The past few months - puppy, visits, wedding and Blue Angels

My laptop broke and there is nothing more annoying than typing a blog post on my phone, so I have been MIA for a few months.  I finally got a new laptop (Thanks Dad!), and I can now update people on my life, because I'm sure everyone is soooo interested.  Well I've got news for you people! I have done some pretty interesting stuff these past few months.

So here they are, in no particular order:

1) We got a dog! In October of last year, Peter and I adopted a teeny tiny little boxer puppy, who we named Marina.  We kept her a secret from the world because we were afraid of our parents.  We planned on telling them eventually, but we never did.  This month, Peter's mom and brother came to visit so we didn't really have a choice in whether to tell them or not.  When I called my mom, I prefaced the conversation with, "Don't be mad at me" and she said, "What did you do to the car?"  I happily told her that the car is fine, but I have a dog!  I could tell she was not pleased at first, but I won her over with cute puppy pics and tales of how well behaved Marina is.

Tiny Marina: Day 1

Next we had to tell Peter's mom, which I had approximately 500 panic attacks about.  She wasn't as mad as I imagined in my mind and who wouldn't love her cute little face?  It also helps that she's kennel trained, very well behaved and a very good listener.

She's about 10 months old now and basically the best dog ever (I guess I'm a little biased).  However, we have had some difficulties.  In January, we let her inside from running around in the GIANT backyard we have here, and we noticed she was limping and wouldn't put any pressure on her back right leg.  We thought maybe she has sprained it so we let it go for about a week just to see if it would heal itself.  It didn't.  Fast forward X-Rays and hundreds of dollars later, Marina had to have surgery to remove a fractured growth plate.  She's fine now, even though she will probably favor that leg for the rest of her life.

She's smiling - She loves laying in the sun

The surgery ended up costing about $2000 and our vet had a program where we could pay it off within 6 months and we wouldn't owe interest at all.  I'm proud to say that we paid it off in full through doing odd jobs and saving money, and now that I know I can do it, I'm going to try to apply the same approach to paying off my credit card bills.

This is before I figured out how to focus on my camera

Marina is the sweetest dog.  She is about 43 pounds of pure love, she likes giving kisses and her tongue is too long for her mouth so it's always poking out.  She know how to sit, stay, down, up, paw, other paw, high five, roll over, go around and play dead.  She is always on the look out for intruders but I think she would be nice to them if they actually did intrude.  She loves to cuddle in bed (or on the couch, or on the floor), but she will go straight to her kennel when she wants to nap or is ready to go to bed.  Basically I am obsessed with my dog and Peter and her are best friends.  She definitely listens to him more than she listens to me.

2) Synna came to visit! One of my best friends, Synna and her husband, Robert came to visit after a storm foiled their plans to vacation in Key West.  I got really lucky because Target had cut my hours a lot that week so I got to hang out with them a decent amount.

Synna got to meet Peter and Marina, and I got to meet Robert!  It was an especially nice visit because it's the first time I've seen Synna's in YEARS and now she is expecting little George III.  Also I ate fried pickles like every day of her visit and I needed to go through a fried pickle detox and I really doubt that I will ever eat fried pickles again.

3) We went to Erin's wedding! I moved in next door to the Coburns in Vicenza in 2002 and Dana quickly became my BFF, a friendship that still continues to this day.  Erin is her big sister and I was super psyched when I got invited to her wedding in Columbus, GA which is about four hours from Pensacola.  Peter and I drove up there and stayed with Synna.

Marina had the whole backseat to herself

Our road trip was uneventful except for a speeding ticket that was given to Peter.  I was super excited to see all the Coburns and Meghan Higgins.  I wanted them to meet Peter too.

Pretty cake! 

The ceremony was wonderful and Erin was beautiful.  I definitely cried when Mr. Coburn walked her down the aisle and again when Erin and Matt exchanged vows.  Both the ceremony and the reception were at the Rankin Gardens in downtown Columbus and it had this cool interior courtyard that was just perfect.

The bride! 

I was having a lot of fun at the reception when my dad emailed me to tell me something was wrong.  Assuming the worst, I made him tell me so that I didn't think up random scenarios in my head all night.  I wish I waited until after the wedding to find out that Cleo died.  I cried a lot and kind of embarrassed myself but the Coburns had lost Cleo's husband Chipper a few years earlier so they knew what I was going through.  They had this nice little table with pictures of people (and animals) that they wished could be at the wedding and I thought that was a really thoughtful and nice detail.  For those that don't know, Cleo was my family's 16 year old Maltese.  She had been with us for a while, with no sign of stopping.  She fell into our pool and drowned, which is what made her death so tragic.  But she lived a full, happy and spoiled life, and I'm grateful for that.  

The table

I tried not to dwell on it (even though I cried off and on for the next few days) and ended up having a good time at the reception!  Dana was the Maid of Honor and I'm pretty sure she planned the wedding and it was so cool seeing her so good at her job!  Maybe one day I can find something that I both enjoy and am also skilled at.  I teared up at her MoH speech and at Mr. Coburn's speech.

Dana giving her Maid of Honor speech

I was really excited to wear the dress that I wore.  I originally bought it on Asos.com to wear to Peter's sister's wedding about a year ago, but it didn't arrive at my house until about a month after the wedding.  It's so cute and I'm happy I finally had somewhere to wear it!  I also got to see Meghan Higgins, which was an added bonus to coming to the wedding.  I think Peter was a little nervous to meet everyone but everyone liked him, which was a given, because he's great.

Top: Prom 2009, Bottom: Erin's wedding 2015

4) We saw the Blue Angels on the beach! This past weekend was the annual Blues on the Beach, where the Blue Angels put on an air show for people on the beach.  Every time I told anyone I was going to the beach this weekend they would respond with, "You know it's the Blues on the Beach? It's going to be crazy!" and I responded yes, I knew but I did not really heed their warning.

The night before I wasn't feeling well and when I woke up I had a low fever but I wasn't going to miss this!!  We left the house at 7:30 and we had to sit in traffic for about two hours.  We got lucky and found a parking spot, which was 1/2 on the grass, 1/2 on the sidewalk, behind a bunch of other cars, but it was right in front of a beach entrance, so we barely had to walk and we got a good view of the show.

The water was perfect, and while you couldn't go in the water during the show, we had a few hours to kill before the show actually started.  I bought goggles the day before and put them to use picking up sand dollars on the ocean floor! All of the pictures I took the whole day suck because there was a smudge on the camera lens and because it only has a display screen and the sun was so bright, I couldn't really see what I was taking a picture of, let alone whether it was a good picture or not.

Here come the Blues! 

The beach was PACKED! There was barely any space for more people to come after we had been there for about an hour.

On this pic you can see the beginning of my sunburn on my face

By the end of the show, I was done.  I was sunburned, I had a fever and I was tired and cranky.  The hour wait to leave the beach did not help.  As soon as I got home I passed out on the bed and took a two hour nap.  I feel much better now, aside from the giant sunburn complete with sunglasses tan line on my face.

Starting Wednesday, I work for a week straight, so nothing fun will be happening there, but I have a Friday and a Saturday off coming up and I think we are going to go tubing on the Blackwater River when Peter's sister, Jackie comes to visit!

Okay! That's all for now!
ciao ciao
Katelyn

Palafox Market, Around Pensacola and my fave stir fry recipe!

Yes I know I haven't written a blog post in a while.  My intentions are always good, but I never end up writing one or never write enough to constitute a full post.  This week I have finally done it! I have accumulated enough experiences to share with whoever reads my blog!

In the past months I've had two weekends off, which is nice because it gives me time to do actually fun things.  It's bad because I'm poor and I would like the hours, but I make the most of it! The first weekend Peter and I planned on going to the farmer's market to just see what was up but we didn't make it out of the house before it closed at 2:00.  Instead, we went to walk on the beach because I have never stepped on it before.  We held up the line at the toll on the bridge because neither of us had $1 and the toll man didn't take cards.  He was not interested in my 63 cents that I scrounged up from the bottom of my bag and waved us through and told us to give him $2 next time- which I thought was nice of him.

The sand was SO WHITE and so soft! The last time I was on a beach was the heroin needle and condom scattered beach of Lago Patria.  This was a nice change of scenery.  I wish I didn't wear shorts because it was still pretty chilly but it was beautiful.  There are a lot of things that Pensacola does not have but what it DOES HAVE is a bad ass beach.

We decided to go to End of The Line cafe which is the only vegan restaurant in town other than Sluggo's.  Peter's sister Anne said it was good and it shows up on the Happy Cow app on my phone, and people rave about it.  We had a hard time figuring out what to order and Peter ended up getting a vegan Reuben sandwich and I got a caprese sandwich and it was pretty amazing.  It's nice not having to worry about what I'm eating.  

Peter's was better.  The portions were really good for what we paid and we went there again last weekend.  It's like right across the street from the Convention Center where coincidentally, Pensacon was going on.  It was like nerd central but some of the cosplay we saw walking around outside seemed pretty cool.  No one famous was there (which basically means no one I recognized) except Loras Tyrell, Gendry Baratheon and Podrick Payne from Game of Thrones.  ANYWAYS. This time I got a "Knuckle Sandwich" and Peter got the special which was this sub.  His was better again.  They have a cooking class every Sunday for $25 that I am really interested in signing up for.    

Knuckle Sandwich

Sub!

One day I'm going to have to try their coffee and baked goods but this time we had to just go with the necessary.... sandwiches.  I love sandwiches so much.  As a kid... and part of the way into my adulthood, I could not eat sandwiches.  Something about them just grossed me out.  One time we ran out of hamburger buns so my mom tried to make me eat my veggie burger between two slices of bread and I was like, "Hell no, that's gross."  Sometime between then and now something has changed and I eat sandwiches basically every day.  This isn't great news for my bikini bod, but my stomach is happy.  

We finally made it to the farmer's market this past Saturday.  I was hoping it would be like the one I went to in Santa Rosa when I was visiting my Aunt Maggie in California and it was! It was actually bigger!  It's called the Palafox Market and all of Martin Luther King Square was lined with vendors selling all sorts of stuff! There were farm fresh veggies, fresh milk, mustard, so much salsa, jewelry and all sorts of arts and crafts.

  

I especially liked this one artist who used recycled steel to make these pretty flowers to put in your garden or yard or wherever.  She also had a few pieces of really beautiful metalwork on display.  After searching a little bit, I found out her name is Amy Hines and HERE is her website.  I bought a red flower that spins and we put it in my garden. I feel like it really brings it to the next level.  

  

We made it to the end of the market at the corner of Palafox and Wright Street and made our walk back.  We were stopped by this little old man who asked us if we liked to read.  At first I was a little scared that I was going to be sucked in by this old man's cuteness and then suckered into buying one of his books.  But this man, Frits Forrer had a really interesting story! As a child, he lived in Holland when it was occupied by the Nazi's for five years and endured bombings almost daily and then once the Americans took over he decided he wanted to become a fighter pilot for the US military and that's exactly what he did.  I didn't have any cash on me to buy his book, but I hope he's there the next time I make it to the market.  His website is HERE.  He's also written a bunch of other books, but the one Peter and I were most interested in was his account of being a Dutch boy during World War II in Five Years Under The Swastika.  

There were SOOO many things I wanted to buy so I know I need to save up for next time.  There was especially this one artist who made paintings on old windows of wine bottles and other things.  Obviously I liked the wine bottle ones the best.  I didn't take a picture because I am a terrible blogger and I've been trying to find his name but I'm working on it.  During my search, I found The Blue Morning Gallery (link HERE) which looks like somewhere I need to check out.  They do classes and stuff too. 

Okay, last but not least! I have a recipe that I made up! I make a stir fry about twice a week.  Ever since Peter got me that wok for my birthday, it is basically a crime not to use it every week.  Over the past few months I have been tweaking my stir fry sauce recipe until I perfected it.  This is the result! It only takes like 30 minutes from start to finish and it's so good! 

Peanut Butter & Miso Stir Fry 

Ingredients: 

For the Stir Fry 

8 oz of rice noodles or udon noodles

A handful each of vegetables of your choosing - I used carrots, broccoli, green onions, red peppers and mushrooms.  I also add spinach at the last stage.  

One package of extra firm tofu, pressed and cut into cubes

One tablespoon of sesame oil

For the Sauce

1/4 C Rice vinegar

1/4 C soy sauce 

2 tbsp agave nectar

2 tbsp peanut butter

2 tsp asian chili paste

2 cloves of garlic 

1/2 inch section of ginger

1 tbsp light miso paste

1 tablespoon of corn starch dissolved in 3 tablespoons of water

Combine all of the ingredients for the sauce in the food processor or blender and pulse until smooth.  If you don't have miso paste, you can omit it, but I feel like it really makes the dish.  I got some from Amazon.com for like 11 dollars.  Here's one HERE. 

Boil water for the rice noodles.  Once the water is boiling, remove it from heat and then add the noodles.  Let them soak for about 3/4 minutes.  You don't want them to be completely softened.  Drain them and then immediately rinse with cold water and set aside.  

Heat the oil in a wok and when shiny, add the tofu.  Stir fry for about eight minutes or until it reaches your desired fried-ness.  Then set aside.  

Add all of the vegetables and stir fry in the remaining oil until soft.  I like to add a little bit of water to the stir fry to steam it a little.  When all done, take off the wok and set aside.  

Then add the noodles into the wok and push around and stuff.  Add the sauce and stir fry until the noodles are soft.  Then toss with the tofu and vegetables (and add the spinach) and cook a little more until heated throughout.  

I like to garnish with crushed peanuts and cilantro but you could really choose whatever! Enjoy! 

yum yum yum 

Happy New Year!

So it has been MONTHS since I wrote on here.  I'd like to say it was because I am just too busy, but in reality I don't have that much going on.  I'm always doing something, but it's not exactly news worthy.  However, I've realized that no one's life is crazy exciting like a movie and that you should appreciate the little things.

Let me update everyone who is interested in my life with what it's like right now:

1) I work at Target.  I was a seasonal employee at Target, which basically means they reserved the right to fire me after the holiday rush was over.  The other day I was informed that they would like to keep me!  So I am officially a Target employee (given I pass the 90 day probation period).  I am Katelyn from Target.  I guess the NEX taught me something about working in retail after all.   However, it's part of my job to get people to sign up for a RedCard and I am so bad at it.  People think I am trying to trick them.

2) I have hit a lot of bumps in the road in my quest to have a plant-based diet.  If you put me in a room with Cheez-its, I'm probably going to eat them.  It's one of my biggest weaknesses.  But I'm working on it.  For Christmas, I got a bunch of vegan cookbooks to add to my collection!

Part of my impressive collection!! Not pictured is my new favorite, Vegan Eats World! 

3) I've gotten pretty experimental with my food-making! For Thanksgiving, I made a seitan mushroom wellington with puff pastry and the other day I made a vegan spanakopita using filo dough.  Working with intimidating ingredients is kind of like running.  I've noticed I have to work up to it.

seitan wellington with sunflower seed mac and "cheese"

4) Speaking of working out, I started to work out! I'm doing the Tone It Up Love Your Body Challenge.  I'd never really heard of the Tone It Up program before, but I really like it! My favorite thing about it is that every night they post the work out for the next day.  The biggest reason that I don't exercise that much is because I run out of ideas for stuff to do and I just give up.  The Tone It Up community is also really big so there's a lot of support.  I'm not quite ready to get on board with the nutrition plan (No starches past 3? No thank youuuu) but I'm really enjoying exercising more.

5) We found a dog! Peter found this dog in the front yard and it was almost morbidly obese and her teeth were very clean so I figured that she belonged to someone.  We posted that we found her on Craigslist and on the Pensacola lost dogs website.  She ended up staying a night (we put her in the playroom which is all tile) and within like twelve hours I had five phone calls from people notifying me that someone had posted a "Lost Dog" ad without seeing my "Found Dog" ad and we got it all figured out.  But she was fun to have around!

6) I finally tried one of the vegan restaurants in Pensacola!  Peter and I went on a date to Sluggo's which downtown and we got seitan buffalo wings as an appetizer and I got the walnut veggie burger and Peter got a seitan barbecue sandwich.  Everything was so good! Especially the wings.  I still need to make it out to End of the Line Cafe, but soon! I enjoy shopping at Ever'man's when I get the chance, especially because they have VEGAN HOT POCKETS.

7. My garden is doing really well! My tomatoes died, because I didn't cover them up one night and it was my bad and I feel really bad about it.  My beans also suffered a little frost bite, but they bounced back and they're doing well.  I probably should have followed the directions for the spinach and kale and placed them farther apart, but they're still doing well, I can't wait to plant my spring garden!

Since my last post, I turned 23, I got a 4.0 in my last semester of classes, I am forty followers away from 1,000 followers on Pinterest and that's about it! So basically my life isn't that exciting, but I plan on getting back into posting more regularly!

Balsamic Tofu Burgers and Gardening

I feel like it's finally fall here in Penacola.  The air has a coolness to it, and it isn't so humid that every inhale feels like you're drinking a glass of water.  I have a recipe for this week!  Most days, I just make up meals but I never take pictures or write down the ingredients, so I can't post about it.

It's been so long since I posted something that I actually made up, so I figured I should be proactive and document my cooking experience.  I made my own veggie burgers last week, and I saw a pin for a tofu burger on Pinterest, so I thought, Why not?  Here's what I came up with...

Balsamic Tofu Burgers
1 block of firm tofu
4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon of ketchup
1 teaspoon honey
Squirt of barbecue sauce
1 clove of garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon basil
salt and pepper to taste.

Press your tofu to get the water out.  I use the Tofu EZPress.  A really good investment if you eat a lot of tofu! See it on Amazon HERE.  Cut your tofu into desired burger size and shape.  I used one block and made four burgers.

Mix together everything else in a bowl. Pour it on your tofu and let the tofu marinate in the refrigerator for at least two or three hours. I flipped them over in the marinade halfway through.

Cook them! They're best on the grill but I just pan-fried them the other day.  Super easy.  Three or four minutes each side.

Should have used a grill pan but I don't have one

Keep in mind that my measurements are just recommendations.  I literally just threw in random amounts of random stuff until I came up with something that I liked.  I think some rosemary would be good in there too.

Also keep in mind that these are TOFU BURGERS.  Tofu gets a bad reputation for being plain, but marinating it helps.  But it all comes down to them being made out of tofu.  So I add a bunch of toppings.  I usually make my burger like this (in order from bottom to top): whole wheat bun, baby spinach, tofu burger, smear of barbecue sauce, some vegetables, ketchup, whole wheat bun.  My favorite topping is a mixture of sauteed onions and mushrooms.  Here's the recipe for how I make them!

Sauteed Mushrooms and Onions
1/2 a white or yellow onion
2 garlic cloves
Five good sized white mushrooms
Tablespoon of olive oil
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
Splash of white wine
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat up a saucepan.  Add the olive oil and the garlic.  Once the garlic is fragrant, add the onions and then a little while after add the mushrooms.  Add the white wine and the balsamic and let it cook on medium heat until the majority of the moisture has evaporated.  Then eat it alone or put it on something.  Whatevs you want.

mmmmmm

Moving on... I've decided to make a garden and I've become kind of obsessed with the idea of having a raised garden bed.  If you follow me on Pinterest, you can see my garden board here.  I'm pretty sure that half of my pins are just links to raised garden beds.  Peter and I went through a phase where we were going to make one from random wood in the backyard, then where we were going to buy the wood from Home Depot and then finally we were like, let's just buy one.  Turns out those things are like $100.  After I had resigned myself to the fact that I was either not going to have a raised garden bed or I was going to have to make it myself, the neighborhood had a yard sale.

One of the girls that had lived here before me left behind an old book case and the shelves were falling off, so we took out the shelves.  Peter and I looked at each other like they do in the movies and I was like, "Wait.... this is a raised garden bed."  I felt like a genius.

Not sure where we are going to put it yet!

So now I have a few containers and a bed that needs to be filled.  I planted arugula, onions, garlic, peas, carrots and daffodils.  I have no idea how this is going to turn out.  I've never really tried that hard to grow something before so I'm excited.

Because I am a very impatient person, I needed the instant gratification that planting flowers provides.  I can't wait for the months while my seeds grow, I needed something to be proud of now.  So I made hanging planters.  By "made" I mean I bought the hanging things and picked out some flowers and put the flowers in the hanging things.  I put one on each side of the porch.  I'm kind of proud of them.  Also, in case you didn't know Lowe's has a military discount.  Sadly my ID expires on October 28th so I have to use it while I can.  

In other news, I have a few new books.  I'm 75% done with Ken Follett's Edge of Eternity which has 1,120 pages.  It's the finale of his Century trilogy and I'm kind of depressed that it's over.  It is an epic multi-generational historical fiction saga.  I know more about the characters in this book than I know about my own relatives.  Read more about it HERE. I highly recommend this series to anyone who likes historical fiction and European and American history.

I also have the two most recent Phillipa Gregory novels in her Cousin's War series that somehow I just missed that they came out!  This is the fault of the bookstore in Naples who stopped carrying books and magazines because their supplier went out of business.  I'm catching up slowly but surely.

That's all for now! If you have any gardening tips, suggestions for what I should plant or book suggestions, let me know!

xo Katelyn

First weeks in Pensacola

I was nervous to come to Pensacola.  If I had to think of a US city to live in that was completely different from any other experience that I have ever had, Pensacola would be it.  This isn't the first time I've lived on my own, but when I did it was in the city in Washington DC and then Alexandria, VA.  While Alexandria was similar to Pensacola in some ways, but it was different in more.  There was public transportation, "fast food" that chopped up salad to your satisfaction and there were 24-hour grocery stores.  Those are the only things I miss, other than my former roommate and her dog.

A lot of people have asked me how my move went.  It went great! Peter and his brother Michael picked me up from the airport even though Peter tried to fake me out and say he wasn't going to be there because he had class.  But he was and I knew he would be.  The next few days were kind of blur because of sleep deprivation and sheer joy that I had actually made it.

We went to dinner by the beach for Peter's birthday.

 I know that I unpacked all of my stuff and went grocery shopping like nobody's business.  I expected there to be more vegan options than there were but I'm not complaining! I got vegan cheese and alfalfa sprouts! Also I bought more bags of Gardein and Beyond Meat than I would like to admit.  Also, who knew that there were like 40 different Amy's frozen meals?? The commissary back in Naples only has like five.  I love frozen meals.  I know that they are not great for you because they are high in sodium but I've been trying to eat them in moderation.

Because I don't have a car or a job and I usually finish up my online course work within the first two or three days of the week all I've been doing lately is cooking dinner and keeping stuff clean (who would have thought?? me... clean).

One of my new roomies

The amount of fast food here astounds me.  There is a quarter-mile stretch of road here where there is a Waffle House at the start of it, a Denny's, a McDonalds, a PF Changs, a Hardees, a Taco Bell and then another Waffle House at the end of it.  The quarter-mile stretch is followed by countless more just like it.  I understand the need for a takeout meal.  People have jobs and families and not enough time.  Maybe it's because I've been out of the country for so long, but as an outsider looking in, this shouldn't be normal.

You can get 20 chicken McNuggets for $5.  You can get a full meal for $5 from Krystal Burger.  Meanwhile a head of organic broccoli is $4.  The company logos are propped up proudly so that people driving can see from far away but it just embarrasses me.  Strip malls have four different restaurants/fast food places to choose from so that you can stuff your face while you take a break from spending your money on useless shit you don't need.

It's really frustrating.  Everyone is HEAVY.  Not everyone is obese like when they depict Americans in political cartoons.  I understand the whole "health at every weight" and anti-fat shaming thing but honestly, it's not natural and the fact that it's become normal scares me.  I swear Peter and I were at the mall the other day and the line for Cinnabon consisted of five people that honestly should not have been eating Cinnabon.  It's your body you can do with it what you want and be cripplingly unhealthy but I pay taxes and it unnerves me that money that could be going to a cause that I'm passionate about is instead going to pay for the diabetes medication of someone who just loves Cinnabon so much that they can't stop.  When did people get so lazy that Cinnabon is an acceptable afternoon snack? Eat some carrots for God's sake.

MEANWHILE ... In other news.
I made my first veggie burgers ever.  After being a vegetarian for 11 years and then switching to vega, you would have thought that I would have done this sooner.  Nope.  They always intimidated me.

I chose a super easy one from Pinterest of course.  Emphasis on the "super easy".  I didn't even have to grate the zucchini because I used my Vegetti, which makes noodles out of vegetables.  Get your own HERE.  It's literally one of the best purchases I've ever made.

Check these out!

Get the recipe for the veggie burgers HERE.  They were so easy to make and have fun flavors.  They have peanut butter, cilantro, oats, chickpeas and red onions in them.  I can't believe that I have been spending so much money on the frozen ones when I could have been making them all this time! We also made sweet potato fries, which Peter cut because I hate cutting sweet potatoes.

Check out that concentration.

Last but not least, I chopped up an avocado, a few tomatoes and a cucumber and doused them in balsamic vinegar and olive oil and called it a salad.  Not a bad dinner!  I've been making a lot of stir fries because they're fun but I really need a wok.  I can't believe I don't have one.  If someone doesn't give me one for my birthday then I'll just get one for myself I guess haha.

I miss Naples a little bit though.  Mostly I miss the food and the lack of driving rules but I also miss all of the CULTURE.  I don't think that's the right word that I'm looking for, or maybe it's just been used in that way that it has another meaning.  I miss walking by castles that are hundreds of years old and occasionally driving over cobblestone.  Before I left, Mandy, Erika and I had a marathon four hour lunch at la Regina Margherita right in front of the Egg castle downtown.  It's weird how we sat there for three and a half hours and no one cared.  Certainly not something you can do here.

I miss this view.  

Long story short, I love Pensacola and I'm settling in nicely!  I miss Naples a little bit, but I feel like even if someone hated living in Naples passionately, they would still miss it a teeeeeeny bit if they left.

Well that's all for now!
More soon!

xo Katelyn