21 & Other Events

Sup y’all! It was hilarious to read about your 21st birthday celebrations, even if you can’t remember them too well! I hope you can understand why it’s taken me so long to bounce back from mine…hehe.

Superbowl weekend was nicely balanced with work and play.

I partied hard (a.k.a. attended multiple house parties, hugged lots of people and stayed out until the wee hours) on Friday night, and it was just what I needed. My school is small, but there are so many kids I haven’t seen in the longest time! I even found out that one of my roommates from freshman year (I was in a triple) is getting married! Ahhh! 2 years can change so much!

I don’t really recall what I had for breakfast Saturday morning oh, that’s right! I didn’t wake up until 11 and wasn’t hungry till well past 1. But I rallied with my first attempt at socca!

Are you intrigued? Hmm?

I knew socca was a favorite of the Pure2Raw twins and the Fitnessista; they said it was easy, so I pulled my garbanzo bean flour out of the pantry and hopped to it!

I mixed equal parts garbanzo bean flour and water (1/2 cup each), then added salt, pepper, rosemary, thyme

(I definitely didn’t use thyme. My fingers were just itching to write a Simon and Garfunkel song!)

I schlopped about a tablespoon of coconut oil on the skillet and poured the batter on

I’m not coordinated enough to make multiple pancakes (as you’ll see later), so I made one big one!

I just cooked each side for a few minutes until it look toasted. I sauteed a red bell pepper in balsamic vinegar to go along with it. Good decision!

The socca was really delicious, and really filling! I guess that’s because each serving of garbanzo bean flour has 6g protein, 18g of carbohydrate (of which a hefty 5g is fiber) and an impressive 10% of the daily value for iron, and I had 2 servings! I’ll have to make this a habit; not only did it taste delicious, but the apartment smelled amazingly herby.

I went to a free hot yoga class with a friend later in the afternoon. Have y’all ever tried hot or Bikram yoga? I don’t do it often; I prefer yoga that’s more touchy-feely, inspirational, and flowing, preferably with some hipster music, candles and incense. The whole spiritual nine yards. To me, hot yoga feels more like I’m atoning for my sins by sweating buckets and holding postures for way longer than my attention span can take. But I have to admit, it feels great once in a while! There’s a CorePower yoga studio (do y’all have this chain in your state?) just minutes from campus, so I try to catch their free once-a-week hot yoga classes when I get the chance.

When I got home, I was dehydrated and starving! Good thing my muscles weren’t too tired, because I really wanted to make spaghetti squash. Here I am wrestling to cut it:

I even let my knife-happy roommate try to halve the squash. He gave up! He took a picture of me instead.

Eventually I worked that knife through that stubborn squash and got dinner on the table. I used Kath’s spaghetti squash method but I think I’m going to attempt a microwave cooking next time. I’m too impatient for the oven!

Served over spinach and tossed with chickpeas and red pepper

Later that night, when I tried to make oatmeal pancakes, I set off the smoke alarm.

Ok, so they were a little burnt. Oops?

Still delicious. In preparation for birthday celebrations, I did some late-night schoolwork (aka bible reading!) so I could relax the next day.

And relax I did! I woke up, did some Zumba, then headed to a superbowl party.

Grapefruit before I left. I mostly ate it because we have a grapefruit spoon, for once!

Packers colors?

Confession: I didn’t eat a lot of real food on superbowl day, so when I started birthday party #1 later that night, 2 shots went riiiiiight to me and I was pretty schwasty. But that’s appropriate for your 21st, right? My rugby team gave me one heck of a party; I’ve never felt so loved.

It’s also convenient that my teammates don’t need any convincing to drink on a Sunday night. What sports!

I headed home at 1:30 AM and went to class 8 hours later, fully coherant. Success!

Yesterday (the real birthday) the shenanigans were much more tame.

The only times I ever CRAVE bagels is after a night of heavy drinking. Luckily, someone had picked up everything bagels, my FAVORITE! I made do without cream cheese and put avocado on top.

(I don’t do that whole “I’m so hungover I can’t stand the thought of food” thing. When I’ve lost my appetite, I know something’s very, very wrong.)

Seaweed snack (I liked!)

And dinner with the apartment:

Potato, apple & onion casserole

(We were missing a salad, so I ended up grabbing the huge mixed greens container from the fridge and passing it around the table!)

Birthday pie (so much better than cake!)

Roomies!

The sweetest gift ever (it’s a rugby ball!)

And Monday night shenanigans.

Good thing we have geeks-in-residence to fix the stereo system!

I hope y’all have recovered from superbowl weekend easily enough! As for me, I’m hoping to get back on a proper sleep schedule by tomorrow.

Question: What’s the best gift you’ve received lately? I love my signed rugby ball, but I think heartfelt toasts are the best gift of all