Getting in on the game : Operation Beautiful

A little while ago I posted about how Caitlin at Healthy Tipping Point was trying to end fat talk and how I thought it was such a great idea. Well, the genius girl has struck again. Caitlin just posted on her blog about how she is starting a thing called Operation Beautiful.

She is going to go around and leave notes on the mirror in public bathrooms telling whoever sees it affirming messages, like "you are beautiful." She has a pic of one she did on her blog.

I think this is such a great idea and so I wanted to spread the word. So, check out Caitlin's blog and then go out and do it! She wants you to send her an email with pics of your Operation Beautiful notes (and totally feel free to post them here too).

So, I'm in, are you?

And for good measure, here is her blog again :)

Camping Trip Part 2

You can check out part 1 here.

So, we went to bed Friday night about 10pm.... but I didn't fall asleep until after 1am. And then I literally woke up at the crack of dawn. All of a sudden I just jerked awake and the tent was bright and the birds were chirping. I looked at my phone and it said 5:25.... I later saw on the news that sunrise was... yep, you guessed it, 5:25. grrr

So I grabbed my flip flops, threw myself through the tent flap and decided to walk to the shower house, the one you couldn't shower in because there was no hot water. Then I walked back to the site and tried to go back to sleep.... no such luck though.

So I got up, threw on my tennis shoes, threw myself out of the tent again and went for a 40 minute walk. It was really quiet still... not sure what I expected at 6 am. There was one older man setting up for breakfast and a father and son out eating with the little boy asking why they couldn't go do something yet and the father responding that no one else was up. Then I went back to the site and did some yoga.

I've never done yoga outside before and I felt kinda dumb, but I just kind of hid between our trucks to where no one could see me. It felt awesome to stretch out after trying to sleep on the air mattress. My back was so stiff :(

Then I tried to figure out what to do since everyone else was still asleep. I read a magazine for a little while before I decided I couldn't take it anymore and I needed a shower - stat.

So I crawled back into the tent, grabbed my stuff, told Doug where I was going and headed to the truck. I threw in my shower bag, my wallet and my keys and set off.

Ok, did anyone catch that. Think about this. I took with me: 1. my wallet 2. my keys 3. my shower bag with shampoo, soap, etc in it.

What didn't I take?? Go ahead and think, I'll wait.

::Jeopardy music plays::

Anyone? That's right, a towel or a washcloth. Yep, I went to take a shower towel-less. Wouldn't have been so bad except I didn't realize this until AFTER I had gotten under the water. I have never felt so dumb. So I quickly finished my shower and then ended up drying myself off with my shirt.

I drove back over to the site and proceeded to tell Doug what I had done. I'm not sure he has laughed at me that much in a long time :)

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. We ran into town, sat around and read, and fought the crazy wind that was trying to blow everything away. I took a little tour with my camera for you :)

Doug's parent's camper and our picnic table.

Our tent.

The other main thing we did was play bags. This is a set that we (mainly Doug) actually built. I think I'll do a big post about bags and how we built this later, since I know at least one person who reads this isn't familiar with the game :)

Do you see the bag up at the top? Oh and those are Doug's parents.

There it is again. Our game is in the University of Illinois Fighting Illini colors. They're Doug's (well and everyone around here) favorite team.

That just left making dinner and Doug making his cake. I hope to get these posts up on Central Cooking soon, but here's a teaser for you.

Basically the rest of the night we just sat around the fire. After it got too dark to read I turned to my trusty cell phone to pass the time. I had signed up for a 24 hour Internet pass earlier in the day because we thought the weather might get bad. So I used the phone to get on Twitter and follow the DMB concert playlists and the IRL race. I get bored really easily and there was really nothing to do, so the phone and Twitter totally kept me from going crazy :)

Ok, I think there will be one more camping trip post. Not sure when though, probably Thursday because we're going to look at a house tomorrow!

Camping Trip Part 1

So I've been really bad about getting this up! The first weekend in June we went camping to celebrate Doug's 27th birthday. It was us and his parents, we stayed in a tent and they stayed in their camper.


I was kind of worried because I've never really been a camper. I had been 4 times in my life before this trip: twice with Girl Scouts and twice with Doug and his parents. So needless to say I still have a lot to learn.


Doug went over early on Friday afternoon and I rode over with his parents after we all got off work. We camp at a park next to one of the bigger lakes here that is about 20-25 minutes or so away from our hometown.


Doug already had everything set up and had dinner going. We had burgers, coleslaw, and potato salad, then we had a chocolate cake with peanut butter icing that I had picked up.


Funny story on the cake. Doug's mom and I both had asked him what kind of cake he wanted, he told us he'd make his own in the dutch oven his parents got him for his birthday. Cut to 4pm Friday, I'm on my way from work to the inlaws' house talking to Doug when he asks if I have a cake. I reply "no, you said not to make one" and he responds "oh, ok" in a super sad voice. So I felt bad and made a stop by the grocery store before meeting the inlaws. I grabbed a cake I knew we'd all like because it was really similar to the groom's cake from our wedding. As we ate the cake we both told Doug that if he ever pulled this again he'd be sol and without a cake, lol :)

After cake Doug got to open a couple presents (his birthday was actually Sunday but we stretched it out). I got him Lewis Black's latest book, Oh Me of Little Faith. He loves Lewis and I wanted him to be able to read it over the weekend. He totally loved it :)

The rest of the night was pretty uneventful. I did have to get a lesson on how to open the tent, I've never stayed in a regular tent, just the big ones at camp. I felt pretty dumb.

Doug and I took a little walk down to the shower house and discovered that our campsite had no hot water. That made me totally sad :(

We sat around the campfire and just relaxed the rest of the night, while I went back and forth between freezing and sweating.

We went to bed about 10pm......and I proceeded to stay awake for hours. It was just too quiet, I'm so used to cars going by and semis flying over the train tracks. Geese "talking" and deer walking around outside freaked me out!

Around 12:15 I realized that I needed to run to the bathroom, this was not going to be fun - the inlaws have a small bathroom in their camper, but it required getting to it. So I struggled out of my sleeping bag/sheet combo, flipped myself off my air mattress, had a fight with the zipper and flung myself out onto the ground, grabbing my flip flops on the way. So then I managed to make it across the site without running into the picnic table or stumbling on any deer. I opened the door, stepped inside, started to walk to the bathroom and suddenly Doug's mom goes "hi". I seriously almost peed my pants, I had not expected any one to be awake! I somehow managed to make it back to the tent, unzip the flap, launch myself inside and get it zipped up. And then I was awake for another hour :(

More to come tomorrow, with pictures! I'll show you all what bags/cornhole looks like. Is anyone else familiar with this game?

My First Green Monster

This has nothing to do with the Red Sox (sorry Jess) :)

So I've seen these Green Monsters (started by Angela at Oh She Glows) around on a lot of blogs and was always kind of grossed out by the thought. Spinach? In a smoothie? No thanks.

But then Jenna started posting about how she got her boyfriend (who used to be a Taco Bell nut) to try a GM and he is now begging for them. So I figured if he could try them and like them then maybe I should just one sometime.

Well, last night I bought some spinach for tonight's Sausage and Spinach stuffed shells and I ended up with a lot of the scary green veggie left over. I say scary because I'm pretty sure that up until my first bite of pasta tonight I had never knowingly eaten Popeye's favorite food.

I was an incredibly picky eater as a kid (I'm still working on it) and pretty much refused to eat anything green. I'm happy to say that I now love many green items, but I do still have a hard time eating leafy greens. So I figured a GM was a good way to try it.

And guess what: it worked! I was really afraid to try this scary colored drink but it's actually really good! I always thought everyone was so full of it when they said "you can't taste the spinach at all!" but they were telling the truth!! My first taste all I thought was "too much banana" and then I thought "really? that's my first thought?" lol.

My Green Monster consisted of:

about 1 cup of Organic Vanilla Soy Milk

1 Small Banana

1 Teaspoon of Simply Skippy Peanut Butter

2 Frozen Peach Slices

a Handful of Spinach

I just mixed it all up in my Magic Bullet.

And it's actually really good! I think I could even add more spinach next time. I will definitely be having many more of these. They seem to be a great way to get in the foods I'm so bad about eating during the day.

And the other day Jenna said that a GM helped her headache, well I've got a killer one right now, so I'm waiting to see if it helps. I'll let you know!

I was watching Enchanted off and on tonight (after I watched Princess Diaries), so I thought I'd see if Patrick Dempsey wanted to try a GM :) This is what happens when Doug is at work all day and I'm all alone, lol.

A Lesson From Mother Nature

About a week and a half ago I noticed some big popsicle wrappers flying around our neighborhood on a particularly windy day. They flew off before I could grab them and I didn't think anymore about them. Until this morning.

I walked out our front door and noticed that a nest had fallen out our tree in the wind and rain we had yesterday. Then I looked a little closer. The bird had apparently tried to use one of the popsicle wrappers as the base of its nest and I guess the bird learned that, when wet, popsicle wrappers are slick and like to move around. Hard lesson for the bird, I hope it can rebuild. I didn't see any eggs or anything, so hopefully it wasn't too big of a loss.

So, what have we learned here? Garbage makes a poor choice for home building. And plastic is slick. And that my mind is mush this lovely Friday morning. :)

Randomness
Some random things for this Friday morning.

- I have a post about our camping trip last weekend coming soon, promise!

- We found a house we might like, although it has a few things I'm not thrilled about. But I'm going back to look at it again tomorrow with my parents. And I found another one I want to look at.

-My bff Sarah started a blog! I've finally corrupted her! ::evil laugh:: Check it out. She has an awesome story on there right now. And her daughter is 1. the cutest and 2. freaking hilarious, so I'm confident there will be lots of great stories on there.

- Watch for another book review sometime next week. I'm current reading a book I won from Goodreads and it's really good.

Book Review: Bright Lights, Big Ass

Bright Lights, Big Ass is Jen Lancaster's second book. I ended up really liking Bitter is the New Black, so I was really excited to read this one.

And I have to say, this one is even better! This one follows Jen as she finishes up Bitter, gets ready for the book to come out, and ultimately sees her finished product in a store. It's full of the same wit and insight as Bitter but in my opinion is even funnier.

I think I liked this one better because there isn't as much meanness (for lack of a better term) as there is in Bitter. She's much happier and has realized how evil she used to act and makes sure she doesn't do that again. There is still some snark though, so it's not boring - promise!

I thought this book was so funny that I ended up reading parts of it (ok, huge chunks) to Doug. At first I think he was a little hesitant but after the first few parts he really got into it, at one point he actually tried to get me to just read out loud because I had literally read him everything I had already read!

I'm really excited to read the next book and then the one after that, and I was really excited to see on Jen's web site that she has signed for 2 more books, yay!

So read these both, I promise they are great!

What I Read in May

May looks rather disappointing if you just look at this list quickly. I think this may be the fewest books I've read in a month so far this year. However most of these books are pretty long and took a little while to read.

Bitter is the New Black by Jen Lancaster. I loved this book. It was so funny, witty, and smart. I'm already reading her second book, which I hope to review in the next day or so.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling. I love this book. This was actually the second time I have read this but the first time was right after it came out and I flew through it so fast I didn't remember a whole lot (which is true for the next two books also).

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling. Again loved this book. I love moody Harry, it's perfectly accurate of a moody teenager, just magnified because of everything he goes through.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by JK Rowling. Love this one too. This book is so intense and good! I read it the first time in about 2 days I think and tried so hard to take my time on the re-read but still flew through it in about 4 days.

A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon. This is the last of the books in the Outlander series so far, An Echo in the Bone is supposed to come out in September. I loved this book. It is now definitely one of my favorites in this series. It's action-packed, intense, well written, and just one of those books that will suck you right in. I read this with Jess and Jenny and had so much fun talking about it with them. I already miss the characters and cannot wait for the next book.

So that's it, a pretty short list right? These put me at 33 out of my goal of 75 for the year. I have some fairly quick reads in mind for this month and have two (at least) planned to take with me on our camping trip this weekend (including one I won from Goodreads!). So watch for those reviews in the near future. And hopefully June's list will be longer.