oh hey

eggs 'n boots

Oh hey...it's me. I'm alive!

These past few weeks you must have all been on the same wavelength...I've received several comments and nice emails hoping I'd be back soon and wishing all was well. Thank you! I've been missing for.....FOUR MONTHS! But the best part is....we ARE well--very well....life has just gotten so busy that I have not cared to find the time to dust off this little corner of the Internet and say hello (besides, I hate dusting.)

There isn't really a way to sum up our last few months.....and I'm not quite ready to come back to you full time, but here is a weak attempt to do both:

School was crazy.....so crazy I still have nightmares about it. The anatomy program at our school has been ranked one of the top in the nation, and it ate up every single second of my day last fall. I spent every hour I could at the school with the cadavers (yep you read that right)--a couple nights each week I got home at ONE....AM! and then I'd get up and do it all over again the next day. As much as I enjoyed the material (our bodies are AMAZING!) it wore me down and burned me out.

(Side note: totally all worth it though when I got my A!)

I finished up classes a week before Christmas and I have to say, it truly was THE best Christmas ever. Just my little family, cozy in our house with good food and no responsibilities or deadlines...and no more cadavers!

I'm taking a lighter load this semester--and I don't know if I'm still feeling the effects from last semester (I am) or if I really just don't like Physiology....either way I'm ready for my summer break (finals in April, then my entrance exam in May...and then I apply for nursing school....GULP. 

pray for me)

The winter has been weird and kind of forgot to show up, but we had the kids up skiing whenever we got the chance. The trails dried out early this year and we have been out running and riding the past few weeks....and we are MORE than ready for summer now!

I turned 32 high above the desert floor in Zion in January, and celebrated the day in the red rocks with my family and friends and then ate the best nachos of my life. Thirty two feels GREAT.

We inherited three more hens (which makes eight for us now) and I am seriously obsessed with my girls. As the days get longer we are getting more and more eggs and I never tire of it. Mark my words, someday I will be the crazy chicken lady with 20...30....40 chickens.

WE ARE MOVING. 

It won't be bad--it's literally around the corner, but let's all agree that moving is the WORST. It came up quickly and caught us by surprise.....but the closer we get to the move (just a couple weeks away!) the more excited I get. The house is smaller, but the property is bigger--this seems to be the trend for us the last few years, and if we keep going at this rate we will be living in a tee-pee in the mountains within the next five years or so (probably with a billion animals).

We've been climbing more as a family--the warm springy temperatures had us scurrying up rocks the past few weekends. Robby and I have been taking quick lunch dates to the bouldering gym, and I think I am addicted. It feels so good to use every muscle in my body and really learn to trust myself as I get more and more comfortable on the wall. I love a good physical challenge, and while the mountain peaks are still all covered in snow, this has become my new favorite thing.

FOOD.....so many of you still come here for quick and easy recipes and I wish I had a new one to share with you today. Come find me on Instagram (@_sheenarae) where I share very simple ideas from time to time (most of which involve eggs I'm not gonna lie). We eat pretty simply with our busy schedules, but I usually make my favorite chocolate chip cookies on the weekends. We shared a garden with our good friends last summer and we are down to 1 jar of beets, 2 jars of beans, a little bit of frozen corn and green chilies left.....I am just itching to get planting as soon as we get moved and settled. We had THESE lettuce wraps for dinner last night and they are always a favorite (I added some chickpeas to the chicken curry and made a spicy yogurt sauce with plain yogurt, a little mayo, sriracha, soy sauce, and rice wine vinegar).
Oh! And Amazon dropped the price of the cookbook I photographed a few years ago--

The Family Flavor--so go grab a copy if you don't have one already. 

Oh and: I'm still writing reviews for Backcountry.com and you can also find me occasionally on Athleta's IG feed--I'm a contributor for their social media. I'm still selling prints HERE--thank you to all who've supported me so far. I haven't added anything new to the shop (I will!) but if you have a request, please let me know! And like I said above--come find me on IG--I share a few times a week. 

Oh and I guess since this is my first post of the year....Happy 2015!

I hope to be back to a more regular schedule after we get moved and school winds down....we have so many fun adventures I want to share, I am anxious to get creative again in the kitchen, and I really have loved the community we've built here the last few years. But most importantly--I hope that you can learn (as I have the past few months) that even though our world revolves around what is happening on the Internet, when you strip it away life still goes on....and it goes on beautifully. Don't get sucked in to your screens--life will move on without you.

until next time....