Thursday, July 9, 2015

Msrehreh has materialized

Well hello again, it's ben a long time! Missed me? I'm attempting to restart this blog. Every time I have wanted to pick blogging back up, I am derailed by the long absence that I have left you with and all the negative self-deprecating thoughts that plant themselves in my head, paralyzing me till I concede defeat. With that being said, I need to get over myself and just dive back in. Whether that means there is 1 person interested in what I have to say (thanks mom), then so be it. Writing was always a form of escape from my everyday - I'm hoping you will ride along.

Our innovative #selfie game was on point 13 years ago. #tbt

So much has happened since my very last post but here is a quick recap. My baby boy Isa is now 2.5 years old, my middle spunky daughter Zaina is 6 and my eldest baby girl Leila is 12. I am a bonafide Digital Marketer at Cisco.  Yup, you are correct, I have moved on up in the world finally. You can find me on Twitter, babbling away and while you're at it follow my sports obsessed husband Fish if you want to talk ESPN all day everyday. I am doing well, happy and very healthy. Not healthy living healthy, but more inhaling at high speed every morsel of food on my plate, kinda healthy. I have so fallen off my motigirl diaries diet and have fortunately gained all the weight back much to my scale's dismay. More on that coming in later blogs (hopefully)... 

I plan to dive deeper back into writing more consistently and let the creative juices just flow. I'm the most at peace when I can allow myself to let words take me away. As an adolescent, I avidly wrote in my journal. I'm hoping that this blog will allow me to simulate the same exuberant cadence that I once had as a teenager. Although I haven't narrowed down a cohesive theme for my blog,  I humbly request that you bear with me. It may vary like my mood swings. You might get a glimpse into my work world, the crazy life of #soccermoms, my failures as a parent of 3, my gluttonous appetite for consuming delicious things and then regretting it later all wrapped up into one. Don't say I didn't give you a fair warning. Thanks for reading! Feel free to leave a comment or say what's up below!

Msrehreh is signing off for tonight. Deuces. 

Friday, July 13, 2012

Moti Girl Diary: Moti Girl is indeed Moti

Salutations! I suppose I should make it official and confirm that I am indeed preggers with my third child. Yes, it has been a while since my last post so I wanted my next post to be special.  Well I had my 18 week appointment to find out the sex of our baby today and I was doing everything in my power to calm myself down before I got there. It's a 50-50 chance right? Boy or girl? Boy or girl?  AH I am blessed with two spirited girls and it would have been so nice to round us out with a little boy.... does our wish come true... see below to see my results....


Kevin our ultrasound technician: Bay Area Maternity

Maria my midwife from Bay Area Maternity
  

The verdict is in... we are due 12-12-12 iA and your motigirl is indeed Moti with a man child aH.  We are super excited, happy and cannot wait! I am looking forward to go shopping for  little boys clothes!   Who's with me?  This is your moti girl signing out... till next time.  :)

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Moti Girl Recipe: Tilapia a la Foil

Bonjour!  Or shall I begin with Ni Hao this morning? I begin today's blog post with a yummy-in-your-tummy,  healthy Asian inspired Tilapia recipe with a fancy French name. As my quest to shed my Moti Girl pounds continue, I came across an interesting recipe that I reconfigured a little bit to incorporate all my favorite ingredients.  It's quite simple, low maintenance and a delish recipe, that I had to share with you all!

I'm not much of a measurer, but I will do my best for you guys.

Ingredients:


  • 2 tablespoons of chopped chives
  • 7 garlic cloves grated in a microplane (I tend to throw in a few more cloves for added flavor)
  • 1 teaspoon of grated ginger
  • 1 tablespoon of red crushed pepper
  • 2 tablespoons of Sesame Oil
  • 1/4 cup of low sodium Soy Sauce
  • 1 teaspoon of Chinese 5 spice seasoning
  • 5-6 pieces of fresh Tilapia (you can probably do this with any kid of mild white fish)
  • Splashes of Ponzu sauce
  • Foil

Begin by preheating your oven to 350 degrees.  In a bowl, combine the first 7 ingredients and whisk it till the marinade/sauce is nicely blended together (chives, garlic, ginger, red crushed peppers, sesame oil, soy sauce and 5 spice). Whisk it good...



Take the Tilapia out of the fridge and rinse it under the sink and make sure to pat dry it with paper towels.  This is more so your marinade/sauce doesn't get the excess water in it.

rinse the fish
pat dry


Now tear out a large piece of foil out and place a piece of Tilapia in the middle of the sheet.   Depending on the sizes of fish, you can either put one big piece or a couple small pieces of fish together on the foil.  Spoon 2 generous tablespoons of the marinade over the fish and then splash (a teaspoon of the Ponzu sauce over the fish as well).  Ponzu is a citrus-based Japanese sauce and is available at any grocery store. I personally like to peruse the Asian markets for stuff like this, because it is a lot cheaper there (yeah I'm cheapo) and you get way more variety.  I like using it because it gives the dish a little bit of citrus flavor without overwhelming it with fresh citrus. I am partial to the lime flavored Ponzu Sauce.

adding marinade
Lime flavored Ponzu sauce
Neatly enclose the fish into a foil packet and place all the packets on a baking sheet.

Foil packets of Fish
Bake the fish for 20 minutes in the oven.  You'll know that the fish is close to being done when the foil packets puff up with steam and sauce emerges from the corners of the foil packets.  Variation:  Sometimes I like to add shredded carrots and broccoli on top of the fish.  Trader Joes has this awesome ready-to-go shredded vegetable mix for cole slaw that works perfectly with this dish.  I like to sneak in as many veggies as I can for the fams.

Puffed up foil packets
Now take the baking sheet out and open the foil pack with care, a lot of steam will escape as you open the packet. You don't want to give yourself a facial while cooking.

open with care
yummy tilapia
I like to make this with some brown jasmine rice and steamed bok choy.  This particular day I made it  brown jasmine rice with corn and shitake mushrooms and steamed baby bok choy with garlic.  I will share the bok choy recipe later this week.

Voila
I hope you guys will attempt this recipe and enjoy it as much as I do. It is truly very simple and tasty, not to mention healthy.  I think cooking in foil or parchment is easy and makes for a very flavorful meal   Feel free to leave comments on what you thought or on variations that you might have attempted.  


Thanks again folks, this is your Moti Girl bidding you adieu!  :)

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Guess who's back for some Moti Love

Well hello my faithful friends... do I even have any left out there? Thanks to some very persistent and encouraging gal pals (yes, that's you Ms Lakhani) I have bellyflopped back into the land of blogging. I know you're enjoying that lovely mental picture I just gave you.  I can't even being to explain why I took such a long hiatus from this world... suffice to say I'm baaackkkk.  You ready for me?




So I have absolutely no idea where to start.  New year, new beginnings, new fat I have found chilling on my body... yeah what a great start.  So, I begin 2012 with a promise to myself and my 2 followers that I will attempt to write weekly.  


When I first fell off the wagon of blogging, a good friend of mine had advised to write about my struggles and challenges with sticking with Moti girl, or to focus on how hard it is to stay motivated.  But I didn't heed the advice of the wise and the more time that passed, the easier it became to put it off even more. The next time I checked, six months had gone by sans blogging and I felt like such a loser and a quitter.  I need to follow through and hold myself accountable.  It wasn't so much about the dieting and losing weight, it was about making a lifestyle change that stuck.  Plus, the routine of blogging weekly was so great for my soul.  I wasn't ready for all the changes that came my way once school was over.  I didn't manage all the different hats I was wearing and more importantly I didn't prioritize very well.  So I plan to ameliorate that and hope to do it with your help.  :)

Unfortunately or maybe luckily my scale's battery is dead, so no picture today.  However the scale will be back this weekend and I will snap a picture and throw it on this blog on Monday next week.  I leave you today with one word and that is HOPE. I HOPE to keep up with blogging.  I HOPE to make better choices and I HOPE that I won't bore you to death with my ramblings of all irrelevant things.  Until next time... this is your Moti girl signing out.





Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Moti Girl Diary- Week Fourteen Dolce Val Niente

My Temperament
Good evening my fellow friends. This is your Moti Girl checking in for my weekly update.  What's cracking people?  This kooky Bay Area weather is driving me insane.  59 degrees in June?  Are you kidding me?  Aside from the weather, I am feeling quite cranky because I have absolutely nothing to do.  I didn't realize how busy my life was the last five years with school and now that that chapter of my life is finally complete, I feel barren.  I should punch myself in the face for sounding so ungrateful but I didn't realize I was going to be feel so lost.  Now what?  Everyone so kindly keeps reminding me to enjoy myself and to just relax.  I don't think I'm wired to relax.  Do I even know how?  I have a plan, well at least I think I did, but right now everything seems to be moving in slow motion.  It's only been a week and I feel so incredibly suffocated by all the time that I have? Does that even make sense? I need to find a hobby and things to do to take up some of my idle/free time. Any suggestions?  I downloaded the Instagram App on my phone and have had a lot of fun taking pictures recently.  An amateur photographer I am not, but I am definitely enjoying playing with this unique little App. (This one was taken at Half Moon Bay on Memorial Day weekend.  I think the picture perfectly encapsulates my stormy temperament right about now).  Find me, my screen name is msrehreh.

Happy Birthday Lady
This last week has been good to me. I celebrated my girl Amina's birthday last week (Happy Birthday Woman!)  with some lovely ladies and much needed "me" time . It's always so therapeutic to hang with just the girls sometimes.  We all need to take our Mommy and Wifey hats off for a few hours and just let our hair down and be enjoy the girlfriend hat for a change.  The laughter, the jokes, the sharing of stories the yummy food and dessert made for a memorable night but also reminded me of the importance of sisterhood.  That night I realized that it's so easy for all of us to get lost and lose our sense of self as we navigate through the different chapters of our lives.  Being with other women and exchanging/sharing stories about our fears, challenges and stressors really allows us to not only engage with each other but highlights the simple fact that we aren't alone and our issues are not unique.  It makes it easier to know that there are people out there who share the same crazy talk that swims around in my own head. Okay well I think I have hit the cheesiness quota for the day with this post.  I might sound like an after school special, but I stand behind my epiphanies, as corny and cheesetastic as they may sound.  :)


Treatbot
So another highlight for this week has been a couple things.  I gave the food truck CurryUpNow a second go (the first time I had the burritos and was not a fan) and was pleasantly surprised by their yummy Kathi Rolls and deconstructed samosas and I also got to indulge in some TreatBot goodness. These two trucks park regularly in Sunnyvale near El Camino and Remington on Tuesdays evenings. You should check them out.  CurryUpNow is your good old Desi food and Treatbot is ice-cream with a twist.  They have a karaoke machine there and if you dare to test out for vocal chords and manage to score higher than 90, then you get yourself a free dessert and a very excited audience that will cheer you on with much vigor. It's definitely something entertaining to experience.

CurryUpNow
I also purchased thanks to an awesome graduation gift card my very own Zumba Wii game.  Woo Hoo. Now I can Zumba whenever the hell I want, forget trying to get to a class at 24 Hour an hour before. I excitedly peeled it open and threw it in the game console to discover that I was in dance heaven.  It came with a nifty belt that neatly holds the Wii remote.  The moves and music are exactly the same as the class, and a good workout was had.  Anyone wanna come through and join me at home?  Feel free to hit me up.

zumba
I know this post was a bit lack luster but you know I can't have it all.  Well here is my weight this week:

I gained 0.2 pounds
Well, I'm not feeling too bad about this week.  I know I could have probably done a better job with calorie control, but I was also recovering from being sick last week and 0.2 pounds is really nothing.  So my friends... that's all for this week.. until next time. You know you love me XOXO.  :)

Week 1:   3/7/11: 163.2
Week 2:  3/14/11: 161.8
Week 3: 3/21/11: 159.2

Week 4: 3/28/11: 158.8
Week 5: 4/4/11:  156.8
Week 6: 4/11/11: 157.9     (break)
Week 7: 4/18/11: 157.6
Week 8: 4/25/11: 155.8
Week 9:  5/2/11: 155.0

Week 10: 5/9/11:  156.6
Week 11: 5/16/11:  156.0
Week 12: 5/23/11:  153.8
Week 13: 5/31/11:  151.0
Week 14: 6/6/11: 151.2

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Moti Girl Diary- Week Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen... Bye Bye Berkeley


Yes, the day has FINALLY come aH
Howdy party peoples... yes I am finally back. Come on, do the happy dance with me.  Four incredibly long weeks since I have last graced my own blog.  I know pretty pathetic, but I had a damn good reason. I had to study for finals, write like a book's worth in papers, handle the whole graduation thing and just veg out.  If you don't already know, (how could you not with all my shameless self-promoting status updates, tweets and pics?) I have finally procured my BA in English from UC Berkeley aH. Feel free to say it... Hallelujah.  I say it all the time.   I will post a video as soon as I get my hands on it, but I was the last one to walk on stage the day of the commencement and I got to walk on with my two babies by my side.  It really was one of the most incredible and unreal moments of my life and I have to say, my kids have been the best motivation to complete school.  I'm a better person because of them.

Finally.. it's happened to me

So much has happened in the last few weeks, that I don't even know where to start.  I was going through all my pictures... and I was taken aback by all that has happened in this month!  Do I write one long blog post and go verbal/written diarrhea about everything that has happened? Do you want to know how my disciplined calorie counting and gym visits went right out the window?  Do I dare to admit that physically annihilated any food in sight?  No really I did. I was so busy with papers and studying, shoot even Trader Joes' microwaved macaroni meals were not only gourmet but a damn luxury. Do you know the amount of guilt I've been carrying around about sharing this with you all?  What were you all going to think?  How could I have just fallen off the boat?   However, I continued with the weekly weigh in pics and I nearly died of a heart-attack...  Unfortunately I will not  be entertaining you all today... No frills, no fun anecdotes, no wannabe witty banter this blog post... Just gonna get right to it.    I was at 155 pounds according to my last official weigh in.... read it and weep with me...


As of May 9th I was...

Gained 1.6 pounds


As of May 16th I was...
I lost 0.6 pounds

As of May 23rd I was...
I lost 2.2 pounds



As of May 31st I was...
I lost 2.8 pounds

Um yeah... you can close your mouths now.  Are you as shocked as I was?  So there was indeed weeping, but lots of happy tears. <insert Nutty Professor's Hercules Hercules (my equivalent for the happy dance)>  I wasn't watching my calories, didn't have time to go to the gym, pretty much ate whatever the hell I pleased and miraculously I lost weight.  Go figure, my friends, go figure!  I have to say though, this last week's weigh in might be off because I did get sick a couple of days ago and kinda loss my appetite. I haven't regained it fully... but seeing these results I question if I even need it back? I kid I kid.  :)  This has to be a fluke or a gift/nudge from mother nature for finishing school.  Whatever it is, I will take it.  I'm just grateful and feeling blessed for where I am in my life aH...

To Hawaii and beyond

A special shout out to the hubby for hooking up a one week family vacay to Hawaii this summer as a graduation gift.  Thank you! It's the best present ever and our first real family vacation! We have never been to Hawaii and are so excited to finally get to do so!  Woo hoo!


So in the spirit of feeling good and not looking like a Motigirl in Hawaii because you know I'm all about the itsy bitsy teenie weenie... yeah right!  Haha ok the wannabe witty banter had to escape somewhere.  I apologize for making you puke.  I just thought it would be fun to add that for shock value. Ahhh, I digress.  Anyways,  I am planning to get back into the gym, make better food choices and shed the pounds the right way.  :)    There has been some  weight fluctuation, but at least I've been somewhat successful at keeping it off.  I feel damn good too!  But you can't beat any geek off the street... (I'll stop there, before I become too silly) Thanks for coming back and sticking with my weird sense of humor and my Motigirl adventures.   Until next time my friends... good night.

Week 1:   3/7/11: 163.2
Week 2:  3/14/11: 161.8
Week 3: 3/21/11: 159.2

Week 4: 3/28/11: 158.8
Week 5: 4/4/11:  156.8
Week 6: 4/11/11: 157.9     (break)
Week 7: 4/18/11: 157.6
Week 8: 4/25/11: 155.8
Week 9:  5/2/11: 155.0

Week 10: 5/9/11:  156.6
Week 11: 5/16/11:  156.0
Week 12: 5/23/11:  153.8
Week 13: 5/31/11:  151.0

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Moti Girl Diary- Week Nine... I'm over the rhyme

Hey there friends, Moti Girl checking in on this beautiful evening.  How are you all doing tonight? I'm chilling, enjoying my Laker game and am desperately trying to suppress the dire need to violently place a muzzle on the Hubby's mouth.  He is the biggest Laker hater in existence and I just want to punch him in the face right now.  Yes, I have a lot of pent up aggression, but his constant heckling and jabs at Kobe Bryant bring out the worst in me. Great the Lakers lost. Man I need to go sedate myself now.  In honor of the Fish and his hating ways, I am adding a small video clip from a few months ago when the Lakers and the Heat played, so you could get a glimpse of the torture I have to endure on a daily basis.  Enjoy all you Laker haters out there... it ain't gonna last long.  Can anyone say 3peat?  :)




Anyways, back to Moti Girl... So this week was filled with dessert temptation galore.  So Baskin Robbins had their 31 cents scoop day, food blogger extraordinaire Azmina Aboobaker  http://www.lawyerloveslunch.com/ came over with deliciously exquisite mini cheesecakes (also special shout out to Seher who brought over a beautiful flan, but I didn't get a chance to take a picture of it) and my hubby surprisingly brought home a delectable box of Belgian Hazelnut Chocolates to celebrate my last day as a berkeley student.  I don't know how I am suppose to watch my caloric intake when every other day I am tempted to turn into a dessert Pac-Man and just gobble everything in sight.  I know I sound like a broken record, but as long as I get a little taste of something. Luckily for me, the day Azmina came over, it was obviously free day so I actually ate the whole thing. It was ahhhh-mazing. I urge you to check out her blog. It's fun to read, witty and she has some really great recipes.  Check it out now!

Mini Cheesecakes
(Photo courtesy by Azmina Aboobaker http://www.lawyerloveslunch.com/)
I went roller skating this Saturday with my family in San Ramon at the Golden Skate. I haven't been since my 21st birthday. Wow!  It was hilariously fun and brought back so many happy memories from my middle school days. I think it's high time to do a GNO there with the ladies... maybe a retro night?  I can't believe I just used the word retro. OMG How old am I?  32 is any of you are wondering. Needless to say, it was a very memorable time and the fact that Leila was soooo incredibly happy just made my day.  I only fell once and it was only because I got all brave and tried to bust a move while skating and landed flat on my back.  Yes, it was ridiculously funny.  I woke up the next morning feeling like I got tossed around in the dryer.  Note to self: it wasn't skating with the stars... I need to check myself before I wreck myself. Trust me I did.  :)

enjoying 31 cent scoop night

I haven't really done anything extraordinary this week. Just trying to eat well, drink lots of water and get some exercise in whenever I can.  Besides the fact that I have one final on the 9th, I am feeling quite good.  No stress.  I feel weird that this journey of completing my undergraduate is finally over, but at the same time I'm happy that all the hard work, the sacrifices have paid off (aH). Anyways, I don't feel like being a sap today, just wanted to share my 2 cents. 

Well here it is...

I lost 0.8 pounds
I didn't lose as much as I would liked, but still going in the right direction.  Until next week, this is your Moti girl calling it a night!

Week 1:   3/7/11: 163.2
Week 2:  3/14/11: 161.8
Week 3: 3/21/11: 159.2

Week 4: 3/28/11: 158.8
Week 5: 4/4/11:  156.8
Week 6: 4/11/11: 157.9     (break)
Week 7: 4/18/11: 157.6
Week 8: 4/25/11: 155.8
Week 9:  5/2/11: 155.0