Let's try this again..

So I haven't written in almost a year, and I'm going to attempt it again. I said ATTEMPT so if I stop writing after 2 posts, don't say there wasn't a fair warning. SO much has happened in the last year. The most exciting of which is we FINALLY are starting our adoption process! We are in the first stages of it, so filling out paper work, doing foster parent training and such. We are told that the current waiting time is 2-3 years. Sooo..... let's just say we can use all the prayers and patience we can get. Another exciting thing that has happened is I ran 2 Half Marathons in the last 5 months! My first one was in December, and a pretty small race, only 199 racers and I placed at 50.

coming into the finish

the people who put on the race also got this extremely attractive picture of me coming into the finish line....thanks.

I did it!

My second Half Marathon I just ran last Saturday. This was a MUCH larger event with a 5k, Walkers Half, and Runners Half with a total of close to 4,000 people. 

LOTS of racers!

Nate is so awesome, he got up at 6am to come support me!

Erin, Matt and Mason also surprised me by showing up and cheering me into the finish! It was a great race, and so much fun!

Mason and I after the race!

Nate beat out the last race with the most attractive running pic of me ever.

The last 1/2 mile I sprinted with everything I had in me and was rewarded by beating my previous time of 1 hour 55 min.. I came in at 1:54 with a pace of 8:43. I was so stoked! For this race I placed 375 out of 2083! 

Both races were similar, the first 8 or so miles flew by. Between 8-11 I was getting pretty tired, and by mile 12, I was really pushing myself. I have been going back and forth on if I want to do a full Marathon this year or not. I know I want to do one, I just don't know which one or how soon. There is the California  International Marathon that is here in town, but I read a suggestion on a running forum that you should do your first Marathon somewhere that you want to visit anyway, so you get a vacation and a marathon experience. I can't decide whether I just want to do the one here in December or find another one someplace like San Diego next year. Hmmmmm. Thoughts??

It's beginning to look a lot like summer!

So FINALLY this crazy weather subsided and we have been having some gorgeous weather! And what better way to enjoy it than a bike ride?!

Nate and I rode to the trail along the river, and decided to see how far it went. It wasn't all smooth sailing. We had to stop along the way due to Nate's handlebars coming loose, but he improvised like the handy man that he is! (I totally forgot my camera, so all I have are these pictures from my phone. Not the best quality :-/ Oh well.)

We rode for about 8 miles then stopped to enjoy nature and a snack.

Our apple was kinda mushy and gross, so we let this worm feast his heart out.

Unfortunately we got off to a late start, so we were running out of sun, and had to turn back. Here's Nate ready to go!

We even happened upon a hobo yard sale! Foam mattress anyone?

We had such a fun bike ride! It has been about 5 1/2 months since we got rid of our cars, and went completely on bikes and foot, and I have to say, sometimes I forget how much more relaxing it is to ride a bike compared to driving a car. I'm so lucky!

And here's one more just 'cause he's so cute:)

I'm Back!

Wow, I hadn't realized it has been almost 2 weeks since my last entry! I tend to get pretty anti-social and depressed around Mother's day, and this year was no different. Let's just say, Infertility+Mother's Day= Horrible depressing sobfest. Well, I'm feeling more myself and trying to stay positive so I'll stop depressing you and get to the good stuff. This past weekend was one of my very best friends, Erin's 30th Birthday. It also happened to be the weekend of the Folsom Run with Nature 5k that Tara(sister) and I ran. My brother, Oliver, invited Nate to go camping with him and our nephew Dominic on Friday night, so I decided to have a girl's night! Tara, Jocelyn(4yrs old), and Gizelle(6 mo. old) came up Friday to spend the night(our race was Saturday), and I invited Erin and Mason(her 8mo. old) to have dinner as well. Little did Erin know, this was her mini surprise birthday party! Dinner Menu: Appetizer: Home made Hummus & Home made tortilla chips Main Course: Curry Chicken with Coconut rice Dessert: Tres Leches cake topped with blueberry pie filling and whipped cream. And let me tell you with was DEL-ISH!! Mason and Gizelle were so cute with each other, crawling over, and pinching each other.

We even had to remind Mason to keep it G rated...

I didn't have enough candles for the cake, so I improvised..

Tara grabbed my camera, and snapped some shots while I was holding Gizelle and Mason. Here are the least fat-looking shots of me.

We had a great night, Happy Birthday Erin!

The next morning, we woke up bright and early at 5:30am to get ready for the races! When we got there, we had to pick up our packets with the shoe chip to keep track of your time, and our shirts. The guy at the booth saw that I had requested a small (I had gotten a Medium at the 10k I ran in March and it was really big) and he said to me(while holding up the small shirt as if to size me up), "I see you requested a small, you know we do have bigger sizes available if you would like one" OMG how RUDE was that?! I told him, no I think that size is just fine, and after one more time reminding me that if I wanted, I could still get a bigger size he finally gave me my shirt. And guess what.. it was BIG on me! Ha! Ugh, I really can't believe the lack of tact some people have! So far, the morning was not off to a great start, but I wasn't going to let that jerk face ruin my race! Jocelyn's race was first. It was a 1/2 mile kid's run around the park and zoo. She did great and ran with all of the other kids the whole time!




After Jocelyn's race, it was our turn! We got the kids packed in, and we were ready to go!


We had to start in the back because of the stroller, which was lame, so we were stuck behind all the slow people! There was a lot of uphill, so Tara and I switched off pushing the stroller, which by the way was a lot harder than it looked! We came in with a time of 33min(average 10.5 min miles, when I usually run about 8.5-8.75min miles), which is ok, when you consider what we had going against us. The kids were great, Gizelle slept the whole time, and Jocelyn kept us motivated, telling us to speed up! Afterward, we collected all of our freebies (one of the best things about races!) and headed to the zoo!




We had lots of fun! I highly recommend that everyone run a race it's a blast! Once you do one, you will be hooked! 5k's are only 3.1 miles, anyone can run or walk 3 miles!

Table for free please

The only thing I love more than finding deals is finding stuff for free! This was all thanks to Benihana's Chef's Table Club, which you can sign up for it here if you haven't already. My older brother Oliver's birthday is a week before mine, and as he was searching birthday freebies (there are surprisingly a lot) he came across Benihana's awesome deal! If you sign up for the club(which is free) they email you a gift certificate for $30 to use in the month of your birthday(I actually think it's within 30 days since my birthday was the 21st, and my certificate expired on May 20). And let me tell you, they HOOK IT UP! I was able to order an awesome late birthday dinner of grilled veggies, fresh lemon squeezed chicken, brown rice, soup, salad and dessert for the low low price of free! They even take a birthday picture and give you a copy of it, as well as make it available for you to download off their website!

How awesome is that? Our chef was kind of boring, and hated his life but the drunk crazy lady totally made up for his lack of pizzaz. Not to mention I got to spend some time with my awesome brother! That alone was worth it! It was the first time we have really had time to just hang out together in our adult life since he has been in the Air Force and lived everywhere from England to Hawaii in the last 8 yrs. All in all, if you don't mind 4-7 staff members making a spectacle of you by singing "Happy Birthday" then having you blow out the candle, I definitely recommend this deal. It's hands down the best birthday freebie out there. And if you also happen to have someone that shares your birthday month, the more the merrier! Just remember to tip your waitress!

A beautiful discovery

In the little backyard of our new place there is a little dirt patch where we can plant stuff. We have been trying to decide what to plant, and also trying to decide whether or not to keep the 3 existing plants that the previous tennant had planted here. One of the plants in particular we were not sure what was for a couple weeks. It has big, broad leaves, but not much else growing on it that we could see. Then, in a matter of 2 days, a long stem popped up, and began to bloom a Cala Lily! I was so excited! I LOVE lilies, and the Cala lily is my absolute favorite! Its so beautiful in its simplicity. So naturally, I had to go out, and take photos of it! Here is a collection of color, and black and white pictures I took of my lily, isn't it pretty? Enjoy!

Good ol' R&R

Ever since I can remember, I've been taught to recycle. If we just recycle all of the applicable items then there will be much less garbage in our landfills and the earth will be saved right? Um.. I'm not so sure about that. In fact, there have been plenty of studies that show the amount of pollution caused by burning, and breaking plastics and glass in the process of recycling is more harmful to the planet. Crazy huh? The best solution? REUSE! We often forget about that step, and throw so many containers away every day that can be reused for something around your house! And it saves you money too! I decided to take a walk around my place and find how I'm doing with reusing items. Hopefully this will give you some ideas how to reuse some items in your household and save yourself some money!



I love, LOVE finding cheap deals on anything. That's why I love the bulk bins at Winco so much! I don't get to go too often, so when I do, I stock up. the only draw back is having a cupboard full of those annoying little bags for all of the spices. So I found some cheap tupperware at Ikea, and for the rest, I used old jam jars, a honey jar, and a pickle jar. They work GREAT!




I found this big container of salad on sale last week for $2(SCORE). So it is now my designated salad container! I can make my own salads, and keep them fresh in a big enough container, I love it!




Plastic ziplock bags are always good to reuse(plastic grocery bags too, we use them for bathroom garbage), they can be reused for almost anything! I reuse these for all of my dried beans, peas, etc. they are so handy! The green containers we got with holiday cookies in them, but long after the cookies were enjoyed they are now the home to my garbanzo and black beans!



My tupperware cupboard. Cool whip container, cottage cheese containers, Peanut butter jars, and a honey jar. The big peanut butter jars are the best, they are so big. I use them to store extra pasta or pizza sauces, or soups.



This truvia container works PERFECTLY for our laundry quarters.



Bread bags! Nate got these bread bags from work(but any bread bag will do), and they have been just what I needed since I stopped buying store bread and making my own.



Old vinegar and salad dressing bottles are exactly what you need to make your own dressings! (This is a mango and basil dressing and a strawberry blackberry vinegrette I made.)

So try to reduce your carbon footprint by not only throwing things in the recycling container, but REUSE as much as possible. Your wallet will thank you.

Quinoa crazy!

I've had this bag of Quinoa that I got from the bulk section at Winco sitting in my pantry for the last 3 months. I was inspired to get it after seeing this beautiful Quinoa salad at Whole Foods, and since I can't afford their food I decided "Psh, I don't need their overpriced salad, I can make mine better AND cheaper!" Well, do you ever have those meals ideas that sound great at the time, but you never get around to making them because it's "too much work"? That was my Quinoa. Was. 2 months ago, I decided I would only go grocery shopping for things that we needed and were out of (milk,flour, eggs, meat etc.). We get most of our produce from Farm Fresh to You, delivered (check it out, it's the same as you would pay at a grocery store for produce, maybe less, and it's all organic and delivered to your door!) and all our fruit we get from the local farmer's market. So that leaves me to make everything we eat from scratch, including bread. Nope, no cereal either(that was so hard to give up, but it's saved us so much moola!). It is also my goal to make all the food we already have stretch as far as we can get it before buying more. I mean, hey I spent my husband's hard earned money on all the food in my house so I might as well use it right? Yes, even you oh lonely can of beets that has been hanging out in the back of the pantry for well over a year. Well, let me tell ya it's definitely been a challenge! We also gave up the convenience (and radiation) of a microwave when we moved into our new place, and I'm too cheap to buy one, so learning to live without that convenience after a lifetime of it has taken some getting used to. Ok, now back to the Quinoa. So I finally decide to make it today, and it turned out soo DELICIOUS!!! I just had to share! But before we get to that..

*Your Quinoa Nutritional Fun Facts for the Day*

Did you know that Quinoa is actually not a grain at all, but a seed?

Did you also know that it is also a good source of Magnesium, Manganese, Copper and Fiber, as well as has all of the essential amino acids your muscles need to grow?

Research has also shown that it can help prevent and treat Breast Cancer, Diabetes, and Insulin Resistance!

Now aren't you excited to go make some Quinoa?!?!

Ok, now that's out of the way, on to the recipes!! I just made it up as I went along, but lucky for you I wrote it down, so you can make these Quinoa salads too! Be creative and make your own Quinoa creations and share! Here are my 2 Quinoa creations so far:

*NOTE: I had no idea how much 1 cup of dried Quinoa would make, so I made 2 cups of dried, which made about 5-6 cups cooked. I made these 2 salads with the amount I made, so modify to the amount you are cooking. To cook, add 1 part Quinoa, 1 1/4 part Water(or other liquid- be creative!) bring to a simmer, then turn to low, cover and simmer for 33 min. Remove from heat, and let stand 5 min, then fluff.

Quinoa Crunch Salad with Cranberries and Spinach

2 cups cooked Quinoa

1 cup chopped Spinach

1/3 cup Dried cranberries

1/4 cup chopped almonds

1/3 cup chopped water chestnuts

Dressing:

1 1/2 Tablespoons garlic red wine vinegar (or regular red wine vinegar with garlic powder)

1/2 Tablespoon balsamic vinegar

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon olive oil

1/2 Tablespoon raw honey

Toss all ingredients together, and enjoy!

Calories: 239 for 1/2 cup side serving. These calories are worth it!

Crunchy Quinoa Beet and Spinach Salad

3 1/2 cups cooked Quinoa

2 cups chopped spinach

1/2 cup chopped almonds

2/3 cup chopped water chestnuts

1 cup chopped beets (about 3 roasted beets or 1 can)

Dressing:

3 Tablespoons garlic red wine vinegar (or regular red wine vinegar with garlic powder)

1 Tablespoon balsamic vinegar

1 Tablespoon lemon juice

1/2 Tablespoon olive oil

Toss all ingredients together and enjoy! I also crumbles goat cheese on top of mine, and it went together PERFECTLY

Calories: 180 for 1/2 cup side serving.

I'll keep inventing Quinoa recipes to share, and I hope this inspired you to try this nutritious and CHEAP grain(well, seed) too! Happy Cooking!

*no this was not a paid advertisement for Quinoa, I just liked it THAT much