Weekend Recap

The seminar that I went to Friday wasn't at all boring! The speakers were very interesting & I found out that my whole "I have a vision but it never really turns out like I want or it's way more difficult than I thought" is totally to be blamed on my personality. I cannot help it. I may or may not have shared that little tidbit with Dean as soon as he walked in the door!

We did something Friday that we never do. We went to the casino.  We didn't gamble though. How boring of us I know. We were going to the LSU Baseball game & the new casino in town as a deal on game day. Bring your ticket in & you get 25% off your bill at the Sports Bar Restaurant. Not to mention we can get there faster than any restaurant in town on a Friday because of the craziness that is Baton Rouge traffic.
25% off & HAPPY HOUR!! Isn't it pretty? A little known fact about me - I totally will order a drink based on color. LOVE a blue drink! That's not a funny reflection either. It really was two tone.

This is where things got out of hand. I decided I wanted nachos. The menu said "Nacho Towers". Ummm, yeh, that should've clued me in.
Hard to tell from the pic but this was the biggest container of nachos I've ever seen. It was in a tub. You know like one of those old silver tubs that people would wash their clothes in back in the day? Not quite that big obviously but the same type thing. Dean said they used a whole bag of Tostitos. He's not exaggerating. There was chili, cheese, sour cream, salsa, guacamole & jalapenos. DELISH!!! Naturally, I couldn't eat them all. However, I saw a kid walk by with ice cream & I totally wanted some. Not sure what was up with that. Well, I found something better than ice cream.
PISTACHIO GELATO!!! So so good. You may remember I first discovered pistachio gelato at the MGM breakfast buffet in Vegas.

Saturday I had some errands to run & while I was out I stopped at Loft. 40% off everything in the store. I got these pants.

 I'm guessing Dean isn't a fan because when he saw them laying on the bed his reaction was "You bought PINK pants?". Funny he didn't have that reaction when I came home with purple pants.

I'd bought a couple of shirts like this a few weeks ago & I love how they fit. It doesn't look it in the picture but they're a little longer & the cut across the bottom make them look better than a regular t-shirt. I picked up a couple more in different colors.

Saturday night was dinner at Caliente before the game. Dean's parents joined us.

Sunday morning we had bad weather but it cleared up pretty quick. I decided to try to run. It was 10:00 & pretty warm & very muggy. I set out to do 2 miles. I did it pain free & I even walked an extra mile. I was so excited that I went home & did some weights & day 22 of the Squat Challenge (185 squats)!! What's even better is I woke up this morning still pain free!

I'd had enough baseball for the weekend. Really, it was just that I'd had enough of not being home so I stayed home & watched the game on ESPN. I read a little & gave myself a pedicure. The day went by way too fast.

How was y'alls weekend?

Toodles!

HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY!!!

It's FRIDAY!!!! The week has gone by fast! Here are some of the things making me "Happy Happy Happy" as Phil Robertson would say.

Uncle Si!! He's not my uncle for those of you that aren't on the Duck Dynasty bandwagon (if you're not you should be). He does remind me of my daddy though. See that glass of tea in his hand? My daddy ALWAYS has a glass of tea. Uncle Si is often shown with his glass & a jug of tea. My daddy has been known to bring his own jug of tea places. Mainly my house because he doesn't like my tea. I'm sad too because Wednesday nights episode was the season finale. Thank goodness for reruns!

 

Speaking of reruns, have y'all seen this??? http://elitedaily.com/elite/2013/nbc-confirms-friends-returning-comeback-season/  A Friends reunion?? OMG YES YES YES!!! Friends is my all time, hands down favorite show EVER!!! EVER EVER EVER!!!  I even cried during the series finale. I remember Dean asking if I realized they weren't real people & it was just a TV show. YES & that didn't make any less sad to see it end.

 

Last week I told y'all about the No Sugar Added Blue Bell Vanilla ice cream. Well, unbeknownst to me, Dean wasn't nearly as enthralled with it as I was. He came home with this Sunday when he went grocery shopping.

For the same 1/2 cup serving size as the Blue Bell, Edy's has 100 calories as opposed to 90. Guess what? I like it better too. I really like the stronger Vanilla taste you get with the Vanilla Bean. It's probably cheaper too.

Wednesday was Administrative Professionals Day. I got several little treats all day.
These homemade chocolate chip cookies were soooo good. Sadly, I have no idea who made them. they were on my desk when I came back from lunch with the cute little note but nobody signed it.
Smoothie King gift card?? Yes please! Those smoothies aren't cheap!
Then one of the guys surprised us with lattes. YUMMMM!! I had a bit of a caffeine buzz going by the time I got home. I'd treated myself to a Dr Pepper right before the latte was delivered. Needless to say I had no problem staying up to watch Duck Dynasty.

Sirius XM
LOVE IT!! I was one of those people that thought paying for radio was silly. Until of course I had it free when we bought my car & I came to love it. 90s on 9 may be the greatest radio station ever. What's better than hearing old school rap & Gin Blossoms back to back on your way to work????

Yesterday, my boss took us to lunch at J Alexander's. For some reason I got a shrimp poboy. Why would I do this when I wasn't at Roberto's??? Momentary lapse in judgement. It was good but Roberto's still wins for best ever. Today I actually get to leave the office at 10:30 for a luncheon/seminar that is also for Admn. Professionls Day. I'm expecting it to be boring but it's lunch & I get to be out of the office on a Friday.

Have a great weekend!

Toodles!

Workout Update

My ankle feels so much better! Thank goodness! Now I haven't "tested" it with any tough workouts but I did do a ton of yard work over the weekend that included a lot of bending & squatting & I haven't had any problems. I'm no longer a gimp with a limp so that's awesome!

Friday I took the day off work & I'd planned to do a workout but I woke up feeling like I needed to rest so I didn't do anything. Well, except have the best shrimp poboy EVER for lunch with Dean & make a trip to Sam's, Lowe's, Hobby Lobby & take a nap. I needed my strength for the crawfish boil that night.  That led to only doing the squat challenge below.

 

I have no idea where this came from. Khloe Kardashian tweeted it awhile back. Today is Day 17 for me. I've switched it up a bit. I did Day 15 yesterday & Monday was a rest day instead of today. Yesterday was the first day that it was REALLY hard.  Today when I get home I'll do a weight workout along with the squats.

Awhile back I received an email from Emily with BEACHBODY. She reached out to me since I've been posting about my health & fitness goals. I'm sure most of you have heard of  P90X. I had of course but I didn't realize this was a BEACHBODY product. It is! Turns out they have a TON of products.

Since this latest injury has delayed my running I've been thinking about taking a break from Yoglates in August. That's when I'm paid through. I really want to run the half marathon & I don't want to work out too much & injure myself again. I'm thinking about doing workouts at home until after the half.  Beachbody has a ton of different things on the website. There's P90X ,
Brazil Butt Lift Masters Series & the one that I'm really interested in is the T25 Workout. It's a series of 25 minute workouts. It won't be released until June but I want to check it out. I love stuff that I can do that doesn't take a ton of time. Although, it does scare me because the guy that created Insanity is the guy behind T25. Note to whoever names these workouts: don't name them things like Insanity! That's totally scared me away!! HA!  Can you pass that along Emily??

So I think I'm supposed to tell you something about how I wasn't compensated for this post & it was all my opinions. I WISH I could figure out a way to be compensated for my posts. It would be awesome to be one of those bloggers that gets to do this for a job.

Toodles!

1st Communion

Sunday was 1st Communion for my Godchild, Brooke.
Her dress was so pretty!
Logan loves him some Brooke! He wanted her to come play at "my house".
Brooke with her older brother Dylan. Brooke has another older brother, Brendan, but as most 15 year olds, he wasn't interested in picture taking. Brooke, Dylan & Brendan's mom, Leslie is my 1st cousin.
Me & my brother Scott, who is Brooke's Godfather & Logan. There were people everywhere so there wasn't a really good spot to take pics. The fountain was really pretty but as you can see the sun was really bright.
Brooke's Nona & Pops (my parents).
Brooke & her mama.

Funny story - Logan calls me Tante & Dean Nonk. It's a Cajun thing. Sometimes he gets confused & he calls us both Tante or sometimes I'm Nonk & Dean is Tante. Dean didn't go to the Communion with me yesterday & the first thing Logan said to me was "Where's the other Tante?". That kid cracks me up! He did really well sitting through Mass too. Of course he can't sit still but he was very quiet. He stared the Priest down when he blessed him during Communion too. I don't think he understood why he didn't get a Host like everyone else!

Toodles!

My Friday

Today is my Friday & I couldn't be happier! I have a dentist appt this afternoon so I get to leave early today too. Going to the Dentist isn't my favorite but I don't mind since it's just a cleaning. I'd rather be there than at work.

I don't have any big plans for tomorrow. We're going to a crawfish boil tomorrow night. Dean was planning to take off too but something came up. Hopefully, he can just work a half day & we can have lunch. Best shrimp poboy anyone??? If that happens, the day will be a success!

Speaking of food. It's strawberry season here in Louisiana. My mom brought us these last weekend.
Aren't they pretty? They're really good. I've been making smoothies for breakfast. So good with a banana. I'm going to have to freeze some because there's no way we can eat them all before they go bad. Does anyone have any good recipes for strawberry something??
Has anyone heard of this stuff? When we went to the salsa making class on our cruise last year we had the most amazing vanilla bean ice cream ever! I didn't know Mexico was known for ice cream but they should be. This Santa Clara stuff was given to us to pour on top of our ice cream. O. M. G.!!!! Soooo good. It does have alcohol in it. On our cruise in December we just happened to see it when we were walking around Cozumel. Of course we had to get a bottle.

Our favorite ice cream ever is Borden's Golden Vanilla. For whatever reason it's impossible to find. Lydia found it at a Circle K one time but other than that no grocery store has it. My mom mentioned how good this ice cream is.

She was right. It is soooooo good! To me when you put the Santa Clara on it, it taste a lot like the Golden Vanilla. The serving size is a half cup & it has 90 calories. Not bad. No, it's not clean with all natural ingredients & all that jazz but I wasn't making a special trip to Whole Foods. I've come a long way with not eating processed foods but we'll never be 100% clean eaters in our house & I'm ok with that.

This has been dessert this week. I know it looks like I have a ton of ice cream but it's misleading. Strawberries are on the bottom & my freezer froze this ice cream so hard I could only get small servings at a time. The yellow stuff on it is the Santa Clara's. YUM!!!

Now that all of the Easter candy is out of the house, aside from 1 lone Cadbury Egg that I can't bear to eat because then there's no more, I've done good with my eating. Yay for me being at CVS yesterday & not caving to the reduced to .22 Cadbury eggs!!! My ankle is still bothering me but it's A LOT better. Thank goodness. Now, it's not good enough for Yoglates or running which bums me out but I have been doing weights for upper body & leg lifts, butt kicks & that type thing. I can do squats too. It doesn't bother my ankle at all. I've been doing a squat challenge that increases the number you do each day. Today I have to do 110! I can remember a time when I couldn't do 10!

Toodles!

People Are Crazy!

I find myself saying that more & more these days. Along with "what is wrong with people?" Seriously. What happened at the Boston Marathon is terrifying. Like 9/11 it showed that anything can happen anytime, anywhere regardless of the precautions that are taken. I will never understand what makes people do some of the things they do. I guess that's a good thing. So I'm doing the only thing I know to do.












 

Catching up

I didn't realize it had been so long since I posted. I had a hair appointment Tuesday after work.
I had a big mug of green tea while my highlights were processing. It was very relaxing to sit & read & drink tea.

In case you didn't know - New Kids On The Block have a new CD out. I know so many of you are very excited about this!!!

It made my afternoon a little better Friday when I got in my car & the new song was on. Then my afternoon got a little worse when I was almost home & behind this

Yes, that's a moped. That's also a guy that's putting his life in danger. Based on the fact that the speed limit on this road is 45 mph & we were going approximately 23 mph this thing doesn't go fast enough to be on an actual road. Why anyone would ride one of these in Baton Rouge traffic is beyond me.

Friday night was the big Flash Mob at Caliente! Sadly, due to my injury I wasn't able to participate. I just wore my t-shirt & watched. We had a lot of fun. We had a group of 31. The place was packed.
Me & my friend Cindy.
Jackie, me & Cindy with husbands in the background.

Saturday was Jackie's youngest daughter Allie's 19th birthday so we sang Happy  Birthday.
She was surprised with the cookie cake. By the way, the cookie cakes from The Great American Cookie Co. that are in the malls are THE BEST cookie cakes BY FAR!!! Trust me, spend a little more money & get the good stuff.

Saturday, my parents came over & Dean worked in the yard & hacked trimmed a ton of stuff. We had 2 1/2 inches of rain overnight & this morning so I expect everything to have a nice growth spurt. I'm hoping for pretty weather next weekend because I want to do some planting.

After Mass we had dinner with our neighbors & watched LSU lose. That was fun.

Today after a trip to the grocery store I've spent my day laying on sofa reading with my foot elevated. It's feeling better but I don't think I'll be running anytime soon & that totally depresses me. On that note I'll say Toodles!!

Unbelievable!

This weekend was filled with baseball & a little food! Saturday morning was flash mob practice & Saturday afternoon Dean boiled crawfish for our friends son's birthday party. This was the first crawfish I've eaten this season & they were really good.
Not the greatest picture but you get the idea. My favorite part was the mushrooms. YUM!!! Myles isn't a big cake person so he requested banana pudding. Our other friend Jackie made it.
She doubled her recipe. It was soooo good!!

After the party we went to the LSU game. That's also how we spent Sunday afternoon.

This was Sunday at the ballgame. This would also be why there haven't been working out posts. I had some soreness after going to Yoglates a week ago Thurs. I didn't work out at all last weekend & by Tuesday morning it was feeling good so I went to Yoglates. That proved to be a mistake. By the time I got to work Tuesday my ankle was bothering me & it hasn't stopped since. It's not horrible pain & it only hurts when I walk. Saturday morning while everyone else was practicing for the flash mob I was in a booth watching. My trainer (he's our friend & used to be an athletic trainer with the Atlanta Falcons so I refer to him as "my trainer") assessed it & diagnosed me with tendinitis. It's tendon that runs from the bottom of your foot along the side close to the big bone you have on the inside of your ankle.The big bone & right above it are where it's really sore. He told me to take ibuprofen, ice it, rest & wrap it some. It's a little swollen too. I suspected it was from doing too many lunges & when I mentioned that to Matt he agreed & then when I told him we did a lot of "back lunges" (I don't know the proper term) he immediately said that's what did it. I knew I hated those things for a reason.

There's been a lot of this
and this

going on. When I'm at home I'm trying to elevate it a lot & the best way to do that is to rest it on the back of the sofa. That's what's going on in the above pic. My toes are really, really long. I guess they're like my freakishly long arms.

So that's what's been going on around here. It's annoying because I'd made so much progress with my running & now this. I'm really hoping this isn't another 3 month injury like my hip.

Toodles!

Take Me Out To The Ballgame

This post is coming to you LIVE from LSU's Alex Box Stadium. It's a really pretty night for baseball. I like Friday night games. They play that lovely tune "Regulate" by Warren G before the game. I don't know what it is about gangsta rap but I do love it.








The wind was blowing out a bit but now it's almost at a standstill.


The team in their pregame huddle. They do a lot of bouncing around. I guess that fires them up.

Have a great weekend!

Toodles!

Posted using BlogPress from my
iPhone

Location:S Stadium Dr,Baton Rouge,United States

Easter Fun

For the first time in the 17 years that I've worked at The Advocate I had Good Friday off. We had a great weekend & I ate great too. I don't mean I ate great food for me. I mean I ate great tasting food that is incredibly bad for me. May I present evidence #1
As a kid Gold Brick eggs were my favorite!! I picked up some stuff for Logan & the candy was 75% off BEFORE Easter & we all know I'm not one to pass up a good deal. Included in that good deal was a "white bunny". I haven't had one in YEARS. Like probably 20. I bought myself one & I had good intentions. According to the nutrition label the bunny was 5 servings. I already had the servings divided in my head. Then I started eating. I don't remember exactly but I think it only lasted 2 servings. Dean had a couple of bites.

The main thing I wanted to do Friday was to eat lunch at Roberto's. You know "Home of the best shrimp po-boy EVER EVER EVER"?? It lived up to the billing once again.

Awhile back I saw a post on FB about Zaycon Foods. They sell organic meat at really cheap prices. They would be in Baton Rouge on Good Friday selling boneless, skinless chicken breasts for $1.79/lb. That's cheaper than plain old hormone injected chicken when it's on sale here! How it works is you place your order online & they're in your city for one day for a couple of hours & that's when you pick up the chicken. It comes in 40 lb. cases. Me being the domesticated person that I am was all over this. Little did I know how much 40 lbs. was. So Friday afternoon Dean & I sat in a Church parking lot in downtown Baton Rouge & picked up our chicken. It was all very organized. A refrigerated truck parks, they set out orange cones to make a "drive through". They look up your name on the iPad & then load your chicken in your car. The man with the iPad said we were going to cry when we eat this chicken it's so good. I can't imagine that but ok. This is what the case looked like.
They even put plastic down in your car in case the box leaked.
It was in several bags inside the case. We got our handy dandy vacuum sealer out & went to town.
This was my biggest issue. I don't like to touch raw meat. I held the bags open & Dean put the chicken in & then I sealed them. I did get some chicken juice on me & that's just soooo gross. BLECH!!!
Our handiwork.

Once all the chicken was taken care of I went for a run. In case you didn't know, a fried shrimp po-boy & french fries is NOT proper pre-run fuel. I was so sluggish & blah. It was a tough 3.5 miles but I did it. I had some soreness going on so I decided that an ice bath would probably help a lot but since I didn't have any bags of ice lying around & really that's a lot of trouble I'd just get in the pool. The water is COLD so it would be like an ice bath right?
It was cold. Not quite as cold as I was expecting though.

Everyone will be happy to know that before we picked up our chicken we picked up these
Maybe my bad luck with the postal service is a thing of the past. On my way home from work Varsity Sports called to let me know my shoes were in. I'm sure I've whined about the blue before. I have to get a narrow shoe & Brooks only makes the narrow in one color. It just so happens that for the last 3 years they're ALWAYS blue. Different shades of blue but blue nonetheless. Have I ever mentioned that I'm not a big blue fan? Well I'm not. I do like this blue better than the previous blues. I even tweeted Brooks that I need a different color. They assured me they'd pass along my comments to the development dept. so next year if they aren't blue I'm to thank!

Saturday we were up bright & early. We were going to an Easter egg hunt with my family. It's a huge thing with inflatables & food. My parents Church sponsors it & everything is free.
Before we left for the egg hunt Logan opened his Easter gift from us. We got him a beach towel & a chair. We're going to the beach next month. He was happier about the candy.
There was someone selling bunnies. I'm guessing the Church didn't give them permission to do that but the kids enjoyed holding the little babies. I saw zero sales taking place. Apparently, everyone had the same idea as my brother, "DO NOT EVEN ASK" was his response when he saw they were being sold.
Logan was ready to get his eggs! There were 50,000 eggs at the egg "hunt". Each baseball field was divided up by age so there wasn't big kids running over little kids.

After the egg hunt we had lunch at a pizza buffet & it was sooo good. Told ya I ate a bunch of not good for me food. Pizza that taste like cinnamon rolls??? Yes please! Logan is almost 4 & it's so funny to listen to him participate in our conversations. He was very excited about the chocolate pizza. He's hilarious!

Sunday we went to early Mass & to Dean's parents for lunch. Everything was delicious & I ate way too much. There was roast, ham, potato salad, cole slaw & cake. My mom made my favorite coconut cake. Soooo good.
If all that food wasn't bad enough I ended the day with these. sigh.

Toodles!