An Easy Fall Salad Recipe + Some New Personal Goals in Food, Life, Recipes, Thoughts on 10/18/19Spoiler, I am not a food blogger; however, as I do dabble in my fair share of cooking adventures and consider myself a pretty solid recipe connoisseur, I figured I would share the recipe for this delicious fall salad I made the other night. Apologies for the low quality photo, again, not a food blogger— I promise you this salad is DELICIOUS. Super easy, cheap, filling, would be great for a Thanksgiving side, and you can get all of the ingredients at Trader Joe’s. Feel free to play around with proportions depending on what your preference of toppings is (ie, feel free to go ham on the cheese), as well as how much salad you intend to make. Ingredients Bag of mixed greens (spinach, arugula, etc) Bag of precut butternut squash (I microwaved it in the bag but it would be even better roasted, just do whatever you feel like!) Honeycrisp apple, thinly julienned Unexpected cheddar, diced into cubes Bag of raw pecans Organic Balsamic & Fig Dressing Basically, add as much as you want of everything and mix it all up and serve! Life Lately + New Personal Goals I’ve been having so much fun cooking again since moving into the new place. Things are still coming together (our couch comes tomorrow!), but it already feels like home. It’s such a great space and we are in love with the neighborhood. For anyone who missed it, I’m living with my sister in LA while I attend grad school at USC! She just started a new job and is living the 9-5 life, with a little travel here and there. I actually have been super busy and have a ton on my plate with only two classes, but I have been applying and am about to start interviewing for some freelance job opportunities just for some $$. I’m open to some sort of internship, but the majority of companies seem to only be interested in undergrad students, or don’t pay… I understand how experience itself can be worth it, but for me, three years out of undergrad with pretty diverse work experience, I just don’t think that’s an avenue I need to take. But I’m totally open to anything should the right opportunity present itself. Recently I’ve been spending a ton of time at home. Big Cancer energy. Since I’m walking distance to a ton of places and am usually bopping around going to workout classes or running errands, I feel like I get out and about enough; however, I recently feel like I just get trapped by my phone and will sit and scroll mindlessly and waste my morning. All of a sudden it’ll be like 1 in the afternoon and I’ve just been sitting at my kitchen table doing jack shit. I’ve been working on a 16-18 page research paper for the last couple weeks and there are sooo many hours I could’ve spent working on it but instead chose to watch the Daily Mail Snapstory and take dumb Buzzfeed quizzes. So! I’ve decided to instill a couple new goals to help me break this habit and replace it with some activities that are far more mindful, intentional, and will just help set me up for a good day. They’re nothing crazy or original by any means, but I think it’s important to be self reflective and analyze where we could work harder in our day to day lives to better ourselves. So, for me, I want to try the following: Start my morning WITHOUT my phone. Go for a walk around the neighborhood, listen to a podcast, or sit outside on my balcony and journal Find a dedicated place to work and get out of the house for a few hours 2x a week Drink more water. This is totally unrelated but I had an epiphany that I probably always have a headache because I’m not drinking enough water I’ll keep ya guys posted, and if you have any suggestions feel free to comment below!