This weekend while I was treating myself like a queen on Valentine’s Day, I realized how much I need to slow down my life and enjoy the little things.

Seriously, I find as I get older that I get easily distracted and wrapped up in work, family or friend frenzy/drama and don’t take time to really sit back and relax. Again, on Valentine’s Day, I had a list of things I wanted to get done, but after awhile, I just enjoyed walking around and making plans with a friend to see a movie. Suddenly, that list of things I should really get done, didn’t really matter.

Planning meetups with friends seem to always be so complicated the busier you get, I’ve also realized that lately I’ve said to too many people, “I haven’t seen you in ages!”

Maybe it’s just that time of year?

And today on my President’s Day off, rather than go out and run the seemingly endless number of errands I have to do, I opted for a low-key brunch with work friends and friends of work friends. There were Bloody Marys, champagne, peach juice, New York bagels, cream cheese, lox, chocolate croissants and citrus salad, and as we sat around the kitchen table laughing and sharing stories, I remember thinking, d*mn this is fun.

And with good eats/drinks like this, conversation came VERY easily :)

So then I thought about the other little things I want to slow down and enjoy doing: spending time w/friends, reading, cooking, writing, laughing, relaxing, entertaining, playing Wii, watching movies.

Sure, these things aren’t major, but maybe it will help to keep me from feeling like time is racing by and it’s a blur rather than a collection of memories.

What about you? Do you notice that you’re busier than normal now? Or what do you do to slow down and relax when you’re not working or busy with other things in your life?

Movie review: I know Valentine’s Day is over but the movie review is still up to check out!

I think just about everyone knows how (un)talented I am in the kitchen. But sometimes, I love a good challenge.

Recently, my buddy Maris posted on her blog “6 Recipes Anyone Can Cook.” Anyone? Really? I smell a challenge. And I decided to test that theory in two parts.

So over the long weekend, I tackled part one, which included making the following recipes:

• Mixed Fruit & Nut Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette
• Whole Wheat Spaghetti with Swiss Chard
• Macaroni & Cheese with Peas

I did my research, went to the grocery store, got cookin’ and wrote a little review of each with an assigned level of difficulty (1 = anyone can do it, 5 = I’ll leave it to Martha).

And here’s how it turned out:

Mixed Fruit & Nut Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette

Photo borrowed (with permission) from Maris’ blog

Level of difficulty: 1

Review: I LOVE this salad. I make it regularly in the summer and when I want to mix up my weekday dinners. Sometimes I’ll substitute mixed greens for spinach and recently added chicken breast strips for extra protein. I love the mix of cranberries, raisins and crunch from the walnuts. Adding goat cheese makes even more heavenly. But be light with the balsamic, I overdid it once and it killed that entire bowl of salad. Ick.

Whole Wheat Spaghetti with Swiss Chard

Level of difficulty: 3.5

Review: This was the dish I was MOST nervous about making. When I read over the directions, I had a near panic attack at the thought of sauteing and simmering garlic. Then adding the cooked pasta on top of it and stirring? Hmmm, I’m more of a one box/pot dinner kind of girl. But this was easier to make than I thought it would be and the taste is amazing. Sure, I got a little burn from the olive oil in the frying pan, but once I added the cheese and noodles, it all came together perfectly. I made enough to eat this whole week for dinner. Note: I substituted the Pecorino-Romano cheese for Parmesan and it still turned out great.

Macaroni & Cheese with Peas

Level of difficulty: 2

Review: I love mac and cheese (or just cheese). Normally I blue-box it but I’m always looking for ways to make it healthier and natural (given that powdered cheese isn’t really…cheese). And the directions to make this are super easy, but somehow, I managed to mess it up a little bit. Somewhere between mixing in the cheese, milk and flour, it went a little awry. I blame that on the milk and cheese I used because I deviated slightly from the recipe and went with fat-free options. But it’s good and a great way to get a serving of veggies, although next time I would halve the amount of peas used or try other veggies too.

And that is part one of this culinary test. I give myself a B+ grade and agree that anyone could probably cook these, just make sure to take your time on the middle recipe because there are definitely a few extra steps :)

Part two will be coming up soon and I’m curious to see how I handle the next batch of recipes.

What about you? What’s the easiest dinner or recipe you like to make for weekends or weeknights? Do you get a lot of your cooking or dinner ideas online? Or do you have go-to resources for recipes and easy dinners?

Me on BlogHer! That’s right, yesterday’s post was picked up by BlogHer! Very exciting. You can check it out here.