These Taste Just Like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups...Yeah Right!

I'll take you on a little trip back in time for today's post. 

Way back when I was travelling quite a bit for work.

And I was on a trip to California - I can't remember what event I was there for, but I know that I spent the first part of the trip with Dirty and the second part of the trip with BigSurprise.

I believe that BigSurprise and I were heading to Nevada, but there was some off days in between events so I was staying the weekend at her house.

For some reason, we decided that we would take a day trip to Yosemite National Park. So we woke up in the morning, had a little breakfast and started on our way with a map and maybe a water bottle or two.

A couple of hours down the road, we realize that we are in the middle of nowhere and we have no food. And I am starting to get hungry.

Then BigSurprise remembers that she has these protein bars in her car so she gets one out and we are going to share it.

I'm a little skeptical - I really am not a big fan of protein bars. So I'm checking out the packaging and analyzing my options when she tells me, "Oh stop - I eat them all the time - they taste great! Just like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups!"

Fine. I open the package and can immediately smell the protein. This is not looking good.

I take a bite and I almost hurl! Literally, this most assuredly DID.NOT! taste like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup! 

But we ended up having a blast and I never ate another Think Thin bar again!

One of the many pictures that we took of ourselves along the way. At one point we stopped at a designated photo spot and I asked someone to take our picture, complete with hand gestures. They looked like they spoke English, but they did not. So BigSurprise yells at me that I found the foreigners and they didn't even know what I was saying.

I assured her that the hand gesture I used was the universal sign for "take a picture."

At least she didn't tell us to say "chicken bone."

Break Out the Patchouli Oil and Tie-Dye

I'm becoming a hippy!

I am currently reading a book called Skintervention - and so far I am LOVING it!

It is all about healing your skin and hair naturally. Basically about what you put in your body and on your body. I'm just finishing the in your body portion of the book - she recommends doing the program for 4-6 weeks, I'm waiting for a few things I ordered to come in, so I'm hoping to start on Friday.

Part of the program is to drink a cup of homemade bone broth every day - and bone broth takes a real long time to make, so I've been wanting a pressure cooker for a long time now.

I've also been wanting a meat grinder for a long time now. Don't ask. I just want to make my own sausage and ground meat.

So yesterday I was talking to Match and she had both of these things for me!

I'm so excited for Friday to get here so I can try them out!

Rainy Day Schedule

I went out with the Littles (SuperFan, JP, and Lynsky) on Friday night despite feeling a cold coming on for the couple of days prior. 

And I paid for it for the rest of this weekend.

When I got home yesterday, it was rainy and dreary so I put on my comfy clothes and popped in Pitch Perfect for a rainy afternoon. 

Those cookies up there are paleo coconut macadamia chocolate chip cookies and they are DIVINE! Put together with a hot cup of coffee with coconut oil and you basically have my Saturday afternoon.

For a brief moment I toyed with the idea of going out dancing with BFL and her hubby, but thought better of it and got 12 hours of sleep instead.

And this morning I felt like I had been hit by a mack truck.

I'm pretty sure that cold that I was feeling earlier in the week, showed up with a vengeance overnight.

I've been nursing myself back to health with a steady regimen of homemade bone broth, hot tea, and Vicks VapoRub.

Here's hoping it works!

Fastest Girl In Town

I know you all are probably tired of hearing about the run this past weekend, but a couple more stories...

I promise.

When we signed up for the Mini Marathon, one of the questions was your 5K finishing time, so I plugged in 28 minutes. Based on that, they put us in corrals for the start.

So I get my confirmation page and at the top it says, "Projected Finish Time: 28:00."

Wizzuh-wha? I'm not going to run 5.4 miles in 28 minutes! I mean, that would be freaking awesome! But I'm not that fast.

So, I get to the expo to pick up my number and I go to the table for Corral 1. And I tell the lady at the table how excited I am to be at the first table and people are looking at me like, "Whoa, that girl can run fast!" When in reality I'm only running the Mini Marathon.

Sunday morning rolls around and Dirty, Banana, and I are standing at the Light Rail station waiting for the train and this group of Canadians starts talking to us. All of the sudden one of the guys looks at my race number and says, "Wow, you're in Corral #1? You must be really fast."

For a second I just looked at him. Then I clued him in to the fact that I was only running the Mini.

Flash forward and Banana and I are trying to find our corrals - we thought there were different ones for our race and we start asking people wearing RaceCrew shirts. With no luck.

Finally we go up to a table to ask, and the guy says to us, "You can't be in Corral #1, that's for the fastest runners in the world."

Excuuuse me, Officer!

How do you know I'm not one of the fastest people in the world?

Winning

Today I took part in the PF Chang's Rock'n'Roll Mini Marathon with Arizona Team Beef.

We had people in the Mini, the Half, and the Full Marathons. 

It was Banana's first race ever and she did the Mini with me - and she rocked it!

For me, I had a semi-secret goal of running the 5.4 miles at a 9:30 pace. Semi-secret because I only told one person about it. Everyone else heard that my goal was a 10:00/mile pace.

I unofficially finished the race in 51:14, which comes out to a 9:28/mile.

I was pretty proud of myself.

We were having some family bonding time at Sissy's house yesterday and when it was time for me to say goodbye, Biggie asked me why I had to leave.

I told him that I had to go pick up my race number. He then asked me if I ever won a race.

I said that I had.

He asked me how many races I won.

I told him every one that I started.

So when I got my medal at the finish line today, I took a picture and sent it to him via iMessage to his iPod touch with the message, "I won another medal!"

He responded, "Awsome cool good job"

Then he sent this picture: 

I'm pretty sure that means he's proud of me.

Oops, I Did It Again...

I was reading through old posts the other day and I realized that I already told you the story of SuperFan and the coconut-filled cookies...oops.

I was talking to Big Sexy today and she was telling me a hilarious story about her an event she had to attend last weekend for work. 

She works with men and they told her about the event, but didn't give her any real specifics, so she assumed it was like other events she attended and prepared for an outdoor event. 

She packed jeans and not fancy shoes, and put her hair up in a ponytail.

So she gets to the event and the guys are in khakis and blazers. 

It got me thinking about back in the days when I traveled with Honker. 

He would give me the general schedule of events we would be attending during the time we were together and I would pack accordingly. Then I would get on a plane and fly to California.

There was one time when we were traveling together for about a week, going to different events each night. I packed jeans and nice tops for the meetings because that is the kind of attire that was required.

So one night we get back to my hotel after the meeting and he's dropping me off and it's pretty late and he says, "Do you have anything nice to wear tomorrow?"

First of all, I'm offended by that comment. Everything he has ever seen me wear is nice.

Second of all, what?!?!

He says that we are going to have lunch the next day with a candidate for Governor and it would probably be good to wear something nice.

I said, "Well, I'll try. But I only packed for the events you told me about. And unlike you, I will be headed upstairs to the suitcase full of those clothes and not home to my closet with everything I own."

Men. I swear - they just don't get it.

Losin' It!

I believe I have told you before about my love/hate relationship with the Biggest Loser.

On one hand, I love, love, love that they are showing these people how to eat right and workout in order to lose weight.

On the other hand, given the opportunity to live in a controlled environment and workout all day long, anyone could lose weight.

Additionally, I think that for the majority of the people who are on the show, there is a psychological reason that they have let themselves get to this point and I don't think they spend enough time getting to the root of the problems.

This year, they brought Jillian Michaels back and I couldn't be happier. I have the biggest girl crush ever on her and would love for her to by my trainer.

The other thing I love about this year is Bob's commitment to CrossFit.

But more importantly, on the second episode of the season, the contestants all had to visit the doctor for follow up from their initial screenings to be on the show. 

The results were astounding, but that isn't the point.

At one point the doctor said to one of the contestants, "If I told you today that you had lymphoma, would you find two hours a day for chemo?"

He went on to tell the man that the health issues that he has developed because of his obesity are as dangerous as lymphoma.

I loved the way he put it though.

Why can we find time for chemo, but not the gym. That is obviously an extreme example, but you get the point.

I will be the first to admit, getting out of bed at 4:15 four days a week sucks. Seriously. I hate it.

But I know that if I'm not at the gym at 5 am, I'm probably not going to the gym. So I sacrifice.

And I love the person that it has made me.

I just wish that everyone would find that time to make themselves healthier.

Ain't No One Got Time For That...

The other option for the title of this post was, "If your friend jumped off the cliff, would you?"

So, let's talk Pinterest.

It took me a while to get into Pinterest - and even now, I spend like 80% of the time that I'm on there in the humor section - because let's be honest, that shit is HILARIOUS!

For example:

The day that I saw that card above, I was actually with Match and SuperFan and we laughed so hard that we cried. And we started thinking of actually doing it and then we laughed and laughed about what would happen if  girl actually rubbed bacon grease on her legs to remove the hair. Like she would be walking down the street with a bunch of dogs chasing her.

So when I just went to Pinterest to find this card to post here, I typed into the search bar, "bacon grease legs."

And this came up:

And there were three other posts like it. You guys, is this real life? Will people believe anything they read?

The other day I saw this post on Pinterest:

Now I'm super confused, because I'm pretty sure that lemon juice takes the enamel off of your teeth, which causes them to stain easier. 

I'm thinking that if I asked my hot dentist about brushing my teeth with lemon juice, he'd be against the idea.

The other thing about Pinterest is the ridiculous projects that people undertake.

Look, I'm all for craft projects, but crocheted twine into a bowl? If you have time for this, I'll give you my address and you can scrub the floor boards at my house.

 

And let's talk about those nails. Besides the fact that it would take way too much time to do that, it looks like hell. Why would you want your nails to look like that? 

People should just stick to my motto:

 

The Joys of Being a Part of My Family...

Sorry for the lack of posts - the keyboard for my iPad died and I didn't have the charger. And I'm good, but I can not type a whole blog on the keyboard on the screen.

Yesterday, I had a lunch event and then I needed to run to the grocery store to pick up a few things for the kids, but I had some time between doing those things and picking the girl up from school, so of course I stopped by TJ Maxx.

Because really, when you're trying to stick to a budget and pay off your car, stopping at TJ Maxx is always a good idea. (For the record, I got an electric wine opener for $10 - totally worth stopping!)

I browsed the shoe and purse clearance sections and then headed over to the HomeGoods side of the store, because you never know what you need for your home. (Shoot - I should have looked at towels...)

So I'm browsing the clearance aisles (trying to stick to a budget and all), when I hear my aunt Liza* talking to someone.

I'm a little ashamed of this next part, but I did try to avoid her. It didn't work though because she found me and we started talking. She asked me to look at this side table that she was having the store hold for my other aunt.

Then, we stand in the aisle waiting for the store employee to come back, having the most random conversation.

First of all, she asks me what I'm up to, I tell her that I'm killing time before having to pick kids up from school. I explain to her that Tela and her husband are in Taiwan, blah, blah, blah.

Then she begins to tell me about her friends who live in Tunisia and are moving back to the US in July. They want her to come visit before they leave, but the State Department recommends against travelling there. Oh, and bee tee dub, these friends are school teachers and their school was recently burnt down by terrorists.

Yeah, go ahead and travel there - great idea! 

Then she asked me why I wasn't working at my job that day, so I tell her that we work 4/10s, and Friday is our day off. She says, "I would rather be unemployed and homeless than work 4/10s."

Then she shows me this silver chair that is in her basket with a tag on it for $99 and asks me, "Do you know what I'm going to do with this table?"

Obviously I don't so she starts to tell me about this place in Phoenix that will dip anything you have in copper. Well, anything that is all metal. And don't I think it is going to be beautiful?

About that time, a woman from our home town spots us and says hi, so we say hi and move into the aisle a little, where Liza asks me what her name is. (What I didn't tell you before is that Liza is hard of hearing and talks really loudly.) So I tell her the lady's last name because I couldn't remember her first name (strange for me, but I was extra stressed out about her yelling in the store aisle). Then she yells out, "oh, Sunny! She gave me a cat once."

 Then she starts to tell me that she and my other aunts will be getting together for coffee tomorrow because the part of her computer that let it connect to the internet, but not the modem, this other part, it broke. Like when she would try to connect to the internet she would have to try like 40 times before it would finally connect. So she called her internet provider, which no one has ever heard of, Wild Blue, and they were bought by another company and they had a better deal which saved her $20 a month and was way faster, so she signed up for that and then the guy came out and set it up and when he tried to connect, it wouldn't work and he determined that it was her computer. Then he told her that it would cost her way too much to send the computer back to Sony. So she went to buy a new computer, but she had to get all of her files off of her old computer, like her resume because she would actually commit suicide if she had to type all of that again. So she plugged a flash drive into her computer and put all of the files on it, and then put it on her desk. But then her rottweiler puppy apparently took it. She has to remember that at this stage anything that is at his eye level he will take. She had to vacuum yesterday to find the back of the DirecTV remote. He doesn't actually chew things up, just hides them. And sometimes takes them outside. So she has looked everywhere for this flash drive, but it is missing. So she gets a new one and plugs it into her computer and like half of her files are missing and the ones that are still there, when she opens them, they are in all of these numbers and letters - like in a secret code. So she called XouXou to ask her and Xou asked her if she copied them or moved them and she said, "You're asking the wrong person." So if I'm available tomorrow at 10am, I could meet them over at my other aunt's house for the great computer repair.

Thank the teeny tiny baby Jesus her cell phone rang then and she took the call, then stood in the aisle and yelled at whoever was on the phone that she couldn't hear them. And I ran out of that store as fast as I possibly could - after purchasing my electronic wine opener.

God, Grant Me The Serenity...

...To make it through the rest of this week without killing these kids and dogs. 

I'm telling you what, I have a new-found respect for single parents. I mean, I'm sure that families with two parents have it hard too, but Lordy, Lordy!

For the most part the boys are well-behaved, but they are still 13-year-old boys. And they outnumber me.

And for some reason, this week at work is stupid crazy.

I.just.need.to.make.it.to.Saturday.

Then I am going to run my weekly mileage. And then sleep all day on Sunday.

Seriously.

Tonight the boys went on a walk and they were supposed to be home by 7:30. At 7:40 I texted them, "Where are you?"

They responded, "Almost home :)"

Like adding a smiley face was going to make it all ok. 

The Way to a Man's Heart

For my entire childhood my mom cooked dinner nearly every night.

And it typically wasn't something out of a box - it was real food. It began raw and she made it edible.

I didn't like everything, but I tried everything. That was the rule.

And what she cooked was what was for dinner. Period.

I can look back now and thank her.

As soon as we got old enough to understand, she also taught us that the way to a man's heart was through his stomach. So we girls learned how to cook too.

And don't be fooled, Bunner learned how to cook as well - he can whip up a mean dinner with only frozen vegetables, peanut sauce, chicken, and ramen noodles.

I previously mentioned that I am spending eight days with Tela's four children - thirteen-year-old triplet boys and their ten-year-old sister.

Yesterday, after church, I noticed that there were some bananas just about ready for bread, so I said to the little girl, "What do you say we make banana bread with these bananas?"

Her response nearly made me cry. She said, "We can make bread with those bananas? Don't we need a mix or something?"

Which made me realize that I should thank Match for teaching me these skills so long ago.

###

When I was in college I was an RA and one of my co-RAs had a sign up in her room that said,

It may be true that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, but sometimes it is much more satisfying hacking your way through the rib cage.

Harder Than You Think

This writing-very-day business is harder than you think. 

Especially on Fridays that are spent grocery shopping, cooking, and packing for a week staying with Tela's four children while she goes to Taiwan with her husband.

So I have to pull one out of the archives for you...

When SuperFan was younger, (and probably every other week now), she wanted to be a chef. So she did a lot of cooking and baking and experimenting.

When she first started baking, her chocolate chip cookies were delicious, but for some reason, they would never spread out when they cooked - just stayed rolled up in balls. 

So, one time she baked some chocolate chip cookies, and true to form, they stayed in balls as they baked. So she put them in a container to share with the whole family. 

We were all sitting around the kitchen table and Bunner was enjoying some cookies. If I remember correctly, he grabbed two or three of them and sat down with the rest of us.

One bite into his second cookie, and he spit it out - yelling, "What in the hell is this?" He holds up the second half of the cookie to reveal that it is filled with shredded coconut.

SuperFan looks over and says, "Oh, I was looking for that."

What? You filled some cookies with coconut and forgot to mark which ones they were.

It was like Russian Cookie Roulette. 

This Shit is Out of Hand!

You guys - we have taken laziness to the next level in this country.

I'm ashamed.

Seriously, I can't believe I am even typing this post...

This morning, as I do most non-CrossFit mornings, I was watching/listening to CMT while I put my makeup on. 

So I hear a commercial for "Hydroxycut Sprinkles" - are you effing kidding me? 

It was bad enough when people were taking pills, but now they can't even do that - they just need to sprinkle their diet pill onto their food.

Ok, whatever, I'll get over that. The next commercial though? That one threw me right over the edge.

I am not kidding when I tell you that it was a commercial for dog diet pills.

For the life of me I can not remember the name of the product, so I googled "doggie diet pills" and I was appalled at the number of results it yielded! 

How about get off of your fat ass and take your fat ass dog for a walk?

Or whatever happened to portion control? I mean seriously, your dog can't get their own food - you are solely responsible for the amount of food that they are exposed to. 

I'm so disgusted!

Get It Together

Look how I already missed one day of writing...

Things are not starting out good.

The truth is, I was in full on recovery mode yesterday.

Every now and again I forget that I am 31 years old and I get a little crazy.

I made it to CrossFit this morning though, and hit a 2kg PR on my 3 rep deadlift. And somehow, in the middle of the workout, I figured out how to string double unders together and got like 20 in a row. It was crazy!

But my head has hurt all day long, and I'm pretty sure my body is rebelling from all of the junk I ate over the holidays. 

So I'm pulling it back together. I'm getting back on a routine and getting my eating in order.

Tomorrow will be the first day of my yoga commitment. I'm not looking forward to it.