Coming back around

I just want to let you know that I am coming back to life. It was a lovely 60 degrees in Chicago today. The white puffy clouds are back! Flip flops! No heavy coats! Weeeeee! I feel like a different person and I'm stinkin' loving it.

Ok, back to the Sex and the City marathon.

Did I mention I'm making homemade oven fried chicken tonight for the boyfriend? Oh yeah, I'm a great girlfriend. ;)

Sick Sickly

I am currently still in bed and feeling a little under the weather. It hit me last night when I couldn't find a comfortable temperature. Everything was either too hot (literally sweating) or too cold (literally shaking). First signs of a cold. Let the booing and hissing commence.

SO I would like to share a simple (read: SIMPLE) pizza recipe with you. Think Sandra Lee Semihomemade easy. Mr. Lifetime and I LOVE us some pizza. I gathered all I had in my fridge/pantry and created this.

9x13 stainless steel cake pan
1 Pack Whole Wheat Pizza Dough from Whole Foods
1 Log of Fresh Mozzarella
3 Handfuls of Spinach
2 Medium Size Tomatoes
1/2 Sweet Onion
3 Cloves of Garlic
1 Small Pack (about the size of a notecard and thickness of your index finger and middle finger together) of Proscuitto Ends (I found these at Whole Foods and about died! The pack was only 2 bucks!)
Salt/Pepper
Italian Seasonings
EVOO (optional)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Chop up the onion into slivers. Mince the garlic. Cut off all of the fat from your proscuitto ends. Turn your burner to a Low/Med heat and add EVOO to a cooking pan. I always add the onions in first because they take a little bit longer to cook than the garlic. I also added the fat in with the onions. After about 2 minutes add the garlic and cook until the onions are limp. This should only take about 4 minutes. Remove and throw away the fat.

Start molding your pizza dough into your stainless steel 9 x 13 pan. Always spray some cooking oil on the bottom of the pan beforehand. Make sure to go up about 2 inches around every side with your dough.

Start layering your spinach on the bottom and then add your sliced tomatoes. Season liberally with salt, pepper and Italian seasonings. (This is nothing fancy...you can buy this mixture at any grocery store.) Next, evenly spread your onions and garlic over the tomatoes. Then add your sliced up proscuitto and fully cover with mozzarella. At this point you can add EVOO if you so desire. But I felt it wasn't necessary because the pizza is juicy enough from the cheese and tomatoes.

Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes or until the dough is fully cooked and golden brown. Lastly, I like to broil the cheese for 2 minutes to turn it a nice golden color. Voila! You have a YUM-E meal that can feed around 4 people. Unless you're like my bf and I..then you'll eat the whole thing in one sitting.
What I love about pizza is the endless amount of options you can add. Nothing is wrong for a pizza! Nothing!

renewal

I'm going to transition back into blogging the steady-as-she-goes way. Let's see here... I could update you on all the facets of my ever changing life, but I'm feeling a little lazy at the moment. Woodwick candles tend to do that to me. (Woodwick Trilogy: Vanilla Bean, Caramel, and Biscotti)

How about a song suggestion for a road trip? I have been road tripping up a storm this year and I'm an avid 'karaoke' singer (in the car only). I have driven some 5000+ miles in the past 2 months and still haven't heard every song on my iPod. I made it a point not to skip songs on a recent trip home while scurrying down the Natchez Trace. Sondre came on and I just HAD to listen to all of his others on my playlist. Sondre Lerche has been on the scene for a while, but I became intrigued during the movie Dan In Real Life. Excellent, I might add. I just wish I wouldn't have waited so long to peruse all of his tunes.
Here are my two favorites at the moment:

Sondre Lerche- "Two Way Monologue"

Sondre Lerche- "Stupid Memory" (Love the old school Nashville-style twang in this song.
It really picks up  around the 1:28 mark.)

I would love to know some of your favorite road trip songs? What memories do they bring back when you hear them?

Constantly refreshing the page..

Hello to my readers! (Maybe all of one or two of you. Mostly teeth whitening websites from Malaysia.),

I have an official announcement for you. I am MOOOVVVIINNG! Well, I am trying to get it all locked down. Man, I tell ya, it's pretty dern hard to find an apartment in Nashville while I am sitting on my hiney in Wine Country. I created an alternate email solely for craigslist. So now I find myself refreshing the page every 15 minutes or so. Yes, I am totally lame and impatient. But I want to move by the end of the month, and I need answers people!

This is one of those moments where I wish I had an awesome following and some Frogs (FRiends from blOGS). Has anyone made that up yet? I'm sure they have. Any of you one or two readers of my blog happen to know anything about apartment/house shopping in Nashville? Or just apartment/house shopping in general? Do any of you live in Nashville? I have a FEW friends there. Mainly acquaintances from college. I can tend to go against the norm when moving and choose a place that I am not all that familiar with. I had never been to wine country before I moved here. I've been to Nashville a handful of times. I like cities that have a ton of things to do but aren't too hectic.

Is it picture time yet? Sure! I'll stop the yapping. Just promise to cross your fingers for me! K, thanks.

Here are some things I will miss about California:

Pub crawls in SF and making friends with bouncers on Speak like a Pirate Day.

Oh! Oh! This one is easy. WINE!

...and wineries with fantastic views! (Artesa Winery)

Cute surfer boys...

Actually, come to think of it, I haven't met any of those up here in NoCal.

(Picture taken in Huntington Beach)

Awkward windy pictures. I have a bajillion of these in Cali.

P.S. THIS is the outfit Mr. Lifetime picked out for me to wear. (Refer to this post.)

He also took the picture...

Rolling hills.

Pretty positive they have those in Nashville.

Laughing at Mr. Lifetime play in the freezing cold water.

Hiking in Muir Woods and not getting lost.

(I got lost on this day.)

No more flying solo.

I always get excited when I see a blog post with a ton of pictures. I feel that I'm a pretty visual person. And as much as I love to read, adding pictures to a post makes the reader fully connect with your experience.  Sometimes I feel captions should just be omitted.
I will try to limit my captions for your picture snack tonight.
(But first, the background information.)

I just got back from a 4 day vacation in Redfish Lake, Idaho. I honestly have never really thought about visiting Idaho. Well maybe twice while watching Napoleon Dynamite. But who didn’t after watching that movie? My boyfriend invited me on this wedding excursion 3 days after I met him! I thought it was a little forward (ok, WAY forward) and I put it off for months because I didn't know where our relationship would go. Booking a trip 4 months into the future is a major risk no matter the situation. So I didn't. If I would have known how the trip turned out from the get-go I would have booked my flight that day. Idaho was an all American, au natural retreat for each one of us that attended. So much so, that in most of the pictures I am not showered, without makeup, and (gasp!) braless.

 And now I’ll let (most of) the pictures speak for themselves…



Meet my boyfriend, Mr. Lifetime!
Outfit details:
Dress: X-Generation in SF ($14 buckaroos!)
Belt: thrifted
Jewelry: vintage/gifted
Shoes: Coconuts

Bird poo in the middle of story telling.

Tony Chachere's
My boyfriend got me this for my birthday because I can't find it in California.
A HUGE hit with the Chicagoans.
If you haven't tried it yet, DO!

Spy the knife bf bought me? ha.

(Idaho native: Josh Ritter.)



A Reason..

Reason #1 my boyfriend's nickname is Mr. Lifetime:

We went hiking in Muir Woods on his recent trip to visit me. (Yes, we're long distance.) I was wearing my VERY cute, but not so nature friendly Minnetonka moccasins on our hike. (I own the darker brown pair. I want to add to my collection and get a pair of THESE! Maybe one day. le sigh) We came up to a large puddle of mud and he turned to the side and held out his arms. I hadn't said a word and almost walked right into him. In a bewildered tone, I asked, "Why are you holding your arms out like that!?" He simply said, "I am going to carry you across the puddle so you don't get your shoes dirty." I cheerfully obliged and thought to myself...I thought these types of guys didn't exist anymore? Does he watch Turner Classic Movies? Lifetime movies? Read Nora Roberts' books?

Sebastopol on a Sunday

My sweet Mama and I share a love for antiquing. One of our favorite towns in the area, Sebastopol, has a plethora of adorable little antique shops and vintage stores. I took a couple of pictures perusing around today. I need to make a habit of this!

I'm almost always attracted to this color blue.

Especially around Christmas time.

Blue lights are my favorite!

John Grisham, a local home-stater.

Oh! The color! Divine.

Flowers are in bloom in NoCal!

I bought a blue Ball mason jar similar to this one for 6 bucks.

I love a good bargain.

I was trying to snap a picture of the broken up spider web.

I wonder how old these gumballs are?

No way was I going to show you my swollen eyes.

Allergy season has taken ahold of my face and won't let go. :(

Dress- Aubergine

Belt- Thrifted

Shoes- Gift from Gap (I cut the flowers off.)

Camera- Canon Rebel XT

How did you spend your Sunday? I hope the weather was lovely!