Running

This is how I look and feel after running:

Actually, I look even worse and sooo red, but the lighting in the picture is bad so you really can't get the full effect. I am currently training for the Kentucky Derby Festival mini-Marathon on April 24th. I thought running this would be a good experience and something to motivate me to get in shape. However, with my current busy schedule, I'm finding myself tired all the time and never feeling like I have time to run. When I do run, I haven't been eating right and haven't been cross-training, so running has been a lot harder than it should be.

My biggest stumbling block with running is the mental game. The whole time I am running I am thinking about how miserable it is to run and how I should stop right that second. You'd think running with someone would help that a lot, but I still struggle with that even with a running buddy.

So how do I overcome that? How do I push through and keep running even when I just want to stop? How do you runners out there push through it? I better get my mental endurance built up before April 24th or I'll never make it 13.1 miles!!

Murder Mystery

Amanda and Shelby hosted a joint birthday party for Mom and my aunt Becky last night. Becky's birthday was earlier this week and Mom's was in January, but this was the first chance for everyone to get together. They had us over for a Murder Mystery Dinner with characters from the 50's. Amanda had assigned us our characters in advance, so we came dressed for our parts. The names were all really corny, for example, the murder victim was "Rock N. Roley". Ironically, there was a previous victim they discussed in the game named "Becky Sue", and there we were celebrating my aunt Rebecca Susan's birthday!

There were 8 characters. I was "Dee Deucer", the homecoming queen and then FBI agent in the "Dirty Tricks" division. Dad was "Joe K. Awledge", Rock N. Roley's business manager. Mom was "Pris Teen", the straight A student who was actually bought exam answers from "Rock N. Roley". My cousin Jason was "Cal Q. Later", the nerd, and Becky was "Penny Loafer", the twin sister of "Rock N. Roley". Amanda didn't play a part, but dressed up anyway and facilitated the game.

My aunt Tammy (gotta love those fake eyelashes she has on) was "E.C. Doesit", the cheerleader, and my uncle Chris was "Delbert" (I forget his full character name), the football pro.

Arlyn, a family friend, played the eighth character "Rick", the jealous ex-band member with "Rock N. Roley", in place of my cousin Ryan since he didn't end up being able to come. My cousin Haylee didn't play a part, but she dressed in her poodle skirt (made by Tammy) anyway!

Papa sat and listened to the whole thing, but my guess is that he was even more confused than we were!

It was hilarious as we read through our parts because some people really acted their characters well. Jason used a really funny nerdy voice for Cal Q. Later. Tammy and Becky went with southern accents. The rest of us just read our parts the best we could. :) It was fun reading through our parts and trying to solve the mystery. As it turns out, it was actually a pretty complex, highly detailed mystery that got most of us confused! And no wonder, because the solution ended up being that there were 3 people involved!

So much for me being "Dee Deucer". I didn't deduce anything right!

Game Night Resumes

Girl's game night has been put on hold the last couple months because of Christmas, a wedding, weather, etc. But last night we finally got together again. Jenn, Mom, Sharon (Jenn's mother-in-law), and I like to meet once a month and play a game, all put in $5, and the winner gets the pot and a "trophy" that says "The Winner!". Well, this was the fifth game night and up to this point I had yet to win. This time we played Bananagrams, which is a great game, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for something new! It's like a fast-paced, highly competitive Scrabble game, and I love it!

This picture says it all :)

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day started off with me being by myself since Ben was out of town (at a Bible Bowl tournament since they needed a male chaperone), so I went to church and out to lunch with my parents and Jenn and Scott. I had already planned to make dinner for Ben since he was getting home around 5, so before the service started I put a note in his car at church (he left it there before going out of town) in the morning that said, "Roses are red, violets are blue, I've made something delicious for you!" Just thought I'd get him wondering what was for dinner :) No fancy presents to each other this year, trying to stick to a budget.

I went home and began making pizza dough for the chicken alfredo pizza so that it would have time to rise. I started off trying to document the meal for you, but sort of forgot after I made the dough...oh well. Here is the dough (recipe here: http://thepioneerwoman.com/tasty-kitchen/recipes/main-courses/herbed-pizza-dough/): start off with 1 cup warm water and 1 packet of dry active yeast. Let it set until foamy, about 5 minutes. Add sugar, salt, olive oil, and seasonings (I didn't have "Italian seasoning" so instead used oregano, thyme, and basil):

Next, I added the 2 cups of flour, which starts off looking like too much...

...but eventually starts coming together.

Added the next cup of flour 1/2 cup at a time. At this point, it wasn't really sticking together, but was dry and flaky. The recipe said to add water a little at a time if it gets like this. I ended up adding a couple tablespoons at first, just until it all stuck together. After letting the mixer run awhile (gotta love the KitchenAid dough hook!), I tried stretching the dough like the recipe says. It would just tear apart instead of being stretchy and translucent. I let it mix for a few more minutes, but still, it wouldn't stretch. I decided I needed more water. I would say by the time I was done, I had added about 1/2 cup more water than the original 1 cup. But after the extra water and mixing, the dough was perfect and stretchy! I rolled it in a ball...

...coated it lightly in olive oil, covered, and let sit for a little over an hour to rise.

In the meantime, I cubed up some chicken breasts, coated with olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder, thyme, oregano, and basil, stirred it up...

...and let it sit and marinate awhile.

Back to the dough. I didn't take a picture of the risen dough, but this is how it looked after splitting it in two and rolling it out into pizzas:

Already looks yummy! I pinched around the edges to make a little bit of a crust. Sorry to those who wanted me to make the pizzas heart-shaped :)

I pretty much stopped with the pictures at this point until the finished product.

The base of the pizza was alfredo, which I made from this recipe http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,1855,140166-232207,00.html and it turned out really delicious and creamy and garlicy! I cooked the chicken, cooked some bacon and crumbled up after cooling, and cut up some roasted red peppers from a jar. Then I put a little olive oil in a pan, minced up some garlic and browned it, then added the chicken, bacon, and red peppers to the pan just to get it all mixed up with the garlic.

I brushed the dough with olive oil, sprinkled with sea salt, and put in a 475 degree oven for about 3 or 4 minutes (I didn't time it, just put it in a few minutes before putting the toppings on just to keep it from being too doughy). Then I coated the dough with the alfredo, poured on all the toppings I had cooked in the pan, sprinkled with red pepper flakes, loaded on tons of fresh baby spinach (it wilts down), smothered it in mozzarella cheese, and added a little bit of feta cheese on top as well. Back in the oven, and about 5 or 6 minutes later when the cheese was golden brown, I took it out...and oh baby...

I have never made such good pizza!! I think this would also be great with some pepperoncinis and olives, but Ben's not big on either of those so I left them off.

I made the easiest dessert- peanut butter crackers (at least the ones for Ben I used peanut butter- but I did mine first, the stacked up ones in the back using sunbutter since I can't eat peanut butter, and sunbutter uses sunflower seeds and is a great substitute!)...

...melted white chocolate (used half a pack of almond bark for the 16 crackers I made- heated chocolate 1 minute in glass bowl in microwave, stirred, heated another minute, and it was melted just right)...

...and dipped the crackers to coat!

Easy as can be and so delicious! Put them on wax paper to dry. I dipped mine first so they wouldn't be contaminated with Ben's peanut butter. Then with the little bit of white chocolate left, I mixed in some red food coloring, put in a ziplock baggy with the corner snipped off, and decorated Ben's cookies (left mine white so we could tell them apart).

Yes, it looks like a 2 year old decorated them, but the chocolate was hardening in the baggy and I could barely get it to squirt out- except, of course, when it squirted out onto the cabinet and floor...

Yummy...needless to say, a day later, it's all gone (except I have a few cookies left)! I didn't make as many cookies as Ben would normally like, but I was trying not to overdo it since he's on a diet.

Ben didn't forget me either...he bought me 2 boxes of my favorite girl scout cookies- Samoas!

He knows what I like :) Funny how on a budget, we both went with food as our gifts...guess that's what we like the best!

Showerless

Well, I didn't shower today...and by that I mean the baby shower I was throwing Emma had to be cancelled! Around 11 last night, Emma called- she and Shanon had been in the car since 4:30 and still hadn't even gotten out of Georgia!! With the bad weather and traffic, they knew there was no way they could make it to Louisville for the shower the next morning. We were both really disappointed, but there was nothing else we could do.

But gosh darn it, I was all ready to blog about this shower...so I'm blogging anyway. :) Here is the cake I ordered, which is the cutest thing I've ever seen:

One layer is italian cream cake, and the other layer is strawberry (thought pink on the inside was a cute idea). Deena is going to Atlanta next weekend for another shower for Emma, so I froze the cake and she will take it with her then. Glad it isn't going to waste...hope it tastes okay after being frozen!

I ordered the cake to match the theme I had picked out on the shower invitations:

The girl I ordered the cake from had sent me some pictures of cakes she had done in the past. I chose the cake I did since it reminded me of the invitation, but I had her make the colors pink and gray, since those are Emma's baby room colors. I also had her change the pregnant girl on top to have a hot pink purse and shoes, to match the invitations. I think it turned out just darling!

On the bright side, I got some stuff cleaned up around the house, got some pictures hung, and have plenty of food to eat at home while Ben is gone!

Lake Tahoe

Ben and I just had a wonderful vacation skiing in Lake Tahoe! Ben's dad Carl took us. We left Thursday morning and got out there by around 2:00 Nevada time. We took a limo from the airport to the hotel, about an hour and a half ride...starting the trip off right!

The ski lifts are only open from 9am-4pm, so by the time we got to our hotel it was already too late to ski. Instead, we went to the ski rental shop, picked up our skis for the next 2 days, and headed to dinner at a nice restaurant in our hotel called Friday Station. I had horseradish encrusted salmon on a lemon caper sauce with rice pilaf and steamed veggies - it was awesome!

Ben had a filet with king crab legs, which he gave a 10 out of 10!

Carl had chicken lyon with a mushroom sauce, but I didn't get a picture. We also started off with a crab artichoke dip appetizer that was yummy, so needless to say we were stuffed by the end of that meal!!

There isn't much to do in Tahoe except for ski, so after dinner we pretty much just went back to the room, watched a movie (The Invention of Lying- funny idea and some funny parts, but also sacrilegious we thought so I wouldn't see it if you haven't already!), and went to bed.

Friday we got up bright and early and had a hearty breakfast at another restaurant in the hotel. Ben and I put on our multiple layers of clothing, our ski gear, and headed to the gondola, only a couple blocks over from where we were staying. This was my first time skiing in my life, but at this point my first impression was "these boots are really hard to walk in" and "this is so annoying having to lug all this stuff over here"!

The gondola ride up was about 2.5 miles long (at least that's what I heard someone say), so it was a decent ride and the view was gorgeous!!

At the top, Ben helped me get my skis on and we poled over to the ski lift. When we got off the lift at the top, things were already looking good when I was able to get off, make a wedge with my skis, and come to a stop without falling. Ben proceeded to give me the details on how to go left and right (which I had also looked up on youtube before coming...yes, I'm a dork like that), which we practiced on a tiny slope a few times before moving on to the official green slope. I was doing good so far and Ben was really impressed! The green slope was hard at first, and I fell down several times just learning to balance and go back and forth without picking up too much speed. Going too fast would also make me fall down out of fear and not knowing how else to slow down. The hardest part was standing back up after falling!

After a few runs on the green, I was making it down without falling, so Ben left me to practice and went on to a blue run. Ben grew up skiing, so of course he's great at it! He came back after a while to get me, and talked me into going up to the blue run since the scenery was so beautiful. I agreed, feeling pretty confident after the green run going so well (I'm in the red coat in the picture below).

Yes, the scenery up there was gorgeous...

...but after only skiing for about 2 hours, I don't think I was quite ready for the blue!! I freaked out and was really scared the whole way down, but only fell a few times and Ben was really proud of me for doing it.

We breaked for lunch after the blue, and we ate the sandwiches we had packed (we had gotten them from the place we ate breakfast) and Ben had been carrying around all day in a little backpack, saving us lots of money on the overpriced food on the mountain! After lunch, I was feeling really annoyed at the idea of having to ski again, so I told Ben I'd just sit there a while and he could ski. He kept coming back to check on me, but I never wanted to go back out, so I ended up going in a little hut they had there and getting hot chocolate and waiting. Ben did some more blues and a black diamond, so he had a blast!

When we went back to the hotel, Carl was surprised that I could ski at all since he was convinced that I would go all day and not be able to ski 20 ft. without falling over. For dinner we went to the same place we did the night before, where I got a salad with pomegranate seeds and some other fruits I didn't recognize, and a seafood pasta (no pictures this time). Ben got a ribeye and loved it even more than the filet the night before. Carl got french onion soup and the crab artichoke dip. Again, we were all stuffed! We went back to the room and watched the movie Love Happens. It was really cheesy and Carl made fun of it the whole time, which was hilarious!

Day two was about the same as day one. I was much better at skiing that day, went down the green all morning alone while Ben skied on the harder slopes, and I didn't fall a single time. I felt brave enough to try the blue again, so we went up there. I was much better than the day before, but still fell a few times. I was glad we had done it once the day before because this day it was snowing the whole day and you couldn't see the view at all! We did the blue run again, and I made it the whole way down without falling. However, at this point, my legs were burning like crazy after that run, I didn't know what to do since I had no desire to do the green again and no desire to do the blue either, so I left Ben out there again and this time just went back to the hotel. Carl and I had lunch, then Carl went to the lobby to watch a ball game and I took a nap until Ben got back. We had a buffet dinner, which I was pleased had sushi on it, and went back to the hotel room for a good conversation before heading off to bed. We had to get up at 3am the next morning to get to the airport on time for our flight, so we just went to bed early.

This was a wonderful trip!! Ben LOVES skiing and had a great time, although he thinks he would enjoy it more with someone who could do the black slopes with him. I was happy that I was able to ski, but decided that I don't enjoy it...too much work, too much pain, and too much snow!!! Still loved the trip, the experience, the great food, and hanging out with Carl though. Thanks, Carl, for a great weekend!

By the way, to see some more pictures, check out the Lake Tahoe link to the top right under Picture Gallery!