Day 3

Christmas finally came down tonight. I almost shed a tear.

It was just such a lovely holiday season this year that I wasn’t ready to let it go! It also made our house cozy to have our little tinsel tree and ornaments up, with cards displayed around the house. But our place is still cozy. And this weekend I WILL post pictures! What DID make me cry, though, was a certain white dress scene in the new season of Downton Abbey, which I just started catching up on tonight. Gosh, I love that show.

So… I survived Day 3 of the (anti-) cleanse! It’s actually been very manageable, and I am still very happy to report that my stomach is feeling great. Of course, there are a lot of factors involved that may explain this (abstaining from dairy, gluten, sugar, caffeine, alcohol, and paying attention to food combinations).

Two of my favorite meals from yesterday: raw Caesar salad, to which I added chickpeas for a little extra protein:

And my attempt at homemade sushi last night.

I tried making these once before and they really fell apart, and this time was a little better…. I got a few tips on Instagram on how to keep it together better, like moistening the whole sheet of nori instead of just the part I needed to seal. Still, I made two rolls and they were quite delicious! I especially loved the tahini sauce.

A really good “dessert” I’ve been having is medjool dates stuffed with walnuts. When dates are soft, they are SO GOOD! The best dates I ever had were from a market in Nice, and they’d probably just come over from Turkey. They were rich, plump, and literally oozing with freshness. Dreamy, hmmm? I digress…

I wanted to share some good books I read on vacation. The Invisible Bridge was recommended to me from one of my former coworkers who shares some of my literary taste. (We both loved Gone Girl and Where’d You Go Bernadette, and you will too!) It’s about a young Hungarian man who moves to Paris to study architecture. He’s Jewish, and the late 1930s are becoming less and less friendly in Europe. Yes, it’s a story of war, but it’s also about coming of age and friendship and family and art and discipline. And of course there’s a love story.

You’ve probably heard of One Day , the movie starring Anne Hathaway. However, my friend Leah, who recommended it to me, urged me to read the book instead. As I don’t like to read the backs of books, all I knew going into it was that I would be reading about love. While it is about a relationship, it’s quite unconventional in that it doesn’t take the typical twists and turns of the usual love story. Every time you think you know what’s going to happen, the author throws you a complete curveball. I read it in two days sitting by the pool.

B just got home from a work trip and we’re going to have a Breaking Bad marathon watch an episode of Breaking Bad before bed. We’re addicted… heh heh.