Weekly Wishes + Tuesday Tunes #14

Good day all! It's been way too long since I've participated in Melyssa's Weekly Wishes, so today I'm excited to connect with these lovely women again. I really love this link-up because it's a nice little push to inspire me with accomplishing some things that have been on my to-do list. So first Weekly Wishes and below is my music pick of the day for Tuesday Tunes.

Since I haven't participated much lately, I'll just share that I accomplish something from my Lima bucket list! We went to Pachacamac ruins, about an hour from the city (another post coming soon). 

Now here are my aspirations for this week.
1) Start going through things. In December I'm going back to California for awhile and my hubby is moving to another place in Lima (somewhat stressful, but poco a poco). So I'd like to start going through things this week, purging, and organizing a bit to prepare for the move/trip. 
2) Be thankful. I'd like to use this as my mantra and thread it through everyday. And I'll participate in one of these thankfulness projects I'm seeing around blogland and admiring so much.
3) Catch up on my online class. This week, I'm getting back on track to finish out my class! It's really enjoyable and opening my perspective on education. I can't wait to do this one!

*   *   *

And here's the musical portion of the post! I started Tuesday Tunes (14 weeks ago) because I love finding and sharing new artists and music. Here is where I share a song and a little bit about the artist or how I found them. 

This week, my props go out to the T Sisters. These girls have some of the most beautiful harmonies, with a classic, folksy twang. I kind of fell in love with them and their music when I went to a variety show in Oakland, in which they were all dressed up with fun costumes (who wouldn't love that?)! This song is their version of Paul Simon's American Tune and it just really hits a deep spot in me. Go T Sisters!

Please link-up with Tuesday Tunes if you love music-discovering too! Have a beautiful day.

A Fall Smoothie: Pumpkin Pie

Hey fall faeries! I've got a few more pumpkin recipes to share - pumpkin bread and pumpkin wantons (coming soon!). Really, pumpkin puree seems to be the gift that keeps giving. Just freeze it and defrost when you've found a good pumpkin recipe {some ideas here and here}. Anyway, here's how to make this delicious Pumpkin Pie Smoothie.


Collect all your ingredients: pumpkin puree, bananas, milk, water, sugar, cinnamon, ginger powder, vanilla extract. (I would have liked to use nutmeg or pumpkin spice as well.)

Add a few ice cubes and blend it up!

All that's it: easy peasy, pumpkin-squeasy!

A smoothie in fall? I realize that's a little atypical. I still like it as a refreshing start to the day...but you can also leave out the ice cubes and it will be more of a juice, and still really good.

Advice to My Pre-expat Self: Expat Q+A

As the holidays come around, I can't help but long for family, friends, our music and food-filled celebrations, and egg nog. So I've been living in Peru the last two years and have grown accustomed to a lot of things here, which is fun and really makes me feel like a local. But there are always things that I miss, whether its a person, food, a mindset, or a natural beauty. I'm glad to be joining Belinda and Bailie with another Expats Q+A link-up today, sharing some advice to my former pre-expat self.

Question 1. What advice would you give to your pre-expat self? 

Traveling and living abroad actually showed me that there are more opportunities to take advantage, even back in the town and state where I'm from. While I definitely love international travel, it's nice to remember that there's so much to explore wherever you may be. So I would tell myself to take advantage of all those opportunities. (ie. after living near San Francisco for nearly all my life, I just checked 'walking the Golden Gate bridge' off my bucket list last year!)

And, I'd tell myself to take pictures of everything! My first time living abroad in Spain was during college. It's funny looking back at those pictures, the majority of partying or silly times. I would have told myself to start photographing any and everything. But I suppose that's where I was at that age...

{more bucket list items here}

Question 2. How do you reconcile what you thought life would be like in your new home and it is in actuality? i.e. did you think you would be fluent in your new language and your are struggling with the basics.

Moving to Peru was kind of like a big jump of eagerness to leave the US. I was planning to probably teach abroad and perfect my Spanish. Although, the reality of transitioning from traveling for several months to working full-time, was a big adjustment. While my time and experiences were more limited, I was able to live more like a local and rent a place. There are times I wish I could be traveling and exploring again, but it's a trade-off I've taken to be here. But we're planning to take more short trips the upcoming year and I can't wait!

{photo from my old apartment in Cusco}

Good to see you here - join in the link-up if you'd like!

Tuesday Tunes #13

Hey lovelies - it's Tuesday and time to share a new tune I'm loving. If you feel like linking up, you're welcome to! Last week I was busy and unable to post a tune, sorry about that. So here's my pick for the week...

Joyce Jonathan! I actually found this artist from Anna's blog at East See Do, when she shared some really lovely French music. This beat is called "ça Ira" and is a guaranteed toe-tapper. I really like the whimsical sound, maybe French music in general does that. 

Do you have a favorite French song?

Pumpkin Cheesecake

Hey there! I've been on the pumpkin kick for the last week or so. Maybe you've noticed it's been quite pumpkin-y? It's so awesome I can pretend it's fall here in Peru :) 

While looking for pumpkin pie recipes, I stumbled on this pumpkin cheesecake recipe over at The Crunchy Moose by Ashlee and I decided it was an even better idea! Her post has pictures of the steps so I didn't include those here. 

Ingredients

- 2 cups of vanilla cookies (or graham crackers)

- pinch of cinnamon

- 3/4 cup butter

- 6 oz. of cream cheese

- 2 tbsp corn starch

- 1 tsp vanilla extract

- 2 eggs

- 1 chia egg or an egg white

- 1/4 cup evaporated milk*

- 1/4 cup sugar

- 2 cups pumpkin puree

* The original recipe calls for heavy cream but I used evaporated milk and it still turned out. 

** These are approximate measurements

Prepping...

the crust

Blend cookie crackers well in a food processor until they're fine crumbs. Here you could also blend in some kind of nut, if you'd like. Mix in the cinnamon.Then melt butter until liquid and mix into the crumb mixture. Form crust evenly into an greased pie tin.

the filling

Mix the following in a blender: cream cheese, sugar, corn starch, vanilla, eggs, and chia egg. 

(In this step it's really important to make sure the cream cheese is went blended. I don't have an electric/hand blender, so I just mixed by hand. I learned that it doesn't melt into the cake, as I thought it would. You can see what I mean in the photos.)

Then hand mix the milk and puree into the mixture. 

Now, pour the filling into your pie tin.

Bake...in oven for about an hour. I'm not sure what temperature (our oven is only on or off. really.) but I imagine it would be around 350*. It should be lightly browned around the corners, the crusted baked, and the filling slightly jiggly. 

Let it cool for a bit, then pop in the fridge for an hour or 2 to finish it off. 

For my first ever cheesecake, it turned out pretty taste-y. The crust is sooo delicious! The filling was good too, but I learned that the cream cheese really needs to be blended well. Here are some photos:

Thanks for stopping by :) Have you made any pumpkin recipes this season??

Bucket List

Hey all. Life can be pretty heavy sometimes, wouldn't you agree? It seems like lately, natural disasters are having such extreme affects on people all over. So let's take a moment to send good wishes to everyone who is being affected by the hurricane in the Philippines these past few days. Especially some love to Leia and Jason, who have family there. I can only imagine the distress of this situation and hope that it ends soon. 

<> <> <>

On the other side of things...Life is full of lots of good stuff. And I think a bucket list is such a fun way to keep track of these things. It's really inspiring to me to read over mine and imagine all the possibilities. So I'm sharing it here today. I also have a reverse bucket list over here if you want to see some things I've accomplished. 


My Bucket List

1. Take part in a flash mob 

2. Ride a camel in the Sahara desert

3. Walk across the Golden Gate Bridge

4.  Get a tattoo

5.  Learn an instrument

6. Study abroad

7. Go to the airport and purchase a ticket to a random destination

8. Cross-country US roadtrip and visit national parks

9. Cave des Roches, France (Mushroom caves)

10. Chaco Canyon, New Mexico (part of #8)

11. Angkor Wat in Cambodia

12. The Tunnel of Love in Ukraine

13. Nara Dreamland in Japan

14. Visit all continents (North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Antarctica, Australia)

15. Learn a 3rd language (at least conversationally)

16. Walk the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, Spain 

17. Raise kids

18. Get married

19. Open a café

20. Earn money from blog

21.  Ride an elephant

22. Geocache

23. Write a kid’s book

24. Stay in a tree house for a few days

25. Make cottage cheese

26. Do a juice cleanse

27. Plan and do a random act of kindness

28. Sky dive

29. Learn to rock climb

30. Ride in hot air balloon

31. Be a burner (aka finally go to Burning Man)

32. See the Northern Lights

33. Live in a jungle

34. Walk along the Great Wall of China

35. Learn to crochet

36. Create a home

37. Visit Joshua Tree, CA (preferably attend music festival there)

38. Volunteer at music festival

39. Make a legit time capsule

40. Attend a sweat lodge ceremony

41. Attend a TED talk

42. Learn a lot about herbs and natural remedies

43. Grow Bonsai tree

44. Take a photo a day for a month

45. Eat sushi in Japan

46. Live in South America

47. WWOOF in Asia

48. Host Couchsurfers
49. Take a hot yoga class
50. Sleep under the stars
51. Visit lavender fields
52. Visit sunflower fields
53. Learn canning

If you have a bucket list, I'd love to check it out. You can share in the comments :)

Expat Diaries: A Little Look into Lima

Well, hi there! I think it's a good time to hop onto the Expat Diaries link-up with Rachel and Chelsea. The idea is to share travel tips or expat stories. I was going through my brief photos I've taken here in Lima (all taken on my hubby's mini video-cam) and realized I haven't shared many. AND, as I'll be away visiting California for an uncertain amount of time, I want to start re-appreciating Peru for everything its been. So here are some recent pictures and a little bit of the the stories behind them. 

A nice thing about Lima is that it's right on the coast. And we live about 15 minutes from the beach. A very stone-y beach, as you may be able to see, but it's the ocean nonetheless. It's been nice smelling the fresh ocean air and not being at a crazy high altitude. 

Catholicism is a big thing that's expressed all over the place, in all kinds of ways. On the bus a few months ago, I overheard a woman tell her friend they just past a church and the friend responded by a frantic sign of the cross. This little shrine (or what else would you call it?) has become something so second nature to see, which kind of bothers me actually (I won't go into why here though). But I'm very amused by the contradiction of a beautifully adorned figure amidst graffiti...or say a well decorated saint off the deserted highway. 

These two pictures (above and below) are in Park Kennedy, in a nice area of town, where we've been living for the past few months. It is a big tourist area, so it also has a lot of cultural charm - museums, fairs, art exhibits in the park. Above is the torito de Pucara, which is actually a very Andean tradition (from the mountain-region). Small ceramic painted bulls are placed on tops of houses to bring abundance and protection. This huge version was just really cool, since the real ones are very small. 

Playful bundles or sleeping balls of kittens are sure to be found in this park. Several years ago people started leaving cats that couldn't be taken care of at the park. Since then they've reproduced and they inhabit the park. There's probably at least 25 cats! I've made a few friends :)

This picture was taken one day Rafa and I were exploring the center, at 

Paseo de los héroes navales (Walkway of Naval Heroes). I'm not sure what the big official building is in the background - but they aren't an uncommon sight to see. I like the perspective of the photo. My Rafa's a talented one :)

Thanks for stopping by and happy almost-weekend folks!

Abrazos <3