Blog binge

I've been on a blog binge lately, namely because of the black hole of productivity known as Pinterest. I'm obsessed right now. For those stragglers who have yet to get a Pinterest account, Pinterest is basically a virtual bookmark "board." It takes users' favorite pictures and articles from around the articles and "pins" them on a giant board that you can scroll through and then re-pin to your own boards. It's kind of like Tastespotting or any of the gawker sites, except for every concept conceivable: fashion, interior decorating, travel , food, work-out tips, products, inspirational quotes with a heavy DIY influence, so you'll find a lot of "make your own prepackaged foods" or "tailor your own shirts" pins.  You know how they say that getting a Facebook notification or text is like a drug addict taking a hit nowadays because we're stimulated so much by social media? Well, Pinterest is kind of like that for me -- whenever I sign on, I feel instantly a little less stressed, a little happier because the page in front of me is full of beautiful DSLR taken images of weddings and recipes instead of antibodies and complement (currently in our immunology block). I could happily spend hours pinning those beautiful home decorating DIY's, work-out tips, sewing tutorials even though I've never stitched a pillow, upholstered a chair, or hemmed my own pants in my life (I have used some of the work-out tips though!). And then once I've pinned it to my board, I usually forget about it or never look at it again. Clicking on picture then takes you to the original article or blog it came from, so I've also discovered so many new blogs lately, and then that leads to another hour or three wasted reading through the blogs of beautiful and glamorous women, who's lives I will never have. It's fascinating and addicting in the moment (ooh, a blog for petite Asian women! a blog for decorating my future dream home! a travel blog of all the places I want to go!) but in the end, pretty pointless and even counterproductive, because not only am I wasting time in the moment, I'm also only fantasizing about a life I won't ever have the time to lead as a future doctor. But nonetheless, I've added them all to my blog roll to obsess about at a later time. If you must know, they're Gary Pepper Vintage (a gorgeous Aussie's high end fashion blog), Iowa Girl Eats (healthy, yet hearty food from a girl who shares my work out to eat philosophy), Extra Petite, and Alterations Needed (the later two have handy tips for buying clothes for petite women. I'm nowhere as small as them, but I think I'll give buying kids clothes a shot now!). And what do you know, I'm back on Pinterest to procrastinate even writing this blog post.

Here are some of the pins that I've actually used!

I spent 2 hours this morning straining the mixture with paper towels because I didn't have a strainer or a cheesecloth. But I love pumpkin creamer...and this way I can have it all year round! Though I did see it for the first time in the grocery store this morning! I grit my teeth and made the organic version myself though. 

I haven't gotten through this whole workout yet, but seeing random work out pins come up always inspires me to take a break and sweat for a couple minutes. 

I've been doing this after 45 min long cardio sessions as well. Try it! It's calming. 

Anddd some on my wish-list: 

My dream bathing suit! Don't have a spare $225 to drop on it right now though. 

Gorgeous medieval rings.

In personal news, this weekend was a quiet weekend in Baltimore for me. It's the first weekend after the test, so nothing too heavy academically (except a slew immunology lectures I have to catch up on hanging over my head), but most of my friends are home, so I've just been staying in, reading, working out (yesterday), and cooking and Pinteresting (today). This morning, I ran to the Farmer's market though and picked up a huge bag of kale (I feel like he packed 5 lbs of kale into a 2 lb bag!), sweet peppers, thai chili pappers, sweet potatoes, and an acorn squash today. Then stopped by the normal grocery store to get some eggs and cream. And it all came to around $20! Grocery success. I wasn't a total hermit and went to a friend's house on Friday night before hitting up a couple bars in Fells (the next morning, I explained to my mom the concept of a pregame. I love how my parents don't act surprised when I tell them how much I drink anymore...) and cooked zucchini lasagna with my friends before watching a really depressing war movie. But the lasagna was delicious! 

Zucchini Lasagna

I used this recipe, but I use recipes as more of a guideline to what I need to do rather than following it to the tee. My friends brought over rainbow chard, so we chopped that up and put it in the sauce, and I added mushrooms and omitted most of the meat to make it even healthier. It was still great! 

Tomorrow it's back to the grind. Already looking forward to next weekend already!