Hello hello!! I woke up this AM and decided to put my to-do list on hold to do a little blogging with my coffee. I have an intensive next week- you may remember when I’d go to my school for them? They went virtual this year, but I am really excited (and nervous) for it. We’re going to be learning how to program pumps for diabetes, do check-offs with a standardized patient, present an endocrine topic to our peers (mine is titled The Impact of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals on Fertility) and attend various lectures. Oh, all of that to say, I have a long weekend to prepare for the intensive and think I can afford a few minutes to write this up 🙂 !
Now for a little February update! February was a weird, weird month… and if you ask anyone in Texas I’m sure they will immediately have flashbacks to our ice storm- I’ll be sure to discuss that whole fiasco and a half. February 6th I was notified we had a package, so I went down to the mail room and this Austin city candle was in the box. It didn’t have a sender on it or any messages, so it’s still a mystery who sent this candle! If you did, thank you!!!
Once we burned it down, we noticed a little foil wrapped something in the bottom. We handled it with gloves lol because, remember, we had no idea who this was from! But inside was a crisp $2 !! How fun.
February 12th we met up with some friends at Central Machine Works for the first time as a group since the previous year for a friend’s bday!! This place is awesome!! It has the most chill vibe.
Valentine’s Day we received the sweetest valentine’s from my niece and nephew <3 <3 I cannot say how excited we are to be living close to them and our other nephews and niece!!!
February 15th, we woke up to THIS!!! Whaaat!
I was planning on going to stock up on groceries that morning. As someone who grew up in OH, I was not afraid of no snow. Actually that’s a total lie- I totaled my car on black ice as a teenager, so it’s probably the thing I’m most nervous about with moving back. Anyway, here was my trial run. The problem with this massive snowfall in TX is it never happens, I mean never happens, so they didn’t have the normal snow trucks to salt the roads. I didn’t take that into account when I ventured out that day! I should have taken a hint when there was no one on South Congress that mayyybe I shouldn’t try driving on it? There were people skiing and snowboarding down it though!
There was also this guy in front of me, with the “Life is Good” tire cover. Am I surprised he was the only other one out on the road? Of course not. This is the type of person unfazed by anything. If we ever do have the anticipated zombie apocalypse, this is the guy I want on our side.
When I finally arrived at HEB (which took triple the usual time), they weren’t open!! This whole venture was clearly not my brightest moment.
The worst part of the not being able to stop at the grocery store… you might want to sit down for this one- I didn’t have any coffee left. Yes, I know. I ended up stopping by a Starbucks nearby on foot that was actually open, I think since it was attached to a hotel. I loaded up on four coffees that lasted a couple days and then kept doing that until I was able to make it back to the store. Never been so thankful for Starbucks in my whole life.
I headed home and we turned on our artificial fire, because same as a real one, right?
And then I had to get to food prepping with the little we had left in the fridge. I was actually quite amazed how much these groceries stretched. I made roasted potatoes, peas from a can (slaved over this one), cauliflower mashed potatoes, an eggplant parmesan (I give that name generously considering we had very little sauce left), seitan from vital gluten wheat powder, protein bars that were not good, but I ate them anyway, and lastly, our favorite- a mix of the leftover veggies, lentils and chickpeas we had mixed in with various Indian spices! We also had a little rice leftover so we added that to it and it was a delightful dinner.
Oh, I can’t forget these! I found a can of heart of palms that had been sitting around for a long time, and looked up creative ideas for them. When I found a recipe for heart of palm “crab cakes” I knew this what we had to go with! We actually had most ingredients on hand, and they were SO good. DJ was impressed how similarly they tasted to real crab cakes.
We stretched these meals until Friday when I ventured out to the store. I was craving vegetables like you wouldn’t believe.
I spent the week catching up on various school assignments. DJ did too- and actually his already virtual classes were entirely cancelled since some classmates lost power.
I do want to take a moment to say- I recognize we were incredibly blessed through all of this. We did have food, we didn’t lose our power, we had a roof over our heads- and it is truly heart breaking what happened to so many people. I don’t discount that at all, and it was really a traumatic week for so many. I pray this never happens again.
That Friday, February 19th, DJ and I went out to celebrate Valentine’s Day a week late. You know us, just makeshift celebrate everything on our own schedule, lol. I’d wanted to try Olive & June for a while, so I made us a reservation.
We sat out on their gorgeous patio. Everything was delizioso!! We shared their cheese boards (amazing, I loved the pickled veggies and the cheese was darn good)
We then had their beet salad that was one of my favorites ever ever- soo good! It actually may have been my favorite part of the meal.
I had their seared gulf snapper- it was flavorful as can be!
DJ had their cacio e pepe. It was really tasty!! Butttt there is actually an even better cacio e pepe in town we tried a few weeks later- can’t wait to share that!!
We grabbed some desserts to go- so yummy.
February 21st we got brunch with a friend from Kerbey Lane Cafe. I genuinely forgot to take pictures, but take my word for it that this place had some GOOD food. An *ultimate* brunch spot.
Oh, just one more detail from the whole chaos of the snowstorm. Throughout the rest of the month we were also on a boil water warning. We boiled a whole bunch of water at once and then used every coffee mug that would fit in the fridge to store it.
For desserts throughout February I was loving these strawberry ice cream bars with a little PB and some chocolate chips.
And it had been far too long by the time February 26th rolled back around since we had last ordered Flower Child! (Always have to get a side of that corn and quinoa).
And that wraps up our…interesting… February! I best get back to the grind. Have a great weekend, friends!!
I’d love to know:
- Do you have any stories around dealing with wild weather?
I was driving our mobile health bus back to the office after a COVID testing event last year when I heard the emergency weather alert come on the radio… Turns out there was a tornado about 5-7 miles behind me. It was terrifying!
That is SO terrifying. That is really wayyy too close for comfort!! Glad you were okay! At least it made for a good story, right? Thanks for stopping in, Bex.
We have had two earthquakes in recent years … the second one, last August, I didn’t feel at all, but the one before, I could actually feel the rumble under my feet … wow! The national news said we had an earthquake today in southern Michigan. I didn’t feel it and that was the first I heard or felt. The weather is crazy … no matter the season and the seasons are not those four distinct seasons you remember growing up in Ohio. Nope, they overlap and swap out temps, etc. – we are having possibly severe weather tomorrow. I would like to return to the weather we all knew and loved. 🙂
Wow!!! I do not think of Michigan as having earthquakes, so this is so interesting!! Probably a good thing you didn’t even notice the one they reported.
Ah what kind of severe weather?! Hopefully no tornadoes or flooding.
I agree – they were considered minor, but nonetheless, not an ordinary occurrence. Our severe weather warning for today has now passed. It rained until noon and the atmosphere never warmed up enough to give us the severe weather – it went to the state line at Ohio instead. There were some power outages and flooding from our first storm this morning. I’m no fan of this erratic weather from global warming. I’m hearing that everywhere in California is experiencing quite a heat wave.
I’m so glad to hear the severe weather warning passed! But still a bummer about the power outages and flooding. Hopefully it got it all out of its system and it will go on to be a beautiful summer 🤞🏻 CA is pretty scary in terms of weather/natural disasters for sure 😞
Unfortunately, tonight we have a humdinger storm … worse that all the weather events predicted or otherwise. I’m nervous about it: it is for parts of Ohio, Indiana and SE Michigan (me). 8:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. – large hail, 60+ mph winds and a tornado warning. My weather radio has already gone off. Yes, California for its beauty is worrisome with its natural disasters … I hope this warm weather is not a prelude to wildfires there. We’ve had a few wildfires in northern Michigan. They were controlled burns that got out of control.
Oh noooo. How did it go? Praying everything is ok..
Thanks for your thoughts Mackenzie. A tornado touched down in Coldwater, about two hours from here. I was unscathed, but this weather is wigging me out! I stayed up until 1:15 a.m. Monday until the worst of the second round had passed and I have a weather radio so that is helpful (it went off three times) but stayed up so I was alert. Whew! Today is 25 degrees colder than same time yesterday.
Oh wow that is scary! And the drastic change in temps is odd too. Please stay safe, Linda! I really hope it all settles down soon.
I’m glad things have settled down too … thank you. It was in the 40s when I left on my walk this morning and I went down to the Detroit River to walk and actually needed a coat. The weather is crazy these days, but I don’t need to tell you that with the snow pictures you showed us from Austin.
I’m glad to hear they’ve settled! And it really seems like it’s a year for crazy weather everywhere, huh? Maybe I’m just noticing it, but every year seems worse than the one before
I agree with you Mackenzie … it has to be related to climate change. They said we normally have two heat waves per Summer – last year we had six and we already had two heat waves in the Spring. Now we have rain coming in Thursday night through next Friday – a solid week of rain. On the plus side, our moderate drought is over. You’ll need a whole new wardrobe for Ohio which you can be prepared to deal with two seasons in one week!
I think I remember talking about those heat waves with you! And you are so right about that with two seasons in one week 😆 – I reallllly need to go shopping
Better buy a pair of rubber boots while you’re at it – this is unbelievable, but we’ve had rain since 6:00 a.m. today and same all weekend. Now a small tornado threat but I think more west of here, but still. I’ve decided I’m ready for Fall!
Absolutely! I am so ready for fall too! It’s a bit too hot here for my liking right now. Hopefully you never had to deal with those tornados!
Another great blog which always makes me sooo hungry!! You will be fine driving in Ohio snow again but crazy how snowy it was there, so unusual. And I think the candle is from us! I ordered it for your birthday and must have taken that long to get to you but glad you finally got it! Keep enjoying fabulous food in Austin, loved in your last blog the photo of VIA 313, I am still wanting to tase that pizza agin, quite possibly my favorite ever! Love, your Ohio mom
Aww thank you for reading! And oh my goodness, I am so glad I posted about the candle – thank you SO much, we really loved it and the $2 bill was too fun!!
You’ll love this- DJ said he recently found somewhere that has a pizza very close to Via in OH!!! We’ll have to all go and try it together! He went with coworkers – I think it’s called Antonio’s.
So funny about the candle randomly showing up and the surprise inside! Also, way to make your food stretch during the snowpocolypse!!
After I posted this my mom in law told me it was from her, so mystery solved!!! Haha, thank goodness for blogs, right? I’m laughing thinking about how we handled the foil in the candle like it could anthrax because we didn’t know who it was from 😂
I am so happy you guys made it through! I thought of you! I have alot of friends in Texas and the stories they told were/are crazy. Growing up in the mountains we are use to it, but even just living in New York, there were times they weren’t able to handle the snow. SO crazy how different the regions and weather is!
Also that paper you are writing sounds super interesting. I have PCOS, endometriosis, and adenmosis, (yup my reproductive system HATES me lol) and I am always trying to learn and research more about it. Hormones really are no joke. Lol. I hope you are having an amazing week! <3
Isn’t it just so wild this whole thing happened at all? I hope your friends are all doing alright now – soo scary what some went through 😞
Okay first-I am so sorry you are dealing with all this. I know it can really be difficult/debilitating in many ways, and I learned from my previous clinical rotation just how neglected women’s health is in certain areas. Anyway, I will send you my final poster- It actually does mention a link to PCOS and endometriosis, even though I didn’t go much in depth in those areas. I think you’ll find it interesting. The research is really in its infancy, but I think we will start to see much more about it all over the next few years. I have considered even going back for a PhD to study it specifically because I’ve grown soo passionate about the topic! But that wouldn’t be for a long time lol. Really just a fleeting thought 😅 we’ll have to chat more! I hope you are having a wonderful week too!!! 💕