Banana Muffins

MMMMM 

We had tons of bananas here, far too many to eat before they went bad so we made banana muffins. Personally, bananas are my favorite fruit and also my mom's least favorite food, she can barely even stomach the smell so I was very surprised when she asked me to bake these muffins.

They tasted absolutely delicious and I now have my first recipe for my recipe stash. Below is my first go at a GIF! (all pronunciations are welcome). I am super excited that I made something really good, my mom and aunt are teaching me how to bake and cook to prepare me for real life haha.

Here is the link to the recipe and I would suggest adding 1 to 1&1/2 cups of chopped walnuts or pecans for added texture and flavor.

Enjoy!

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Blackberry Picking!

Today whilst sitting on my bed, tortured with the boredom of being probably the only person under 50 in the 20 mile radius surrounding me, I figured I would go pick some blackberries!

Just the other night, I was walking with my mom and on the way back we ran into a full grown female deer and she walking right up to me (well about 5 feet away from me) and I think if I had an apple she definitely would have come eaten out of my hand. Instead I picked some nearby berries and threw them to her and she chomped them up. The berries were super ripe so I figured I would use my spare time to go and try and pick enough for a pie! 

The beautiful berries themselves.

If you look close enough you can see the millions of tiny splinters in my fingers. SO WORTH IT THOUGH.

My beautiful bounty of berries.

I love the connection you get to your food through gathering it yourself. It feels as though you have really earned your beautiful dessert especially when blood and sweat is shed (are shed?). My english teacher aunt is visiting so I am suddenly hyper-aware of my terrible grammar. Tomorrow we are baking the pie for a few friends as a gift and I am so excited for them to enjoy it!

Also Panic! at the Disco is coming out with a new CD in October and I am beyond excited! Here is one of their early releases and when they go on tour you know who will be first in line for tickets (this girl)!

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Running

Warning, this is simply something that has been on my mind and is more of a look back for myself that I feel like writing about.

As a couple of you may know I am a bit of a runner (well used to be). It has been awhile since I had, what I would consider, a good, solid run. I used to be able to stack up miles like no tomorrow, 5, 10, 20 miles in one go. Now I start breathing hard after going up a flight of stairs. When I was a Freshman and Sophomore in high school I did cross country and distance track. Now, I was no varsity runner but I was a scoring runner for the Freshman then Sophomore teams (top five finisher for the team meaning, cross country wise, you bring in the points for the overall score). If I do remember correctly my 3 mile PR was 21:35 and my mile PR for track was 6:02, both achieved my sophomore year (freshman was 22:45 and 6:22 I believe). 

I was in incredible shape and super dedicated to my training. I did have two injuries from running, tendinitis in my ankle and some issues with my hip (ended up being both hips later on). My ankle healed up perfectly my freshman year but unfortunately my hip issues sophomore year still follow me today. The doctor described it as a hereditary issue that was triggered when I did the training for cross country. I  was treated on my left hip (the worse one) with ultrasounds to speed cell growth and physical therapy. The hip pains were the worst I have felt in my life and I have had some pretty bad injuries (broken leg and arm, sprained ankles, ect.). When I ran my hip felt uncomfortable, but the pain was the next day. The longer the run the worst, it got so bad that the few days after our long runs I would not be able to walk, especially because both hips were having the same issues.

I am talking about this now because I miss the thrill of running! I miss having my heart pound in my chest as I cross the finish line or get to the top of a massive hill. The yoga just ain't doing it for me and I am also a bit terrible at it. So, I am starting to ease my way back into training. I'm not afraid of my injury resurfacing because as long as I ease in and take care of myself I think I should be fine. I am starting by walking every night a few miles. I make sure I get some hills in and keep a fast pace and in a week or two I'll start jogging it and so on. And yes, I will continue the yoga *sigh* because I know it'll help stretch out my hips.

After the Huntington Beach Surf City Half Marathon I ran my Junior year (time 2:04).

Before, Women's Dirt Inspires Trail Half Marathon my senior year (time 2:43). Not my best but this race was truly the most fun race I have ever ran, beautiful trails through the national park near Santa Cruz. Also got to run it with my lovely older sister Francis.

After the race with our mom.

Now time to saddle up and actually break these puppies in, they definitely do not have nearly as much mud on them as they should! Soon I shall be running up and down the west coast instead of driving! Also a friend of mine invited me to run a half with her in December, if everything goes according to plan, those elites better watch out! 

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And Back Again!

Home sweet home!

As of today, I am back in Washington! Although I am slightly delirious from a 15 hour trip on the road (3:30AM to 6:30PM) I am still ecstatic to be here. My grandma's cabin on Whidbey Island will by my home for the next month and a half until school starts. The weather is perfect and the tide is just rolling in now. I still have a lot of things to take care of (first and foremost, getting a job on the island for the rest of summer or commuting an hour and a half to my job at the sandwich shop in downtown Seattle) and also care for my grandma and her house. I am just happy to be living in paradise for a few weeks.

I am surprised at how much summer I have left. The past month has been quite hectic (in a good way) and I have been all over southern California and have driven to Washington and back helping a couple different friends move. I have had such an unexpected summer and it has been such a blessing to get so much time with people I don't see often. And even now my adventures have not ceased!

But for now, I am happy just relaxing :)

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Dad's Birthday Dinner

Yesterday my mom and I both spent the entire day in the kitchen. Now, I don't know how to cook necessarily but I can follow recipes and I am getting better at eye-balling it and such. But I was not prepared for what we did yesterday. I started peeling the stems off of basil and spinach at 11am for the homemade pasta we decided to make. From then on it was cooking all day. It was a very cool experience overall. It was also exhausting. Having a genuinely home cooked meal is a pretty special deal and takes a lot of time and effort.

Homemade spinach, basil fettuccine in alfredo sauce (recipe here) we also added in chicken, carrots, and mushrooms after this picture was taken.

My beautiful little pastas, so much blood sweat and tears. But next time it'll be much easier now that I am more seasoned at it (seasoned hehe).

And to finish off a perfect dinner, my mom made a delicious mint chip ice cream brownie cake with Andes mints and fudge.

All in all it was an absolutely delicious dinner and dessert and even more so a beautiful evening spent with family and friends. I was so happy to make my dad that delicious dinner. He is a year older, but he still has a long way to go. 

When I was finishing up high school he had just gotten a job in San Diego. He lives there during the week and comes home every weekend, I never knew how important he was until he was barely there, doing what he has to do for our family. Just his presence in the house makes everything so much better. Now that I pretty much live in Washington, maybe when he retires he will move up! I can dream.

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Happy Birthday Dad!

On Being Thankful

Announcement, I am switching the domain name to lookingforseattle instead of primeofmytime in the next few days because it makes sense and that domain just became available. Please prepare accordingly, it will be changed in 5-7 days (I'm not the most consistent when it comes to blogging).

Late last night I was doing the usual and sifting through the internet for anything of interest, when randomly, I remembered this email a close friend of mine sent me in high school. Well, kind of random, I have been meaning to try and find it for awhile, I just remembered last night. And lo and behold, I still have it saved in my gmail. Rereading it brought tears to my eyes, and now a days that seems to be a rarity. I looked at the time and he had sent it at 3 in the morning... 

Looking back at that time in my life, it probably didn't seem like that big of a deal, just felt like something sweet and dear but it actually helped me through a very difficult chapter of my life. To know that someone was watching over me and taking care of me from afar makes me so thankful for all of my distant brothers and sisters that stay up late at night praying for me. 

And even though I did some solidly stupid things during those few pages, would I have made it through without them? 

I wish I had thanked him more profusely, I wish I had taken his words deeper to heart and believed in myself as much as everyone else did. But I know that with every mistake there is a learning curve. And yes, sometimes I wish there was some way to cover up different things that happened in my life, different things that I did. I feel like I am hiding things from everyone but I guess that doesn't really matter. I have been healed of those things.

This was quite the ramble, just some thoughts that have been passing through my mind. I am just so grateful for each and every person in my family (related and extended) for being there for me and I hope they know that I am always here when they need me.

Little Dragon - Twice

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