WHEN MY FRIEND SWINGS BY WITHOUT TELLING ME, 

AND MY APARTMENT IS A MESS. 

Via #whatshouldwecallme.

This is not my life anymore, because I kept my house clean for an entire month for the first time in my entire life and I'm never looking back. Come on over, all you previously-ignored unannounced visitors! I'll never pretend my doorbell is broken again.

Spring cleaning: my closet.

I've been holding on to a lot of clothes for a lot of years. Most of the items in this bag have been moved from Las Vegas to Ukrainian Village to Logan Square. I couldn't bring myself to get rid of everything—some things I'm afraid I'll always wish hadn't gone to charity (sorry, charity!), so I put them in bins and they go to live in our basement storage unit.  

I used to take up three of the four closets in our apartment, and I'm now down to one. Using the question 'Would I rather have something cuter?', I successfully purged: two bins of nostalgic save-ables, two garbage bags of shoes (I'm down to just 21 pairs!), and three shopping bags of sell-ables.

I took the shoes to the nearest clothing donation dumpster-thing and then endured horrible feelings of judgement and rejection at Buffalo Exchange and turned those bags of impulse-buys and one-time-wears into this:

...which I hope to turn into something nice I will wear all summer. Like maybe a haircut?

Spring cleaning: my body.

I convinced Paul to do a twenty-eight day cleanse with me by promising not to smoke for the entire month. Strangely, three days in I am missing coffee one million times more than cigarettes.

Last night we made Grilled Napa Cabbage with Chinese Mustard Glaze and Scallions for dinner. So good, but sooo spicy! I am notoriously stringent with my recipe-following, so it was not confident improvisation that lead to my usage of ramps instead of scallions—it was my inability to correctly identify most produce.

The surprisingly hearty cabbage was accompanied by Crispy Roasted Cauliflower. I've always been in awe of the deliciousness that was the roasted cauliflower dish on Longman & Eagle's dinner menu, but after roasting my own I realized that it's not very hard to make this vegetable taste amazing.

In the process of researching recipes for the detox, I accidentally started using an app called ZipList. Seriously, everyone should download this thing immediately. You can create a virtual recipe box, create a meal plan, and organize a grocery shopping list. I stuck to the list and spent so much less money at Whole Foods than I ever have before—plus now when I open the fridge I don't just stand there and stare blankly at its contents wondering why the fuck I bought beets. Now I know! I bought them for this salad! And we're eating it on Friday for lunch.


Also, I should probably ask MCC if he minds that I'm borrowing this mantra: