Quick and Delicious Pad Thai

If you're like me you need some fast go to dinner ideas that are also tasty and relatively healthy!  I've mastered this Pad Thai that you can get as a kit in the local super market.  The key, though, to making it your own is to add the ingredients that you and your family like.

You'll need:

Pad Thai Kit
Tofu or chicken
veggies - including onions, carrots, broccoli etc
cashews or peanuts
fresh herbs
lime or lemon juice

Preparation:

Cook the noodles according to directions and then rinse with cold water.  Then they're ready to go when you are

Sautee onions and carrots until translucent and add in broccoli and additional veggies.  Add a dash of soy sauce and some lemon juice to aid in the cooking.

Add in noodles, sauce, fresh herbs and allow to heat up.  Then garnish with crushed nuts and serve!

Voila.  Fast and delicious in under a half hour!

To horse or not to horse

Being a Mom is not an easy job.  You want to do the best thing for your children while also worrying about their safety and their ultimate happiness.  Living in a place like Silicon Valley can be very demanding in many ways and has a very fast pace.  Children, early on, are pushed into many activities and camps and schools because it's a very competitive environment.  

One of my main goals and challenges is to raise a grounded and well rounded little person and hopefully spare her from some of the pitfalls that I went through as a shy but attractive blonde...like she appears to be also.

So one day she decided she wanted to do horse riding and I got a big pit in in my stomach.  But I conceded and found a wonderful barn for her to ride and...as luck has it she loves it.  Not only does she love it but her self confidence has grown with leaps and bounds and she can't wait every week to ride.  So my trepidation luckily turned into joy seeing a little person bond with this huge animal and come out happier and wiser for it.

Jumping...?  Maybe not.  But learning to take care of an animal and communicate with it is a precious gift and talent.

Redesigning and Redecorating

We moved into a new house last summer.  It's a great house.  We got really lucky when purchasing it and it required almost no changes.  What a huge relief after living in a house that was built in 1929!

But...theres a lot to be said about making a house your own.  In this case there was something off that brought my mood down but I couldn't put my finger on it.  After months of toiling over this I realized it was the silver sage color of paint in the living room.  So off to Benjamin Moore I went and I picked out an off white shade that had pink undertones.  I've read that pink creates a warmer feel to a room.  And...Voila!  My amazing painter had it done in one day and the room has a brighter, warmer and lighter feel to it that lifts moods and makes people feel more cheerful.

It's amazing the difference that just changing one shade of paint color in a house can make.  And it compliments the restoration hardware sofas and media console that I just purchased.