1. Smithsonian Castle: I haven’t done any touristy DC stuff in a couple weeks, so yesterday morning I went to check out the gorgeous Smithsonian Castle for the first time. This was the Smithsonian Institution’s original building and it now serves as the main visitor center. There’s not a ton to see inside, but it’s pretty cool as a first stop if you want to learn a bit of history about the institution. It does contain a couple exhibits with pieces from the other Smithsonian museums, plus a cafe and a shop. Bonus: it’s surrounded by lovely gardens.
2. National Museum of Natural History: this museum is directly across the Mall from the castle, so after my visit there I strolled on over. I’ve been to this place a couple times before, but it’s alway pretty fun (if you can handle the crowds—from my experience, this museum is more popular than many others). I love the hall of geology, gems, and minerals, so I spent most of this visit in there…it never gets old. The Hope Diamond is part of the permanent collection, and today I learned it’s 45.52 carats and is worth $150 million dollars. That’s all well and good, but I was particularly taken with this giant piece of fluorite from Illinois!
3. Nails Inc Unicorn Nail Polish Duo: yeah, unicorn stuff is probably on its way out by now, but when this pretty polish duo came back in stock at Sephora I had to have it! Nails Inc makes good nail polish—I can cover most of my nails with one swipe of the wide brush. The holographic bluish shade on the left is called Rainbow Wishes and the shade on the right is called Sparkle Like a Unicorn in Dream Dust. I’m a much bigger fan of Rainbow Wishes, but the other color is fun too!
4. Green Goddess Pasta with Zucchini Noodles and Fried Cheese: I found this Half Baked Harvest recipe on Pinterest (duh) and was drawn to it when trying to figure out what to make for dinner this Wednesday. The dish turned out great, except instead of halloumi I bought “grilling cheese,” which did not in fact grill well. Next time I’ll pay the extra $4 for actual halloumi! My husband wasn’t a huge fan of the tahini in the pesto—he thought it was a little out of place—so I might omit that next time. My pic below isn’t the best, but the pasta sure did taste good!
5. Smoothie Bowl: if you’ve spent any time on Pinterest or Instagram you’re probably at least marginally aware of the smoothie bowl trend. Seriously, if you have some free time, search for smoothie bowls on either site and see how long it takes you to claw your way out of that rabbit hole. Anyway, I jumped on the smoothie bowl bandwagon a couple months ago and then got lazy about making them (I KNOW, SO LAZY). This week I started back up with them again! Smoothie bowls can be as basic or as fancy as you’d like. The below smoothie bowl contains a banana, frozen blueberries, frozen blackberries, frozen strawberries, almond butter, almond milk, and honey. I blended all the ingredients, then poured the smoothie into a bowl and topped it with hemp seeds, chia seeds, and goji berries. Delicious and so good for you!