Easy Peasy

Last night I felt like making something different for dinner so I checked my Busy People's Low-fat Cookbook to see what easy yummy meal I could find.  I decided to make Mexican Pasta.  There aren't many ingredients and it literally took me 12 minutes to make!  Now, that's my kind of meal!

Combine 2 cups water, a 16 oz jar of chunky salsa, and 2 beef bouillon cubes in a skillet and bring to a boil.
Stir in 2 cups of elbow macaroni. Reduce heat to low. Cover and let simmer at a low boil for 10 minutes.

Turn off heat.  Add a can of corn and a can of kidney beans.

Cover and let sit for 2 minutes.

Seriously.  That easy.  It smelled delicious while it was cooking and it tasted great.  Jonathan wasn't so sure he was going to like it since it didn't have meat in it but he ended up enjoying it.

Next time I think I might try to put some chicken in it for something different.

For a 1 cup serving there are 214 calories and 1g of fat.  Pretty good!

This is what it looked like in our bowls.

The colors in this picture make it look not very appetizing.  But seriously, for the effort it took, it was great.  I'll be making it again!  Try it! 

Zebra Print Awning

You can't go wrong going to a restaurant with a zebra print awning outside for a girl's night out!  Talk about the perfect place!  This past weekend Lindsy turned 30!  I think she was trying to ignore it so it would go away, but we couldn't do such a thing!  Last night Billie, Courtney and I took Lindsy out for a girl's night at Saul Good and we had a great time!  Between the food and the atmosphere, Saul Good was so inviting.  (I'm so upset with myself that I forgot my camera!  And I couldn't use my iphone because of the dim lighting.)

Everyone I know raves about the place, but for some reason I had only been there once before.  I ordered the Hawaiian Burger.  It came with a pineapple and teriyaki sauce on it and was TO  DIE FOR!  And don't get me started on their seasoned fries.  I went and told the server that we were celebrating a birthday and they brought this cute plate that had "Happy 30th Birthday" written on it in chocolate and then had chocolate covered popcorn in it!  YUM!  For dessert Lindsy tried the cheesecake and (yes, I had to try it!) it was delicious and the other three of us got their chocolate chip cookie dessert.  It comes out hot in a skillet with ice cream on it.  wow! 

We talked, laughed and opened presents until we about shut the place down.  Seriously.  There were only 2 tables of customers left when we finally headed out the door! :)  We had so much fun.  We really need to take the time for "girl time" more often and not just wait for birthdays to get together like that!  Next time might be PF Chang's because Billie's never been there and Jonathan hates it so it always has to be a girl's night out place to eat. 

I really wish I had a picture of the outside of Saul Good.  It's just too cute to not like! :)  If you all live in the Lexington area, you have got to go eat there!  They are in the process of opening their second location in Hamburg so you have no excuses! :) 

Dang it!  Now I'm hungry thinking about that yummy food...

The Bad and the Good

Yesterday...

The Bad: As I was getting ready in the morning, the cord from my hair dryer got twisted up in the cord from my Chi (hair straitener for those who don't know) and my Chi fell off the counter and one of the ceramic panels broke off.  I was pretty close to tears and had to dig around under my sink to find an old school curling iron to use.  It's been so many years since I've used a curling iron that I almost forgot how!  I called Jonathan to tell him about this horrible turn of events and he told me that we could not afford to spend money on a new Chi so I would be getting a grocery store flat iron.  If you've ever used a Chi, you know that you can't go backwards after having one!  Needless to say I was devastated.

The Good: I ran 7 miles and survived to type about it!  You all, that is the furthest I have ever run.  Before that, I had run in a couple 10K races (6.2 miles).  Billie has been better than me about running in this snow.  It's been so yucky that I've only run two times in the past two weeks.  We got together on Wednesday to run 2.5 miles and I was huffing and puffing so I was worried about this 7 miler.  But Billie stuck by my side and 1 hour and 11 minutes later we had run 7 miles and it felt like a wonderful accomplishment.  Now I still have 6 miles to add to that in the next 5 weeks before the half marathon!

The Bad:  When I got home and took my shoes off I looked down and my sock was all bloody.  I've never bled after running.  I guess that means that I'm an official hard core runner now! 

The Good:  We met up with Tim, Lindsy, Kennedy and Jes to eat dinner at Chick-fil-a. (Hey I had earned it!)  Our church's high school group is going on a missions trip to Jamaica and 20% of the sales were going towards the trip!  So it was for a good cause.  We had a great time hanging out.  Lindsy's birthday is today. HAPPY BIRTHDAY LINDSY!!! So, she had a cake from work (it looked like a giant swiss roll!!) that she brought into Chick-fil-a and we all had a piece. Yum!  Then Tim and Jonathan took Kennedy to play on the playground while Lindsy, Jes, and I had a great time laughing and talking!  I love nights like that!

The Bad: I was so exhausted after that run that I felt like the words in my head would not come out of my mouth when I was talking with the girls.  I felt like I was slurring and all over the place.  It was the weirdest feeling.  They probably thought I was drunk (HA, yeah right)!  Drunk with running! :) LOL

The Good: When we got home Jonathan got out the superglue and FIXED MY CHI!!!  I used it today and it's as good as new!!!  You don't even know how excited that made me.  He's my hero!

New Look!

Do you like my new blog look?  Derrick agreed to help me by creating a new header.  I love it!  He even created picture where there wasn't picture to begin with!  He's pretty talented, although he won't admit it.  He says the guys on his team are better with that stuff.  He's our communications director and I'm just pumped that he used his skill to help me out!  My blog had been looking pretty shotty for a while and I was so sick of it!

Speaking of new blog stuff... Can any of you other Blogger users tell me how in the world I missed that there is a NEW editor???  I have been fighting with blogger on every post that includes pictures. I would get mad about why they hadn't updated their editor because it was soo un-user friendly.  I never go to the settings tab, but the other day I was clicking around to see if there was a way to change my blog name and route my new blog name to this http. (Does anyone know if I can do that?  Who knows if I'm even using the correct terms...)  While I was clicking around I saw that lo and behold the new editor has been here all along (actually I have no clue how long it's been available)!  I LOVE all the new options!  I think my world has been opened by the new strikethrough function!  Here is my MAJOR issue (and I really hope someone can tell me) where is the SPELL CHECK???  I'm a lost cause without spell check, so I've been cutting and pasting into Word to do my spell check! HELP!

Billie and I are off to do our long run today since tomorrow is going to be a busy day.  We're supposed to do 7 miles...I hope I don'tcry can't wait to see if my body can endure such torture!  We'll see how far we get.  The half marathon is coming up faster than what I want to believe!  I hope you all have a great weekend!

FOR SALE!

It's official!  Our house is for sale and I'm soo excited about it!  On Tuesday night, I had to work late and Jonathan texted me this picture of what he came home to!

Sorry about the poor quality of the picture... he used his iphone and stupid phone doesn't have a flash! :)

We're both a little nervous, but we've been toying with the idea of moving to the other side of town now for a few months and somehow this all came together with such little effort that we have to believe it's God's will.  A friend of ours (who happens to be the realtor that sold us this house) contacted us to go to lunch last week and after talking with him and doing a photo shoot (of the house of course!) the next day, here we are with our house on the market!  Can I say I'm excited?  Oh, I already did?  Well, I am!  I'm trying not to get my hopes up because since we're not in a hurry, we can take our time and find the right offer (hopefully there will be one!)  I'm sure when the time comes to move, it will be bitter-sweet.  This is a cute house and it was our first home so we have many memories.  But it's just that...a starter home and we're ready to find a lifetime home.

We'd really like an older neighborhood, an extra bedroom or office (since our office is occupying one of our bedrooms right now) and we'd like to be closer to my work, which in turn would move us closer to all of our friends which I LOVE!!!

We've scheduled Stanley Steamer to come on Saturday to clean our carpets and we'll be spending the weekend packing away stuff that is being stored in the guest room and office closets to make the house ready to show!  I'm ready to start organizing NOW! (It is a bit freaky to think of strangers going through your closets and cabinets, though!)

When I think about where we were last year at this time, it's pretty overwhelming to think that we were just praying to cover our mortgage payment each month and now we're ready to buy a new house.  God always has a plan.  We clung to that last year and now here we are.  It's pretty awesome.  It makes me emotional thinking about it (or maybe that's just the hormones! HA.  No, I'm not prego.)

A few bits of randomness

We got some serious snow last night! I had a 2 hour delay to work today and we're already delayed for tomorrow. It does interfere with all the work I need to do on Mondays, but it was soo pretty. With the snow drifting towards the house, Dakota can't go out the back door to go potty because the snow comes halfway up his body. I was going to get a picture of the pretty snow, but I couldn't find my camera. Doesn't that stink how after you "clean" the house, you can never find anything?

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Valentine's Day was wonderful. I was upset at first because I accidentally found out what my gift was by balancing the checkbook online. But Jonathan had a few other things up his sleeve that surprised me! We celebrated on Sunday and had a wonderful day together. After church we went to eat brunch at Joseph Beth's cafe. Unfortunately they were closed due to mechanical problems, but thankfully they were still serving muffins, coffee and quiche. So we had a great lunch and then spent some time wandering around the bookstore. I love doing that. Then we went to see the movie Valentine's Day. It was so cute! I enjoyed seeing all the stars in it! Tons of great actors! Then Jonathan had reservations at Murray's for dinner. It was 4 courses and absolutely wonderful. We both were overly stuffed when we got home! All in all it was a perfect Valentine's day with my sweet Valentine!

These pics are from my phone so they're not the most high quality. This is before dinner:)

We did a good job finishing off that yummy chocolate cobbler!

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Three people I work with have started blogs so I wanted to link to them so you call can welcome them to the blogging world! Say hello to Chris, Jeff, and Derrick they are great guys and I'm sure their blogs will be awesome! Derrick created the headers for all three blogs and I'm going to see if he'll help me out on mine since he's so good at it!! :)

Five Minute Project

I have a problem. Ok, so I have a lot of problems but this one has to do with my living room. Let's talk about the fact that we have lived in this house going on 4 years and I still have EMPTY picture frames. Don't judge. I know that's sad. About a year ago I printed a couple black and white wedding pictures off on computer paper just to fill two of the smaller frames. Well my two 11x14 frames have stayed necked all these years. Somehow I can walk past them every day and just turn a blind eye. I even had some wedding pictures touched up by Hillary, you know... Mckmama's sister. She did a great job. Too bad I've been too lazy to pick which picture I want to have developed.

That brings us to Sunday night when we had people over for Super Bowl. Jes walked in and said she couldn't believe that my frames were STILL empty. I laughed and mentioned that I was thinking that I'd just frame some fabric until I decide on a picture. She asked if I had fabric left over from upholstering my living room chairs. She though that fabric would look good.

Last night I got the wild hare to frame some fabric. While we were watching Chuck on DVR, Jonathan paused it to get something and I ran to the closet and found some fabric. I grabbed my cutting mat and iron and voila I now don't have an empty frame! Then we sat back down and finished watching Chuck. Man, I love that show! But seriously I don't even know if this took me 5 minutes. I'll probably switch out the fabric one day to a more modern print, but for now I have one more frame down and only one empty frame to go! Whoohoo me! And thanks for the idea Jes! I can always count on you:)

Before:

Cutting:

After:

What do you think of my FREE 5 minute project?

What's for dinner

I decided to make Beef Stroganoff last night for dinner. Its a meal I used to make when Jonathan and I were dating and somehow I forgot about it until a couple of weeks ago. It's sooo easy and delicious so I thought I'd post the recipe in case anyone else would like to try it! It's nice because everything goes into one pot = less dishes to wash. I got this recipe from Busy People's Low Fat Cookbook. The thing I like about the recipes in this book is that they all have 7 ingredients or less, are low-fat with the nutrition facts, and they only take 15 to 20 minutes!

This is what you need (plus some beef):

Cooking the meat, onions, garlic, and mushrooms (Sometimes I throw in some fresh ones too. If your husband is like mine, he will pick them out and throw them on your plate!)

Then add beef broth, egg noodles, and sour cream.

It's as easy as that! A delicious meal in under 20 minutes!

Here's the recipe:

1 lb eye of round beef, cut into 1/2-inch cubes (I just use Laura's Lean ground beef)

1 medium onions (I only use about a third of an onion or it's too onion-y for me)

1 4oz can sliced mushroom stems and pieces, not drained

2 teaspoons minced garlic

3 Cups beef broth

4 Cups egg noodles

1 Cup fat-free sour cream

Salt and pepper (DO NOT forget the salt! It is very necessary. Without it there is NO flavor in this dish. Billie - I'm lookin at you! :) )

-Over medium heat cook the meat, onions, mushrooms, and garlic

-Once meat is cooked, add broth, noodles, and sour cream. Turn the heat to high.

-Once boiling, turn heat to low. DO NOT COVER! Cook on low for 5-7 minutes.

-Remove from heat and let sit for 4 to 5 minutes to thicken. Add salt and pepper.

Calories: 223; Fat: 3g; Fiber:1

Try it tonight...ok, well maybe not tonight since it's Friday pizza night. Oh is that only at our house on Fridays? Ok fine. Make it tonight then! Enjoy:)

Daniel

If you remember a while back, I went to a Bible study at my church and it just wasn't for me... or for my girlfriends. It felt more like a waste of time than anything we would learn to grow from. And I came to the realization that we are all at different places spiritually, and that just wasn't the right place for me.

I went into work and talked with some coworkers about it and they suggested that I talk to the staff in the "study" department. So I did and I found out that our church loans out Bible study videos that they own! I started looking through all of the different DVD Bible studies and the one that caught my eye was Beth Moore's Daniel study. I knew a few people who had completed this course and said it was absolutely amazing. So, instead of paying $200 for the leader's kit, I "rented it" from church! Nice!Four of my girlfriends and I decided to meet each week to do this study and so far we are 3 weeks into it. We all purchased the study guides that have 5 days worth of devotions each week relating to the material. We meet on Wednesday nights and yes, that means I don't get home until after 9 or even 9:30 on those nights, but I think it is so worth it.

For me it's hard to keep up with daily devotions like the ones in this book, but I've tried to be really disciplined and I feel like I've gotten so much out of the piece of scripture that we have studied so far! Beth is amazing at showing new truths that I had never even thought of when reading or hearing the Daniel story. She relates this Old Testament book to our modern day society and it is just so relevent regarding how we should be living.

I'm so glad that we decided to start this study and I can't wait to see the other great things that God will reveal to me through it! And I love having a time to get together with my girlfriends to talk about deeper things than just the fun fluffy stuff we usually talk about:) I encourage everyone to get involved in a Bible study, they are so meaningful and helpful...you might have to try a couple to find the one that is right for you. Check with your church. They might loan out studies too!

**I'm also pretty pumped because Beth is coming to Lexington this summer and I'm so excited to see her in person!**

Cute Labels!

A couple weeks ago I entered a drawing over at Chelsea's blog, Roots and Rings and guess what... I won!!! I won a sheet of return address labels from AKM Designs!

Are these not the cutest things ever?? (They are obviously not the ones that came in the mail...I didn't think that would be smart to put our address on here.) They came in the mail today and I just LOVE them! I can't wait to send some mail so I can use them! I've never had anything other than computer printed return address labels, so these are just perfect! If you like these, go check out AKM Designs and look at the other designs! Their prices are really great too! (Only $4.50 for 30 stickers!) Thanks Chelsea!!!

Super Bowl Party!

One thing I love to do? Entertain:) I absolutely love having a house full of people. I just love the sound of all of my friends laughing and talking and having fun! So of course, I was all about a Super Bowl party. Derek, Billie, Justin, Jes and Tim came over to watch the game. Poor Lindsy was sick so she stayed home. We missed her:(

Jonathan told me I couldn't go overboard on making food (like usual), but we did have some delicious stuff. Some Chili and cornbread...

Some Queso... I got the recipe from The Real Housewife In Minnesota.

And some cute cupcakes on a football field plate:) that NONE of the boys ate! Not that I'm annoyed or anything... (And can you believe Lindsy made cookies when she was sick??)

Here are the boys lounging watching the game... classic boy pose.

Little Eli studying the football game...learning everything to know about the Super Bowl!

The girls:)

I'm so thankful for such great friends and fun parties!

Not Me Monday: TV Saga

I have never participated in a Not Me Monday, but I just couldn't resist this story, so here you go.

On Thursday I was not talking to my mom on the phone about the Super Bowl and how we usually have people over. I was not complaining that for at least the last 3 years our TV's (it's a dinosaur that takes up my living room and is so big it actually sits on the ground) color goes black or yellow every 20 minutes while watching anything HD. Nope, not me. I wouldn't complain about such things. Nor would I be embarrassed about such things happening when company is over. Nope.

After the call with my mom, I did not promptly invite some friends over to watch the Super Bowl. When Jonathan walked in from work I told him that I invited friends over. He walked into the living room and he did not say that he didn't think we'd be having friends over. WHAT?? Then he did not say the beautiful words... "We don't have a TV". When I heard those words, I did not get all excited inside but kept a straight face and said, "What honey?" (I didn't want to spend the money on a new TV, but how nice would it be to get rid of that enormous thing in my living room??)

You see, my husband worked at Best Buy full time during his college years and when he graduated in 2002 he gave himself this "top of the line, latest, greatest, 47" plasma" for a graduation gift. This TV has been through it all. And technology has advanced quite a bit since 2002, if you weren't aware. This TV was 36" deep! Seriously...took up my whole living room. And it has ROLLERS on it, if that doesn't tell you how antique it is.

{side note} When Jonathan and I were "just friends" my roommate and I wanted to watch the Super Bowl on someone's big screen TV, (and I'm sure I was loving a reason to call for an invite) so I called Jonathan to ask about watching his TV (then I get to see him...see how that works?) Well, the day of super bowl he told me that something had happened to some pixels and it was broken and luckily it was within the 3 year warranty by like one month so he was going to have it fixed. Well, being the girl that I was, I totally thought he was just trying to put me off so he could have other girls over... but of course i didn't care since we weren't dating..."just friends". RIIGHT. I did care. I just couldn't let him know that! How embarrassing! But come to find out, his TV really had gone out on Super Bowl! Ironic that this many years later it finally died 3 days before Super Bowl? humm..

Back to the topic. Jonathan did not get right on his phone to call up the manager at Best Buy who he used to work with. And we did not find out that there was only one more delivery time available in the days before Super Bowl! So, no we did not get in the car that instant (well actually after I changed out of my PJs) to go to Best Buy.

After many hours...ok so maybe not that long, but it felt like that to someone who thinks that all the TVs on the wall look the same so just pick one already! "We" choose which TV we want, which surround sound we want, and all the cords and accessories we need to get out of the dark ages of technology and into the HD age. (You know...one thing leads to updating another.) After all of this, the Best Buy guy did NOT tell us that the TV we wanted had already been sold and they were all out until Wednesday! Are you serious? So Jonathan did not walk back out on the floor, and find an open box of the same brand we wanted...just a little nicer one that we had picked out. (Well, by nicer I mean that the original price was $1000 more than the one we had picked out!) But since it was open box and the guy helping us was really nice, he discounted the open box TV a bit more and we did not end up only paying $100 more for a $1000 nicer TV. Hey, some things just work!

Then it was time to find a console since we will not be hanging the TV due to the fact we want to move within the year. After walking into just about every furniture store in town and nothing coming close to the Pottery Barn console that I'm trying to find for a Walmart price, we were frustrated! So on our way home when all the stores are closed, we did not see that Pier1 was still open and drop in. We didn't even know if they sold TV consoles, but guess what? We did not find almost EXACTLY what we were looking for at all the other stores... for WAY less than the cost of the Pottery Barn one that I really wanted!

Here are some pictures so you can really visualize!

Jonathan shedding a tear over his "baby".

Here is the before pic (make note of the key on the wall). Notice that the two shelves were necessary to hold all of our components and movies.

Here is the "after". He's pretty much in love with his new baby. Can you tell? Do you think I need to move the key to a different wall?

Look at all that stuff that we needed to store and hide!

This was the only console that had space to hide all of our crap!

Here is a picture of the depth of the old one! That's how much of my living room was taken up with that stupid thing!

This is the "after". Oh the beauty of technology.

So that's the story of how I reclaimed my living room! Hopefully we won't need to upgrade for another 10 years:)

College Girls and Snow

This past weekend, some of my old college friends came back to town to visit. We went out to a Hibachi grill on Friday night and had so much fun. I forgot how much we laugh when we are together. My stomach and cheeks were hurting by the end of the night from all the laughter! It seems so crazy that it's been so long since college. Wow, I feel old! But it's fun when we all get together and remember the "good times" and catch up with each other. There were nine of us that ended up going to dinner on Friday night. Then we went to one of my friends' houses so we could continue the laughter. Its wonderful to be blessed with friends like that! Here are some pics from our night!

Ellen, Sarah, Angela, Jessica, me, Michelle, Jessica, Tina, and Jessica (Yes, 3 Jessica's lived in one apartment with me!)

Angela and Jes. Man, I love those girls!

Angela and me. The last time I saw her was at her wedding in May in Florida! (do you remember my post about it?)

Why is it that girls always congregate in the kitchen?

Jess and me. Yes, she is prego with her THIRD baby!!! How exciting:)

Our attempt at a self-timer picture... a little off centered, but it's cute anyway:)

Ellen, me and Michelle

It started snowing Friday night and when we woke up on Saturday, we had a few inches of snow! It was so pretty! Jonathan got dressed first thing to go shovel the driveway (such a wonderful man!) while I made us breakfast. (I'm supposed to go run every Saturday morning...but not in this weather!) We had a great time hanging around the house organizing the office. Then after the UK game (we won!) we left the house to run errands. Jonathan even took me out to dinner...we'll call it a DATE! :)

Jonathan all dressed and ready to brave the snow!

Dakota enjoying the snow!

The view out our front door!

All in all, it was a great weekend. This week is a pretty crazy week at work for me. You might just find me under my desk sucking my thumb. But I will suck it up and put on a smile and get it done! At least I know this craziness only comes around once a year!