Meatless Monday: Game Changers

 I've got two extremely important announcements for today:

#1. Your workout wedgie woes have been solved. (What?! You don't have this problem?)

#2. I'm pregnant!

Ha! No I'm not, but didn't it seem like I was going there? Around here important announcements are about underwear and food. Soooo: #2. I've found the best and easiest peanut butter cookie recipe e-v-e-r. Your welcome.

Let's start with a little story about a girl who gets a wedgie every single freaking time she runs. Every time. There is nothing classier than a girl huffing and puffing, jogging down the road with a bright red face, dripping in sweat, attempting to casually unpick her wedgie. This underwear though, has grippy strips along the backside keeping everything in place. OMG it is fantastic. Now I can focus on my burning calves, racing pulse and gasping for air.

My awesome new underwear courtesy of the sale section of Target. I found these 2 packs on sale for $3.88 a pair and I scooped up a few. So for all you other girls who are plagued with wedgies when you work out run over to Target and pick up a pair, it'll change your life!

We rocked it out, running this week! We ran 3 times, a 3 miler, 3 miler, and 6 miles Sunday night. High Five to us!!! I owe it all to the magical wedgie free undies :)

On Thursday I was having a no good, awful, very bad day. A slam your head against your desk, get so mad your face turns burning red, need a punching bag day. So I came home, made a giant pot of spicy tortilla soup and found this little gem of a recipe online.

It's for peanut butter cookies. It has 4 ingredients. What?! With only 4 ingredients it barely even qualifies as a recipe. I had little to no faith in these cookies turning out. Really, I thought they would be gross. But I figured if they were mildly decent it would be worth it just because they were so easy, if they were horrible, well at least it took no time and no ingredients really.

Now based on the ranting and raving I did about our favorite Mac and Cheese you may be thinking I just like to oversell these recipes I share with you, but I swear that I am just sharing our favorites and they really are that good. Mind blowingly, deliciously tasty!

If you are in need of something sweet and love peanut butter these are for you. They stay super soft and moist on the inside and get a nice crust on the outside. Perfect really. And without the flour you really get all that peanut buttery flavor! Trust me when I say that you need to try these.

Easiest PB Cookies Ever!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Smooth Peanut Butter
• 3/4 cup Brown Sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 t baking soda

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees
2. Mix everything up!
3. Spoon 1 tablespoon of mixture about 1 inch apart onto ungreased baking sheets. Flatten the mounds with a fork, making a criss cross pattern on the cookies.
4. Bake until golden brown around the edges, about 10 minutes.

Mix it Up: Try mixing in chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, rolling them in sugar or sprinkling with some sea salt

Sunday Dress

Shirt: TJMaxx,  Skirt: H&M,  Shoes: Target

Sunday is the one day of the week that I get an opportunity to dress up. Not just dress in my "dressy" jeans, but actually pull out a dress and some heels and look good. Heels and I aren't exactly BFF's so they are definitely a Sunday Only item. I can get through about three hours of wearing them, especially if I'm sitting down, but that's about it.

"Danielle, your young, your newly married, you have no kids! You can dress up and go out anytime you like!"

And go to Chuck-o-rama? Applebees? Ooooh, I know, Target! Our options are pretty limited in a small town of where to go once you actually get dressed up. So for now I'll focus on turning up the volume on Sundays and really knocking the socks of those nursery kids!

I've linked up with ModernModestBeauty and Marionberry

Awkward and Awesome Thursday

It's almost Friday!!!

Awkward:

• Chad messing with some camera equipment and getting a giant chunk of plastic in his eye. I ran over to help him and thought I would have to fish around to find it. Yeah, no. It was huge, and black and right there. I tried to get it out but finally just told him he'd have to do it. I swore he was going to poke his eye out going after it with a pair of tweezers but he got it!

• The awesome nursing home lady who has fake puppies she carries around in her basket on her walker. Best part, one of them has a cone around it's head. Those crazy puppies, always hurting themselves.
• Being on a first name basis with the people at the surronding gas stations. Only 2 really. But isn't that 2 too many? I won't even tell you why.
• Dropping my phone in the parking lot while grocery shopping last night. The pixels are all weird now so it looks like there is a fetus on my phone. I used to drop my iphone on a freaking daily basis on the way into my old job. Never bothered it. Not a scratch, not a dent, nothing. That phone was a champ. I drop this thing once and now I've got an alien baby looking back at me.
• The grumpy old couple at the Nursing Home we visit. They are the grouchiest, angriest couple ever but they crack me up. They never let the Dr. work on them and it's a riot to listen to them grumble and gossip about people. Last month they were sitting outside, enjoying the 90 degree heat of the morning, soaking up the sunshine, all in their giant winter coats. LOL. I was a sweaty mess and here they were sitting out in the sun in their down coats that came down to their knees. Love it.

Awesome:

• Desert Industries. It's our Salvation Army. And while really, it sucks, no colored tag sale of the day, no specials ever really, and everything seems to be overpriced, it's all we got! I have become a DI champ. I go into the dressing room with arms of (mostly) crap and usually manage to find a few cheap gems.
• Pawn Stores. While I love the DI Chad loves all the Pawn Shops around here. He's been able to get some killer deals as of late. Like, quick run out of the store before they realized what just happened, killer deals.

Chad's latest loot from the Pawn Shop

• Chad's pictures from his photo shoot last week. While he hasn't been able to edit many yet (too many tests) he's got some killer shots and I can't wait to see how they turn out once he edits them.
• Nikki and Matt come NEXT WEEK! AHHH! We are SOOOOOOO excited!
• Cookie Dough. I made cookie dough over the Labor Day weekend and ran out of regular flour, so I used some cake flour to make up the difference. Note to self: cake flour is not the same as regular flour. They were the flattest cookies ever made, and didn't really taste that good. Upside? I now have a cookie dough just chillin in the freezer for me to munch on. A spoonful of cookie dough is the perfect way to end a long day.

The Crazies

Yesterday was a doozy.

Chad had school all day, it's his long day, and 3 tests to take. One was taken in class, which was nice, the other 2 had to be taken in the testing center.

I get out of work at 4, but he doesn't get out of his lab until 5. So I wandered around KMart (KMart is the worst, and ours is filthy). Then I walked back to work and he picked me up. I dropped him off at class and ran home to let out Rukia. Then back up to campus to bring a very loopy Chad some dinner.

You know how you start to go crazy after so many hours of class/studying/testing in one day? Yeah, he was there, and it was his first time experiencing the fun of it. After he ate I dropped him off at the Testing Center to tackle his last 2 tests and I went grocery shopping. Then I just wandered around stores until he was done. While not super stressful on my part I was definitely tired from being gone all day. If he didn't have the crazy before he definitely had them after 2 tests.

While I don't have pictures of Chad looking crazy while studying I have a plenty of me

After killing his tests we headed home around 10pm. Blah. We were welcomed home by a certain cat who didn't feel like using the litter box. Excellent. She really manages to have perfect timing. When we first got her she would jump up on the bed and start purring. I would wake up, look up at her and then wonder why my feet were getting so warm. Yup, she peed on me. This happened multiple times. What a sweetheart. Luckily we have moved past that. And while she cops an attitude at times at least she stopped peeing on me. I don't know how this turned into me talking about cat pee for so long....

Chad continued to be a champ taking out the trash, picking up, throwing in laundry from said cat incident, and taking out the dog. I crashed. Yup, the one who was in school all day, taking tests until his brain turned to mush was the one who kept on going at home while I promptly died. And I mean died. Like, fall asleep while your husband is talking to you, died. And that is reason #89237 why I love my husband.

Work it Out

I haven't been in school in September in a couple years now. I would be lying if I said that I miss the tests and homework, studying and papers, boring lectures that would drag on forever, and the stress of it all.

I do however miss the fresh start that the school year would bring. The newness of it all. The clean planners and new notebooks, shiny pens and organizational materials up the wazoo. Well, I may not be starting school it's still a great chance for a fresh start. I've already got my shiny new calendar up in our kitchen and now it's goal time peeps. Why wait until January? There's nothing better than new goals to kick your butt into gear and start fresh! And it's a good chance to review the resolutions that I made at the beginning of the year. Some are going awesome, some have died, and some just need to be revamped.

Fall Goals:

• Wake up at a reasonable hour to get ready for the day, eat breakfast, and relax before the crazy starts. Are you sick of hearing about how we can't wake up in the morning? We'll see if we can't fix that. I wouldn't hold your breathe though.

• Take more pictures! Chad's all over this but I want to get better at photography as well.

• RUN! I looked into some half marathons around here, there are plenty. Problem, they all cost around 50 bucks a pop. That's $100 for the two of us, aren't you glad I'm here to do the math for you. That just ain't gonna happen. Having a race to run is a great motivating factor but I guess we'll just have to run to run.

The Color Me Rad run takes place in a month and I wish I could run in it, doesn't it look like a blast?

• Keep the kitchen CLEAN. Evey night, clean it up girl! Because there's no way I'm making dinner the next night in a dirty kitchen. And since our "grocery budget" doesn't allow us to eat at Cafe Rio every night I need to keep this goal. 

• Look cute on the weekend. I'm hoping this will get easier as we ease out of the 100 degree weather. It's impossible to look cute when you are drenched in sweat. I pull my hair into a high ponytail, ditch the makeup, and wear as little clothing as I can. And I don't care what the heck that looks like. I'm gonna attempt to channel my inner style blogger and see if I can't jazz up my weekend look a bit.

So basically.... I want to become a early rising, well dressed, put together photographer who runs marathons and keeps a spotless house. That shouldn't be too hard right? HA.


Yesterday I managed to be sleepy, late, scrub wearing runner with a spotless kitchen with dinner on the table. And while there were no pictures of said events I think 2 outta 5 really ain't too bad for a Monday. Plus, I only said I was going to look cute on the weekends :)

Do you have any goals? Are any as ridiculous as my goal to get dressed on the weekend?

Meatless Monday: Blueberry Muffins

While we didn't go out night shooting this past weekend Chad had his first photo shoot! First photo shoot with someone other than family that is ;)  I was his lovely assistant and he rocked it. Now he's editing photos while studying for tests. Hopefully he'll have some pictures to share soon!

In other news Chad is being social and making friends in our ward, finally. I am still struggling to survive the nursery. Another lady is now working in the nursery, so there are three of us. She is super excited about it though and loves it! Which works out well since me and the other girl have exactly the opposite attitude.

Sunday afternoon was spent watching the best Peter Pan made for TV special ever. Neverland. Chad found it on Netflix. Seriously, this was good stuff. Now, it was long, it literally took up our whole Sunday. But only because we took a nap during it, make a donut run, and just took our dear sweat time in general. If you don't have 3 hours to kill it's worth it to at least watch the part where Peter "flies". Pure Awesomeness. The boy looks like he's having a seizure in the air. Chad and I reenacted it after the movie until I was in tears and Chad was convulsing on the ground yelling in a british accent.

Here are my favorite Blueberry Muffins! My mom would always make us these for Christmas morning, who wants to sit and eat a big breakfast when there are presents to open? I was lazy last Sunday and didn't make muffins, which required us to get up earlier to make our own breakfast, which means that we didn't eat breakfast last week :(  Lol.

So yesterday I whipped up a double batch of Panera's Mac and Cheese for Chad's lunches and a batch of these awesome Blueberry Muffins! I forgot that I halved the recipe last time so we now have muffins coming out of our ears. They are so good though that we'll blow right through them in no time. If anyone lived close I'd bring some over to you but sadly no one does so we will sacrifice and scarf them all down ourselves!

Mom's Christmas Blueberry Muffins:

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 2 c sugar
• 1 c vegetable oil
• 1 t vanilla
• 4 c flour
• 2 t baking powder
• 1 t salt
• 1 t baking soda
• 2 c sour cream (I used plain greek yogurt)
• 2 c blueberries

Directions:

1. Beat eggs and gradually add in sugar.
2. Add oil and vanilla.
3. Combine dry ingredients.
4. Add dry ingredients, alternating with sour cream.
5. Gently fold in berries
6. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes

Oooh, I almost forgot, this is really the best part! Combine 1/2 cup of well chopped nuts, 1/4c brown sugar, and 1/2 t cinnamon to make a topping for your muffins! I didn't feel like chopping up nuts so I just mixed together brown sugar and cinnamon to sprinkle on top before baking them. Mmmmm.

Confessions

1. I am an NPR girl. After years of listening to music at work it was sooooo nice to work in a lab where our professsor choose to listen to NPR. I had never listened to it but it quickly grew on me. My coworkers hated it. It would drive them crazy. I l-o-v-e-d it. Still do. Half the time I'm learning something cool and the other half of the time I just sort of zone out to it and have it as background noise. Chad will often make comments on whatever was just said and I'll have no idea what's going on.

2. I'm addicted to fashion blogs. You wouldn't ever know it considering I'm usually found in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, or workout clothes. Chad's family all knows I'm generally wearing a crappy old white shirt with a picture of me and Jared ironed on the front. I like to keep it classy like that. After a long day in scrubs it's hard to come home and put on clothes that actually fit, workout clothes and extremely old (and slightly holey) t-shirts are much more comfy. Maybe someday I'll learn to put my clothes together to look like all the fabulous girls on these blogs I read, or at least on the weekends.



The Day Book

3. After being a complete girl and buying shoes all the time and getting quite the collection (well quite the collection for a college girl on a budget) I can't remember the last pair of shoes I bought that weren't for running, or to replace my cheap-o sandals. While I am strangely proud of this it also makes me a little sad.

4. I haven't played the piano since December. I've got the key to the church so I can go up there if I want but I've been lame and I haven't. Long term goal: buy a nice electronic keyboard.

5. I have a love/hate relationship with my retainer. I hate it because it's a retainer, come on. I love it because it keeps my teeth looking nice and my head from throbbing due to shifting teeth. After abadoning it a month (or so) ago I started getting these headaches everyday. I thought they were from my last wisdom tooth slowly starting to invade my face but I'm hoping part of it was just the massive shifting my teeth were doing without my handy dandy retainer.

The past two nights have been ridiculously painful. I just jammed my retainer into place and swallowed a handful of advil before trying to sleep so I didn't have to deal with the pain. It kinda worked. My teeth are getting back into place and I will hopefully remember to wear my gosh darn retainer a couple of times a week!

6. My wisdom tooth is in fact invading my face though and I need to find a dentist that will remove this thing asap for next to nothing without permanantley damaging my face. I don't think they exist.