A new leaf.

Enough...

We've gotten in a terrible habit of eating out at almost every meal, and it has to stop. It's unhealthy and uneconomical.

We've always been inclined to dine out, but this particularly horrible seven-to-eight-month streak really began back in September after we moved to Austin due to the hurricane in Galveston. I lost a lot of my kitchen tools in Ike's nastiness, and then after I started working full-time again in Austin, it was awfully hard to want to navigate a kitchen.

It doesn't help that I've been awful about grocery shopping. Often I will have good intentions and want to cook in the evenings, but it's the planned grocery-store stop on the way home that always gets us. I'll call Matt on my way home from work, and both of us are just too famished to wait through a shopping trip and cooking time.


Lunch is even worse. Because my job can be so crazy, I end up grabbing either a fatty, fried Thai tofu curry with white starchy rice from the place across the street - or a huge, overfilled Chipotle burrito bowl. Or, even worse, a burrito. Worse than these: fried cheesy sandwiches on white bread from the bakery down the block. With a side of white pasta salad...and all of these at $8-10 a pop. Good Lord!

So. I'm stopping!

I spent some time at BookPeople on Saturday and picked up a cookbook that my amazing vegetarian-mama friend Erin recommended on her blog. I leafed through and found some great recipes that looked so surprisingly simple.

Then it was time to face by biggest opponent: the grocery store. I did it, though. I purchased the ingredients for all of our meals this week (except tomorrow night, which is laundry night, when we eat while our clothes are tumbling, simply for efficiency's sake).

I also cooked up a big batch of whole-grain farfalle pasta and refrigerated it last night, for my lunches this week. I bought a bunch of different ingredients to use in pasta salads and whipped up a lunch which my belly is digesting as we speak: pasta salad with pesto, chickpeas, spinach, red pepper flakes, and kalamatas. Very good.

So that's my struggle for now. Stay tuned.

What not to do the morning you plan to hike to Hamilton Pool.

Matt's friend Devin is visiting.  Today we decided to take our first trip to Hamilton Pool.  This is what greeted us at the bottom of the 1/4-mile downhill hike, which itself was gorgeous:

How is it that I have lived in Austin for a total of nearly four of the past six years, and yet have never been to this amazing swimming hole that is just 25 minutes from downtown?  

Incredible.  Anyway, I overheard this conversation from the family next to me:

Mom: ...Oh, no...

Dad: What?

M: ...I CLEANSED this morning.

D: Oh, no.

Son: What's cleansing?

D: Why did you do that?

M: I had to CLEANSE!!!

S: What's cleansing???

M: It's when you drink a bunch of fiber and...

S: Did you just poop your pants?

M&D: SSSSHHHHH!!!!

Swimming...yay!

Happy times

I love hanging out with Ryan.


Last night we walked all over my neighborhood and went to Hut's Hamburgers.

Yes, I am still a non-beef-eater. I had the world's most amazing veggie tacos, which are made with plain old Gardenburgers (and I have actually replicated in my own kitchen, but I prefer to eat them at Hut's where they make them FOR me).

Ryan enjoyed pointing out all of the things about Hut's that are just like Annie's Parlour, where he works in Minneapolis. "We have these same plates. We have these same baskets." In short, he's really happy to be on vacae.

Other things:

My sister-in-law is having a baby very soon and I can't wait to hold Olivia Pavelka.

I have made my peace with and now love my new haircut.