I ate leather

So last weekend Doug was off on a little vacation (yay!), so we spent the weekend running around and cooking a ton of food. Saturday we went shopping up in the "big" city north of us and found the local food co-op that I didn't know existed until recently (I'd wanted to hit the farmer's market but we were too late). The co-op was so cool, filled with bulk bins and shelves full of products I can't find in our little town, like coconut milk yogurt (like what Meghann's been talking about) and fruit leathers like I've seen all over the blog world but can never find.

These were so good. I got strawberry and Doug got raspberry. Mine was really sweet while his had a nice tartness to it. I definitely think I'll be getting these again. I haven't tried the yogurt yet, but I need to.

Saturday I also got an armband for my ipod, so I don't have to carry it or try to shove it in my pocket anymore. And it has a handy little pocket for my key, so no more putting my key onto my shoelace! I used it tonight and the key fit perfectly. I hadn't gone out for a walk/jog in almost a week because it just kept raining, so I left out the jogging tonight to try to get back into the routine without overdoing it. We're going camping next weekend for Doug's birthday and I've been hoping to use the paths and roads of the campground for some awesome long walks/jogs with a few little hills thrown in, so hopefully I'll get back into the routine soon.

The only other thing we really did last weekend was watch the Indianapolis 500. We both love the 500. We actually both went there in 2001 with our school's marching band (yes we were both band geeks). But it wasn't the most enjoyable experience. 

We stood in the rain and then the humid weather for hours before the parade they have on Saturday, I ended up having an asthma attack about halfway through the parade because we were practically running, so I had to dropout and then my director had to fight with the Indy EMTs because they wanted to take me to the hospital but I was fine after my inhaler (also they had a film crew with them, I think it was COPS, so thank goodness a 15 year old having an asthma attack isn't that interesting, I'd have hated to have been on tv in our horrible uniforms). Then we had a horrible dinner and were forced to stay for a "dance party" (even though we'd all been up for hours) at a restaurant in Indy that is no longer open, then we had a horrible long drive back to our hotel (on plain ole school buses) because they didn't want to pay to stay closer, where we got in late and had to leave early the next morning with horrible breakfasts that totally sucked. Then there was a parade around the track (which I didn't do because my asthma attack the day before had left me incredibly dizzy), but I heard it was hell because of the pitch of the track. And then the race, which was great....except I had a migraine for most of it (worst experience ever). So needless to say we are both very eager to go back and do the Indy 500 right :)

We don't have anything planned this weekend, Doug has to work, so I'll just be getting ready for our camping trip and I'll be busy being really jealous of Jess because she gets to see DMB at Fenway this weekend (lucky!).

End the Fat Talk!

Hey all! Just wanted to throw this link out here for anyone interested. Caitlin at Healthy Tipping Point did some posts yesterday on ending fat talk, you know: when females talk about how fat they feel after eating, in their jeans, etc. She's set up a page on her (awesome) blog where she'll have all this set up for good because she got such a great response.

I think this is a really important topic. Women do tend to talk negatively about their appearances (myself included) and we're not only hurting ourselves but also our children (or any child around us really). There's no reason to say mean things about ourselves, if we can't love ourselves exactly how we are how do we expect anyone else to?

I don't have a daughter (someday I hope) but I see all the toys, commercials, and shows that are aimed at all my friends' kids and it makes me sad. My friend Sarah has a no Bratz dolls rule for her daughter because they are such bad examples (in her - and my- opinion) and I fully intend to have the same rule. I think that there is really no reason to show the idea of beauty (and even more so sex appeal) to little kids, just let them be!

Sarah (not my friend - though I so wish I knew her!) at LoveIn My Tummy has mentioned how she always makes sure to give her daughters a non-appearance based compliment whenever she gives them an appearance based one so they know they have value beyond their looks (though her daughters are some of the cutest kids I've ever seen). I think this is such a great idea.

So, check out Caitlin's site and read all the great comments from all her readers and be sure to give yourself the compliment you deserve!

House Hunt Update

Does anyone want to live in an 830 some square foot 3 bedroom house right next to (darn near on top of) a railroad track?

What about a house that had pretty much every room completly gutted and then.... nothing?You'd pretty much pay the same as you would for a move-in ready house but you'd have to put this one back together.

Anyone?

Anyone?

Bueller?

::crickets::

Yeah, us either. So this is my way of telling you that there hasn't been anything new with the house hunt for a while. Everything that's come on the market in our price range has been really tiny, or really old with a lot of problems, or really tiny & really old with a lot of problems.

So the hunt continues.

I Didn't Blow Away!

Well we survived the storm last night. After all that waiting for it to get to us it was actually fairly weak when it finally did. We had some impressive lightening (which we watched out the window for about 20 minutes) and a lot of (unneeded) rain that came down fast. But that was about it, thankfully! This is what we saw from our porch, it's hard to tell but this is rain pouring down so hard it turned our road into a river.

This morning we woke up to a cloudy day but it quickly turned bright and sunny, but a little cool. Doug worked a later than normal shift today so I got up, read for a bit and then made us

breakfast instead of heading out first thing. After he left for work I ran to the grocery store to get some mangoes for the Fresh Mango Bread I'm making tonight for Tuesdays with Dorie and then came home and got ready to head out for my walk.

It was cool enough out that I actually dug around for some long pants to wear instead of my capris or shorts. I'm happy to report that I even threw some jogging into my walk! It felt great to really get moving, although I think my form needs some work, who wants to come teach me? :)

It was so nice out I thought I'd snap some pictures with my phone to show you what I see. 

This is near the start of where I get on the walking trail. It's hard to tell but it's where the railroad next to our house splits off to head north or northeast. The walking trail was actually placed on what used to be a railroad track. The train went through the middle of our hometown (about 15 miles away from us now) years ago but those trains had long since stopped, so a few years ago they turned the path into a walking and biking trail and parts of it even allow horses. The part I walk on is paved but parts of it are just gravel. 

This is a pretty tree (bush?) that crosses into the path. See, it's not just a trail, it's an obstacle course!

You can't really tell here, but this is me looking up from the trail to the road above. This part of the state is where you start to get some hills and the path is no exception.

Interesting note, right after I took this picture I happened to look off to the other side and saw a very mean looking pit bull looking at me from one yard over. He was sitting down but right after I saw him he stood up and I think I saw another one behind him. Now, he was chained up, I do like dogs, and I know dogs are only mean when they are trained to be that way but I kinda got freaked out. I was really close to where I had intended to turn around and head back and I really wanted to reach that goal but I had to think. I was close enough that I was going to pass back by the dog very soon and the yard the dog was in was open to the path for quite a while. So this is when I decided to be a chicken and just turn back now. I didn't want the dog to think I was teasing it (or trying to play with it) by walking back by very soon, so I just turned around and casually started walking back the way I had come.

I'm sure the dog was totally harmless, I just didn't want to chance it. 

Finally, this is how I've been carrying my house key. I'm often out when Doug's at work and I don't really have anywhere else to carry the key. I've been wearing a jacket (today a fleece even) that has pockets but 1. they aren't very deep and 2. it's going to be too warm for that soon. My shorts have a pocket but it's shallow and my capris don't have any pockets. I still need an arm band for my ipod and saw one at Target that had a little zipper pocket on it that might hold my key, but the day I saw it the only one on the shelf had been sliced into and the clear cover on it was ripped.

So question, how do you runners/walkers carry your keys?

Now I'm off to read A Breath of Snow and Ashes, I've caught up with Jess, last I knew, but knowing Jenny she's probably done. And Father of the Bride is on, so I might watch part of that, even though I've seen it a million times. Maybe I'll catch the hot dog part, so I can commiserate about the ratio of hot dogs to buns. 

I Hate The Rain

I don't really hate the rain... usually. But I kind of do right now. It has rained so much lately, including Wednesday when I drove back home through a torrential downpour to get back home because I was sick, that all the rivers and creeks on my drive to work are way up at the top and the fields are now like lakes.

But the thing I really do hate is when a simple storm turns into a severe storm. I woke up at 1 am Thursday to a text from my mom saying their tornado sirens were going off and then a few minutes later ours went off. I hate tornado warnings and sirens, I get so panicky.

And tonight we're facing it again. I got home from work and turned on the news and they were talking about a severe storm, "super cells", and rotation about an hour or so north of here. It hasn't gotten here yet but it's a giant system and it's coming, which means I'm on edge for many hours tonight.

And on top of putting me on edge the storms also canceled my walk and my plans of grilling tonight, the storms pop up so fast and I didn't want to risk getting stuck a mile from home or with my shrimp just going on the grill.

So now I'm off to watch the news and try to read before I try not to blow away.

Why is it....

that hot dogs come in packs of 10 and hot dog buns come in packs of 8?

I was pondering this as I put our all natural, all beef no filler hot dogs on the grill tonight. I've become quite comfortable with the grill lately, after pretty much being terrified of it in the past. I've actually grilled a number of times already this year, I really love. With the dogs we had a ton of fresh vegetables that were on sale, gotta tasty, good-for-you foods for a great price!

And now I'm off to read before Deadliest Catch is on. Have a great night!

A Perfect Day, A Great Walk, My Happy Place

Hope everyone had a great Mother's Day yesterday and that their Monday was bearable!

I just got back from a walk to my happy place and seriously my favorite place in town: the library! I'm such a total bookworm that my happy places mostly consist of libraries and bookstores (with a few non-literary places as well). We recently got a newly updated library here after they had been working on it for a couple years, and now I love it even more! This town had a very small library before that had a horrible selection, nothing like the great library in the town I grew up in. But now that this one is bigger and better it has a lot more room and a lot more options, although I still have to request a lot of things.... but maybe that's just because I read strange things, lol. As a matter of face the item I picked up tonight, Eat, Pray, Love on cd, had to be ordered in from another branch.

It was a great walk too. The weather is perfect today; 70 degrees, sunny, and barely a cloud in the sky. This was actually the first time I'd walked right to the library and straight back, I usually do some more past the library, but tonight I wanted to get my walk in and get home. I knew about the decent size hill on the way to the library, but I hadn't realized there was such a big hill on the way back too. My legs were screaming at me, so I ended up just running up the hill to try to get up as quickly as I could before my legs rebelled and started kicking me or something, lol. But I did learn that this is a great way to go for a good workout!

Now I'm off to make a quick dinner, watch the season finale of Big Band Theory and then How I Met Your Mother (my new loves), and then read A Breath of Snow and Ashes. I'm supposed to be doing a little read along of this with my friends Jess and Jenny, but Jenny is a crazy speed reader and is leaving us (ok me, Jess is pretty far too) in the dust. 

Have a good night everyone!

Have You Called Your Mom Yet?

I have not. Because 1. my mom likes to sleep in (lol) and 2. I'll be seeing her in about 2.5 hours. What's your excuse? Although I do still need to talk to my mother-in-law.

Today I'm having lunch at my parent's house with them and my grandma. Mom is making chicken, potato salad, deviled eggs, and I have no idea what else. And yes, I know it's horrible that she's cooking on her day, but it was her idea and I don't have the room to do it! (again, excuses excuses). I am contributing though. I made Paula Deen's Strawberry Cake (as requested by mom) and Pepperoni and Parmesan Pasta Salad. The cake smelled so good when it was baking last night. 

I haven't gotten out for a walk or anything yet, I kinda overslept (maybe that's genetic? lol), but I'm hoping to get one in later. 

Well, I'm off to get things done. Happy Mother's Day to all my favorite moms and all of you!

Random Things

*Sometimes I feel like a total fraud and like I have no business giving advice. Mainly this happens when I'm blogging or posting on a message board. I'll be mid sentence and think "wait, who am I to tell this person you can just make half a 9x13 recipe for an 8x8 pan?" And then I remember, "oh, cause I've done that before" and then get all excited that I can actually answer. Same thing happened tonight when I blogged about the monkey cupcakes I helped make (check out the post on Central Cooking). I was making a suggestion and thought, "oh wow, I actually know what I'm talking about about!"

*We had storm warnings popping up all around us tonight, nothing really happened here except some heavy rain but they kept breaking onto the tv to update the warnings. Doug and I joke that it takes them so long to spit out the warnings that we'll all blow away before we know the storm is here. I hate severe storms, I don't mind rain or even thunder but anything worse freaks me out. I'm a major worrier, so if there's a tornado watch I start to feel panicky and start about my routine: making sure I know where my purse, tennis shoes, keys, flashlight, and cell phone are, getting the place where we'd cower (the hallway here) cleared out, etc. Last summer when we had a fish I'd put his bowl (it was a beta so no power needed) into the tub, just in case. See? Total freak.

*That house I mentioned the other night was already sale pending, darn. But then our realtor started telling Doug about an 800-some foot 3 bdrm....... ummm, that's smaller than the 2 bdrm we rent. So now I've spent the last few days trying to figure out how you ram 3 bdrms into a house that size. The things my mind thinks about during the day :)

Ok, that's it for now. It's time for bed. Doug is going to be building our cornhole/bags/whatever you call it set tomorrow. We call it bags here but maybe that's a Midwest thing. It's going to be Fighting Illini themed (ILL - INI!). I'll post pics when we're done.

Book Review: Bitter is the New Black

So I just read Bitter is the New Black by Jen Lancaster and I really enjoyed it. I was a little worried about not liking this because it came so highly recommended and I had waited for it for almost 2.5 months because there were so many people ahead of me on the library hold list. My cousin Heather had told me that I would love this and that I would be convinced Jen was a member our family (our very crazy family). And you know what, I'm totally convinced she is. The way she talks, the things she does, the thoughts she has... yep, totally related to me. 

It took a little bit for me to get into the book, like about 30 pages maybe before it totally sucked me in. Once I got into it though I didn't want to put it down. I thought it was a fun, interesting read that really did bring up some good points (especially when she was getting emails from people in the same situation as her).

The only problem I had with this book is that she goes through what is one of my worst nightmares, so there were a few times I felt a tinge panicky, but that passed quickly because the book was just too funny to stay in my own thoughts for long.

I totally recommend this book to anyone (and following Jen on Twitter, she's freaking hilarious there, and reading her web site). I already requested the next book (Bright Lights, Big Ass) from the library, and luckily this one doesn't have a giant wait list, yay!

I Need to Know My Limits

I'm really starting to get into this whole working out thing, which is awesome. However I seem to think that I'm superwoman and can jump straight into crazy distances without working my way up to them. I think it may have something to do with all the awesome fitness blogs I've been reading that talk about all the crazy distances they ran/swam/biked (Meghann ran 18 miles Saturday!) But I have to remember that these people have all worked up to this point and I have not.

I did finally try out the walk/bike path in town tonight. I'm not quite sure why I ignored it and started walking downtown right away, I mean I can almost see the path from our porch. But I will definitely be doing this path a lot now, the trail is really nice and the hills on it aren't too bad. My original (crazy) plan had been to walk from the house down to where the path crosses the highway and becomes a dirt/rock trail again (it's paved up until then). Well I think my goals were a little too lofty. I got really close though before I convinced myself that I needed to turn around. If I hadn't had to come back home I would have been fine, but the whole getting-back-to-the-house part was torturous. But I made it! And after my muscles stopped screaming at me (must stretch more!) I felt pretty awesome. 

I think it helps that the weather is awesome, it's actually not raining! And it's not supposed to tomorrow, which is awesome because we might be going to look at a house. I'll keep you posted!

I love Saturdays

Good morning! Hope everyone is having a great Saturday. I love Saturdays. It's not my "chore day" (that's tomorrow), you don't have work hanging over your head like you do on Sunday, and it's the day I get to go see my peeps (if I choose, lol).

I started this morning off all eager to get up and get going outside on my walk. Um, yeah that didn't last long. I got dressed in my workout gear, hopped on the computer for "a minute"..... and just kinda stopped. So I decided to check some of my newest 

obsession, health and fitness blogs (there are a couple over there ---> under blogs I follow) and it worked! I downloaded my new fitness playlist to the ipod (I'll post it soon!), threw on my sneakers, stretched and was out the door. Go me! This whole working out thing is still kinda new to me, so I've been walking because 1. it's pretty easy and that's good for my knee (I'm trying to work up my poor knee to harder things) and 2. I can trick myself that I'm just taking a nice walk around town (apparently I'm all about tricking myself). So I took an awesome walk (the weather is kinda cool and overcast this morning but once I got going it was

 perfect) and came home and showered, ate breakfast, and jumped back online for some more blog reading.

Later I'm heading over to my bff Sarah's house to help her make cupcakes for her darling son's first bday party tomorrow. His bday is today, so I'm planning to shower the bday boy with lots of attention. I absolutely adore him and his big sis, I think I may spoil them at times, but oh well, that's what an "aunt" it for (I'm not a real aunt but Doug and I are both only children so Sarah made us "aunt and uncle" to the munchkins).  It's hard to believe this was a year ago!

   

 I have no idea what we're doing tonight after Doug gets off work, hopefully something fun! Right now I'm icing my knee and then I'm off to find some lunch and enjoy this awesome day.

What I Read in April

So my online book club does this post every month and I think it's pretty fun. I like looking back to see what all I've read lately (though I always have to run and check Goodreads because I can never remember) and to see how my total compares to the month before. This is especially true since I'm trying to read 75 books in 2009 (these bring me up to 29).

These were all awesome books and I really enjoyed them all. My total is about the same as last month which is great since this month I read The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon, which is huge. So, in reverse order, here's the list of what I read in April.

Matilda by Roald Dahl*
The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon
Perfect Fifths by Megan McCafferty
Belly Laughs by Jenny McCarthey*
Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar*
A Chicago Tavern: A Goat, A Curse, and the American Dream by Rick Kogan*

* These were for a challenge we have going for book club. Matilda and Sideways Stories.... were 2 of my favorite childhood books and Belly Laughs was a book about motherhood/maternity in honor of Mother's Day