Strawberry Balsamic Vinaigrette

Hello friends. 
So, I don't really like typical salad dressings, but I've been hoping to come across one that I do like in hopes that it would make me eat more salad. And I was hoping that the dressing that I find is actually healthy. And thanks to good ol' Pinterest, I found one! I halved the recipe that I found and tweaked it a little bit. Here it is!

Strawberry Balsamic Vinaigrette

• 1 cup fresh strawberries
• 1 tablespoon white balsamic vinegar
• A little less than 1/4 cup olive oil
• About 1.5 teaspoons honey
• Black pepper
• Salt

Blend. 

Store.

Enjoy!

Happy Wednesday friends! We're almost to the weekend.

Chia Seed Pudding

Have you ever had chia seed pudding? If not, I highly suggest it. Fair warning though, it does have a strange texture. Good, but strange. I'm going to give you a quick and extremely simple recipe.

Whisk together:

• 1 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk (I've also heard coconut milk is good)
• 1 cup greek yogurt (vanilla or plain...I used vanilla)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp maple syrup
• dash of salt
• 1/4 cup chia seeds

Then cover and put in the fridge overnight. The next day, the seeds will have soaked up some of the mixture and it will be a thicker, more pudding-like consistency. Add fresh berries or nuts or whatever you want! This is delicious and filling - a great breakfast or even lunch. 

Plants, plants, plants.

In the past few years I've developed a love for plants. I haven't had too many, and I'm still figuring out the whole taking care of them part. My friends make fun of me because "I killed a cactus," but I will forever argue that it was the really old, cold dorm building that I lived in that killed it. Anyway, after work today I decided to repot my aloe plant because it is actually thriving under my care (hah!) and needed a bigger home. Speaking of aloe, fun story... I was staying with my sister a few years ago, and needless to say, I got a little burned from the North Carolina sun. She told me that there was aloe on the table in the corner. I checked it out and, well, I did not agree. She had to clarify that I was not looking for a bottle of aloe lotion, but an actual fresh aloe plant. Whoops. 

Clearly outgrown the pot...

Lookin' much better.

This little munchkin hung out with me outside.

Also, my spider plant is doing really well. I've already potted one of the spiderettes that came from it. Today I started the process again, and put two more little baby spiders in some water. Hopefully they do okay.

The original plant...which was a spiderette on one of my friend's plants.

The baby

All Grown Up

Long time, no see. Sorry about that.

But big things have happened. Big things. On a positive note I graduated college! On a negative note, I was forced to leave my second home of four years and my amazing friends (Did I bawl my eyes out? Yes. Yes, I did). But the latter part of that has already been solved. Only two weeks after graduation, my friends and I are having a reunion! One of my friends is a baby and is only just turning 21, so we're celebrating her birthday and using it as a good excuse to get everyone together. Just two days and I get to see their beautiful faces again. 

So, what have I been up to since graduation? Relaxing? Unpacking? Other fun summery things? Not quite. The day after graduation, only 20 hours after the ceremony, I started my first day of work. It was quite exhausting (I think I'm still tired), but I was glad to have the distraction, and of course, I have a job. I can't complain. So far, I really love my job. It's been a lot of training and figuring things out, but I look forward to what the future holds. 

Pictures!

The boyfriend and I on Saint Mike's Derby Day a week before graduation.

My sister and I. She graduated from Saint Mike's eight years ago!

Shout out to this girl, my best friend, my Emma who sang the national anthem at graduation.

Some of the greatest people in my life.

Happy Wednesday!

Bargain Hunter

Hello hello!

I wanted to share an exciting purchase with you, because, well, who doesn't like a good deal? As sad as I am to graduate, I am incredibly excited to have my own place at some point. You know, after I live at home for a while. I'll get there eventually. Anyway, I love looking at all the homey things: decorations, furniture, even paint color, garden things, but I really love all cooking and kitchen things. Anyway, here's the big reveal. I got these beautiful bowls, and hey even better, I got all four for $12. 

Blend It

So in the description of this blog I did promise you recipes, which have - up to this point - been nowhere to be found. Well, I bring you recipes! Kind of. I'm going to start things off extremely simple: smoothies. I can't really give - alright PAUSE, I need to interrupt myself for a moment here. I am currently lying on my bed with my laptop propped against my bent knees. I'm typing away, and our cat Una, who was featured in a previous post, hops up on the bed, climbs onto my stomach, and curls up on my chest.  So I am continuing my typing very carefully as I must maneuver around a very sleepy, very cuddly purr-machine. Not complaining. Okay where were we? PLAY. I won't give measurements and specific recipes for smoothies because they're just unnecessary. Instead I'm just going to give you some ideas. Smoothies are great. You can put whatever you want in them and however much of that whatever as you want. You can make them more into a meal by adding oats or more into a snack with just some fruit and milk, maybe some yogurt. I once made a smoothie with vanilla greek yogurt, milk, applesauce, and cinnamon. It tastes like apple pie and vanilla ice cream. In a cup. Can't get much better than that. You have all the freedom in the world. Yes, the world. You better believe it. 

Okay, so here's a smoothie I made the other day. I started with these ingredients.

Frozen strawberries, banana, ground flax seed, vanilla bean Greek yogurt, spinach, and unsweetened vanilla almond milk

I threw everything in the blender. 

Then I poured this in a cup and added a straw. You can't drink a smoothie without a straw. It's true. 

So when I was getting all my things together to move into college this year, my mom told me that there was a blender in the basement that I could take. I was pretty excited about this because, as you can probably tell, I love smoothies. I'm not sure how old this blender is, but it must have been around for a while. I can't run it for too long because it starts to smell like it's burning. I swear if I leave it on for too long one of these days it will just burst into flame. Luckily, no smoke yet. 

Well, It's About Time

Hello friends, strangers, readers,

I just wanted to quickly tell you about a movie I saw a few days ago. It's called About Time. Yes, it's a romantic comedy, but it's more than that. I don't want to ruin anything, but it had some great messages about recognizing and appreciating every day that you live. So, if you like adorable love stories, meaningful life lessons, and British humor (which is just great if you ask me), I think you should give this movie a chance.

Click here for the trailer!

And in the theme of appreciating every day, here are three good things:
One: I went to Barnes & Noble today and bought myself three books. I really shouldn't be allowed in any bookstore. I don't think I can leave without purchasing at least one. I love love love books.
Two: I got my hair trimmed. Exciting, right? (Yes, that's sarcasm.) Barely got an inch off, but it really needed it and it feels so nice. 
Three: I met my boyfriend for lunch at Chipotle when he got out of his internship today. It was completely unplanned and a nice little mini-date. 

Well, that's it for now. Happy Wednesday!

Easter Eggs & Spring Flowers

Happy Easter!

So, our family does easter eggs a little differently. Typically, eggs are dyed and then displayed, right? I assume anyway. I don't actually know. But we just draw on them with markers and then just eat them right afterwards. As you can see above, I was inspired by my coffee mug. 

It has been a beautiful day, sunny and pretty warm. I even put on shorts for the first time this year! Although that felt a little strange when my mom and I went into town to rent a movie...that's its own story entirely. But when I was walking around in my shorts, it felt like I had forgotten my pants. Clearly I'm not used to warm weather clothes yet. It's always a weird transition. But I welcome it! 

Anyway, brief story about renting a movie. My mom and I have been wanting to watch "Saving Mr. Banks" for a while now. (My sister and I have watched "Mary Poppins" countless times. Countless.) So we went to the Redbox in the town over from ours, but it was out of order...of course. So then we had to go to another town, and we literally went to three Redboxes where the movie was unavailable until finally at the fourth one, we got our hands on it! A quick drive that should have taken 30 minutes turned into a wild goose chase that took over an hour. But we got our movie! And that's all that counts. Plus, Pepsi (my dog who is featured in a beautiful picture in my first post) got to come along for a car ride. Lucky girl. Oh why not, here's another picture of my sweets. (Warning: I have an absurd number of pet names - pun not intended - for my dog...I'm sure you'll hear most of them. Give it time.)

My Old Girl.
She may be eleven, but she is sprightly.

And some spring-y pictures for you. It's on its way, my friends.

The day lilies are coming!

Vermont Weather

So, remember in my last post when I mentioned that it had been raining all day? Well, at around 7:30 at night that rain turned into snow. Yes, snow. Let me also remind you that the day before it had been about 80 degrees. Uhm, Mother Nature, are you okay? Oh right, I live in Vermont. She's just fine. And to add to this madness, the 10-day forecast shows day temperatures that don't dip below 50. You would think I might be used to this Spring chaos after living in Vermont for 20 years, but nope, it's just not something you get used to. 

This is what I woke up to.

Thankfully, most of the snow had melted by the end of the day.


Also, I realized today that one of the happiest things you can see is a cat basking in sunshine. I mean, look at this little love bug and tell me she doesn't put a smile on your face. I doubt she could be much happier.

Belly rubs

And hey, why not? Here are three good things:
1. My sister visited last week and then continued on to New York to visit her fiancé's family. My friend was going to take them to the airport yesterday because I was in class, but then their flight got rescheduled to this morning. Because of all this, I got to see my sister and almost-brother-in-law today. Granted, it was only for about 20 minutes, if that, but it was still nice. 
2. Ever since freshman year, one of my friends and I have had Friday afternoon coffee dates. We finish our classes, treat ourselves to coffee, find somewhere to sit, and chat about life. It's a nice little tradition to look forward to throughout the week. Anyway, due to vacations and various trips home and whatnot, we haven't had a quality coffee date in quite a few weeks. No, today is not Friday, but we have a long weekend because of Easter, so my friend was headed home today. We finally got to have a good, and very long overdue, coffee date.
3. The sun was shining all day today. How could you complain?

Three Good Things

It's been a while. I am so sorry. Life just kinda gets in the way sometimes...especially as a college senior.

But now, I'm going to tell you about an exercise called Three Good Things. In a few of my classes that discussed positive psychology, I learned about this. It's very simple. Essentially, you should take the time every day (or when you have time - trust me, I understand) to reflect on your day and write down at least three good things that happened. This is supposed to help you appreciate the little things because even if you had a horrible day, this exercise forces you to recognize the good things. Also, the physical act of writing your list down helps increase your gratitude, hope, and optimism.

April 15th
1. I had a presentation in my first class this morning, and I feel that it went pretty well. People seemed interested and asked questions.
2. I switched presentation times with a classmate for another class so now I will be done with all my work on the Monday instead of the Wednesday at the end of the semester. Also, this gave my classmate almost an extra week, so I'd say it was a win-win situation.
3. It has been raining all day and compared to yesterday when it was close to 80 degrees, this could be kind of disappointing. But I love the smell of rain. So, it's not all bad.

See? These good things really don't need to be exciting or amazing or impressive. They're simple, but that doesn't make them any less important.

What are some good things that have happened to you today? Take the time to think about it.

What is this "spring" you speak of?

Today is March 28th. We are four days away from April. March and April are spring months, right? Wrong. At least when you live in New England...and especially Vermont. Instead of sunshine and grass and maybe some spring flowers poking through the soil, we have gray skies, rain, wind, multiple feet of dirty snow covering the ground, and not a blade of grass to be seen anywhere.

Don't get me wrong, I like snow. I love snow. When it's Christmastime. From November to about February, I am all for snow. But when it's almost April I am no longer snow's biggest fan. Additionally, I don't have any winter hobbies to keep me busy. Don't ask me how I've lived in Vermont for almost all of my life and not picked up a winter activity. I don't know. The closest I've gotten is skiing once during my freshman year of college and this past winter having my boyfriend strap me to his sister's snowboard and essentially push me down the big hill in my front yard. I actually did have a lot of fun with that (surprisingly, that was not sarcasm), but this hasn't been an ongoing activity to keep me entertained for the Vermont winters that last at the very least six months.

So now it sounds like I strongly dislike Vermont, but despite all my ranting and raving and complaining, that is far from the truth. I only wish that its seasons were more evenly distributed throughout the year. Six months, if not more, of winter does not leave much time for spring, summer, and fall.

No, but really, Vermont is beautiful and I love it.
Let me prove it to you. Click here!

Hello! Welcome. Now what?

Dear readers,

If you're looking at this then you either stumbled across this blog or deliberately brought yourself here. Either way - a happy coincidence or a pleasant conscious action - I offer you a warm welcome. So now that you are here, you might be wondering, "What now? And to that I don't have a very specific answer.

I've gone back and forth with topics that I might focus on, but none of them have really stuck with me. Or rather, they have all stuck with me. I have a lot of interests, and I want to share them all with you. Initially, I was thinking that I would write some sort of arts and crafts blog, then maybe baking and cooking, then books, then dogs, then happy things (I promise that idea is slightly more developed than it sounds), then well...this. If you know anything about me then you know that I struggle with making trivial decisions. And well if you didn't know anything about me, now you do.

And now to distract myself (and maybe you too...) from the fact that I don't have a specific theme for this whole thing, I'll tell you a little bit about myself. I am a college senior (no, I don't know what I'm doing with my life and no, I don't really want to talk about it...slightly terrifying), I am from Vermont, my family is Swedish, I love my family, friends, boyfriend, and dog. I also love dogs in general, and I like spending my time baking, cooking, reading, writing, doing arts and crafts, and exercising. There is so much more that you will probably learn about me, but that mostly sums it up. Nice to meet you.

I realize that I haven't given you much reason to check back in. I mean, you don't even know what this blog is about. Let's be honest, I don't even know what this blog is about. Honestly, I'd say it will probably end up being a little bit of everything. I really narrowed it down, I know.

Until next time,
Hannah

P.S. Blogs are boring without pictures. Don't deny it. And because of this fact, here is a picture of my dog Pepsi. Isn't she beautiful?