Mexico!!

Where have I been lately? Well, I left winter and cold, snow-covered Michigan for Mexico. It was an awesome decision and an amazing experience. My first time outside of the U.S. and Canada, it was a truly eye-opening and enlightening experience. Everyone I met was very welcoming, and I loved being challenged to speak and listen to Spanish. Below are some pictures from the trip:

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas all! I hope your holiday season is filled with good food, family, and friends. Mine has been. :-) I am looking forward to another year with you all. Here are some winter pictures I took while visiting my parents in Iowa. What a stunning winter wonderland!

Meijer Mounted Photo Review

As a BzzAgent, I received a coupon for a free mounted photo from Meijer. I brought in a picture on a thumb drive, uploaded it with ease, and it was mounted within an hour! I love the result (pictured below). The silver edging goes well with the photo and creates a sleek result that looks great hung on my white wall. The mounted photo also looks great sitting on top of a shelf. It's nice to not need to buy a frame and take away from the picture by surrounding it with something else. I like the idea of mounted photos, and Meijer did a great job!

Moroccan Chicken

In trying new recipes, I decided to make Moroccan Chicken with Cauliflower and Zucchini. It turned out quite nicely as pictured below.

Moroccan Chicken

2 chicken breasts
1 tbsp. oil
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. ginger
1 tsp. cumin
1 tbsp. garlic
1 small zucchini cubed
1.5 c. cauliflower pieces

Cook chicken in skillet with oil. Add spices and vegetables and continue cooking until all is seasoned.

This was a fairly simple recipe, but it was fun to try a new combination of spices and veggies with chicken.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! I went for a 30 mile bike ride this morning and enjoyed exploring even more of Grand Rapids. Below is a crane I saw.

KRAVE Jerky Giveaway Winner!

It is time to announce my KRAVE Jerky Giveaway (sponsored by KRAVE) winner........ Random.org pronounces Number 5 the winner! Congrats to Mike Davis! I will be contacting you shortly. :-)

Thank you so much to everyone else to entered the giveaway and stopped my blog.

I'd like to add a few pictures I have taken from around Grand Rapids and Lake Michigan during my bike rides. Western Michigan is a beautiful part of the country.

Wild Turkey above!

Blueberry Field above!

Hope you all had a great Labor Day!

Meals and More from Grand Rapids

I am now in Grand Rapids, Michigan! In order to stay fit and healthy while juggling a new job, I have a couple goals. First, I want to experiment with new recipes by cooking or baking at least 5 times per week. Second, I am going to do some sort of athletic activity every day, whether that be biking 8 miles round trip to work, running, lifting weights in my apartment, etc.

I think I'm off to a good start and will share a couple meals with you today in addition to some pictures from a bike ride to the Frederick Meijer Sculpture Garden.

I visited a farmers' market this weekend and bought some zucchini and cucumber. I decided to make a salad with the yellow zucchini and tuna boats with my cucumber.

Yes, this is a very simple salad with spinach leaves, yellow zucchini, and turkey slices. I mixed some rice vinegar and raspberry vinaigrette together for the dressing.

This was fun to make! I just mixed a can of tuna with 2 tbsp mayo, 1 tbsp honey mustard, and a pinch of pepper and cumin.

And now for some pictures from the Frederick Meijer Sculpture Garden. First we have some carnivorous plants:

Then we have some plant sculptures!

Stay tuned for reviews and giveaways to come soon! Hope you all had a great weekend!

Abandoned Kittens and Braided Bread

Hello everyone! I have a great story to share today!

This past Thursday evening, I was walking to the store in the rain when I heard a cry and looked down at my feet to see a wet, small grey kitten. I immediately picked it up and looked around. I saw no one. The kitten shivered as it snuggled against me. As I held the kitten and my umbrella, I tried to determine the best course of action. I could call Animal Control then and there, but I wasn’t sure what would happen to the kitten there. So I zipped the kitten into my jacket and carried it back to my apartment where I checked to see if it had fleas – nope!

I then called Animal Control to see if a kitten had been reported missing and also to see what their procedures were for lost kittens. I wasn’t too keen on the idea of her being taken by them, so I decided to hang on to the kitten for the weekend and try to find the owner myself (if there was one). My first step was to run to the store (which I never reached earlier in the evening) and pick up some cat litter and kitten chow. The kitten stayed in my bathroom most of the evening until it started crying around 5 AM and ended up sleeping on my lap for the rest of the early morning hours… I have a soft heart, what can I say. I was also fearful of neighbors complaining of the noise since I’m not supposed to have a pet here.

On Friday I called a local vet clinic and some apartment complexes near where the kitten was found to see if the owner was searching for it, but I had no luck. At this point I was growing attached and decided to call my landlord and see if I could keep the kitten for the last 2 months of my lease and how much it would cost. In less than a few minutes, I was emailed paperwork to sign and asked to pay a reasonable fee – SUCCESS!

It is now Saturday and the kitten is looking better, though still sneezing because of a cold from the rain I assume. I will be getting medication for the kitten on Monday. :-) I’m sure she was abandoned (she’s too tame to be a stray), and I am planning to take her in as my own. When I spoke with Animal Control, they mentioned that kittens and cats are regularly found where I found this kitten. Luckily this kitten found me. I’d say I’m lucky too. I’m preparing for a big life transition when I move away from my many wonderful Champaign-Urbana friends to take a full-time job. It will nice to have a friend to keep me company at my new place. Also, I can’t help but think this is the final step after receiving my MLIS to become a true librarian. Many librarians have cats (the stereotype is based on some truth).

I have just decided on a name for my kitten: Riada Etta. I found her near a stream, and riada means ‘stream’ in Spanish. Riada is also an Irish name, and I have a love of all things Irish. I included Etta so as to name her after one of my favorite jazz and blues singers, Etta James, who passed away earlier this year.

Now for a picture of little Riada (Ria for short):

In other less exciting news, I baked a braided bread for a co-worker. It was lovely and made my apartment smell heavenly.

P.S. Stay tuned for more reviews and giveaways to come!

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Graduation, Summer, and Running Races!

The last month has been very busy as I prepare for graduation. I now have my Master's in Library and Information Science! I'm hoping to have more time to dedicate to my blog here now that I'm not juggling quite so many things.

Summer means baby animals, and there are many baby geese here in Illinois, as you can see below.

Yesterday I ran my first race since high school. It was a 5 mile trail race, and I loved it! I always love to run on the grass and off of roads and pavement, so this was the perfect race for me. I even received a medal, which was a very pleasant surprise!

I hope to update this blog more regularly now, so stay tuned! Have a wonderful day!

Autumn in Illinois

Greetings everyone!  Fall is slowly (and at times quickly) transitioning into winter here in Illinois.  I am sad to see the warm temps go because that means I will need to retire my bike for the winter soon.  I am going to see if I can keep riding it for the remainder of November though since it is such a convenient and fun means of transportation.

My last post promised some beautiful Autumn pictures, and I shall not disappoint. 

Illini Union

Lovely street lamp at night

Main Quad

Rose on the Main Quad (in November!)

Rose on the Main Quad

I thoroughly enjoyed taking the above pictures and also adding special features to some, like the sepia coloring to the rose.

Also, did you all make a wish at 11:11 on 11/11/11?  I did :-).

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That's it. Giveaway Winner

The lucky winner of the That's it. Fruit Bars Giveaway I hosted is #7 according to random.org, which translates into Lisa Calandrino!  Congrats!  Thank you so much to everyone else who entered.

And in case some of you haven't had the chance to check out my photo website, below are two of my favorite pictures I took over the summer.

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Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore

Hello all!  Today I'm going to share some pictures with you that I took on a recent trip to Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.  It is a beautiful place to hike, swim, and sightsee.  You can really get a workout hiking up the hills and walking through the sand!  I absolutely loved it and was lucky enough to be there as a storm came through, which meant I got some awesome pictures.  Oh, and I also got soaked... but I survived :-).

The last picture is of the Chicago skyline!  I was so happy to be able to see it, since it's not always visible.

Thanks for reading!  I have a busy couple of weeks coming up now since classes resume for me on August 22.  This summer went by way too fast, but that's probably because I was having so much fun :-).  Now I've got to focus more on school and work.

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Pretty Pictures

First, I'd like to remind you all that I have a great Fiber One Giveaway going on right now.  It closes on June 30, so don't forget to enter if you haven't yet! 

I've also been having some fun with my camera lately.  Summer is definitely one of my favorite seasons for taking pictures.  The abundance and variety of flowers is especially amazing.  Below are a few of my recent pictures.  I hope you like them!

I hope everyone had a good weekend!  I sure did :-).  I went on a 70 mile bike ride in the countryside with a friend.  My farthest previous ride was 65 miles.

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Graduation: A blessing and a curse

The semester is over, and many people are graduating from high school or college and moving on in their life.  I'm not graduating this spring, but I do have friends that are.  I'm sorry to see them go, yet happy for them as they pursue their dreams and goals.  This is definitely an emotional time and sometimes I'm not sure how best to handle it.  I think the best thing one can do is to move on with confidence and trust.  New friends will be made, new opportunities will arise, and the pain of parting will subside.  These comforting words can be hard to internalize in the moment, yet such is life: people come and go, relationships begin and end, and change is the only constant.

This definitely reminds me of The Beatles song "Hello Goodbye".

Here's to new beginnings! 

I had to end on a positive, cute note :-).  I took this picture just a few days ago in Champaign.

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May Flowers

It's May!  I can hardly believe it, but I'm very excited for summer!  I have just two weeks of class left.  I am planning on doing a lot of biking and running around the Champaign-Urbana area.  I'll probably need to do that in the early mornings or late evenings if this summer is as hot as I heard last summer was.  Ah well, I can be flexible.

I have some flower pictures to share with you today.  These aren't all ordinary flowers though... see if you can spot the 'special' ones ;-).

Did you notice anything odd about the middle two pictures?  Those are actually fake flowers!  Yes, I didn't realize that fact until after I'd already taken a few pictures.  I was drawn to the flowers because of the beautiful rain drops on the greenery surrounding them.  When I finally took a closer look at the flowers themselves I noticed they weren't real.  I had myself a good laugh after that - haha!

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March Showers Brought April Flowers

Hello all!  I'm thrilled by all of the blooming flowers everywhere.  I especially love the Magnolia Trees.  Their blooms are gorgeous, and they smell heavenly.  I thought I'd share some pics I've taken in the past week.  That's all I've got time for right now since I'm spending most of my time working on final papers.  The end of the semester is fast approaching! 

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