spaghetti aglio e olio

I'm not much of a recipe post-er but this one has been requested by lots of peeps so here it is. Simple. You might be concerned that the garlic is too much but trust me, it's not.

FROM BAREFOOT:

Spaghetti with garlic and olive oil has to be one of the easiest dinners ever. It’s sometimes called Midnight Spaghetti because chefs make it for a quick meal at midnight when they get home from work. This has an amazing amount of garlic, but gets sweeter when you cook it in the oil. The pasta is great on its own or dressed up for company with veggies.

• Kosher Salt
• 1 pound dried spaghetti, like DeCecco
• 1/3 cup good olive oil
• 8 large garlic cloves, cut into thin slivers
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 1/2 cup minced fresh parsley
• 1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, plus extra for serving

• Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add 2 tablespoons of salt and the pasta and cook according to the directions on the package. Set aside 1 1/2 cups of the pasta cooking water before you drain the pasta. Meanwhile, heat the olive oil over medium heat in a pot large enough to hold the pasta, such as a 12-inch sauté pan or a large, shallow pot. Add the garlic and cook for 2 minutes, stirring frequently, until it JUST begins to turn golden on the edges-don’t overcook it! Add the red pepper flakes and cook for 30 seconds more. Carefully add the reserved pasta-cooking water to the garlic and oil and bring to a boil. Lower the heat, add 1 teaspoon of salt, and simmer for about 5 minutes, until the liquid is reduced by about a third. Add the drained pasta to the garlic sauce and toss. Off the heat, add the parsley and Parmesan and toss well. Allow the pasta to rest off the heat for 5 minutes for the sauce for the sauce to be absorbed. Taste for seasoning and serve warm with extra Parmesan on the side.

i had a day off

The last day off I had was the Sunday of Matt's birthday. On that day I threw a party, so today, a real day off I did the following:

wore flats instead of sneakers
blow dried my hair
went to target and bought supplies for the family
went to world market and bought the ornaments for x-mas party V (biggest accomplishment of the day)
scrubbed all three toilets in the house
scrubbed the floor of our shower
swept the kitchen
separated my scarves from colorful ones vs neutral ones and alternated them as solid and striped or patterned

changed the duvet cover on the bed and made the bed
did three loads of laundry
put away the laundry (this is a big deal, i usually wait a week to put clean laundry away, i leave it in a pile on a chair & it drives matt crazy. it's my one most hated chore so i procrastinate big time)
worked on the po log and po book in my office
refilled the birdfeeder
cleaned the water bowls for the dogs
reorganized the under the sink area on matt's side

And all of that was done between the hours of 8am-4pm while Matt was at work.

When he gets home I hope to add "made spaghetti" and "watched a Halloween movie" and "took a nap" to the list. Sadly, I still have to get some work done after spaghetti/movie/nap. Oh and to compensate, this is what the floor of my office looks like:

There's two piles of this. It ain't pretty. But the rest of the house is!

it was not easy

PDFing storyboards and typing in the callsheet with two nieces on your lap: difficult.

This is a place of work, not a place for drawing on your aunt's keyboard and using her walkie to play telephone.

Who am I kidding, it totally is.

Angie did the thing where she ran up to me and hugged me and wanted me to carry her and would cry if I put her down and didn't want to talk to anyone except the walkie and me. Then when they left she was sobbing and doing that baby reaching out for you as they're being carried away. Heart. Break.

matt turned 30

It was going to be a casual hey everyone come over and play video games night. Then people kept RSVPing yes so I had to be a show off. I made two types of pasta that took little time but I didn't give myself enough time so I was in the kitchen for longer than I wanted to be when people showed up. My lovely sister Mari came by early, as usual when I have parties and was my sous chef. She cut up lots of garlic and chopped things and washed dishes. I didn't take a lot of pictures but my other lovely sister Gaudy took pictures for me.

I'd never made a caprese salad before. I guessed. Mozarella, tomatoes, chopped up basil and sprinkled salt, pepper, and balsamic vinegar. I thought people would freak but they ate it up.

I remade a salad I'd done for a prior Christmas party with spinach, parm, pomegranates, pears.

 

Vegan chocolate and peanut butter cupcakes for my honey pie. And people actually went for it.

Snickerdoodle cupcakes for everyone else. I made it cause on my notes it says "have all ingredients on hand" but guess what we don't do eggs or dairy in the house much so I had to buy both of those items for the first time in months.

Guests. Birthday boy. Old friends.

My brothers. 

Our friends Toni & JB brought their 2 month old to meet us all. She was chillin'.

I set the table and added the extender table for our little guest Aaron. I wish I'd taken pictures of the table but I put out the tealight candles and Matt's action figures on the table. They were enjoyed by all. I mean, he might be thirty but he's still a kid at heart.

We were happy to provide a home cooked meal for our friend Kyle who just moved back to the area to finish up school at Biola. He's about 4 years older than I am but I felt like his mom, offering to let him come over and do laundry and for a home cooked meal.

My siblings. Aren't they adorable?

Can you believe this handsome young man is 30?

Happy birthday beloved. I hope you enjoyed your party.

my brother is hilarious

Everyone copies Mexicans, see we are the ones with great ideas ..... everyone is all #occupy wall street #ocuppyLA. When we thought of standing in front of a building for workers ....#occupy homedepot

at some point today

My production manager had a PA standing over me as I finished our pre pro book to protect me from people coming up and asking for things, she turned away 10 people. I missed 5 phone calls in that span as well. Doesn't really hit you how many people need you at work 'til you're forced not to help.

I needed friends this week to rant to. No one I wanted really came through. Except Matt. Who changed the sheets on the bed to flannel ones 'cause he's just that great.

- mobile blog post. spelling irrelevant.

i'm not sure why i hadn't thought of it before

This morning I pulled all of these things out of my medicine cabinet and put them in a bag to give to my sisters. Can you guess why?


Here is a hint:


That's right. Maybelline and Cover Girl test on animals. I was concious of animal testing with cleaning products but for some reason didn't think about cosmetics. Those crazy terrorits PETA had a handy list and I am going through it to make sure we don't buy from those places. If you'd like to participate, check the back of your cosmetic packaging, they usually say no animal testing and if they don't, check the list.

The good news is my favorite nail polish is cruelty free. Whew!

- mobile blog post. spelling irrelevant.

color!

I got to work early and went to Office Depot which had a wall of this:


Color coordinated office supplies. Eeeeee!


It also had two other things I went nuts for I will write about later. Best Office Depot ever.

- mobile blog post. spelling irrelevant.

this pee

The only few seconds I have to sit on the toilet are the only seconds I have to myself.

And I'm spending them with you. Thus... my absense.

Pray for my soul.


- mobile blog post. spelling irrelevant.

kind of a big deal

After months of trying, the nieces finally said: "Bye Tiiii" and "Bye Ta".








Which as we all know means "Bye Tia".

- mobile blog post. spelling irrelevant.

Sixteen

For the next month or so I'll be working on a big campaign for Old Navy. It has Sixteen shoot days. SIXTEEN, which is a personal record for me. We've done two so far and the last shooting day is November 10. I mention this only because that's my life for 14-18 hours a day for the next month.

There are pros and cons to this job. Con is that it's one of those jobs where I'm at work for many many many hours and have very few days off. The pro is that we are in the same place for the entire prep and the entire shoot. No moving my stuff around, no thinking about where the shoot day is, it's the same place the whole time and as a bonus, it's close-ish to home. And finally, with the holidays coming, that is a lot of income. Oh and, I have a closet of Old Navy clothes so it's nice to have them pay me for once.

Overall I'm happy about the situation. Hopefully after the job I'll take the rest of the year off.

well this melts my cold heart

I just found this picture on my sister's fb. It's Lyla helping me make vegan pancakes.


What a beautiful sight.

- mobile blog post. spelling irrelevant.

the 2nd floor

General Notice: Next time you guys come over, someone go upstairs and just be nosy and check all the upstairs rooms. I make an effort to make sure they're cleaned up for parties so just go into the guest rooms upstairs just 'cause I don't wanna clean for nothing.

Thank You.

wire less & office technology

Oh yeah this is about gadgetry so feel free to skip it if science scares you.

I don't know why I am obsessed with increasing the efficiency of my office's technology. I just hate feeling like I'm wasting time in doing things that should just happen a little more naturally. How do I explain this? Hmm. Okay maybe it would be better to explain what I'm working with.

So here's my basic set up before. I have a TV, a Wii, a PS2, a printer/scanner/copier, three hard drives, and a photo printer. At my desk I have a power cord for my laptop and my laptop.

If I ever need something printed, this is what the office looks like with a cable running from the big cabinet to the desk.

It's scary looking, teetering on the edge like that with a cat ready to pounce on it at any moment.

I tossed around a lot of solutions that I was driving Matt crazy with like a time machine, buying a wireless printer, etc. But since the beginning I wanted to just buy another airport express and put it in the office. An airport express is an internet router that allows you to plug your internet via ethernet cable into the unit and it sends out a wireless signal. The difference between this unit and all other wireless routers is that this one is 1) Made by Apple 2) It allows you to plug your printer into the USB plug which allows you to print wirelessly 3) It has an audio plug which allows you to connect a radio or speakers to it and therefore play your music from your phone or computer to the speakers without having to directly plug into the radio or speakers. It's a phenomenal little piece of machinery that can be yours for the bargain rate of $99 OR $69 on ebay.

I'm not even gonna detail the amount of hacker crap I did to get this thing to work upstairs since we already have an airport express downstairs and another wireless router upstairs. Hours it took me and I still haven't figured out why it won't show up in my wireless networks. Whatever, it works doing exactly what I wanted it to do. I can now print wirelessly and play music wirelessly.

First, the music. Ideally I would want some beautiful speakers a la Tivoli but the problem with those speakers is that they're mother chucking expensive and they don't even charge your iphone/ipod while they're docked. Nor do they have a clock! Believe me, speakers and EvY are a hot topic around the house because I'm obsessed with finding the perfect ones but I haven't since I had been gifted with a fantastic Altec Lansing set that don't exist no more and we lost on our wedding day. I think I just want them to do too much. I want them to look good, sound good, be portable, have rechargeable batteries, have a clock, dock and charge your iphone/ipod, have a remote control that controls the iphone/ipod, and have an rear audio jack so I can plug them into my airport express.  So instead I settled on the best option Marshalls had to offer, this guy but for about $20 less.

He is not portable, doesn't have rechargeable batteries, has no remote, and he's okay looking and sounding. But he does have a very visible and cool clock and he docks and charges the iphone/ipod (and ipad if I went that way), and has a rear audio jack which connects him to the airport.

 

I don't know if you are familiar with the awesomeness that is Apple & iTunes technology but if you have speakers set up for AirPlay, which is when the speaker is plugged into the airport (aka that thing I've been trying to accomplish), then you can play your music to that speaker wirelessly with the touch of a button. In our case we have AirPlay set up for the downstairs living room speakers and now the office speakers so at the bottom of my iTunes there's a button that I can chose what speakers I want the music to play to so technically my computer can be on upstairs and be playing music to the speakers in the livingroom without having to move the computer or plug anything in. Magic.

But what if you want to play something else? If you have an iPhone you can download the remote App and it controls your computer's music from your phone. So you can be in the kitchen and want to suddenly listen to the Glenn Miller Orchestra and bam, you can. Or if you're done in the kitchen and moving back upstairs you can switch the speakers back to play upstairs.

Also with the iPhone you can play music that's on your iPhone if say your computer is in your backback in the trunk of your car, and just go to the iPod app and play Poison by Bell Biv DeVoe to the speakers of your choice.

The great thing about this is if guests stay in the office they can plug their iPhones/iPods right into the dock overnight and it will charge it and they can play their music too! Technically speaking I don't really need a remote for the upstairs speaker unless I'm playing music off of my little iPod. Of course iHome anticipated this remote thing so you can just buy a remote for it if you wanted but at this point after a few weeks of living with my set up I can tell you I don't think I'll need it. If I'm up here, the laptop is here and I can just control all my music with my computer and phone. But it would be nice for my guests laying in bed listening to Wilco or whatever.

Now the rest of the technology. The TV/Wii/PS2 thing was an epic saga that you can recall here which still cracks me up. We've since learned that the PS2 is old so it responds as a DVD player to older DVDs (something about the encoding) and lamented this with a co-worker. Well he said there is a hack that converts your Wii into a DVD player but through many complicated steps. Matt's personal Geek Squad friend (I'm proud to say I'm the Geek Squad for a few friends + my family) came over and they hacked the Wii and it works sorta for some DVDs. All in all I've given up on the DVD playing upstairs so when Matt's videogaming with buddies downstairs, I just go upstairs and stream Netflix on the Wii and it's perfectly fine. Especially since it has episodes of Ally McBeal, Mad Men, 30 Rock, Glee Lost, Futurama, and Family Guy plus tons of movies.

Next to the TV there's three drawers that keep all the technology stuff together like the batteries for the Wiimotes and the misc. cabling and cases for the phones.

Oh and here's the Wii Fit in action. I want to expand my workout game repertoire but haven't found one I like as much as just the Wii Fit Plus.

I really like the balance board element which can tell when you're shaking or putting weight on the wrong foot and all the games that actually cause you to sweat and are fun. Wii Fit Plus is great 'cause you can customize your workout and just press play and go. Supposedly it's a scale too but it's wildly inaccurate.

And the printer: it now prints wirelessly. No plugging in necessary. Of course you still have to plug it in directly if you need something scanned or want to use the built in card reader but mostly I just print fresh & easy coupons so that's all we need it for.

The photo printer is rarely used but I plug in directly with that one too.

I moved one of the chargers for the hard drives to the desk area so when I need to plug a hard drive into it I just move the drive there and plug it in and let it time machine. I try to back up about once a week so it's not that big a deal to just move it over to the desk and then move it back when I'm done.

So that's my ridiculously long update about the technology in my office. And all of the extra hassle is because I just want things to be hidden and not visible and ugly. Worth it.

my favorite products update

I love the particulars of cleaning products and I love hearing about something new and trying it out. However, they have to have these qualifications for me to purchase them 1) Eco-Friendly & No Animal Products or Testing 2) Scent must be wonderful 3) The packaging must be pleasant 4) Easy to find in a drugstore or mass retailer 5) Not super expensive. The eco-friendly part makes most of them cost more than I would have spent back in the day but I think it's worth it for a clean conscience.

SKIN CARE

For the man in your life, this is our favorite body wash. Sadly it's really hard to find this particular scent and when we do we buy in bulk. We've found it at the Target in La Habra on Idaho since they don't all carry them.

I think we all know this brand. I went from the lavender to peppermint scent and it's potent in a good way. It will wake you up and clear your nostrils and keep you clean. Also it helps with my worst case scenario fears because I'll just grab this bottle and run 'cause it's all in one.

The big T also started carrying this brand of shaving products that is genius because you can shave when you're wet OR dry. I have the vanilla one but I'd switch to lavender if I found it.

 

Are you guys familiar with that Moroccan shampoo that's crazy expensive? Supposed to be the greatest shampoo of all time but there's no way I'm paying $40 for a bottle of shampoo so I went and tried this shampoo instead which is paraben-free and smells so good I actually lather, rinse, AND repeat.

LAUNDRY ROOM

My favorite laundry soap is a toss up between this one that the packaging makes my heart melt and...

And the Seventh Generation one in Blue Eucalyptus & Lavender. I dunno how I feel about fabric softener but I thought I'd try it and it says to use four pumps per load but it feels like it's too much so I use 1/2 if I'm ever around the machine during the rinse cycle.

I also use Borax laundry booster all purpose cleaner for the dirty stuff. No bleach.

I love dryer sheets but it's hard to find ones that are not crazy chemical scent so I actually love these dryer bags that Trader Joe's sells. They're basically a little bag of lavender and last 5-10 cycles.

BATHROOM

Method bath products are my favorite for our bathrooms.

 

Yes, a big part of it is the packaging (how cute is that stupid toilet bowl cleaner?) but they smell, mmm good & eucalyptus mint a-licious.

This thing is clever 'cause you use it everyday and just spray on the shower area and let it do it's thing. I dunno what Ylang Ylang is but that crap smells great.

HOME CLEANERS

I love the smell of this thing so much I dust things that don't need dusting. Almondy.

Since Target decided the Aloe & Green Tea scent wasn't good enough and they forced me to order it online, I went and switched the dish soap and hand soap in the kitchen to Grapefruit.

I also went and got the orange citrus scent for the guest bathroom.

So those are my favorites. Crap this post took longer than it should have but I want you all informed.