Roasted Sweet Potato Salad with Tahini Dressing

Back in January I had one of the biggest "OMG PINCH ME" moments in life and was interviewed by one of my favorite mentors Jess Lively for her podcast The Lively Show. It was a huge honor to share my story and be featured on the show that has inspired me so much over the past 3 years, but the best part of that experience that I couldn't have predicted has been the fall-out!

I've been able to connect with so many inspiring women who are also fangirls of Jess' "life with intention" message, and some of them have even become friends over the past few months. One of those friends, Alex, also lives in Chicago, and a couple weeks ago we met up in person for a lunch date at Thrive360, a new healthy food fast-casual restaurant downtown. I'm obsessed with all the fast-casual places popping up around the city, because giant salads and epic veggie bowls actually bring me joy (yup I'm a healthy freak and I shall wave my flag proudly!)

It took us probably a solid 15 minutes to absorb the extensive menu at Thrive360 (anyone else struggle with menu decisions??) and one of the super friendly staff members gave us samples of their roasted sweet potato salad while we were making up our minds.

I'm not a huge potato salad fan, but I looooove sweet potatoes, and this version was SO GOOD I immediately decided to recreate it at home.

Here's my version -- it turned out delicious! The mint is a surprisingly delicious addition, and tahini is good on anything. You can find it in the middle eastern or Mediterannean section of most grocery stores.

This recipe is perfect to bring to a summer potluck, 4th of July party, or serve alongside anything grilled. It would also be tasty dish as we move into fall or winter! I'm definitely putting it into my rotation.

Roasted Sweet Potato Salad with Tahini Dressing

inspired by Thrive360
Serves 6-8
[1 yellow, 1 tsp on the 21 Day Fix]

Ingredients

• 3 medium sweet potatoes
• 1 small red onion
• 1/4 c fresh mint

Directions

Preheat oven to 400*F. Peel and dice the sweet potatoes into bite size chunks, spray with cooking oil, and bake for 45 minutes, flipping once or twice. 

While the potatoes are baking, chop the red onion into tiny pieces and chop the mint.

Let the potatoes cool, then combine with the onion and mint in a big bowl, and gently toss with the tahini dressing. Serve at room temperature.

Tahini Dressing

• 1/4 c tahini
• 1/4 c red wine vinegar
• 1/4 c water
• salt and pepper to taste

Combine tahini and vinegar in a jar or shaker bottle, and shake or whisk to combine. Add water (1T at a time) until the consistency is pourable, a little thinner than a typical ranch dressing. If you add too much water, just stir in another T of tahini to thicken it back up. Making dressing is more of an art than science! Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Let me know if you give this a try this! I topped it with some dill to make it prettier for the pictures ... and that was a tasty addition too. Any summer herbs would be good!

xo Anna

Life Lately: June edition

Happy June! This month is flying by, and I've been making an effort to unplug, slow down, relax, and enjoy summer. I really miss blogging though, and I have so much I want to share with you, so I thought I'd pop in share a life update and a behind the scenes look at what's been happening.

Ready for the randomness? Let's go!

FLOWERS!
I've been marking the passing of time by the flowers. Magnolias and pear blossoms turned into tulips, which turned into lilacs, and now finally the peonies and roses are here! This is pretty much what my camera roll looks like.

SELF CARE
I've been trying to practice what I preach in regards to self care instead of always putting myself on the end of the to-do list.

Sometimes "self care" is glam and fun, like getting my eyebrows tinted and waxed for the first time.

Sometimes it is less fun and involves stripping down and getting weird blotches on your body cut off and biopsied. 

PSA of the day: Please please please be brave like me and make a dermatologist appointment this summer just to get checked out, especially if you're a fellow pale or redhead sister. 
It's not fun but you deserve to take care of yourself, inside and OUT! 

Luckily my biopsy was ok and I have one less weird blotch on my body to freak out about.

BYE CAR
Ben and I are officially a one car family now, since my trusty 2003 Ford Focus decided to bite the dust. We left it with CarMax and it was weird to say goodbye. This car has seen me through high school, college, grad school, multiple cross-country trips back and forth between Illinois, Michigan, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Oregon, but ultimately it was becoming more expensive than it was worth. Since I work from home and hate driving in the city, we really didn't need it anyway and I don't miss having to pay attention to the street sweeping and construction signs (and remembering to move it back and forth across the street to avoid tickets) anymore!

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
Mastering Your Mean Girl by Melissa Ambrosini has been my personal development book of the month so far. I'm hosting a virtual book club in my free Facebook accountability community (click here to join!), and we're all loving it, although Melissa's target audience is definitely young women in their low to mid 20's who are just getting started with personal development, and she's a little "woo" for the scientists in our group ;) But there are lots of really great journal prompts that have helped me gain some clarity on what I'm struggling with and what I want my life to look and feel like. I recommend this book for anyone who wants a fun, relatable intro to personal development and struggles with negative self talk, perfectionism, and holding yourself back. 

I'll share my takeways soon!

WORK & LEARNING!
I've also been spending a lot of time at all my favorite coffee shops around the neighborhood to get out of the house and let my creative brain out to play. I'm still working my way through my life coach training course (and LOVING IT!), and launched a 6-week Leadership Mastermind for the leaders on my coaching team which has been unbelievably amazing.

Surrounding myself with like-minded women who are also passionate about dreaming bigger, working hard, serving others, and pursuing more joy and happiness in life has been the best thing I could have ever done for myself. If you're going through a mini crisis, struggling with anxiety/overwhelm, or have no idea what you're supposed to do with your life but you KNOW you're meant for more and are ready to make a change, reach out and let's chat because you are not alone and don't have to feel alone :) 

On Friday afternoons my friend/teammate Amanda and I have been making a little ritual to hang out. chat about life, and explore the city since we both work for ourselves and have flexible schedules. I'm learning that although I'm an introvert, I do need regular people-time or else I get super lonely, so I'm so grateful to have her in my life!

SUMMER WEEKENDS! Yes, yes, and more yes.

Weekends have been blending into weeks lately.

"Week end? What is a week end?" -Maggie Smith, Downton Abbey

Ben's mom came up to visit us over Memorial Day and we had a great time hanging out and exploring the city. Ben is teaching summer school but he had a week off last week, so we hit the summer bucket list pretty hard!

Picnics on the lake front, sunset walks, zoo visits, beach time, farmer's markets, eating outside, grilling out, it's been a busy-yet-chill whirlwind!

Summer is one of the main reasons why we still live in Chicago. It makes the other 9 months of winter worth it ;)

Last week while Ben was off, we decided to take a spontaneous day trip to Milwaukee since neither of us had ever been. It was a beautiful sunny day, although really cool by the lakefront (the weather has been biopolar here lately, bouncing between 60's/70's and 90's). We visited the Milwaukee Art Museum (highly recommend!), walked through the Public Market, did some window shopping and future dream-home-planning at Restoration Hardware and West Elm, and spent the afternoon sitting on the rooftop at Cafe Benelux sampling Belgian beers in the sunshine.

The city was pretty quiet, which I guess was to be expected on a random Wednesday, but we had a good time hanging out and will definitely be back because we hear the Harley Davidson museum and brewery tours are super fun. It's nice we live so close to Wisconsin, it's a great state. The vibe is more relaxed, there's so much state pride compared to Illinois, and who doesn't like beer and cheese?

SUMMER IN CHICAGO BUCKET LIST

Here's what I still want to do this summer!

• Camping
• Outdoor concert at Millenium Park
• Free workout at Millenium Park
• Visit the new and improved Navy Pier
• Take the Devil in the White City tour
• More picnics!
• More grilling!
• Explore as many rooftop bars as possible

What's on your summer bucket list?

xo Anna

5 Tips for Finding Peace in the Summer Busy Season

Memorial Day weekend is upon us, humidity and thunderstorms have hit Chicago, and we're about to unofficially kick off summer 2016! Are you ready???

This year is going so fast.

May is usually the month when the CRAZY hits, and I'm sure you're feeling it. School is ending, energy is buzzing, trips and vacations are being planned, and all of a sudden the glorious relaxing expanse of summer that we envision in our minds is booked to the max.

Are your stress levels rising yet?

Last summer was crazy for us with lots of travel and moving, so this summer I'm determined to slow down and do my best to relax and enjoy life in Chicago!

5 Tips for Finding Peace in the Busy Summer Season

1. Stop multitasking your entire life away

I know, I know, we women pride ourselves on our multitasking talents and skills.

But when we're forcing our brains to jump from one thing to the next, we just create more frantic, anxious energy for ourselves. When we can focus on one thing at a time, we get into a flow and can be more productive in the present moment.

This is definitely something that I'm still practicing myself. I only have 2 tabs open on my internet browser right now though, so that's a pretty big win!

Choose one thing at a time to work on is one of the simplest ways to bring more peace and intention to your workday.

2. Practice saying NO

It's so important for us to feel empowered to say NO to opportunities that aren't important or will drain us, instead of automatically saying yes to everything out of some false sense of duty or obligation. If someone is personally offended that you're too overwhelmed to add one more event to your calendar, that's their problem, not yours!

3. Eliminate the word busy from your vocab

"How have you been doing lately?"

"Oh you know, I've just been so BUSY! Life is crazy right now!"

-Every single conversation I've had in the last 3 days

What does busy really mean to you? Is it good busy, or bad busy?

If it's good, let's say it how it really is and stop diminishing our joy so other people don't feel bad about themselves. "My life is overflowing with awesomeness right now and I'm loving every second of it!" Your positive energy will rub off.

But if your busy is bad, own up to that and cut yourself some slack! "I'm feeling a little over-worked and drained, so I'm going to have to say no to [your party/grabbing drinks/this extra volunteering opportunity] right now so I can take some time off this weekend to recharge. I appreciate your understanding!" 

Empower yourself to choose more peace and slow down, even if you're tempted to jump on the busy train ... it's ok to do life differently :)

4. Create white space in your schedule and fight for it!

So now you're starting to focus on one thing at a time, saying no to things that don't serve your priorities or energy, and eliminating the concept of busy from your life, what are you going to do??

How about nothing?

Hear me out!! As a chronic overachiever, I've always crammed my schedule with as many activities as possible. To give you the picture, by my senior year of college I was double majoring, added a new minor at the last minute, took two senior seminars instead of just one, was the president of our environmental club, played in the band, took piano lessons, ran cross country, worked as an Admissions Ambassador, peer mentored incoming freshmen, ushered at the performing arts center, was involved with SAI (a music fraternity), Phi Beta Kappa, and another service organization, and had an internship with the Fish and Wildlife Service. OH and I was taking the GRE and applying to grad schools so I could get a full ride to my next level of awesome.

AND I BURNED THE HECK OUT. It wasn't pretty. Lots of teary phone calls to my long distance boyfriend Ben, who was just trying to survive his first year of Teach for America in inner city Baltimore...no big deal. Miraculously he somehow took me in stride. Now we're married and I know that no matter how crazy I get, he'll be able to handle it! I love youuuu Benben...

ANYWAY, the concept of intentionally scheduling WHITE SPACE into my calendar freaks me out and is still something I'm practicing, but I'm slowly learning that taking time off, even if it's just an hour on Saturday morning, with NOTHING PLANNED (nope not even chores!!) makes me such a happier person.

5. Put yourself first

So what exactly are we supposed to do when we're doing nothing in this precious white space?

WHATEVER THE HECK YOU WANT, BABE!

Carve out time every single day to unplug and chill your brain, even if it's just 10 minutes here and there. What makes you feel good? For me, that's eating outside on the deck, journaling, getting out (even if it's a walk around the block), going to yoga, running, reading, coloring, sewing or being creative, making a yummy dinner or trying a new recipe without feeling rushed, doing my hair or make-up, or just laying on the floor in my office and staring at the ceiling for 2 minutes.

When you have a little more time like on the weekends or in the evenings, get out into the world and do something summery and fun! Have an adventure. Check out a new part of town or a new restaurant. Have a backyard BBQ with friends. Take a picnic to the beach or park. Go camping. Explore your world!

Don't worry about being productive every second of the day. The more time we take to nurture our soul, the more productive we end up being. I can't believe I can actually say this and mean it. It takes practice to flip your mindset, especially when you're a fellow Type A perfectionist, but nothing will fall apart when you pause to slow down for a second and take care of yourself.

Self care isn't selfish.

In fact, don't we owe it to our friends, family, and co-workers to show up with our BEST energy?

When we stop rushing through life, we'll be able to enjoy it so much more. And that's really the point of this whole crazy ride, isn't it?

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Do you need some help or accountability putting yourself first? I know it's super hard and I'm here for you! Let me be your life coach this summer and I'll keep you on track so you can calm the heck down, enjoy life, and work on discovering your best self. 

The June Session of my Inspire Joy Challenge is opening up next week, and I am so excited to share my journey and support YOU as you're off supporting everyone else in your life. Click here to learn more!

And have a fantastic Memorial Day weekend full of peace and lots of fun. And maybe a glass or three of rose ;)

xo Anna

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