Creamy Avocado Pasta

Creamy avocado pasta

Ingredients:

1 medium ripe avocado, pitted

½ lime

2 garlic cloves

¼ jalapeno

¼ cup packed basil

1 cup spinach

1 teaspoon kosher salt

2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

¼ cup freshly grated parmesan

1 pound whole wheat spaghetti

1 cup spinach

 basil leaves to garnish

Method:

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat.  Add the pasta and cook until tender but still al dente 9 -11 minutes.  Drain and reserve 1 cup of the cooking water.  Put the cup of spinach in the bottom of a serving bowl and  place the spaghetti on top and toss for a few minutes to wilt the spinach.

While the pasta is cooking make the avocado sauce.  Using a spoon, scoop out the flesh from the avocado and place in a food processor.  Zest the lime and add along with the basil, lime juice, garlic, jalapeno, basil, spinach, salt and pepper.  Blend until smooth. 

Pour the sauce over the pasta and toss everything together adding a little cooking water to loosen the sauce as needed.  Top with the grated parmesan and basil and serve.

Beads

Current project.... 

Here we go...

Today was a day from Hell. I have been floating between downright angry and absolutely sad. I have a trillion reasons that people just can't seem to understand. Just because you move to California doesn't mean it's some happy pill and you've lost all right to have a bad day. Mind you; it could be much worse. Today was just hard. Um, homesick? No, not really. I mean, I miss my family but the city in and of itself is not something I miss. I'm just tired of everything being so dang difficult. Everything takes for freaking ever. Whether that be running to the store, finding a place to park, getting food. It's literally all much more complicated. Because I now live in a big city so nothing is even kind of normal. I dread the weekends. I tend to have the most issues on the weekends. Anyway today has just been one of those days when every human walking around and breathing makes me livid with their stupidity. I won't get into it, just take my word for it. There are a lot of moronic people in this freaking place and I swear they were all out to make me downright furious today. Mindless morons. ANYWAY... finally get home and want nothing more than to drink and fall asleep and get this day done with, Danny runs down the street to pick up some food and some idiotic whore literally hits on him. Oh, jealously you say? No, this is way beyond that. I'm typically flattered when woman hit on my husband, he's handsome and pretty and utterly inhumanly gentlemanly. Honestly, it's a honor. But when they ask him if he sleeps around and then proceed to tell him he should I just go into flat out kill mode. It's about the human being that would stoop so low and be such a downright freaking whore to even suggest to a married man that he do such a thing is just so disgusting to me I want nothing more than to flog the life right out of her. THEN her slut bag friend apologizes to him on the other skanks behalf and proceeds to do the exact same thing. Like we're talking she is practically begging him to come to some stupid party, he says no and she's taken aback by the fact he doesn't really do the party scene, um no, skank, some people are actually respectable and responsible. You want to make something of yourself? Don't spend every free second of your time getting plastered and begging men to sleep with you. She then proceeds to ask where he lives, he says "around" and she picks up on the fact we live like walking distance from this place and instantly believes he makes lots of money. So she comments on that. THEN (of course because typical materialistic girls here) asks what kind of car he drives. By the way, he's standing around waiting for our order to be ready to pick up, so he has no escape from the hussy. So he says he has a jeep. She asks if its a crappy old one or a new one. She wants a ride sometime. {Insert suggestive flirtation} If I had a gun...........

Happy effing Sunday. I'm going to go kill me a ho. ;)

My darling, Friday...

I love this chair; I have no idea where it's from.

Almost 5!

Finally got the weird bumps around my eye to go away! It's been literally two months. I still am not 100% sure if it was allergy related (histamine rash) or if it was from jojoba oil. Hmmm... I will say, I stopped putting the jojoba around my eyes and a few days later the little bumps were gone. So maybe that part of my skin was a bit too sensitive for the oil. Whatever, it's cleared up and I'm happy. It was a little sore and highly annoying. 

   Work. Oh work. I'm pretty much starting at the bottom when it comes to what I know about everything that is now my job. Basically? I know close to nothing, so I'm trying not to get too overwhelmed. Which has been fairly tricky, but I'll learn eventually, huh? Hope so. I'm normally a quick learner, but this is so much information it feels like I missing most of it and I'm getting tad bit stressed! Anyway, it's almost 5:00 our time, and so I just finished up one of the projects I've been working on since literally 10:00 this morning! Hopefully I did it right. ;) Hate that feeling. My boss left 2 hours ago so I've been kind of winging it!!! Scary!!! Alright, I'm so hungry I could eat everything in sight. I need to find some food. Have a happy Thursday, friends.

XO

Oh hello, Thursday.

Up too late, woke up too early. I forgot my phone and sunglasses at home. Do you know how sucky that is? When I grow up I don't want to be stupid anymore. ;) Happy Thursday. Ours started out with a helicopter flying low over our apartment  at 1 o'clock in the morning complete with a nice spotlight aimed right at our house. Good times. That was seconds before the 8 police showed up, 4 of which went into our building and talked to someone. I'm taking it since the 4 outside were laughing about something and no one was arrested that the helicopter wasn't necessary.

Pretty Floral

This is a Jill Stuart romper.

I kinda like it.

Happy Wednesday

I was so totally sick both yesterday and Monday. My gosh. Not fun. I've summed it up to gastritis. Yeah, lucky me. It's basically when your stomach lining gets freaking mad and it starts to rebel and want to kill you. haha That's my own personal explanation. ;) Pretty much just felt nauseous all day without the relief of being able to throw up. Sorry, semi-graphic, I apologize. So I lived off of water and pretzels for two entire days until last night I was able to eat some soup without it making everything feel worse. Um things to remember for in the future when it happens again:
+ Drink lots of water
+ Stick to only bland food
+ Get some probiotic yogurt, or in my case some nasty smoothie the husband found at Target.
+Eliminate the stress and emotions causing stomach to feel sick.
Basically? Don't get out of bed at all, put on something happy to watch and sleep and chill out. I seem to be able to get it to go away within two days. Today I feel pretty much 100% better. Very happy about that. When your stomach is sick for more than a day you seem to forget what it feels like to feel better! Makes for a nice melancholy day. All good, and back to work. Though I didn't do too much today accept organize an Excel document. The fact that I'm working in Excel is in and of itself hilarious. Back when I was 16 I took I microsoft office course at the local community college, this covered all of Microsoft office. When we got to Excel I wanted to kill someone. It was insanely difficult and I swore I would never ever work in it. Being an artist I assumed I'd never look at an Excel spreadsheet for the rest of my days. Until I was offered an assistant position at my husband's company and of course I couldn't say no. I'm an artist, that means I rarely make money. haha So I accepted this part time job doing simple office tasks and taking care of phone calls and appointments. Pays steady and that's all I care about. :) So here I sit organizing and editing Excel spreadsheets. I wanted to hurt anything with a pulse until I sat down and just started tinkering. Turns out 'editing' an already existing file isn't so complicated once you get a handle on what the heck is going on. :) No, this doesn't mean I like it, but I'm not horrified anymore, so that's a win in my book.
   
Anyway, for the hundredth time in my life, but first time in the last few years I sit here awaiting the arrival of 5:00 when I can escape to go home and proceed to do things I want to do. Speaking of work, my own business will be back up and running as soon as my pods get unloaded. Which will be sometime next week. I didn't expect for it to take this long, but I'll keep the site posted on Maddox & Klaus business shortly. :) Alrighty, time to flee to the internet for a bit and browse my little heart out. Happy Wednesday, friends. <3 HA! Boss just left, which means >>>THIS GIRL<<< is free. ;) XO

Ideas

I like this dresser and I like the colors and the simplicity. 

Simplicity is good.

XO

Happy Saturday

Oh yes...

INGREDIENTS:

 2 ears of corn, shucked.
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
Kosher salt
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
12 slices of ciabatta bread
1/2 garlic clove
1/4 cup crema mexicana or sour cream
3 tablespoons crumbled feta
Lime wedge
Cilantro
Chili powder

PREPARATION

Rub corn with vegetable oil. Season corn with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper; grill until slightly charred and tender. Slice corn off the cob in wide strips.

Grill bread slices and rub with garlic clove.

Mix crema mexicana or sour cream with feta.

Smear toasts with crema mixture. Top crema with grilled corn. Squeeze a lime wedge over each. Garnish with cilantro leaves and sprinkle with chili powder.

So trying this...

GREEN  APPLE  SORBET

(adpated from Decadence by Philip Johnson)
makes about 1.5 litres (6 cups)

750g (1.6lbs) granny smith apples, unpeeled, cored, and quartered
juice of 1/2 a lemon
250ml (1 cup) water
375g (1.5 heaped cups) caster sugar
3 teaspoons calvados, optional
1/8 teaspoon liquid green food colouring, optional

Place the apples, lemon juice, water, and sugar in a medium saucepan over high heat. Bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cook the apples until they are extremely soft, about 20 minutes. Remove from the heat and allow to cool to room temperature.

Once the apples have cooled transfer them to a blender and blend until the mixture becomes a smooth puree. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve. Stir through the calvados and green food colouring, if using. Refrigerate the apple mixture until cold.

Remove the mixture from the fridge and churn in an ice cream machine according to the manufacture's instructions.

Once adequately frozen, transfer the sorbet to a container, cover tightly, and place in the freezer for a minimum of 4 hours.

For him.

 Hair. I like this hair style.

 I pretty much think there is not much sexier than this boot with the pants thing...

 Obviously.

Distressed leather... oh and complete with the bag and bracelets.

 Yes. Like.

I love that my husband will wear anything I ask him to. He likes the boots and pants thing so we'll be getting him an outfit like that pretty much as soon as we can. :)

Um, yes please.

ANTHROPOLOGIE

Is it over yet?

Okay, lots going on. Unfortunately most of it is bad. haha Shoot me.... LA is taking years off my life, I swear. Anyway, so we're having nothing but issues getting our pods delivered. According to this stupid city it's illegal to drop them off. Yeah? Whatever. So we're going to have the movers come, unload the pods and take them away immediately. It seems to be the only way around this. They should be able to unload them in like an hour. We don't have a ton of stuff! Thank God.

Yesterday I logged on to our bank account just to check on things and WHOA. Some moron has stolen our credit card info and has been getting 99.39 from a gas station since June 1st. He's used about 1000.00 from our account. New lesson learned? DON'T USE DEBIT CARDS. Learned the hard way. Fortunately we have the police on it and also our bank is giving our money back and it's not as difficult as I thought, thank God. So anyway we called the police in Clovis California last night and talked to a really awesome officer he was really interested in taking care of this situation because there is actually a chance to catch the guy. He's a total moron and has been going to the same gas station every night around the same time. I'm not a criminal and even I know that's asking to get caught. It says right on my history the name of the place. IDIOT, but I'm thankful he's an idiot because the possibility of busting his sorry ass. The police officer went to the gas station last night and was questioning the clerk who didn't even speak freaking English which pissed the cop off, but he had the guy call the manager to come to the gas station and pull out the security tapes. It doesn't seem they saw anything much on the tapes- the guy who is making the transactions is coming to the gas station at closing time and using the pump. So it seems he's using our number for gas. So the cop is all about it and is giving us advice about everything and was incredibly helpful. They're going to stake out the place at the time he was making the withdrawals and see if they can figure anything more out. I don't remember how they figured out he was coming every day. I think they got that info just from general transactions and Danny told to police officer our card number and the amounts that are being taken out EVERY NIGHT, sometimes twice at a time. It's nuts. I hope they can actually get him, because according to the cop this guy most likely already has a record. He was taking the case to the Sheriff. So we'll see what happens, he said if they figured anything out he'd call. But he said as long as nothing more pressing came up that night he was going to the gas station and keep an eye on things. Really awesome guy. He used to live in LA, too, apparently. He said he convinced himself to like it, haha. He said that's the best thing you can do. You have to decide to like it and convince yourself otherwise you'll get stressed out and it's not worth it. Nice guy~ Best police experience I've ever had. They were excellent. :) OH also, this gas station is 4 hours away and we've never been there. Apparently its really easy to steal debit card info from gas pumps and happens all the time. They can use library cards to replicate the strip on the back. Lovely, right? Criminals are disgusting and need to be killed. Oh and I'm all for the death penalty. Some people just need to die. I don't care. But that's off topic. ;)

So other than that everything else is semi-tame. Annoying and frustrating but those are the worst of our issues currently. We got internet at our apartment yesterday, thank goodness. It's rough without it and my phone is stressful to do anything more than facebook and music on. So I'm happy to have my laptop available again. :)

Anyway- I think that's about it on the update of our crazy and heck life here in California. Moving is so stressful. I've cried multiple times, I won't lie. It's been hard. I haven't had homesickness, honestly I really love it here, I'm just tired of living outside the norm and I just want everything to chill so we can move on get regain some normalcy to life. 

OH one more; I started my job today! I haven't actually 'worked'. I'm learning about the company right now and seeing how everything is going to work. It really is actually my kind of work. I'm just making phone calls, setting up appointments and writing some pretty huge emails. I can handle that. ;) I'm an executive assistant. First title I've ever had and I can't complain. ;) Alright- I'll wrap this up. Hope everyone is having a good Friday. 

XO

Because I'm too fickle for a real one...

 Finally! A site with cool fake tattoos. This place is really fun; check it out 

T A T T L Y

Mash

I could really go for  some of this right now! I took this pictures a month or so ago and I stumbled on it today and now I want some! 

I'm so tired. I haven't been sleeping too well lately. That past two days it's been because of the air mattress. haha Hopefully we can get our pods worked out soon, because I really would like to get things put in order. I also need to do laundry! This is week 4 with only a small variety of clothes. I'm sick to death of it! I need all my stuff! 

Anyway, I'm out-Mash

Yeah, pretty much.

Ideas

This is the perfect idea!

I have this big empty space in my kitchen and I have like 4 cupboards so I'm in need of a place for my dishes. Shelves, though they're not super clean (I tend to prefer things put away) but it will do for the time being. Unless I get lucky and can find a cabinet... I don't mind this, though. My dishes match and would look just as good stacked... 

Just need a few more goods for the kitchen.

Microwave- I'll find somewhere to hide it

Coffee pot (of course)

Rug or Rug(s) for some coziness

Our dishes would be nice... ya know. They'll be here soon enough.

Shelves for the above idea

Good stuff.

WTF- and I mean "f^&@"

You wouldn't even believe the utter grief this city is giving us about our pods. I'm pretty much speechless. What the freaking hell am I supposed to do because every freaking thing is illegal? Seriously? You wont give me one effing hour to unload my crap into my apartment? ONE HOUR. It's all just a freaking joke. Then there's Atlas. They're idiots, too. They only work half days, what? They don't deliver on weekends? Um, this is a moving company, isn't it? They want to drop the pods off and leave them in the road for 3 freaking days WITH AN EXTRA CHARGE OF 700.00! Nope. They WILL be impounded. Everything apparently is against the effing law. I'm seeing red. I'm so pissed. Seriously LA is going to make me a total bitch. And ya know what? I'm okay with it. I already hate people so this is just adding to that fire. People are nothing but a curse and frankly I don't know why God hasn't just destroyed this gross planet for last time and leave it leveled. They make it impossible to care. Big city is just 10 times worse. Then there are the nasty spawns of Satan that are driving the roads. I've gotten to a point as long as you don't hit my car, I drive how I need to drive to get where I need to go. Honk all you blasted like you wastes of space. I literally don't care. See? Mean. I'm just plain mean.

That was me venting. I'm done now. Even though there were a million more things I could've hit on. Last one, why exactly is gas 4.79 here? Greedy bastards.

This really is the extent of my swearing. They're just words and they're the only words that help with this level of anger. Judge all you want, I have better things to do than worry about offending someone. Because I frankly don't care what anyone thinks. Ever.

What I'm going for...

 So the idea of a dining room is still up for debate. Technically in our apartment there isn't a specific place for one. We're contemplating adding a small table into the living area by the kitchen, but we'll see about that. I am contemplating using a little table I have from home (not unpacked yet) for a small eating area. The living room is huge and we can easily squeeze in a small dinner table. Mine is a busted up bakers table and its an acorn wood. I LOVE the rugged looking tables with the mod type chairs.

 This was some shelf inspiration I was going for in our kitchen. It was built in 1933, so its tiny with very limited counters space and cupboards. SO I will need a shelf or two. There is a large open space by our stove that I'd like to find a cabinet for. We can put our dishes in there so that hunt will begin soon. I tend to gravitate to black and white with the acorn wood and gray accents. So the colors in the photo above just made me happy. :)

Chalk board! I so want to do this. I'm not sure if I'll be able to or not. I'm a little peeved. Basically in our rent agreement it says we can paint or whatever but it has to be done by a contractor. Um, the guy who painted the bathroom sucked, and I could've and would've done a much better job. Apparently taping off is something the idiot didn't know about so now there is mint green paint on the tiles. What the heck? Anyway- I can live with it, but seriously. If that is the example of contractor work, I'm less than impressed and I would've put up a fuss about that mess. I'd like to do a chalkboard wall, but like I said, who knows if I'll be able to.

I know its weird.... haha but I would LOVE this picture semi large on my living room wall. Something about it I love. I'm not a cat person, but art-wise this is something I like. :)

This is the sofa we're getting. We went to Santa Monica last week to look at it. I think it will go really well with our style. :) This is also the color I'm going for. Break up my black and white obsession a little bit.

Bath

 

Shelves... a must for our bathroom. It's pretty tiny.

 

This stool is from West Elm, and I think something like this might work by our shower so I can put a few things on it. I'm trying to figure out some flat surfaces for the bathroom because it has limited counter space. As in we have a pedestal sink. That's it.

Other idea inspired by my aunt Jen. Bathroom rugs. I want a couple and kind of stack them around the floor. 

Still alive

I'm sorry! I know you think I'm a slacker. I haven't had internet and we just left the hotel yesterday to semi-move in to our new apartment here in Los Angeles!!! It's empty- but when we get some things moved in I'll snap pictures. I love it. It was built in 1933 so it's charming and has very very high ceilings and wood floors... art deco goodness. I love my little home nestled a block away from Melrose. Walking distance to a Starbucks, Farmers Market, ANTHROPOLOGIE... oh yes. Lots more. We got really lucky with this little gem. Our landlord is so nice and so far we haven't met our neighbors, but the neighborhood is mainly people our age... and it seems most walking out and about are woman my age. 

Anyway. Let me just catch ya'll up. Yesterday morning we checked out of our hotel. THANK GOD. I was so tired of dealing with cleaning people and no fridge, etc. Constantly eating out gets extremely old and expensive! We did however have some amazing tacos yesterday. We're ran into to Baja Fresh which I figured I'd give one more chance (I didn't love it when we tried it in Troy) so we just got a couple tacos and some chips and salsa. VERY GOOD. We had gone to a fun little bar with Danny's boss' and Chad, co-worker + friend. It was my first bar experience; I know. I'm 25, typically 25 year old's are in party stage. Not the case with yours truly. I'm not a drinker. I have the occasional fancy girly drink, but never in my entire life have I been drunk. Ick. I don't see the point and I think abusing alcohol is just plain immature. Generally you just make yourself look like a fool. Anyway the tacos at that place were super good and I have to say the Baja Fresh ones were equal. :) Lots of extra cilantro because I heart it and some hot salsa and lime. Perfection. I was a happy girl. So after an ENTIRE day of getting house things, mind you most of those house things aren't the fun things. I spent a gazillion dollars on Curtain rods. And I got the cheaper ones! They're nice, though, I think they'll look great. So we finally had all our curtain stuff, FINALLY got home, got the car unloaded proceeded to hang curtains. No screw drivers. Totally forgot we didn't have our tools! SO back to the store we went for screw drivers. Got them and a hammer, just in case. Came back it was now getting late so we decided, tack up the curtains tonight, we'll hang them tomorrow. But we still needed our shower curtain. Naturally, we bought the one that bows out so it's more spacious in the shower. That beast requires an electric screw driver. Kill me. My lovely husband ran out and bought one, then found out he needed drill bits. We ended up having to bail on the shower-rod last night and I was about to just fall asleep. So we hooked up the computer and threw in the only DVD we had with us, which was Men in Black, I crashed, I was exhausted. 

Woke up this morning and our air mattress was a bit deflated. Now I'm sitting at Mackevision. haha Oh, btw, this is my future work place. I just need to finish up my resume so they have it on file then they'll figure out what they'll need me to do and I'll be good to go. I'm nervous, but happy. How many people get to work with their husbands? Not many, so I'm taking this as a "God thing" and running with it. ;)

Hope everyone had a nice weekend. 

XO