Hello hello!! I woke up this AM and decided to put my to-do list on hold to do a little blogging with my coffee. I have an intensive next week- you may remember when I’d go to my school for them? They went virtual this year, but I am really excited (and nervous) for it. We’re going to be learning how to program pumps for diabetes, do check-offs with a standardized patient, present an endocrine topic to our peers (mine is titled The Impact of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals on Fertility) and attend various lectures. Oh, all of that to say, I have a long weekend to prepare for the intensive and think I can afford a few minutes to write this up 🙂 !
Now for a little February update! February was a weird, weird month… and if you ask anyone in Texas I’m sure they will immediately have flashbacks to our ice storm- I’ll be sure to discuss that whole fiasco and a half. February 6th I was notified we had a package, so I went down to the mail room and this Austin city candle was in the box. It didn’t have a sender on it or any messages, so it’s still a mystery who sent this candle! If you did, thank you!!!
Once we burned it down, we noticed a little foil wrapped something in the bottom. We handled it with gloves lol because, remember, we had no idea who this was from! But inside was a crisp $2 !! How fun.
February 12th we met up with some friends at Central Machine Works for the first time as a group since the previous year for a friend’s bday!! This place is awesome!! It has the most chill vibe.
Valentine’s Day we received the sweetest valentine’s from my niece and nephew <3 <3 I cannot say how excited we are to be living close to them and our other nephews and niece!!!
February 15th, we woke up to THIS!!! Whaaat!
I was planning on going to stock up on groceries that morning. As someone who grew up in OH, I was not afraid of no snow. Actually that’s a total lie- I totaled my car on black ice as a teenager, so it’s probably the thing I’m most nervous about with moving back. Anyway, here was my trial run. The problem with this massive snowfall in TX is it never happens, I mean never happens, so they didn’t have the normal snow trucks to salt the roads. I didn’t take that into account when I ventured out that day! I should have taken a hint when there was no one on South Congress that mayyybe I shouldn’t try driving on it? There were people skiing and snowboarding down it though!
There was also this guy in front of me, with the “Life is Good” tire cover. Am I surprised he was the only other one out on the road? Of course not. This is the type of person unfazed by anything. If we ever do have the anticipated zombie apocalypse, this is the guy I want on our side.
When I finally arrived at HEB (which took triple the usual time), they weren’t open!! This whole venture was clearly not my brightest moment.
The worst part of the not being able to stop at the grocery store… you might want to sit down for this one- I didn’t have any coffee left. Yes, I know. I ended up stopping by a Starbucks nearby on foot that was actually open, I think since it was attached to a hotel. I loaded up on four coffees that lasted a couple days and then kept doing that until I was able to make it back to the store. Never been so thankful for Starbucks in my whole life.
I headed home and we turned on our artificial fire, because same as a real one, right?
And then I had to get to food prepping with the little we had left in the fridge. I was actually quite amazed how much these groceries stretched. I made roasted potatoes, peas from a can (slaved over this one), cauliflower mashed potatoes, an eggplant parmesan (I give that name generously considering we had very little sauce left), seitan from vital gluten wheat powder, protein bars that were not good, but I ate them anyway, and lastly, our favorite- a mix of the leftover veggies, lentils and chickpeas we had mixed in with various Indian spices! We also had a little rice leftover so we added that to it and it was a delightful dinner.
Oh, I can’t forget these! I found a can of heart of palms that had been sitting around for a long time, and looked up creative ideas for them. When I found a recipe for heart of palm “crab cakes” I knew this what we had to go with! We actually had most ingredients on hand, and they were SO good. DJ was impressed how similarly they tasted to real crab cakes.
We stretched these meals until Friday when I ventured out to the store. I was craving vegetables like you wouldn’t believe.
I spent the week catching up on various school assignments. DJ did too- and actually his already virtual classes were entirely cancelled since some classmates lost power.
I do want to take a moment to say- I recognize we were incredibly blessed through all of this. We did have food, we didn’t lose our power, we had a roof over our heads- and it is truly heart breaking what happened to so many people. I don’t discount that at all, and it was really a traumatic week for so many. I pray this never happens again.
That Friday, February 19th, DJ and I went out to celebrate Valentine’s Day a week late. You know us, just makeshift celebrate everything on our own schedule, lol. I’d wanted to try Olive & June for a while, so I made us a reservation.
We sat out on their gorgeous patio. Everything was delizioso!! We shared their cheese boards (amazing, I loved the pickled veggies and the cheese was darn good)
We then had their beet salad that was one of my favorites ever ever- soo good! It actually may have been my favorite part of the meal.
I had their seared gulf snapper- it was flavorful as can be!
DJ had their cacio e pepe. It was really tasty!! Butttt there is actually an even better cacio e pepe in town we tried a few weeks later- can’t wait to share that!!
We grabbed some desserts to go- so yummy.
February 21st we got brunch with a friend from Kerbey Lane Cafe. I genuinely forgot to take pictures, but take my word for it that this place had some GOOD food. An *ultimate* brunch spot.
Oh, just one more detail from the whole chaos of the snowstorm. Throughout the rest of the month we were also on a boil water warning. We boiled a whole bunch of water at once and then used every coffee mug that would fit in the fridge to store it.
For desserts throughout February I was loving these strawberry ice cream bars with a little PB and some chocolate chips.
And it had been far too long by the time February 26th rolled back around since we had last ordered Flower Child! (Always have to get a side of that corn and quinoa).
And that wraps up our…interesting… February! I best get back to the grind. Have a great weekend, friends!!
I’d love to know:
- Do you have any stories around dealing with wild weather?