Cooking Fails

I am no chef.  Let's clear that up right away!  But I do know my way around the kitchen pretty well (with occasional phone calls to my mom, aunt, or grandmother for questions :)

I've been married now for almost 16 months and cooking for longer than that & while I've had some dry chicken here and there or some less than perfect kitchen flow (i.e. the sides are done early or not done yet, etc.), I've yet to have a terrible, no good, all out cooking fail.  Until this weekend that is.

Friday night we took the night off from working out and were planning to carb up for our 5K in the morning.  You know, cause you really need to carb up for 3.1 miles!  Obviously, an excuse to eat carbs important!  I'd been planning all week to make stuffed manicotti shells & we were looking forward to it!!  Mmmm!

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I'd only made them once before so I kind of reviewed the recipe with my mom the day before & Friday night I got down to assembly!  Oh we were hungry...they were gonna be GUD. After the stuffing of the shells, and the smearing of the sauce on top, I popped 'em in the oven & prepared the yummy bread to go along with it.

After 25 long minutes, the timer went off, I pulled them out of the oven and tried a little sample.  Well, actually I tried to try a little sample....except the noodles were still hard. Huh!?  What!?!  They'd been in the oven for 25 minutes alrea......oh my gosh!!!  I forgot to boil the noodles!

I forgot to boil the noodles!!!  Noooooo!  I'm so hungry!  How did this happen?  Omg I feel like a moron!  Oh honey, I'm so sorry!!  Oh nooooooooo.  Ughh.  I was really looking forward to those noodles!!

Well crap.  I ruined dinner.  Cooking fail!  Much laughter ensued from Brandon, myself, and my mother!!  :)

I found some whole wheat spiral noodles in the cabinet so we tried to salvage the meal, ha. We put the spirals on to boil (this is a really important step y'all!), scraped all the sauce off, smushed the filling out of the hard noodles and made a hodgepodge pasta.  It was eh.  I ended up eating cereal.  :)

I guess cooking fails are bound to happen sooner or later right!?  But 2 in one weekend? Really??

I found a homemade granola bar recipe on Pinterest and we love some granola bars in this house.  So I thought it would be a great idea to make our own....that way you know exactly what's in it and this recipe had only 4 ingredients.  Even better!

recipe

Well turns out I didn't quite have a half cup of honey as needed.  So I just upped the amount of peanut butter.  No big deal, PB is sticky, too.  It's gonna be good!

I also threw in a cup of craisins & about 3/4 of a cup of mini chocolate chips.  Yum!

Actually fail.  You see that upped my ratio of non sticky material to sticky material.  I patted the dryish mixture into the 9x13 dish and baked them as suggested.  Unfortunately, upon cutting into them, each piece fell apart like regular ol granola.  There was no bar about it!

Sunday, I tried to salvage them.  I bought some more honey, remixed, repatted into the 9x13 & put them in the fridge.  This time they're definitely bars!!

But very peanut buttery.  Don't get me wrong I love me some PB, but with the extra PB I added and the peanuts in the mix, it's a little too much.  These aren't a complete fail - but they need to good redo for perfecting in my opinion!

My weekend in the kitchen was less than successful!  Sugar - I think I just need to stay out of there for a while (hello take out!)....they say things happen in threes anyway :/  I feel really sorry for Brandon (and myself) to find out what fail 3 might be!?

Here's hoping my bad luck stops at 2!!

Cupid's Cup 5K

This morning we ran in the 2012 Cupid's Cup 5K!

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This was my 5th year to run, Brandon & my friend Andrea's 2nd year to run, and my friend Courtney's 1st year to run!  After 5 years, I feel like its tradition and I think I have to keep running it forever, now.

I first ran it in 2008 when I lived with my brother.  His company was one of the sponsors so we signed up & the rest is history :)

Of course the morning we're running a 5K outside it decides to be winter in North Carolina. It was a crisp 36 degrees when we woke up!  Brrr!

My goal every year is pretty much just to do better than last year.  I've consistently brought my time down each year I've run, starting at about a 10 minute mile.  Today I ran at an 8:49 pace for a finish time of 27:14!!  I shaved 10 seconds off last years pace and achieved a personal best - so I'm pretty pleased with myself!  (Even if it is just a measly 5K :)

Brandon, me & Andrea afterwards

Brandon & Andrea are beasts and ran the thing in just over 21 minutes!  Andrea has those long legs and ostrich like strides & B's just fast!  We forgot to take a pic at the race so Courtney wasn't in the pic :(  I may or may not be standing on my tip toes.

I made a new 5K playlist to pump me up for the run & that it did!  I was jammin' and singin' the whole time!!  These are the perfect songs to get you pumped up for a good run or workout :)

My 5K Get-Your-Rear-In-Gear-Run-Faster Playlist

(I play on shuffle!)

Angel - Akon

Turn Me On - David Guetta feat. Nicki Minaj

Club Can't Handle Me - Flo Rida feat. David Guetta (<----This is the song we were 

announced to at our wedding!  Always gets me going :)

Good Feeling - Flo Rida

Tonight Tonight - Hot Chelle Rae

I Like It Like That - Hot Chelle Rae feat. New Boyz

Domino - Jessie J

Better Than Her - Matisse feat. Akon

Drive By - Train

Hope your Saturday is shapin' up nicely!  Happy running & happy weekend friends!

The Random 11

So I've never really done one of these "Tag, you're it!" posts before, but one of my new favorite bloggers (new to me that is, because I recently found her site :) not new to the blog world), Danica over at Chic Runner tagged me & I can't resist a good rando blog post :)  So here goes....

The Random Eleven

The Rules:

• Post these rules
• Post 11 random things about yourself
• Answer the questions set for you in their post
• Create 11 new questions for the people you tag to answer
• Go to their blog and tell them you’ve tagged them
• No stuff in the tagging section about you are tagged if you are reading this. You legitimately have to tag 11 people!

11 Random Facts About Me:

1 - I am slightly obsessed with having painted nails.  Like all the time.  I feel like I look sloppy or undone or something with plain nails.  I know that's not true, but I just feel that way!  Can't help it.

2 - After 8 seasons, I am still a loyal Grey's Anatomy watcher!  It's probably my favorite show on TV and I look forward to Thursday nights a little too much.  They almost lost me there a few seasons ago, but they drew me back in.  And so I will watch until the end of Grey's.

3 - I've been wanting to dye my hair darker.  Like black.  My hair's pretty dark as it is, but I want more darkness!  I've always said I won't start dying it until I go gray because once you start, you can't stop.  But I really want to go ahead and start...I'm just not going gray fast enough :)  We'll just have to see how long I can hold out!

4 - I am awful about folding laundry!  I don't mind folding laundry, I just never seem to do it right away.  My dry clothes tend to stay in the dryer and wrinkle up for days on end before I feel the need to get them out and fold them. Or until Brandon gives me a hard time about! He usually does most of the folding if we're being honest ;)

5 - Out of pure necessity, I learned how to put air in my tires this week!!  I am really impressed with myself, I might add!  I no longer live with my father (or mother) or my brother and while I do live with a man, he's gone about 4 days out of the week.  Tire was low and there was no choice, it had to be done & I did it all by myself!!

6 - I tend to be a planner and I like to plan ahead for what I'm going to cook on Thursday & Friday nights when B gets home.  This means that its usually Monday and I say, "Hey babe, what should I cook on Thursday?" to which he replies "Ha I don't know, it's Monday!"  Or it might be Saturday morning while we're eating breakfast and I'll say, "What should we do for dinner tonight?" and he'll say, "I don't know, what do you want for dinner next Friday?" Grrr...it's aggravating and funny all in one!

7 - We watch a lot of movies in our house.  A LOT!  Brandon's had the Blockbuster version of Netflix since before I met him which will send us 3 movies at a time.  Sometimes we watch all 3 movies in one weekend!

8 - I tend to count things.  For instance the number of steps I take, stairs, syllables in words, the list goes on.  Don't get my wrong, I'm not OCD or anything, swear!  I don't recount if my counting gets off or have to start over or anything.  It's more like just a way to pass the time.... Ok well maybe I'm just weird ;)

9 - I really wish I read more.  I love to read, but during the school year when I'm waking up at oh' dark hundred every day, reading at night is like opening a text book.  Puts me to sleep right away!  So unfortunately, I pretty much only ever read during the summer.  Unless it's a blog!

10 - I have a huge fear of heights, but yet I have managed to jump off a bridge (in high school) as well as a cliff in Jamaica.  I don't like to stand near the edge of really tall places, hold my hand, cell phone, camera, etc over the edge, or even have people I kinda like stand near the edge.  Creeps me out!  But I can handle flying, roller coasters, and a ski lift - without looking down.

11 - I can't stand lipstick.  I have tried, oh how I have tried.  Unless it's Carmex Cherry or a good lip gloss, I just can't do it.

11 Questions from Chic Runner

• What’s your favorite article of clothing?  It's hard to pick just one, but I think my gray boyfriend cardigan.  Does this make me 80?  Haha, I actually wore it today.

It's so versatile & goes with anything!  If loving it makes me 80 then I'm ok with being old.

• Morning person or night owl?  I think I'm a little of both.  But I am for sure not a 530am morning person which is unfortunately what I have to be during the school year and causes me to fall asleep the exact second that my head hits the pillow!
• How many glasses of water do you drink a day?  I *try* to drink 8 like a good girl.  But it's probably more like 4 to 6.  I carry my water bottle around with me at school all day and usually leave it about 4 places along the way.
• What is your biggest fear?  Superficially, probably something involving heights (as noted above).  Seriously, probably something terrible happening to someone I love.
• Starbucks or Coffee Bean? Starbucks fo' sho' - there aren't too many Coffee Beans on the East Coast.  In fact, I don't think I've ever been to one.
• What was the best gift you’ve ever gotten? Probably my engagement ring!  Not trying to be materialistic, but it's extra special to me because Brandon never once took me to look at rings and picked it out all by himself while thinking of me!  I love him and it and couldn't have picked a more perfect ring!!
• What is your favorite color?  I'm an earth tones kinda gal.
• Would you rather get a phone call every hour from a stranger or not have a cell phone for a year?  This might be the hardest question ever because my cell phone is my 5th limb, so I guess I have to go with a phone call every hour from a stranger, although it might drive me insane.  I could just ignore them though, right!? :)
• MLB or NBA?  MLB, hands down.  In fact, I wouldn't care if they cancelled the NBA altogether.  But I love me some baseball in the summer time!!
• Do you use a daily planner?  Yes, actually, several.  I have my EC planner which is a combo of school & personal life, the calendar on my phone which is typically just personal stuff & birthdays, and then I have a work "to-do" list, a to do list for each day of the week on my phone, as well as other phone lists - such as songs to download, wants, restaurants to try, bills, grocery store, target.... Ok, wow, maybe I am OCD?  I just know that if I don't write it down it won't get done - and I just like lists a lot :)
• What’s one thing on your ‘bucket list?’  To take a Mediterranean cruise!  One day!

My Questions for you:

• What is your favorite vacation spot?
• What are the 5 items you cannot live without?
• What are your top 3 favorite movies?
• Chocolate or Flowers?
• What are you most proud of so far in your life?
• What is favorite cocktail/drink of choice?
• Do you prefer the beach or the mountains?
• What's your guilty pleasure?
• What is your dream job?
• Ballet flats, boots, or heels?
• Would you rather run outside or on the treadmill?

Who I'm taggin': (Please, under no circumstances, should you feel pressure to participate! Just for fun/if you want to :) And I don't even have 11 people to tag, so I'm just picking a few!)

Erin

Mindy

Michelle

Sara

Laura

Lindy

Good Eats & Accessories

I mentioned Monday that we tried out some new recipes from Pinterest this weekend & as it turns out...they were pretty good!  They're on my keepers list for sure so I though I'd share the good eats with the blog world :)

Brandon suggested a bunch of dinner options Saturday for us to eat....going out, take out, picking something up at the store....& I just couldn't pick, so I checked out my Pinterest All That is Delicious board & settled on....

Buffalo Chicken Tacos

and

Wendy's Copy Cat Frosty for dessert!

*pictures are not mine....from the sources!*

I will never say no to a taco or to anything buffalo!  

This recipe calls for cornstarch, which I did not have, so I just left it out.  We also switched up our toppings a bit which is a beautiful thing about tacos!  We topped ours with a little ranch dressing, blue cheese crumbles, shredded lettuce, avocado, & a little salsa.  Yum!!

There was just enough left over for my dinner last night....happy belly :)

I love, love, love ice cream so I was a big fan of our homemade frosty!  

This bad boy comes in at only 113 calories, y'all.  You can't beat that!  The website says to put it in the freezer for 4-5 minutes before eating, but in my humble opinion, that's a big fat lie.  It needs a good 45 mins to an hour minimum or else it's really just some delicious chocolate milk :) Brandon's definitely more of a cake kinda guy, so he thought it was just ok, but I fell in love <3

Speaking of love, my sweet blogger friend April over at A. Liz Adventures is hosting a gorgeous giveaway on her blog!!  Noble House Designs has paired up with April to offer up some Irresistible Accessories for a lucky winner & I'm hoping it is moi!!

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This Red & Pink Vintage Necklace II is calling my name & would look great around my neck for a Valentine's date :)  So go check out the goodies on her page!

Hope your week is turing out blessed, friends!

100

This is my 100th blog post y'all!!!

Can you believe it!?  I definitely can't...where has the time gone??  All these posts sure have added up quickly & it's been a fun ride so far!  Before you know it, it'll be my 1 year blogaversary!

Today was also the 100th day of school!  100 down, 80 to go :)  Bring on Spring Break & Summer.  Amen.

We had a great weekend including new recipes, birthday parties, family time, and a little football watching!

Saturday morning we got our workout in, and then it was birthday time!  My family came into town to celebrate the birthday of this sweet little 6 year old!

My niece, Roen James

She told her daddy she really wanted some flowers for her birthday, so my Memaw had me stop to get her some from her since she couldn't be there.  She loved them!!

How can this precious girl already be 6!?  Wasn't it just yesterday that she was this cute little thang!?!

We had lots of fun at Roen's birthday party and she got a lot of sweet loot!  We got her a new book & some face pencils for lots of dress up fun :)

They went ahead and broke out the face pencils & Uncle Brandon and I attempted a little face art :)  We're not artists, that's for sure, haha.

Jude wanted to be Spiderman...all over his face!  Somehow we got him to settle for just the cheek & orange and brown since we didn't have red and black.  Roen wanted a swirly, wirly design & Uncle B did pretty good I think :)

And just for fun, I can't leave out this funny guy!!  He steals the show a lot!

Wells is so trendy, obviously!

Saturday afternoon we took naps of pure perfection with the gloomy weather we had outside! Then after some hemming & hawing I decided on some Pinterest recipes to try out that night, which I'll post later this week.  They were definitely keepers!

Sunday, we met the fam at my bro & SIL's church, Warehouse 242.  I'm so blessed every time I go there.  I think I'd like to go back a little more often.  After church, we had lunch at Pike's Soda Shop - always a winner!!

Then we needed to run off Pike's so we could indulge that night for some game time treats! Brandon made his world famous (ok maybe just family famous) Turkey burgers and I took care of the roasted veggies...yum!!  I was definitely rootin' for the Giants because I strongly dislike Mr. Brady & his Patriots!!  

I still have a bad taste in my mouth from when they beat us in Super Bowl 38.  YUCK!  I may be a little bitter....but at least now we have Super Cam :)

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Starting last night, The Voice is back!!  Oh my word, I love!  And it's on again tonight!  It's a bright spot in my Monday.  I love the banter between the judges & the eye candy (ahem...Adam Levine & Blake Shelton) & the downright talent on this show!!  It brings out the choir nerd in me.  Way better than American Idol!  Yep...I just said it!

I hope there was a bright spot in your Monday - however superficial or teeny tiny or dim it may have been! And here's to 100 more blog posts!!! :)

Friday Confessional

Well it's about that time again....time for some Friday evening confessions, y'all :)  I'm linking up with Leslie at A Blonde Ambition for her Friday confessions as well!

1. First and foremost, hallelujah, good glory, bless......Friday took forever to get here this week!!!  I've never been so excited for Friday!  (Ok that's probably a lie, I'm pretty much always excited for Friday, but ya know....a little extra this week.)

I think I practically sprinted out the building today!

2. I discovered something rather unfortunate last night.... as it turns out, the KitchenAid mixer Brandon got me this past Christmas came with the burnished accessories (not the unfortunate part).  Which means that when I put the flat beater in the dishwasher the first time after using it, it stripped all the polish off (<---the unfortunate part!).

Which ultimately means, when I went to go make some amazeballs meatballs last night (which we ate tonight, yum!), I realized my flat beater was in fact ruined!  I was very, very disappointed.

Good news, though - I used the dough hook to mix the meatballs and it got the job done.  Also, a new flat beater is only $14.99 if you ever need to know :)

3. Toms shoes debuted their ballet flats this week!!!

I need want.  Between Valentine's day & my birthday, I think there's lots of great reasons for me to get these babies!

4. I'd also really like one of these for my birthday...

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I'm a sucker for a good monogram & this website has so many cute cases!!  I don't even know if I can pick a favorite!

5. Speaking of my approaching birthday - I'm turning the big 2 - 5 this year!  All this really means (besides an impending quarter life crisis!) is that my license will be expiring.  Joy!  This means one day soon, I'll be hanging out with all the pleasantries at the DMV until my number gets called.

I tried getting an appointment - called 4 different DMVs!  But they're all booked til the middle of March, which will leave me expired :(  Boo.

6. Hubs is finally home!!  We're watching New Girl & I'm laughing out loud!

I heart this show!  

7. But, I really heart my husband being home!!  And our Friday nights on the couch :)  And Confession Friday of course!!

8. Happy, happy weekend friends!!!!

Change Up

I'm sure you've heard this quote before - and if you hadn't, well now you have and I'm glad to have shared it with you!  I've been thinking about this quote a lot lately and it's been resonating in my brain when it came to my workouts.  

If you read this post last week, I shared that I felt like I was in a big ol' running funk.  They were feeling super hard and my workouts were just stale.  So, so.  Same ol' same ol'.  

And while I wasn't gaining any weight, I certainly wasn't losing any or looking any more toned for that matter.  My enthusiasm for working out was running low & Brandon could see my frustration with my mediocre sessions as the gym.  So Sunday night, he suggested I change it up!  As soon as he suggested a change up, the above quote came to mind.

I go to the gym and do the same runs and the same weight routines week after week.  So obviously I'm insane, because I was baffled as to why I wasn't seeing different results!!  A change up is just what I need!

So Monday, I started P90X.....again!!

That's correct, I'm doing P90X again!  Ha...I've done P90X once before. I started back in April 2010 when I lived with my old roommate, Lisa.  She and I did the workouts together each night and we lasted about 10 out of the 12 weeks of the full program.  We took before pictures and were super pumped!  But we didn't implement with exact fidelity and we didn't really change our diet.

This round I won't exactly be implementing with complete fidelity, either.  Whoops!  I just can't unfortunately.  I want and need to keep my running up & don't want to abandon it.  I'm an extrovert and that goes for my workouts, too. I tend to be extrinsically motivated with my workouts, also.  Aka - if I'm running at the gym and stop everyone can see me, but if I fast forward through a work out I don't like at home, no one knows!!  :)

Haha, so I have to keep going to the gym some and I have to keep running!  Plus, I can't STAND yoga!  I've tried, I've reeeally tried to like yoga, but I just can't.  And the P90X yoga workout is 90 minutes!!  No thanks!

I do the lean version of P90X, so the way I'm implementing this time around - 3 days a week are more cardio heavy workouts so I won't plan to run those days.  2 days a week are weight workout days so I'll plan to run before hand.  What would be yoga day will be my off day and I'll still do a longer run once a week.

The big difference this time around is my diet.  I haven't exactly changed my diet a whole lot, but I'm back to tracking my calories using an app on my iPhone!  I first started using it when I got my iPhone, but then stopped after a while.

I feel so much better when I'm using it, though!  It basically keeps me from unnecessary amounts of mindless eating throughout the day!  When I'm journaling everything I eat, I know if it goes in my mouth, it's going in the calorie tracker.  And let's be honest, I could snack all day long - but it is not fun to watch my calorie count go up!!

This time, I'm going for results!  I'm only 4 days in and I'm looking forward to my workouts again!  I can definitely tell that I'm stronger this time around than the last round (which at least means my old workouts weren't in vain!!  Just stale as of late I guess.).  I even bought some 10 lb today weights to add to my 5 & 8 pounders that I already have, I could tell yesterday they were just to easy and weren't gonna cut it.  My little home gym is growing :)  

So February's here & I'm changing it up y'all!!  Here goes round 2!