January's Goals!

Monthly Project:  Off to a rather, if not ragingly, successful start.

In other news:  I'm busy!  No, really.  It's all a bit much at the mo.  But still found time to go to as many movies in the past two weeks as in the previous four months.  ULP!  Which reminds me:  Must use free groupon movie tickets.  MUST USE. 

Breakfasting Differently

Recently I've been eating a rather incredible number of eggs for breakfast.  I love love love boiled eggs for breakfast - hard or soft-boiled, I will eat them any old way.  Those plus a banana and I'm set until lunch.  But I am a teeny bit concerned that I may turn into one, so recently I toyed with the idea of breakfasting differently and varying it up a little.  On my google reader, I'm subscribed to posts from Skinny Taste, which has great slow cooker recipes with lower calories/fat etc. for when I'm trying to be a bit more careful about how much I take in - so that, for example, I can stuff my face with disgracefully great buttery eggs and mushrooms for breakfast, as I'm about to do, with complete abandon (and added butter). 

So when I saw a recipe on Skinny Taste for overnight oats, I got very excited - I have also had a lot of very early mornings due to work, and given how little I like getting up early, it's good to have something prepared the night before.  You combine oats/milk/nuts/fruit in a jar, leave it overnight, and you have breakfast, apparently.  I got ready to do that last week and realised that I had absolutely no oats.  Oops.  Rather than going out late night, though, on a mission for oats, I did note that we had quinoa indoors, and through some chain of thought I can't quite recreate, found this recipe for breakfast quinoa.  I didn't follow this recipe exactly, though, as I'm not a massive fan of cinnamon or apples.  So I mixed it up a bit: used unsweetened almond & coconut milk instead of cow's milk, warmed up frozen blueberries and put those and a chopped banana in, and used a couple of teaspoons of dried cranberries (I still can't bring myself to call them craisins, I have to say), a teaspoon of sunflower seeds and a teaspoon of flaxseeds.  So it's pretty nutritious, filling, and a healthy portion of whole grains, good oils, good protein, and fruit as well.  Which for me is not something that happens that often. 

It's not necessarily that pretty, for sure, but it's good.  And The Other Half did not hate it, which he is primed to on principle.  So it must be ok. 

Public Service

Today is the inauguration of Obama's second term.  In many ways, the re-election of Obama feels more meaningful than the first, because it was based on his record and was less symbolic, less idealistic.  I'm still very displeased with many of his policies, but compared to Romney and the Republicans, of course, he's still a far better option.  I had toyed with the idea of going down to DC precisely because it was more meaningful, and particularly because today is MLK Day.  But, of course, I failed.  I've not been to DC in years.  I would like to go again, soon, but not to be just now.

Instead, however, I heeded what has become a tradition for MLK Day for some - turning today into a day of service in which you do some public good.  Today there was a clean up on Franklin Avenue and, although we live a couple of blocks away from Franklin, I decided to help out.  It was heartening to see a massive group of people doing it by the time I left at 11am, having worked for an hour.  There were so many people, the work had mostly been done, and so I decided to do a little clearing up on my own block.  I didn't do the entire block, but the little stretch I did looks decidedly better.
 The majority of the ills of smoking are related to lung health and the actual smoking, of course, but it was striking (to me, at least) that the majority of things I picked up were cigarette butts or cigarette packets.  But many soft drink bottles and sweet packets, too.

So now I can feel smug and at least some karmic balance for the very me-time weekend I've just spent - hiking in a glacier-influenced park on Saturday (hopefully some decent photos to come), local Japanese food on Saturday night (Gen!  It is great!), then brunch at James and NFL Conference Championships while scoffing micheladas and a friend's homemade ragu yesterday.  We're off for a museum trip today (part of my monthly objectives for January), then some jazz tonight. 

MERRY NEW YEAR!

It's 2013!  Hello there! 

New year, new blog.  I've tried to do year long resolutions; no resolutions; and monthly goals.  And the latter is what I'm sticking with, and I'm tracking them here. 

Join me!