An update

Hey all–glad you all  are entering the I Love My Dog bumper sticker contest—I absolutely love hearing about everyone’s dogs so keep em coming! Lots going on so I am going to attempt to categorize this and make it light and easy

On the food front: A whole lotta randomness has been happening. With the weather getting nice out (you know, since it’s February and all) I’ve been craving less than stellar stuff….like nachos. However, it’s rare that I have tortilla chips at home seeing that I can plow through an entire bag in one sitting. So what to do when a girl wants nachos and doesn’t have tortilla chips? Make her own!

Instead of brushing with extra virgin olive oil like I normally do, I sprayed with vegetable oil non stick spray then sprinkled black pepper on them. I popped them in the oven and cooked for about 12 minutes at 350 degrees.

This was a terrific way to make nachos in a pinch and did the trick for me!

Friday was a stressful day at work. I was running late plus we had a two-hour training to get to from 10A to noon–who does that? What kind of masochist schedules meetings and trainings on a Friday? I just don’t get it plus Friday is my day to catch up on stuff and tie up loose ends. I turned to old faithful to relieve some stress—a gyro and crinkle cut fries from Showmars.

Oh Beatles even though I love you so, I beg to differ, sometimes all you need is grease.

A new sweet treat I’ve been having lately is a chocolate Vita Top topped with Pumpkin Spice topping from Smuckers.

I bought the topping some time ago on clearance and completely forgot it. When scouring my cabinets I found it but had no clue what I was going to do with it since I rarely have ice cream at home (their fate ends the same was as tortilla chips)

Do I need to say how delicious this is or does the picture do it justice?

Another sweet treat that I indulged in this weekend?

SHAMROCK SHAKE!!!!!

Can I get a holla?

Yep, that Shamrock shake didn’t live to see five minutes of life on this earth. I slurped it down in record time….and without brain freeze thank you very much. Last year, I didn’t have success with finding a Shamrock shake so you can imagine how excited I was to find one this year! When going through the drive thru, I told the employee at the window how happy I was about the Shamrock shake and he told me that he was happy for me and I quote “Your hair looks good, boo” Just what I needed to hear after getting my hair done. Love. Now the question is, when am I going to have my next Shamrock shake?

Shortly after, I had plans to go day drinking so my friend picked me up and we had plans to go to Angry Ale’s since I had a Groupon for $20 worth of food

We thought it was a little odd when we drove up no one was out on the patio on such a beautiful day. I guess we didn’t hear about the fire that happened there back in January. Oops, sorry Angry Ale’s! And for those of you who know how frugal I am, don’t worry, I already contact Groupon and got a refund!

We ended up going down the street to Brazwell’s.

There is when we had some real nachos.

Those nachos but my mock nachos to shame.

I went with the buffalo shrimp as my main course. Why am I saying main course? It was 3pm on a Saturday on a patio where I was enjoying $2 Coors Lights. I guess I am too lazy to change it, yes, that’s what it is.

The crowd started to get a little too early 20’s, pastel colored popped collar crowd (i.e. the reason why I cannot date in this godforsaken city)  soon after so we headed to Dilworth Neighborhood Grill to let the day drinking commence.

I guess Coors Light is currently the “it” beer because there too it was only two bones. Or maybe they think Coors Light just sucks and they were trying to get rid of it. Lucky for them, I will drink cheap beer. I actually prefer Natty Light over some others.

I was just really happy to be back in dress-wearing weather. It felt nice not having to bundle up in layers and rocking some sandals.

I love day drinking, I prefer it over night drinking actually. Of course the sad thing is that day drinking must come to an end at some point unless you live in Alaska. I hate the transition from day-to-night drinking like when you’re at a bar day drinking, a couple of hours pass, you walk outside then boom, it’s night-time. It always catches me off guard as if I don’t know the night is coming or something.

I indulged in some shrimp pad thai with shrimp from Noodles & Company. I wasn’t too impressed with their pad thai, it was more meh than anything. But then again, I really wasn’t expecting anything authentic from Noodles & Company when it comes to Asian fare. I got the shrimp pad thai and there was some chicken in it–good for me, bad if I was a vegetarian.

I had some oats with Pumpkin Spice topping + baked apple+cinnamon+flax seed

Holy deliciousness!

Roast beef sub with potato salad

On Sunday night, I made an interesting new dinner!

First I cooked some baby carrots in the crockpot for five hours on low with water and 1/4 cup brown sugar

Then the main event–cooking a whole chicken

I’ve never cooked one before so this was a new experience. I took it out of the packaging and just stared at it—what was I supposed to do with it?

I quickly googled what to do with an entire chicken and realized I had to reach inside and pull out the innards. Gross. Don’t worry, no pictures of that b.c I put on some gloves, grabbed it then tossed it in the trash.

I patted the chicken dry then rubbed with extra virgin olive oil, garlic, parsley and green onions

I cooked at 400 degrees for a little over an hour. Having a meat thermometer would have been extremely helpful

Such a beautiful bird! Luckily, it was cooked all the way through just right.

Dare I say, this was one of the best chicken dishes I’ve ever made. Having the bone in makes such a difference with the flavor and makes it more succulent. The seasonings I added were simple but just enough to make my senses come alive!

Exercise wise: I went to the gym on Friday night and did 45 minutes on the Precor AMT then did some upper body exercises such as lateral pull down, chest press, row and deltoid row

On Sunday, I attended  a free  Combat Cardio class at Dick Harrell’s Martial Arts studio courtesy of Yelp.

I was a little nervous to go to the class after watching the videos–this looked like another CrossFit type of class. But I am always up for a free class and mixing it up from my normal regime.

We started out with a little jog then ran in a circle inside while people with in the middle individually and practiced kicks, jabs and crossover jabs.

Then we partnered up (I had the same partner at my CrossFit class so it was good to work with someone who I’ve worked with before) and there were five station rotations-burpees ,  sit up passes (with a 12 lb medicine ball), wall squats (with a 15 lb medicine ball) sprinting (with a resistance band while your partner pulls against you) and kicking. Not that that is exhausting enough but we did that set four times in a row which totally kicked my ass. I can say with certainty that I hate burpees and surprisingly enough, the sprinting was my favorite. I now have parts of my body hurting that I never thought could hurt but it’s a good hurt if that makes sense? Plus I had a pretty sweet calorie burn–thanks Yelp for sponsoring this–I am looking into going to more classes there!

Job wise: Work still sucks. Even though Monday was a bank holiday I went in for a couple of hours just to get stuff done. I will be putting in my two weeks notice in April so I can get a good reference (hopefully?) then ride out the rest of my lease. I have plans to check out Pittsburgh at the end of March. I have a bunch of friends who live there, hear it’s a fun city, near WVU where I went to college and is cheaper to live than Charlotte. I’ve been looking into what I will do financially and think I am going to take out some of my 401K–just enough that I will be able to live off of and then still have a nice portion left so I can roll over into a rollover IRA. Still working on paying off my one credit card I have and paying extra on my student loans and car loan.

So yep, that’s what’s going on over here–a busy and full weekend!

Have you ever cooked a whole chicken?
Anyone else having gorgeous weather?? I am confused how it’s 70 and sunny in February but I’m actually enjoying it!