Breaking Out of the Daily Routine

Every now and then, especially when I've lived in a city for a while (and for me a while is about a year) and feel like my days are getting "routine," I get the urge to do new things. Not necessarily new giant things, like move or visit a museum everyday. New small things. Like shake up my morning routine, go to a new place for dinner, or even, simply, use my kitchen (it's very sadly unused, and I blame my crazy work hours and New York "it's-not-worth-my-time-to-cook" attitude). I remember getting this urge in Boston when I lived there a few years back, so took myself out to coffee in new neighborhoods, visited the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum that I had embarrassingly never been to, spent a whole day in Cambridge.

So this week was an experiment in just that. On my days off, I wandered around one of my favorite areas of New York, the West Village, admiring the adorable brownstones and sipping cappuccinos in vegan-friendly cafes (cause all cafes in the West Village seem to be vegan-friendly). I've been on a huge reading kick lately, which made hanging out a cafe for hours that much more enjoyable, and highly recommend The Help to anyone who hasn't yet read it.

I also went to a lovely Spanish tapas dinner one night with a girl friend of mine at Bar Basque. I love love love Spanish food, especially tapas, and wine and realized I hadn't had any in entirely too long. The presentations were downright fun on some plates, like these tuna tartare "push pops"! (Friend texting excitedly in background not included.)

And the chorizo sampler, chorizo being one of my favorite Spanish treats, was delicious! So delicious, in fact, that I couldn't even snap a photo of the plate before my friend reached her grubby fingers into it. (On a side note, if you haven't tried the soy-chorizo at Trader Joe's, go out and do! The texture's not the same, but good lord it's delicious for a vegetarian treat!)

And finally, just today, I actually put my kitchen to work and threw together a breakfast that wasn't my typical yogurt and granola and coffee. I think my stove was happy to be turned on. (And yes, that's Soy-Chorizo mixed in there. See? I love it.)

Do you ever get antsy with your daily routine? What do you do to shake it up? I'm always looking for exciting new suggestions!

Happy weekend, all!!