The Fabulous Life of Stefanie

 The pandemic has changed a lot of the things about our home lives, both for better and for worse, but having more time to cook and less need for rushing to eat has definitely been a benefit.  When things shut down and grocery shopping started to feel like the Hunger Games, I took the hit in the wallet and started going to Whole Foods, which was like a tropical paradise of foods (and alcohol!) and resulted in some pretty fancy eats. We are back shopping at our local Stoppies now, but part of me is hankering to get my fancy leggings on and take a loop through Whole Foods again soon. Like a lot of people, we tried some new recipes, ate our feelings more than a few times and ordered a lot of take out to support the local economy, but here are some things that have now become the new norm. Eating salads. I like salads, but it wasn't until a couple of months passed without eating one that I realized my body would probably appreciate having them regularly again. Slogging a home...

Happy Friday before another sunny weekend! Had to say that because my last Currently post was all about longing for summer, the Cape and bike rides to the beach and that is exactly what we have been doing each and every weekend. Awful winters mean making the most out of beautiful summers, after all. Just a light post after my not so light pos t to head into the weekend. We are heading down to the RiverFest near our house tomorrow to enjoy the outdoors and hopefully put our canoe in the water and then Sunday will be all about the beach. Hope your outlook is just as bright! Reading I am almost done with Manhattan Beach , which I picked up after reading an excerpt in Vogue. It started off great - very old New York mafia noir, with a woman at the center of it all (and writing it) but the end has me a little less excited. I'll see how the author wraps it up before a final judgement, but definitely recommend either way! I have I'll Be Gone in the Dark waiting for me in my pile...

All of the feedback on my last post was so nice and super motivating to share some of the random things I do to find some balance with eating and working and running and mom'ing, so I thought I would share how I try and tackle the mornings. Running This is the cornerstone of my exercise routine and the only thing that I do in the mornings. I have tried to be one of those people that can get up and do yoga or strength training, but it just doesn't happen. As soon as I start moving the kids barge in, someone needs something from me, or the kids want to join and start rolling around on my foam roller like a drunken circus seal. Luckily, I have my lunch hour at the gym every day (more on that another day). I am also not an afternoon or evening runner - there is always so much to do in those hours after work and before bedtime and, really, I just love starting my day with a run to clear my head and feel accomplished before the rest of the world is awake. With morning running, I ...

Let's be clear that I am in no way the healthiest person I know (more miles = more beer) but there are some easy ways that I try to maintain some balance, which I thought I would share in case it sparks anything helpful in someone else. Meal Planning I am not talking about pretty bento boxes of veggies, perfectly weighed out to by macros and ketos and whatever else the popular bloggers are doing. I just mean I sit down (with Matt) every Friday night and look at our calendars, decide what we will have for dinners, and make a grocery list. We have a weekly cash budget to stick to (more on that in another post) so we check the circular for anything on sale that we can take advantage of, such as chicken breasts and produce, since those are staples. I also like to make things that we can generate leftovers for our weekday lunches, such as chicken to throw in rice bowls or  Thug Kitchen 's delicious roasted beet and quinoa salad that is amazing over a handful of spinach. A few m...

Happy Friday, y'all! This has been a bananas week with my first overnight away from baby Annabel, lots of work projects due, an event at Maddie's school and trying to stay awake past 8:30 so that someday we might finish  up Mad Men. Ah, this life of mine. Here are some of the things making me happy! Physical Therapy : not so much needing to go, but it has made such a huge difference in the way I feel before and after runs and has made me actually do the stretching that all runners tell other people to do and never do themselves. I go to Elliot Physical Therapy along with most everyone else in my running club and they are by far the nicest, most patient, talented people. I feel even better about this marathon because of the work they have done on me! Radio Flyer Wagons : My Mom got this for Annabel for her birthday and both girls are LOVING it. Also, super easy to maneuver around for the grown ups. it is such a great alternative to double strollers and they look so darn...

It's countdown to baby number two over here (I'll be 38 weeks on Wednesday) and I'm in full nesting mode when I'm not making sweeping changes at work because, why would I ever make things easy for myself? We've made some awesome progress on my house to-do list (kitchen back splash and bathroom decor) but now we just have to wait until we can actually open the windows to do some painting projects. At some point we are redoing the bathroom into a double sink situation but that can wait until after the baby is here (or so my husband tells me). So now we wait, I wash things and make extras of dinners to freeze and hope I can get things on autopilot at work for a couple months. Here's five things I'm loving lately as we hunker down and wait to meet this baby girl:  Special time with the one who made me a Mama . As soon as I saw that positive sign on my pregnancy test and felt the thrill of getting to bring another baby into our family my thoughts immedia...

This morning as I was overloading my poor husband with tasks to do before he could get out the door and go to work, the door was left open and the strangest thing happened: it was cold! Like, real fall brisk cold, to the point where I had to think about layering up for myself and the kiddo. This excites me to no end because, like most people in New England, I love the fall (until it turns into winter, but that is another story) and with that comes my love of fall food. The slow cooker has been out and at work for a few weeks now but I am also looking forward to making up some soup, which is the easiest thing to freeze and bring to work during the week. I am also the queen of throwing a bunch of leftover veggies, some beans and some tomatoes into the slow cooker for random weeknight chili dinners. Top it with hot sauce and cheese and I can call it whatever I want! I thought I would share some of my favorite cooler-weather recipes, including some slow cooker gems. Feel free to share ...

Well, it appears that all of the excitement (stress) of the past couple of weeks in the adventures in home buying has caught up with me because I feel very much like I was hit by some sort of truck. Specifically a really large one that likes to back up and re-run over people.  I am not sick, really, but my stomach is not being my friend and I would really just love to lay in the sun and take a looooong nap; well, more so than I usually feel the need to. There were some serious days of stress eating last week, especially when we thought we were not going to be able to go through with buying the house we wanted, and we ended up getting take-out twice in one week, which is a super rare occurrence in our house with two people that love to cook. So, with things (kind of) less hectic we are back on track and last night I made a really yummy dinner AND homemade "ice cream" which I will get to in a minute. If I could eat one food every single day it would probably be avoca...

I have gotten into a good routine of prepping things for the week on Sundays so that we have more time when we get home to play trains and less time having to chop onions, because, priorities, you know? I am always on the look out for recipes that can be made ahead, and I recently stumbled across a delicious quinoa stuffed bell pepper dish on another blog that looked like a good make-ahead meal. I paired it with some baked beans (Maddie and Matty both prefer them over black) and a nice Abita Pecan Harvest poured into a fancy Allagash glass from our trip to the brewery two summers ago. Delicious! Here is my version of the recipe, modified to make ahead (I made them Sunday and we had them Tuesday night).  Quinoa Stuffed Peppers, serves four to five adapted from A Beautiful Mess 1 cup quinoa (I used a mixture of colors) 5-6 tablespoons olive oil 4 cloves of garlic, minced 1 jalapeno, seeds removed and chopped 1/2 onion, chopped 1 teaspoon cumin 1/2 cup tomato sauce (I used 2...

Is it really Monday already? I feel like this weekend just flew by. The good news is that we made it through our first weekend with Matty back in classes, but nap time was not a successful endeavor either day and is something that we really need to work on if I am going to make it through this semester. Maddie is still doing two to three hours on the weekdays and I really, really want to keep that up as long as possible, including on the weekends because a two year old with no nap is about the scariest thing I have even seen. and it makes the evenings not so fun. I think I need to make sure that I am getting her to the indoor play space or the park (weather permitting) Saturday mornings so she can run around and tire herself out. I am also going to try and get up really early before Matty has to leave and get on a spin bike at the Y so that I can be nice and stress free when it comes time to make nap time happen. Saturday was full of errands and checking off to-do lists and Matty ...

Once upon a time when I was a very punk rock teenager, I decided to become a vegetarian purely for reasons of ethics. I thought eating meat, supporting the meat industry and destroying the earth to do the latter two was a terrible thing. It had nothing to do with diet or nutrition, which can be seen in my preference for tofu in ramen noodles and potatoes cooked every which way when I moved out on my own. This is me dressed as Jem for Halloween and has nothing to do with this post but it made me laugh. Brooding pre-punk Stefanie. I stopped being a vegetarian in my very early twenties, but I still agree with the teenager in me about the ethics of eating meat and I try to make an attempt to buy "better" meats and not turn a blind eye to the industry. I love a lot of meat dishes and I don't see myself ever stopping partaking again, but that doesn't mean I don't still eat and make a lot of meat-free dishes. It doesn't hurt that 1/3 of team best friend, my...

I used to loooooathe going to Home Depot, mostly because it meant that my parents were dragging me there before asking me to slave, er work with them all day doing some ridiculous project like staining the flipping porch, including the underneath where all the spiders lived, on a beautiful summer day when I would rather have been doing anything else at all. Anything. Home Depot mostly made me feel dread, all hardware stores did really, even if they happened to have the added perk of free popcorn or a hot dog cart because, let's face it, one hot dog ain't gonna erase an afternoon of being under the porch with a paintbrush and a black widow in your hair. But now....sorry if you think I am going to say how much I love Home Depot and that I decided to do the baby's room in a lovely bright orange and don't even mind that the Watertown store doesn't have a snack bar (because I do) but...I don't hate it! Last night I was even glad to be there, which was probably due t...

I hate being sick. I know that no one likes being sick, but being sick is like the antithesis of me. So far I have missed work, a community dialogues session, a second day of work, the gym and now I am going to miss a Civic Leadership Institute reunion and a drink with Nina. I am glad that I have finally learned to stay home and focus on getting better when I am sick, which is something I have learned only in the past few years and has a lot to do with Matty making me do so and having a job where I can actually call in sick. I haven't missed two days in a long time, but it is probably not because this is the first time I have needed to but is the first time that I can do so. Aside from missing out on my responsibilities, I just hate the lack of productivity that I feel when I am laying on the couch feeling sorry for myself. My house could definitely use a mini-cleaning. There are some errands that need to be run. But here I am laying on the couch, watching the 20th hour of the Toda...