Coffee Date

“Sunday coffee sounds perfect. Can we do earlier on Sunday?”
“Sure… uh… what time exactly is early?”
“11 or 11:30?”
“Perfect! I was really nervous ‘early’ was going to mean 8:00 and I would have shown up looking pretty rough…”
“Trust me, I would have too! I know how your weekends go… there are rules to follow!”

This girl totally gets me.

Which is why she is awesome.

Love her!
On a side note- does it bother anyone else that the flower on the vase is broken off? I picked at it the entire time. I wonder if she noticed...

Sarena from Non-Dairy Queen happened to be in Chicago with her husband all weekend and was darling enough to meet up with me for coffee and girly gossip before they headed back home!

If you’ve ever read her blog, you know she’s a sweetheart.

If you’ve ever read mine, you know I’m a…

Well.

I’m honestly not sure. Guess you could fill in the blank. Many answers would be acceptable. Either way, I was excited she wanted to hang out.

We chatted away nonstop over coffee. Luckily, she didn’t judge me and the massive breakfast burrito I ordered to cure my grogginess from the late night before.

Because not all nights are low profile…

Twinsies! Photo credit goes to the only other guy at the cafe who was very nice being as how we interrupted whatever work he was doing. Thanks sir!

After sadly getting ready to leave and hugging like 10 times, we parted ways.

She had plans for the day and I had a mission to beat the rain home.

However, as the girl who is easily distracted, I made a quick pit stop on the way back to the train stop.

This is one of those things I've seen from far away, but never up close. I'm a total nerd when it comes to all the random buildings/sculptures in Chicago. Rain be damned, I had to take the risk to see it!

“Agora” is definitely one of our creepier sculptures. But still kind of cool to see because of how big it is (over 100 9-foot headless men).

Afterwards, I retreated back to my respective spot on the couch to watch Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

You guys were right. Don’t watch with kids or parents.

As disturbing as it was, I still slept like a rock. Exhaustion trumped fear. Which is good. The early morning workout was calling my name.

After some resistance training via the windy walk to the gym, I did my standard routine as of late, which includes 22 minutes on the stairmill and 20 minutes on the elliptical. Followed by a visit to the big bad weight room to pretend to know what I’m doing do a few random arm and ab machines/free weights.

On the walk back home, I noticed the increase in the amount of runners hitting the streets.

I then noticed how much I’ve been missing my regular outdoor running.

I should do something about this.

Tomorrow, of course. I’ll let the kids in Boston do all the work today. Good luck, everyone!

Times are a Changin’

Happy Monday!

Wow. Considering the time change really screwed me out of a full night’s sleep, I’m quite perky.

This is weird.

But understandable. I am in the beginning of a 4-day work week. Never a bad thing.

And I really don’t mind Monday. It’s a day of recharge, reset and general detox.

Instead of this:Not a healthy diet does champagne and cheap beer make.

And after a day of indulgence in the two (and fourth meal at a late night mexican spot like I said we always do), all I really want to do is feel refreshed. Solid breakfast. Salad or soup for lunch. A dinner that doesn’t involve grease. 

My insides cry tears of joy when Sunday rolls around. It’s a beautiful thing.

Getting the “living in excess” out of my system is important. At least for a few days.

Only problem is I’m SUPER lazy on Sundays.

Enter frozen food. And whatever else is in the refrigerator. In this case, it was all the necessities for a super bomb turkey sandwich.

Shout out to Mizzou and their #2 seed! Woot woot!

On toasted wheat. I really only like bread toasted.

And you know I’m right when I say toast is one of the best smells in the entire world.

No really. It is.

Oh and yes, I’m trying to bring “super bomb” back. So far it’s not working. What gives?

Through the Foodbuzz Tastemakers program, I got the chance to try out something of my choosing from Alexia’s frozen foods.

This is one of the first times I’ve ever made my own frozen fries. Not sure why I never buy them for myself, but it’s possibly because they’re viewed as a “treat” and order them when eating out because they’re “just not the same”. I’m weird. 

But I’ve seen the light. These were delicious. Alexia does good work because they way more crispy than I assumed they’d be- considering they’re baked, not fried. My mistake.

Kinda like the mistake I made by freaking out and spending a solid 5 minutes trying to figure out if the time on my alarm clock was the right one or not.

It was. I panicked for no good reason. Typical.

Some things never change.

Can’t Resist

Sundays are meant to be enjoyed.

How you enjoy them are completely on you.

I tend to spend mine doing the things I do best.

A low key workout… Catching up with my dvr… Reading…

And consuming every single cookie in my sight.

After making another giant cookie for just myself, like I did last week, my friend Annie called to see if I wanted to go out and grab something of a sugar-infested nature.

Who am I to turn that opportunity down?My just “going along to grab some coffee” turned into picking up a small butter cookie and then helping Annie finish off a giant piece of carrot cake.

Never say no to dessert.

No really, I mean it.

That philosophy is also one of the reasons I spend so much time at the gym. But whatev.

Another philosophy of mine is to spend as little time in the kitchen on a Sunday as possible.

Enter more crock pot greatness.Funny how I just said I never eat steak and here it’s making a second appearance in less than a week.Straight from the farm. It’s how I like my beef but not my boys.

The cookbook was broken open once again- we used a steak dumpling recipe as a guideline for our own concoction.Minus the celery, of course. Because no one actually likes it. Fact. We also switched out the “dumpling” part for noodles. Because noodles look fun. We had them on hand. And the point is to be lazy. They won out by a landslide.

While I was out getting coffee and cookies, this bad boy did work. And I came home just in time for this:From what I’ve experienced, 4 hours seems to be the magic time for potatoes and onions to cook to perfection.

And yet again, a successful meal that required little more than throwing together a bunch of things from the refrigerator/pantry. A successful meal to be enjoyed while watching 4 football teams you could care less about.

Yeah. I said it. My focus has already switched to basketball. Go Bulls.

Happy Monday everyone! I’m especially happy because the snow is slowly disappearing and the temperatures don’t make me hate life. That single digit crap was really working my last nerve. As was seeing all the yellow snow in my dog friendly neighborhood.

Is it Spring yet?

Keeping the Streak Alive

Oh good! You’re back!

Making sure I actually ended up running that 5 miles I put off all weekend, huh?

Well no worries- totally did. Not the fastest- an 8:36 pace, which is a few (or 10) seconds slower than normal. But after a night of crappy sleep and a long Saturday of college basketball, football, friends, and a pyramid of beer cans, I’ll take what I can get.

5 miles is still 5 miles. And I still celebrated accordingly.

Maybe a little too much. A cookie craving occurred and it was so convenient that Picky Palate’s giant chocolate chip cookie she made around the holidays popped into my head.Quite easy to make (not a good thing) and probably equal to 2-3 regular-sized cookies, but at least you don’t end up with 2 dozen more just like it…

Oh and she states it’s “one serving for Santa”.

Um. It’s also one serving for Amy.

Let’s not comment on that.

We call it Sunday Funday for a reason. Mine includes cookies.

And lots of beer.Juuuuusssssstttttt kidding.

Well, not about the cookies. But about the beer. I didn’t drink it so much as throw it in the chili being made. Even though the roomie was out of town, the streak of Slowcooker Sunday was kept alive. She’s not a fan of chili, but it’s one of my favorite things, so it made sense to make it in her absence.

Pretty sure it’s been mentioned before, but I don’t often cook with recipes. So my chili comes out somewhat different each time. This round involved adding sweet potatoes.That’s why the beer came into play. It was fun in last week’s beer cheese soup. And I needed more liquid. Why not?

There’s a good chance I’ll never make chili without beer again. Who knew a lil’ 312 would add so much flavor? And since I make my chili ridiculously spicy (see entire packet of taco seasoning and more than a few jalepeno slices in attempts to completely burn a hole in my stomach), the sweet potato brought a nice balance to it all.Plus, the sweet potato just makes it that much more healthy, right?

Right.

Sadly, the slow cooker did its thing, but I was too late to enjoy it while enjoying watching the Packers lose. However, it was ready just in time for the Golden Globes Red Carpet. Nothing makes me crave the hearty comfort food more than watching ridiculously beautiful, toned, and tanned people prance around gracefully in gowns and jewelry that cost more than the house I live in.

Sigh.

More tan in a bottle is now on the shopping list.

At least I’m working on the “toned” part today. My friend Annie knows my issues with strength training (and how bored I get), so she not so much invited me, but insisted I go with her to a new class at her gym. It’s called “RIPPED”.

If you don’t here from me tomorrow, you know what happened.

That is all.

Deserved

If you were to run across my friends and I on a night out, it may seem we don’t get out much.

This is not actually last night, but a good representation of our standard weekend night out together. Last night my camera battery was dead and the iphone gave me less than desirable results. Sh*t Happens.

This really isn’t true.

We get out pretty often. We’re just a little strange sometimes. Fun, but strange. Like when the practiced dance move for the majority of the night is the robot.

Three hours of the robot really works the core, by the way.

Enough to where all you resort to doing on a Sunday is laying on the couch and watching Christmas Vacation. It’s only another 350 days away. You can never be too prepared.

Enough to when you actually do go to the gym, it’s a very light workout of 20 minutes on the stairmill and an easy-paced walk.

Enough to where it has been decided that Sundays should be considered “Slow Cook Sundays”. This shouldn’t be a surprise. Between all the vegetable soup and chili made in that thing this season, it seems only natural we finally come to this conclusion.

After a soup and salad week, no missed workouts, and an all-night dance party, the roomie and I were both on the same page.

We wanted comfort food.Or, more importantly, cheeeeeese.

On Friday night, as we were watching Beauty and the Beast (clearly Friday night was reserved for rest and recharge), we flipped through my Betty Crocker cook book.

Yeah- a real cook book. Which Bailey held and read out of as I threw everything in the pot.

Teamwork.

We chose a very basic beer cheese soup recipe.Obviously, this means we got to use the good stuff.

But because we pretend to beare adults and know we need our vegetables in order to lead healthy lives, potatoes and broccoli were an extra addition. People love cheesy potatoes. People love broccoli and cheese. Smart move, eh?

One potato, two potato, three potato, four...

Then it was just a matter of waiting…And waiting…

And really starting to get hypocritically annoyed that the slow cooker was taking so long.

But after 5 hours?Perfection!

In hour 4, we added a little thickening (flour) because it was a little too thin- assumably because we used fat free milk that was on hand instead of whole milk like it called for.

I would feel weird about typing out a recipe from a cook book, but it’s quite similar to this one with the addition of potatoes and broccoli. Except we don’t like celery and couldn’t use the onion I had because it was sorta rotting in the refrigerator. Whoops.

Either way- easy peasy. As any lazy Sunday dinner should be.

Now if only I could have a lazy Monday.

But alas, half marathon training officially starts today. So laziness will have to wait another week.

My crockpot can’t wait.

Now please excuse me. The robot was mastered this weekend. So I’m gonna go practice the moonwalk in front of my mirror. Laters!

Small Celebrations

OMG guys. I slept until 7:45 AM.

This is kind of a big deal.

Fine. Don’t celebrate with me. Roll over and go back to sleep.

But I’ll continue to celebrate.

Because it’s the latest I’ve slept in WEEKS.

Could have something to do with how exhausting yesterday was.

Including the late night out. It was my friend’s birthday. She rented a trolley for a pub crawl.

Best idea ever.

I really only was with them for the end of it, but still reaped the benefits of bar hopping without having to deal with cabs or the el. WIN.

Not a win? Sitting next to one of her friends who discussed how lonesome it was to be a trader who works for himself. Then discussing the ins and outs of his volatile week.

Good thing I know SO much about finance. And am SO interested in the stock market.

Oh wait…

But I kept amused. My attention instantly perked up as soon as he started to compare himself to Chuckie.

Yes, the doll from the cheesy horror movies.

I have no idea why he’s still single.

ANYWAY, even if I stayed longer than I really wanted, there were other things that led to my ultimate point of exhaustion.

I ran 3.5 miles. On the lakefront. My friend and I had bad timing. Again. So I was running solo.

This was for the best.

Why? Well I’ll tell you why. Because I ran down the lakefront path as I always do. And got to the turn around point.

Normally, I’d have another 2ish miles left.

Then again, normally, my stomach doesn’t start to revolt. I blame the shenanigans from the night before.

Not that it was a surprise. But it was frustrating, nonetheless. So I pouted the 4 freakin’ miles home. Totally not planned well.This helped.

Or at least I hope it does. Because this is a version of the same lunch/dinner I’ve had all week.

Still have 4-5 ears of corn left from our accidental hoarding of garden vegetables.

Not that I’m complaining. It has been fantastic. Although the people at the grocery store are probably ready to send out a search party.

They’ll have a tough time finding me this morning, though. After this second cup of coffee, I’m off to meet up with a few fantastic ladies. One who actually ran the Rock n’ Roll Half this morning!

I’m going to celebrate by vicariously living through her stories and eating my weight in breakfast food.

It counts, right?

Feeling Back to Normal

Thanks for taking pity on my attempt at the long run.  You guys are right- 6 miles are still awesome.  But I wanted that 7th and 8th so bad! I really had a hard time deciding to stop. But it was either that or start taking walk breaks every quarter-mile. And that thought was just miserable.

But that’s behind us now. Today is a new day. And I’m about to give it another go. After I post this and give myself a pep talk. In the bathroom mirror. 

“… and gosh darnit people like you…”

Wait… let’s get back on track.

After a recovery period that included Waiting for Superman and a few SNL reruns, I woke up on Sunday feeling awesome. Or at least ordinary. Seriously guys- Friday night’s shenanigans left me hurting. Even my friend let out an “aaaawwwww” as he walked in on Saturday night when usually he just points and laughs. Could have been the fact that I was buried under multiple blankets with no makeup on and a massive glass of water on the coffee table.  If that doesn’t say “pity me”, I don’t know what does.

Either way, Sunday morning brought promise. Until I had a sip of coffee.  Bleh.

My coffee maker had been on the fritz for quite some time. But enough is enough. I sipped the rest of it slowly while browsing the Sunday ads for kitchen appliance sales. 

Coincidently, Mon texted me about her plans to hit Target at some point before we go to dinner later.  I invited myself along. All that was on the list was a coffee maker and face wash.

As we entered the aisle, Mon goes “oh! I still have the old one I had before my Keurig. Just take that one.”

Score! But of course Target sucks you in.  We found the clearance aisle…Gift bags for 50 cents?  What? A box of chocolates for $1? Bags of peanut butter M&M’s 90% off??? 

Went in for 2 things.  Left with 15. 

You got me again, Target. You got me again…

Later on, after a quick Shred and elliptical workout, Mon and I had an early dinner at Salsa 17 to use another one of our Groupon purchases. Sure, the first time we used it, there was a bad taste left in our mouths with the crowds and lackluster service. But we still had another Groupon that needed to be used.  Why not go at on off time? Like 3:00 in the afternoon?

We even beat the senior citizens there.Excuse my teary eyes. This was just after I was trying to re-enact the lastest episode of Community.

Donald Glover leaves me in hysterics every week.

Anyway, after a lovely dinner that was exactly like the last time we went (those enchiladas are freakin’ delish), we retreated back home to watch Red and break into the chocolates.Sorry about the mess.  I love that you can see the sweat pants I wear over my gym clothes. They were drying out because I had to walk through a down pour… stupid rain.

But anyways, waiting even 6 hours from when I bought the chocolate was a big deal.Aaaahhhh…. I love discount holiday candy. We took down all the caramels. The truffles were pretty much left behind. Not that I don’t like truffles (because I do!), I just prefer the caramels more…

I also love sleeping in. Until 7:30. Weeeeee!

And that coffee maker Mon mentioned? Put to use right away.Because I named my crock pot, it only seemed fair the coffee maker gets a name.  This is Sophie. She’s french. And is quite the barista.

So cheers! And happy Monday!

Off I go…

Getting Three For One

Good morning.

My extended weekend sadly came to an end. It was fun while it lasted.  Mostly because I had way more down time than originally anticipated. Not a bad thing. My couch is very comfy.

Confirmed this yet again Saturday night. After dinner out with the girls Saturday night, I made it home just in time for Saturday Night Live. It was being hosted by Jesse Eisenberg and I was making a point of watching it. I have a little crush. I’m aware he’s super short, but if he’s cool with it, I’ll be cool with it… Heeeey Jesse…

Super excited for the show. Fell asleep about halfway through it. Fail.

But I woke up with a bang. And did No More Trouble Zones with Jillian for my strength training (according to plan). Followed up by 15 minutes on the elliptical and a 2-mile jog. The cardio wasn’t according to plan, but I felt like doing it. See above paragraphs for the reasoning (#notmuchgoingon).

Now let’s go back to that discussion about the Mexican dinner I had with the girls:Did I mention this came after a bowl of soup as well? And free chips and salsa?

*It needs to be mentioned here that I don’t always take part in the free chips and salsa. But oh man… whatever is in that salsa should be illegal.

Needless to say, I came home with leftovers.

And because I’m a recessionista (which sounds so much nicer than “cheap”, don’t you think?), I took a page from Megan @ Braise the Roof and did a leftover remix.

My entire Sunday has a mexican spin to it.

Like lunch:Sure, the leftover enchilada is straight-up ugly.

Oh wow. Looking at it again, it really doesn’t look appetizing at all.

Don’t judge a book by its cover, people. It was perfect just the way it was. Until I inhaled it.

Dinner required a little more creativity. All that was left was a ton of fried rice and a good portion of the black beans. So I broke out a wrap, added some cheese, and called it a burrito.Almost as good as the night it was served.

Three meals out of one. Thank you, Salsa 17.

Now if only I still had leftover frozen margarita…

Seriously. It would be appreciated this week. Chicago is being prepared for a little thing called a blizzard this week. And the tequila would double as a way to keep me warm.

Seems to be we were feeling left out with all the crazy weather going on in the northeast that we demanded to be in on it. Good times.

That probably means I should hit the grocery store. For eggs. Some frozen food. Wine.

You know… The essentials.

500 Miles

Thanks for cheering on our climbing efforts, guys!

And now that I look back on it, laying on those steps may have been the most unsanitary thing I’ve ever done. 

Guess I got caught up in the moment.

Anyhoo, I’ve gotten really good at this whole lazy Sunday thing. The only time I really ventured out of the apartment complex was to go with my friend and neighbor Bailey to pick up my car from the bar we went to the night before. We had cabbed it home after the show (safety first, kids).

We giggled a little bit about the ordeal- Bailey mentioned how sad it was that the only number we got was the cab driver’s (he was awesome and should probably be around every time we need to be taken home).

I reasoned that it was for the best that we didn’t get or give out any digits.

One thing I love about the particular bar we went to is that it attracts a huge variety of people.

One thing I dislike about the bar is that it attracts a huge variety of people.

It’s a blessing and a curse.

Last night was not a good scene for me.  I mean… unless you’re into 35-year-old men with Justin Bieber haircuts.  Seriously dude- even Justin Bieber hates his haircut.  And he’s 16. Don’t do it.

No I’m all off track… where was I?

Oh yeah, that was the only time I left the complex…

Which was fine.  I had stuff to do.  Like make a grocery list and not actually go grocery shopping. And start laundry, but leave the folding for today instead.

It’s really a surprise that I even made it to the workout room in my complex.

That’s not true.  Considering I was only doing half of everything else I planned to do yesterday, there was some energy that needed to be burned.

An intense 40 minutes on the elliptical. Sweatin’ all those toxins out.  Throw in some resistance band work and a 30-minute walk. 

That may actually be considered as a productive Sunday afterall.

I’ve been stepping it up on the elliptical a lot as of late. My training for the St. Louis Half Marathon starts next week and I’m trying to save my excitement for running.  I love it. And it’s my favorite way to exercise.  BUT, 12 weeks are a really long time. And there are a lot of miles to be ran. I have no problems with chillin’ out on it for a week before all that happens.

Anyone else deal with training slumps?  And how do you fix it? Other than just saying to yourself, “shut up and run”? The “shut up and run” technique does work, but I’m sure it’s not the most positive reinforcement choice I could be using.

Hopefully my happy song will get me through quite a few of the runs.

Seems like an appropriate run song, yes?

I just realized that connection (running while listening to a song talking about 500 miles- in case you’re as slow as I am with catching on). Which is hilarious because it’s been a frequenter on my playlist.  As in, it’s used during almost every workout. And it’s currently on the office music playlist at work. My boss laughs because I’ll take a break and sing when it comes on.

I think he realizes it’s a necessary in order for me to keep calm and sane on some days. Like Mondays.

Oh… today is Monday, huh?  Well… let’s break out those itunes, shall we?

Sorry if this song gets stuck in your head for the rest of the week.  Actually, no I’m not. You’ll appreciate it. And you’re welcome.

Coming to a Stairwell Near You…

Megan and I met up around noon to walk over to her friend’s apartment building.  We needed the tallest building we could get access to.  22 stories?  We can make it work!

There’s really not much to climbing a stairwell.

You just sort of walk into the stairwell.  And start going up the stairs.

Basically, Megan and I thought it may be a good idea to practice a couple of times- make sure there’s no claustrophobia or dizziness that might sneak up, see if we’ve got the right muscles ready for it, use it as an excuse to hang out, etc…

We made it to the top (22nd floor) and rejoiced:It didn’t take much of a debate to decide to take the elevator back down instead of actually walking down the stairs.It’s training to go UP, not DOWN, afterall…

Although twice we did have to ride the elevator down with people.  And twice it was pretty awkward.  Heeeeyyyy… just hanging out in your building’s stairwell… don’t mind us…

In total, we climbed three times.

And it wasn’t hard!Well. That may be a little overly dramatic.  Or a lot overly dramtic. But we felt it.  And noticed that we relied on using our arms a little more towards the end. Guess I should start doing some more curls…

But I think it’s safe to say that we’ve SO got this.

We rejoiced with the consumption of bar food. I heart sweet potato fries.  And am such a nerd when it comes to how excited I get when I order them.  Fact.

It was a good day.

And a good night.  My neighbor Bailey and I went out to see a local band at a local bar last night. I like to think we’re doing a good job of supporting the community this way. It’s very important to do so. Even if this means having to buy a few beers.

Gotta do what you’ve gotta do.  Ya know?

Either way, it was a good night.  With a lot of socializing.  And a little dancing.Any morning that you wake up with a hand stamp is usually evidence of this.

Ignore the pancakes.  They were bad.  Even with the white chocolate chips.  I tried a new recipe for whole wheat pancakes and added my own spin to it.

It was a bad spin. And they were almost rubbery?  Not ideal pancake texture.  Unless you’re into that kind of thing. Which would be weird.

You know how I was complaining about all the bad movies I’ve seen recently?  Well, I watched The Other Guys during my bad pancakes this morning.

The movie was quite the opposite of the pancakes.  I really really liked it. Classic Will Ferrell. I’m honestly surprised more people haven’t talked about this one?  There are soooo many good lines from it!

I should probably get that movie back to Red Box. And just get out of the apartment in general. Sounds like a good idea…

Have a great Sunday!