On the road again

SUITE

So I'm back to "normal"- which means another 2-month stay at a hotel in Oklahoma. And I don't mean this in a negative way at all; on the contrary, I've grown to love living on the road. The hotel we're at this time is wonderful, and I've already started making myself at home.




Some things never change...


Luckily, our suites are pretty big, and this is actually  just one tiny, isolated messy area of the bedroom. The living room and kitchen portion are much cleaner I promise... but really, who wants to see a photo of a clean kitchen? The real challenge will come a few weeks from now, when I leave for the weekend to visit family in Phoenix. My coworker is letting me borrow some space in his suite to put all my stuff, but I'm really not looking forward to the packing that it's going to entail.

PLAY

This week has been a fairly busy one for my job- we're preparing to train several hundred soldiers, and have spent the majority of our time getting our classes and materials ready for this event. Yesterday was our first day of class, and my kids are absolutely wonderful so far. But too much work and no play has a tendency to make me a little crazy... so in my free time, I've been crocheting like a madwoman, reading the Pretty Little Liars books that Ames let me borrow, and shopping for things to put in Jeremy's next care package. In other words, I have the personal life of an 84-year old woman... and for the record, I am completely OK with this.

Everyone needs an obsession... thanks for this one, Amy!

GRUB

It is to be noted that most of the meals that I've eaten this past week have been great- I've been incorporating lots of whole grains, beans, and more vegetables that I usually do. Since going vegan, I've discovered a new favorite food- tempeh. It's kind of the halfway house between actual soybeans and tofu- slightly fermented, and mushed up into a cake that has a much better texture (in my opinion) than tofu, and it's so full of protein and fiber, and super filling. I've always bought the pre-marinated kind, but I wanted to replicate my favorite dish at 1892 East- their grilled tempeh is to die for. So I marinated my own in some Bragg's and spices, and sauteed it on the stovetop in my hotel and paired it with some steamed red quinoa. It looked pretty...

Just. Plain. Bad.

But it was probably the worst vegan dish I've ever prepared. I should have cut up the tempeh or found an actual grill to cook it on, because it had no flavor and tasted almost raw. I even managed to mess up the quinoa- since I cooked such a small quantity in my rice steamer, it got crunchy to the point of having the texture (and for that matter, the flavor) of gravel. I tried to convince myself that it wasn't too bad, but eventually I gave up and microwaved the incredibly unhealthy vegan taquitos I keep in my freezer for just such occasions.