Weekend Excitement: No Rest Again!

Wow it was yet another crazy weekend!  I don't know how to be mellow I guess.  LoL!

Friday, I was just itching to get out of the house.  I had had a long week and really just wanted a night out with Rob.  We decided to head down to the outlets to look for new cleats for him and running pants for me.  Rob wasn't successful but I got some new running gear.  I really want to go back and get this shirt.  I did get myself some really nice running tights from Under Armor.  They had the best options and I am really going to need them this winter!

After that, we decided to head to Tun Tavern for dinner since its right next to the outlets.  The food was ok but the beer was excellent.  I got apple stout and loved it!  It is seasonal so we got a growler of it to take home.  Yum!






Saturday was again a bit crazy.  I had to get (more) gifts for my friend Callista's baby shower.  Usually I am on top of these things but it snuck up on me!  I headed out and got back home to wrap them.  I had enough time to head over to the Irish festival with Rob for a bit (he was there with his rugby buddies selling shirts and recruiting). 

Then it was off to the baby shower and wish Callista well.  She is just the cutest pregnant woman ever.  She is only 5 months along but she is still tiny.  She looks lovely!  It was a nice party!

 I went back to the Irish fest for a bit to walk around with Rob.  We went to my two favorite shops (Historic Smithville is like a little old fashioned shopping area).  I got some good things!

Dutch Chocolate Coffee
Pumpkin Spice Coffee
Granulated Honey
Hawaiian Sea Salt
Horseradish Cheddar

We finally got home exhausted but went out to eat with Jess.  See, we go nonstop!  Finally, we got home, relaxed for a bit and crashed.

Today has been spent cleaning, cooking, and doing midterms.  I have two take home midterms due tomorrow.  I worked on them and whenever I needed a break, I did something around the house so it worked out well!  I started my day off with a nice hot cup of "pumpkin latte" coffee.  Pretty good!  But a lot of the pumpkin settled on the bottom.  I also tried my first version of savory oatmeal.

It was really good!  I loved the flavor.  I made my usual oatmeal but without the milk.  I used a little less water but I think next time I need to use the whole amount.  Anyway, I made an egg over-easy.  I added some tomatoes to the oatmeal, pepper, and olive oil.  I then topped it with the eggs, some of the horseradish cheddar and a sprinkle of the Hawaiian salt.  It was DELICIOUS!!!  The oatmeal still had a "this should be sweet" flavor but I will definitely do this again, especially since I'm trying to cut down on my fruit addiction.  LoL.  I can't wait to have it again tomorrow!

Anyway, we had quite a few things going on today.  Rob decided to bake up a storm because we had like 6 dozen eggs in the refrigerator.  Time to get cookin!  The first task was homemade pasta.  I convinced Rob to make Butternut Squash Ravioli.  We found recipes in my two cooking-from-scratch type cookbooks and got started.  We both worked on them together.

They were pretty good!  The pasta was a little too thick though but we don't have a pasta machine so I had to roll it out by hand.  I did the best I could!  They were still pretty darn good!

Next up was Angel Food Cake.  First, we had to make "medium peaks" with the egg whites... without a hand mixer.  You heard me right, we whipped up egg whites for about 45 minutes, taking turns between Rob and I, to get a nice meringue going!  I'm counting it as an upper body workout for today.  LoL

We didn't have cake flour so we used whole wheat.  We also didn't bake it quite long enough so it came out kind of strange.  It tastes really good though.  Its more moist than angel food usually is.  Still tasty! 

Now, I'm just relaxing with a glass of the apple stout (even better out of the growler!!!).  In other news, I'm feeling a lot better but I still have a lingering part of the cold.  I stopped taking the medicine I was using and I think that actually helped.  Tomorrow, I really need to work on getting in all my water.  I have been bad about that and I can feel it.

My eating was much better this weekend.  We ate out but I really felt like I controlled myself.  I didn't go crazy at any point and didn't have any ice cream (which was an issue last week because its in my freezer!  How did that get there?)  I think feeling better from the cold helps a lot.  When I am sick, I get pouty and cranky which leads to a lot of splurging!

Hopefully I can go for a little run tomorrow and see how it goes.  I think there will be a lot of sniffling and maybe some minor coughing but nothing terrible.  Half marathon is next weekend!

To end, some pictures of the cute kitties.  They were just being adorable today and the lighting was great in the apartment for photos!

Remodeling Day 3: Unhelpful Home Depot

We had the worst trip to Home Depot yesterday!  We needed to get another gallon of paint for the bedroom and headed over.  The man at the paint counter just stood there arguing with us!  We had gotten paint without the primer because we were going over flat white walls.  Well, held told us that we had bought the premium plus which has primer in it.  No amount of arguing would do anything so we just told him to just make the stupid paint. 

Off we went to blades.  There, we had 2 different people arguing with Rob about what kind of blade he needed to cut flooring.  They all kept missing the point that we needed a fine blade so we wouldn't splinter the wood.  Ugh!  Finally, when we checked out, the paint was $6 more than the other stuff so that means we bought the paint without the primer the first time like we said!  Worst HD trip ever!  Luckily the different kind of paint seems to have taken well and matched the other paint.  I was just hoping it would be ok since paint isn't returnable (even if they are the ones who made it wrong!!)

So that room is finally done painting!  We will take the tape off today and the flooring is going in on Saturday so you all have to wait until then :)  We still have a lot to do in the main room

My cousins will be over today to take anything they like/find sentimental.  Then I think we have a place for all of the furniture (or almost all, at leat the big stuff).  Once this room is cleared, we pull up the pink carpet and linolium and get to dusting, taping, and painting!  So as you can see, not much to report for yesterday.  I mostly scanned pictures after the painting was done.  I was shot by 9PM (usual bed time for me).  I don't take lack of sleep very well!

I did have some delicious foods yesterday.  I threw together a quick lunch.  I made this salad because I wanted to use my feta cheese... And I forgot to put feta on it.  LOL!

It was highly delicious though!  My coworkers laughed that I brought a can of tuna and a can opener in my lunch box.  I figured it was just easier that way!  Anyway, my mom made soup yesterday with some things she had in the fridge.  It was delicious!  She doesn't have a recipe, I asked.  She just threw it together (that is where I get my cooking style from!).  Anyway, it had beets, celery, spinach, onions, diced tomatoes... And I don't know what else!  It was very light and yummy

Today's meal selections are boring.  My usual omelet and oatmeal (I know, big surprise) and PB&J for lunch (another huge surprise).  I remember doing food blogs way back when and I would try to make each day different.  Maybe I should do a week of those again?  Hm...  Maybe after I'm all settled in!

Cookies & Chickens

It hasn't really rained here lately.  I'm having a party today that I wanted to do outside on the lawn.  What do you know, its raining today.  Bah!  LoL.  Anyway, I am having friends over tonight.  We had some very brown bananas in the house so I decided to look up some recipes on SparkRecipes.com.  I found a recipe for Peanut Butter Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Oh. My. Goodness.

Don't they sound amazing?!  Easiest recipe ever too so I got to baking!

I am making a funny face in that picture because I started to talk but I wanted to show you my apron I made last year and I just thought I looked cute despite the weird look :)  Haha!  Don't the cookies just look amazing?!  I just have veggies and fruit for the party tonight with hummus and olives and these cookies.  The basics!

I spent some time outside yesterday with the chickens too.  The babies are so cute!

They climb all under the mama hen for protection.  It is adorable to watch them just climb all over and around her.  She wasn't too happy with me being there with the camera though but she stayed there long enough for these.  Rob let the other chickens out too so I got some good pictures of them.  There are more on my picture website here so go check them out!