Texas

Thursday night my friend that I used to work with got married. The wedding was so pretty and the food was delicious! Shrimp & Grits, Fish, Fettuccine, Gumbo, Jambalaya, etc. I couldn't believe the groom's cake.

Everything is edible except the ketchup & mustard bottles! 

My favorite was her wedding cake.

Cake balls from my favorite cake ball place, Brew Ha Ha in Baton Rouge. They had my 2 favorites - wedding cake & king cake. 

They passed out these cute little cards that had a cute little saying about taking pictures with your phone & there's a website where you can upload the pictures for the bride & groom. I thought that was such a cute idea.

Dean, Nick (a co-worker's husband) & me.

There was a candy bar & cute little bags for all the guests to fill up.

Me & the Bride

Friday I worked half a day & Dean & I went to Pearland for our nephew's Senior Night Football Game.

Me, Drew, Camille & Dean after the game. 

Saturday we were going to my brother in law's girlfriends house to watch the LSU game & have a fish fry. We stopped at Kroger to pick up Blue Bell ice cream to bring home. After the whole Listeria outbreak, taking it off the market, cleaning their plants fiasco it hasn't made it's way back to Baton Rouge. Well, I just happened to run into an old friend.

Leslie lives in League City with her family. It was so funny running into someone from home that I haven't seen in ages in the grocery store! 

I got pictures with the kids while they were cooperative. LOL

LSU won & we made the trip home after the game. 

I did my long run Sunday at the lakes with Cindy. 

The weather was fabulous but I just wasn't feeling it & one of my hips was bothering me a little. I'm blaming it on the fact that I haven't slept well the last few nights & the way I sat in the car for the 4 hour ride home from Texas. We leave for Key West Wednesday so I may take the week off from running.

We had a relaxing day of  pizza for lunch at Schlitz & Giggles, a nap & froyo after Mass. 

Somewhere under that whipped cream is Pumpkin pie & Cheesecake froyo with M&M's, cheesecake bites, cookie dough bites, vanilla chips & Reeses. Needless to say this wasn't the healthiest thing I ate yesterday! Oh but it was delicious. I had 3 oz. free that was going to expire so I kinda had to get it.

How was your weekend? Do anything fun?

Toodles! 

Friday Eve

This week has been a bit of a bore. I'm not complaining too much because as of 5:00 today things get busy. 

I ran Tuesday morning. I haven't been running with Varsity Sports because I've been trying to keep up with their workouts. They guarantee that if you follow their plan you'll be faster so I'm trying. 

This run was a 1 mile warm up followed by 4 - 220's at a faster speed. 220 yards is approx. 0.13 miles but I just round up to 0.15 because it makes it easier to calculate. Between each 220 I ran at a slower speed for 0.10 miles. So the first 4 - 220's equaled a mile. Then I had 2 slower miles, followed by 4 more 220's faster & I still did the 0.10 mi. between & then 1 cool down mile for a total of 6 miles. It was definitely more challenging than what I normally do but you know what? I did it & it didn't kill me & I'm not hurting. It's really amazing what happens when you push yourself a little bit. 

I've only done weights once this week. I couldn't seem to drag myself out of bed Wednesday. I'm going to have to do better especially with vacation & the holidays approaching because that means more "non-healthy" food than normal. 

This morning's run was supposed to be an "easy" 5 miles. I felt fine just a little tired & it's warmer & humid again.

It worked out that the run was only 5 miles instead of 6 because I needed a little extra time getting ready & gathering stuff up. We're going to a wedding tonight & I won't be going home before. 

Tomorrow I'll work for part of the day then we're off to Pearland, TX for our nephew's football game. It's Senior night. Hopefully, the weather will be nice. 

Toodles!

12

Sunday was our 12th anniversary. I like to drag out the celebration. Why just celebrate one day when you can do 3??

Friday after work I went to Hollydays with Jackie, Allie & Cindy. The Baton Rouge Junior League puts on the holiday shopping market every year. We had a fun afternoon. We all bought some clothes & sampled lots of little treats. 

I stopped by my neighbors for a few minutes for cookie cake for Amelia-Ann's birthday. Then for dinner Dean & I went to French Market Bistro. I've never been & it was really good. I had the sea bass special.

The sea bass was topped with crab meat & served over cheese grits with asparagus. So so good!

You have to get dessert for your anniversary! We ordered the Louisiana Lust. It was Chocolate Chip, Frangelico & pecan pie with warm chocolate glaze & vanilla ice cream. Really good!

The weather was supposed to be fabulous Saturday morning so I slept a little later than normal & started my run around 7:15. It was cool & gorgeous!

I was surprised when I ran by Mike the Tiger's "habitat" (it's a multi million dollar place) that he was not only awake but walking around. Mike is LSU's mascot & he likes to nap. 

He's a really pretty animal.

He just paced back & forth.

I had a 12 mile run scheduled. My time isn't accurate. I forgot to stop my watch when I stopped to see Mike so I was a little faster than this which is awesome for me!

I've been wanting to try the Toasted Graham Latte from Starbuck's. I keep hearing how good it is so after my run I went & got one. 

It's definitely worth the hype. I love a good pumpkin spice latte but this has moved into the #1 spot for me. I was disappointed to see that our Starbuck's doesn't have fall cups. What's up with that??

After a nap & Mass a small group of us met at Caliente to watch the first half of the LSU game. We ate, had a margarita & then went to Dennis & Jackie's for the second half. 

Cindy, me & Suzy 

We had a little fire & watched the rest of a not so good game. LSU won but not like they should have.

Me & Jackie

Sunday Dean & I went to Ruffino's for brunch. There were bottomless mimosa's,

a crab meat omelet with the best bacon you'll ever eat. It's called Benton's bacon & it comes from Arkansas.

Then there was dessert. 

That cheesecake tasted like fudge. It was really good. However, it wasn't as good as the white chocolate bread pudding we had before it. Yes, we had 2 desserts. I think there was miscommunication on the part of the wait staff. One guy asked if we wanted dessert so we ordered the bread pudding. We ate that, then they brought out cotton candy because that's what they do at Ruffino's, then they brought out the cheesecake & said they were trying to send us into a diabetic coma. No way were we letting dessert go to waste! In hindsight, it may have been a better plan to get the cheesecake to go. Oh well. It was all delicious.

We did some shopping & got some winter clothes. There were a lot of sales. Between what I bought Friday & Saturday I think I'm set. 

You know you live in Louisiana when the first cool snap we get everyone makes gumbo. We went to Brad & Cindy's Sunday night & ate. It was delicious. 

And now it's Monday again. sigh.

Toodles!

Monday

Not only is it Monday but it's the end of September. How did that happen??

Saturday was a busy day so I went to the lakes to run early.

LSU played in New York so all was quiet. 

I only had time for 10 miles. 

It wasn't my best but it was by far not my worst either. I talked to my brother for a little bit. He ran 10 too. Of course he started after me & finished before me but that was expected. 

Kickoff for LSU's game was at 11:00 am. That meant brunch & mimosa's for the football party. I was bringing Mimosa stuff & monkey bread. 

I knew there might be a problem when I opened the oven to take it out & the liquid was overflowing into my oven. sigh. The little speck looking things on top are crushed pecans. When I flipped my bundt pan over a couple of pieces came out & that was it. I didn't have time for this commotion. I beat on the bottom of the pan, I tried to ease it out using a spoon around the edges & nothing. This is what I ended up with.

That's a platter of monkey bread. Not that any of this is surprising. What would be surprising is if I cooked something that turned out perfectly. 

Some of the food - grits & grillades, shrimp & grits, breakfast casserole, fruit, banana nut muffins, monkey bread, pumpkin bread and a waffle station.

I had strawberries, blueberries, chocolate syrup, vanilla ice cream & whip cream on my waffle. Considering how things went with the monkey bread I got Allie to make my waffle. I didn't want to make a mess or break something at someone else's house. Everything was so, so good! 

Not long after kick off I left with my mom to go to Anna Claire's Sip & See. 

The picture is deceiving. She only weighs like 7 lbs. She's tiny with a tiny head. She's also not awake during the day. LOL! 

I loved the cake!

It tasted as good as it looked! After we visited for awhile it was back to the football party to watch the end of the game. LSU won but it certainly wasn't pretty. 

We didn't do a thing Sunday but watch football & a movie & I napped. It was great!

This morning I got my 6 miles in. 

I had to use Map My Run because I forgot to charge my watch.  I'm trying to do the workouts that the Varsity Sports running group is doing even if I'm not running with them. Today was just an easy run which was fine with me. 

So basically the same old thing is going on over here.

Toodles!

Game Day!

Friday after work I had a hair appointment & then some of us went to Caliente. Typical Friday night.

The LSU game was at 2:30 & we were hosting this week's party so I ran early. 

The scenery is just so pretty. I was planning to run 11 miles so I ran all through campus. With the game being early there was even more activity than normal. People were everywhere getting their tailgate parties set up. 

Since Varsity's running group wasn't starting until 7:30 I couldn't run with them but I did their workout. The last 4 miles were to be the fastest of the 11 & it's supposed to be at "marathon pace". I'm not running a marathon, I'm just trying to run a faster half. 

My time this week was 7 minutes faster than last week but last week was a slow run for whatever reason 

After having my watch for almost 2 years I finally hooked it up to the computer & figured out how to upload the info from my watch.

I was very excited to see the splits for my last 4 miles. Now if I can just start out a little faster things would be great!

We had a ton of good food. Dean cooked pork on his Primo for like 7 hours, we had baked beans & coleslaw to go with it, along with apps & dessert. 

I love Great American Cookie Company's cookie cake. I don't know what they do to those cookies but I swear I could eat the whole thing by myself. I did refrain.

Then there was this

So, so good. Anna's living in Houston now & she came home this weekend & brought a bunch of it home in a Yeti. I think she should've brought more. Based on the reactions I got when I posted the pic on FB she could've made a ton of money!

We had a really fun night. We had a house full of people, good food & drinks & LSU won! 

Yesterday was a total rest day. We went to Mass & grocery shopping & I didn't leave the sofa very much the rest of the day. 

On Monday's Varsity runs at 5:30 p.m. It's still really hot at that time. They post the workouts online so I did today's workout at my normal 4:45 am run. It was 2 880's, 2 440's & 2 220's with a minute in between to rest. I did warm up & cool down miles for a total of 6 miles. 

Speed work works!

Toodles!

Friday Faves!

I wouldn't know about half the stuff I love if it weren't for blogs. Seriously, I pretty much live off of recommendations so here are some of the things I love right now. 

These are so good!

These are the closest thing to restaurant chips that I've found. Thin & crispy is really so much better than the thick chips. We haven't been keeping chips in the house but I made 7 layer dip for the football party last week. 

These are so good!

If you like coconut. They're only 120 calories & it has real pieces of coconut. 

I don't remember whose blog I saw these on but I questioned them about what these tasted like & she assured me they tasted like "real" ice cream. She was right!

Only 100 calories & the little chunks of cookie dough & chocolate chips really make it taste like real ice cream.

I tried Arctic Zero before & thought it was just okay. It's kinda bland. 

The cookie dough has more calories but it taste better too. The salted caramel is the lower calorie choice. It's only like 150 calories for the entire pint. It taste better than the butter pecan that I'd tried before. It wasn't bad, just a little bland. 

Several blog peeps have bragged about this.

It's a milk frother to make lattes at home. I didn't really understand what it was or how it worked. I ordered it from amazon & this thing is a life changer. I had no idea what I was missing. If you like lattes buy it here. Best $17 I've spent in awhile. I feel like I say that a lot though.  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000E170W?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00 

Something else I'm excited about is my cholesterol. I had blood work done yesterday to see if watching my diet & increasing my exercise worked. It did! It's still a little high but my LDL is now in the normal range. My Dr. said to continue what I'm doing. So for the time being, no meds. 

Have a great weekend!

Toodles!