My Birthday Weekend

Saturday I turned the ripe old age of 38. I'm not really sure where the time has gone from the time I was about 23 to now. I left work a little early Thursday & went & had a massage. This was the first massage I've ever had. I've always been funny about strangers touching me. It was actually a delightful experience & one that I'd definitely do again.

I took the day off Friday as well but I still got up at 5 & went for a run. I had my nails done, did some shopping & had lunch with my parents at Brewbachers. It was a lovely day. Not real productive as far as shopping though. I did get a few things.

I got my purse at TJ Maxx. I NEVER find anything there & I only went in because I was going to Bed, Bath & Beyond next door.  Only $25 & it's the softest leather. 

I got a Bullet. With all the eating right I'm trying to do I decided that I needed this. I want to make smoothies because I don't eat enough fruit. I like a fruit shake/smoothie much better than actually eating fruit. I haven't made anything yet but everything's unpacked & ready to go!

Once Dean got home we went to dinner at La Carreta & then head over to our Church Fair. Lots of our friends were there so we visited & listened to the band. This particular band is made up of several of our parishioner's. One being a Cardiologist & another a Pediatrician. It's pretty funny to watch them bounce around & dance. At one point they sang Soul Man & our Priest joined them on stage & sang. It was hilarious!

Saturday I went for a 4 mile walk. We had a cold front come through Thursday so the weather's been great. A little cool early in the morning & after the sun goes down but really pretty during the day. After the walk I went shopping again. Ann Taylor Loft was having a 40% off everything sale. I scored there.

The tank was only like $2.50. It was on clearance. I also got a pair of skinny jeans to wear with my boots & flats. I picked up a green tea from Starbuck's (Thanks Vicki & Lane) & then headed home. We watched football & went to Mass. After Mass we walked around & visited at the fair again & then went to dinner at Marcello's. It was sooooo good. I had eggplant parmigiana & a salad. We even decided to have dessert & I'm so glad we did. We had strawberry cake with white chocolate icing. OMG DIVINE!!!

Yesterday was a pretty lazy day. I actually slept until 8:00 which rarely happens. I went through my closet & got rid of a bunch of stuff that doesn't fit anymore & straightened things up. Then it was to the sofa to read & nap. HA! I did go to Yoglates yesterday evening so I wasn't a complete bum. All in all it was a great birthday weekend.

Toodles!

Reason # 872

Why I could never be an athlete: I don't like to be yelled at.

Where does this come from? Last night we went to watch our neighbor/friend play volleyball. She's a senior this year & it was Senior Night at her high school. They won in 3 straight games (much to my delight because I was hungry). The opposing teams coach seemed to be a bit of a witch. She just had that look about her. Then she started the pointing & yelling. That's when I said "That's another reason I couldn't be an athlete. When people yell at me it makes me more nervous & I'll just screw up more".  I used to say "That's why I'm NOT an athlete" to which Dean once commented "Oh really? THAT'S the reason why??" Which is how it got changed to "another reason". I know this probably isn't a conversation that most of you have with your husbands but we have it fairly often. I guess because we watch a lot of sports it comes up often. I see something happen that I don't like & I'm all "that's why blah blah blah".

I suppose the main reason that I'm not an athlete is that I'm awful at sports. Watching the volleyball game last night reminded me of my years & years of P.E. classes in school. I told Dean how much I hated when we played volleyball in P.E. because it hurt my arms. That made me think about how there was nothing that I liked about P.E. I absolutely HATED every last second of it. I remember in 5th grade we had to play golf. That was awful. The grass probably hasn't filled in yet from where I butchered it trying to hit that stupid little ball. In 6th grade my friend & I saw our 5th grade P.E. teacher at the Worlds Fair in New Orleans & he introduced us to some of his students as "the 2 laziest people I've ever taught".  Apparently, he confused total & complete lack of interest & skill to lazy.

Then there was softball. Good grief, another little ball. Not to mention I throw like a girl. I'm constantly reminded of that by my brother.

I even hated square dancing. Who wanted to dance with those nasty boys? Not me. YUCK! OH & then it was high school. We were going to learn CPR on a dummy. At the ripe old age of 14 I had absolutely ZERO interest in learning this skill. The thought of having to actually breathe into someone's mouth to save their life was, for lack of a better word, GROSS. I also remember being in lots of trouble for having an F in P.E. on my progress report because I wasn't doing CPR correctly so the dummy wasn't lighting up like it was supposed to when I saved it.  Don't even get me started on the "dressing out". Those P.E. outfits were AWFUL!! Not to mention it was very hard to take that t-shirt on & off without messing up my very big hair. It was the early 90's people, the hair was big & it was PERMED!!! Don't laugh.

So you see, athlete I am not! 

Toodles!

Weigh In Wednesday

I'm up .6. I swear these 2 lbs. that I keep bouncing back & forth between are going to be the death of me. I'm going to attempt to eat well this weekend. I'm still blaming that stupid turtle cake. UGH!

This week's workout schedule is pretty messed up just because of stuff going on. I ran 3.2 miles Monday morning. I couldn't leave work early Monday so no Yoglates until yesterday but Dean & I did go walking Monday evening. We walked 2.7 miles. This morning I ran another 3.2. I can't go to Yoglates today or tomorrow. I'm hoping to get an early class in Friday morning since I'm off. It will depend on the teacher. I know that's awful but there are a couple of teachers that I'm just not crazy about. I've tried their classes & didn't care for them. If I can't go to a class I may run again. My plan is to run a 2 mile fun run at my Church Saturday. I haven't ran 2 days in a row so I'm not sure about that plan. I was thinking it may be fine since Saturday is a shorter run. We'll see.

I have an oatmeal update. You may (or may not) remember that I had a bit of an oatmeal fiasco a couple of weeks ago. I bought the Great Value brand & it exploded all over the microwave & tasted funny. I've continued to eat it after experimenting with the cook time & there have been no more explosions. I've figured something else out. It's not the oatmeal that has a funny taste, it's the cinnamon I've been putting on it. Apparently, if you put the cinnamon on BEFORE you cook the oatmeal it gives it a cinnamon flavor without the weird taste. Who knew? Well, maybe everyone but me but I know now & I'm enjoying my oatmeal.

Toodles!

LSU vs. Auburn

When I woke up Saturday morning my leg was better. Notice I say better, not good?? I was worried that there would be problems. I DID NOT want to this to screw up my day. We had great seats & our friend was bringing us in the locker room. I sucked it up & put on my tennis shoes. I don't wear tennis shoes just anywhere. Generally, they're for working out & maybe the occasional running around. Me leg felt amazingly better when I put those shoes on. Of course wearing them required that I change my whole outfit. Not that it was anything special to begin with but still.

On our way to LSU we stopped & did our civic duty & voted then it was off to tailgate. The more we walked the better my leg felt. I was so relieved!!

Dean & I have a friend that works in LSU's Athletic Dept. so we were going to get to go in the locker room. We had to be there early which was fine with us. LSU was wearing their Nike Pro Combat uniforms for this game. I'm not crazy about the white helmets but they did have these iridescent like tiger stripes on them that was cool. Of course that doesn't show up in the picture.

This is the door that the players run out of onto the field.

The "Win Bar". The players touch it as the run out.

I could barely touch it even with my freakishly long arms & big hands.

Dean & I & some random dude in the background.

The North End Zone. Wasn't it a beautiful day?

After the tour it was back to tailgating. We met up with our friend that we were sitting with & another of Dean's friends. We visited several other friends which meant a TON of walking. We ate fried fish, boudin balls, brisket & shrimp pasta. It was another 2:30 game. For those of you that don't know, LSU fans HATE day games. I for one, was very happy with the day game. I had time to tailgate, go to the game, get home & still be in bed for 10:00. HA! Anyway, there are no night SEC games in Tiger Stadium this season because we're so good. HAHA! Seriously, we're good so CBS wants to televise all of our games which means 2:30 kickoffs. There was the one 11:30 kickoff which the fans really, really, really hate. Our friend Kevin drives in from Orange, TX for all of the home games & he has AWESOME tickets. He has 4 seats & normally his family comes with him. Only his daughter Montana wanted to come so he invited us along. We were sitting between the 45 & 50 yard line, 19 rows up. I LOVED these seats!!

Montana & me. She's 7 & was so into the game.

The Golden Band from Tigerland pregame. Pregame is my most favorite part of the whole game experience.

The band always spells out LSU at the end of pregame.

All of the captains for the game. I have serious issues with 9 being a captain due to off the field issues but that's another post. 9, 12, 18 & 30 are current players. The second row of "players" are past players that were the guest captains for the week.

Kickoff!!

Jarrett Lee (our starting QB) on the phone talking to the booth. I loved being able to watch all the hoopla on the sidelines. Those little purple circles aren't part of a Twister game. It's for the special teams guys to stand on so they know there will BE enough people on the field.

This thing fascinated me. If you watch any games on tv you've seen it. It's a camera. I zoomed in close & I should've taken one not zoomed in because the cords are attached to the bottom of the upper deck & this camera zooms all over above the field. It's really amazing. It's worked by some sort of remote. Very interesting.

LSU won 45-10. It was a great game!

Needless to say I was tired yesterday. Aside from going to Mass & the grocery store I got absolutely nothing accomplished. Well, except for reading!! Oh & I put a pork loin in the crock pot & used a McCormick Crock Pot Pulled Pork seasoning pack. It was good. We'll be having leftovers tonight. There was also no exercising going on yesterday. This morning I ran for 38 minutes before work. 

Toodles!

Friday

Dean & I were off Friday. I love just working a 4 day week. I've got another one this week! We did some shopping. We made a Sam's run. I do love that place. I've said before that I find nice clothes there. I'm sure there are people that think I'm crazy but I don't care. I scored Friday. I got a pair of Nine West jeans that I LOVE. They fit great & they were $20. I got a pair of brown corduroy pants for $20 & I got a pair of Nicole Miller dark brown dress pants for $16. I think I'm going to go back & see what other colors they had in the cords & dress pants. I only bought the brown ones because I didn't know how they'd fit. I also got a couple of tops.

$17!!

Kenneth Cole - $18!!

After Sam's we made a stop at Shoe Station. The sole purpose of this stop was to return a wallet I bought awhile back. Well, I ended up with these.

This is not my fault in the least. Even though I had my receipt they wouldn't give me my money back on the wallet because it had been more than 30 days since I bought it but they'd give me store credit. So see I HAD to buy shoes. I had a coupon of course too. They're dark brown. I really did need some dark brown casual shoes.

Next up was Academy. After the dress debacle that was my run the other morning it was imperative that I get some cold weather running clothes. I keep hearing that the Under Armour pants are the things to get BUT they're $50 a pair. I can't bring myself to pay that. Partly because I want more than one pair so I don't have to do laundry so much & partly because I seriously doubt that I'm running when it's 30 degrees. Sooooo, I went with the Academy brand. They say they'll keep you warm, they fit me & they were $20. HA! I got 2 pair. They're just black tight like, dry fit pants. I also got a couple of long sleeve dry fit shirts.

The pink one is much brighter than it looks. I decided it would be good for my morning runs. There's a school bus that comes through that drives entirely too fast so I want to make sure I'm seen!!! I'm about to order some dry fit gloves online & I'll be all set for my cold weather runs.

We had lunch at The Bulldog. We've never been there but I bought a Groupon awhile back. We had burgers & fries. I really enjoyed the fries. They were waffle fries, I'm not usually a fan of those but they were coated in wing sauce, then covered with chili, cheese & jalapeno peppers!!

I went for a run Friday afternoon & it wasn't pretty. The weather was beautiful & it wasn't too hot but it just wasn't a good run. I managed to make it 30 mins. but I only ran about 2.7 miles. How weird that I'm saying "only 2.7 mi.". Anyway, I think part of the problem was that I was too full. I just felt weird.  I took a nap when I got home. I fell asleep on the sofa watching Friends.(all time favorite show EVER!!).  Apparently, I was sleeping in a really weird position because my neck was really hurting along with my left leg when I woke up. As the night progressed my wrist starting hurting too. It was the weirdest thing. I only slept for an hour. Boy if I could have that hour back!! My birthday is Saturday & my friends & I always have a birthday dinner for each other. Mine was Friday.  It ended up just being me, Wendy & Vicki because Allison was in a wreck. She's ok but banged up. We ate at Portobello's. It's another local Italian restaurant. I had the Eggplant Roulades.

It's fried eggplant topped with crawfish, spinach & a bacon cream sauce. Portobello's has the best side salad in town I think.

It's big for a side salad & it has diced tomatoes, celery, mushrooms, purple onions, bacon bits, grated cheese & croutons. I had blue cheese vinaigrette dressing which was really good too. Vicki's little boy Lane, is our Godchild & he gave me a Starbucks gift card. Y'all know I was excited about that!! It was a nice dinner.

Then it was home to bed. I could barely put any weight on my leg & I couldn't really turn my head. It wasn't pretty. We were going to the LSU game Saturday & that entails A LOT of walking. When I went to bed I didn't know if I'd get to go. So that's all for now!

Toodles!

Aliens & Weigh In Wednesday

I know it's Thursday. I weighed yesterday & had every intention of posting but I never got around to it. I gained 1.8 for the week. Not happy about that but not surprising after all the food that was consumed last weekend. Not to mention the fact that we came home with leftover turtle cake & Dean who's "not much on chocolate" is "pretty much done with it". NO WAY was I throwing this cake away. It was way to good & not cheap to do that. What's that mean?? Yeh, I ate a couple of slices over the course of the week.  It's gone now.

Speaking of food, last night we had dinner at Monjuni's. It's a local Italian restaurant that I love. We had a Groupon. I had 1/4 of a veggie muffaletto. OMG it was soooo good. Fried eggplant, roasted red peppers, asparagus, olive mix. YUM!!! I had a little house salad with it which is just shredded lettuce with Italian dressing & olive mix.

Yesterday was a run day for me & it was going to be cold. I don't really have any cold weather running gear so I had to piece it together & let me tell you I looked ridiculous. Leggings that are too big with a pair of shorts over them to make sure they stayed up, a long sleeve tshirt with a jacket over that, a head band covering my ears & NOTHING matched. It wasn't pretty. Dean & I are both off tomorrow & we will be hitting up Academy to find me some appropriate clothing. I ran 38 minutes straight. This afternoon I go to Yoglates.

So, I've said before that aliens have taken over my body since I've started all the exercising & changing my eating habits. Well, yesterday morning I got up at 4:45 & Dean's comment was "What's the world coming to when you're getting up this early, in the cold to run? Surely, the world is ending soon". I'm choosing to go with the alien theory. Otherwise, it will mean I've been doing all this when I could've just been eating & being lazy because I really don't think God cares if I'm in shape or not. 

Toodles!

Time to move on???

I tried another crock pot recipe today & it was delicious!! My friend Katie sent me this one & the recipe was cleverly titled "Chicken". I actually remembered to take a picture.

Here's the recipe:

1 Pkg. Onion Soup Mix
1 1/2 Cup Milk
2 Cans Cream of Mushroom Soup
1 Cup White Rice
6 Chicken Breasts (I only used 4)
6 tbsp Butter ( I used less than 4, who needs all that butter??)
1 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Pepper (I didn't use salt or pepper, I used some McCormick garlic herb seasoning)
1/2 Cup Parmesan Cheese (Walmart didn't have Parmesan so I used an Italian blend)

Put onion soup mix, milk, mushroom soup & rice in a bowl & mix it all together.
Grease crock pot
Put chicken in crock pot & butter it
Pour mixture over the top. Add salt, pepper or whatever seasoning you use, then cheese on top
Cook on low 8-10 hours

I made green beans to go with it & it was delicious if I do say so myself. Dean liked it too! I'm thinking since I actually made some changes to the recipe & it turned out good maybe it's time for me to move on to cooking in something other than a crock pot?? I probably won't but maybe I could.

Speaking of food. I've jumped on the Ground Flaxseed Meal bandwagon. All the healthy people blogs I read rave over this stuff. Apparently, it's super healthy & has all sorts of vitamins & stuff that you need. I added it to my chocolate milk. I couldn't really taste it except for some little grains which was no biggie. I think it will be great in oatmeal which is what I see a lot of people put it in. I got mine at Whole Foods & it was with the vitamins. That's the last place I would've looked. I never would've found it without help.

I went to Yoglates yesterday & today. Tomorrow will be my second run of the week. It should be interesting because a cold front came through today & it's going to be in the high 40's in the morning.  Wish me luck!!

Toodles!