A fire alarm a-day keeps the doctor away??

“My mama always said, life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”-Forrest Gump

Happy last Sunday of January, 2021!

It sure went by fast, didn’t it?

I feel like it was a whole lot of not accomplishing anything while also being a month of realizing what I need in the weeks and months ahead.

I’ve finally finished my first book of the year…I know, it was pretty slow start, but nonetheless it’s the first one-the goal is to read 15 this year (yes, I know, that’s not an impressive number at all considering there are 12 months in a year, but that’s all I need)! I’m all about autobiography’s from people I admire, so the first book of 2021 was one I’ve been waiting a while to read: “Live In Love” written by Lauren Atkins, wife of Country Music Star, Thomas Rhett. Overall, I would give it a 7/10. Not my favorite, but also enjoyable. And I adore their family, so it was fun for me to learn about what makes them who they are. I always enjoy reading about how even such a “perfect” looking family still endures the pain, hurt, joy, laughter, and feelings that make us all human.

Aside from that, the last two weeks have been a mellow two weeks with a busy work schedule. Also, a disclaimer for those of you who deem Christmas “over” on December 26th…I just took our Christmas Tree and decorations down a week ago. Not sorry about it either. I am very much so looking forward to filling our little space with more plants now that we have more room! We currently have a “ZZ Plant”. I would HIGHLY recommend it for ANYONE. It is the strongest lil’ plant I’ve ever known. Doesn’t require much attention at all, very low-maintenance as far as light and water requirements, too. I love mine 🙂 Openly taking recommendations for other varieties to add to our little home.

In addition to seeking out some new plant babies, we had to seek help last week with our smoke detector…let’s just say our little 640 square foot space went through the ringer for a few days last week lol. On Tuesday night I made two new dinner items. Which, in hindsight, was probably a bit too ambitious considering I was going to be using two new cast-iron pans in combination with the two new recipes…lots of new at one time if you haven’t gotten the jist by now lol. In the larger cast-iron pan of the two, I would be trying my hand at homeade cauliflower couscous. In the other, smaller, cast-iron pan I would be frying up some turkey burgers. Now, neither of these menu items are difficult by any means and to be fair, I have made turkey burgers more than a few times in different kitchens with a different pan. So, I get things rolling per usual right? The process for the cauliflowers couscous is a little tedious and slow, just needs a lot of simmer/steam time in order for the cauliflower to soften. And for the burgers, I’m sure you know they just fire off right away and get cookin’. Well, apparently, having two cast-iron pans pushing out steam simultaneously isn’t a good idea in a little apartment. About seven minutes in, we had a raging fire alarm party in our place. And by that I mean, we had two fire alarms going off within a mere 4 feet of each other. NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS WOULD I HAVE EXPECTED THIS TO SET THEM OFF. I guess Forest Gump is right, you never know what you’re gonna get. So we scrambled jumping on furniture to reach up and mute the damn things while we dove for the patio door in hopes of pushing fresh-air in the joint AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. Maybe the pure panic set in because I’m used to living in college housing where if one alarm goes off the whole building has to evacuate, or maybe it was because the worry of being “those ppl” in our new apartment complex was setting in, but boy was I freaking out. Oh, and our property manager lives right across the hall (palm to forehead). We got things cleared out a little and I made my way back over to the stove because we still had two burgers that weren’t quite done yet! I swear 30 seconds went by and the dang “BEEP!! BEEP!! BEEP!! BEEP!!” started in again:(!! It was awful!! We set the same emergency action plan in place once again and after a few minutes got things under control. At this point our neighbors for sure think we’re burning the place down. The worst part?!?!? NOTHING even burnt!!!! Both Bobby and I agreed that it was one of our favorite meals I’ve made to date. It turned out perfect! But it set of the spastic fire alarm, TWICE!! (by the way, the cauliflower couscous recipe was inspired by the one in the Magnolia Table cookook-with a handful of modifications to fit our pantry inventory).

Now I’m terrified to have any bit of steam kick off of the stove top. So for lunch the next day I declared a microwave meal just to be sure. Then, for dinner I decided on oven-baked salmon, oven-baked potatoes, and steaming broccoli on the stove. My thought was “okay, the salmon and potatoes are in the oven so we are all good there-no worry for steam or smoke. And steaming broccoli is pretty mellow and low-risk too right? I’m thinking we are for sure safe tonight”. Boy was I wrong. I had just gotten the potatoes and salmon in the oven, Bobby was in the shower, and I had just lit the burner for the broccoli to get started. I had the frozen brocolli steaming for 3 minutes or so and became immediately triggered when the “BEEP!!BEEP!!BEEP!!BEEP!!” started in again. I kid you not people, the broccoli was steaming for 3 minutes…3!! Bobby came flying out of the bathroom, I swear nearly doing the slip n’ slide accross the floor to get to the alarm lololol. Thankfully this alarm didn’t last near as long, and didn’t come back on again. But, for the record, I think I now have PTSD triggered by fire alarms.

After two days in a row, I decided for my sanity that we needed to have the maintenance guy come and check things out. There was no way in hell I would be cooking on the stove top if this dang fire alarm was going to keep going off every night.

Our friendly maintenacne man came the next day and diagnosed our fire alarm as “troubled” (I thought that was a nice way of putting it), so we participated in a fire alarm exchange with the empty apartment down the hall. Haven’t had any troubles since, and really pressed our luck by making fajitas the first night with our new alarm :). Phew. my heart rate has risen just typing this out haha, I don’t wish it upon any of you. We did find out that even if our alarm is going off, the whole building doesn’t have to evacuate-THANK THE LORD. Hopefully going forward we’ll be A-OK now with steamy kitchen events haha.

I also made something very new this week-I know, lot’s of new recipes lately haha. But hear me out. I’ve always wanted to try making tofu at home and finally did it! It was an interesting experience and turned out better than I had imagined. I used the firm tofu from Trader Joes and would probably opt for the extra-firm option next time, but it was still great for the first time making it at home! Bobby even really liked it, too! Here’s the Pinterest recipe I used : https://www.pinterest.com/pin/154811305931336722/. I also made the dressing she links using tahini. I’ve never used tahini before, but again, used the Trader Joe’s tahini and it turned out very nice! If you’re looking for something different, or trying to incorporate more plant-based options into your lifestyle, I would recommend giving it a shot!

With a week full of a tense, wrinkly, forehead as a result of work and our fire alarm party’s, we headed up north to relax and have some guranteed peace and quiet. Wow, that just made me sound like an 85 year old, yikes, I swear COVID has changed me lol. We were able to soak up all kinds of fresh air and put our feet up by the fire which was so, so lovely. We’ll be busy making a video recap this week that will be on the blog next time, it’ll be a fun one! It also included three meals consisting of burgers and fries…totally went against the effort behind having tofu the day before lol. It’s a work in progress just like everything else.

Tomorrow, and this first week in February marks the begining of my training plan for the 2021 Grandma’s Half Marathon. Yep, we’re going for it for real this time folks. COVID or not, I’m running it this year-and you’ve heard it here first! I expect this week to be doable and nothing that pushes my limits yet, atleast that’s the hope lol. My luck I’ll feel like an elephant wading through muddy water on my first training run:/. As much as I know it will be difficult and that I’m going to HATE many moments of it, I am looking forward to dedicating myself to something physically bigger than I ‘ve ever done before.

I’ll be sure to recap week one of training and hope to share our Walker video next week! Here’s to making month #2 of 2021 better than #1!

Have a great week!

xoxo

Jos