weekend getaway: Dallas

My first trip to Dallas, although truthfully, we drove straight to the Rosewood Mansion and I didn't leave the whole two days. 

The service was impeccable, with iced tea and treats delivered upon our arrival and included room service breakfast each day. 

I loved the little luxurious details: a succulent plant, toiletries in full-sized fancy bottles, and a really deep jacuzzi tub with great-smelling bath bubble salts (they were a good reminder that I absolutely can not use scented bath products without serious skin irritation).

Coffee is a must for us, and fancy hotels almost never have coffee makers in the room, but, they usually will bring you on upon request and this place was no exception.

About the Rosewood Mansion, the bar was excellent with really good cocktails (the maple- and pecan-infused scotch was my favorite) and the food we got there was great. However, the Mansion restaurant was supposed to be on of the best in Dallas, but I wasn't too impressed with it. The food and service was good, but I expected a lot more given how expensive it was. I would absolutely skip it and order from the bar instead next time.

what to wear: workout

Well, I did it. I exercised. I find that's the hardest part, to actually go and do it instead of just saying that I am going to. And then every time after that, it gets easier and a little more routine. Right now, I'm just walking on the elliptical for 20-30 minutes, because, man, I am out of shape! I've only exercised a handful of times over the past 3 years, but I'm ready to change that.

Another key for me, my workout setlist. I actually look forward to listening to it, and I know when Adele come on that I'm ready to cool down.

My setlist (above) is about 27 minutes worth of music, organized by beats per minute - starts from 125, works it's way up to 150, and then back down to 128.  and I plan to add more songs as I start spending more time at the gym.

Right now, my workout wardrobe consists of a pair of old Reebok's, one pair of black yoga pants, two sports bras, topped by one of my husband's holey t-shirts. If this resolution's successful, I'm definitely going to expand it a bit. To that end, I've been googling "celebrity workout" for inspiration (Ashley Greene and Kate Beckinsale especially), and I've collected a few of my favorite gym looks:

And figured that I want simple, non-show-off-y basics in black, white and gray to mix and match:

resolutions for 2013

We’ll just start this new year a month late.

Buy champagne glasses.

I never think about it until we’re popping a bottle and we’re having to pour it into a stem-less wine glass. So not the same.

Be healthy.

Make regular exercise a habit. Drink more water. Drink less alcohol. Take my vitamins. Eat more fruits and veggies. Generally, make sure my diet is fulfilling all my body’s needs. Go for regular checkups. Get enough sleep.

Live well.

Enjoy every day. Remain simple in wants and needs, but invest where it will improve daily life. Keep a clean and organized house. Default to positive thinking, and try not to voice negative thoughts. Be grateful. Be kind(er) to strangers. Support those I love. Keep learning.

Make time for “me” stuff.

Figure out what it is that I want to do and do it. Also: Go to museums. Listen to music. Drink tea. Play with Spot. Cook new recipes. Preserve memories: Photos. Blog. Read Proust.*

*For the last few years, I’ve been a bit obsessed with the idea of reading all of the world’s biggest books. I’ve knocked several off wikipedia’s list of longest novels: War and Peace, Atlas Shrugged, and Les Misérables. It takes a long time, yes, but no longer than reading a bunch of throw-away books (Vampire Diaries!) and at the end I feel like I really accomplished something.

This year, I’m working on Proust. In Search of Lost Time is 4211 pages (thank you, my Kindle, for making this even realistic), which is so much longer than the longest I’ve read so far (1440 pages). It comes in six e-books; my plan is to read on it all year long.

So far, this is the only resolution I’ve managed to work on, and I just finished the first volume, Swann’s Way. At times, I have to re-read a bunch to isolate what was actually happening from the language used. And I can only pick it up when I’m not too tired or distracted and have a lot of time to spend, otherwise it’s pointless. Overall, I really enjoyed it – especially towards the middle and end when I started recognizing characters – which is good, considering how much is still left.

resolutions

It's been a long December and there's reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last.

Wow. Another year over, and a brand new one started already. Since my birthday is at the end of the year, I always feel like I'm really, really starting something new.

This is the first year in a long time that I don't have resolutions (yet). Time has just been going right past without me even thinking about it very much. And my little diary here usually keep me with a record, but I've completely abandoned it for the last few months. So, I'm going to take some time to really think out my resolutions, what I want this year to be, and try to pick some good ones.

For 2012, the only one that I really triumphed over was my resolution to read one book a month. By the end of the year, I had actually read one book a week! The Kindle and my library's availability of e-books made this possible, and I ended up reading many books that I would never have actually bought (twenty Vampire Diaries books?); it was basically a whole year of summer reading with a few gems thrown in here and there (LOTR trilogy!).

blueberry banana muffins

I had a bunch of overripe bananas and didn’t want to throw them away, so I went hunting for a vegan banana bread recipe. And then I went googling for a simple vegan banana bread because I didn’t have lemon juice or apple cider vinegar or anything like that. And viola. Simple Vegan Banana Bread.

This recipe is interesting because it doesn’t use any oil or butter, just flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and bananas. I substituted soymilk for the water, added about a cup and a half of frozen blueberries to the batter, and baked it in a silicon muffin pan for 35 minutes.

The consistency came out very moist and chewy and not at all bread-like. To be honest, I don’t think I would have liked it at all without the blueberries. With them it was good for a healthy-ish breakfast food, especially eaten hot with some vegan butter on top.

Whenever I decide to make a recipe, I copy it into Word, add a link to the original, save it, and print it out. That way I  so that I can write down my changes directly on the recipe, then pop it through the 3-hole punch, and file away in my recipe binder for the future.