Operation Triple R

So, my weekend started off with a stake out. Not a fun boy-stalking stake out as I had hoped nor was it filled with coffee, cigarettes and discussion about life however it was my friends stake out and I just was there as the getaway car. She had a psycho woman follow her into the YMCA parking lot last weekend after a little traffic dispute then the woman blocked in her car, harassed and I believe threatened her. She wanted to get the womans license plate number just in case anything further happened. My friend asked if I wanted to tag along and of course I said yes!  The fact that she had an awesome name for the stakeout-Operation Triple R (Redneck Road Rage) may have swayed my vote a little as well. I wake up early on the weekend so I don’t mess up my sleep schedule too much and am always looking for something to do when nothing seems to be going on. We went to Dunkin Donuts, got some coffee and three munchkins for me (which the boy gave me for free–thanks DD boy!) and went to the YMCA to stake out. Originally, I had the idea of getting out of the car and hanging out in disguises in front of the Y. I wanted to dress up as a homeless person sitting outside the Y with a change jar and hidden walkie talkie. But she shot that idea down and said it wasn’t necessary-boo. So, we waited….and waited…..and waited.

We even had a canine friend in attendance

Yes, that would be Lincoln in my friends purse. Fear not, he wasn’t in there the entire time. I was in awe with the size of her purse since I believe in the mantra-bigger is better-and was joking around that Lincoln could fit in there so we packed him in. And you know what? He loved it! He was absolutely calm, appeared to be comfortable and am 99% sure he don’t go potty in there. It turned out to be a waste of time since No 1980’s something brown pickup truck was in sight. Oh well. At least I had a morning of good conversation and coffee right?

Saturday afternoon consisted of a lot of this:

While I updated my resume and searched for jobs, Lincoln napped and eventually I did as well. It snowed for about 10 minutes in Charlotte and I went out a walk but the afternoon mainly consisted of job searching. I got four inquiries about my resume between Saturday and Sunday so hopefully I am on the right track!

Saturday night I made tuna casserole. It’s been foreeeeever since I’ve made it and it’s a fantastic meal for when it’s chilly out. Nothing says comfort like noodles, fish and cheese. Ok, put like that it doesn’t sound good but combined together and baked, it’s super!

I took three cans of tuna fish and drained

Along with that ingredients were

 Half a package of No Yolk Egg Noodles (that I cooked earlier in the day)

 One can Cream of Mushroom soup

 1/2 shredded Monterrey Jack Cheese

 Chopped onion

Chopped mushrooms

 One cup frozen peas

1 tbsp chili powder

1 tbsp black pepper 

1/2 tbsp garlic

Then mixed together in a large mixing bowl.

Then transferred to a casserole dish, topped with 1/3 of shredded Monterrey Jack cheese (if you are not a huge cheese fan, you can use breadcrumbs instead) and let it bake for 35 minutes

Delicious! Plus it gives me a couple of meals to bring to work for lunch this week (yes, I am the annoying co-worker who heats fish in the break room) and it’s perfect for freezing as well.

I may have watched this movie one two three times afterwards.

What can I say, when I like a movie, I really really like a movie.

On Sunday morning, I woke up had some breakfast and went for a 45 minute walk. It was just cold enough that I felt comfortable all bundled up but not sweating and I felt terrific afterwards.

I put some ingredients in the crock pot to make chili and then headed out to go to see Black Swan and shopping at Costco. Black Swan was absolutely fantastic, it was very theatrical and thought-provoking, a nice change from what I usually dig. My friend has a Costco membership so I wanted to tag along with her so I could get some goodies. I also wanted to try one of their churros since I hear good things about them and it was out of this world!

I was expecting it to be absolute madness on a Sunday afternoon but it was pretty tame for Costco. I will have to hit her up to see when she is going again since I found some great deals but didn’t get too much stuff since I’ll be going out of town for Christmas. For $44 I got  all of this and a bottle of wine:

Holla, I heart Costco!

When I got home, my house has the spicy aroma of chili in the air and I was ready to chow down! I don’t have a set chili recipe but mixed it up a little this time.

Ingredients:

One can diced tomatoes

One can tomato paste

One can dark kidney beans

One can navy beans

One cup Morningstar Veggie Crumbles (browned with tabasco sauce)

1 tbsp Chili powder

1 tbsp Cumin

1 tbsp Garlic

2 tbsp Black Pepper

1 onion chopped

3 Hungarian Wav peppers, chopped

It turned out great. However, the Hungarian Wax peppers made a world of difference! They were spicier than expected and that along with the tabasco Veggie Crumbles made my eyes water. Luckily, I like chili that hot but I think I will stick jalapenos in the future.

Everyone have a fun weekend? I hope more exciting with mine regarding the nightly activities, I am so lame some weekends.

If you haven’t entered yet–remember to enter my Chobani giveaway–it ends Monday night!

Cupcakes, Chili and Sanchez

Happy Monday (oxy moron if I’ve ever heard one). This is going to be a little weekend recap of a post. I feel like I was on the go all weekend and really didn’t get a chance to relax. I complain about that but I kinda like it that way because then I can relax on the week nights and don’t have to worry about getting anything done. Hope everyone had a great weekend and is staying warm! It’s supposed to be 17 tomorrow night and I am stoked. I am one of the weird ones who digs the cold weather since I can keep layering clothes on until I can’t put down my arms and have an excuse to hunker down on the couch. Before I forget— thanks for everyone for commenting on Lincoln’s post on Saturday. He had a super fabulous birthday and appreciates all the warm wishes!

I had a Groupon for The Blushing Bakeshop that I’ve been waiting to use. They are located on the side of town and never really make my way down there however when I took Lincoln to get groomed on Saturday, I thought, why not and stop by. I’ve read reviews about them on Yelp, both good and bad and wanted to chime in. And let’s be honest, I just wanted some  cupcakes. There I said it. 

They have little cutesie names for them which I found endearing but at the same time confusing. I like my cupcake names to be straight up: Carrot Cake, Red Velvet Cake, etc. Who knew that Dan meant Boston Crème? I know I didn’t. I got 4 (of course can’t remember the technical names) but they included: birthday cupcake, carrot cake, apple cake and boston crème.

 I tried the carrot cake one which was delectable and everything I hoped it would be along with the birthday one. Their buttercream frosting was out of this world and almost as big as the actual cupcake. I will be going back there for the frosting alone.

Their cupcakes were a bit pricey (I believe $2.75 a pop) but think this would be a special treat kind of place. The size of them reminded me of Georgetown Cupcake  , which is a top-notch cupcake place. I had to place the remaining two in the freezer before I demolished them but my tummy was definitely happy after trying The Blushing Bakeshop!

 Right before I picked up Lincoln, I passed by Lorenzo’s Pizzeria— Another spot I’ve been itching to go to. Any time I think of Lorenzo’s, my mind automatically flashes back to the Van Buren Boys episode on Seinfeld (one of my fave episodes!) Lorenzo’s is also on the other side of town and I knew I wouldn’t be in that area again for awhile. I’ve heard this place is out of this world and has authentic NY Pizza so I stopped in to see what it’s all about. Mind you I’m going to NY this wknd so I won’t need to wait long to have some NY style [pizza (since I didn’t get some this summer) but any excuse for pizza right? I got a slice of their pepperoni to enjoy later but I saw they offered slices of Sicilian pizza which made my heart jump. I never see any places with single slices of Sicilian pizza so this is a good thing this place is 25 mins from where I currently live because that would just be dangerous.

The pizza was terrific just as I expected. I don’t know if it was the cupcakes, the pizza or all the excitement of Lincoln’s birthday but soon after I was in a mini coma and I couldn’t stay awake for the WVU-Rutgers game. Big boooooo to that. It was WVU’s last regular scheduled game of the year and I tried desperately to stay awake but kept falling back into sleep.  But then a few hours later I awoke to the smell of chili. I was competing in a chili cookoff on Sunday and made me chili in the crock ahead of time on Saturday. It was just about finished cooking and I enjoyed a bowl topped with shredded cheese and sour cream.

 I try to go all out when I make my chili and don’t have a set recipe but this time, I just didn’t put any heart into it. I have just been exhausted this past week with doing stuff around the house and trying to get everything done before I leave next weekend, I didn’t plan out what I would put into it and just used the stuff I already had–Morningstar Veggie Crumbles, kidney beans, onions, jalapenos, Tabasco sauce, cumin, chili powder, garlic and black pepper. Next time I want to add more beans like cannellini or black beans instead of the standard kidney beans. I made it extra spicy this time around by adding slices of jalapenos and more Tabasco sauce than normal and you know what? I won 4^th place at the chili cookoff  went to on Sunday! Yeah, 4th is nice and everything but  I am making a vow right now that next year I will place higher.

 Getting pinned with my 4th place chili  boutonniere.

Why do I look like a coffee toting mannequin?

There was a pup that’s smaller than Lincoln! Percy was absolutely adorable.

Source

 Sunday night  I went over to my friend’s place so Lincoln and I could get our Christmas pictures taken. We had a mini photo shoot and decided on three pictures for our Christmas cards. Lincoln was loving his Santa Paws shirt and even wore it to bed! It’s so sad though because when I bought the shirt it looked small for him but it ended up being too big. Poor little petite doggie. Here’s a few good photos we had.

 Every year I order them on Walgreens.com and they are ready the next day and can pick up there instead of having to worry about shipping +delivery. If you go to Walgreens.com and enter in the code CREATIVE you can get $10 off any $20 photo gift order through December 11! I picked them up tonight and am super excited—you gotta love a place that can make holiday cards in less than 24 hours!

I know many people out there are talking about the big Jets-Patriots game tonight. I love me some football but really don’t care about either team so when people have asked me who I want to win my response has been “Well, I am going with who I think the hotter quarterback is”

Or

 Verdict? Sanchez all the way baby.

 Go Jets.

PS–Win some VS snazzy PINK gear at Fashion Meets Food!

I Feel Like Chicken Tonight

The rest of my day off was enjoyable. Why can’t every day be a day off? I feel so much more productive getting stuff done around the house than when at work. That being said, operation win the lottery or find a sugar daddy is in full effect. I could really get used to not doing the 40 hours of work thing but wouldn’t mind it if I could do something I loved and didn’t have to worry about money. Sigh, let’s see this operation takes me…….

After Panera yesterday,  I had to pick up a few things at Wal Mart and found some Halloween items on 90% off clearance!

I have no clue what I am going to make with black frosting but for $.17 I will try it out! Then the sprinkles were only $.30, I should have stocked up some more. Thankfully they didn’t have any Halloween candy because that is the last thing I need. Want? Hell to the yes. But need, not so much.

I had leftover chili that I made on Friday for lunch with Food Should Taste Good Olive Chips.

These babies have been sitting in my cupboard for a couple of months but to be honest, I was kinda scared to open them up. I figured they would either be really good or really bad. The verdict? I think these may be my new favorite flavor. I love all things olive but recently started liking black olives but I would say I tasted kalamata more than anything.

Since the chili was more thick than anything (that’s what she said), I used the chips to scoop. I originally thought the chili was a fail but it was more of a thick, hot dip this time around. I made it with fresh peppers, onions, corn, cannellini beans and Morningstar Veggie Crumbles but not enough stock or diced tomatoes. I wish I would’ve saved more instead of throwing out some of the remains since I thought it would taste horrible.

Inspired by Devon’s Buffalo Chicken Tacos, I put some chicken in the crockpot with hot sauce and water and set on high.

 I didn’t have any of the ingredients for tacos but by making them in the crock, I could have chicken on hand to make a few versatile dishes this week. I will be feeling like chicken each night

Does anyone else remember that commercial or once again, am I aging myself?

The first thing on the list was a simple dinner of pulled chicken, green beans and brown rice sprinkled with chile powder. I’ve been craving canned french cut green beans this past week. I can’t do frozen green beans for some reason, only fresh or canned.I’m a condiment girl so the honey mustard on the side was essential.

A couple of hours later, I was craving something warm and sweet. I had phyllo dough defrosting in the fridge with an apple that only had a few more days left to enjoy so I decided to make  a few apple tarts. I cut up an apple, sprinkled cinnamon and agave nectar on it then microwaved for two minutes then scooped into the phyllo in a muffin tin

Covered with the remainder of the phyllo, sprinkled with more cinnamon and agave nectar then baked at 400 degrees for 17 minutes

These were absolutely delicious and hit the spot! They were so easy to make along with a quick fix when something sweet was needed. The only thing that would have made it better was some Cool Whip (said the same way Stewie says it of course)

Contemplating what I could make with the crockpot buffalo chicken, my mind naturally wondered to quesadillas. I’ve made the traditional quesadillas and even pizza quesadillas but I never thought to make buffalo chicken quesadillas. Once I thought of that while entering DOS codes into our with the times computer program at work, it was so on.

I took the shredded chicken and added chopped onions, fotina and shredded mozzarella cheese

Then I remembered I had an unopened bottle of this stuff in the cupboard, if you haven’t tried it—go out and buy some, it’s fabulous!

Added some to the chicken mix and spread on a whole wheat tortilla then topped with another and let cook for about 10 minutes

I mixed a couple of teaspoons of the wing sauce with a spoonful of ranch to make a zesty dipping sauce. The day I get sick of condiments is the day I die.

If you like buffalo chicken and like quesadillas–make these, like now. They turned out wonderful and I was a bit skeptical about using fontina but it melted beautifully with the mozzarella. I can’t wait to make these again!!

In other big news, my bestie just created a blog! She is writing about her training for her first half marathon in January, PF Changs Half Marathon no less so it will be rocking time (pun intended). She’s ran a few races in her day but never attempted a half and I am so happy for her! If I train, maybe I will meet her in Phoenix for it, you never know! I can’t wait to read about her progress and other fun, random happenings! Anywho, check it out—Thirteen.Point.One

Today, I took a beating mentally. It was my first day back at work after a three-day wknd (and that means I have a three-day workweek with Veterans Day on Thursday!) plus we got our credits assigned to us yesterday so jumping into that was interesting. The first part of the day, I was overloaded but soon found my groove into how much workflow would go. I also spoke with HR and my paycheck will be coming to me on Friday (grrrr) but it is more than I expected plus I will get my normal paycheck the following Monday. I can hold out until then and budget money, bring leftovers for lunch, etc. AND, I spoke with my mom today and she found a job! She worked at a newspaper in South Florida for 10 years then due to lack of sales, they laid her off last year. She has been depressed about not being able to find anything and been looking anywhere she can. Not only did she get a job, she got a sweet ass job at William Sonoma as a gift wrapper so let’s hope they hire her full-time or keep her on part-time. And let’s hope she takes that 40% discount and buys me a useful gift for Christmas and birthday!

With that, I plan on snuggling with this little man tonight. We got some Netflix to catch up 🙂

***Giveaway Action***

-Win some coupons for Terra Chips over at Eating Chalk!!

-Win Two Moms In The Raw products at Clean Eating Chelsey!

Another Day

Another dollar. We are still going through the training process which means sitting in a conference room, learning things that I will probably forget when I get my portfolio and realizing my company uses way too many acronyms. I seriously cannot keep up with all of them! I think I am going to make a cheat sheet soon so I can remember all of them because it’s just not sticking with me.

On a brighter note, we got a two-hour lunch today-holla! Of course, this was the day I brought my lunch so I thought “Why not go home?” I drove home and was out walking Lincoln 15 minutes later with lunch in the microwave

Looks can be deceiving huh? I would really like to know where this “colorful medley” they speak of is located because it wasn’t in my white glop in a tray. Hmmm, that kinda sounds like a sperm on a petri dish? Gross. Anyways, it was good, just not “colorful” I watched some VH-1 for awhile, ran errands and was back with an hour to spare. I received an email earlier in the day saying there was a little something something for me to pick up at the library…..

Yay! SATC The Movie Soundtrack is one of my favorite movie soundtracks out there so I was excited for this. I still haven’t seen the movie but I’m in no rush since I heard it was kinda meh. I listened to the soundtrack tonight and there are a few good tracks but don’t think it will be a favorite. Liza Minnelli does a cover of “Single Ladies” which is just fabulous and I love Alicia Keys remake of Blondie’s “Rapture”.

I was looking for something easy and filling for dinner. I made a salad with cucumbers, zucchini and tomato and home-made pizza using Harris Teeter Whole Wheat pizza dough topped with mushrooms, Morningstar Veggie Crumbles, fresh parsley and mozzarella and parmesan cheese

I liked this whole wheat pizza day alot more than the standard Trader Joe’s I normally buy. It’s about $1 more but I feel like I got more and had more substance. It’s not very often that Trader Joe’s fails me. Sadness.

I did three workouts in one tonight. I started out with Jari Love’s Get Ripped 1000 DVD that I got through Netflix. I’ve heard good things about her dvd’s and was into it at first but then she started using a stepper and I don’t have one. I was doing the motions by stepping side by side and doing jumping jacks but that got boring very quickly. The squats and lunges kicked by butt though and I did about 12 minutes of that. With my heart rate up, I decided to go for a walk which soon turned into a run. I’m running again with little pain-score! I’m nowhere near I was before but I am excited to start running again and feel confident that I can get back into it, we shall see…..

That’s what I like to see!

With that, a green monster was calling my name with a new protein powder–SpiruTein Chai Latte

I used half a packet so I wouldn’t be in overload

The color reminds me of pistachio pudding my mom used to make when I was younger-yum! I liked the flavor but like the S’mores flavor, not sure if I would buy an entire tub of it but it did taste like Chai which was great!

Thanks for the comments on yesterday’s post. It’s nice to see that I’m not the only one who has some issues with making female friends and such. Not nice to see b/c it kinda sucks but you know what I mean! Right? Maybe? Hopefully!

And that’s it. Yeah, kind of a boring day but oh well, such is life. Hope you all are having a good one!

***Win a Lululemon gift card and other goodies at Run Eat Repeat!

Fresh Express Yourself with Some Giveaway Action

As part of the Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program, Foodbuzz sent me some free coupons for Fresh Express salad mix to use in a recipe. I love making new recipes and trying new things but the driving force behind this is the big prize—a coveted chance to attend the Foodbuzz Festival next month.  Coveted by me at least since I am on the East Coast, absolutely love San Francisco, would love to meet other bloggers I follow, have a sister who lives 45 north of San Fran and have two extra vacation days to kill. So yeah, Foodbuzz? Choose me please.

I love salads, I like to think I’m creative and I like to eat. Seeing that I a trying to save money, I wanted to make something with ingredients that I already had at home. And what do I have at home? A whole bunch of random stuff. I could make a chicken caesar salad, candied pecan salad or something new and spicy.

Yeah, I said it.

Spicy.

Thinking spicy, this naturally  led to something Mexican themed. And what better to make after a long and rainy hump day then Taco Salad?

The ingredients: Black beans, jalapenos, onion, tomatoes, avocado, Morningstar Veggie Crumbles  with shredded Monterrey Jack under the crumbles mixture served on a bed of baby spinach with a creamy salsa dressing (plain greek yogurt mixed with salsa)

Delicious and had me reaching for my water–I couldn’t ask for me.

And you know what? I have extra coupons (thanks Foodbuzz for sending so many!) and I’m feeling generous so that means there’s a giveaway! 

 4 lucky readers will win a set of 2 coupons for a free bag of Fresh Express salad mix.

You have 3 chances to enter:

1) Leave me a comment on this post telling me what your favorite salad is

2) Link this contest back to your blogroll

3) If you link this back, let me know you’ve done so (on this post)

Easy, right? The deadline for this contest is Saturday October 23rd at 11:59PM. I will announce the randomly picked winners on Sunday.

Fat calves, lasagne, biscotti and Jack

 Hi all–hope everyone had a fantastic weekend! The past few days haven’t been too exciting—-recooperating from my icky state of being I’ve been in (I am blaming it on the weather changing from 40 to 80 within the day), tying up all the loose ends with my old job and trying to mentally prepare for the new one that I started today. Some regular eats

A good book

I’ve been in such a reading rut lately I welcomed a good book with wide open arms. I stayed up two nights in a row until 2A reading this and loved every bit of it. I recommend!

My last day at my hellhole job

But they brought me cupcakes for my last day and took me to lunch so I guess that somewhat made up for the four years spent in hell

This weekend? Well, it was spent relaxing and cooking. I did a little shopping for clothes and shoes for my new position but it didn’t end too well. I picked up some cute tops but then when I went to shop for boots, all hell broke loose. Thanks to me and my fat calves, nothing would zip up. I don’t have cankles or anything but they are thicker towards the knee. I would try on boots they proclaimed they fit “Wide Calves” AKA Fat Calves like mine and no go. So I got frustrated. And then I tried on some more and got even more frustrated. One of the employees saw I was having a difficult time and led me around the store in search of boots that would fit be and no good came out of that. Soon, I was that girl at DSW crying because of my fat calves and she tried to soothe me by saying “You don’t have fat calves-they are wide calves” and that made me cry even more saying “No, they aren’t wide or voluptuous, they are plain fat, thick calves” Oi. So, I left DSW with no boots and on a mission to find boots. I figured Lane Bryant would have boots for girls with fat calves like me and no go. They were all sold out. I finally found some at Avenue and bought a beautiful pair of knee-high suede boots they are way comfortable. Then, I saw that shoes were buy one, get one 50% off so I picked up a pair of ankle cut boots walking out of there spending $62-score! DSW girl-wherever you are–I’m truly sorry for my behavior. Like Daniel Powder, I had a bad day.

Another thing that took up a good chunk of my weekend was cooking. I am going to break this down into today and tomorrow’s post but the  first thing on the list was lasagne. I haven’t made lasagne since this spring and was long overdue. I am a fan of any meal I can make in bulk, freeze then enjoy at a later date. I really don’t have a set lasange recipe so this time I made it with eggplant, shrooms and Morningstar crumbles

A perfect meal! I haven’t bought Morningstar crumbles in a long time so it was nice to get to cook with it again and I have some leftover for other meals.

I tried this recipe for Fig and Walnut Biscotti I love biscotti but when I think about it, buying one for $1.50 at Starbucks is just not financially smart on my behalf so why not try making my own? When I was at the supermarket, I looked, looked and looked for figs but I couldn’t. I decided to throw mini chocolate chip morsels in the mix for fun because nothing spells fun like nuts and chocolate.

They actually turned out well. They aren’t stale yet so not totally like biscotti but I had one with my morning coffee and it was yummy. I was so pre-occupied with getting ready for my first day on the new job I forgot to make breakfast but luckily I brought a banana and apple with me. My new group seems really cool and they even talk! I’m not used to having co-workers who talk and are friendly so this is a nice surprise. A lot of them are younger (I am almost 31 but like to think I am 24 still) and seem nice. We went for lunch today at Qdoba, which again, so nice since my former team never wanted to go to lunch. I think I am going to like this position a lot more and it seems really challenging. Many of you know, I hated my old job. I was constantly working my butt off, never taking lunch breaks and just didn’t enjoy it…..at all. I was working in closing secondary assignments for the syndicated loan market (it sounds like fun, I know) and I was in a numbers driven environment and went above and beyond my goals each month but was never rewarded. I am still at the same company but in a different role working with smaller loans so it will be something completely different for me to learn but I am excited about it. I will rock this.

And for those who haven’t seen my Twitter (why aren’t you following me by the way?), Lincoln has a Howl-o-week outfit!

I now pronounce……

Captain Jack Sparrow!

Ah, I love that little bugger.

Lasagne

I got so much done today it wasn’t even funny! After proclaiming about how much I was going to get done after my last post, I got sucked into Regis and Kelly (which I love but never get to watch) but then, I got sucked into Dr. Phil.

I cannot stand Dr. Phil and just the sound of his voice makes me cringe. But seeing sometimes I am lazy and do not have a remote control, I sit there and watch him. Then I get in a Dr. Phil trance and soon I am cheering him on. Ugh.

I was then off to go to the grocery store but stopped at the Bucks first for a grande iced coffee with skim milk, one pump of Cherry syrup and two splendas.

I stopped and loaded up at Bi-Lo, Harris Teeter and Trader Joe’s. I go wherever the sales are for things I need and luckily, all are within a two-mile radius. And God forbid, I don’t stop at Trader Joe’s every other day.

I love that Trader Joe’s sells beer individually. One of my goals this month/quarter is to drink less beer but it is the opposite of when it comes to chocolate. If I have chocolate in the house, I eat it …..non stop. But sometimes I will get a hankering for beer and just want one or two. If I have it in the house that’s good but if I don’t I go out to the bar and end up drinking seven or eight of them and end up staying for a while.

I grabbed a bag of their  Flax Seed with Blueberries. I was telling one of my co-workers about it and we are going to keep it at work and split it. If you haven’t tried this—do so!!!

And Lincoln got some goodies also—all of this for $10—thanks coupons 🙂

When I was at The Teet, I got a 6 inch tuna sub on wheat with mustard, lettuce, tomato and pickles

As always, a fan was waiting for something to fall

The Barack was in town so it was all over the news……future running mates?

Has anyone seen this ad? Hilarious and so true.

I mentioned in my last point how I leave a path behind me since I am so unorganized and evidence right here :

It was a gorgeous day outside and couldn’t let it go to waste. I took some sinus medicine I had from my last sinus infection and suited up for the pool. I haven’t work my bathing suit since December when I went to the Bahamas but good news—less snug!!

I caught up with Gwen again

Beautiful day indeed

There were a few other people getting sun. Ummmm one dude who is ALWAYS there was talking to himself for a good 20 minutes. I walked past him to see if he had a Bluetooth but none so yeah, stay away from him. I got a good two hours of sunning in then went back in. It’s just not as fun when the pool isn’t available 😦

I saw an ad for H&M in In Style which reminded me of how much I love that store….and that we don’t have one near.

But have no fear—there a few in the DC area so I will be putting it up on the list of To Do next wknd!

I made granola bars afterwards since I am out of stock

The dry ingredients—I added vanilla whey and mini chocolate morsels for some umph!

The wet ingredients

The final product

Can’t wait to break into these!!

I haven’t made lasagne in a while and decided to break it out again! Just call me lasagna because I loooooooove lasagne

I made veggie lasagna with mushrooms, onions, baby spinach and Morningstar Veggie Crumbles

I use No Boil noodles since I really don’t have the patience to sit there and boil lasagne noodles

All layered up and ready to go

I just had to take a peek while it was cooking!

It turned out beautifully (I love burnt edges)

Not to toot my own horn but this is the best lasagne I have made to date. I love cheese but used only 2/3 of the ricotta it called for (the consistency turns me off) and less shredded cheese.

Lincoln always gets to lick the lasagne plate clean

Such a sucker for this dog.

I love and hate how much energy I have when I don’t have to work. I love it because I can get so much done in the day but hate it because my jobs the energy out of me and it kinda pays the bills. Note to self, buy lottery ticket tomorrow.