All I have for you today are goofy iPhone mirror pictures, but they're somewhat representative of what I've worn this past week. Minus the PJs, work and gym clothes, of course. Speaking of goofy iPhone pictures, I was scanning through my camera roll (1,100 pictures strong.. whoa.) and found some pretty funky self-portraits that had never been shared before. I'm not sure why I feel compelled to take these photos, but I figured as long as I have them I might as well share them. Enjoy.
It’s been
raining here for a good 48 hours, guys, and it has been awesome. The world
looks like it’s getting a makeover. Everything is shiny and new. It’s demanding
that everyone take a few moments to relax and enjoy the steady stream of drops
on the roof. So far, in celebration, I have sprinted outside fully-clothed as
soon as the rain started pouring heavily, slept in super late and made vegan
banana-nut waffles. “Ain’t no need to go outside.”
Here’s what
I used (recipe from Veganomicon, of course):
1 ¾ C soy milk
¼ C water
2 t apple
cider vinegar
2 bananas
3 T canola
oil
3 T maple
syrup
1 t vanilla
extract
2 ¼ C flour
1 t baking
powder
1 t baking
soda
½ t salt
¼ t ground
nutmeg
1 C walnuts
(I used slice almonds because I didn’t have walnuts… still delicious.)
Nonstick cooking
spray
Waffle iron
First preheat the waffle iron (and mentally prepare yourself for the mess that is about to ensue). Then combine milk, water and vinegar in a measuring cup and let curdle - it sounds gross, but I promise it's worth it. Then mash up the bananas in a large mixing bowl, mixing in the milk mixture, oil, syrup and vanilla once they're good and smashed. Then add flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and nutmeg using a fork to combine. The book warns not to overmix. Then add the nuts and get ready for some experimentation.
You're supposed to cook the batter according to the iron's directions, which I of course did not have. So trial and error it was. The first scoop seemed way too big because the batter oozed over the sides and onto the counter, but it turned out like this:
Which actually ended up being the prettiest of them all. Hey, as long as it tastes good I'm not a snob for aesthetics. When I used less batter, there was less oozing, but the top half would stick to the top of the iron, resulting in the strangest of crepe-like creations. So messy counter it was.
The biggest problem I ran into was making WAY too many waffles, and I didn't even use all the batter. I was the only one home and after eating one I was sufficiently stuffed. Way to think ahead, Kens. Oh well, I'll keep you guys updated on how they taste after being refrigerated. Should be interesting. In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy my full belly and continue to sing this song for the rest of the day.
Some of these songs are pretty silly, but they all have one thing in common: AMERICA!
Despite my silliness, I would like for everyone to take at least a little bit of time today to remember all the men and women who have fought and continue to fight for our country so that we can live in the style we are accustomed to. It truly is a privilege and it comes at a cost. I am so thankful to these individuals. Now go enjoy your hot dogs, sunshine and freedom.
It might just be me, but I think John Cusack has played some of the coolest, most quotable characters ever. In fact, I think I have a big fat crush on the guy.
I mean.. look at him. Lloyd Dobler in "Say Anything." That goofy coat, those sweat pants, the boom box, Peter Gabriel.. Perfection. Diane Court didn't deserve him. Just saying.
He's a hopeless romantic, but in a quirky, funny, not-so-smooth kind of way. He talks too much and he speaks honestly.
"I don't want to sell
anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell
anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process
anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or
processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that."
Yes.
"I am looking for a dare
to be great situation."
"The rain on my car is a
baptism, the new me, Ice Man, Power Lloyd, my assault on the world begins now."
Le sigh.
Then there's Rob from "High Fidelity."
"What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?"
Rob is a selfish prick. A womanizer who makes mixtapes and owns a record store. He's heartbroken because of his own douchebaggery, and I can't help but love him.
"I can see now I never really committed to Laura. I always had one foot out the door, and that prevented me from doing a lot of things, like thinking about my future and... I guess it made more sense to commit to nothing, keep my options open. And that's suicide. By tiny, tiny increments."
So much truth.
"The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do and takes ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick off with a killer, to grab attention. Then you got to take it up a notch, but you don't wanna blow your wad, so then you got to cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules."
Lastly there's Martin from "Grosse Pointe Blank." A professional hit man who just so happens to still be in love with his high school sweetheart. So conflicted. So cute.
"I freaked out, joined the army, went into business for myself, I'm a professional killer."
"They all have husbands and wives and children and houses and dogs, and, you know, they've all made themselves a part of something and they can talk about what they do. What am I gonna say? 'I killed the president of Paraguay with a fork. How've you been?'"
Okay, maybe I'm a psychopath too.
On a different note..
Not that this doesn't also make me chuckle (in a sad, "what were you thinking?!" kind of way)... But I strongly encourage you to watch one or all of these movies if you haven't already, and then come back here and lust after the young, beautiful version of John Cusack with me.
Dear Flea Market, you may not have a whole lot going for you besides creepy marionettes, lawn gnomes and sketchy people, but I'll be darned if you don't rock the crap out of what you do. Dear Nephews, Thanks for being fabulous lunch dates and adorable human beings in general. I love you lots. Love, Aunt Mackie
Dear Target, You sucked me in once again causing me to spend too much money and therefore purchase these oh, so beautiful wedges. Sorry I'm not sorry.
Dear Mary Poppins, When are you going to teach me that whole making-your-room-clean-itself trick? I've been waiting for years. I've been a slob for years. Oy.
Dear Bee Sketches, Please allow the most perfect depiction of a bee to come to me in my dreams and allow me to settle on one. It's important.
Dear Fellow Runners, I signed up for the 2012 Disney Wine & Dine Half Marathon! Please let me know if you're participating in it as well. Also, I signed up for RunKeeper.com so I can virtually train with friends. Add me if you have an account!
Dear Readers, Thank you so much for sticking with me. I know I've been a bit of a slacker lately, but your comments truly brighten my day on a regular basis.
I bought tempeh at Publix the other day because I had never attempted to cook with it before (in fact, I think I had only ever tried it once or twice before), but I knew the almighty Veganomicon would steer me in the right direction as long as I had all the ingredients. I settled on the Hot Sauce-Glazed Tempeh recipe because once upon a time I tried some pretty delicious buffalo-style tempeh and this seemed like it might be similar. Truth: I think it turned out better. First thing I had to do was cut this weirdly-textured-soy product in half lengthwise and again diagonally. Then I brought a pot of water to a boil, turned it down to a simmer and dropped the tempeh pieces in for 10 minutes.
Next came the part I'm generally way too hungry and impatient for: marinating the tempeh for an hour. (60 whole minutes of not eating?! Oh, the horror!) Here's what goes in the marinade:
1/2 C vegetable broth
2 T soy sauce
2 T olive oil
1/4 C hot sauce
3 T fresh-squeezed lemon juice
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 t ground cumin
1/2 t dried oregano
1/8 t cayenne pepper
While waiting for the marinating to be done, I decided to distract myself by roasting butternut squash. (See how I do it here. I love me some butternut squash now.) Meanwhile I flipped the tempeh several times throughout the hour, lest one side be more tasty than the other.
Next I grilled the marinated tempeh on a cast-iron pan coated in olive oil for 5 minutes on each side over medium-high heat. Clearly the first side I grilled got a little burned, but it didn't taste like it at all. When the second side was almost done sizzling for 5 minutes, I spooned some of the marinade over the pieces and let it cook for an additional 30 seconds (and proceeded to choke on the massive amount of hot sauce steam that blew directly into my nostrils.)
Then I chowed down and was full after eating just two of the tempeh pieces. NOM.
I spent Music Monday in Jacksonville with some awesome people to see Flogging Molly in concert. It was epic. My bod is still sore from dancing/moshing/pushing my way up to the front row.
It's been a pretty crazy and awesome week, you guys, and here are all the random InstaGram photos to prove it. Hopefully soon I will return to writing somewhat-planned-out-and-substantial blog posts, but for now I'm exhausted and reek of soy sauce, so I'm off to bed. I will definitely be posting about that delicious, vegan entree up there though, so get excited.
I could watch music videos all day. I would take half-hour segments of music video countdowns over any reality show that's ever come out of MTV, CMT, BET, VH1, etc.. ever. So that's exactly what I've been doing for the last hour or so: scouring YouTube for new (or very old) videos that perfectly pair visual greatness with the audio I already know I love. Here are some of my new faves.
There's just something about ridiculously hot men doing ridiculous things to a ridiculously catchy beat that really does it for me. Well played, Foster The People, well played.
Claymation is pretty much always a win in my book, especially when dancing aliens are paired with such an awesomely eclectic song. Homeboy's voice is sexy in such a weird way. Just sayin'.
"I won't let love disrupt, corrupt or interrupt me." This video isn't really anything special, but this song gives me chills.
Just a little "Karate Kid" tribute. Cheesy and awesome.
I have a dilemma. Well, I have several, but one particularly in the running department. So back in January I decided to start training for my very first full marathon (note: it took me 12 years to find that post, so I hope someone - anyone - clicks it. Just sayin'.) and since it was going to be my first one, I wanted it to be officially badass. I figured out that if I started training in January, I'd be ready for the big 26.2 by June, so I found the Seattle Rock 'n Roll Marathon on June 23, 2012 and even though I live in Florida, I was going to make it work. Boom, adventures.
Here's where the dilemma comes in: it's May 12 already, meaning there's a little over a month until the big day, and I haven't signed up yet (I do, however, have the plane tickets. Priorities.) My longest run so far has only been 12 miles -- and even that was several months ago because (if I'm being honest) there was probably a full month in there where I stopped doing pretty much everything vital to marathon training, i.e. running, eating, sleeping, not-drinking-excessive-amounts-of-alcohol.. you get the idea. I sort of started again from the beginning and still have yet to get to where I should be in order to semi-comfortably complete 26.2 miles (although I definitely eat and sleep a lot these days).
My question is, should I just sign up for the full marathon anyway and just aim to finish, even if it means crawling over the finish line? Or should I just sign up for the half marathon (which I'm pretty confident I could do fairly easily) and enjoy my time in Seattle that much more? If so, this would be my fourth half marathon and I'd have to find some other cool-as-eff race to be my very first full marathon, but I'd have plenty of time to train and to feel full prepared for it.
I would love any advice from you runners out there. Are any of you all doing an awesome marathon several months from now? Also, if any of you are training for your first marathon (or 50th..) and would like to help keep me in check, I would love to start some sort of virtual running club, linky party, sweaty-portrait-album, etc. if anyone would be interested. How cool would it be to have a marathon
blate (blogger-date!)?!
Also, I'm pretty sure I'm going to sign up for the Disney Wine & Dine Half Marathon again this year, so let me know if any of you guys would like to do it with me.
I am proud to report that I have actually been running/hitting the gym the past two weeks, I have cooked several fairly-healthy-like meals and, perhaps most importantly, I scored my highest bowling game of all time (and yes, this also includes my brief stint on the bowling team in 9th grade).
I think I'm really growing, guys.
(Follow me on InstaGram, my username is MackensieG!)
I got this dress for $10 today! So obviously I had to wear it, even if it was for only the 2 seconds I spent behind the camera because it's a zillion degrees out and I don't want to get it all sweaty just yet.. The rest of the day will probably be spent in this.. again.
Friday night my awesome friend Katie and I went to go see The Lucky One, where we swooned over Zac Efron's sexy body and cringed over his portrayal of a U.S. Marine -- C'mon, Wildcat, stick to dancing. The Corps would eat you alive. Oh, but the almost-sex-scenes = totally worth it. Afterwards we went to the restaurant I work at to eat sushi and drink crazy cocktail combinations (oh, snap, alliteration!) made by my very own manager/bar tender.
Look at these beautiful, custom-made sushi rolls. Nom.
Saturday, Cinco De Mayo, started with my waking up bright and early to serve people food for the next 12 hours. Don't get me wrong, though, I made the best of it by wearing a sombrero and discussing La Batalla De Puebla (in espanol, of course) with my Mexican coworkers. They also tricked me into taking a shot of water that came from a Patron bottle.. cool, guys.
I finally got off around 11:15 p.m. and went straight home to change into the most Mexican dress I own and head to Gainesville where I celebrated one of my Cardinals, Liz's graduation with real life shots of Patron. Congratulations, Lizzykins!!! It was fabulous. I think I was too tired to take photos.
Then Sunday came and it was time to celebrate another friend and fellow UF alum, Patsy's graduation... with pool volleyball, gas station wine and FourLokos. Yep, we're that classy. Then one thing lead to another and we were all in Daytona Beach singing and dancing to live music, eating seafood and running down the beach. Absolutely perfect.
At one point an adorable hippie guy even started twirling me around the dance floor and flipping me around ballroom-dancing-style. It was amazing. I may have had one too many margaritas, though, and forgot to get his number. Woops. ;)
So then on Monday (aka extension-of-Sunday) I put on this outfit and went out for MORE delicious sushi with Katie and Lindsay, both of whom I've been friends with since pre-school at least. Look how epic this sushi is:
That top one is a Spicy Cajun Roll with chili sauce and three different types of topiko on top. I think it's safe to say I'm addicted to sushi. Then we continued to catch up over donuts and ice cream at Dunkin Donuts/Baskin Robbins. Overall it was one of those epic, spontaneous adventure-filled weekends that I've been craving. It was the best.
It has seriously been a total blast and I'm not even letting it end yet. I've officially declared today an extension of Sunday and I'm continuing the fun streak by going out to dinner with two of my oldest, most wonderful friends. I will share all the juicy details of the last three days with you soon, but for now I will leave you with you the soundtrack of my weekend powered by the Motion City Soundtrack Pandora station. Perfection.
Dear InstaGram Followers, I apologize for my blatant narcissism when it comes to taking self-portraits lately. I'm just scared that if I don't document myself, I'll have nothing to show my blog readers when InstaFriday rolls around -- especially when all I do for the day is eat and work.
Dear Hair, Thank you for growing so fast! Seems like just yesterday I chopped off 17 inches of you and couldn't fit you into a pony tail, and now look at you! I can curl you and everything!
Dear Body, I apologize for forcing you to run 5 agonizing miles in 90-degree weather the other day.. I won't try that again for a while, I promise. You definitely made me pay for it by being ridiculously sore for the next 48 hours. But get yourself together, man, we've got 26.2 miles to run in less than two months.
Dear Family-that-left-me-zero-dollars-on-a-$140-restaurant-bill, RUDE. Seriously, people, if you can't afford to leave a tip.. eat at McDonald's.
Dear Blog Readers, Please keep your fingers crossed for me and my professional attire. I will give more details when/if they become available. Love, Kensie
Dear Ziggy, You are just the sweetest little snuggle buddy in the whole world.You're probably the ONLY living creature that could snore all night in my presence without feeling the wrath of sleep-deprived-MacK-smash.
Dear Veganomicon CookBook, I've said it before and I'll say it again: YOU ROCK MY WORLD. This edamame salad and jicama/watercress/avocado salad with hot sauce dressing were amaze-balls. Fact.
Dear Big Mack, Just because the brownies are dairy-free doesn't mean they are healthy. You still can't eat half the pan in one night! Well, actually, you can. And you did. Congrats. Now go eat celery and do squats.
Dear Nails, I finally gave in and bought Essie nail polish because after passing it up a couple weeks ago, I continued to think about it every time I looked at my hands. Considering it has actually stayed on without ridiculous chipping for the past couple days makes me think it was worth it.
Dear Sonic, Never stop doing what you do. Your Chicago Dog (without relish) is so wonderful and your sweet potato tots are to die for. Just one more reason why Big Mack needs to hit the gym.
Dear Boys, I'm done with you. In the words of Mindy Kaling: "Men know what they want. Men own alarm clocks. Men sleep on a mattress that isn’t on the floor. Men buy new shampoo instead of adding water to a nearly empty bottle of shampoo. Men make reservations. Men go in for a kiss without giving you some long preamble about how they’re thinking of kissing you. Men wear clothes that have never been worn by anyone else before." Yep, that sounds about right. Men it is.
Dear Friday, This is the first time in a while that I've been stoked about it being the end of the week. I'm done with school. I'm moving on. I'm ready for a new adventure and I can feel it coming. It's waiting around the corner with as much promise and anticipation as a 9-5er at 4:58 on a Friday. It's time to crack open a cold one and get this show on the road. I'm making moves.
I took my last final today and I didn't feel good about it. I almost burst into tears when my mind completely blanked on an entire page of problems. I was the second to last person in the room, I left two problems blank, and promptly commenced meltdown mode as soon as I climbed into my car. Luckily one of my best friends reminded me that it's not the end of the world, and chances are I'll still do fine in the class. I know it's true. And I'll be okay. So, instead of continuing this freak-out-about-my-future-every-second-of-the-day kick I've been on lately, I decided to come home and do the things I love: laying out in the sun, drinking sweet tea, listening to music, reading a book and blogging. With that said, this all I'm wearing on this lovely Wednesday (except for sunscreen, of course) --
I may wear it all day.
