Sayonara!! Healthy traveling tips from me to you

Good morning! Ben and I are sitting at MSP waiting to board our flight to Chicago...after which we have a 14 hour flight to Seoul, a 3-ish hour layover and then another 5.5 hour flight to Bangkok. I am pretty pumped about being in Thailand, but not as pumped about 24+ hours of plane travel. I really have difficulty sleeping on planes so I am stocked up with melatonin, in hopes that will help. We'll be staying in Bangkok for 3 full days, then heading to Koh Pha Ngan (a southern island) for a week, then back to Bangkok for one more day before returning to Minneapolis. I am super excited! AND super-proud of our packing skills. After making it through 2 weeks in Turkey this winter with only a duffel bag and a backpack, I was convinced I could do it again - especially since Turkey involved suits and sweaters, whereas Thailand involves mostly sundresses and bathing suits. So, we are taking a 2 week international trip with only carry on baggage! A roller bag, a giant purse, a duffel and a backpack. And we packed an extra nylon duffel inside the backpack for all our purchases :)

Ben and I are not exactly strangers to international travel - between us we have India, Singapore, Japan, Ghana, Germany, Hong Kong, Mexico, Costa Rica, Turkey, Norway, Greece, Canada (eh!), Cuba, Thailand, Holland and Switzerland under our belts. One thing that always gets me on these journeys is food and snacks - yes, they feed you on the plane and while the meals themselves are usually fine, sometimes you need a wholesome and filling snack to tide you over. So, last night when I was procrastinating packing, I made this video about healthy travel tips, and how I plan to snack healthy and keep up my yoga while we're traveling. Like my other videos it is totally awkward. Enjoy!




There are also a couple of things I forgot to mention in the video:
1) Stay hydrated! Bring a giant bottle of water (after you've made sure you won't have to go through security again) - sometimes they do NOT give you enough water on the plane so it's good to have your own supply.
2) Eating at the airport is expensive but it doesn't have to be unhealthy. Starbucks is my favorite place to grab a travel meal... I love their oatmeal, and they have a number of sandwiches under 500 calories (look at the nutrition info) and sometimes snack plates with cheese and fruit.

As I said in the video, I'm really going to try to keep up with blogging while we're traveling but I can't really say how great our internet connection will be. I'll aslo be (hopefully!) updating my flickr account (I'll post the link later). See you on the flippity-flip!

Accent Video and Road Trip!

First things first - Ben and I signed the lease on our new apartment!... I guess it's really a condo if we're going to get technical about it, but it will be our first home together and I am pretty excited, if maybe a little sad to be saying goodbye to my apartment soon.

In other news, I've been seeing this accent video floating around the blogosphere and thought I'd give it a go. Since my other attempts at making a video have been perfect and totally devoid of awkwardness, I decided to see if I could act halfway normal for five minutes. Turns out not. If you all you've ever wanted in life is to see me rambling incoherently about the weather in Minnesota, yoga, and my strange and brief stint as a Californian look no further:

Here's the list if you want to do this in your own blog:
Words: aunt, route, wash, oil, theater, iron, salmon, carmael, fire, water, sure, data, ruin, crayon, toilet, New Orleans, pecan, both, again, probably, spitting image, Alabama, lawyer, coupon, mayonnaise, pajamas, syrup, caught

Questions:
What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?
What is the bug that curls into a ball when you touch it?
What is the bubbly carbonated drink called?
What are gym shoes called?
What do you say to address a group of people?
What do you call a spider with an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs?
What do you call the wheeled contraption you put your groceries in at the store?

What do you call your grandparents?

What is it called when it rains while the sun is shining?
What do you call the contraption you change the TV channel with?

In OTHER other news, we obviously survived the drive back to Ohio. We left at 6:30AM, which seems horrible but I actually love watching the sunrise while driving.



We were fully armed with a delicous bag of snacks: Lara Bars, Cadbury Mini Eggs, homemade banana bread, apples and other deliciousness....



... which still didn't stop me from grabbing my second cup of crappy gas station coffee after less than two hours of driving. Road trips are the only time I ever drink bad coffee... it just seems appropriate for some reason.


We also packed sandwiches from Lucia's for a mid-day treat. I always feel it's important to have a lunch you look forward to, and you never know what you're going to find at a roadside stop so I like to play it safe.

We are having a great time so far, I'll be back with more updates!

Blondies and first video post!

So... remember how I've been posting all of those healthy recipes full of vegetables?

...yeah. No more of that. Inspried by the lovely Brittany and Jenna, both of whom have posted AMAZING looking blondies in the past week, I decided to whip up a batch of them for myself...granted they are from a box, but I'm pressed for time with class tonight and a paper due tomorrow, so box it is.

And then, for some reason I decided to make a video. No idea where that impulse came from...none. If you've read my "about me" page, you'll know I'm actually kind of shy and awkward...although I do like talking to myself and also to inanimate objects, and besides, who doesn't want to watch a video of me walking around my kitchen and talking to my baking pan?

In any case, these videos are probably totally ridiculous, and in reviewing them before posting I already noticed several glaring problems:

1) My microwave/thermos/paper towel/cookbook shelf features quite prominently, as do my Emeril recipe card box and Land O' Lakes coffee thermos... maybe they should pay me advertising fees. hint hint. product placement??
2) Total fail on showing the pan with the brown butter in it. You can see like... a corner or the pan, and the rest of the shot is basically the front of my shirt and the kitchen floor. Completely not intended.
3) They're kind of useless.
4) I sound SO Minnesotan... do I always sound that Minnesotan??
5) Also I have no idea how to do video editing on my computer, so instead of one continuous video, there are three. It's like a trilogy. Let's pretend I planned it that way.

3)





...so... here's the verdict. These are DELICIOUS. Not quite as delicious as a from-scratch batch of Deb's brown butter blondies, but really great in a pinch...they are RICH though. And you can definitely taste the brown butter so I'm glad I decided to add that step :)

Sorry it took so long to get this up...uploading the videos took for.ever. Hence these video posts will probably be few and far between (yep you can breathe a sigh of relief now... ) Have a great night!