how many times can I say the word fluff?

I know it's been WAY too long since I last updated the bloggy.  I think I discovered the root of the problem.... sometimes I just can't decide what to blog about.  I know that sounds like a stupid problem, so let me explain a little bit more (and maybe it will sound more stupid?).  It's a classic battle between oversharing and fluff.

Sometimes I'll have something on my mind, and I'll think about what a great blog post that would be.  And then I get nervous because it's a little personal.  I don't want to freak people out with an overshare. I don't know exactly what direction I want the blog to go in, so I'm wary of taking it into overly personal waters and accidentally turning this into a public diary.  When I start to get a little bit of overshare anxiety, my natural overreaction is to want to blog something really fluffy.  I love fluff. But I I don't want the blog to be a string of shallow one liners and instagrams.

So all of this internal blog struggle added up to me looking a little frazzled seriously insane while I typed out sentences and then backspaced them letter by letter.  Which led to, you know, no blog posts for a really long time.

But I'm back!  With a new blog-strategy in my back pocket called "balance"...and also better time management.  It's really time consuming to delete paragraphs letter by letter.

So, working on the assumption that anyone still reads my blog (hello?  hello?  hello? ), get ready for the ultimate balance of lighthearted and real-talk.

love and moderate fluff,
AB

long day?

It's possible that I've gone insane.  Someone named Erica just called me at work and I answered the phone by saying, "This is Erica, how can I help you?" ..... After a fairly smooth recovery from that awkward beginning, I ended the conversation by saying "Well, goodnight!" ....It's 3pm. 

Considering grabbing an afternoon coffee...

love and "that 2:30 feeling,"
AB

it's almost friday...

I heard this song on the promo for TLC's new show "Breaking Amish" (obviously have the season set to record), and I LOVE IT!  Hope it helps you carry on until Friday.

love and fun,
AB

photographic evidence

I owe you an apology.  Because I do some really cool things in my free time, and then as soon as they're over I'm like "BLOODY HELL!  I DIDN'T TAKE A PICTURE (THAT MOVES!)!!"  Oh I didn't tell you guys that I'm a British teenage wizard?  I'll update my about me. 

I just get caught up in what I'm actually doing and forget to take a picture (wait, is this really a problem?).  Sorry for being too in the moment?  I just want to provide myself and my blog some nice picture reminders of my mini-adventures!

For now, I'll leave you with some close ups of some art projects I'm working on.  Maybe later there will be evidence that I have friends that are not shirts or canvases.

love and instagrams,
AB

10k training

The only way that I can motivate myself to stay in shape is to register myself for races so far in advance that they don't seem intimidating.  It's like this horrible prank that I keep playing on myself, but it's really effective.  Once I'm registered I know that I have to train, and I don't mind working out (as much) because I'm preparing for a goal.  Normally I just register for 5k races, but after finishing my last 5k in July, I realized I had more in the tank.  So before I could think too much about it, I registered myself for a 10k in September.  And now it's September.  I wanted to blog about my training a little bit!  If you are an avid runner you should probably avert your eyes.  Honestly I wouldn't blame anyone for skipping these posts because they're more for accountability, and how entertaining can I really make exercise? Like I said before, I basically have to trick myself into working out.

I've been running 6 miles when I feel motivated enough, but normally I hover around 3 or 4 a few times a week.  When I don't run, I use the elliptical for about an hour, and I try to mix things up with fitness classes like kickboxing (thank you Groupon). 

I have about 3 weeks left until my 10k so I'm trying to get a little more serious about my training schedule. Here's a general idea of what it's going to look like until race day:

Mondays: cross training for 45 minutes
Tuesdays: 5-7 mile runs
Wednesdays: cross training and weights
Thursdays: 3-5 mile runs
Fridays: cross training for 45-60 minutes
Saturdays: 5-7 mile runs
Sundays: rest

Sometimes things might get switched up depending on my schedule, but I think any kind of post about this will keep me a little more accountable to my training.  My goal is to run the 10k in less than an hour, so I definitely have some work to do!  If you don't hear from me again it's because I slipped off a treadmill and was flung into that awkward open/close leg weight machine.

love and shin splints (just kidding...hopefully)
AB

five dollar footlong

I just went to my office bathroom, and a woman was carrying her half unwrapped sub into the stall with her while talking on her cell phone.

Seriously trying to not picture the logistics in there...

love and multitasking (I regret writing that),
AB

smart shopper

Maybe this post's title is a little misleading...because if you read this post, I really shouldn't be shopping at all.  But part of the paring-it-down process is learning to be a smarter shopper when I do spend my money.  No more buying a cheap dress for every event.  I need to buy things purposefully, things that I really love and can wear to work and to play, for as many seasons as possible.  I need to invest in really good basics that I can wear well, so I can avoid my current situation:  a closet overflowing with things I never wear.

If you skipped that paragraph, it was basically just me desperately trying to justify the clothes I just bought.

But I am really proud of myself!  I bought a few really nice basics that I can wear to work and on weekends.  More importantly, I have been coveting (read: creating an online shopping bag, staring at it longingly all day, reluctantly closing the tab) them for weeks so I know this love is real. 

I'm definitely most excited about this colorblocked beauty:

Should we name her? 

love and anthropomorphism,
AB

end of summer to-do list

This morning was on the chilly side for August, and the glimmer of 60s weather got me so excited for Fall!  But rather than get caught up in looking forward to Fall, I'm going to try to embrace the end of my would-be favorite season (read about my love/hate relationship with summer in my last post).  There are a few things I really hope I get the chance to do before Summer is gone:

1.  Kayaking!  Any of my friends can tell you how frequently obnoxiously I've brought this up lately
2.  Visit a DC tourist spot that I've never been to, like the Botanical Gardens
3.  Go to at least one more Nationals game
4.  Enjoy an outdoor/rooftop marg before it's too chilly
5.  Watch planes at Gravelly Point


I don't want to be too ambitious here with only a few good weekends left!  But I want to get the most out of my beloved warm weather so I can embrace the Fall guilt free.  Trying not to let my mind wander to colorful tights and pumpkin flavored everything just yet...

love and frozen bevs,
AB

great escape

Being technically considered an adult (out of school, real job, blah blah) has major perks.  Paychecks, no homework, and trading parents for the freedom of distant landlords.  There are also some pitfalls.  Like knocking on wood as I blindly choose my company's cheapest health benefits every year.  Or when that seemingly awesome paycheck disappears every first of the month (and I'm rethinking the whole parents vs distant landlords thing). 

But worse than all the copays and car inspections, is the fact that there is no summer break.  NO SUMMER BREAK!  PTO does not count.  If anything, accruing those few measly hours of PTO is just salt in the grown-up wound.  Summer used to be my favorite season, but now that I work in DC, summer just means that I'm drenched in sweat by the time I get to my windowless office (be thankful that I didn't take this imagery any further). 

Before we all think too hard about my pit stains or the summer-vacation-less lives that lie ahead of us and sink into a deep depression, let's talk about the bright side.  Trust me, there is a big one.

I do not subscribe to the "too much of a good thing is a bad thing" philosophy.  If there's a good thing out there I want as much as I can have.  But honestly, when I had three months off every year, I rarely did anything that great with it.  I slept.  I ate a lot of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.  I got a few good sunburns that mostly turned into tans. But now that vacations are so few and far between, I really savor them.  A beautiful three day weekend at the beach with my best friends is a gold nugget in this monotonous muggy DC summer.  And that's exactly where I'm headed....

love and SPF (hey, maybe I am kind of an adult),
AB

practice what you pin: baked chicken fajitas

Paring It Down update: closet cleaning is (very) slowly but surely coming along.  Not even close to blog-worthy after pictures, but still stepping in the right direction, without stepping over as many piles of my clothes. 

One thing I'm really excited to do with this blog is actually DO things that I pin on Pinterest, and then blog about them here.  I'm especially excited to do this with recipes, because I am not the best cook can barely make frozen pizza, so this is the perfect opportunity for me to make really easy recipes but feel like a fancy accomplished Chopped champion when I share them.  Seriously, if you are a good cook, save yourself the most painful few paragraphs of your life and stop reading now.  Seriously.  You're embarrassing me.

So last night I made Baked Chicken Fajitas from Six Sisters' Stuff.  If I could only pick three words to describe this meal they would be:  easy, delicious, and guilt-free.  We really only made a few modifications, like serving it over lettuce, corn, and black beans instead of tortillas. Here's the basic idea of what we did:

for the baked fajita mix:

• about 1 pound of chicken cut into strips (I would use more chicken next time)
• 2 green peppers cut into strips
• 2 red peppers cut into strips
• 1 diced jalapeno

So mix all that together in a bowl with a little bit of olive oil and whatever spices you like.  I used cayenne, a little cumin powder, salt, red pepper flakes, and garlic powder.  I think using half a pack of premade taco seasoning would be good too.  Put everything into a greased 13x9 baking dish and bake it for 20-25 minutes at 400 degrees.

While that is baking, make your corn and black beans.  We normally just microwave our canned corn, but my boyfriend always makes our black beans so delicious by adding his not-so-secret-anymore spices (garlic, cumin, salt, and cayenne) to regular canned beans.

Once everything was done we piled it (pretty high) onto lettuce, and put salsa and hot sauce on top.  SO GOOD!  It would also be good on rice or in tortillas (like the Six Sisters suggest).  It was super easy and we'll definitely be making it again.  Let me know if you try this out and what you like or changed!

love and red pepper flakes,
AB

paring it down

Listen. I have a lot of shit.  Honestly.  I'm two Chipotle receipts and one neglected pet away from being the first google image result for the word "Hoarder."  (Do yourself a favor and do NOT google image the word hoarder)

I hope that gives you an idea of what we're dealing with here.  My biggest problem is clothing.  I know there are definitely people out there who have far more extensive wardrobes than I do...but they at least probably wear most of their clothes.  I have racks of neatly hung (okay fine, piles on the floor) of clothes that I never wear.

The reason I'm giving you all these pack-ratty details that you didn't ask for is because of a few blogs that have inspired me.  First is Chez Larsson, where everything is fresh, crisp, white, clean, and organized.  Speaking of organization, I also love the organized closets on IHeart Organization. These have really given me hope that a clutter-free life is possible for me.  And I'm thinking that maybe if I post about it, there will be some level of accountability.  I know all six of you readers will be nagging me constantly for updates on the state of my messy closet.

I'm not giving you a before picture because my boyfriend would keel over dead, or break up with me, which are both horrible and you're sick for still wanting a before picture when I have clearly explained the potential repercussions.  But maybe if I have a beautiful closet someday I'll post a picture to satisfy you.

My mission starts TONIGHT as I begin the long and hopefully-not-too-painful process of paring down my insane closet (that spills into the rest of the apartment).

love and why-do-i-still-have-these-field-hockey-socks-from-high-school?
AB

welcoming myself to the blogosphere

I've wanted to create a blog for what feels like forever, but I have been stuck on two aspects.

My first hurdle: Awesome blog name.  I love blog names that are cute plays on words with the blogger's name...but my name is Alex.  The only thing that rhymes with Alex is hallux, the scientific word for the big toe.  And seriously if someone out there is reading this and is like "What?! Is she serious? I just thought of the cutest blog name using 'Alex'" PLEASE don't even tell me because a) it will embarrass me after my weepy months spent on rhymezone.com and b) I already love ab(kinda)fab so back off.  So now that I have this awesome name and url reserved, there's only one more problem, which brings me to...

My second hurdle: Content.  I'm still working on this one.  We'll get through it together.

love and writers block,
AB