What I Didn't Buy at Unique

This past Monday I went to Unique Thrift Store. I made sure to sign up for their VIP card so I can get a 25% discount on my purchases every Thursday.

Unfortunately, I didn't see anything particularly awesome ('cept for the two earrings that I purchased). Oh wait, I take that back. I did see some awesome stuff.


I think it might make the feet look a hoofish but I thought the cut was unique and I loved the color.

I am really into grays right now so I fell in love with the color combination of these heels.


I would wear them like everyday.

I've also been on a hunt for some oxfords so you can imagine how excited I got when I saw these.


I don't even mind the t-straps.

Well... too bad that none of them were in my size. I did see two pairs in a size 5.

I love maryjanes and I would've snatched these up in a second if they weren't so beat up looking.


I've also been thinking about buying some boat shoes and these were in mint condition.


These, however, were heels. I don't know... comfy leisure shoes turned into heels always looks odd.


I can't say I'm a big fan of the look.

So yeah, no shoes for me this time around... or clothes... or purses. Oh well, at least I got some earrings.

Still Sick

This bland picture of some weird bland grain (what is that, couscous?) is exactly that, bland. And no, it is not couscous, it is quinoa. It's actually not that bland, it has a very distinct healthy taste to it. Yeah... Healthy.... Daria introduced me to it years ago and I recently (kind of) got into them because everyone I know is suddenly turning all healthy on me (TRAITORS!!!) and what's healthier than quinoa?

Here's a recipe so freaking healthy it will make your mind explode. Are you ready?

A bunch of spinach
Some cooked quinoa
A handful of blueberries
A handful of almonds
One Sliced Bananas

Mix ingredients and serve.

It's actually pretty good but it's the only quinoa recipe I know. Unfortunately, the only ingredient I have from the list above is cooked quinoa and that's what I've been eating- yup, just plain quinoa. I'm still sick, I can't smell anything. Everything already tastes bland anyway so, I figure, save the good stuff for when I can enjoy it. For now, I'll just eat healthy grains.

It's actually not that bad. I think if you threw some berries in there it would be like just really really dry oatmeal. Too bad I don't have any berries.

Oh, want to hear a sad story?

So my symptom now includes sore throat. The icky sinus, the stuffy, drippy, mucousy nose, the headache, the sneezing- all that I'm okay with. Sore throat? AUGH! That's my least favorite symptom. Yesterday, at work, I decided I needed some tea. And, since I hate the Caribou coffee downstairs (put their disgusting crash grubbing hands all over the mouth hole of the lid!) and Teavana is right around the corner I decided to get some tea from Teavana.

Now, I knew I would be paying more but I figured what, like a dollar more? No big, teas are pretty cheap anyway. I saw that they had three price points, $2.99 for common tea, $3.99 for not so common tea, and $4.99 for rare teas. Now, I know shit about tea so I don't really know what's rare and what's not. I asked for the Jasmine Pearl tea because all Teavanas sample those out by the gallons. If they're being that generous with it, it can't be too expensive, right? WRONG! She rings me up and it's over $5! For a cup of tea?! Well, by then my tea was already brewing so I paid, but jeez...

So, next time you walk past Teavana and sample their Jasmine Pearl, enjoy it. Apparently that is some rare, rare stuff.

Smelling Good

Whoo! I won something!

The Asian Pear had a perfume (Cacharel's Promess) giveaway awhile back and I won! It finally came in the mail the other day and it was all kinds of exciting.


Unfortunately I'm still sick (allergies? cold? sinus infection? The possibility is endless) and because my nose is stuffed up, my sense of smell sucks. I can, however, tell you that it smells "pretty". It came like the day after I read Liebemarlene's post on Cacharel. I've never really known anything about that brand but I am strangely in love with the font they use. It's so... I don't know. It just reminds me of all the books I used to check out at the library as a kid and summer vacations spent watching reruns of old, classic shows like Three's Company and whatnot.

Oh, I recently discovered that you can watch old shows like I Dream of Jeanie and Dragnet (!!!) on Hulu! I am so into that whole era right now, it's ridiculous. When I found out that I can watch Dragnet on line you know the first episode I searched for was Season 1, Episode 1: The LSD Story featuring...


Blue Boy!

Jamie once showed me her Nick and Nite magazine that had a paper doll of Blue Boy. That's when I knew she was like the coolest person ever.

Anyway, thank you so much Asian Pear!

Speaking of perfumes, I'm been making quite the progress whittling down and using up my perfume collection. Currently, I am using up Polka Dot by Skirt.


I got in on sale at Anthropologie for like $10 a few years back. It's a rather light and preppy smelling scent. It's nice, but nothing I'd want to buy again.

Farfalle with Zucchini Redux

One of the perks of keeping this blog is that I can go back and look at my old food post whenever I feel like cooking something. While perusing I came across the recipe for Farfalle with Zucchini and it looked very good.

It turned out a big creamier than I remembered but I'm not complaining.


Next time, I think I'll skip the addition of some of the spices, kind of made the whole dish taste a bit... Lean Cuisine-esq. You know when cheap foods are overspiced to cover up the cheapness of the ingredients? Yeah, kind of tasted like that. It was still good, I just wish I hadn't added the thyme or whatever it is that I threw in at the end.

By far, the best part of this dish were the zucchinis.


I haven't had them all winter and I had forgotten how amazing they taste!


As they started to cook I really regretted not going overboard with the zucchinis. Fried zucchinis gets me very excited.


It almost has me excited for summer. Almost.

March ROI

I got my quarter report for my retirement fund.

My ROI for this period was 4.42%. For the last 12 months... 42.41%! Since the beginning of my fund it's been 7.99%.

Overall, not bad. I'm still very far from my retirement goal but I'm getting optimistic. Maybe I won't be spending my final years at Leisure World, but I'm starting to think that I'm not doomed to eating cat food. I really want to increase my contribution to 12% of my paycheck (vs. current 10%) but with the whole house buying thing coming up, I don't really want to change anything yet. I'll try a few months of mortgage paying before reconsidering upping my contribution rate.

Bookmark Clean Out

I'm sick. So very very sick.

I have to blow my nose every five minutes and I sound like a foghorn. It sucks.

While I try to sleep it off, here are some articles you can read.

MTV Stops Pretending They Still Show Music- MTV shows makes me want to punch people in the face.

Recycled Craft Ideas- Well, since my decorating budget will be like zero, I should look into turning old stuff into useful stuff.

I Like You a Latte...- I question how coffee-ish it will taste but it does look very, very good.

Shopping Centers Today Online- This is an old article I found about my old mall back when it was just about to open. What I find most fascinating is:
1) How low the per capita income was back then
2) That, for the price of the average single home in Ashburn now, you could have bought a Lord & Taylor back then.

Jim Bob & Michelle Duggar Family Photo- Their home is absolutely fascinating. I was a bit disturbed to see two toilets in one bathroom... without any stalls! Maybe I'm just a prude.

Hot Spinach and Artichoke Dip Recipe- Who would have thought that something so is made with so much mayonnaise? It almost makes me not want to make it, almost. Oh wait! Here's one without any mayonnaise. Yay!

Nutella Ice Cream- Oh man... oh man... oh man... I am hyperventilating with excitement. The best part, it tells you how to make it without an ice cream maker!

Chinese Tea Egg Recipe- I make something similar with soy sauce, water, garlic, and some sugar. Yum! I wonder if you can really taste the tea...

West Michigan Whitecaps Want You to Help Pick New Tastes for Concession Stands- Twinkie hot dogs? Cotton candy with icing? Chocolate covered bacon?

Chicken Palava- Looks and sounds very Thai. My only experience with African food consists of eating at an Ethiopian restaurant twice. Mmm~ It was so good.

A New Penny for Your Thoughts- Hmm, I haven't seen those yet.

Upscale Chelsea McDonald's Just Waiting for Its Michelin Star- Hey! It looks almost exactly like a Noodles! Speaking of which, we're getting a Noodles in Landsdown (an area between Ashburn, where I currently live, and Leesburg, where (hopefully) I will soon live. Before, the closest one was next to my favorite thrift store and I used to be able to bribe Michael to come thrifting with me by promising him a lunch at Noodles.

Inside of Tokyo's Cat Cafe- Oooooh! Why can't we have one of those here?

20 Unholy Recipes: Dishes So Awful We Had to Make Them- Why do so many vintage recipe call for jello? Why in the world would you want to add meat to jello?!

The Perfect Dish

This is my new favorite meal.


It's pasta, butter, cheese, and pepper, that's it. It's simple, quick, and cheap as hell, what more could you ask for? Oh yeah, it also tastes really good. I recommend using unsalted butter and going heavy on the cheese. I'm thinking of experimenting and adding some garlic, maybe bacon... Oooh, peas! Then again, the beauty of this dish is its simplicity and I'm afraid of messing that up. Hmmm... I wonder how it would taste if I substitute butter for olive oil...

I keep a lot of cooked pasta in the fridge. Now I just throw it in the microwave with some butter, toss with some cheese and pepper and, bam! Dinner in like 3 minutes. Perfect!

Nothing to Wear

Everyday, getting dressed kind of sucks because I have nothing to wear. If you look at my closet, you will see why.


About half of my closet is filled with clothes I very, very rarely ever wear such as dresses, skirts, dress pants, and jackets. I have tried, so many times, to pare down my closet and get rid of those things but it's impossible. Why it's so hard to get rid of a jacket that I wore once, four years ago, I don't know.

Summer's coming up soon so I am going to need some new clothes. I'm still into the loosey-goosey, stripety look but there's probably a limit as to how often a girl can wear stripes in one week (like six maybe?) so I'm going to need something else. Blargh. Summer clothes are so uninspiring. Even polka dots don't bring me joy anymore.

A New Toy

My dad gave me the coolest thing ever!


It's a laser thermometer!!!

You just point it at a surface...


and BAM!!!


It tells you how cold/hot that surface is!!! It's so cool!

I first heard of it on Good Eats. Alton Brown uses it sometimes to take the temperature of his cooking surface.

I'm tempted to take it out with me and just measure the temperature of random things out in my surroundings. I just really enjoy knowing the temperature of things. Do you know how cold your toilet water is? I do! It's 62 degrees! My light bulb is 113 degrees but I just turned it on a few minutes ago so it will probably go up.

Dream House?

I think I finally found a house that I want.

It's in Leesburg, which is not ideal, but the house itself is pretty perfect. It's a 3 bedroom, 3.5 bath end unit town house in a nice (though, remote) neighborhood. It has a basement (kind of) which we really wanted.

When you walk in it's like...


Yeah... Very blue. The current tenant is very patriotic. We saw a lot of flags, the whole house is pretty much painted in red, white, and blue, lots of patriotic memorabilia, and the dude looks like McCain.


But yeah, if you look at the picture of the foyer to the left you have the kitchen and that door immediately to the right is the half bath. An odd location for a half bath if you ask me but you know, I like it. I don't know why half baths are always placed so close to the dining room. As a guest, I do not want to go to the bathroom within ear shot of anyone, especially those that might be eating. And, even if you run the faucet or whatever, it's like everyone knows what you're doing there and... I don't know.


I really liked the bathroom floor. I"m sure it's not real parquet but I think it's really cool.

I also like the kitchen.


It's a good size, gets a lot of light, and the cabinets aren't fug. And yes, that is indeed a gas stove!


I love gas stoves.

The kitchen floor is pretty rank but it's just vinyl so it should be easy to replace.


The all the flooring throughout the house is very um... lived in...


But, unlike the crack house (which, is now off the market, btw) with a good bit of steam cleaning, I can probably live with it for a bit.

The main living area/dining room area has a bay window!


I've always wanted to convert a bay window to a window seat. Despite what this picture shows, the house has lots of windows and it gets a lot of light. I don't know why but every house we've been to that has someone currently living there, the person always keeps the place very dim- blinds down, curtains drawn. Maybe they're embarrassed of the mess?

Both the storm doors to the front and back doors are jacked up and needs to be replaced.


Maybe we can just take them down. Storm doors aren't a must.

The deck is pretty freaking huge for a town house.


It is, however, literally right next to the neighbor's deck. Right next to it, as in I could easily, with no danger of falling, hop the fence to the neighbor's deck. They have these lattice walls you can install for some privacy, something I might want to look into maybe.

The place also has a huge backyard!


Yup, this what passes for a huge backyard for a Northern Virginian town house. Seriously, that's pretty fucking huge. That's like enough space for a slip and slide, practically unheard of for a town house up here. Oh, and since it's an end unit, it also has a side yard!


That's enough space for TWO slip and slides!

Just to give you an idea, the side yard is about as big as most town house's back yard. This is huge amount of yard space for a town house.

The basement has one full bath, one bedroom (with a walk in) and a den area that leads to a patio under the deck. Even the basement gets a lot of light.

The upstairs is pretty ho-hum. Two decent sized master suits, one with a walk in closet, one without.

All 3.5 bathrooms have really tiny sinks, which I don't really like.


I'm also not a big fan of the bath fitter thing they have going here. However, the mast bathroom has a window. I've always wanted a bathroom with a window!

So, a non-condo townhouse with a gas stove and a window in the bathroom, what's not to love? The location, for one, and the price. For whatever reason the tax on this property is almost twice as high as other properties we've seen. The total monthly payment isn't out of the question but I'm going to have to do some serious number crunching to see if it's worth it. The closing cost, however, is like... yikes. We can't afford to pay the full closing cost and put down a 10% down payment... Which probably means we can't afford this house.

I'm going to have to do some research on closing costs because, seriously? There's no way it's that expensive to buy a house.

Stripes

I've been in a bit of a clothing funk recently but one thing I really want is a perfect striped shirt and a cardigan. I already have several striped shirts, most acquired recently, but it's not enough.


By the way, I strongly believe that more men should wear cardigans. I bought my brother a thin, cotton cardigan from H&M and I bought the exact same one for myself. I thought it would be cute to go twinsy but, sadly, mine did not fit. Just as well, he would never have agreed to go twinsy, jerk.


This picture almost makes me wish I were the skirt wearing kind of girl.


Note to self: buy some slim fit khakis. Who would carry something like that? Banana? J. Crew? Zara? Hmm...


You'd think striped shirts would be easy to find. They are, but they aren't. Some are too tight, some are too baggy. Some stripes are too wide, others are too thin. The worst are the cheap ones where the stripes don't line up from front to back, sucks.

Note to self: Buy some wing tips.


I'm not a fan of the anchor but, again, more dudes should wear cardigans.

If this outfit was mine, I would wear it like everyday.


I would probably snip off the bondage pants bit but, other than that, every day. And yes, that is a dude but I'm digging his hair as well.

All the above pictures are from yesstyle.com. The have some really cute stuff, like this owl shirt for $12.


I'm just not a fan of on-line shopping.

Life Changing Moments

You know that desire to be just completely reckless and spend a large gob of money on something? Yeah, I was feeling it and I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to stop myself from going out and buying a Le Creuset. I do need a smaller enameled dutch oven... It is something I would use on a near daily basis... For the rest of my life! What's a couple hundred dollars on something so essential?

I could feel my resolve weakening... Must... Resist... Need... To... Save... Money... For... House... Oh but it's so shiny!!!

So, in order to stop myself, I went out and bought this:


3 QT enameled dutch oven from Cook by JC Penney. On sale for $50, which I got for $3 because I had a $50 gift card (I had to pay the sales tax). Nothing beats that feeling of bringing home a new enameled cast iron: gently taking it out of the box, placing it on the counter, lovingly stroking it while happily imagining the future years... Oh all the meals we'll make together! Nothing beats that feeling... Well, maybe bringing home a baby. I'll have to ask my sister since she has both.

I had the perfect inaugural dish in mind.


No, no no no no no. It is not just any spaghetti with marinara sauce. It is spaghetti with the most amazing marinara sauce ever. When I first saw the recipe and read the testimonial on Smitten Kitchen I was very skeptical. A marinara sauce made without olive oil, basil, onion, garlic or white wine? There's no way it's as good as they claim. After trying it, all I can say is believe the hype.

Not only is it the best marinara sauce ever, it's also the easiest. It only calls for three ingredients, canned tomato, butter, and an onion (four if you include salt). You basically simmer everything, mushing the tomatoes every once in awhile, and add salt to your liking at the very end.

So simple, so amazing.

Eating Out in Leesburg

The weather has been absolutely gorgeous the past few days. Personally, I think it's a bit too hot for spring but it's nice to go jacket-less. While we waited for Michael's car to be fixed (some sort of recall or something) we decided to head down to Downtown Leesburg.

We chose someplace new, the Leesburg Restaurant.


According to the menu it's been in operation since 1891. Impressive. The decor was a cross between a '50 diner and a church.


The best part about eating at an old restaurant is that feeling of traveling back in time. Chipping paint, stained carpets, uncomfortable seats, low ceilings, food made with vegetables from a can, it's all part of the awesome experience.

The menu was very beef-centric. Since I'm beef fasting, I had to settle for a grilled cheese sandwich. I wasn't too happy about it, but Michael had the steak and cheese (which I had my eye on) and he said it was horrible and overpriced so I guess I lucked out.


It was made with good old fashioned American cheese! American cheese... Made with (not of, mind you) real milk!

Now, there's something to be said for a grilled cheese made with aged cheddar, a thin layer of french mustard and slices of some crusty bread; that something would be "YUM!". However, a grilled cheese made with slices of American cheese and Wonderbread is also pretty bad ass. It's childhood. It's like as much as I like "fancy" macaroni and cheese, nothing beats mac and cheese from a box.

After lunch I was in a mood for some coffee and dessert so we wandered around the area looking for a cafe. We walked down the street right in front of the court house, an area we never bothered to check out in the past, and discovered a really awesome coffee house called Shoes Cup & Cork Club.

I've seen the sign every time I've been to Leesburg and I would have never guessed that it was a coffee house.


I mean, would you?

The inside is really cute and cozy. It has really high ceilings (with a shoes chandelier), floor to ceiling bookcases...


... Interesting, hand drawn murals...


... and a cute bar with a inside is really outside motif.


The coffee was really good; they actually pull the shots instead of pushing a button. I ordered my usual, mocha, and was very pleased with my order. Some coffee houses uses milk chocolate syrup for mocha which just ruins the drink; they don't. They also pile on the whip cream with the chocolate drizzles. The whipped portion of the drink was almost a dessert in itself. On the downside, that quality comes at a price (not $$$, price wise, it's very comparable to Starbucks). It takes FOREVER to get your drink. Okay, I exaggerate, it only takes 6 minutes... per drink. Meaning, if someone ordered drink ahead of you, it might take you like 10 minutes to get your order. We timed. Oh, and their sizes are called "narrow" and "wide". Yeah... taking the shoe theme a little too far...

They also serve food, like scallops and pastas and wine kind of food, during the evening. I want to check it out but man... If it takes them 5 minutes to make my coffee I'm scared to find out how long it takes to prepare my dinner.