the giraffe life

When Dar first mentioned her Reading Down the House challenge , I thought I didn't have any unread books in my house. (I stopped buying books in January of 2012.) But then I started cleaning out my two spare bedrooms and found a book I was given last Christmas (and by last Christmas, I mean 2012. oops!). So guess what's up next on my reading list?  :) linking up with wordless Wednesday

Although Sarah's walking challenge ended last month, I'm still trying to fit in an outdoor walk most days but my surroundings have changed slightly since then. I've switched from sneakers to boots: Our little stream has frozen: Small hills become a little more difficult to navigate: And I don't see or hear a whole lot of wildlife (although I notice their tracks!): looks like a mockingbird to me Sometimes Dottie joins me for a few minutes, but she's definitely an indoor cat. My hope is to take pictures in these same places in May and compare. It'll be so green! :)

One of the top questions people ask when they find out I'm vegetarian is how I get enough protein ( among other things ). It's not really something I worry about or track, but I am conscious of it, and try to eat something high in protein at least once a day.  Hannah recently recorded everything she ate to see how she fares, and I'm copying. :) So here for the curious, are a typical day's worth of eats. A woman my age is supposed to get at least 45 grams ( as stated here ). Do you think I'll get enough? I used  Calorie Count  to determine my protein numbers. :) Breakfast:  Dark chocolate almond granola with milk = 12 grams Morning Snack: Salad + 1/4 cup pistachios = 6 grams Lunch:  Vegetable stir fry = 22 grams Dinner: Vegetable wrap with cheese and french fries = 19 grams Evening Snack: 2 squares of chocolate + popcorn =  7 grams Total: 66 grams protein   I'm honestly surprised by how far over the recommended amount I was!  Do

As you may have guessed, Dottie loves the sun. :) She somehow  jumped up there   and  moved   the shade out of the way . linking up for wordless Wednesday

One of my December goals was to clean out a few rooms in my house. Usually I'm pretty brutal with deciding what to keep/donate/recycle/trash, but this bookshelf is presenting some problems.  It's got about 10 years worth of National Geographic magazines.  In the early years, I recycled some of them and only kept the issues I really enjoyed. That somehow morphed into keeping every issue. Early last year, I ran out of room on this shelf, so I moved some things around on the shelf below it to accommodate the growing pile of magazines.  But now I'm going through the whole room with a critical eye, and I really can't think of any strong reasons to keep them. I look through a few of them maybe once a year, and occasionally dole them out when people come over ("Oh, you like to visit beaches at night? Well National Geographic did a great story about  phosphorescent plankton that you'll love"). The articles are so well written (and cover such a wide range

Of course, I don't think I have an accent - everyone else does, right? ;) one of my answers Have you seen this dialect quiz ? It's meant for the US, so I don't know how accurate the results would be for someone overseas, but the questions are at least interesting and several made me think. I take words for granted sometimes (and assume people know what I'm talking about when I say roly poly and spigot) so this was a nice reminder of the many little language differences. One word I definitely say differently from others is route - most people around here pronounce it root (like the underground part of a tree), but I say  rowt (like this video ). Some parts of my accent or dialect are muddled because I've read books from other regions and time periods. But overall, the quiz results were correct for my husband and I (only a few questions placed us outside of where we're from). I'd love to hear how you fare!

I don't pay with cash often, but I save the coins when I do. This is something I learned from my parents, who also set aside their coins. As kids, we'd get so excited for the rolling party - sorting the coins and putting them in the paper tubes to turn in at the bank. (I was so proud of myself when I finally had enough coordination to start the tube. Did anyone else struggle to get that first coin to lay flat?) For this round though, I took the cheater route and let the coin counting machine do the work.  So here are my coins from 2013: Oooh, ahhh. Care to guess the total value? To give you some context, that's an 8 cup (nearly 2 liters) container and there are a ton of pennies (only worth 1¢). Scroll down for the answer. :) I'm so bad at these. I always guess way less than what's actually there. My guess for this container? 5 or 6 bucks. $18 - what?!   How close was your guess? Do you save coins?

Dar recently posted a photo of her weekly shopping trip  and Laura does the same every week. I think it's pretty interesting to see what others buy and how much they pay so I figured I'd share a shopping trip too.  Normally, I make 1-2 shopping trips per week. On the weeks I make two trips, it's one to the farmers' market and one to the grocery store (they're in opposite directions from my house, so I can't hit both in one drive). Our farmers' market sells the produce they grow behind the shop and food from local farmers when it's available. In January, most of the food is brought in from other parts of the country. But I still like to shop there to support a small business and products grown in North America. For $41.34, I bought . .  2 pounds of butter, $8.29 pound of organic ricotta cheese, $4.95 head of cauliflower, $3.99 unsweetened ketchup, $3.45 3/4 pound of shelled edamame, $2.89 onion, $.50 bell pepper, $.98 zucchini, $.91

Yes, Christmas is over. And the next one is 300 some odd days away. But I'm buying Christmas presents anyway. Why? Because west elm is having a great sale on their Christmas stuff (and a ton of it is handmade, which I love). (west elm doesn't know I exist by the way - I'm just linking to them so you can check it out if you want.) And look, who can resist these cute little guys? I think my nieces and nephews will get a kick out of them twelve months from now. :) And I'm sorry (but not sorry) that the owl fell as I was taking this shot - I kept it because now it looks like he and the penguin are chatting.  Feel free to call me crazy in the comments :)

Vegetable lo mein - yum! linking up for wordless Wednesday

I love popcorn. It's easily my favorite snack. I'll eat it plain or topped with salt, butter, or cheese (anything but kettle corn, really). But pre-made popcorn is expensive around here - 3 or 4 dollars for a bag of 10-12 cups of popcorn. Microwavable popcorn is cheaper, but I felt awful throwing those plastic-lined bags in the microwave since I'd given up cooking leftovers in plastic. And unfortunately, microwave popcorn has a lot of added preservatives/chemicals. (Some boxes even have warnings not to breath in the fumes when opening the bag!) Then I noticed my farmer's market sold popcorn kernels and the bag even had instructions on making it at home on the stove. I followed the instructions with disappointing results - the oil splattered in my face when I added the kernels, the popcorn launching itself out of the pot, unpopped kernels, burned kernels. Ugh. I tried this process about 5 times before giving up and looking for other options. Nothing jumped out at m

It's 2014? That'll probably sound weird to me until at least March. I'm looking forward to the new year, despite the fact that it doesn't quite feel right yet. I've been enjoying reading everyone's goals too and have some of my own to throw out there: source:  http://www.etsy.com/shop/HappyTownUSA haha, I love this graphic! Becky and Lucinda also used it, so I'm in excellent company. Finances Put at least $2000 toward mortgage prepayment  - Last year, we put an extra $1550 toward the principal, and I'd like to beat that! :) Save for daycare  - I'm not pregnant. And I know it's impossible to fully prepare to be a parent - but this is something we can start now. Hopefully it'll help us get used to the added expense way before we have a baby. Childcare estimates seem to run about $150/week in our area, so this amounts to setting aside $300 per paycheck. Personal   Finish my degree - Should be done in May! Woohoo :) Read 50

The final update!  Previous totals, Dec. 3 - 19:  210 minutes yoga, 196 minutes walking Dec. 20 - rain Dec. 21 - rain Dec. 22 - 28 minutes Dec. 23 - 23 minutes Dec. 24 - spent most of the day cooking and cleaning, and then it started snowing, so I excused myself from walking Dec. 25 - 14 minutes Dec. 26 - 2 hours (an estimate - we were at the mall for over 4 hours, and we only sat down in the shoe shop and for lunch) Dec. 27 - 18 minutes Dec. 28 - 36 minutes Dec. 29 - rain Dec. 30 - nada Dec. 31 - nada Overall: 435 minutes walking, 210 minutes yoga  (yay!) With all that walking, I finally finished Hattie Big Sky and now I've downloaded  The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks to listen to next. Even though the challenge is over, I'm going to shoot for a walk at least 3 days a week. Yoga starts again next week after a two week hiatus for the holidays and I'm looking forward to that as well. It'll be nice to get back into a routine and my m