, because you are going to come across a lot of mysteries on your trek, and you’ll need to have a curious mindset to suss them out.  We are talking about weight, after all, and that makes the whole thing extra fraught — in about 30 seconds you can whip yourself into a self-destructive tizzy that can take weeks to recover from. So try your best not to do that. Step lightly. When things don’t work out the way you want them to, be interested in what is actually happening rather than upset about what isn’t. This will help you not fall apart as you discover what combination of stuff works for your particular body.

 +++++
  
You sound like a smart and self-aware person, and you have TONS of tools at your disposal — mind, muscles, emotions, objectivity, intuition, imagination, community. Use them all. Analyze and strategize and optimize to find out what makes your body hum and purr. Get excited to see how the story unfolds. Pay attention. Don’t go to sleep.

Most important, remember to root for your own sweet self as heartily as you ever did for anyone in any book you ever loved. It’s up to you to construct the narrative that explains what the moments of your life add up to … might as well make it the best damn story about a lady realizing her own worth and power that was ever told.

++++++

Brilliant.



3. On the flip side to that rah-rah speech, Jack Sh*t, Gettin' Fit reminds us: Somedays it is Mundane Day. And those are just as important to slog through as Action Day.

4. Great Logos with Secret Meanings has nothing to do with anything, I just thought it was cool. How did I never see the 31 in the Baskin Robbins logo?

5. Love, love, love, LOVE Ally from Wardrobe Oxygen in this stunning purple dress with the big red necklace. She is the first blogger I have seen do the high-low dress where I see the point of it.

6. Has anyone ever had melon soup? It sounds so weird, but I am in the mood to try something new. But that chunky chicken slaw sounds good too. I like Weight Watcher recipes because they always have such interesting combos; I usually goose up the seasonings because they're too bland, but the basic ideas are often theirs!

7. Speaking of recipes I like, I use my Food Ideas Pinterest board to collect interesting recipes that I want to try. You might recognize a few from Sunday Cooking posts...

8. Ally again, rocking the cutoff shorts. I have a pair of jeans that are too short that I could rip up, hmmm...

9.  Where Did All the Watermelon Seeds Go? A question I have been pondering to myself for a while.

10. My pal Kate from CakeGirl on the Run had a gorgeous cake selected to be in Cake Central Magazine! Go, Kate! I had the privilege of photographing the cake for her entry; she purchased a light box which was my first time using, but I got the hang of it, and it turned out to be a fun shoot.

Go see the rest here!

11. On the Proper Fitting of Jeans. I never understood the purpose of pockets before. And flare!

12. Bare Necessities sells DD+ bras in their own section, and they are having a great sale. I am stocking up NOW. 

 Got any good links you want to share with the class?

Internet Magpie: Olympics edition

Casa LowFatDressing has been gripped with Olympics fever. For two people who don't actually play or watch any sports, we have been unable to turn off the TV for the last week-plus, and I cannot stop reading and looking at pictures of it on the internet. Here are a few of my favorites I want to share.

The Boston Globe has a regular photo feature called The Big Picture. They've done two sets for the Olympics already that are just breathtaking, here and here.

An amazing, wrenching story about Kayla Harrison, the US judo champion who won gold this week. That is true courage and determination.

The full story about the pathetic badminton scandal.

The grocery list for feeding the 23,900 athletes in Olympic Village for two weeks. (Hee! Of course I would find this article.)

How the incredible Gabby Douglas won all-around gold, explained in gifs. (Ignore the last paragraph, which was completely unnecessary. The rest of the article is informative and worthwhile. Go Gabby!)

 As long as we are enjoying gifs, the one of Aly Raisman's parents getting a little, um, over-involved in her performance ranks as the #1 funniest moment of the Olympics.

 My heart, however, belongs to McKayla Maroney. The confidence and poise, the bitchface, the amazing vaulting ability...she's fabulous. (Hee, and she really does resemble Posh Spice, doesn't she?)

19 Reasons why Ryan Lochte is the best Olympian on Twitter. (That guy is lucky he is so good-looking, is all I'm sayin'.) (Hat tip to Le Quantrelle.)

Many people are understandably up in arms about the objectification going on with the women's beach volleyball coverage. In the spirit of fairness, this is Phillip's favorite article of 33 things to love about men's water polo. (It ain't the silly little hats.)

Any fun or silly articles about the Olympics you want to share? What's been your favorite moment so far?

Sunday Cooking: Summer Reading

The heatwave broke this weekend. We turned off the AC, flung open the windows, and enjoyed the first tolerable, lazy weekend of the summer. This is what I did on Sunday.



My Kindle, iPad, and a good old-fashioned People magazine from the checkout counter. Go Katie!



I sat under here and read. Allllllll day.



Made myself a lunch of cranberry tuna on wheat toast, watermelon chunks and Pop Chips. While I was in the kitchen, I marinated some chicken thighs and put together a quick batch of blue cheese coleslaw.



Went back and read some more. Hubby made me a gin and tonic; the first of the season. Mmmm, summer.



When I got hungry for my afternoon snack, I boiled up a couple of ears of corn, just because I could.



When I tore myself away from my book, this is the view I saw. That's Hubby's orange Element; it is so full of fishing gear I can't ride in it with him. I call it his oversized tackle box. We each have our hobbies!



As the sun started to shift to late afternoon, Hubby came out with the marinated chicken. By that time I was so engaged by the book I posted on Facebook that I planned on staying up late until it was done. So he knew he was on his own for dinner. :)



I literally had my feet up while he grilled dinner for us. That is a perfect Sunday!

I finished the book by 9 that night. It was so, so good.

Gone Girl: A Novel, by Gillian Flynn. Suspenseful, but not gory. The writing is superb, sharp and clear and clever, and the plot is twisty and engrossing. I understand she has two other books, both pretty dark, and I will probably be adding those soon to my Kindle as well.

But first I want to get through these already purchased and waiting for me:
-a re-read of Buzz Bissinger's Friday Night Lights, the original story. In many ways, it reminds me of David Simon's Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. There's a density to the writing, the immersion into the life and rhythms of these people's lives and hearts, that is just so compelling. Plus, both were made into amazing TV series which were each closely based on the novel and yet completely different in tone and story from it.
-the Kindle single After Friday Night Lights, also by Bissinger. It's been 20 years; what happened to everyone?
-Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed our Most Alluring Fruit. My dad loooooooves tomatoes, and recommended this book to me awhile ago. I suspect it will be the Fast Food Nation for tomatoes.
-Don't Trade the Baby for a Horse, by Wendy McClure. The Kindle Single companion to The Wilder Life, which I thought was charming.
-Gone With The Wind. This one is The Hairpin's fault; they did a great post about GWTW, with a devoted comment section swooning over all the bit players that I love so much (Will! The Tarletons! The swarthy Fontaines!), plus unabashed fondess for Scarlett and her amazing awfulness. Since I got rid of my paper books to get the Kindle, this is restocking my library electronically.

All in all, it was a lovely day. I rarely have ones like that anymore, where everything comes to a screeching halt while I dive headfirst into a book. I've missed that break from the world, and I plan to do it again as soon as I can.

What did you do this weekend? Any books you want to recommend?