The Joyful Kitchen

NEW BLOG!!! NEW BLOG!!! NEW BLOG!!!

2010-01-18T16:53:00.000-08:00

Hey guys!

It's been fun, but The Joyful Kitchen has now moved to:

Heather's Dish
www.heathersdish.com

Please update your bookmarks, Google Readers, and blog rolls! I'd love to continue to see all of you (and hopefully more of you!) at my new site.

Love,

Heather

The Second-to-Last

2010-01-18T07:57:00.000-08:00

Hey guys!

Kind of an exciting/sad day today! This will be my last official post on this blog :(

BUT I'm very excited about debuting my new blog since it will allow so much more room for growth and will allow more people to leave comments (fingers crossed that you will :)

After church yesterday we went to Chipotle with Amy and some new friends, Joe and Amy (yes, 2 Amys total!) I got a chicken burrito bowl with rice, black beans, chicken, pico de gallo, corn salsa, guac, and lettuce. It took all I could to say no cheese, but I did it!

We all stuck around and talked for a while. I mentioned that now that the snow has melted I was going to go pick up the dog stuff in the yard...buuuuuuuuut, when I got home I just looked at it and then went upstairs for a nap. Oh well, it's fertilizer right?

Nate had some work to do, so we hit up the local Starbucks so I could work on the blog and he could catch up on some other stuff. I had one of these guys:

Which, by the way, are one of my absolute favorite snacks EVER. The problem is I just want more and more and more! A little later we each got a cookie; I got the outrageous oatmeal one:

(please excuse the shakey iPhone pic) It was perfect...just the right amount of sweet I needed!

Last night Nate was at a guys leadership thing with the church, so I was on my own for dinner. I had a grilled chicken breast (cubed) mixed with the leftover bbq sauce from the other night. Piled high on a whole wheat bun with pickles:

While the chicken was warming in the sauce, I also made some hummus for the week in the food processor!

Roasted Red Pepper + Garlic Hummus

2 cans chickpeas
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup water
1/8 cup lemon juice
1/2 bulb of garlic, roasted (break apart the bulb, but leave the skins on the cloves. drizzle with olive oil, then cover in foil - make a pouch around them. start in a cold oven set to 300 and roast for 30 minutes. take out and let cool before handling with your fingers)
2 jarred roasted red peppers
salt to taste

Throw it all in the food processor and process for 2-3 minutes until creamy. If you like yours a little chunkier, Estela had a great point to throw in some whole chickpeas at the end. YUM!

Now, I must admit, I didn't feel well yesterday AT ALL, so I ate the rest of this ice cream (~1/2 cup). So sue me. I know Nate wanted to!

Last night we worked on taking pictures for the new blog head and I finished the rest of the medical notes. We were up pretty darn late, and only got 4 hours of sleep. Yikes! Not healthy, but that doesn't happen often!

This morning I did a larger microwave breakfast cookie a la Tina:

I followed her recipe with the exception of flour instead of protein powder, I added dried cranberries, and did the sliced banana on top with PB. SOOO good! I'm thinking I might use this recipe to make a series on the new blog!

Next time you see this blog it will have the link to the new one! EEEK! I'm so excited, and thank you all so much for your input, suggestions, and kind words. I hope to see more of all of y'all at the new one soon!

Sunday Funday

2010-01-17T07:00:00.000-08:00

Good mawnin' :)

Hope y'alls Saturdays were great...I know mine was filled with work (both at the office and here), but still a lot of fun.

When we left the office yesterday we realized we needed to get dog food since both were almost out! I think it's important to feed dogs, right? Anyway, we stopped by Petsmart and got their food and some toys (that, by the way, only lasted 3 minutes tops in the mouths of my ferocious beasts!), and then headed to Costco. Why Costco, you ask? Simple - they usually have better deals on dog biscuits than anywhere else. Oh, and I guess the samples. But obviously we went strictly for the dog biscuits (wink)!

At Costco we found a $$ GREAT DEAL $$ on Bully Sticks! These are dried bull muscle (appetizing), and are normally outrageously expensive, but Costco had a bag of 12 for $10. KILLER DEAL. So we got those for the puppers:

We vowed to only use them for occasions when people come over and our dogs are being outrageously annoying, so they haven't had one yet. But they will...oooooh, they will.

I got to work on the medical notes I do on the side, and Nate ended up re-watching Duplicity. I worked on those for about 2 hours, and then Nate let me know that he was making dinner. He kept is simple with a pita pizza with chicken and fresh mozzarella:

He put a little flour on them so they'd resemble "real" pizzeria pizza - apparently that's something he really like about those! Guess you still learn things about one another even after 3 years of marriage, eh? :)

We went and saw Sherlock Holmes at the theater (where we shared some popcorn...don't judge) and it was AWESOME!!! Truly a great movie...not too violent for me, but more than enough action for him. Plus, it has Robert Downey, Jr and Jude Law. I mean come on, it's good for girls too! :)

When we got home I finished my notes and we promptly jumped in bed! This morning I did NOT want to get up, but was able to lure myself to a standing position with the promise of one of these guys:

It's the hazelnut candy my pen pal, Jackie, in France sent me! SOOOOOOO terrific, and it totally hit the spot. I also made a bowl of pumpkin oats with peanut buttah:

In the mix: 1/3 cup oats, 1 cup water, 1 Tbsp cranberries, 1 banana, 1 Tbsp flax, 1 packet Truvia, 1/3 cup pumpkin, 1 Tbsp peanut butter. SO GOOD. I really think I love peanut butter way more than almond butter; however, if left alone I would eat a whole thing of PB, so I stick with AB as a means of portion control. Weird?

Today I'll be collaborating with my husband the photographer and one of our friends on (hopefully!!!) getting the new blog up and running. It won't be perfected (I'll still have to sort through the restaurants and blogroll), but the sooner I can start posting on it, the better.

If you've switched your blog (i.e. Blogger to Wordpress), do you have any tips to throw my way? And if not, any tricks you've learned from your own blogging format?

Sherlock Holmes

2010-01-16T17:48:00.001-08:00

Yes, that's right...we are about to head to the theater to see Sherlock Holmes. I'm looking forward to it, but my sweet Nate is VERY excited!

Hope y'all are all having a fabulous Saturday, and I'll be back a la manana (tomorrow for you non-Spanish speakers) with my eats for today and brefix in the A.M.!

Homemade BBQ Take 1

2010-01-16T10:09:00.000-08:00

Oh Saturdays, how I love you!

Friday nights are seriously our laziest nights of the week. We usually get home and then realize we don't have the food, so we go to the store. At said store, we usually buy just about anything that looks good, and my dinner plans promptly fly out the window. Last night was, by that definition, a typical Friday night :)

After the store visit we made margarita-daquiri things:

And while we waited for the bbq sauce finish, we made another round of bruschetta. I loved the recipe so much last time, and we had a ton of leftover tomatoes!

I used the two ends of the bread loaf to make little bruschetta pockets for myself...so cute, and I loved biting into the pocket-o-goodness!

Nate went out and fired up the grill to cook some turkey smoked sausage. Once that was done, we cut the links in half and used them on our sandwiches with the homemade bbq sauce:

BBQ Sauce Take 1 recipe (based on Neely's BBQ Sauce):

1 cup ketchup
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 Tbsp brown sugar
2 Tbsp white sugar
1/2 Tbsp ground black pepper
1 Tbsp ground mustard
1 Tbsp dried minced onions
1 tsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp Worchestershire sauce

Just mix it all together, bring to a simmer, then reduce the heat and simmer for 20-30 minutes (or until desired thickness is achieved). It's SO GOOD, and I'm very excited about making variations of this in the future!

You might now be asking yourself (if you read my post from yesterday afternoon), "What happened to the oven fries and the spaghetti squash salad?" Yeah, well, after our long visit to the store that just didn't happen. Oh well! I did end up baking the squash to be used for lunch today though!

We decided at the store (because that's where all truly enlightened decisions are made) to get some ice cream for dessert. The winner? This Haagen-Dazs 5 Ingredient Coffee delight!

I mean, the ingredient list is 5 ingredients long!! It's not like I even had a choice, you know? PLUS, the milk that was used was skim - even better! I served them up in our miniature Anthropologie bowls, and it was the creamiest, most amazing ice cream!

While we were out we rented Duplicity, but as soon as we put it in the DVD player and sat on the couch, we fell asleep and missed the entire thing. OOPS. So, there will be another Duplicity viewing at our house later today...hehe :)

Fast forward to this morning, I threw together a huge dish of the spaghetti squash (which I mixed with a packet of Italian dressing seasoning) and marinara for lunch today:

It's likely I'll eat this entire thing for lunch by myself. I mean, it's squash and marinara! That's healthy, right?

And Nate made us breakfast smoothies (~16 oz or so) with frozen strawberries, a sliced banana, 1/2 cup vanilla nonfat yogurt, and 1/3 cup nonfat milk. SO GOOD! It tasted like ice cream :)

Since we were working this morning, we brought some cinnamon rolls to share. I might have eaten 2.75 of these. I mean, it's Saturday! I thought it would be slightly appropriate :)

So, turns out we're not working as long as I thought, but it also turns out that we likely won't go hiking as I had hoped. The snow's been melting all week, and hiking in mud isn't as fun as hiking on dry ground. So sad :( I love that Colorado has definitive seasons, but winter isn't nearly as short as I'd like! I'm definitely a spring + fall kinda gal :)

What's your favorite season? Why?

So Cliche, but TGIF!!!

2010-01-15T15:36:00.000-08:00

I know, I know...I was at a ski resort for 2 days during this work week...but that was actually really hard work! I'm just about shot I think...that is, until tomorrow at 10 when I'm back in the office! :)

So, mid-morning I had to at least try a piece of the banana bread I made last night. Honestly, I like mine a little more moist than the way this turned out, but the flavor was spot on!

I had to show y'all my ghetto-rigged water cup:

I got a cup for water from the kitchen because I forgot my bottle at home, and it leaked! I put it in my tea cup to keep it from getting all over my desk - and that, kids, is what we call ghetto. Or smart...one of the two anyway!

Lunch was a bowl of the bean + turkey soup I made last night, with a toasted sandwich thin on the side:

This is the most colorful part of my day today :)

And, well, I had a little bit of the banana bread, but no pumpkin...it was feeling left out...I HAD to try it too! I swear!

Pretty good for being from a box mix! I have a good recipe for homemade pumpkin bread using whole wheat flour, which makes is SUPER dense and moist...YUM! Speaking of pumpkin, I also snacked on a little thing of pumpkin yogurt:

1/3 cup yogurt, 1/3 cup pumpkin, 1 Truvia, lots o'cinnamon! I love the texture the pumpkin gives it...I feel healthier just eating it!

Today I walked for an hour at a 4.5 mph pace. I continue to go back and forth on running vs. walking. I used to LOVE running (before it became this big, evil, only-to-burn-calories activity), but since I did it incorrectly for so long, I totally screwed up my body. I do truly enjoy walking, though, and it doesn't hurt. I think that's what I'll stick with for now.

Upon getting back to the office, I made my 3-minute oatmeal cookie:

It was great! Definitely didn't have the crunchiness that I like from baking and fat, but it was soft, warm, and sweet...just want I needed right then! I spread about 1/2 Tbsp of almond butter on top and devoured. I love how Tina's recipes rarely call for random, expensive, hard-to-find ingredients. It makes her blog and her recipes so much more accessible!

We're about to peace out from work for the official workweek, and I couldn't be happier. Dinner tonight is going to be BBQ Sausage Sandwiches (w/ homemade bbq sauce), oven-fries, and spaghetti squash salad (gonna make that up as I go!) Wish me luck!

What's your favorite (hypothetical) Friday happy-hour drink? (Mine's a Cape Cod or a marg, hands down!)

Eat at Lime

2010-01-14T20:58:00.000-08:00

Good morning!

Last time I blogged I was sick and light-headed. Good news my friends! We are now only 1 mile high instead of 2, so I feel much better now. Before we left Winter Park, we ate at Lime.

Lime calls itself an American cantina - not really sure what that means - but it was very good! I maintain that you can always tell a good Mexican/cantina by the salsa:

I wasn't the biggest fan of the chips; they were flour tortilla chips rather than corn chips. The salsa was very good though!

The great thing is that on Thursdays they have $5 mojitos and $5 burritos...lucky day! I didn't venture to get a mojito since I was kind of sick all day, but Nate got one and I had a sip. It wasn't the best I've ever had, but for $5 I'll take it!

The burrito was pretty basic:

We both had shredded chicken, rice, beans, smothered in green chili with melted cheese on top. Not sure healthy, but since it's the $5 special one it wasn't that big. I would have liked some garlic or salt (or both), but otherwise 'twas delish!

We said goodbye to all of our new-found friends and business partners with NAASF, then promptly climbed in the Jeep to head home. On the way to I-70 the road was really windy and made me a tad bit sick to my stomach, but once we got on I-70 it was much better! We got the puppers from Amy (such a great friend!) and came home so that Nate could get to work!

I decided to make this soup that I picked up in Lubbock:

But I made it with ground turkey instead of chicken:

Once I got that simmering away, I made myself a yummy chicken sandwich with leftovers from the other night - whole wheat bun, grilled chicken breast, tomato, lettuce, Mango-Ginger-Habanero sauce, and some gorgonzola!

I also made some pumpkin bread from a Pillsbury quick bread mix:
And banana bread (sorry, it wasn't ready for it's photo op) using this recipe. The only difference is that I didn't use nuts (not everyone at the office likes them) and sprinkled the top with raw sugar. That's a fair trade, right?

Shortly after the soup was done cooking (it had to simmer for 3 hours), we were climbing in bed. After all, we did have to come back to work today!

This morning I made some oats:

In the mix: 1/3 cup oats, 2/3 cup water, 1 banana, 1/3 cup each of yogurt + pumpkin (stirred in at the end), and vanilla + cinnamon (stirred in at the end)

While that was all cooking together, I assembled the ingredients for Tina's 3-Minute Oatmeal Cookie (egg whites + vanilla not pictured). I'm planning on having that bad boy for a snack after my run today:

After breakfast + getting lunch together, I charged out of the house with puppies in hand and hauled it to work! It's Friday, but definitely going to be a multiple-green tea day!

This weekend I'm working 5 hours (order entry season at the company), and then hopefully going hiking! I'm not sure what the weather will look like, and it will likely be freezing, but I've been craving a good hike for so long!

What are you most looking forward to for this weekend?

Altitude Sickness

2010-01-14T13:16:00.001-08:00

Hi there :)

Soooooo...I think that I might have some altitude sickness :( Probably onset by the ONE margarita I had last night! I mean, I know I'm a lightweight, and one is always enough, but I have not been 100% today at all. I did one run with Nate after the first set of races and then came inside. BLAH.

However, we did have a fantastic breakfast this morning at Goody's here in Winter Park:

As soon as we walked in and I saw these massive jars of candy, I knew we were in the right place :)

The decor was so fun and mountain-y...like this big "moose" head with ornaments:

They also had some AH-mazing caramel apples...I so wanted one, but turns out 8am isn't really the best time for candy OR caramel apples, according to Nate!

So why did we come here again? Ah, yes...breakfast! They had 2 massive chalkboards full of crepe options, bot sweet and savory:

Even though I wanted one of each, it was probably more cost effective for each of us to get one - which we did!

Some more mish-mash decor...

And now THE MAKING OF THE CREPES! The guy who made them was awesome, rocking some dreads and baggy jeans, something Nate and I have become accustomed to here in Colorado :)

Such a cool technique...I'd love to have a round griddle! I'd make crepes all day long! OK OK, that might not be a good thing, but it would be a very tasty one!

These are some marshmallow skewers that Goody's lends out with their s'mores kits. There's a huge open fire right in front of the shop, so you can imagine there are quite a few s'mores being made during the winter out there!

Here's one of the kits:

But they have an entire tower of them with all kinds of chocolate candies and marshmallows!

Yet again, the cool decor. I really like this clock set-up with Local time, Bejing time, and London time!

Finally, our crepes were ready!

Nate's was pizza-flavored with marinara, pepperoni, onions, and cheese. Mine had turkey sausage, spinach, and mushrooms:

They were really good; the only downfall of mine was that the mushrooms were canned and didn't have great texture. Had I known that I would have gotten double spinach or some other veggie. Otherwise, the crepe was excellent!

While we ate I noticed one of these honey things (do they have a specific name?):

Definitely a great place to eat! Plus, it's super close to the main lift at Winter Park, and about 100 yards from the front of the hotel we stayed in. Goody's is a winner in my book!

As I said before, I think that I had a little altitude sickness, which has rendered me very lethargic :( I stopped skiing and went and changed into my boots while Nate took 2 more runs before the next round of races. Once the boots were on, I stopped at the lodge and got a bottle of water and some Odwalla bars:

I had the Berries GoMega before, and knew I liked it because of the dried strawberries. I got the chocolate one for Nate since it had chocolate chips on the wrapper! Honestly, his wasn't great, but he enjoyed it. The list of ingredients on these is super long, so they're not something I would get very often, but it was the healthiest thing I could find at the snack bar :)

Thanks so much for y'alls feedback! I am switching to a Wordpress account, so it will definitely be easier to enter comments and your URLs. I told Nate that I wanted it up by Sunday, so we are working on that in the car tonight!

If you have any input or feedback for things you want to see on my new blog (coming Sunday night), please feel free to leave a comment or, if you can't, feel free to email me at hsdisarro@hotmail.com.

Much Bettah!

2010-01-13T21:04:00.001-08:00

Mornin' y'all!

Hope y'all had a great night...I know that we did! We had dinner last night at the Moffat Station Brewery in the Winter Park Hotel. I took a cool picture of Nate (he looks kinda mean, but we were playing with the light):

We ordered Herbed Hummus for an appetizer...SO amazing! There was a ton of flavor and the toasted pitas were a perfect pairing:

I ordered the Portabella Wrap with portabella mushrooms (adoy), cucumbers, red onions, carrots, and zucchini. It was served with a HUGE pile of Asian slaw...bok choy, savoy cabbage, carrots, red cabbage, and a great dressing with rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, and shredded ginger. Holy yum!

Nate got the Fiesta salad - greens, grilled chicken, red and yellow bell peppers, onions, and ranch. His was really great too!

We both felt MUCH better after having some healthier food in us. I know that I felt much more confident and happier with my decision making :)

We ended up going to a party for about an hour, where I had a margarita on the rocks, but then decided that we were so completely exhausted - see Exhibit A below:

Nate crashed and I stayed up a little later playing on blogs. I could barely keep my eyes open, was so excited to see what everyone was up to today!

I just became overwhelmed by thankfulness for this community of bloggettes :) I've been so inspired and encouraged, and want to thank all of you who read this for putting up with my antics and lovingly encouraging me every step of the way. I've begun to notice my jeans getting bigger on me, which is a good sign since I don't weigh myself. Looks like I'm on my way!

I also wanted to announce (because announcing this will force me to get my rear in gear) that I will have my new blog up by Sunday night (eek!). It will have a different name, so if you're following me on here please make sure to update your followed blogs/blogrolls. I'm very excited about this transition because it will allow more communication and hopefully quite a bit more room for growth!

What would you like to see more of on this blog? Foods eaten? Recipes? Workout specifics? My puppies (hah!)? -- I'd love any feedback y'all have!

Winter Park

2010-01-13T16:16:00.001-08:00

Hey guys!

I’m writing tonight from gorgeous Winter Park, Colorado!

This is seriously the most beautiful ski mountain I’ve ever been to, although I hear that Vail is pretty nice too!

SOOO last night for dinner with our community group we made grilled chicken sandwiches/black bean burgers with edamame, a veggie tray from the grocery store, and some roasted tomato salsa and chips brought by our friend Stephanie! Such a wonderful spread, and actually pretty darn healthy if I do say so myself! I totally forgot to do pictures because I was rushing around cooking, but I did get a photo of my black bean burger before I completely scarfed it!

Once everyone left, we finished a ton of laundry and packed up. Got to bed a bit late, but at that point we just had to get stuff done.

Breakfast this morning is an unpictured Egg McMuffin from McDonald’s (yep, you read that correctly). I’m not a fan of McDonald’s, but we were running so late and that was about the only option between us and Winter Park. Oh well!

When we got in town we had to wait until opening to get a parking pass, so to pass about 30 minutes or so we walked around Winter Park Village and took pictures of fun things!

This is a fantastic coffee shop...and coffee roaster! I would highly recommend checking them out :)

In the middle of the village there was a fake wood-real fire thingy going on (wouldn't mind one of those in the backyard!):

A fun, colorful sign:

And these awesome xylophones that are just in the middle of the square! We played on them for a few minutes and then quit because we didn't want to be those people :)

Fun sunflower made out of metal:

And I obviously needed my picture taken with this moose. Guess we couldn't hide that we really are those people at heart! Super cheesy :)

We got the parking pass and hit the ground running (we’re here for work, not play), and after the first round of races we grabbed some lunch at Doc’s Roadhouse.

I got half a Caesar wrap and tomato soup…didn’t realize it came with fries! If I’d known that I would have ordered a straight salad. Why, you ask? Well, because I ate the entire plate of food and felt completely guilty afterwards. I feel much better after we hiked around in the snow for 3 hours, but at the time I was so upset with myself.

I know I shouldn’t beat myself up, but I had been so proud of my progress with portion control and efforts to healthy things and I just feel like I totally and completely failed today.

Now we’re back in our room and working on sharing a work laptop for…you guessed it…WORK! Should be a restful night because we’ll be getting started early again in the morning!

I’ve read this page from Caitlin’s blog on Fat Talk and defining our emotions when eating. It’s been hard but really helpful in my ability to talk to Nate about the way I feel physically and emotionally in relation to food.

Question: Do you ever feel guilty about what you eat? How has that effected the way you view eating and exercise?

Bibbity Bobbity Boo

2010-01-12T14:04:00.000-08:00

Hey guys! How's Tuesday treatin' ya? It's been crazy at work today for me! Maybe that's why I had the "Bibbity Bobbity Boo" song from Cinderella stuck in my head while I was running today (?)

I had a pre-lunch snack today...an apple and about 1 Tbsp of almond butter from my not-so-secret-jar:

The obviously much needed aerial view:

Lunch itself was the rest of the chili from yesterday. I'm so frustrated I can't find that recipe anywhere! I'm not giving up though, it was too delish for that :)

It still made me sweat a little, but was super tasty. I had a toasted sandwich thin on the side:

And a fun-size pack of M & Ms I found in the kitchen at work. I really DON'T like milk chocolate at all, but these were just right to feed my sweet tooth!

I just got back from running/walking. My knee started to act up again after 25 minutes of running, so I walked the rest of the time. I was a little bummed because I can feel myself being OK cardiovascularly for running, but I'm having a mental battle to not push myself too hard too fast. Anyway, it was an hour total of cardio activity which I was psyched about :)

I'm now back and eating this Larabar and clementine. This clem is way better than the dry one yesterday. Cashew Cookie isn't my favorite Larabar flavah, but it's definitely going to keep me from eating too much at dinner!

Tonight we're having our community group meet at our house to eat and hang out. Nate and I are in charge of dinner, and I think we're going to do a medley of stuff on the grill (turkey burgers, chicken breasts, maybe a veggie burger or two) and mashed potatoes and edamame! Hopefully we'll have time to stop by the store and pick up a couple of veggies too :)

Then we're packing to head out to Winter Park to work at a ski race. Should be fun, and I'm stoked about my first ski race (to watch, not race!) We are staying at a really awesome hotel too, so I'll be posting pictures of that as well once we get there!

Silly question: What's your favorite Larabar flavor?

Don't Let Your Dreams Be Dreams

2010-01-12T08:22:00.000-08:00

Hello hello!

I love the line from the Jack Johnson song "Dreams be Dreams"...I think it's such a great reminder of how are lives are too short to only let our dreams be dreams.

As promised, I recorded most of what I ate last night at CiCi's. I started off with a plateful of salad with carrots, onions, and fat free Italian:

And I had these three slices of pizza (bbq chicken, mushroom alfredo, and pepperoni), plus a cheese piece and 2 cinnamon rolls. Heathy? Nah. But is was so fun to hang out with Ken, Leeann, and Allie and just enjoy cheap pizza together :)

Last night Nate and I had a cleaning frenzy and took down all of our Christmas decorations in preparation for our community group coming over tonight. I was pretty tired, but it was so nice to wake up this morning and see a clean floor and new furniture arrangement :)

I got up this morning and did ~20 minutes of the Namaste Yoga show on FitTV (I say 20 minutes since they have commercials) and did crunches and Supermans during the commerical breaks. Not too shabby, and I really love doing yoga in the AM since I'm pretty tight when I wake up.

I was totally planning on having some oats this morning, and I was super excited because I found these bad boys at WF the other day:

They have more fiber per serving than regular rolled oats! Unfortunately I took too long getting dressed and had to sprint out the door, so no oats today :( Maybe tomorrow for the drive to Winter Park?

I did, however, make a mean bowl of pumpkin yogurt with dried cranberries, pecans, and honey-toasted oats:

In the mix there's about 1/2 cup plain nonfat yogurt, 1/3 cup pumpkin, 1 packet Truvia, 1 tsp cinnamon, and about 1/8 cup each of dried cranberries, honey-toasted oats (recipe to come), and pecans. As I'm sure you've heard before, I mmmmmmm'ed my way through the bowl!

It turned out to be the perfect amount! Nate and I have been reading a book lately where you're required to talk about your dreams. The funny thing is, it's so hard to actually formulate a dream sometimes, especially when all we focus on sometimes is the day-to-day. I've been thinking that my dreams include traveling the world, writing and cooking, and sharing a joyful life with others. I feel like those are so ambiguous sometimes, but it's been a great exercise to get the creative juices flowing when we consider the rest of our lives!

I've asked this before, maybe a little differently: If money was not an option, what would you do? What in this world excites you?

Sweaty Chili

2010-01-11T15:28:00.000-08:00

Hey guys! Hope your Monday is treating you well :)

I have been so excited lately to be reading about Caitlin and Meghann's success with the Disney Marathon this weekend! I've been inspired by them to start "training" for something...not sure what just yet, but it can't hurt to have a goal at some point, right?

This morning I had one of Tina's oatmeal pancakes:

I might have made a huge mess...oops :) Sometimes I overestimate how dry this Colorado air is and I made the batter a little runny. It was still heavenly though with about 1 tsp of Smart butter and a drizzle of maple!

I snacked on one of the clementines during work...it was kinda dry, but still very sweet. I think I might save the apple and other clem for tomorrow:

Lunch was some frozen chili (working on finding that recipe again!) that I pulled out of the freezer. I totally forgot that I made this batch SUPER SPICAAAAAAAAAY and was slightly sweating while I ate it. That's when you know it's good!

Finally, around 3 I went on a jog/walk (mostly jogging though) in my new shoes. Guys, these things fit like a glove AND they were only $35! God was surely smiling down at me in Dick's Sporting Goods yesterday :)

I went around 5.5 miles on the path, and it was really nice and relaxing. I stopped for about 5 minutes and did a quick ab workout on a bench, then ran the rest of the way to the office. Tomorrow's supposed to be around 60 and I am so pumped to be able to run in a T-shirt again finally!

As a side note, I've also decided to start writing more about my workouts on here. I talk about food all the time, and my quarter-life crisis, but exercise is a very important part of who I am. I am, after all, a certified personal trainer, so I might as well throw up some info every now and then too!

Dinner with Ken and Leeann tonight...at CiCi's! Now, I know that a pizza buffet might not be the most nutritionally sound, but I fully intend on behaving myself and recording every piece that goes in my mouth to increase my self control. Y'all send good food-eating thoughts my way :)

Are you a runner? If so, do you compete in races or not so much? Why or why not?

'Twas a Sweet Tooth Weekend

2010-01-10T21:23:00.001-08:00

Hey guys!

So, turns out my major thoughts of checking in over the weekend fell by the wayside when I realized how busy/tired I was. I guess taking a short trip and skiing for about 8 hours will do that to ya!

Turns out the snacker I had of oatmeal on Friday was just right for getting me out to Copper Mountain. We got in around 7(ish), checked in, and drove to the Backcountry Brewery in Frisco. I wasn't in a beer mood that night, but Nate ended getting a Switchback Amber to start off with:

I ended up ordering (I tried to find the healthiest thing possible) the Southwest Mango Chicken with mashed garlic potatoes and steamed veggies. Everything looked so great though, it was hard to decide!

It's a good thing I tried to go healthy, too, because we also got some 'tator skins that were deliciously drowning in cheese, bacon, sour cream, and green onions:

And a little photo op of my dinnah:

This is a very travel-worn photo of me, happy to finally have made it!

And now we enter the time I didn't take any pictures (oops), which was most of the day Saturday. Basically for breakfast I had biscuits and gravy, a small side of house potatoes, and 1 scrambled egg from a local breakfast joint. Then, on our friend Kraig's suggestion (we skied with him, his beautiful wife Amanda, and her cousin Brian most of the day) we ate at a hot dog joint with a killer deal of 2 dogs and a drink for $5.

[Side note: I L-O-V-E hot dogs...always have, always will. Like I've said before, I took an entire course on meat in college, and it doesn't bother me a bit about the "mystery meat" rumors...they're still pretty darn wonderful!]

So, a little tip, when you ski (or do any physical activity) you should always ALWAYS stay hydrated. I was incredibly smart and didn't (sarcasm) do this on Saturday, which resulted in me getting light headed and incredibly emo on the ride home. Not a good idea; always drink your water!

Upon leaving Copper Mountain, Nate had a Clif Bar (Banana Nut), and I had the Key Lime Pie Larabar. oh.my.gosh it was amazing! I probably won't eat it every time, but the mix of flavors was perfect!
When we got back to the Denver area, we shared a small Hawaiian pizza at Old Chicago (Canadian bacon, pineapple, red peppers, green onions):

And promptly picked up the puppers at our friend Amy's house and crashed the second we got home.

I made the same thing for breakfast that I did last Sunday, but added about a cup of spinach into the mix as well. Nate decided to give it rabbit ears for the camera:

And for some reason on the way to church I decided that the ONLY thing I wanted in my life right at that moment was a baby cup of ice cream. Turns out that not every grocery store carries those, so I settled for a Reese's egg. It was definitely nice to have a little something sweet, and thankfully it carried me through church (in regards to my sweet tooth).

Afterwards we all went and ate at a little Irish tavern close the school we have church at. Nate and I split a burger with cheddar and a couple fries; I took the entire pickle though. YUM.

But once I got back in the car I started craving something sweet again! Lemon Larabar to the rescue! Yet another fantastic flavor with TONS of lemon, which I was wild about. I devoured it in about 2 minutes.

We also went to the mall this afternoon. For Christmas, Nate gave me a gift card to Dick's Sporting Goods, and I figured today was just as good a time as any to hit up the mall and use the card! Nate, being the chocolate chip cookie fiend that he is, convinced me to stop and get a cookie at the Mrs. Field's shop. I might have gotten a fresh from the oven chewy chocolate cookie (teehee).

We finally made it to Dick's, and GUESS WHAT? I found an awesome pair of running shoes for $35! AND a sweet pair of North Face shorts for $10! We celebrated with a California roll and a spicy tuna roll from the food court...not my fave sushi, but it got the job done nonetheless!

We ended the sweet tooth weekend by sharing a small hot fudge sundae from the Texas stop sign (aka Dairy Queen). SOOO good, and it felt even better to share it with my sweetie!

Tonight we rented Julie and Julia, which is something that I've seen before. However, my takeaway this time around was a little different. It really made me think about the WHY behind me writing this blog.

Is it for fame and fortune?
Social status?
Gaining a book deal at some point?
Or simply just writing to do something different than what I do at my day job?

Honestly, it's a little bit of all of those; however, this is something that, like exercise, I am doing for myself as a means of expression. People might read this, and they might or might not care, but at the end of the day, when I click that "Publish Post" button, I am doing it as a means of expressing the person I am, and hopefully tracking the person I am becoming.

If you read this, I am so thankful to have you see a snapshot of my life through my words. For so long, like Jessica, I stopped writing because at the time I didn't know how it set me free. I didn't realize that writing is almost a primal need in my life, and a lot of the frustrations I deal with tend to melt away when I write these words for anyone who will read them. Whether it's an illusion that anyone actually cares about what I say or not, writing about my life shows me that I care, which is more than I can say about myself from before I took on the project of food blogging. That in and of itself is enough of a reason to keep forging ahead!

And so, with this post in mind, I pose two more serious questions that I really would love to hear the answer to: Why do you really choose to blog? What is your goal in writing your every thought for the world to read?

Bowls

2010-01-08T14:16:00.000-08:00

Eeeek! How does this always happen? I try to make sure I'm blogged and ready to go before we leave for a trip, and all of a sudden the time creeps up on me. Yeesh!

I've eaten all of my food today out of bowls. First breakfast yogurt in a bowl, then the leftover beef stew for lunch in a bowl...nice and warm and very filling!

And then I worked my tail off for about 3 hours before I realized that - HOLY MOLY!! - I'm starving! As I said earlier, I planned ahead and brought a mix of oatmeal to make for my snack since we're having a late dinner in Copper Mountain. My bowl of oats:

It's 1/2 cup oats, 1 Tbsp dried cranberries, 1 Tbsp milled flax seed, 3/4 cup of water, 1/2 cup skim milk, 1 Tbsp almond butter, and 1 small banana. Delicioso!

I've gotta say, I'm so excited about going away just for the night. We won't have an over-abundance of laundry to do upon getting back, but it'll be just enough to help get out of the "real world" again for a little bit. I'll definitely be posting pictures of the food/skiing...maybe in some bowls? :)

For those of you who ski, snowboard, or would like to, what's your favorite place that you've skied/boarded so far?

Planned Ahead!

2010-01-08T08:00:00.000-08:00

I'm not usually one to gloat...OK, maybe I am sometimes :)

But seriously, I am glad that Alabama won. I just feel like my allegiance to a school I actually did coursework at and had a connection to is worth more than just cheering for a team in the Big 12. Plus, in all honesty, they were just the better team last night!

So, I was a total and complete slacker and didn't make treats...I have been in a constant state of kitchen-cleaning for the entire week, and didn't have any clean pans or measuring cups, and by the time the dishwasher was done cleaning them, it was about 11pm. Too late to make 2 pans of treats! Guess that just means I'll have to double up next week, eh?

Breakfast this morning was pumpkin yogurt with apple and hazelnuts!

In the mix: 1 cup SF plain fat-free yogurt, 1/3 cup pumpkin, lots of cinnamon, a whole honeycrisp apple, and about 1/4 cup of hazelnuts that I "candied". Basically I just toasted them in a pan with about 2 tsp of brown sugar and 1/2 tsp of water until the mixture started to resemble caramel. Just let it cool on a plate sprayed with nonstick!

It was a yummy breakfast, but definitely more than I thought it would make...the apple REALLY bulked it up. Also, I would probably reduce the amount of brown sugar to 1 tsp since the hazelnuts were almost too sugary.

We stopped by Starbucks on the way to work and got a Grande coffee with probably 2 tsp of half and half:

Today I have really tried to plan ahead food-wise. We are leaving at 4, and therefore not taking a lunch break, PLUS we're having dinner around 8 or so at Copper. I really wanted to plan it so that we could make it to Copper Mountain without having to stop and get unhealthy snacks. That being said, I brought the leftovers from our beef stew (about 1 cup or so per person), the Larabars I bought yesterday, and a mix to make banana oatmeal in the microwave using Tina's suggestion on Carrots N Cake. I'll take pictures for sure, but I'm excited to have taken the time to plan - I feel much more confident about our trip now that I know I can eat healthfully!

I'm so excited to go skiing this weekend! I'll definitely miss the puppers, but it's going to be fun to spend the night and then ski all day tomorrow. I think we're planning on having a good dinner too, so I'll DEFINITELY be posting pictures from that!

Anyone have fun plans for this weekend? What are they?

Football + Beer = LUV

2010-01-07T19:40:00.000-08:00

Still maintaining the "Roll Tide" mantra :)

Tonight is also baking night for Friday Treats at work! I'm making Marbled Brownies and Pineapple Gooey Butter Cake...word!

I'm about to sit down and enjoy this AH-mazing beer and watch the rest of the game:

It reminds me of summer and hanging out, smoking meat, and hot-tubbing with our friends Robbie + Stefanie. :) I love doing those things during the summer! It was nice to be reminded of summertime tonight, especially because it's 3 WHOLE DEGREES!!! That's right, single-digit 3. Brrrrrr...

As an "appetizer" (see also: dinner was taking a long-ass time to cook), I used the rest of our bread from the buschetta last night to make cacio e pepe bread - basically bread with lots of parmesan (or romano) cheese and lots of black pepper. SOOO good, kinda spicy, and nice and salty from the cheese!

Dinner tonight was Beef Stew. I was planning on making the chili recipe I found on Pretty By the Bay today (which, but the way, sounds amazing), but I just didn't have the stuff I needed to make it :( This turned out really well though! Even Nate liked it, and he's usually not the biggest fan of soups or stews!

The recipe is this one by Paula Deen; here are the changes I made:

used 1/2 of the meat
browned the meat, removed it, cooked the veggies, added it back
simmered for 20 minutes
followed the corn starch instructions and let it simmer for about 4 minutes before serving.

'Twas divine...just the right amount of salt and flava!

And finally, today I got my letter from my pen pal in France, Jackie! I was so so SO excited to finally see this...she sent it to my parent's house in Lubbock, but it didn't arrive til a couple of hours after we left! My parents forwarded it here, and I was so thankful to get it today. PLUS, she sent some amazing French chocolate candies...I might have already had 3...oops!

I love nights like this where we can sit back, relax, watch sports and Thursday night TV and just BE. I'll be excited to be going to the mountains tomorrow night, but for now this is just perfecto!

Are you a skier, snowboarder, or a non-snow person in general?

Roll Tide!

2010-01-07T15:19:00.000-08:00

Well guys, the Crimson Tide is a few hours closer to a National Championship! (I hope anyways...sorry to all my UT friends, but I did coursework at Alabama)!

So as part of my Christmas/anniversary gift, Nate got me a new pair of ski goggles! Check 'em out:

They even got a little bling on the sides:

I couldn't be more excited...last year was my first year to ski EVER (yes it's true...I got a job at a ski apparel company before I ever learned how to ski :), and we just tried to use whatever older things Nate had from skiing many moons ago. The goggles I was skiing with were men's and a little too large for my face, which let a lot of cold air in on the mountain. Now I'll be skiing in style and in comfort!

Since I left all of our leftovers from last night's dinner (gosh darnit!!!) at home this morning, I had about 3/4 of a cup of corn chowder and a sandwich thin with roasted red peppers and split a circle of Provolone between the two:

It wasn't a lot of food though, and didn't really fill me up, so when Nate ran to Panera he grabbed a half of an Asiago Roast Beef sandwich for me:

I decided to take a walk today on my lunch break, which was very cold, but it was actually not that bad once I got moving! I went about 4 miles and got to stop by the grocery store to pick up a couple things for Friday treats. While I was there, I found a HUGE selection of Larabar flavors! A while ago I was reading through Carrot N Cake, and found where Tina reviewed all of the Larabars, so I picked up a couple that she said she liked. Today's was Coconut Cream Pie:

Now, I love me some coconut, but this was a little sweet for my liking and didn't have a TON of coconut flavor like I had hoped. I also got the Key Lime Pie and Lemon, and am pretty stoked to try them tomorrow!

On the menu tonight is Beef Stew (I'll post the recipe a little later) with garlic bread (say yes to bread!!!). Then we'll be settling down to watch the NCAA National Championship game and cheer for the Crimson Tide all evening long. Oh yeah, I might also do some weight training :)

What are your favorite football-watching foods?

DOH!

2010-01-07T08:25:00.001-08:00

Good morning :)

**if you like Greek yogurt, check out the giveaway at EatMoveLove!**

Hope you all had a wonderful night last night! I know Nate and I had a lot of fun cooking together and snuggling on the couch to celebrate our 3 year anniversary!

We got home last night after an hour of driving in the snow! It was so thick we could hardly see 2 cars ahead of us! I'm hoping the mountains are getting dumped on as much as we are, that'll make some GREAT skiing on Saturday!

We started with a glass each of this wine:

I'm not a huge wine fan, and from what I've tasted thus far, I'm not a big WHITE wine fan, but this was pretty good! It tasted like pineapple, and we wanted to try more of this winery's options ever since Nate got a bottle from a great guy he does business with :)

First we did the sugared pecans so there would be time for them to harden while we cooked the rest of the food:

I did about 1/3 cup of mixed white + brown sugar, 1 tsp of water, and 1 cup of shelled pecans (courtesy of my mom and dad!). I just stirred frequently until the sugar was dissolved and you could faintly smell the pecans. I poured them onto a piece of foil sprayed with non-stick spray to cool.

Next we made bruschetta! We toasted some bread in the oven while Nate chopped 1 HUGE hothouse tomato, minced 4 small cloves of garlic, and mixed it with 1 tsp olive oil, 1 tsp balsamic vinegar, 1 Tbsp dried basil (because guess who forgot the fresh stuff at the store...oops), and 1 Tbsp of parmesan cheese. I had a pretty plate with the bread all fanned out and nice, but we dug in and didn't remember to take a picture til it was too late!

While we ate the bruschetta, we made roasted asparagus by cutting off the tough ends, drizzling with 1 Tbsp olive oil, sprinkled with salt + pepper, and roasting them at 400 for 20 minutes, turning halfway through the cooking time. We finished them with a squeeze of lemon juice and a sprinkling of roasted garlic that we bought in Lubbock!

AND NOW>>> the STEAK

Drizzled 4 thin steaks with 1 tsp olive oil, salt + pepper, and seared them for 2 minutes on each side. When the asparagus was done, I turned up the broiler and broiled them for about 2 minutes with some super creamy gorgonzola cheese:

To achieve this (my mouth is watering just looking at this!):

A photo op of the asparagus:

Mine and Nate's plates...yes, we had white wine with steak. Rules are really just guidelines, eh?

And THEN I remembered! the pecans! go on the steak! It was a great texture and flavor combo with all of the salty meat and cheese and the sweet pecans...mmmmmmm :) I'm a happy girl!

Guess what? I totally forgot to announce this yesterday, but it was Bunker's birthday too! He turned 3 (born on our wedding day...how could he be anyone else's sweet puppy?) We forgot a toy for him, so we fed him the fat we cut off of our steaks:

I think he was probably pretty stoked about it, don't you?

Dessert was some store-bougth (from Whole Foods) canoli with pistachios:

We settled in to watch Law & Order: SVU (one of our FAVORITE shows), and ended up just snuggling and falling asleep. Very fun and very relaxing, AND we'll still be able to celebrate this weekend skiing!

Breakfast = pumpkin yogurt with pecans and honey-toasted oats:

And a mug of my fave Blueberry Green tea:

So, after we had that amazing meal, we were so stoked to have leftovers for lunch today! Except.....I forgot that I left them all in a bag on the counter while we walked out the door. DOH! (hence the title of this post). At least we were able to enjoy it last night :)

Question: If you were able (financially/physically) to do anything in the entire world, what would it be? Any dreams that have gone unfulfilled?

Anniversary Dinner

2010-01-06T15:40:00.001-08:00

Hey guys!

This one might be a quickie (snicker snicker) because Nate and I are going to try to beat traffic home so we can enjoy our ANNIVERSARY DINNER together asap!

Around lunch today, I had 8 oz. of the leftover roasted shrimp and orzo salad in a mug that said "Hogs & Kisses"...gotta love the random mugs in the work kitchen!

About 2 hours later I had this yummy sandwich (wheat sandwich thin, roasted red peppers, marinara, grilled chicken breast, provolone):

And hot steamy mug (are you seeing that I like eating out of mugs?) of the leftover Corn Chowder from last night:

About halfway through the day, Nate surprised me with flowers delivered to work (aawwwwwwwww :)

And then I snacked on the pumpkin yogurt-Pink Lady snackeroo:

Tonight we are going to have bruschetta, steaks with gorgonzola + candied pecans, roasted asparagus, and homemade mashed potatoes...YUM. Heck yes! I'll likely not be posting again until tomorrow, but there will be recipes and pictures up then!

Until then, I'd love to hear about your favorite meal for special occasions (birthdays, anniversaries, and general life celebrations)!

Tight Jeans

2010-01-06T07:32:00.001-08:00

As Kath says, Marnin'!

Before I say anything else, make sure you check out my husband's photography blog!

Man, today is a cold a dreary day! Can you believe it was about 35 degrees when I got out of bed this morning (outside, not inside) and that was HIGH for today? Yep, you read that right. There's a snow storm a'blowing in, and it will probably be in the teens when I leave work today. Yikes!

Breakfast we another Green Monster, this time with some chocolate Amazing Grass, as recommended by the Dallas Celiac:

In the mix there's the packet of Amazing Grass, 1 cup milk, 1 cup blueberries, 1/2 a banana, and 2 handfuls of baby spinach:

It's pretty good! A little bitter, but then you get the chocolate and banana flavors and it's all good again. Glad I got 2 packets to play with!

I made some Pumpkin Yogurt after seeing Caitlin make some yesterday. I totally forgot about it, but with my purchase of canned pumpkin at Whole Foods I was super excited to make some! I'm going to eat it with the last of my Pink Lady apples later today.

This recipe is from Caitlin's blog, but basically it's 1/2 cup of plain yogurt, 1/4-1/3 cup of canned pumpkin, and a bunch of cinnamon. Then just stir it all together and enjoy!

So, this morning I put on a pair of freshly washed and dried jeans and BLAH. There's nothing that makes you realize how far you have to go on the weight loss journey than a pair of washed and dried jeans! I was so proud of myself all week for eating well and exercising, and those jeans just shot my confidence down a couple notches (bang! bang!)

Anyone have a little pick-me-up advice on this cold and dreary (and slightly depressing) day?

I certainly hope y'all are having a good one :)

Broken Knee

2010-01-05T18:28:00.000-08:00

Evenin'!

Hope y'all had a great day today! I'm still in that weird coming-back-from-vacation limbo at work where I'm slammed and trying my hardest to catch up, but still thinking like I don't have anything to do! Apparently I need to change that...

Lunch today was leftover Roasted Shrimp + Orzo Salad...in a mug:And my super-sweet husband brought me some coffee mid-day:

Now, today on my run my knee broke. OK, not literally, but it hurt so bad after a mile that I felt like I was going to fall and I had to walk back to the office :( NOT FUN. It's kind of in the back of my knee and wraps around the sides...so weird. Has anyone else ever felt like this?

BUT, on the upside, I took some great advice and went to Whole Foods to try some packets of Amazing Grass! AND, I finally found canned pumpkin! I've been looking all over for it, and found some there, so I bought 4 cans :)

I had a Pink Lady apple and about 1 Tbsp of almond butter for a snacker before leaving work. I find that if I have something then, I'm not famished for dinner and won't overeat:

For dinner tonight we had this AH-mazing corn chowder I found on WeeklyBite! It was heavenly :) I didn't make it with half and half, though, and added about 1/4 cup of potato flakes instead to make it thick. SOOOO good! Thanks Estela for the great recipe!

And, since we (especially Nate) usually want something actually bite into, we had pita pizzas with store-bought pesto, spinach, grilled chicken, baby portobello mushrooms, and roasted red peppers!

Before:
After:

And altogether now!
Dessert was the last of our Honolulu Cookie Company cookies :( They're so good, but there's no way they can be good for you! Thank goodness they're only about 2 inches tall :)

Tomorrow is our 3 year anniversary! I can't believe it's only been 3 years (in a good way)! I get excited thinking about us having children together one day and growing old together...guess that means the spark's still there, eh? We're celebrating this weekend by going to Copper Mountain and going skiing, then hitting up a restaurant in the mountains (not sure which one) to try and beat the traffic home on Saturday! It's so nice to live in the mountains, although I will admit my dream is to one day live somewhere where I can get to a beach in 10 minutes or less (or just live ON the beach :)

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

Green Monster Tuesday

2010-01-05T10:46:00.000-08:00

Morning y'all!

I was so honored last night to find out I received the Beautiful Blogger award from the Dallas Celiac. It's hard to be striving so hard to have a voice in a world with over 120 million blogs (that was the last number I heard), and I was so thankful to get this from such a beautiful and strong woman! Thanks girl!

Here are some beautiful bloggers in my life. I'm so thankful for their silent support in living a healthy lifestyle, and their posts always get me excited about life :)

Lauren at Louisiana Grown
Estela at The Weekly Bite
Ashley at The Edible Perspective
Rebecca at Rocky Mountain Highlights
The Vintage Mixer, aka SLCFoodie
Kailey at Peanut Butter Bliss
Hilary at Nutrition Nut on the Run

Today I decided that a) we are almost out of oatmeal, and b) I'm kinda tired of oats, and c) Nate got me a blender for Christmas, it was about time I make a smoothie! I've been reading about Green Monsters on everyone's blogs for a while now, and figured it was about time to try one myself (or what I think a GM is)!

In the mix I had 1/2 cup milk, 1/4 cup pineapple, 1 cup strawberries (frozen), and 2 large handfuls of baby spinach. I added maybe 2 Tbsp of milk extra to get the consistency I wanted:

I was pretty scared for the first sip! But it was delicious, and I really enjoyed the fresh aftertaste the spinach provided, too. I'll be making it again tomorrow, but maybe tweaking it to add some different flavors to it!

Also, I've been reading a lot of blogs talking about Amazing Grass. I'm kind of scared to try it because it seems pretty pricey, and I'd hate to spend money on something if I wasn't sure I'd really like it. Does anyone out there know how to get just a packet of it for a sample?

Snacky-snack is going to be yet another Pink Lady apple, probably with some almond buttah, after my run today. Can't wait! I love it when you look forward to food :)

Could really use some coffee about now, but I'm not sure what to get before I go run. I'm planning on running a little further today (yesterday I did 3 miles) before it SNOWS tomorrow! Gotta look fine for the anniversary ;)

What's your favorite type of coffee drink?

Story Time

2010-01-04T18:20:00.001-08:00

Well, I decided to get the pictures of my breakfast/lunch up (mainly because I'm in love with the bowls Nate got me):

The oats had 1/2 cup oats/water/milk, 1 Tbsp milled flax/dried cherries/almond butter. A little plain, but still tasty!

The leftover brussel sprouts from last night:

And my AB+J on a sandwich thin...yum!

OK, so for dinner tonight we had Roasted Shrimp + Orzo Salad! Here's the recipe:

1 lb raw shrimp
3/4 cup orzo pasta
1 container (~2 cups) grape or cherry tomatoes
3 cups baby spinach
1/2 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup EVOO
1/2 cup leftover pasta water
Garlic, basil, red pepper flakes, salt + pepper
Feta or Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 400. Boil orzo until 3/4 of the way done, about 6 minutes. Drain.
While the orzo is boiling, combine lemon juice, olive oil, spices (I didn't really measure anything, but I would say about a tsp of each is a good starting point) and whisk to combine. When pasta is done, whisk in leftover pasta water before draining. Pour drained pasta into lemon mixture while you do the remaining steps.
In a pan over medium heat, heat 1 tsp EVOO. Pour whole tomatoes into oil and cook until the skins start to burst, about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Season with salt + pepper. Add spinach at about 8 minutes and let it wilt with the tomato sauce the remainder of the time.
Drizzle shrimp with 1 tsp EVOO and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast in a single layer for about 8-10 minutes at 400, or until done.
Mix it all together and CONSUME!!!

Tomatoes before:

Tomatoes after:

Fresh-squeezed lemon juice...mmmmmm :)

The spinach right before the wilting process:

Right before the big mix:

Finished product! Top with a little cheese and you've got a fantastic, light dish!

Yesterday I said that I was writing a story, and that this story was inspired by this blog post from Donald Miller. Basically, it's another way of viewing a New Year's resolution, or really any goal in general: approach it as though you're writing a store. Because guess what? You are writing your story with every breath you take! I thought that was a phenomenal way to look at this, and so thankful that Nate shared this post with me.

That leads me to this: what is my story? What is the end result that I want to accomplish this year, or even in life? The best and most motivating thing I could think of was to be able to fit into my wedding gown again in time to do some bridal (yes, bridal) portraits by my birthday, September 28. I was never in love with the pictures I had done before we got married, and to be quite frank, I "let myself go" after the honeymoon. Something I've always dreamed of doing is having my husband take pictures of me in my wedding gown :) And so now I have a goal, and the time from now until my birthday I will be writing the story with that ending in sight!

Another story I'd like to write this year ends with me taking on freelance writing jobs and using my own photography and writing to convey a healthy lifestyle to the world. I know I've started that story through writing this blog every day, but my dream is to inspire women around the world to take charge of their lives, to KNOW themselves. To do this, I've purchased a domain name (to be revealed at a later date and time :), and am taking the steps to create a full-blown blog-site (thanks to Jessica Claire for that little diddy!). We've been so blessed with all of the options for communication in this world, and I hope to be able to take advantage of it!

I'm still formulating more stories for my life, but as of right now these are the two that I've been able to fully think through. Now I need all of you to help hold me accountable to these goals! I promise to work hard and share every good and bad thing along the way, and I truly believe that together we can all see the success of community and hard work!

I challenge you to read Donald Miller's post and consider this: What is YOUR story going to be this year? Be sure to share it below so we can all work together with you!

Work = Not As Fun As Vacation

2010-01-04T15:14:00.000-08:00

Well hello again :)

Took me long enough to get back on here and get my act together, eh? It feels like I haven't blogged in forever, and the number of pictures is overwhelming!

Last time I left y'all, I was about to eat a piece of pecan pie on New Year's day with my family. Well folks, here is a slice of masterpiece at it's finest!

I swear my mom makes the best.pecan.pie.ever. There, I said it, no take-backs! The next morning I finished up the blackberries I thawed out and mashed them up in my oatmeal, and topped it with some dark chocolate chips:

It was OK, but the chocolate is what made it. I'm not the biggest fan of blackberries because their seeds HURT if you bite down on it wrong!

We started on the trip home from Lubbock, and had fog, snow, ice, rain and sun on the way back. We hit every type of weather, it was crazy! Here's the West Texas landscape when it's icy and foggy:

This is an inch of ice that built up on the side mirror while driving. I'm telling you, it was cold!

When we got in that night, all we wanted was to eat and veg. The end. So we unpacked the Jeep (Petey Pab) and rambled on down to our local Rock Bottom Brewery, sidled up to this sweet bar:

...and ordered up a glass of beer. Well, Nate did actually...I just wasn't in the mood, but I DID have a sip of the stout he ordered!

We decided to split some food, and started off with edamame. This stuff was great! They tossed theirs in a little olive oil, salt + pepper, and served it with a side of soy sauce:

Then we got the Fab 5 pizza - sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms, red peppers, onions = health food. Great way to start off the New Year!

Honestly, we just crashed and burned as soon as we got home. We've had BIG PLANS to clean the house and start fresh, but it just hasn't happened yet. There should be some law against doing stuff immediately after you get back from vacation!

Sunday morning I was all packed up and ready to go to church, and my car wouldn't start. Neat-o. SOOOO I called my friend Amy, and while waiting for her to come rescue me, I made this little number:

It's hashbrowns and scrambled egg whites with Julio's seasoning...in one of my new Anthropologie bowls! Nate...err, Santa, knew what he was doing ;)

After church we went to Chipotle and split a steak burrito. SIDE NOTE: Chipotle Tabasco = the best ever. Period.

Sunday afternoon we (drum roll) BOUGHT A NEW TV!!! Turns out Costco has great deals on fancy electronics, so we hit that up. Turns out buying a new TV is a prodctivity killer. Who knew?

While Nate set up the TV downstairs, I made some (see also: warmed up some frozen) garlic cheese toast. I'm convinced heaven will be laden with garlic cheese toast and creme brulee. I'm just sayin' is all!

We also did a massive grocery-shopping binge at Walmart, AND ate dinner at the Subway inside. We split a chicken breast sandwich on 9-Grain bread with provolone, spinach, lettuce, onions, olives (for me), tomatoes, and Honey Mustard. Hit the spot!

When we got home, I decided I was still hungry, so I russled up some brussel sprouts:

Keira was there in case I dropped anything...you know, just in case...

I ate about half of the batch and saved the rest for lunch today. I LOVE the burned parts...nom nom nom!

Finished the night off with a Pomegranate apple sauce. Honestly, it's not that great, but it's no sugar added, so I figured why not? Live a little, right? :)

Today on my lunch break I ran 3 miles, which I was stoked about since I hadn't been working out in altitude for a while. I was a little scared, but ended up making it the whole way. WOOHOO! Now all I gotta do is find some time to do what Jenna's doing with her yoga studio and I'll be set!

I took pictures, and might be posting them later, but breakfast was the usual oats de Kath, and lunch was the rest of the brussel sprouts, an almond butter and jelly sandwich on a whole wheat sandwich thin, and I'm now consuming a heavenly Pink Lady apple for a snacker. Dinner tonight is going to be Roasted Shrimp and Orzo Salad...get ready for the recipe!

I know I've been talking about a "story" that I'm writing, and haven't delivered. Tonight is the night that I will share what I'm talking about with that phrase, so make sure you come back so I can be held accountable!

Slightly Lying

2010-01-03T19:25:00.001-08:00

OK, so I accidentally lied this morning...I really thought that today was going to be a tad bit more productive than it actually was!

We ended up getting a new TV at Costco this afternoon, got home and set it up, then zoned out for about an hour. After that, we hit up Wally World (Walmart) and did the grocery thing which took longer than expected. And now we're home and about to FINALLY start unpacking!

Needless to say, I'll be uber busy this evening, but plan on resuming regular blogging tomorrow! I'll leave y'all with this pic of us and all of our friends at an ugly sweater party from the holidays...yikes!

Night y'all!

I'm Writing a Story

2010-01-03T07:47:00.000-08:00

Phew! It's been quite the day-and-a-half since I last posted!

Yesterday we drove from Lubbock back up to Denver, and pretty much just hit the ground running once we got here!

This post is just a precursor to a later one, where I will talk in depth about one of my "resolutions", inspired by this post by Donald Miller.

But for now, I'll leave you all with this picture of Nate and I on our wedding day, January 6, 2007. That's right, we'll have been married 3 years on Wednesday!

Sad to Go...

2010-01-01T16:26:00.001-08:00

Evenin'!

Hope everyone had a wonderful first day of 2010 :) I know I certainly did!

Today I had a great workout: first I ran 2 miles, then did an impromptu leg workout in the backyard:

walking lunges (30 on each leg, 60 total)
body-weight squats (3 sets of 12)
calf raises (3 sets of 20)
wall sits (3 at 45 seconds each)
stability ball hamstring curls (3 sets of 15)

My parents and Nate were hanging some pictures, and the dogs were freaking out, so I took them in the backyard and worked out while they played. Ended with some stretching and I was good to go!

After a nice shower, I had some leftover bruschetta spaghetti (recipe coming soon):

And the rest of my Greek yogurt (about 1/3 cup total) with 1/2 a cup of blackberries that I mashed up with 1/2 a packet of Truvia. Yummmmmm!

After lunch my mom and I were baking up a storm, and I made two batches of granola:

Here's the recipe:

3 cups uncooked oats
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup coarsely chopped nuts (we used pecans because they pick up so many in the area!)
1/4 cup honey
2 Tbsp vegetable or canola oil
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
4-5 Tbsp milled flax seed
1 Tbsp vanilla

Combine all of the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Combine all of the wet ingredients and then poor over the dry ones. Pour into a 9x13 pan coated with non-stick cooking spray. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes, stirring 2-3 times. Let cool completely before storing in a container with a tightly fitting lid.

It's great on top of yogurt, and likely to be great over smoothies as well. I'll let you know soon ;)

Starting off dinner, we had black eyed peas and ham:

And continued with leftovers from last night (which were still perfecto): turkey, dressing, cranberry-orange relish (1 bag of fresh cranberries, 1 whole naval orange, 1 cup of sugar...blend it all up in a food processor and let it sit over night), and steamed veggies:

We'll be finishing it off shortly with a slice of heaven...err, pecan pie...made by my mom!

I mean, this sucker has a real, homemade crust! Look at that:

I have been so blessed to be able to come and visit my family here in Lubbock, and you can bet there will be tears tomorrow morning when we have to leave :( I love them so much, and it's so hard to leave! I'm so thankful to have had this time with them though, and hopefully we'll all be able to meet up again in the next couple of months. I'd love for them to see me about 20 lbs lighter the next time I see them!

I'll leave y'all with a little picture of me and my parents:

Question: What do you miss the most about your family when you're away from one another?

First Day

2010-01-01T07:28:00.000-08:00

Happy 2010 everyone!

Hope you guys all had a fun and safe evening/early morning :)

Last night Nate and I each had a beer that we got from World Market the other day. Since I really only like porters and stouts, I went with the Sierra Nevada porter:

It was delicious...very smooth and sweet, with some hints of cocoa and toffee! Since Nate's a fan of ambers, he went with Saint Arnold amber. I don't think he liked it though; it was actually REALLY light for an amber beer!

Love the bottle caps!

A little later we each had a serving of apple pecan crisp with a dollop of fat-free whipped cream on top. If you've been wondering why we are using fat-free whipped cream on our desserts, it's because my family has problems with cholesterol and high blood pressure. We also happen to be HUGE ice cream fans too. Since the two don't really mix, we've been using the fat-free whipped cream in lieu of ice cream to give the effect that we're still getting to eat the ice cream we want! It's working pretty well, too...just make sure it's really really cold and you can't even tell the difference :)

After dessert, we played Sorry! again...and my mom and I won (again)! Nate and my dad were a little bummed, so we played again, and unfortunately they won the second time :( Guess you can't win 'em all!

We sat down to watch the Chick-fil-A Bowl, and I had about 3-4 oz of the Cupcake Merlot in a brandy snifter (classy, I know):

I have to admit, I actually fell asleep before 12, but woke up around 11:15 or so and stayed up til 12:01 :) Guess I don't have the ability to stay up late anymore!

This morning I got up and made a cup of coffee with Truvia and vanilla soymilk in an AWESOME old mug:

And did the oatmeal thing with dark chocolate chips and toasted coconut:

This is Kath's Whipped Banana Oatmeal recipe, with a sprinkling of toasted coconut (just toast in a pan over medium heat until it starts to brown) and a Tbsp of Hershey's dark chocolate chips:

The great thing about this recipe is the banana naturally sweetens and makes the oatmeal super creamy. It's a great way to make oatmeal if you're kind of on the fence about whether you like oatmeal or not. If you sort of like it, this is a great way to start eating more of it; however, if you just don't like oatmeal, you probably won't fall in love. It never hurts to try it at least once; you might be surprised!

I've been eating oats for approximately a month now, and I can't honestly say I've noticed a difference in feeling full for a while after eating it, and in my digestion overall. It's a great way to start eating better in the New Year too!

Since today is our last day in Lubbock for a while, we're going to just spend time with my parents...take down the Christmas decorations, maybe head up to campus and let the puppers run around, and then just enjoy some great turkey leftovers and black-eyed peas for good luck!

What are you planning on doing for your first day of 2010?

Midnight Train

2009-12-31T15:11:00.000-08:00

Hey y'all!

How ya doing? :)

Lunch today was a little leftover rice pilaf from the other night:

We actually just ate “dinner” around 3pm, and it was FABULOUS!!!! My mom made roasted turkey, homemade gravy and dressing, cranberry orange relish, and green beans. Holy delight! I had 2 servings, and wanted so.badly to go back for more! We’re having an apple pecan crumble for dessert, but I don’t want to wait to post until after we eat it. Here’s some pics of dinner!

This afternoon we went to see Invictus with my parents, and I’ve got to say that it was by far one of my favorite sports films. Let me just add that sports films (primarily with team sports) are some of my favorite movies. I grew up playing team sports, and I love the camaraderie that comes from relying on others. Because, let’s face it: in real life, we all rely on one another.

You rely on pilots to not let the plane crash when we travel. If we’re married or in a relationship, we trust the other person to love us and not hurt us. You rely on other drivers just about any where you go to follow the rules, to not be reckless. You rely on manufacturers of clothing, food, shelter, or really anything to do so with integrity. We all need one another, and I thought this film did a great job of portraying that truth.

Watching the South African rugby team do something that was beyond themselves for the sake of their country was a truly inspiring thing for me to see. It served as a reminder that this world and this life is about so much more than little ol’ me. And since this is New Year’s Eve, I’d like to lay out my resolutions:

1. Do something this year that is completely and wholeheartedly selfless. I’m not sure what that specific thing is just yet, but I am tired of being about me and would like to be used for whatever God has in store for me.
2. The standard eat better and exercise more falls in line here; however, this time I’d like to do those things with the heart of inspiring others to live their very best life and to honor the bodies we were blessed with.
3. I’d like to go to culinary school so that I can use my knowledge in order for others to have a better understanding of the blessing that is food.

I’d love to pose a challenge to anyone who reads this to help hold me accountable to these resolutions. Will I be 100% selfless? Not likely. But I can remember to be a better person with your help and prayers? Most definitely.

Thank you all so much for showing the love by leaving encouraging comments and helping me to continue my adventure of finding purpose in this life. I can’t wait to share my journey with y’all for 2010 as well!

What are your plans for New Year's lunch? (hope it includes some black-eyed peas ;)

Happy New Year!

My Heart is Blessed!

2009-12-31T08:10:00.000-08:00

Wow, I didn't realize I'd taken so many pictures yesterday!

We had a great time at Bless Your Heart. It felt so good to get back! We started off with our self-made appetizer of wheat croutons with avocado dressing and Santa Fe dressing (from the salad bar - yes, we are THOSE people):

I ordered the Santa Fe chicken sandwich with a honey-wheat bun, grilled chicken breast, a slathering of guacamole, some pico de gallo, mozzerella cheese, and lettuce. I also added some salsa to it for extra flavor and extra tomatoes. They serve it with a side of pasta salad with lots of zucchini, cauliflower, and tomatoes:

Nate ordered a turkey and avocado sandwich. It's on their honey-wheat bread with turkey, avocado, lettuce, cucumbers, and tomatoes.

Another view of mine:

AND THEN we had their fat free frozen yogurt!!!!! I wanted to get eggnog, but Nate isn't the biggest fan, so we "settled" for chocolate (which is actually not a bad thing to settle on since it's super rich and delicious!

I was one happy lady!

When I graduated from Texas Tech I never got the picture by the seal, so I figured yesterday was the day to do it. I'm on the left with my guns up!

Next, Nate and I stopped by Sugar Brown's coffee, which is an AMAZING coffee shop that's owned by our friend Justin Barnard, who incidentally is also the owner of West Crust pizza! We picked up a cup of coffee to split:

Sugar Brown's is a great venue to play live coffee shop music, or to go SEE live coffee shop music. It's a wonderfully eclectic setting, the ambiance is fantastic, and the coffee is great! If you're ever in Lubbock, I'd highly recommend visiting!

From there we went to Barnes and Noble to pick up a book, wandered around the mall for a bit, and then headed home. Upon getting back to the house, we found my mom cooking up an Italian feast! We started off with a salad of romaine, green onions, orange bell peppers, carrots, and tomatoes:

Followed that up with oven-fried chicken parmesan and bruschetta spaghetti:

If you're mouth isn't watering yet, we also had some good 'n' grainy bread with olive oil, herbs, and roasted garlic:

Nate and I opened this bottle of wine to try:

I've never been able to really get into wine, but after reading Jenna's blog, all I want to do is learn more and more about it! Without knowing anything about how to taste wine or what to look for, I can honestly say that this Merlot was very smooth and had a lot of dark berry notes to it...especially raspberries! Yum!

We finished up with a peach cobbler and a dollop of whipped cream:

We played Sorry! again tonight, but this time we did teams: men vs. women. Mom and I were down all game, and came back at the last second to win! We left those boys speechless, and we were SO excited :)

After watching some football bowl games, it was about time for bed. Nate and I walked back to our bedroom to see these two sleepy faces laying on the bed. Wasn't that sweet of them to warm up our bed for us?

Finally, this morning, for my last breakfast of 2009, I had another serving of Pumpkin Pie yogurt with apples and granola:

I used the same recipe as yesterday. I do want to say though, that if Greek yogurt is not for you, you can definitely make this same thing with regular plain yogurt, or even with vanilla yogurt (just don't add sweetening of any kind). I just really prefer the creamy thickness of Greek yogurt, and I like the tartness as well!

Plans for the day = going to see Invictus with my family, running, and helping my mom prepare our turkey dinner! I'm also going to blog later about my resolutions and hopefully add some great tips I've picked up along the way.

Question: What are your plans for New Year's Eve?

Wreck 'Em!

2009-12-30T08:18:00.001-08:00

Morning everyone!

Hope y'all had a great night! I know Nate and I did, even though neither one of us won Scrabble last night :)

Breakfast this morning was Pumpkin Pie yogurt (recipe from Caitlin's blog). I'm LOVING this breakfast; it's so filling and completely wonderful!

1/2 cup Greek yogurt (plain, nonfat)
1/4 cup canned pumpkin
1 apple (whatever you prefer; we had honeycrisp in the house this morning)
1 tsp vanilla
1 packet Truvia
LOTS of ground cinnamon

Just mix it all together, and you'll be loving life :)

I'm pretty excited about today because we're going with my parents to Academy to look at running pants, and then Nate and I are headed up to Texas Tech to walk around the campus and then go to Bless Your Heart. Texas Tech holds a special place in my heart since I grew up in Lubbock, my dad is a professor there, and it's my alma mater.

It's also where I met my sweet husband! It's so funny, I used to work out for 3 hours a day while I went to school there...I guess that's one of the benefits of being a college student with a super flexible schedule and a free membership to a great workout facility :) I remember not too long after Nate and I met for the first time, I was riding my bike to the Rec Center for the daily workout, and saw him walking to his car. I rode up to say hi, and I can honestly say it was one of the most awkward moments of my life! I later found out he was super short and awkward because he liked me and didn't know what to do/say (all together now: "Awwwwwww!"). I've been so blessed to have such a wonderful husband, regardless of how the relationship started :)

Yes, we're special!

All that to say, I'm so excited to go back to campus for the first time in a long time! I'll definitely be posting some pictures of that and our lunch at Bless Your Heart.

Y'all have a wonderful rest of your morning!

Just Trying to Figure This Out...

2009-12-29T19:20:00.000-08:00

Hello!

How's y'alls evening? Ours has been fairly uneventful, but that's definitely something that I'm enjoying since I know we're going to hit the ground running when we get back to Colorado.

Today, we went to World Market and picked up 2 soup mixes: Lentil and White Bean! I'm so excited about these; soup is definitely a staple in my diet since it's so easy and all-inclusive:

We also picked up 2 bottles of wine, but since I couldn't find both of them, I just photographed this one:

Has anyone ever had Cupcake's wine? I've been getting more into wine lately, and am really hoping this one can turn into a fave!

For dinner we had minestrone soup:

This has turkey sausage, zucchini, carrots, cabbage, onion, garlic, diced tomatoes, and chicken broth. Delish!

On the side we had a fruit salad with an orange, a banana, and a honeycrisp apple...Glorious!

And some shut-yo-mouth cornbread. I've been dreaming of cornbread for at least 4 weeks now, and my mom makes hers homemade. It's heaven with a sliver of butter and some honey drizzled on top. HOLY COW MY MOUTH IS WATERING. I'm so full, but if there was a chunk of hot cornbread in front of me right now, you can bet I'd still be eating it :)

After dinner Nate and I each had a beer in a glass. Why a glass you ask? Because, since Bunker was about a year old, Nate would let him lick the top of the beer bottle (he never tasted the beer, just the smell) when he was done drinking it. Now, Bunker will FREAK.OUT until he gets to lick the bottle, so we have to drink beer out of glasses no matter what now.

Nate had a Real Ale from Blanco, Texas:

And I had an Anchor Porter . I love porters and stouts, and really don't drink anything but those. Go figure; the flavor is so much better!

And then we played Scrabble. Nate and I are ruthless when we're not on the same team. Tonight was yet another textbook example of that!

But thank goodness my mom won, and we can't get mad at her because she's so adorable :)

I'm getting excited about New Year's coming up...how crazy is it that it's almost 2010? It feels like only yesterday it was turning the year 2000 and people were going crazy with anticipation about Y2K. Better be careful though, I might date myself ;)

I'm particularly excited about continuing my quest for a healthy lifestyle this year, which is something I've already started doing. I think my biggest goal this year is to continue to push my blog to the next level (whatever that might be). At some point I'd like to get this whole thing to a point where I can help reach and encourage women worldwide to live the life they deserve and want. I'm continually working on what that looks like :)

What sort of advice do you have for getting a blog to the "next level"? I know I"ve asked this before, but what would you like to see more of on this blog? What are your goals for your blog?

Big 50

2009-12-29T14:11:00.001-08:00

Afternoon y'all :)

Today I hit the 50 blog post mark, which is crazy! It just feels like I started doing this yesterday because I have so much fun doing it. Hopefully me sharing my crazy life helps someone else even a little bit :)

Last night when I walked into our room, and found Keira curled up atop all of the pillows:

I thought it was pretty cute and thought I should share :)

This morning I woke up in time to partake in some coffee, so I had a big cup of it along with a large cup of water:

Then I helped Nate make a breakfast sandwich on a whole wheat English muffin, ham, scrambled egg whites, and some reduced fat Monterey Jack:

And I made a (stealing this from Kath) Hugh Jass bowl of oatmeal:

1/3 cup oats, 1/3 cup water, 1/3 milk, 1 Tbsp dried cranberries, 1 Tbsp Bob's Red Mill Golden Flax, some vanilla, and 1/4 cup of pumpkin, stirred in at the end. It was delicious and satisfying!

We went to a strip mall and walked around all of the stores for a couple of hours. Nate and I picked up a make-your-own 6-pack...honestly, right now I don't recall what we got (oops), but I'll be blogging about them later :) We also got a couple of bottles of wine, but again, I'll have to let y'all in on that later tonight!

We stopped at Starbucks, where I picked up this Mango Macadamia Bar to split with everyone:

My parents and Nate got hot coffee:

And I got an iced black tea! I know it's snowing, but this is just what sounded good to me :) I like to get mine with no syrup and no water, with 2 Sweet N Low (yes, chemicals, but I don't get them except a couple times a year)

Upon getting home, I went for a 2 mile run while my parents made turkey sloppy joes, clementines, pears, and some chips and salsa:

This is just roasted turkey mixed with Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce:

We served them on those half-bun things with pickles (LOVE pickles), extra sauce, and the fruit and chips on the side:

It's a cold, rainy/snowy Tuesday here in the LBK, and we are snuggled up inside for some football, homemade minestrone soup (get ready for the pics in a few!), and perhaps some movies later on. I'm loving that I'm able to do that on a cold wet day...thank goodness for vacation!

Question: What's your absolute favorite thing to do on a cold, wet day?

I Like to Win

2009-12-28T19:32:00.000-08:00

Something you should know about me: I HATE to lose. Abhor. Detest. Hate.

All of which is GREAT in sports, not so great in marriage. Nate and I are not allowed to play games against one another because of my "issues" with losing!

Anyway, tonight we ate dinner at West Crust Pizza in Lubbock:
It's totally delicious! They have some awesome combos they've made up:

Or you can build your own with a list of great toppings on the back:

Nate and I got the West Tuscan, with Italian sausage, spinach, and roasted red peppers:

While my parents got The Beast, with Italian sausage, pepperoni, and Canadian bacon:

We ended up all splitting the two pizzas, which was the perfect amount for 4 hungry people!

West Crust had some awesome decorations. I loved this seahorse:

And these awesome overhead lights:

And these spices were great for grinding on top of the pizzas:

Nate and I also split this root beer, which was good, but nothing out of the root beer ordinary:

And THEN we came home and played Sorry! I love this game, it's so fun and easy enough that you can talk and laugh and watch TV or whatever you want to do while you play!

And the reason why Nate and I aren't allowed to play against one another: we're bot extremely competitive and can be sore losers sometimes. Case in point: Nate called me a cheater and hid his cute face from me when I whooped his tail in the first round! (sorry, had to add that in there since I love to trash talk too!)

But he ended up getting in the last word, winning the last game. I guess I still love him! ;)

We're ending the evening with some jam crumble bars from last night, some football, and hopefully some cuddling :)

Hope y'all have a great night!

Question: What did y'all get for Christmas?

Made it on Time!

2009-12-28T14:51:00.000-08:00

Hi guys!

How's it going?

I'm so glad that Nate is back, I really miss him when he's gone :(

We got back from the airport to eat lunch at the house. I had about half of this leftover brown rice:

The leftover half of this sweet potato from Christmas, with about a tsp of Smart Balance:

Plus 2 clementines :) I wanted to eat one of these pears too, but I was just too full since I had just eaten breakfast:

We went shopping for a couple hours, then came back to just relax for the afternoon. I am LOVING this whole relaxing all day thing...why do I not do this regularly again? Oh yes, I have a job :) After sitting and watching Bonanza for a few episodes and forwarding some work emails, I decided it was high time for some coffee. I had it served in this TOTALLY AWESOME Texas Tech mug that we've had as long as I can remember:

The rockin' mug made the coffee taste that much better. I sat down and read a couple of chapters of Bird by Bird, a book I first saw on Ashley's blog. It's basically a book about how to write about life in a fun and entertaining way. It's a funny book, and I'm really enjoying it!

So to be honest, I've been having a hard time today with not working out. I've done something to my left quad, and it hurts a LOT to run. It's like there's a knife being stabbed into the left side of my left quad every time I take a step. NOT FUN. So today I decided to not go jogging, and did about 40 minutes of yoga instead. I just feel like I haven't done anything too hard though, and it's making it really hard to actually rest today. I think this is all part of the healing process, but it's certainly not easy!

We're off to go check out West Crust Pizza, which is supposed to be amazing! Can't wait to share the pics in a bit!

Question: How do you assure yourself that resting is OK, and that you won't get "fat" from taking a day off to heal?

Running Late!!!

2009-12-28T08:31:00.000-08:00

Morning everyone!

I'm running a little late (who knows why) to go pick Nate up at the airport, so this is gonna be short and sweet!

Breakfast was a whole wheat English muffin with about 2 tsp of cherry preserves:

And a bowl of pumpkin pie yogurt with half an apple and a sprinkle of my mom's homemade granola!

Basically, this is 1/2 cup plain nonfat Greek yogurt, 1/4 cup canned pumpkin, 1 packet of Truvia, a hefty sprinkle of cinnamon, 1/2 a honeycrisp apple, and about 1/4 cup of the granola...YUMMO!

Hope y'all have a wonderful day, and I'll be back later to post some more!

The More You Eat, the More You....

2009-12-27T15:53:00.000-08:00

Tee hee hee...

For starters, I had some leftover Penne with Roasted Tomatoes, Garlic, and White Beans (served cold) for my lunch appetizer - there was only about 1/4 cup left :)

You can click on the link above, but the recipe is under the pic if you just want to read it on here!

3 large tomatoes, cut into wedges
4 cloves of garlic, unpeeled
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/4 salt
fresh ground black pepper
1 15-oz can of cannellini beans
1/2 pound penne pasts (whole grain if possible)

Preheat oven to 450. Put wedges and garlic into a 9x13 pan and drizzle with 1 Tbsp of olive oil. Roast in the oven for 40 minutes. Drain and rinse beans. Cook pasta according to package directions (I like mine al dente). Drain pasta and return pasta and beans to hot pot. When tomatoes and garlic are done, remove garlic from peels and mash with a fork. Add tomatoes, garlic, remaining Tbsp of olive oil, salt, and pepper to the pasta and beans, stir, and serve! This recipe is from Ellie Krieger, and it ROCKS!

Finished my lunch with about 3/4 of a cup of pinto beans and about 10 tortilla chips crunched on top, and some Julio's seasoned salt (it's OMG delicious!)

Tonight was my turn to make dinner, so I decided on Mahi Mahi, and marinated it in this seasoning:

While that was marinating, my mom and I went to Petsmart to pick up some food for Bunker (Nate and I neglected to realize he was almost out when we left Colorado), and to the grocery store to pick up some essentials. When we got back, I started chopping veggies for the rice pilaf side for the Mahi Mahi, and put it all in a bowl in the fridge til it was time to cook dinner.

The recipe is:

2 cups of cooked brown rice
2 stalks of celery, chopped
1/2 an onion, chopped
1 red, yellow, OR orange bell pepper, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
handful of grape tomatoes, quartered
salt and pepper
sprinkle of cumin
1 Tbsp dried parsley

Cook the veggies (except the garlic and tomato) over medium heat in a nonstick pan for 7-10 minutes, or until soft. Add the garlic and tomatoes, and cook for 2-4 more minutes. Add the rice, and stir in the salt and pepper and sprinkle of cumin. Heat through and serve!

Once that was done, I realized that I hadn't had any coffee this morning, so I made a small cup with a packet of Truvia and some vanilla soy milk:

I was time to start dinner, so while the pilaf veggies were cooking, my mom and I threw together a salad with romaine, carrots, dried cranberries, walnuts, apples, and a side of Raspberry Hazelnut dressing:

We grilled the Mahi Mahi on the George Forman grill (about 8 minutes total cook time), and served it with the rice pilaf, salad, and some brussel sprouts!!!

Holy yum! I used this recipe for the brussel sprouts, and broiled them for about 3 minutes toward the end. I love how the Worchestershire sauce makes them so salty and delightful!

Finally, my mom made some Wholegrain Jam Squares for dessert...she's so funny though, when my dad asked what they were called she said they were Fart Cookies (since there's so much fiber)! Y'all might think that's gross, but I laughed for about 10 minutes since she never says anything like that :)

Here's the recipe:

2 cups uncooked oats
1-3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 cup butter or margarine (we used Smart Balance 50/50 butter blend)
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped nuts (we used pecans)
1 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup preserves (we used cherry preserves, but raspberry would probably rock too)!

Combine all ingredients except preserves in a large mixing bowl, beat at low speed on electric mixer until mixture is crumbly. Reserve 2 cups of the mixture; press remaining onto bottom of greased 13x9 baking pan. Spread preserves evenly over base and sprinkle with reserved mixture. Bake at 400 for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown. Cool and cut into squares.

Perfect way to end such a great meal!

We are going to watch some football (go Washington so the Cowboys don't win...sorry Texas friends!) and the end of The Sound of Music. Then, before bed, I'm going to do a Dave Farmer power yoga podcast, an idea I got from Jenna, to wind down and stretch out.

I can't wait to see my sweet husband tomorrow at 11:15am! I've missed him :)

Pumpkin + Coconut = LOVE

2009-12-27T08:09:00.000-08:00

Ah, sleepy Sunday!

It felt so nice to sleep in a little bit this morning! (Although sleeping in meant getting up at 8 rather than 6). It's so funny to think back on my college days when I slept in til 12 on Saturdays on a regular basis. Not from drinking and partying the night before, but simply because I was THAT TIRED. I feel so old now because I really can't sleep any later than 8 or else nothing will get done!

Anyway, this morning Salah left to drive back to the Dallas area, and on to New Orleans tomorrow. What a lucky girl! She gets to enjoy the delightful food of that area for the next couple of days. I totally miss classis Southern food, and by Southern food I mean fat-laden fried goodness that is completely acceptable in the South. She's going to Cafe Du Monde like 4 times...I might be slightly jealous!

This morning I had pumpkin oats with some more toasted coconut...

In the mix we have:

1/3 cup oats
2/3 cup water
1 banana
1 Tbsp cranberries
1.5 Tbsp flaked toasted coconut
1/3 cup canned pumpkin stirred in at the end
a hefty sprinkle of cinnamon

Mix it all together and you have a steaming bowl of goodness!

I ate that, and now we're getting ready to go shovel the driveway and sidewalk of a lady whose husband broke his leg on the ice yesterday...my parents are the sweetest, most wonderful people in the world for offering to do this for her :) Can't wait to serve, and then go on a 2-3 mile jog (hopefully), do some weights, and maybe some yoga? We'll see!

I'm in charge of dinner tonight, and I'm thinking of something Italian + healthy...nom nom nom!

Y'all have a good one!

Sloth Day

2009-12-26T15:33:00.000-08:00

Evenin' y'all :)

Hope your day has gone SOOO well! It's so nice to NOT be at work and just be able to kick up my feet and relax all day. That's pretty much all I've done today, only leaving the house to take Nate to the airport, and then to go job 2 miles. After jogging, I did some weights at home:

body weight rows, 3 sets of 15
body weight bicep curls, 3 sets of 15
single-leg tricep kickbacks, 8 lbs, 3 sets of 12
single-leg shoulder press, 8 lbs each, 3 sets of 12
stability ball push-ups, 3 sets of 15
walking lunges, 2 sets of 30
standing band obliques

And then I borrowed this pilates DVD from Salah:

Holy BURN! This really hit my deep rectus abdominis! Not to mention I feel like I strained my right quad, so the leg stuff was kicking my tail too!

Lunch was a little sampling of cold green bean casserole:

Yes, I said cold. I love cold foods! And some leftover (hot) beans, shredded chicken, and homemade salsa in a bowl:

Leftovers are so yummy, and I was super thankful for good Tex-Mex. This afternoon I laid on the couch for about 4 hours and watched the What Not to Wear marathon. Yep, 4 hours...and it was glorious. I snacked on some pecan halves (not pictured), and drank a ton of water, and just LAID. Felt so good!

Dinner tonight was sugar snap peas and carrots that Salah made (a little soy sauce and garlic powder, and the natural sweetness was perfection):

And some fried rice made with leftover ham and brown rice. We each had about 1/4 cup of the leftover green bean casserole and the leftover green Jell-O salad. Delish!

I ate mine so fast! I don't know why/how I consume food so quickly, but I think that I'm going to make one of my New Year's resolutions to eat a lot slower so I can increase the amount of time I derive pleasure from food. That sounds like a healthy resolution, right?

I'm going to watch some football and read the rest of the night to complete my slothful day. Have a good one!

Question: What is a small step you can take to lead you to your New Year's resolution goal?

I Think It's a Soft 'J'...

2009-12-26T08:05:00.000-08:00

I love that line from Anchorman where Will Ferrell is talking about how they going jogging and he says, "Or it could be 'yogging.' I think it might be a soft 'J'." SOOOO great!

I'm a little sad this morning. My dad and I took Nate to the airport because he'll be photographing a wedding in Dallas for one of our friends from college. And yes, tomorrow will be a super happy and fun day for her, but I'm sad that my husband's not here! :( I guess I can share JUST THIS ONCE though :)

Breakfast this morning was Toasted Coconut, Cranberry, and Dark Chocolate Oatmeal:

In the mix we have:

1/2 cup oats
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup nonfat milk
1 small banana
1 Tbsp Bob's Red Mill Golden Flaxseed Meal
1 Tbsp dried cranberries
1.5 Tbsp toasted coconut (just toast in a pan over medium-high heat, stirring constantly)
1 Tbsp dark chocolate chips

It was delicious! We will probably have to hit up the grocery store a little later today since I had oats, and then I made my parent's some of Kath's oats. Not sure if Salah's getting any...but that's what happens when you're the one who sleeps in, right? :)

Alright, I'm off for some yogging and a little weight workout! Y'all have a good one!

Question: What's your favorite cardio workout?

Hugs Are My Favorite

2009-12-25T20:53:00.000-08:00

This blogging once a day thing is pretty fun, but it definitely makes for a GIANT post! For starters, I'd like to introduce the sassiest, grouchiest, funniest dog in the world...Arnie:

Arnie is my parents' dog, but we had him before Salah and I moved out, so I still consider him our family pet. He is cranky and very verbal, but it's so much fun!

Salah played Santa Claus, handing out gifts even though there weren't names on them :)

While mom and dad watched on:

After we unwrapped presents (hurray for winter scarves!!!) I reached for a cup of coffee with Truvia and a little French Vanilla soy milk:

Nate hung out with his new hat from Salah:

And for breakfast we had banana....

Walnut...PANCAKES!!!!

With eggs and turkey sausage of course ;)

A little later I went on the porch to take photos of the icicles on the porch, but found that I liked this guy a little better:

Then Salah and I helped my mom bake dessert: Apple Crumb Pie and Pumpkin Pie!

And we might've had a snack of multi-grain bread with a little butter:

Mommy made homemade whole wheat rolls:

Oh.my.gosh. they were completely, amazingly, perfectly delicious!

Another shot of the Apple Crumb Pie, baked:

And the pumpkin....heavenly!

And....(drum roll pleeeeeeeeeeeease) THE GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE!!!!!!! This is my favorite dish of the holiday season, and I know you can make it year round, but let's face it: it doesn't get much better than green bean casserole with ham/turkey and all the fixins!

We toasted with a little White Zinfandel...so weird that Salah's 21 now...

GREEN JELLOOOOOO!!! I remember so many Thanksgivings and Christmases past where Salah would eat just about 1/2 of this dish. It's lime Jell-O, cream cheese, and crushed pineapple, with pecans on the bottom!

The full plate shot with a baked sweet potato, whole wheat roll, ham, green bean casserole, and the green Jell-O:

Another shot of my GBC friend :)

And yes, TWO slices of pie with fat free whip on top:

We finished the night off by watching Lars and the Real Girl, which is a fantastic movie if you haven't seen it. It'll make you laugh, cry, and think about the way you treat people. What else would you possibly want in a movie?

I hope that you all had a very Merry Christmas, and my you have a weekend FILLED with love and laughter with the people you love! :)

Merry Christmas to All!

2009-12-24T20:11:00.001-08:00

Merry Christmas everyone!

Hope you guys are all having a wonderful and joyous day :)

We got in to Lubbock tonight around 5pm or so. We got up and left the house in Denver at 6, so that's about 10 or so hours of driving...yikes!!!

Here are some of my Christmas presents from Nate: some awesome colorful bowls from Anthropologie:
I'm already planning on using the small ones for ice cream :) Is that bad?

When we finally got in my family had dinner hot and ready for us! We had chicken tacos with all the fixin's, my favorite being the avacado pico de gallo:

And some Mexican beans my mom made in the crockpot:

Here's the family making their plates while I snap away. Dad, Mom, Salah, and Nate:

And on the side we had some clementines that Salah peeled. I love clementines, especially when they're already peeled!

Their Christmas tree didn't fall down like our did :)

And a sparkly Christmas tree candle that I thought would be a cool picture SINCE it's sparkly:

We ended up watching The Hangover with my family. It's been decided that Salah is no longer in charge of picking movies to watch as a family, but we still love her anyway :) Bunker has this cute habit of suckling on the butt of the stuffed ducks we buy for him, so I took a little picture of him doing it:

And finally for dessert we had some granola bars my mom made. I am SO excited to be hanging out here for many many reasons, but one definitely being that my parents are great cooks, and very health conscious. That makes it that much easier on me to eat well here too!

I'm planning on blogging again tomorrow evening after Christmas dinner, but til then I hope you all have a very merry Christmas!

Question: What is your favorite Christmas gift this season?

I'm Packin'

2009-12-23T17:37:00.000-08:00

Sigh.

We still have to pack, clean, and make roadtrip CDs. Oh yeah, and also sleep. Yikes!

Here's a picture of the treats I made for work today:

It's sugar cookie bars (MUCH less time consuming than individual cookies) with pink icing (it was supposed to be red, but I couldn't bring myself to add more food coloring). Get the recipe here, but I used Triple Sec instead of milk :)

Mid-morning snack/first half of lunch was a couple leftover raviolis from dinner last night:

I made sure to use the fancy tupperware for this one!

And a little picture of Jasper, one of our friend's dogs:

He's a 5-month old Vizla, and he's Keira's boyfriend :) Yes, my dog has a boyfriend!

And the other half of lunch was a Chicken Ranch wrap thing from Lean Cuisine:

It was snowy and cold all afternoon. I'm lucky to have an office with a window, but I will say that snowy days make me soooo sleepy. It's just so pretty and peaceful and, well, cold. Just makes me want to curl up with Nate and the pups and watch a movie (which will inevitably lead to a nap)! Here's the view outside of my work window sans the cars:

Getting home today was a beast too! We were going to pick up the Jeep (our 4-wheel drive vehicle) in my Corolla, and that car is NOT built for slippery roads! An hour and a half later, we arrived home. Again, just trying to use what we have on hand, I had to improvise. And yet again, we didn't have any veggies, so all we had was chicken and some homemade mac and cheese. Honestly I can tell the difference when we don't eat well, but I figure we're about to have a very healthful week and a half with my family!

Another view:

And for dessert we each had a cookie from our package of Honolulu Cookie Company cookies. One was dark chocolate coconut, and the other was white chocolate:

I'm off to pack up my life for a trip! Hope tonight is a fun one for y'all!

Question: What's your favorite food blog (other than your own :) ?

Snowy :)

2009-12-23T08:06:00.000-08:00

Good morning!

It's snowing today, as predicted :) It's so pretty to watch, but I don't have a great photo of it yet, so hopefully sometime later today! I'm really REALLY crossing my fingers that we'll get to leave early from work because there is so much that needs to get done!

I just realized I didn't take any pictures of the awesome Christmas gifts Nate got me last night :( He's just the sweetest, most amazing husband, and I'll be posting those later! Except this one:

An awesome red bowl for my morning oats!
Same recipe as the past couple of days, but this time no vanilla or walnuts, and I added cinnamon and honey. That little change definitely helped re-spark my interest once again!

As we were getting ready to leave today, Nate was shoveling the driveway and I was getting stuff together inside. Next thing I know, I turned around to walk out the door and saw BLOOD (gasp!) all over our "white" carpet! Apparently Keira cut her foot on something outside while the dogs were going to the bathroom and proceeded to bleed all over the place. She wasn't hurt, but Nate and I were on our hands and knees with carpet cleaner trying to get it out of the carpet. Unfortunately, there are going to be some stains, but we are (hopefully - fingers crossed) going to get hard floors (wood or tile) on the main level sometime this year. Hopefully.

When we got into work I went up to the front desk to claim a dollar the Coke machine ate (grrrrrr) and found a box of pears someone sent!

Yummmm, I love pears and can't wait to eat this!

Finally, a little pic of the dude (Bunker) to balance out Keira's portrait from yesterday:

It's a little blurry, but he's looking up in excitement at a box of soy nuts I was shaking to get his attention :) If you look closely, you can see a little drool coming out of the left side of his mouth!

Question: What are your holiday eating plans?

Can You Ever Just Be Whelmed?

2009-12-22T18:22:00.000-08:00

Anyone remember that line from 10 Things I Hate About You? 'Cause I am definitely feeling quite OVERwhelmed with life right now! There's just so much going on, busy season at work (winter snows + working for a ski apparel company = BUSY), plus just trying to get ready to leave town is really wearing on me. Also, it's supposed to snow anywhere from 4-9 inches over the next couple of days, which makes leaving town a little more difficult. C'est la vie, right?

We got home from work tonight, and Nate reached for an Old Chub, and I got out the fixin's for a lower calorie and cheap version of my favorite cocktail: a Cape Cod. I like cranberry juice, but we found this knock-off Crystal Light cranberry cocktail at Walmart, and just mix it with some cheap vodka and VOILA! A cheap and low cal Cape Cod!

Served in one of out "fancy" glasses :)

As I said before, we had the Last-Minute Lasagna I read about on Tina's blog. We needed to use up some chicken breasts, so Nate seasoned 'em up with a nice little mix of spices and cooked them low and slow on the stove while the "lasagna" baked.

In the meantime, we found out we had a package at the door! Another Christmas present from Jack and Linda, some cookies from Honolulu Cookie Company! Holy goodness, we don't need cookies, but they're shortbread, which equals extra deliciousness!

Some artsy package pics:

I love love love taking pictures of layered cakes at the weddings we photograph, so I got excited about this one too:

Time for dinner! I know, there are no veggies to be found, but honestly we have no time for the grocery store today, so meat/pasta/sauce/cheese it is:

We did, however, serve it on appetizer plates, so the portion size was good even though there was a slight lack of nutrients!

Dessert was JUST the cookie:

I might be partaking of this little Malibu tomorrow after work. OK, fine, I will most definitely be partaking! This cookie is the Kona Coffee cookie from Honolulu Cookie Company, delicious!

Alright, I'm off to bake some treats for work and do laundry! Y'all have a fabulous night, and wreck 'em!

Anyone remember that line from 10 Things I Hate About You?

Tuesday is the New Thursday

2009-12-22T11:42:00.000-08:00

In the midst of my crazy-person schedule, I failed to realize that today, December 22, is basically my Thursday of this week. Excited? I think so!

Lunch today is leftovers from last night, a Stoneyfield Farm Chocolate Underground yogurt, and some leftover carrots and broccoli I swiped from the work kitchen from Festivus.

In the midst of taking a picture of the chili with a couple Fritos on it, Keira proceeded to knock about half of the chips and the floor, where she and Bunker devoured them all in about 1.3 seconds. Oops!

This yogurt is phenomenal! It's definitely hitting the sweet tooth today.

And hurray for a few veggies!

As for the rest of the day, Nate and I are in freak-out mode about getting everything done that we'd like to accomplish before leaving town. At least I found this great recipe on Tina's website for a quick version of lasagna, which is what we'll be partaking in tonight for dinner! Then it's going to be a mad rush of laundry, cleaning, packing, and planning to get ready to leave on Thursday!

Question: What is your favorite Christmas treat? I'm trying to come up with an idea for a good Christmas goodie to make for the office tomorrow!

Hairy Teeth

2009-12-22T08:41:00.001-08:00

Good morning everyone!

It’s so incredible to me that we are only 3 days away from Christmas…3 DAYS PEOPLE! Crazy!

I think it’s so funny how each year I think I’m going to get everything done on time, no stress, no procrastination, and then every year I stress and procrastinate. Go figure.

This morning I had the same oats I’ve been having:

You know, 1/2 cup oats, 3/4 cup water, 1/4 cup milk, dried cherries, walnuts, vanilla, flax, and almond butter. Good, but YAWN...I'm getting a little tired of the same!

But I’m thinking that once we get to Texas I’ll be getting some stuff together to try these oatmeal recipes from Kath. They sound delicious, and I’m definitely trying to find ways to keep the oatmeal affair alive and well! I know I'll be able to get lots of help from my awesome baby sister, Salah, with some rockin' flavor combos!

I might have eaten the other half of my mini Chocolove bar from the other day...but I really can't remember :) But now I have hairy teeth...you know, when the sugar creates a film on your teeth and all you want to do is brush and floss? Yep, that's me, thanks to my craving for chocolate this morning!

Today has been crazy busy, but I’ll be posting lunch soon enough. Also, it should be snowing soon, so hopefully I’ll have some pictures of that too!

Question: What is your favorite oatmeal flavor combo?

Chili Time!

2009-12-21T19:03:00.001-08:00

As I started to write this, our Christmas tree fell down. :(

And then I got over it :) Today for snack I had some of these awesome pineapple chunks:

And, as I mentioned before, I was planning on having this acorn squash:

But it tasted kinda crappy (really dry and flavorless) so I didn't. Instead I had the Larabar as I was leaving work to tide me over during the 5 o'clock traffic.

When we got home, we had our Christmas gifts from Nate's dad, so we opened them up and found out (among other things) we got a ROCKIN' CD from Jack and Linda! It's called Linda's PITAS (Pain In The Ass Songs) in Memory of Smuggler's Cove (our favorite beach on Tortola). We've been listening to that ever since, and once I get back from getting the rest of Nate's Christmas gifts, I will be partaking in a small bottle of rum they sent too :)

Dinner tonight was Smoky Beef Chili:

1 lb. lean ground beef (as lean as you can find it!)
2 cups of beef stock
3 slices turkey bacon, sliced thinly
1 28-oz can of crushed tomatoes
2 chipotle peppers in adobo, chopped finely
1 tsp each of dried onion, oregano, black pepper, salt, flour
2 tsp garlic powder
2 Tbsp chili powder
1 15-oz can black beans
1 small bag of frozen corn

In a large pot, brown the beef and turkey bacon. Drain any excess fat. Stir in beef stock, crushed tomato, and spices. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then lower heat and simmer 20-30 minutes.

We had ours with a few Fritos in the bottom and some cheese on top; however, if we'd had time to run to the store a great option would be to stir in some zucchini as well!

It was really yummy! I meant to make cornbread instead of Fritos to go with it, but again, the whole no-time-to-go-to-the-store thing really got in the way.

I also made some roasted brussels sprouts tonight:

My friend Stefanie taught me this recipe, and it is the BEST way I've ever had brussels sprouts! And the best thing is, there's no measuring! Just add about a teaspoon or so of each ingredient, or you can tweak it to your tastes:

Olive oil, dijon mustard, Worchestershire sauce, caraway seeds, black pepper, garlic powder. Roast at 350 for 30 minutes, turning halfway through. It turns out super flavorful, but you still taste the sweet, buttery flavor of the brussels sprouts too. Mmmmmmmmm :)

On a more serious note, I've been thinking lately about my intentions with this blog. I've become so enthralled with the encouragement and inspiration that's been provided through the amazing people in this online food blogging community, and my hope is that my blog would do the same thing. I want it to be a way to hold myself accountable as well. For background on my story (until I have time to make a separate tab), click here.

I'm still not where I want to be physically. I feel as though I should throw some pictures of myself up here so that people can see my journey thus far. I hate scales and I hate numbers in relation to weight, but I do know that I still have about 30-40 pounds to lose to reach a place where I've felt comfortable in my skin in the past. And I figure there's no better place to do it than in the huge, open public called the internet!

I guess a large reason for this blog is to show people how I'm living so that I have no excuses, no dark and hidden corners, and no reason to not improve the way I live. Honestly, everything I've tried has failed to this point EXCEPT for blogging about what I eat and do on a day to day basis. And that has given me a HUGE amount of hope for my future!

So, to end this evening's blog, I have two questions: What motivates you in your journey for a healthy life? What tips do you have to share?

I can't wait to hear your answers!

Hey Santa...

2009-12-21T12:37:00.000-08:00

I have this song stuck in my head!

Oh my goodness, it is taking me forever today to get caught up! You see, last night I was pulled over for having an expired registration on my car, so I had to go in this morning to renew it…blah. I hate waiting in lines at government offices, especially on Mondays when they’re the busiest.

At least I had a good jar of oatmeal to start off with!

½ cup oats, water, skim milk
1 Tbsp cherries
1 Tbsp almond butter
1 Tbsp milled flax seeds
1 banana
1 tsp vanilla

Mix it all together and whaddaya get? A fabulous jar of oatmeal, that’s what!

ALSO (huge GASP!!!) I got another Bon Appetit in the mail on Saturday! So excited! I’m hoping to go through it and find some fun things to make with my family over Christmas!

After the registration emergency, I booked it home to put the new dating on my plates, then got into work late. And ever since then I’ve been slammed! Makes the day go by a lot faster, but not so easy to get a post up!

My view driving in to work today:

It doesn’t look nearly as majestic here as it does in person, but I like it nonetheless!

Lunch is a Lean Cuisine Butternut Squash Ravioli:

I’m not the biggest fan of frozen meals, but this is BY FAR the best and most flavorful! It’s sweet, savory, has great veggies (carrots, red peppers, and snap peas) and an awesome crunch from the walnuts that thrown in. Plus, I’ll be roasting this acorn squash in the toaster oven for later, and maybe having this cherry pie Larabar for a snacker!

Other than that, just downing the water and thinking about all of the things we have to do tonight! I’ll definitely be posting more later, but I think this is all I’ll be able to get out now!

This One's a Beast!

2009-12-20T18:15:00.001-08:00

Hello :)

I totally didn’t mean for this post to be so late in the weekend. Nate’s been trying to convince me to take a break, but this is something I really enjoy doing. PLUS we’ve had a fun weekend, so I am excited to share!

First off, after Festivus on Friday, Nate came over to my office with this massive plate of leftover food:

Apparently everyone was told to take a huge plate of food home so that it wouldn’t go to waste. The drive home was a beast! It normally takes 30 minutes or so, but Friday it took an hour and half. Why? Who knows…I’m pretty sure if someone had figured out the secret of how to keep traffic down to a minimum, it would have been a lot better then. Oh well, we made it and had a chance to relax before we babysat!

Nate ate about half of the plate o’ food on the way home, but sandwiches just didn’t sound great to me, so we picked up Noodles and Company on the way to our pastor’s house. I got the Whole Grain Tuscan Linguine with a small Caesar salad…so yummy!

I love Noodles, and it was so great to decent-sized portions. You can do a “Pick 3” thing where it’s a small bowl of noodles and a small soup/salad, and not completely overwhelm yourself with pasta. Although, to be honest, I don’t mind overwhelming myself with pasta any day of the week :)

Saturday morning, I took my good friend Amy to the airport before taking off to the mountain for our first ski day of the year. On the way back, stopped by Panera Bread for breakfast: a Power Breakfast Sandwich on Whole Grain bread and a small hazelnut coffee!

The sandwich is definitely a favorite of mine. The bread is great, nice and toasty, and it has ham, egg whites, and really sharp cheddar. Oh my gosh the cheddar! There’s not a lot, but the flavor is perfection with the other ingredients.

We drove out to Eldora Mountain Resort, a small mountain outside of Nederland, Colorado.

We get free season ski passes there through the company we work for, so we headed up and ended up skiing for 5-6 hours or so. SO MUCH FUN! I really enjoy skiing, and felt like I was doing pretty well for this only being my second year to do it! I only fell down once, on a black, but it was kind of embarrassing because my skis popped off and my poles flew down the hill. THEN, when I finally got to my stuff, I forgot to pop the binding back, and therefore couldn’t get my ski back on until a ski patrol gal came by to remind me what to do…OOPS!

Since we had the season passes, lunch was free! I had a grilled chicken sandwich with mustard, pickles, lettuce, and tomato, Sunchips (only about half the bag) and an oatmeal raisin cookie. YUM!

I maintain that free food always tastes better than food you pay for (well, most of the time).

After skiing, we had the privilege of coming home to 3 loads of laundry to fold:

At least it’s done now! Saturday night we went and had dinner at one of the breweries close to us, CB & Potts. Last year they had this words-cannot-describe-how-awesome-it-is beer called the Nutcracker Porter. It was like drinking candy…a chocolate/caramel/hazelnut dream! Alas, they didn’t have it this year, so I settled for the Total Disorder Porter (same thing, no hazelnuts):

Then Nate and I split the Monte Cristo sandwich and some fries:

In case you don’t know what a Monte Cristo is (because apparently there are people who don’t), it’s basically a French toast sandwich filled with ham, Gouda, and turkey, dusted with powdered sugar and served with raspberry preserves. Can you say YUM? Granted, not so healthy, but definitely something we were both craving after a long day of skiing and laundry folding excursions.

We got to watch the UT vs Penn State volleyball championships. I love my home state of Texas, but I’m not scared to say that UT’s volleyball team is just about the only UT team I’ll cheer for :) Wreck 'em Tech!

We finished the evening by watching New in Town with Renee Zellweger and Harry Conick, Jr. Don’t you think Nate looks like him?

Except Nate is cuter...so dreamy!

Breakfast this morning was the same oats mixture I had on Friday:

Along with some African nectar:

After church Nate and I went down to Pura Vida in Cherry Creek to shoot some instructional shots for Stacey Lei Krauss, creator of Willpower and Grace, an awesome new workout. You should most definitely check it out because Stacey is a genius!

Dinner, I’m afraid to admit, was at a place that Nate and I love: Cinzetti’s. Now, don’t judge, but we pretty much stuffed ourselves full of Italian delights. Honestly, I don’t even remember what half of the stuff was, but I DO know that I like the arrabiata sauce for the calamari!

The rest of the night is going to consist of us watching Enchanted, folding laundry, and hopefully going to bed early. Lame? Maybe? Exciting? Not really. Necessary? Most definitely!

Ski Day!

2009-12-18T21:48:00.000-08:00

Hey guys! I'll be doing this most of the morning and early afternoon tomorrow:

(that means attempting to ski and hanging with my sweet husband!)

Hope you're Saturday is going well, and I'll post some more tomorrow night!

It Was a Festivus for the Rest of Us

2009-12-18T15:49:00.000-08:00

As I write this, I'm sipping on a rum and Diet at my work computer. That's right, I said work computer! Just one of the many perks of working in Boulder...everyone understands the desire to have alcohol on Fridays :) Don't worry, I'm not driving home, Nate is.

So let's see...today, amidst shipping out the Christmas presents and putting out 1.75 fires, I ate an unpictured apple (y'all don't need to see me eat the apple, right? I was thinking we all kinda knew what an apple looks like :) and this delightfully creamy sweet potato:

I just poked it a couple time with a knife and heated it up in the microwave for 12 minutes wrapped in a damp paper towel, and voila! Perfectly cooked sweet potato that requires no added flavor. Now that's my kind of lunch!

I totally meant to do something with the tomatoes, but by the time I was able to cook them it was almost time for Festivus to begin (no tinsel, it's distracting ;)

I made sure to do some pictures of my Friday treats for y'all, but I'm pretty proud of myself; I only ate the cookie! Hurray for not gorging myself on delightful sweet things:

The Cherry Chocolate Chip Cookie:

And the Chocolate Toffee Shortbread:

I headed upstairs for Festivus and lo and behold, a smorgasbord of sandwich and hors d'oeuvres! Below is my plate, loaded with two bean sprout/cheese/tomato/spinach/cucumber pinwheels, some carrots and broccoli with ranch dip, and some chips with fresh guac!

I'm starting to get to the point where, yes, fatty sweet things sound great (don't they always?) but fresher options are definitely becoming more appealing. I think that's a good place to be, don't you?

Since this is just a quickie post between work and home, I'll finish off with this (fuzzy) shot of the Festivus party in the admin wing of the building. Pretty cool, huh?

Anyone else have any more thoughts on the transition from Blogger to Wordpress? If you can't sign in to leave a comment (again, a big reason to move), feel free to email me at hdisarro@yahoo.com for the time being!

Breathe Easy Friday

2009-12-18T08:07:00.000-08:00

Deep breath in…annnnnnd release out.

It’s Friday!

I saw the phrase “Breathe Easy” on a truck on the way in to work this morning, and it was such a great reminder. I mean, it’s Friday, I only have 3 days of work next week, it’s almost Christmas…why not breathe easy?

Last night was crazy. I stayed way way WAY past my bedtime and work up early this morning for some yoga. Didn’t get around to the upper body workout (anyone shocked?) because Nate and I were wrapping and taping and cutting all.night.long. However, the puppers weren’t so busy and therefore napped the whole time.

Bunker loves to sleep in this chair!

And Keira will sleep anywhere that there’s the possibility of snuggling:

Also, I’m so lame, but I forgot to mention that we watched the last game of the UT vs Minnesota NCAA semi-final volleyball match! I adore volleyball, it makes me happy ☺ and I was so glad to watch this game. Destinee Hooker (from UT) played on the all-state team with my little sister, so it’s been pretty cool to watch her success over the past few years. Finals are on Saturday, so I think I know what I’ll be doing for our après ski event ☺

Here is the start of the pile of gifts we wrapped:

And this morning I had one of the best mugs ‘o’ oatmeal I’ve had all week:

Following Kath’s recipe for whipped banana oatmeal with some minor changes:

1/3 cup oats

1/3 cup milk

2/3 cup water (I’ve learned that in this high altitude a little more water is needed for consistency’s sake)

1 banana, sliced very thinly

1 Tbsp dried cherries

pinch of salt

1 Tbsp milled flax seed

1 tsp vanilla

1 Tbsp toasted walnuts (toast in a pan over low heat for 5-10 minutes, until nuts are slightly brown and fragrant)

1 Tbsp almond butter

It was perfect, and I ate the whole thing!

Lunch today will consist of some sort of concoction with these three items:

A sweet potato, 2 tomatoes, and an apple…I’m thinking bake the sweet potato, seed the tomatoes and melt a little mozzarella on them, and eat the apple whole. Sounds like a plan!

Later today the company is having a Fesitvus Party inspired by Seinfeld. Great thing is it’s going to be waste free and likely have fantastic food! I will be taking pictures, so get excited. It's going to be a Festivus for the rest of us!

One more thing: I’m thinking of changing my blog to from Blogger to Wordpress since it appears to be easier to leave comments that way. Does anyone have any advice either way?

Alrighty, it’s off to work I go! Y’all have a great Friday!

Holly Jolly

2009-12-17T19:06:00.000-08:00

Hey hey hey!

Good evening everyone! Tonight is the night that we stay up and wrap Christmas gifts to send out tomorrow to our family! It’s also the night we catch up on laundry, bake cookies, and last but not least watch 30 Rock! For the longest time Nate and I were obsessed with The Office, but let’s get serious: without Jim pursuing Pam and the drama there, it’s just not that great anymore. Plus, I love the weirdness that is 30 Rock.

Snack after my hour walk today: Oikos Honey Yogurt and some baby carrots! Perfect combo!

Tonight I’m baking off some cherry chocolate chip cookies and guess what? They didn’t fall flat! Emma’s recipe pulled through, and I am SO THRILLED! I’m also making some toffee shortbread (both for work, neither is healthy), so our house is filled with the smell of baked goods. Mmmmmmmmmmmm :)

The cherry chocolate chip cookies before:

And the cookies on the cooling rack after (note the un-flatness):

Dinner tonight was on the fly, using up some stuff we had leftover in our freezer and pantry: Nate had Mango Habañero Tilapia and I had some herb crusted salmon, both with salad, garlic couscous (told ya I love my garlic!), and some red wine mushrooms for a little appetizer. Yummy! We’re both doing pretty well with the whole small-portion thing, which is great.

Sauteed Cremini mushrooms in 1 teaspoon of butter and about 1/4 cup of red wine.

This couscous is amazing. We had it for the first time on Tortola, so every time we have couscous it reminds us of that trip :)

Nate's plate with his tilapia and couscous. We cooked the fish with a sprinkle of salt over medium-low heat for about 2-3 minutes on each side, then poured the sauce below on it...sweet and hot!

I love love LOVE this sauce! Reminds me of Fredericksburg, Texas :)

Salad was mixed greens, carrots, red onion, feta cheese, and croutons. Forgot we had tomatoes until after we were done eating :( Just means more for tomorrow!

My dish with the couscous and herb crusted salmon. Yummy!

I must admit…tonight I drank some wine and actually liked it! I know, I know…wine is amazing and I can’t believe I don’t love it either, but in my defense I never drink much and would (most times) rather have a good, dark porter than anything else. However, tonight’s wine (Cabernet Sauvignon) was just right and it was great to drink a little while we were cooking.

I’m thinking I might throw an upper body lifting session in tonight before bed too, and do a nice long power yoga DVD in the morning.

What is your favorite (healthy) side dish for Christmas dinner? Looking for some great ideas for next week :)

Blog Envy

2009-12-17T12:20:00.001-08:00

It’s lunchtime! Finally! I thought it would never come ☺

Lunch today is organic black bean soup, and a makeshift Margharita-style pita pizza!

So the soup is sort of Southwestern-style with chipotle (AH-mazing) and cumin, and the pizza is obviously Italian, but I love ‘em both and don’t care ☺

Here’s the after:

1 pita pocket, 1 Tbsp marinara sauce, 1-2 ounces mozzarella, a sprinkling of dried basil, and some sliced tomatoes. YUMMY!

The soup is rather garlicky (not that I’m complaining because OH.MY.GOSH do I love me some garlic) but if you’re not a fan I’d suggest another option like Amy’s.

I also had this little bite ‘o’ chocolate cake that Nate surprised me with:

(hubba hubba!)

So, I must admit, I’ve been feeling a little down this past week because I feel like my life is über boring. I work 8-5 and then run around like a chicken with my head cut off until bedtime, then start the next day over again. The only thing that varies is the weekend. I just feel like I read all of these blogs by amazing women with exciting lives, where they have time to work out at any point in the day and have lots of time to write cool posts with amazing pictures. I think they call that Blog Envy ☺

One day I’d love to write a book of some kind, and one of the reasons behind this blog is to understand what I want to write about and find out whether my life has any sort of relatable topic. Question: what would you like to see written on this blog?

I’m asking for Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott for Christmas (per Ashley’s suggestion) to hopefully improve my writing and gain more perspective in my thought processes. Hopefully it helps and we’ll see where that takes me!

In the meantime, thank you for stopping by and listening to my yammering about my food and life. I’m so happy I get to share!

Thursday is the New Friday

2009-12-17T08:34:00.000-08:00

Morning everyone! ☺ Don't you just love how Thursdays feel like Fridays because it means Friday is almost here?

Last night my head was beyond the point of exploding due to a migraine…BLAH. I hate those things. They don’t happen nearly as often as they did growing up and in college (maybe it was moving away from the West Texas winds…?) but I did end up with one yesterday afternoon during our grocery trip.

We FINALLY returned the movie, but couldn’t come to an agreement on dinner. I was thinking soup and salad, Nate wanted something he could “sink his teeth into”, and so we settled on pita pizzas with turkey bacon, mushrooms, tomato sauce, and fresh mozzarella with a side salad.

Here’s the pre-oven pic:

And the post-oven pic (they fit so perfectly on our small plates!)

And a shot of the salad:

I love Ken’s Lite Vidalia Onion dressing. I mean, if it says “Vidalia” in it you really can’t go wrong! Also added a couple of croutons. This girls LOVES her bread!

I ended up going to sleep at about 8pm and didn’t make any of the treats I normally do for work; HOWEVER, I was able to make the dough, so tonight it’s just a matter of baking them off while we wrap Christmas presents!

This morning, after a little yoga, I made the usual oats, but added some dried cherries (about a tablespoon), and sprinkling of chocolate chips, and a little granola. I adored the cherries, but the chocolate (although good at first) kinda weirded me out. Not sure why? And the granola wasn’t my fave either. I’m thinking tomorrow I’ll probably just do the cherries again and call it a morning!

Snacking on this apple later after a cup of Mighty Leaf Organic African Nectar tea:

Pink Lady apples are my favorite.apples.ever. They’re the perfect amount of sweetness, crunch, and tang…perfecto!

I’ll be posting my lunch (I am OH so excited about it) a little later on, and will be taking a run later too!

Wreck ‘em!

3/5 Done!

2009-12-16T15:48:00.000-08:00

The work week is 3/5 of the way over! That means T minus 2 days till I get to go SKIING!!!!

My goodness, this afternoon has been busy! Definitely made the day fly by. SOOOO...I went jogging/walking on my break today and I feel AMAZING! Not sure if you can call it a runner's high since I only ran half the time, but it's close enough.

After I blogged this morning I may or may not have eaten one of these sinfully delicious chocolate/peanut butter/blondie suckers made by a co-worker of mine:

As my friend Jonathan says, NOM NOM NOM!

Lunch was Pei Wei's Ginger Broccoli Shrimp with brown rice:

And yes, I ate the whole darn thing! It was delicious and filling. I love umami!

After the run I had an Oikos Greek yogurt in vanilla:

I can't tell you how many times I've read French Women Don't Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano (GASP! I love her) and I never get tired of reading it. I love how she recollects her past experiences of growing up in France and the memories she has that revolve around food. I must say, that's what I love about food: it's ability to bring people together, invoke emotion, calm and excite you at the same time. It's such an amazing gift! Anyway, the first time I heard about Greek yogurt was through French Women Don't Get Fat, and I've fallen in love with it. I'm so glad that it's so readily available too!

I know this was a quickie, but it's almost time to pack up and go to the grocery store...wheeeeeeeeeeee!!! I'm thinking soup and salad tonight since we had a big lunch!

Wreck 'em!

Moonboots

2009-12-16T08:45:00.000-08:00

Morning!

Last night’s concert was so much fun! Unfortunately there are no pictures yet…Nate and I pretty much crashed and burned the second we got home. Hopefully we’ll have some ready to post soon though!

Check out the song “Moonboots” by Jonah here!

In other news, apparently I didn’t read the Breakfast Cookie recipe thoroughly enough, and didn’t have any protein powder to make it with. However, we should be hitting up Safeway later to return a RedBox DVD we’ve had for a week (WHY WHY WHY?!), so hopefully at that point we can get some groceries to last the rest of the week. Maybe I can try the famous cookie tomorrow? We shall see!

After about 1/2 an hour of yoga I had the usual oats per Kath’s recipe:

1/3 cup each of oats, water, milk

1 small banana

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 Tbsp flax seeds

1 tsp honey (since the bananas still aren’t super ripe)

1 Tbsp almond butter

Served up fancy-style in a red snowflake mug!

Today is going to be a scorcher…all the way up to 50 degrees+ people! I’m going on a jog along the creek to celebrate and (hopefully) start getting into running shape again. For a really long time, I ran really hard and really long distances just to burn calories, and ended up hurting my body in the process. Since then it’s been an uphill battle to enjoy running for what it first started out as: a way to keep my body and mind healthy. No day like the present to start up again!

Finally, to round off the breakfast I had some Yogi Blueberry Slim Life tea with an empowering message:

Hope y’all are having a good one so far, and since I didn’t pack a lunch today it’s just going to have to be a surprise later!

Wreck ‘em!

The Boulder Creek December Adventure

2009-12-15T17:02:00.000-08:00

Good evening!

First of all, I can't believe I didn't freak out and blog about my first issue of Bon Appetit coming in the mail today! My friend Stef gets this magazine, and if nothing else it's got breathtaking photography, but luckily it also has fantastic recipes as well. I already get Eating Well, and it's the highlight of my month of mail, so it's nice to get another one too!

Man, Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the hardest days of the week, I'm tellin' you! Mondays you get jerked awake to the reality that is having a full-time job and an overtime social schedule, but Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the days that are jam-packed, but you have all of Monday to think about what you have to do! Make sense?

Anyway, today's lunch was very similar to yesterday's - same pasta, same sauce, but instead of leftover roast chicken, we had chicken sausage leftover from the calzone we made on Friday. It was really good, and really filling!

I might've also eaten 2 mini squares of the baby Chocolove bar I got yesterday...oops!

On my lunch hour (I normally eat at lunchtime, then take my hour off to go run errands or work out) I decided that the snow and ice had melted enough for me to be comfortable walking on the bike path again. I took the camera and just played with the daylight that was left:

SELF PORTRAIT!

It's so funny to look at these pictures now, because if I had done them a month ago the trees and ground would have been ALIVE with the colors of fall: oranges, reds, yellows, deep purples, and the remnants of green. Now it's all dead and it feels very supernatural, but I know that, come Spring, this exact same trail will be full of color and life, the creek with thaw and start rushing again, and I'll be able to hear a dog swimming every time I walk or run :) I love seasons!

Tonight is the Jonah Werner and Trace Bundy concert at the Boulder Theater, and I'm pretty stoked to go! Jonah is an amazing musician and performer, and the last time I heard Trace play it was incredible. PLUS the proceeds go to benefit the Boulder Safehouse, which is definitely near and dear to my heart.

Tonight's dinner was a stop at Panera Bread. Their stupid advertising sure did me in as I got the pick 2 with mac 'n' cheese and a chicken panini! Have I had too much white bread today? Probably. Overdone it with the pasta? Perhaps. Am I sorry? HECK NO! Just means tomorrow will be a little less of those things and more veggies!

Finally, it's looking like another late night for this one; I still have several files of notes to go through and write. Good thing I get to hear my friend Stephanie say them though! Always brings a smile to my face :)

I'm thinking in the morning, before my Breakfast Cookie, I'm going to do some yoga per Jenna's post today. I love yoga, and I've never felt so limber (duh) and comfortable in my body as when I'm practicing. Besides, the leg workout I've been doing isn't my fave, so I gotta figure out what to do to supplement that anyway.

Hope you all have a wonder December evening! I'll be posting some pictures Nate took from tonight's concert along with the usual tomorrow!