Quinoa Salad Variation #1 - Summer Quinoa Salad (GF, Vegan)

As the weather has been getting warmer, I have been obsessed with making quinoa salads.  Inspired by a bean salad recipe I found, I soon found myself playing around with different ingredients to add into my quinoa salads.  Over the past couple months, I've come up with countless variations, but wasn't able to get a good picture until the most recent one I made yesterday.

I love making a big batch of this so that I can take it with me to class or work throughout the week.  Since it's a cold salad and has a great balance of proteins, carbs, and fats, these are one of my favorite foods to make in advance.

Paired with some salmon, this was the perfect dinner!

To see what's in here, keep reading:

May 2014 Empties

To kick off my beauty posts again, I decided to clear out some things that have been sitting in my room and show you all my empties.  To reiterate all my past posts, I like showing my empties as a way to show the products I liked enough to actually finish.  It's also a pathetic little attempt at justifying the amount of makeup I have by seeing the products I actually finish. It works....right?

Academics, achievements, memories, and beyond: the post-graduation reflection post you've all been waiting for

So...you may have all noticed that I've been a little quiet with my posts lately.  Part of that is explained by the most brutal weeks of finals I have ever encountered.  All my final papers, exams, and assignments absolutely killed me this semester.  I don't think I've ever been so sleep deprived, exhausted, or frustrated with school.

Then as soon as finals were over and before I really had a chance to recover, it was graduation...a weekend that flew by with ceremonies, receptions, family, and dinners.  In the midst of these activities, I couldn't help but be, like many others, a little sentimental about my time at college.

Three years ago, I stepped onto campus bright-eyed and excited for my future, convinced it would last forever.  I embraced college life - the dorms, the friends, the classes, the campus, DC, everything.  I became completely absorbed into student life in DC - I had friends, passion for what I was studying.  I loved my classes, my professors, and the intellectual challenges that I encountered.  Freshman year flew by in a flurry of classes, new friends, and new experiences, and before I knew it, I was jetting off into Central and South America on my first study abroad trip. In that summer, many things happened, but among them was a sense of finding out who I was and becoming comfortable with it.  That feeling has only grown stronger over the past two years as I've slowly started to discover what I like, what I don't like, and what I want for myself.  Do I know who I am now?  Will I ever know who I am?  Probably not.  But I take comfort in knowing that I will always be figuring it out in search of finding out what makes me me and becoming more comfortable with the uncertainty of never knowing exactly who I am.

I walked into college knowing I would graduate in three years, but I did not anticipate how quickly those three years would fly.  It seems like yesterday that I was meeting my roommate, and now we're both moving on together onto bigger and better things.  It also seems like yesterday that I landed in Berlin, Germany for my study abroad and felt instantly like I had finally found a place where I belonged, even though I had never been there before.

 Over the past year, I've convinced myself that my upcoming year at the school would be like a senior year; after all, it would be my fourth year at school.  But I'm realizing now that it won't be the same.  I will be a graduate student, taking a different load of courses, interacting with different people in my classes, and away from my friends that graduated with me.  It's time to accept that my undergraduate career is over; that although I will be here another year, the three years that I thought would last for forever have quickly come to an end.  It even seems like yesterday that I started my fall semester, entering my first graduate level class and becoming both a graduate and undergraduate student, completely sure of what I was doing yet totally terrified and underestimating myself.  This year was hard. I was challenged emotionally and mentally in ways that I had never experienced before.  I was stretched to my limits academically and somehow found myself (miraculously, at times) meeting those challenges.

When I look back on my years, I know they have been filled with yes, lots of academics and all-nighters and papers, but they have also been filled with accomplishments, challenges, friendships, and invaluable memories.  I would not be the person I am today without the friendship and support of various classmates, colleagues, and professors.  Without them, I would not have made it through the long nights of homework and stressful exam seasons without completely losing it.  I've completely changed since I entered college, and I consider that a good thing.  Equal parts more sure of myself and even more uncertain of myself,  my college career has ended, and I'm ready to move on to bigger things.

New in My Life

It's safe to say that my no-buy is officially over. From January to about the middle of March, I kept myself from buying any makeup to 1.) really use what I had and 2.) make an effort to save some money.  It worked for awhile - I was able to resist all the new products, new releases, and I was perfectly content rediscovering and finding new things in my collection.

However, eventually sales and the new summer products got to me and I had to add some new things to my collection.  Needless to say, my makeup buying is back with a bang, and I'm happily rolling in some new products!

I may or may not have jumbled up all my drugstore, Ulta, and other miscellaneous purchases with my Sephora purchases from dramatic purposes.

Click below to see the details!

Frittata - A Second Try Success

I tend to not consider too many of my recipes complete fails except on rare occasions when my pancakes become scrambled almond flour/banana/egg mixtures and my GF scallion pancakes become crumbles....but there are a lot of things that I wouldn't exactly call successes, either.

My attempts at frittatas could be placed in the "not so successful" category.  My first attempt for my family a few months ago -- perfect.  I can't even remember what I put in it, but I just remember everyone loving it, and it had the most perfect texture.  I know that I didn't put it in the oven at all, and I just let the eggs slowly cook on top of the stove. My second attempt.....wasn't so successful.  I think I added too much liquid (eggs + egg whites), making it too thick.  It didn't really cook right, and the center took forever to set, even after broiling it for a few minutes.


Determined to get it right again, I made it for a third time.

Success!

March 2014 Favorites

I think I'm getting better at this....instead of being two weeks late, my favorites post is now up just one week late.  I actually don't have that many favorites, and they are all predictably products that I have posted about recently with a couple surprises here and there.  Apart from the blushes that I posted about earlier, I have been reaching for the same things pretty consistently.

 Keep reading to see what I've been using!

Fyrinnae: the company that makes me giddy about makeup. Review, Haul, and Swatches!

I don't know what it is, but I've never really been into Indie makeup companies.  I have nothing against them, but I tend to forget about them, despite how FABULOUS they can be.  I think I can safely say that has changed.

Sometime around January, I had a sudden desire to start buying from Indie brands - I have no idea what prompted me to do so, but all of a sudden, I was spending hours browsing through various website and deciding what pigments and eyeshadows to get.  I think what drew me in was how complex different pigments could be - how one taupe shade could somehow have reflective shimmer in every color of the rainbow.  Most mainstream eyeshadow are not that complex, and let's face it - the prices of Indie companies is often more attractive, since a decent sized 1/4 tsp. sample is only around $1.75-$3.  These small samples are the perfect size to try a lot of different shades without having giant sizes of pigments that I'll never finish (MAC, I'm looking at you!)

Enter Fyrinnae into my life.  Within the beauty community, they are probably one of the best and unique Indie makeup companies.  Every time I see a look with Fyrinnae products, I'm kind of starstruck by how gorgeous everything looks.  The only thing that's tricky about Fyrinnae is that it can be difficult to order from them because their website is down a lot.  It's understandable - Fyrinnae is a very small company with a small staff, and since all their batches are handmade, it's easy to get overloaded with orders.  A lot of the times that I wanted to order something from their website, they were not taking orders, so when I saw that they were finally open again in January, I jumped at the chance to try some things out.

After furiously looking up swatches online, here's what I ended up with:

Keep reading for tons of pictures and swatches!