design a life you love
Oh life, you fickle, fickle wench. Because you truly have been a wench lately and have necessitated not one, but TWO posts titled “When Things Don’t Go As Planned” in the past two weeks. Yet complaining about the unexpected challenges presented in the last fourteen days isn’t a good use of time or energy. Instead of focusing on the fact that an eviction notice landed on our doorstep last night (ha, surprise!) and that we are currently competing with another resident for the apartment we are now trying to move into, I’m pouring my attention into the joy that moving into a brand new apartment in just sixty days time will bring. No more gross, stained carpet! No more mismatched kitchen cabinets and run down appliances that have to be swapped out at least once a year! Granite, stainless steel and hardwoods, oh my! A balcony that I can put a little cafe table on and grow herbs on! Fresh air! Okay, just talking about these things is making me SO EXCITED and hey, we don’t even have to leave the building! We are literally moving directly across the hall into a completely renovated apartment so the building can then move on to renovating ours.
But…there is always a but…this but comes in the form of a massive rent increase that is going to take some very, very creative budgeting and at least one side job between my fiance and I to cover. This but also comes in the form of having to move just two weeks before our wedding. Remember when I said just yesterday that I needed to work on managing stress better? This will be quite the test.
Life, I recognize your challenge and I accept your challenge! And now for some positivity and inspiration because goodness knows I’m going to need it in the next sixty days.
There is nothing I love more than a great summer concert under the stars and this past week we had the pleasure of attending not one, not two, but THREE different shows at the Hollywood Bowl. The greatest part of the summer concert series at the Bowl is that you get to bring in your own food and drinks and have a picnic while you’re listening to music. Since the shows all started at 8:00 PM and I don’t usually get home from work until around 6:30, I knew there would not be time on the evenings of for food prep and that I’d need to prepare our meals ahead of time so we could grab them out of the fridge and go.
We don’t frequently have picnics (but we might more often because it was so fun!) and I admittedly got really into meal planning. My fiance had been on the road for work in the days prior and I wanted our first evenings back together to be special and full of yummy food and wonderful music! So without further ado, here is what I made for our picnic dinners last week.

Picnic number two for Beethoven – smoked salmon, sea salt crackers, olives, cucumber and blueberries, Toblerone, and wine.
Do you guys have any go-to dishes for picnics? We have a few more concerts coming up this summer and I would love some new ideas!