30/365: And today I became a smart person

I took SIX hours of excel classes today, and all I got were two certificates. On the bright side, I'm on time for class for the second time all semester. That's always exciting. And I had time to eat a real dinner instead of relying on the vending machine special: pretzels and diet coke.

Only three more hours before I feel comfortable taking the Excel Certification Exam...

29/365: What's in the Bag? Edition

Standard school/work bag contents:
1. Book for Brand Management, which starts next week. I keep meaning to read the first two chapters.
2. Spring semester notebook. It's made from banana paper, which is some of the best recycled paper I've found yet.
3. My wallet. It's too big.
4. My planner/random note-taking book. It's a scary thing to look at.
5. An issue of the Economist from a couple of weeks ago. I try to be educated.
6. Randoms: Sharpie pen, highlighters, name badge, lip balms, USB, and the ever ubiquitous hair tie. I actually found two others while doing this. I was wondering where they went.

28/365: It's a two picture kind of day

1. We used to have baby ducklings. These are the babies today. They're still my favorite of the ducks we have.

2. Johnny is reaching for the stars! Or, the moon. Close enough, right?

27/365: Sushi and Kitties!

Johnny and I were in desperate need of a date night this week, so we went out for sushi. My rolls above are spicy scallop and Tampa (grouper). Our good friends have three cats, and I love visiting them for some cat therapy after a long week.

26/365: Baked grapefuit

It's another day at the library for me. Baked grapefruit for breakfast is helping me get going today.

25/365: I wish I could jump on a plane too

Watching the sun rise from the top floor of the airport parking garage kind of makes the early morning meeting more bearable.

24/365: Adventure Thursday! Lots of pictures!

I'm going to switch things up on you guys and do an Adventure Thursday today. I had a breakfast meeting in Bradenton, south of Tampa Bay, this morning and had some extra time left on the meter. I decided to browse some of downtown Bradenton and their new River Walk with that time. One of the perks of my job is being able to do stuff like this, even if it does involve driving 45 miles away for a 7:30am meeting.

I started my adventure here, where the Downtown Auditorium is located. Right behind the Auditorium and City Hall is the pier.

A little further down, past the bridge in the background of the picture above...

 I found a skate park!

This is a map of Downtown Bradenton.

I loved the banners hanging around the area.

I saw this property on my way out of Bradenton. It's the perfect little place to house my own marketing firm one day. Also, you can see my car in the window.

On the way home I decided to pull over around the Skyway Bridge for a few more pictures. I really wanted one of the bridge itself, but timing just wasn't right today. It's the most iconic bridge of Tampa Bay though, and pretty easy to find on Google.

The scenery made up for the ungodly early wake-up time.

23/365: Sometimes I look professional

Yesterday started my three day suit-wearing binge. It's not the best picture, but it's the best I could do running out of the apartment yesterday. Between a professional presentation for school, a breakfast meeting with an investor county, and a Board of Directors meeting this week, my new blazer is definitely getting some use. Good thing it's super comfortable, unlike my other two blazers.

22/365: Pillow forts are for adults too

This is a leftover from Sunday. Johnny made himself a pillow fort, per the rules of the board game we were playing. I was hoping to get some pictures at our favorite bar, The Independent, for tonight, but it looks like we're staying in tonight instead. I know I need to be home sometimes, but I'm extremely bad at not doing anything. I always feel the need to constantly be going.

21/365: Inauguration day

I love long weekends. I'm incredibly excited that I got everything done early enough to watch all of the inaugeration festivities.

20/365: Lounging in the graduate business lounge

STUDY MODE! Like my new leather bag in the first picture? Sunday was incredibly busy. We started at the USF grad student lounge, went over to a friend's house for grilling and football with her parents, and then ended the day with Johnny's family celebrating his brother's birthday. I think we were gone a solid 12 hours that day.

19/365: Drinks!

It was a friend's birthday on Friday, so we went out for drinks at a favorite bar. This is one of our friends in the picture. I'm in classic study clothes: oversized sweater, glasses, and hair pulled back.

18/365: Florida finally realized it was winter

It got cold again! Sweaters and scarves! I'm so excited!

15+16+17/365: Sunsets, excel, and Girls

I'm just having a slight meltdown from everything going on right now. NBD, right?

Day 15:

Pretty sunset!

Day 16:

Johnny had to go by campus after work, so I visited him after class. He's super intense when excel is involved.

Day 17:

I'm having one of those days. I seriously did nothing today except scowl and sit at my desk. Now that I'm home, though, I can take away that scowl with good music and some friends later. Also, when did iTunes go crazy on everyone? I bet that shows how often I actually listen to music on my computer.

14/365: The first green smoothie attempt

I started drinking green smoothies for breakfast today! I'm trying to have a different one every day for a week. I got the idea from a blog I follow, A Beautiful Mess.

Busy day, no time to post. This four week class continues to kick my ass.

xoxo Sarah

13/365: Back at it

Blurry phone picture fun!

I think I've finally kicked this cold/sinus infection/sickness thing that has been a pain in my side for a week. One of my goals for 2013 is to lose weight, and one of my tactics to reach that goal was to go to the gym for at least 15 minutes every day I don't have night class. Well, I went to the gym twice and then got sick, and once I got sick I fell behind in school. Because I'm a nerd, I can't do anything until I'm caught up in school. It's a dangerous cycle that is hard to break.

Along with the gym, I'm also back to couponing. Johnny and I let our newspaper subscription lapse, and we just never renewed it until the Tampa Bay Times sent us a really good deal. It just shows that the longer you wait, the better the deal gets.

So, tonight during dinner, Johnny asked me how I would feel if we went vegetarian for a week. I'm so excited to do this! I was vegetarian for most of college, and by my senior year I was actually making real food versus pasta, pizza, grilled cheese, and salads. I still make a lot of vegetarian recipes, but because Johnny is a hardcore meat-eater I just add some form of meat to food. It'll be easy on me to go veggie for a week (because it's just cutting out an extra step while making dinner), but I'm interested to see how Johnny makes it. So far, I'm thinking about making my standard curry chili (sans the ground chicken) and baked falafel patties (which Johnny loved when I made them a few months ago). Good thing I'm caught up with reading, because I'll be going through all of my old cookbooks this week.

Do you have any really unique vegetarian recipes I could test out? I'm trying my best to stay away from good ol' pasta dishes (although, expect one during the week).

12/365: Saturday Adventures!

This week's Saturday adventure was...class. That's right, I have class on a Saturday. Good thing the USF campus is my favorite place in Tampa. I lived on that campus for four years and have been a student there another three years. I took a walk around where I had the majority of my undergrad classes, and so much as changed! The social science and faculty offices buildings don't look dingy anymore! They were always some of the oldest buildings on the campus, and for a long time USF was focusing on their new, shiny buildings on the science side of campus. I want to do a proper USF picture post one day, but for now here are some pictures of just a tiny corner of the USF world.

My old home. Most of the rooms don't have windows, but it did have the largest vending machine room of most of buildings between 2006 and 2010.

This is where I live now. It's nice and shiny, but it doesn't have the charm that the social science building had.

11/365

Last night was latte and movie night, one of my favorite ways to relax. Johnny and I had some friends over and watched The Perks of Being a Wallflower, one of my favorite movies to come out this year. Note my strange 70s-colored countertops in the picture above.

10/365

Yay! This was my first day not needing medicine in over a week! I was able to focus at work, I have energy, and I'm finally catching up on blogging and homework. Luckily I don't have a reading quiz tonight, so I can catch up on note-taking before diving into articles on sustainable supply chain management. Let me rephrase that actually. Luckily, I don't have a reading quiz tonight, so I can do something mindless like note-taking while watching the new Grey's Anatomy tonight. My priorities are straight tonight.

9/365

We set a record high in Tampa! It was 84 degrees...in January, I like warm, but I also like to have winter weather in the winter. We deal with hotness from March until early December. Is it that hard to have a couple of months sans temperatures over 75? Anyways, that is the hazy view from the 5th floor of my parking garage at work.

And this is the view of the courtyard from the 5th floor of the parking garage. Creative, I know.

8/365

I started off the day feeling great! My cold was getting under control, it was warm enough to wear a skirt, and I didn't have class after work. However, about an hour into work the cold started again, and it came back with a vengeance. I was hardly able to make it through my mountains of homework, setting me behind on only the second day of the semester (it's not the first time that's happened too). I ended the day with Nyquil at 9:30.

7/365: Back to Life

It was back to work and school on Monday. I took a picture of the mess of a project I came back to. Oh yeah, and it was definitely a Monster kind of day because classes started on Monday as well. Double joy! I was out of the house from 8am until 10:45pm because of class. It's going to be a long four weeks.

6/365

I get into food ruts very easily. If I'm without a new recipe or crazy ingredients, I tend to just stick with chicken, rice, and veggies. I was at a loss for dinner yet again tonight, but thanks to some leftover ingredients I was able to throw together something delicious. I love spicy food. I love hispanic food. I love the smell of chipotle peppers roasting throughout the house. If you love those things too, this is a recipe for you to try.

Note: When I cook, I tend to eyeball instead of actually measure. When you add your spices, add them to your taste.

Basic ingredients:

• Boneless pork (I used two medium size cuts for two people plus leftovers)
• One can diced tomatoes (any flavor)
• One can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1/4 yellow onion, diced and caramelized
• Two chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, chopped
• Red pepper flakes
• Cajun spice mix (I use Weber's)
• Curry powder
• Coriander powder
• Splash of lime juice

Step 1: Cut up the pork into bite-sized pieces and season. I trim the excess fat off of my pork here. Cook pork and caramelize the onions.

Step 2: Combine the pork, onions, tomatoes, black beans, and chipotle peppers in a large pot. Add some water to the mixture if you want a soupy mixture. Bring to a boil (if you added water), and let sit on low-medium heat for at least one hour.

Step 3: Enjoy some sake while you wait!

Step 4: Add a splash of lime juice and enjoy! Johnny and I had ours over rice with queso fresco, but I can see this making a great burrito filling or salad topping.