Otto Pizza and Garlic n' Lemons

Hello everyone,

If you've been reading for awhile, you already know how much I love eating.  Whether it's my own cooking, other homemade cooking, or eating out, quite a bit of my blog content is about food  haha. So it probably won't surprise you that I've begun exploring the restaurants here in Boston!  

One of the best excuses for going out to eat has to be to catch up with an old friend, so that's exactly what we did!  Zac and I go like..  waaayyy back.  all the way back to elementary school.  We went to the same elementary school, same middle school, and to high school, and now, we also have Boston University as our alma mater together  =)

for our big reunion, we chose Otto Pizza.  Zac is a Boston pro/veteran, and he was nice enough to show me around town for the afternoon.

and this place?!  so. amazing.  I mean..  just look at this pizza.
it really was delicious.  I can't remember what it was called, but it had spicy pork, and we almost finished the whole pie by ourselves  haha

I'm so glad to have gotten a chance to catch up with him, talk about all of our experiences that we went through together, and how we have rather different memories about certain experiences, even though we went through it at the same time.  That's what's so fascinating about our memories though, isn't it? it all depends on who does the remembering, and what we choose to remember.

Another new place Zac recommended that I tried with my roomies was Garlic n' Lemons!

great Mediterranean place that's also great for vegetarians!

the food was great, the service was really quick (it's really more like fast food) and the servers were really friendly!  afterall, they are a Mom and Pop, I mean, Mom and Son Restaurant!  ;)

Everything we tried was really wonderful, but I have to say... the Baklava...  guys... the Baklava...  

  

I would go back just for the Baklava.

It was so great to go exploring with these lovely peeps, and I can't wait for more exploring and more roomy dinners to come!  =)

Have a wonderful weekend, and thanks so much for stopping by!  =)

--Janny

Roommate Dinner :: Zoodles!!

Hello everyone!

We are starting a new tradition at our apartment.  

We're going to have weekly roomy dinners where we cook together, eat and chat for like 2 hours, and then clean up.  this time, I washed the dishes, Jenny dried them, and Shawn put them away.  It was pretty cute haha

On the menu this week was Zoodles with some grilled chicken and this amazing sauce Shawn whipped up!

Shawn actually just started her blog too, and look how cute she is taking pictures of the zucchini  ;) I'm so glad I have someone else here who blogs and understands my inability to stop taking photos of every little thing  =D   so hop on over there after you're done here to go check her out at her little corner of the interweb  =)

The reason we chose the menu we did was because of this lil guy.  The Spiralizer!!  we had been seeing so many recipes calling for these zucchini noodles, aka 'Zoodles' recently, so we had to try it out for ourselves.

it was quite simple to make it, really.  You cut the ends off, put it in the spiralizer, and spin!

and tada! your zucchini turns into these lovely Zoodles!!!

It was strangely satisfying to make it, it took literally a minute. and we had so much fun taking 'turns,' (ah ha) we're not gonna lie, it kinda felt like Christmas morning after you receive a new toy  haha

perhaps waay too excited about our Zoodles...?   naww!  no such thing!  ;)

We kept the Zoodles raw this time, though we're thinking about maybe cooking them next time.  I actually really liked them raw, so I'm excited to see how they turn out when they're cooked.

We plated the Zoodles, put some amazing sauce on top with a side of grilled chicken, and we were set for the best dinner of the week!  we ate, and chatted, and laughed so hard that a tear may or may not have escaped our eyes...  haha aren't those the best kind of dinners though?  =) 

I'm so glad that we found each other since all three of us moved to Boston for the first time without knowing too many people.  It was such a fun night, and I can't wait for more to come! =)

Thanks for stopping by, and have a wonderful weekend!

--Janny

Garth Newel :: Waterfall Wanderings

Hello everyone!

The thing about living at Garth Newel is that we are surrounded by gorgeousness all around.  I mean, we drove a couple of minutes, and stumbled upon this unmarked trail.  Ok, so it wasn't completely by accident that we stumbled upon the trail because Robbie had been here before, but it was still completely unmarked, and it still felt like we were exploring off the beaten path.

 the crew!

and after walking just a couple of minutes, we were greeted with this view!

No one was on the trail except for our group, and we had such a great time just meandering, talking, and enjoying each other's company.  This little bridge wound all around the waterfall, and we climbed  up until the bridge transitioned back into dirt rail.

The water is apparently freezing, so I was perfectly fine with not going in, but Robbie swam in this little pool while we hiked up a bit further.

Our suite is full of shutterbugs!

I love these peeps!!

It was such a beautiful hike! and I'm in love with Virginia!
We are leaving soon, but I can't wait to come back and explore this beautiful part of the country some more  =)
Thanks for stopping by, and have a wonderful weekend!
--Janny

Roommate bonding

Hello everyone!

When Amulet contacted me via Facebook last semester to be potential roommates, 

I could've never guessed just how much bonding adventures/times we would have together this year.

I mean, it's only been 2 weeks, and the fact that I already have so much to write about says something...

First, let us start with the air mattresses.

When we first got to our apartment, it was completely bare.

Being the amazing roomy she is, she blew up 2 air mattresses-one for herself and one for me- to sleep on the first night.  aww so sweet!  =)

In a couple of hours, however, both of them had deflated...

No matter what we did, we just couldn't seem to keep air in these air mattresses!

After a couple of mornings of waking up on the floor surrounded by the air mattress material,

we each got our own beds, and she bought a new air mattress for guest use.

That night, we blew that one up so my daddy could sleep on it for a night.

Much to our delight, this one kept its air for a long time!

Much to our chagrin, the mattress kept its air much too well...  

This time, no matter what we did, we just couldn't get the air mattress to deflate!

.................................

We left the cap unscrewed for a full day.  nothing.

We rolled around on it with the cap unscrewed.  nothing.

We got the automatic pump and set it on the deflate mode. nothing.

WWHHHAATTT!!!!

we were so perplexed.

Purely by chance, I happened to insert my pinky into the cap, and we heard a gush of air.

I couldn't figure out what was causing the mattress to deflate, but as long as I kept my finger there, it seemed to do the trick.

So, for the next 15 or so minutes, Amulet and I rolled around on the air mattress while my pinky was still stuck in the cap, trying to deflate this too-well-made air mattress.

and there was much laughter shared at the ridiculosity of the situation.

That has got to be the most eventful air mattress deflating I have ever experienced in my life...

.......................................................

Another major bonding moment happened when we decided to do our laundry together.

Usually doing laundry for me gets as exciting as how great the clothes smell,

but this time, we were so excited to do laundry because Amulet's dad had fixed our broken laundry machine for us the day before!

Little did we know that it would break down once again... 

this time, right before the spin cycle.

This meant that all of our clothes were still completely submerged in soapy water when the machine broke.

So...  we went fishing for our clothes in our own washer!

Amulet individually wrung them out, and I transferred them in a laundry basket to our neighbor's washer.

(soaking wet clothes are incredibly heavy, by the way)

That would have been bonding enough, but then we realized that we probably needed to get rid of all of the water just sitting in our washer...

Now, I'm sure there are ways to get the washer to drain by itself, but how are we to know that?

So we did the only thing we could think of;

we employed cups and trash cans to manually pump out ALL of that water out of our washer...

talk about roommate bonding...

 We made so many trips to the sink with the trash cans...

But!!  We did get a killer arm workout that day!  =)  haha

So, as you can see, our lives at the Fighting Blueberries Apt has been quite eventful.

What I love about living here with Amulet is that we always seem to be laughing;

we are both pretty 'chirpy' people.  haha

I mean, if we can laugh while we are manually pumping the water from the washer, I think it's safe to say that we laugh through almost anything  ;)

I have a feeling we're going to be having more of these bonding moments,

so stay tuned!  haha!

Thanks for reading, and happy weekend!!!!!!!

--Janny