galentine's & surprises

I haven't posted in a long time! I have a little bit of the post-college slumps, so it's been hard to get motivated and kick my butt into gear. All of the photos for this post are from my phone, so they may be not as great in quality. Now that I have a smart phone, I've eased into laziness! I need to now make an effort to use my camera.

I spent Valentine's Day being mopey in my post-collegeness, unfortunately. Erik and I were going to go ride go-carts since we hate typical coupley things, or seeing other couples, but I woke up too late :( Fortunately, I celebrated properly later that weekend with Galentine's Anna Howard Shaw Day and dinner with Erik! 

I went to a cute restaurant called Awful Annie's for Galentine's with my friends, indulging in waffles (with plenty of whipped cream!) and scrambles and enforcing a purple/pink dress code. We walked around the small town of Auburn and shopped at some small antique stores. 

I've also been casually attending a knitting circle near my house at It's a Grind some Tuesdays, filled with feisty yarn-loving ladies. I am certainly the youngest, but it doesn't bother me.

Still making slow progress on my blanket. This is actually what my lap looks like right now as I'm writing this!

And then I made dinner for Erik to celebrate a late Valentine's Day AND to celebrate him landing a job! I made jalapeno-cheddar scones and lentil soup with sausage (or soyrizo!), chard (I used kale), and garlic from Smitten Kitchen. Both were delicious, but I really loved the scones a lot. So much so that I might make a second batch in a few days!

I also made toffee inspired by my friend Jenny's blog, Smitten with Snack, where she makes snack for her co-op housemates using recipes from the Smitten Kitchen cookbook. The toffee entry is here, and I used a general recipe online. You should check out her blog, but not when you're hungry because all the snacks look so delicious.

(I didn't have enough chocolate or nuts, oops)

And then today I bought these. This isn't relevant to anything besides it makes me enormously happy as I've been anticipating these boxes for 3 months or so. I'm trying so hard to make my rations last. It is hard. I have had two Thin Mints so far. Erik has had 5 patties so far (that box is his, he is bad at rationing). It was very cute when Erik and I went to buy our three boxes and the woman there with them turned it into a math and cash exchange lesson for the little girls. It sparked fond memories of my Girl Scout days.

And to wrap up, I had never owned or had extensive interaction with a cat before until now. I had always loved both cats and dogs but leaned more towards dogs, only because I have a cat-like personality and we would be the worst influence on each other. But I'm looking after Erik's family's 15-year-old cat, and I think I finally get it.

Erik and I were watching Parks and Rec and Magik the cat decided we weren't going to watch it anymore cause he was using the laptop now.

So that's just a random little update. I'll try to use my camera more, I know blurry out of focus phone cameras are no fun to look at!