Quality Friday: Sleep - It Does a Body Good

Since early April, I have found myself working much longer hours, sometimes tearing myself away from my computer after 8 or 9pm at night. Working from home can be challenging, because it is difficult to create boundaries between work-life and home-life when there is no physical difference between where they take place. My "office" is the couch. My relaxation spot is also the couch. I can effectively keep working and allow myself to think I'm relaxing without even realizing in.

When it does occur to me that the balance in my life has been severely tilted towards work, I find myself getting frustrated and looking for more things to "do" to physically force myself away from work. Case in point, I signed up for a marathon. Don't get me wrong - I'm very excited to be training, and am thrilled to be doing it for a great cause. Still, part of my reasoning for doing so was a bit flawed.

One reason for a marathon training program? Having something else to do will force me to stop working earlier in the evenings so that I can "do something for myself". The reality? Now I have one more (hugely time-consuming) activity to try to fit into an already crammed work and travel schedule. My solution lately? Stay awake longer. Well, who needs sleep anyway?

Me, I'm learning.

Last Monday night, as Mark and I were sitting on the couch enjoying our evening before my whirlwind week of travel, I found myself mentally working down the list of things I needed to get done before I left. I picked up my computer to check into my flight. Mark asked me to please put it down and please try to spend some time with him - we were in the middle of a conversation, and it was obvious that I was barely listening. Worse, I found myself getting increasingly frustrated that he was still talking to me when I clearly had so much to do and was obviously already tired. I could feel my pulse racing until as we started to argue, and finally I snapped at him.

I immediately found myself fighting back tears, as I buried my face in Mark's shoulder. Why can't I just get it all done? I cried. I'm exhausted, and obviously have not figured out how to manage my time. I have so much to do, and don't understand why I have to have a limit. I don't want to be limited. You know I hate it when I feel like I can't do something, and right now I'm pretty sure I'm not doing anything well, I sobbed to him.

Lovingly, my husband comforted me. He reminded me that I needed to be a little easier on myself, get more rest and put less pressure on myself. He told me that how much he appreciated me and promised to be more understanding and less demanding of my time. He said all the right things and was an absolute Saint.

Fast-forward to 11:30 pm Thursday night, when again, I was a completely exhausted wreck, having traveled to Seattle and then LA in the previous 2 days. Barely surviving on less that 4 hours of sleep per night, I still forced myself to get up early that morning to run at the hotel gym. Intermittently, I was crabby and snapping at Mark, then falling asleep on him, as we tried to talk on the phone for the first time that day.

Finally, he begged me to just go to bed already. When I complained that I needed to get up early to run, he told me that I was bing ridiculous and reminded me that I desperately needed sleep. Please sleep, he pleaded. Just catch up - you'll feel so much better. Don't set your alarm until you ACTUALLY need to get up tomorrow.

Thank God for his persistence, and that I had the sense to listen. Immediately, I crawled into bed, and surprised myself by waking up ahead of my alarm, well rested.

My day on Friday was wonderful. Amazingly, I am a much calmer and happier person when I get enough sleep:) I truly believe that just one night of solid shut-eye made the entire difference for my weekend. Instead of going into it exhausted, I was well rested and de-stressed. On both Friday and Saturday nights, I followed suit, going to bed early and waking up feeling wonderful, able to truly enjoy (and focus on) the time that Mark and I shared together.

I hope that this is a new leaf that I'm turning over. Away with the crabby, unbalanced person that I've been. Here's to Sleep - a key component in my quest towards balance and proper boundaries in my life!

Adventures in Pasta

Last weekend brought with it a new adventure in cooking - one that Mark and I took on together for Date Night on Saturday. Mark suggested that we finally break open a Christmas gift from eons ago (seriously, I think it was a gift from me to him before we got married!) and make individualized ravioli, from scratch!

The beauty of this idea is that Mark and I generally have very different food cravings. For example, pizza night usually involves two separate pies - a meat lovers with extra cheese for Mark, and a veggie option for me (not that I don't like meat, I just LOVE spinach and onions and peppers and mushrooms). So we picked our fillings and set out to make the pasta.

Amazingly, the dough is quite easy to mix, using only a few ingredients. Each serving contains 2 oz. semolina, 1 1/2 -2 oz. bread flour, 1 egg, 1 t vegetable oil and a pinch of salt (water is optional if the dough gets too dry).



After kneeding and letting the dough sit for 15 minutes, we then prepared it for the pasta maker, ensuring it was well floured on both sides.


The trick to making good dough is to pass it through the flat rollers multiple times to continue to kneed the dough. The knob at the top has numbered settings ranging from 7 to 1 (thick to thin).

After each pass through, more flour is dusted on the dough. The knob setting is then stepped down, to make the dough increasingly thinner. We ended on setting 5, deciding that ravioli that is too thin would not hold the filling very well.

Meanwhile, on the stove our fillings were cooking. Mark chose a spicy Italian sausage mixture, which he used both in his ravioli and in his sauce. I opted for spinach, garlic and mushrooms with fresh mozzarella for my filling.


Once the dough was rolled to our desired thinness, we cut it to fit width of the ravioli plate, added our fillings to half the dough strip, and folded the remaining over, pressing the edges well. Was this the correct approach? Not quite sure, but since our manual no longer exists and the on-line version was lacking specific instructions, we improvised.


Admittedly, this rolling and cutting of the ravioli squares was nowhere near perfect in our multiple attempts. Adding the filling was tricky - it can't be too warm (mistake #1) or too thickly spread (mistakes #2-4) as these both cause the ravioli to ooze and not remain intact as it is rolled through the cutting plates.

Alas, here is what we ended up with. Not very evenly stuffed, but perhaps next time, with more practice. :)

After 4 leisurely hours of playing with dough, Mark perfecting our sauces (Fresh basil is key here, friends. And lots of it.) and "experimenting" with the pasta maker our ravioli finally made it to water that had been boiling on the stove for a good hour in preparation. The bottle of wine we consumed along the way certainly added to the fun of the evening!


The final result? One of the most fulfilling and enjoyable pasta dishes we've ever had, and an experience that we'll look back on fondly for years to come.


Buon appetito!

Quality Friday: Making Every Minute Count

Last weekend's trip back to Chicago was as Jam Packed as could be. Really, is there any other way to do it, when you only have a few brief days to spend with family and friends?

I'm amazed at the number of people I was able to see and the number of things I was able to do in the short time between Saturday evening and Tuesday afternoon. My spirits were lifted, my belly was full, and my eyelids were heavy by the time I headed back!

Saturday night, after dinner and wine at home with Dad, Jonathan and Casandra, I briefly stopped in at Melissa and Steven's to hug and spend a few moments with Orlando and Esther.

Sunday morning began early with brunch at Starbucks/Tre Kroner with Melissa, Ann-Marie and Kjersten, followed by church at Edgebrook.

The Original Brunchettes.

Immediately after church, I picked up Leslie and we cruised downtown to the Greek Islands where we met Norman for a lovely lunch. I wasn't even remotely hungry when we arrived, but who can resist a plate full of taramasalata and an order of pastitsio?

Just a few hours later, I had my third meal of the day at a restaurant - dinner at Garcia's with my parents, brothers, Shruti and Casandra to celebrate Dad's birthday. I've missed so many family events in the past month - Jonathan's college graduation, Mom's birthday and Mother's Day, Brandon's birthday on Wednesday, and Daniel's high school graduation tonight - opportunities that I'd have to spend time with my fantastic family if we didn't live 2000 miles away.

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

After allowing the day's worth of food plus cake to settle, Jonathan and I even went for a run at 11pm on Sunday night!

Monday and Tuesday were filled with meetings at work and a chance to gather hugs from friends at the office, enjoy snippets of their lives and a few minutes of face time. And on Monday night, after a team dinner (yes, another one!) at Carlucci's, Melissa and I headed out to see SATC, followed by cosmos at the new Velez Luce home (where I also spent the night in their chic guest room)!

Chicago, I love you. I miss you when I'm gone, and enjoy every moment when I'm back. The only thing that could have made the weekend better is if Mark had been there, too.

Next time, I'm bringing him back with me. Period.