Every entry had a 1 in 10 chance of winning!
I cracked up when John came up-he’s a great friend from DC that always makes me smile. He was one of the few people that saw us get married in Jamaica!
Amy, John, Tasha, Laura, and Mel send me your address and I’ll get your booty mailed out!
…but I am having some tea this morning. Today is a rest day and I slept in until 6:45-it was glorious! Although Lu learned how to make one of her musical animals work. She thought 6:15 was a good time for music. Silly girl!
I made some juice this morning, using, what I thought, was a very strange ingredient 🙂
Baby bell peppers! According to this those puppies have 4 times as much vitamin C as an orange! I also found that they are the base for paprika-who knew!
I did cut the tops off, but look at what a pretty glass it made:
I couldn’t taste the peppers at all. Since drinking it, I have had some pepper aftertaste in my mouth though.
Random Blog Stuff
I made some updates to the blog yesterday by myself! Shaun was so proud!
-I added a tagline that Mel came up with-“Live. Laugh. Love. Eat. Just Be.” Isn’t it perfect?!?!?! Thank you Mel! Shaun will have to help me get it into the header, so stay tuned. I actually had him change the code when I set the blog up so that there wouldn’t be a tagline since I couldn’t think of one. Mel to the rescue!
-I added a “Subscribe” button. I know many of you asked for this and so there it is on the sidebar.
-I added “Subscribe to Comments” ability on posts. So if you are interested in the comments on a particular post you can get emails. There are some interesting comments! I even posted my schedule in the comments yesterday 🙂
-Lastly, the one I’m most excited about is that I made it so that the title of my post is in the URL. Shaun thought that that was a hard thing to do but it turns out that it’s just a setting in WordPress. I did the research and figured it out. This is big, I usually let Shaun deal with the techy stuff.
-Have you seen the giveaway? There’s still time to enter!
Beautiful Blogger Award
Both Amber and Tasha awarded me the Beautiful Blogger Award. They said some of the nicest things about me too-both of them made me well up a little bit. Thank you girls so much.
Amber and I met at the KERF meet-up in November and I’m so glad we did. She is such a sweet soul and has some of the most amazing style EVER. Seriously.
I found Tasha’s blog one day by putting in “Clean Eating, Gum” into Bing (Yes, Chelsea really does Bing!). She had a post about what she considers clean and I was hooked! It turns out that her little boy, J, is just about a month younger than Lucy-so we have a lot in common!
So, here’s how it works: I have to tell you 7 random things about me, and then I choose 7 of YOU to do the same.
Random Things-these were hard!:
1. I like my shoelaces to be the exact same length and will re-lace my shoes if they are not.
2. I had severe dyslexia as a child-I still technically do. With the help of the Irlen Clinic and colored lens therapy, I went from not being able to see vowels to a voracious reader and excellent student. This meant that I had bright purple lenses in my glasses as a child-talk about mortifying.
3. I like to fall asleep with the light on. This one actually has to do with the dyslexia. I have scotopic sensitivity which means that lights actually make you sleepy. A sure fire way for me to fall asleep is to turn a light on. Weird. Too bad someone else is in the room with me!
4. I’ve wanted to be a mom for as long as I can remember. When I was 18 my uterus would ache when I saw babies. That aching didn’t go away until I got my own.
5. I loved being pregnant. It was AMAZING. Even though I felt like total crap for the first 13 weeks and was on bedrest at the end, the fact that I was growing a life and that she was with me at all times was indescribable.
6. I can’t to time math. I have to count it out on my fingers. I probably could do it, but I still count out time on my fingers. For example, if I fall asleep at 10 and wake up at 5:30 (oof!) I have to count that out on my fingers to figure out it’s 7.5 hours of sleep. Even though it’s insanely easy math.
7. My hair is naturally curly.
But turned straight when I was pregnant.
And went back to curly when Lucy was about 8 months old. I use a straightening iron every day.
Wasn’t that fun?
Now onto the 7 lovely ladies! Please don’t feel like you need to pass it on-No pressure-just fun! I wish I could pick ALL of you!
1. Mel-she is an amazing Mommy who is also incredibly talented. She makes the most beautiful bows and other baby things. She’s also one of the funniest people I know.
2. Ashley-another amazing Mommy who has some pretty lofty goals for 2010. I still can’t get over number 1!
3. Amanda-again, a mommy (to beautiful Ava)! She’s doing a 365 project with photos-she’s truly an awesome photographer.
4. RhodeyGirl–Sabrina who WILL be a wonderful mommy someday 😉 We met at Calorie King and she inspires me all.the.time with all her hostessing abilities-she’s amazing. Whenever I have people coming over, I always think, “What would Sabrina do?”
5. Monica-another fabulous mommy-I’m seeing a trend here! We actually met on the interwebs a loooong time ago on Calorie King. She’s been out to California numerous times and we always have fun together.
6. Lauren-A Louisiana girl who always makes me smile. I couldn’t believe that she just turned 20! Happy birthday!
7. Tania-I miss you! I hope all is well and maybe this will bring you out of your break. Tania is a total foodie who is on a quest to lose weight the RIGHT WAY. She makes the most delicious and beautiful food. Her honesty is so inspiring.
Okay, work cropped up in the middle of that (WORK!) and that took way longer than expected. Till later!
I had plans to make pesto tonight with the basil off my plant. I went out to harvest it and my plant was DEAD! I totally had to improvise and what I came up with was a winner!
Ingredients:
-3 cups spinach
-3 sprigs rosemary de-stemmed (about a TBSP)
-1/4 cup pine nuts
-2 tsp olive oil
-6 garlic cloves
-1/2 cup chicken broth (vegetable broth would work too)
-1/4 cup wine
-Juice of 1 lemon
-S+P to taste
Instructions:
-Throw the spinach, rosemary, pine nuts, olive oil, and garlic into a food processor. Process until smooth.
-While that’s doing it’s thing, reduce the wine and broth together. (I actually cooked the chicken in the wine and broth and when I tasted the pesto the garlic was too strong and needed to be cooked down a bit-that’s why I mixed the two)
-Add the pesto to the wine/broth mixture. Add lemon and S+P.
-Toss with pasta and top with whatever protein you desire.
Here’s Shaun’s:
Mine (there is pasta underneath and that’s vegan parm):
And Lucy’s:
I originally didn’t give her much sauce but she ended up LOVING the sauce, so she got much more.
(Caption: “Mommy don’t bother me, I’m EATING!”)
Shaun and I both gave this a 3 out of 5. Not bad! Actually, quite delish!
To refresh your memory, in this household our rankings:
-1 = bad-don’t ever make it again
-2 =okay, tweak it and try again
-3 = good, put this on the monthly menu!
-4 = very good, put this on the monthly menu in heavy rotation
-5 = FANTASTIC (this is reserved for really amazingly outstanding meals)
Shaun is a tough judge and a 3 from him is a great rating!
Lucy gave it a 5!
Did you see my giveaway? I can’t believe I’m parting with 5 jars of TJ’s pumpkin butter.
ANYWAY.
It was so hard to wake up this morning. I desperately need to get to bed before 10:30! To add injury to insult Boot Camp sucked a big one this morning. The class was too full and the teacher (who’s normally AWESOME) kinda sucked today :(. Oh well, I did it!
When I got home, I had this:
2 carrots, 1/2 of an apple, 4 leaves of kale, and a meyer lemon. It was tasty.
I promise I won’t post pictures of my juice every day but it’s just so FUN and novel right now.
Plus, I’ve been reading up on juicing and wanted to share the guidelines I’m following with you. Since I’m trying to lose weight, I want to be smart about this and I think these will help.
1. Only drink 8 ounces of juice a day.
2. Only mix in 1/2 apple or lemon juice with my veggies.
3. Eat all my other fruits.
4. Only juice one root vegetable a day (they are more caloric).
5. Juice something green everyday.
6. Try to be as varied as possible (this one is hard since there are only so many veggies that will fit in my fridge!)
7. Only juice with organic produce and wash it well.
Today’s was so pretty in an unconventional way:
I followed that up with another latte from Starbucks. I WILL NOT be getting a latte tomorrow. My goal is to get enough sleep tonight that I don’t need caffeine. Good thing Wednesday is my “sleep in” day.
Starbuck tip! I’ve been using my insulated cup that I showed you yesterday. And no matter what size you order, they fill it to the top! Yesterday I ordered a grande and it was full. Today I ordered a tall and it was full-it’s a 16 ounce cup! I just need to remember that I got 16 ounces of a latte and not 12 ounces.
Last Night
Last night I made “burritos” for dinner. When I made the meat for the lasagna on Sunday night, I browned double the amount and then saved it for last nights tacos. When I got home, I reheated it in a pan and added taco spices. In addition to the meat, I heated up a can of refried beans, grated some cheese (for Lu and Shaun), cut up veggies, had salsa, yogurt (for me), and sour cream (for Shaun), some Casa Sanchez (a local company) organic corn chips and OF COURSE Tapatio! All three of us had a very different but delicious dinner.
Mine:
Lu’s-she ate almost all of this and a half a cucumber:
(love that plate-thanks Jocelyn!) She used her chips as a spoon-it was so cute.
And, Shaun’s:
(his is the ugliest!)
It was delish!
I finished off the night with my newest obsession. I’ve heard about this a million times but have never tried it. I was reading Gena’s blog and she actually had pictures that convinced me to give it a whirl (ah the power of pictures!). All you do is freeze a ripe banana and then throw it in the food processor for about 5 minutes.
At first it makes my Cuisinart almost jump off the counter and it’s LOUD but it is SO worth it. Thank goodness for a baby that sleeps well! It tastes better than any soy ice cream I have ever tried and it’s only banana. No sugar, no artificial stuff-just banana!
Gena recommends topping it with a chocolate sauce made of 1 part cocoa powder to 2 parts agave. I tried that the first night and found that I much preferred the plain banana.
I wonder how long until I burn out on this one? Any guesses?
I bought 12, yes 12, jars of TJ’s pumpkin butter last year-I must’ve been nesting! I’ve got five left (I like my pumpkin butter, as does Lucy!) and I want to share. These puppies will be good for at least another year, BUT, I’ve got a freezer full of my own YUMMY pumpkin butter. So you get to enjoy the bounty!
If you’ve never had TJ’s Pumpkin Butter then you are really missing out. It is A.MAZE.ING.
I’m so excited to get to share with you. I love giving gifts and I noticed that after the holidays most of the giveaways disappeared.
There are 5 ways to enter!
1. Comment on this post.
2. Mention this on YOUR blog.
3. Tweet about this giveaway or Facebook it!
4. Add me to your blogroll.
5. Follow me on Twitter.
If you do 2-5, just leave a separate comment for each.
I’ll use a random integer generator to decide on the 5 winners! The giveaway is open until Wednesday, January 6th at 6 PM. NOW CLOSED I’ll announce the winner tomorrow night and I’ll be shipping everything on Thursday.
YAY Pumpkin butter!
Now you may look at that and say “Hey, there’s meat in the sauce!” Why yes, there is meat in the sauce but that’s only so Shaun would eat it. Everything else is meat, dairy, and egg free. No meat needed and STILL packed with protein! The meat added nothing to this dish other than Shaun eatability.
Ingredients:
-1/2 package whole wheat, no egg, lasagna noodles
-~20 ounces of marinara sauce
-1 bunch of parsley, de-stemmed
-3 cups baby spinach
-14 ounces of firm tofu
-1/4 cup vegetable broth
-2 tsp dried oregano
-2 tsp garlic powder
-1 medium eggplant, sliced thinly, salted and squeezed
-4 medium portabella mushrooms, sliced thinly
-S+P
Instructions:
-Preheat oven to 375*.
-Cook noodles according to package, after drained, let soak in cold water.
-Add the parsley and spinach to a food processor and chop finely. Add the tofu, broth, oregano, and garlic powder to the greens and process until smooth. Add S+P to taste. Mix well to incorporate S+P.
-Spray a casserole pan with nonstick spray (including edges) and cover bottom with your favorite marinara.
-Lay down one layer of the eggplant.
-Lay down one layer of mushrooms.
-Spread half of the tofu mixture on top of the mushrooms.
-Lay down one layer of noodles. (I almost forgot to take a picture before spreading the second layer of marinara.)
-Repeat the layering, with marinara, eggplant, mushrooms, remaining tofu mixture, and another layer of noodles.
-Cover noodles with remaining marinara.
-Cover with foil and bake for 1 hour.
-After an hour, take the lasagna out of the oven and let it sit for at least 15 minutes, uncovered.
-Enjoy!
Shaun had 3 servings of this but commented that it shouldn’t be called lasagna. He said that when he thinks of lasagna, he thinks of “cheesy, gooey, goodness” and “more meat”. I suggested “Vegetable Bake” and he thought that described it better. He rated it a 2.5 and said it would be a 3 if I added “much more meat.” I give it 4 stars and will definitely be making this again. I can’t wait to have it for lunch this week.
I did eat a piece of sprouted grain bread with PB and jam before my workout but after my workout I had this:
(2 carrots, 2 stalks of celery, and half an apple-I could really taste the celery)
Followed by this:
That’s a Grande Soy Latte in my new reusable Starbucks cup!
I needed the caffeine after my night last night 
. I couldn’t fall asleep and then when I did, I was up almost every hour. Then Lucy woke up at 4:30 (which she HARDLY ever does). I was in the middle of a nightmare and I went right into her thinking it was part of the nightmare (which if I just let her settle, she goes back to sleep and I don’t have to rock her). She fell back to sleep around 4:45 but I was wide awake. I got 4, maybe 5 hours of sleep last night 🙁
BUT, I got up and went to spinning. It was a new instructor and I can tell that she was trained by the same guy that trained me. She has some kinks to work out but she’s GOOD. And? She takes away my desire to start teaching again. The old Monday teacher made me want to teach again because I didn’t like her style. But teaching spin, in addition to everything else on my plate, is not feasible right now or for a loooooong time. Plus, you don’t get nearly the workout when you teach as compared to the workout you get when you actually take the class.
Yay for meeting a few of my goals this morning-I also folded last night AND got gas this morning (even though I SO did not want to). Hooray for the year of 30 (Yo30).
Yesterday was a great last day of my vacation. I went to brunch with some old friends.
At one time I worked with six of the people in that picture (the rest are significant others). I now only work with 1 :(. One went to Thailand to teach English and travel and is now in school. Another left to go back to school is speech pathology and starts her new job as a speech therapist any day now, and 3 left to go get that start-up feeling back that we lost once we were bought by the man. I also went to college with five people in that picture. Man, we’re getting old 😉
Lu was there too:
(Caption: “Who me?”)
And she was SUCH a good girl. It didn’t hurt that Jesse played with her the entire time. He is SO hired. Jesse, we will GLADLY pay for your dinner (and Amanda’s too) anytime you want to come out with us.
She got some very fun pancakes:
And was still hungry for CRAYON:
I tried to get a picture of the blue crayon on her teeth with my P&S.
You can see it if you look really closely.
Alright, I need to face the music and actually look at how many emails I have after being out for almost 2 weeks. *GULP*
But first, did you see my challenge? I invite anyone to join. No need to pick 30 goals but any goal/s would be fun. And it’s always better with friends!
How is the first working day of the New Year treating you?
Until later!
My friend Ashley made a GREAT connection on her blog-20+10=30. And then it dawned on me:
It’s the year of 30!
Since goals motivate me, I’m going to up my 10 in 2010 to 30 goals. I’ve created a new 20 + 10 page and I’ll be checking in once a week with my goals. I don’t have to be perfect but I really do want to achieve these goals.
Here’s the 20!
1. Stop putting myself down. Treat me like I would want others to treat Lucy.
2. Eat something green every day.
3. Eat 2 servings of fruit every day.
4. Completely cut out dairy except yogurt.
5. Get back on my bike.
6. Do something only for me 1 hour each week.
7. Do something with Shaun that doesn’t include me sitting on the computer and him on the XBox or us watching TV for 1 hour each week.
8. Dress nicely, including putting on make-up, at least 3 times a week.
9. Clean out Lucy’s drawers.
10. Clean out and organize the filing cabinet.
11. Complete Lucy’s birth book.
12. Become a faster walker. If you can speed train for running, you can sure as hell do it for walking.
13. Send out thank you notes in a more timely fashion and to everyone that deserves one.
14. Lose 30 pounds or fit comfortably into my size 4-6 clothing.
15. Save my personal money for a new wardrobe.
16. Be on top of my budget and update Quicken every 2 weeks.
17. Severely limit my computer and phone time when I’m with Lucy. On weekdays, I should never use them when she’s awake and on weekends, I should use them sparingly when she’s awake.
18. Get the bird out 4 times a week.
19. To appease my husband, never let the gas tank get below 1/2 a tank.
20. Improve on my photography.
For reference, here are the 10 from my 10 in 2010 post:
1. Take time out every day to simply enjoy my daughter.
2. Try not to look too far forward or lament the past. Enjoy NOW.
3. Drink more water-at least 70 ounces per day.
4. Use my juicer A LOT.
5. Go to the gym more often than not.
6. Eat healthfully-don’t put anything in my mouth that I wouldn’t feed Lucy.
7. Save money.
8. Run to the top of Waterdog Lake Road, while pushing Lucy, without stopping and back.
9. Post at least 365 times in 2010. I can post 3 times a day or skip a day but I want my average to be 1 post per day.
10. Fold my laundry when it comes out of the dryer.
Anyone else want to join the challenge? 30 things to work on and improve in 2010? Come on, you know you want to!
I went to Crate and Barrel the other day to pick up some gifts and I found that CUTE bowl (and I only got one!) and I saw THE SPOON that I’ve been hearing about for years. I decided to try it out. I think I will use this spoon for what it was intended-appetizers. It’s too small and too much of the nut butter comes off with the first bites. I like my big spoon where I can control the distribution =D
It’s been over a week since I made some!
Lu LOVED it today. She’s hit and miss on oatmeal. Sometimes she thinks it’s great, other times, not so much. She ate her portion and some of mine today.
I’m keeping breakfast pretty light because I’m going out for “brunch” today at 11 with a big group of friends-most from college! I’ll be eating lunch and they’ll all be eating breakfast.
Guess what? I folded laundry when it came out of the dryer yesterday!!! I never understood when people complained of static cling. Now I do! We can’t use dryer sheets because we’re so sensitive. My Mom got us these dryer balls a few years back to use instead of dryer sheets. They’re supposed to make clothes softer but it doesn’t say anything about static cling 
We went to the bookstore yesterday and I finally found this:
I ordered a subscription on Amazon months ago and they said it would be up to 10 weeks. They were right! I’m excited to read it.
On my last day of vacation 
here’s what I have to do:
-Wrap presents
-Visit with friends (Yay!)
-Go grocery shopping
-Finish laundry
-REALLY take down Christmas decorations
Do you have to get back to real life tomorrow? What’s on your to do list?
Ingredients:
-6 ounces of bacon (6 pieces)
-1 onion, chopped
-10 cloves of garlic, chopped
-1 medium leek, finely chopped-whites and light green part
-2 cups chopped celery, including leaves
-3 carrots, chopped
-48 ounces of chicken broth
-~20 ounces of black eyed peas, soaked overnight
-S+P to taste
-Tabasco for garnish (optional)
-Avocado for garnish (optional)
Instructions:
-Cut up bacon and brown over medium heat (I used my kitchen scissors and the worked perfectly).
-Add onions, garlic, leek, celery, and carrots and sauté until carrots are tender.
-Add broth, turn heat to HIGH and bring to a boil.
-Once broth is boiling, add peas, and cook for 15-20 minutes, or until tender.
-Add S+P to taste.
-Enjoy!
Can’t do without the Tabasco!
I know that avocado doesn’t seem to go, but I had cut up an avocado earlier for Lu’s snack and it was a GOOD avocado (Go Costco!), I added it and it was a nice touch. Parm would be good on this too.
Shaun gave it a 3 and said “This is GREAT!!! <5 second pause> …for soup”. I loved it. Lu only liked the carrots. She kept trying the peas, making a funny face and spitting them out.
Good Luck!
And for an added good luck bonus, I made some chard.
I simply sautéed it in chicken broth and when it was done I added some dark agave nectar (about 1 tsp for an entire bunch of chard) and tossed to coat. YOM.