things I never thought I would say...

"I just want to go running"

-Yeah, I legit said that the other day. Up until the last two weeks (as a result of freezing temps and lots o ice) I have been running consistently two or three times a week. I never imagined I would be that guy but two weeks off and I missed it like crazy.

"Just throw the hay over there"

-I coordinate outdoor events at a place that was once a big ass farm. I handle hay all the time. It might actually be straw, I really don't know the difference.

"I have a meeting with a war reenactor tomorrow morning"

-I don't even know what to say about that one, but it happened last week...

"You have to wait until your omelet is cool"

-I cooked Fred an omelet the other day. I don't eat omelettes. I dirtied a pan and prepared a dish just for my dog. I have lost it.

"What are the ingredients in that mascara?"

-My need for everything to be organic is truly getting out of control. I know it, and I feel like the first step is admitting you have a problem, but I can't stop....it's just getting worse.

"A 4 year old is my favorite person on Earth"

-It's true. My niece. The greatest person in the world, I still don't understand most of what she says, but I love her the best regardless.

this weekend v. every other weekend....

Remember how I said I wanted to lay off the carbs (just the simple ones ya'll), sugars, and gasp...the booze for one week?

Yeah, well beleive it or not I did it. Even this weekend I didn't cave. And you know what happened?? I had the most productive of all the weekends known to man. I am not really sure if it was the absence of all the delicious afore mentioned things in my body, or the fact that manfriend worked all weekend but let me tell ya I got a whole lot done.

And while I am still a firm beleiver that a wicked hangover is a fair price to pay for an amazing night out, I will admit it was pretty nice feeling bright eyed and bushy tailed all weekend. I don't plan to make a habbit out of abstaining from the drink or anything, but once in a while it might not hurt.

So here is the way a typical weekend in my life looks:

Friday night:

Go out drink a shit ton of Miller Lite and Fireball Whiskey.

Saturday:

Wake up feeling like a big sack of death. Force self to attend spin class and look around as others judge the fact that your sweat smells like cinnamon flavored booze. Go home. Utilize investigative research to piece together the previous night's shennanigans. This includes scrutinizing credit card receipts found in purse and asking questions of others. Take twelve or fifteen showers throughout the day. Lay on the couch with Fred watching reality TV. Order Chinese carryout...eat so much I need a nap. Start feeling better around 8pm. Repeat Friday night but sub red wine for Miller Lite.

Sunday:

Repeat of Saturday but sub Mexican food for Chinese food.

This weekend looked a little different though:

Friday Night:

Went to zumba, came home and made dinner. Watched the Olympics with manfriend and Fred. Learned Russians are in fact a scary lot. At least the ones in the audience at the opening ceremonies.

Saturday:

Woke up at 6:30am (you read that right) Went to a 90 min yoga class at 7:30. I thought I was really good at yoga, then I took this class...I still can't move my arms.

After yoga, I went grocery shopping to get some goodies for dinner (I invited some friends over for dinner). Got all the groceries and even a special treat for my son.

 

Returned a broken humidifyer to Lowes (without the receipt booyea!), took myself out for breakfast at this wonderful gormet bistro known as Panera Bread, went to another grocery store for the last of my dinner needs, bought a new suit, came home and showed Fred his froyo surprise. This was all before 11:30 mind you. Then I suited Fred up and we ran five miles, came home and had crepes for lunch (both of us yes).

 

After lunch, I cleaned a little then went and got a hair cut.

 

 

My new hair looks just like my old hair minus a few split ends.

 

Came home, started getting dinner ready and did a little more cleaning.

 

The friends came over and we had a fabulous time chit chatting and stuffing our faces. I made pork loin (always good to try somethying you have never made for guests...luckily it was good), mashed potatoes (cruel to make mashed paterers when you are off the carbs), and a nice salad.

 

After the friends left Fred and I headed over to my girlfriend's house for a play date and movie night.

 

The dogs did aborable shit like this:

 

And this:

 

Sunday:

 

I woke up feeing great again because of the lack of delicious booze the previous night. I went to spin class in the morning, then got a coffee and came home.

 

Cleaned the rest of my house.

 

Made cupcakes for Jose's birthday (it's today!). I am not much of a baker, but I actually was sucessful this time, and whipped out some salted carmel cupcakes. And by sucessful I just mean I didn't burn anything or use salt instead of sugar like I've been known to do in the past.

 

Took Fred on another play date, this time at the dog park. Came home and watched a movie (he layed on top of me of course). Then we cooked dinner for manfriend and watched the Olympics some more.

Fred is pooped to say the least.

 

tooting my own horn.

This might sound crazy, considering I write a blog that I share with the whole wide internet, but I find it hard to write about myself. 

I mean I love to tell you all my drunken antics and funny crap that happens to me, but spilling the real beans is still hard to me. But I guess I am feelin crazy today because I am going to get serious.

JK. I'm not, but the above statement is totally 100% true. I am working on it though.

I will tell you some things that make me prouder than punch though because I feel like I need to focus on the good today, because sometimes we all need to and I have been feelin a little stressed truth be told. And you should too.

-I am a great dog mom. For reals. Fred has it made. I pride myself on making that big furry mess of chocolate fur's life as good as it can be. His smile is all the thanks I need. And yes he smiles. He's mostly Pitt, google pitt bulls smiling, they have the best smiles in the world.

-I can out drink most grown men. Well maybe not, but I sure can hang. It takes a lot for me to get sloppy drunk and I like that. I am pretty darn good at pacing myself and staying up late with all the hardcore kids. Trust me if you are the first one to pass out you miss a lot of good stuff.

-I am strong. My mom used to call me the pack mule because I have always been a bit of a beast. I am the one people make lift all the heavy stuff, and I don't mind. Now that I work out like a mad woman I am even stronger. I can also carry a whole lot of junk at one time thanks to all my waitressing days. It comes in handy more than you would think, especially in my line of work...event planning is not for the weak, we move tables a lot. Glamorous I know.

-I am learning to dress better. I should say re-learning because there was a time when I was quite the stylish little devil. Then I got super fluffy, moved to the middle of nowhere and took a job with no dress code and that all went out the window. I have, as of late made a conscious effort to get dolled up more often and I have found it results in men buying me gas station coffees from time to time in the morning. That I will take.

-I am becoming less of a jerk. I can be a bit of a snot here and there and ain't nobody got time for that. I have noticed myself becoming much nicer in the past year and for that I am really happy. I think it is a combination of learning to pick my battles and feeling better about life and being content and all that zen crap, but whatever it is I am even more of a delight than I was a while back.

-I have become real outdoorsy. And not just in the sense that I like to get drunk on patios (though I certainly do). No, as a result of moving to the middle of nowhere I am now the type of girl who goes hiking for fun (even by myself sometimes), can start a fire, and genuinely enjoys the company of nature. I like that about me. 

That's about it for now because otherwise I am a bit of a mess, what are you proud of??? A lot I hope, because we are all pretty cool in our own way. 

why god why...

Ya'll know if you read this blog very often, I am not a big fan of diets. I am more a fan of the seefood diet where I pretty much just eat all day everyday.

Don't get me wrong, I eat clean, like 99% of the time and I work out a lot so I am not just stuffing my face with crap, but I honestly don't worry a whole lot about calories or fat or any of that jazz. Mostly because it is just depressing to think about how many calories are in cheese and other delicious foods I love, and partially because I just don't want to do any sort of math.

Then the other day I decided to step on the good old scale. I was taken by surprise when I realized I was just ten pounds away from my high school weight. I was shocked to be honest, and even though I do genuinely believe weight is just a number and it should not be all one cares about, I am also a girl...and I would love to be able to weigh what I did ten years ago (yea I'm old guys) and you know then I can wear my prom dress to all the galas I attend.

So I decided to cut the carbs and sugar and get this....booze. For one week, to see how it goes.

And it goes sucky. I miss carbs a lot.

And chocolate. I am only on day four and I am hoping I can last the rest of the week.

Pasta has never sounded better. I even went so far as to buy Flaxers the other day. That's not a typo, those would be crackers that are made entirely of flax seeds. I was hoping I could fool myself into thinking it was a cracker. I was wrong.

Boy was I wrong.

If I see any change in the scale after a week I will probably go on for a while longer until I can reach the ten pound goal. If not, I am having some quinoa stat.

Anyone else off the carbs?? If so, let's stay strong together.

spending freeze update

So, as I mentioned before, I have been trying to not spend any money for a little while.

As someone who is really, really good at spending money this is a hard task for me.

So far, I have been doing pretty good. Not great, but good.

What is it about saying you can't do something that makes you want to do it so bad?

 

I was forced to go into Target and Marshall's the other day in order to buy my mom a birthday gift (birthday gifts are excluded from the freeze obviously) and everything I saw I just wanted to buy so bad. I swear, I am normally not that much of a shopper. Most of my spending is done in the form of bar tabs, restaurant bills, and pedicures, but right now I just want to shop.

I behaved though. Difficult as it was.

I have however already caved in the coffee department and have bought about 38 coffees despite having a perfectly functional coffee maker in my home. And that was just the first week. This one might be the hardest to break. I just love gas station coffee so much.

As for eating out, another thing Jose and I are terrible about, we tend to eat out more than most food critics, we have not been doing a bang up job. Like not at all. I am less than proud to report we have dinned out about 50 times since the freeze began.  In fact we went out several times hte first week alone. Once for dinner (it was to meet up with friends we hadn't seen in ages so I am cool with that one) I decided to get carryout for lunch one day, which was real dumb because I had 34534 tons of fresh food in my fridge but whatever, I used a ten dollar bill I found in Jose's pants when I did his laundry so I technically didn't spend any money. Then we had a snow day and we decided to eat out for breakfast and lunch because we are chubs....but in our defense we were a little hungover.

In terms of buying shit I have been good. I have not purchased anything that was not a necessity yet. Why is it that when you can't shop everything looks so damn inviting?

What do you guys do to keep from spending all your money when you are trying to save a little? I need help I am no good at this!!

Textual Messages

So this may sound a little cray cray given we live together but the manfriend and I don't see each other much during the week.

Here is the thing, he gets up friggen early. Like out the door by 4:30 am early so he goes to bed before your grandma or 3 year old I guarantee it.

I on the other hand do not care to rise before 7am and like to watch TV into the wee hours of the night. I get off work around five and then head straight to the gym every night. That puts me home between 7:45-8:15 every weeknight.

Manfriend is in bed by 9:30 so you do the math. We pretty much eat and then he hits the hay.

We do however keep close by sending each other roughly 49,030 text messages per day.

Here are some of my recent faves.

True story, I fell over in my office. Luckily no one heard me.

Jose realized his wallet was missing right when he got to the Thai place, we go there so much they let him take it and pay later. Turns out his wallet was at the Mexican restaurant we went to earlier that day, where I had left my purse just a few weeks before. We drink and eat a lot what can I say.

This was our convo the other day leading up to Adult Snow Day 2014, don't worry I stopped eating the broccoli. Jose also freaked me out when he said his boy got arrested. I assumed it was one of our hood rat friends and not the Beebs.

Poblano chicken chili

Winner, winner chicken dinner. That's what this bad boy of a recipe right here is, take my word for it.

Well I guess it's only a winner if you like your food spicy as shit like I do. But I suppose you could always mellow it out a tad if you don't.

I like it because it is way lighter than regular old chili (which I still happen to love thank you very much) and it is just a little different.

You Will Need:

(makes about 8-10 servings of chili)

-2 poblano peppers
-1 jalapeno pepper
-2 cans chicken broth (I use low sodium organic cuz I'm a dirty hippie)
-2 cans great northern beans
-1 can corn
-1 can diced tomatoes (read the back if you are clean eatin yo, some tomatoes have weird shit in them)
-1 package ground chicken
-3 cloves garlic
-1 small onion
-cumin
-chili powder
-salt and peppa

Directions:

-Pre-heat oven to 350.

-In a large pot begin browning your chicken in a little olive oil. Add in your diced onion and diced jalapeno.

-While that is cooking, place your poblanos on a sheet pan drizzled with a dab of oil. Stick them in the over and roast for 20-30 minutes (I flipped the little suckers once)

-Add chopped garlic to your chicken. Season with salt and pepper, and about 2 tsps each of cumin and chili powder.

-When the chicken is cooked add in your broth, tomato, drained beans and corn.

-Once the peppers are nicely roasted (they will be a little black) remove the tops and seeds and chop them finely. Add them to the pot and simmer for an hour or so.

I hooked manfriend up with a cheese quesadilla to accompany his chili. I decided to skip it because we only had flour tortillas and I just can't get down with those, corn is the way to go.