Another Week Down

All in all it was a good week. Despite being sick and feeling pretty icky for most of it, I was still able to finish Week 2 of C25K! I was very pleased with myself for that! So, stats for the week:
Week 2 Day 1: 2.23 miles, 31:40
Week 2 Day 2: 2.37 miles, 31:05
Week 2 Day 3: 2.42 miles, 30:42

Yesterday was a nice day, it finally stopped raining and I was feeling better, so I went out for my run at about 11 am and it ended up being the best run I had all week. After the run I got ready to go out with the husband. We went downtown and spent about 2.5 hours at the Memphis Rock and Soul Museum. Earlier this month my mom had sent me a link to sign up for free museum day sponsored by the Smithsonian Institute. I knew Tony would love this, as we both enjoy going to all kinds of museums together. So armed with our free pass, this time on the right day, we headed down there. It was really interesting. We learned a lot about how Memphis was pretty much the capital for Rock, Soul, Blues, and Country back in the 1950s and how integration was pretty much a done deal in the music industry here at the time, while society was still segregated. I was glad we got to learn a lot and enjoy ourselves and the best part, it was free!

After the museum we headed over to a nice little place called The Silly Goose, I've been wanting to go to this restaurant/bar for a while now, especially since I like buying certificates off restaurant.com and had purchased a certificate for this establishment and was really looking forward to trying some of their pannins and flatbreads. Well we get there and the waiter tells us that they don't accept the certificate, that restaurant.com put them up on their website without permission. I was fuming! Granted the certificate only cost me about $1 when it was 90% off a few weeks ago, but still, it irked me. So we ended up just getting a drink there and sitting out on their patio deciding where to go eat dinner. We decided to try another place I had a certificate for about 2.5 miles away. So we get into the car and head over there, only to find them closed! Seriously?! Tony was having a fit, and he was right, any restaurant that is in business would not be closed at 7 pm on a Saturday night. So now I get the task of writing restaurant.com a nasty email and hoping to get some of my money back. It was frustrating and we were really bummed.

From there, hungry and annoyed, we headed on to the Mid-South Fair down in Mississippi. I really didn't want to go and eat fair food, especially since we had just gone to the Delta Fair a few weeks ago, but Tony was insistent. So we got there, and I ended up gorging on a corndog, a cone of homemade cookie dough ice cream, and a few bites of Tony's funnel cake. I was really upset with myself for eating such unhealthy foods, and I much would have preferred just going to a restaurant for dinner where at least I could try to make some healthier choices. But in the end, the fair was okay, we got to see some animals and a concert and people watch, plus I got to spend some quality time with the husband. Hopefully this next week will be better!

More Gifts and Not Feeling Well

Wednesday I ended up getting two more gifts from my extraordinary aunt, she is so thoughtful. I was super excited when the UPS guy delivered this: 

Yes, that is an entire freezer shelf of Omaha Steaks frozen delights. Included are 2 sirloin steaks, 2 Fillet Mignon steaks, 10 burgers, 6 stuffed potatoes, 2 stuffed sole fillets, and 1 chocolate lovers cake. There was also a knife set and cutting board in the cooler too! I can't wait to cook and enjoy this haul of deliciousness!

Later that afternoon the FedEx man arrived delivering this:

This my friends is a chocolate dipped wine bottle, and I am now the happy recipient of two of them! A cool company named Sweet Traders apparently specializes in this, they hand dip wine and champagne bottles, to then enjoy them you rip a ribbon to "unzip" the chocolate coating and then open the wine, and allow the chocolate to melt in your mouth while drinking the wine. I got a riesling and a merlot. I can't wait for Tony and I to "unzip" these babies! 

As far as c25k goes, I am behind one day, hopefully I can complete Week 2 Day 3 tomorrow. I haven't been feeling well this week. I've had a sore throat since Monday, I tried to get an appointment at the Branch Health Clinic, but unfortunately they were closed to seeing patients this week, so I was directed to go to the local urgent care clinic. The doctor there insisted I didn't have strep, but was probably only getting a cold, well here we are 4 days later and I still have no other cold symptoms, but the sore throat is getting worse. I just hope it clears up soon.

Tomorrow Tony and I are going to participate in this, free museum day at participating Smithsonian museums! We are going to go to the Memphis Rock and Soul Museum downtown, and possibly going to check out the Scoop Fest Ice Cream Festival downtown as well! All you can eat ice cream, I love it and I hate it! I love ice cream, but all you can eat means havoc for my trying to eat right.

As far as the house is concerned, we are almost done! We've been renovating since I moved in in July. We've basically had to repaint every room in the house and recarpet the whole thing. We had the downstairs recarpeted about 4 weeks ago, and have been waiting to finish painting the upstairs before getting the carpet installed. We are almost done. I can't wait to be finished and then rearrange the furniture and start decorating and making this place more of a home. 

26 Candles

Today was my 26th birthday! It began like any other morning, Tony's alarm went off at 6 am, I stirred as he got out of bed, then about 7 am he crawled back into bed with me like usual for a couple minutes of cuddle time and then kissed me and said "happy birthday" and got ready for work and then left. About 45 minutes later my cell phone rang, it was my mom, of course a mom always remembers her child's birthday, however I was still sleeping; it dawned upon my mother at the moment I answered the phone groggily that I now in fact live in the Central Time Zone and am therefore one hour behind her in the Eastern Time Zone, she quickly wished me a happy birthday and then told me to go back to sleep and she'd call back later. Cut to 45 minutes later, my phone again began to buzz on the nightstand, this time my dad was the bearer of birthday wishes. I couldn't be mad about being woken up, after all, it was my birthday and I had left the phone on for the exact reason that I knew my family would be calling and I didn't want all my phone calls to go to voice mail, I actually wanted to talk to the people on the other end of the call.

So I finally got out of bed around 8:45 am, went to the living room and my computer, of course my inbox was bombarded with about 10 Facebook notifications of friends and family sending their wishes, and the usual 5 or so e-cards from my aunt. I love my birthday! Today was a scheduled day to run. Normally on my birthday I would just be lazy and give myself the time off, but after falling off the wagon this weekend and gaining back the pound I lost last week, I decided I should do it. So I laced up my shoes, turned on my ipod and set out. Today I started Week 2 of C25K, I did 2.25 miles in about 31 minutes, that was including the warm up and cool down, it wasn't a fabulous run, but I was proud of myself for getting out there!

The day continued on, lots more phone calls and text messages, and my aunt told me I would be getting a surprise before the day was through. Tony I knew was taking me to my favorite place, The Melting Pot for dinner, so at about 5pm I decided to go get ready and do my hair and makeup and start getting dressed so I would be ready to go when he got home. In the midst of curling my hair the doorbell rang, I ran to answer the door, outside a portly man stood holding a beautiful flower arrangement, this was my surprise:

A couple minutes later, my adorable husband walked through the front door, card in hand, along with another surprise, a small bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream, just because he knows it's my favorite! I love him so much for knowing me so well! He had already given me my gifts last week, I had asked for the Nike+ for my ipod, the sport armband, and the new pair of running shoes. So this was a sweet, unexpected surprise! Then it was time to get going.

We got all dressed up, something we rarely get to do, and got into the Trans Am. Now let me just say, in the 3.5 years we have been together, my husband has never taken me out in this car. The Trans Am is strictly garage kept and gets driven maybe once a year, so going out tonight in it was a big deal! We got to MP and proceeded to stuff our faces full of our favorites for the next 2 hours. I was a little disappointed they got rid of the entrees for 2 and now you either have to purchase the Big Night Out, or go a la carte. We ended up going a la carte, in the end it cost about the same the entree for 2 would have, but still, it was a bit annoying. The best part of course was the cookies and cream marshmallow dream dessert fondue. I think this was one of the few times we actually scraped the pot at the end and ate every single bite of the chocolate. Here's us fully stuffed after being so gluttonous:

All in all it was a fabulous birthday, and I hope this year is one of the best of my life, but how could it not be? I am so lucky to have such a wonderful husband, an awesome family and fantastic friends, what more could a girl ask for?!

Falling Off The Wagon, Sort Of...

Yesterday Tony and I decided to head downtown to go to the famous Rock and Soul Museum, my mom had sent me a link that the Smithsonian Institute was giving away passes for free museum day, so we were really excited. That paired with the handful of Restaurant.com certificates we bough last week at 90% off for a few places downtown sounded like a perfect afternoon. After we parked, we went on to try to find the first restaurant that we decided we wanted to have lunch at, as luck would have it, it was closed. Darn! So on to option #2, that one was about a mile or more away, and it was raining, Tony didn't want to walk that far, so we decided on option #3, The Superior Bar on Beale Street. Only once I read our certificate it appeared it was only valid for dinner, not a 2 pm lunch. So being that we were striking out on our certifcates and hungry we ended up at The Blues City Cafe.

We got inside and checked out the menu, I thought it would have a ton of BBQ considering most places here are big BBQ places, but this one only had ribs, catfish, and fried chicken. Wonderful I thought, nothing exactly good for me to try to stay on plan. So the Devil got me, I ordered the chicken tenders, complete with steak fries and Texas toast. I must say they were delicious, real southern fried chicken, and of course they came with a side of BBQ sauce, which normally I prefer honey mustard, but the BBQ was excellent.

On we went to the museum, got to the door, I pulled out my printed out pass, and then read it, ugh the free day is Saturday September 26th, not September 19th! I felt so dumb! I couldn't believe I had made us go all the way downtown on the wrong day! Oh well, I got to enjoy lunch and a few hours with my husband.

Later we went to a homecoming party for one of Tony's coworkers. I always love it when military families are reunited, homecomings are always such happy times, but I always end up crying. Well Dave was gone almost one year, sent on an International Assignment to Afghanistan. Last month shortly after his return his wife Susan started planning a get together to give Dave a proper welcome back. It was such a great time. Susan and Dave are wonderful people and were awesome hosts, and they have a beautiful family. They had some appetizers and then some delicious BBQ pork sandwiches, which I believe Susan made the pork in her crockpot, much like I love to do! And of course there was cake. The cake was awesome, it was store bought, but still amazing, chocolate with buttercream frosting. All in all we had a fantastic time and we are so happy Dave is home to his family safe and sound.

This weekend has been a huge challenge for me with trying to stay on a healthy diet, I think I am allowing myself a little more slack since tomorrow is my birthday and my wonderful husband is taking me to the Melting Pot, but I still feel pretty guilty and bad about polluting my body with the fried, fatty, and sugary foods. Oh well, tomorrow I will go for my run and then Tuesday it is on again!

Feeling Accomplished

It was raining when I woke up this morning. I was really disappointed because today was my day to run, Week 1 Day 3 of C25K. And I had my new running shoes to try out. So you can imagine how mad I was. I really was looking forward to it. So instead I sat on the couch and ate my delicious steel cut oatmeal and watched The View. Lo and behold when The View was over it had stopped raining, it wasn't clear and sunny out, but it's been cloudy/miserable here all week, and apparently it's going to be like this next week too. Anyway, I threw on my shorts and favorite yoga tank and laced up my awesome new shoes and headed out. The other day I stumbled upon some pop/hip hop podcasts that will tell you when to run and when to walk. I had started out with the Robert Ullrey's podcasts, but wasn't really feeling the techno music he uses, I just wanted the timing. Then a topic on The Nest message board proved fruitful when I found these. They are the podcasts with the timing set to pop/hip hop music! Right up my alley. So I downloaded and loaded to my ipod and was set to go today.

I started out on our street like usual, was set to just go around the circle, but people here apparently don't have leash laws. Just as I was about to turn the curve, 2 huge black dogs came bounding out at me. I am terrified of big dogs. Like don't even get me started. So I quickly turned around for fear of being chased after and ripped to shreds. Tony had told me there is a nice neighborhood adjacent to ours that is good to run in. So I ventured over there today. Best part, no dogs chasing after me!

So I did it! I completed week 1! Here are my stats for this week:

Day 1: 28 mins, 2.88 miles
Day 2: 38 mins, 3.02 miles
Day 3: 37 mins, 2.73 miles

I'm pretty proud of myself. Even though today's run wasn't that great, at least I got out there and did it! I can't wait to start week 2 on Monday, which coincidentally will be my 26th birthday!

Chocolate Cake Truffles

My birthday is coming up, therefore I have been craving cake for weeks now. I was not going to make one, I had resigned myself to the fact that it would be too much temptation. But after actually showing some progress on the scale and working out at least three times a week, I finally caved. Yesterday I pulled out my pink scraping beater blade for my Kitchenaid mixer (an early bday gift from my BFF Jessica!), a box of cake mix, my two 9 in silicone round cake pans and got to work. Granted, I had wanted to try to make a cake from scratch, but I already had this box of mix, and quite frankly I was lazy. So I made the cake as the directed, it was Duncan Hines Butter Recipe Fudge. Sprayed down my round silicone pans and baked. While the cake was in the oven I went to work on homemade buttercream frosting.  Tony and I were both in love with the frosting on our wedding cake. Our baker, the awesome Judy Laberge of Charlotte, VT shared her secret with us, she uses almond extract in her buttercream, so I decided that is exactly what I would do. I used the recipe on the side of the Domino confectioner's sugar box, it's very simple:


1 lb box of confectioner's sugar
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
3-4 TBSP milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract (this was my own addition)


Then I mixed it all in my mixer until creamy. It ended up being VERY sweet, but still delicious!
So when the cakes were done I pulled them out of the oven, and decided to let them cool in the pans for about 15-20 mins. I then wanted to flip them out and let them continue cooling on the racks. Well the first cake flipped out of the pan just fine. The second crumbled upon flipping. I in turn flipped out! My cake was ruined!! What was I going to do? I then began researching online and found the perfect solution: Bakerella's cake balls!


I took the crumbled cake, threw it in a large mixing bowl, crumbled it into small crumbs with my hands, and then mixed in some of the buttercream. I think I added too much frosting though, as my cake was very moist, I then rolled the mixture into balls and placed them on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. I ended up with 3 dozen cake balls.

The above cake balls then went in the freezer overnight. Today I took them out, Bakerella suggested only taking out a few at a time, but I took out a tray at a time. I then poured about half the bag of Hershey's Milk Chocolate chips I had in my pantry in a bowl, zapped them in the microwave for about a minute and went to dunking. I used a spoon and rolled the balls around until they were coated with chocolate, then spooned them back on the tray, and when all were done popped the tray back in the freezer. And then repeated with the second tray. Then it was decorating time! I melted about 2 oz of white chocolate chips, again in the microwave for about 45 second on 70% power. I threw in about a teaspoon of a fat free margarine in there too, and then spooned the melted white chocolate into a sandwich size Ziploc bag, cut off a small bit of the corner and piped the designs. Here's the finished product, they are going to work with Tony tomorrow:
 

 

So, next time your cake crumbles when you try to flip it out of the pan, just whip up a batch of these! But be warned, according to my husband they are highly addictive!

C25K Week 1

After over a year of being on The Knot and The Nest lots of different workouts are often discussed amongst brides trying to drop pounds for their big days, I was one of these girls. I learned all about Jillian Michaels' 30 Day Shred and the C25K program. But my weight loss journey began before I even got engaged with Weight Watchers (WW) when my BFF asked me to be her Maid of Honor (MOH), I was at the heaviest I'd ever been and was really unhappy with myself. I joined WW and my local Gold's Gym, then 2 months later T proposed, so I had even more motivation! A year later I had dropped 28 lbs, was down 4 sizes and was feeling quite sassy and sexy! I even made Lifetime!

Enter the newlywed phase. I gained 10 of my 28 lbs back., I stopped going to WW and am way over my Lifetime goal. I blame those wretchedly delicious chocolate chip cookies I make for my husband that I just can't resist. And the homemade bread I love to make in my new breadmaker. So I decided to start back on WW, this time on my own, and give the 30 Day Shred and Couch 2 5K program a shot.

So this is my goal now, complete C25K, and work on the Shred. I began C25K this Monday, I was good, was able to do 3 miles in the 30 mins. Today was Day 2, I did 3.02 miles in about 38 mins. My birthday is on Monday, so today T took me to the Exchange (I'm a Navy wife, so we do most shopping on base) where he bought me a new sassy pair of running shoes and the Nike+ ipod thing. I am so excited! I can't wait to do my next 3 miles on Friday and complete week1!

Welcome

Welcome to my new blog! I had attempted to chronicle my DIY wedding planning on my old blog, www.floridameetsvermont.blogspot.com. I figured I would now chronicle my life as a housewife and as I try to get fit again. Hence trying to become "the hot housewife." Like every new wife, I have my hand at trying out new recipes, making delicious desserts, and trying to learn to be the best hostess possible; while at the same time jumping back on Weight Watchers and trying to become a runner. So welcome and I hope you enjoy reading about my quest.