Presents, Pies and Wear a Dress Tuesday

"Stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone ought to be."

Elizabeth Gilbert

I LOVE this quote!  Something to keep in the back of your mind as you start making your new year's resolutions ... 

I tried to convince myself that 28 degrees and snow-covered streets would be fun to run in and through today ... 

It wasn't a terrible run, but it wasn't a particularly good run either.  I'm attributing the "eh-ness" of the run to three things:

1. Lack of fuel - let's face it, I didn't eat very well yesterday.  It's time to start thinking about getting back on track with healthy eating!

2. Tired legs - my legs felt like bricks!  I haven't been stretching well lately (um, or at all).  I think I was also feeling the shoveling from yesterday!

3. Snowy conditions - dodging snow piles and ice spots was slowing me down a little bit.  And my running sneakers are not waterproof!  Brr.

In the end, I ran 2.80 miles in 29:43, averaging a 10:36 pace.

Here was my breakdown:

Mile 1 - 9:52

Mile 2 - 11:39

2.00 - 2.80 - 8:12 (10:14 pace)

Post-run I inhaled a PB&J.

I probably should have thought to eat one before I left.  Oh, well - run on!

Look what was waiting for me when I got back from my run!  My favorite lieutenant sent us a house warming gift full of coffee and chocolate!  Do my friends know me or what?  Granted, I would have preferred his and his beautiful fiance's presence as a present :) but since that's not possible, I will gladly except this.  Thank you Gib and Justine!

My parent's invited us over for football, basketball and dinner tonight, but since I had already planned on cooking dinner, I packed up all of my ingredients, took them along and cooked there!

I finally made a Christmas Leftover Pie!  I was a little bit nervous because I had never attempted this before (and wasn't following a recipe), but it was delicious!

Mmm.  I'll post the recipe in the morning - both my dad and Bruce went back for seconds!  That's the sign of a good dish.

I was kind of proud. :)

Do you like my WADT outfit?  I was wearing ... 

- A pink long sleeved shirt that I bought at a thrift store

- Black Apt. 9 leggings that I got for Christmas ("Santa" bought them on massive sale at Kohls)

- A summer sleeveless Pink Rose dress from TJ Maxx

- A black 89th & Madison cover up

- Silver hoop earrings that my sweet husband stuck in my stocking

I needed a bright pick-me-up after my run, so I decided to go with some fun layers.  I like it!

I can't believe today was the last WADT of the year!  It's hard to believe how far this little movement has come in one year.  Our facebook page has over 70 fans!  When I created it, I thought we might have ten fans, but 70?!  That's amazing.  YOU guys are amazing for supporting this movement.

Have a great night!

Countdown to 2011: Soups

Hello there and happy Wear a Dress Tuesday!  Man, we woke up after yesterday's blackout to a messy house!  Apparently not being able to see means that we didn't have the means to put anything away?

Sine we didn't eat a whole lot yesterday, I was starving when I woke up.  It took me awhile to get moving, though, so I decided to make more of a brunch than a breakfast.

Two leftover pancakes (last ones!) and a two-egg cheese omelet.

Actually, in the spirit of honesty, I should tell you that I was originally making scrambled eggs.  However, after an unfortunate incident involving the garbage can, coffee grounds and egg shells left me crawling on my hands and knees picking gross things up and Bruce standing over me with a broom, I stood up and realized my eggs had cooked before I had a chance to scramble them.  So I flipped them and decided I was having an omelet for breakfast.

Mmm, hit the spot.  And the kitchen is clean from the mess I made (thanks for helping, Bruce!).

***

As we continue to countdown to 2011, I've been participating in Finding Joy In My Kitchen's recipe exchange (see my breakfast post here).  Today we're looking at our favorite soups and stews!  Ahhh, my favorite.  Here we go ...

Cheddar Chowder

Borrowed from Kari's mom, this recipe is one of our absolute favorites in the wintertime!  It's creamy, yet hearty and can be adjusted depending on what you have in the kitchen (I know Ver used bacon instead of ham) and could feasibly be turned into a vegetarian dish as well!

Spicy Beef Vegetable Stew

 

This is definitely one of those sinus clearing soups :) - perfect after a morning of shoveling (perhaps I should have made it yesterday?).

I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what everyone links up with today - now that we have a bigger freezer and are living in colder climates, I plan on making a lot of soups, stews and chilis to get us through the winter!

Have a great day everyone!  See you this evening with Wear a Dress Tuesday pictures (psst. it's the LAST WADT of the year!).

A Blackout On Our Whiteout

 Well, it's been an interesting day over here!  Let's start at the beginning ...

Look what we woke up to!

Whooooooeeeee!  Around 18 inches dropped onto our neck of the woods last night.

It wasn't really a heavy snow, but there was a ton of it and the wind has been blowing something fierce all day and it made it difficult to clear.  Our tractor/plow is getting fixed, so my mom called someone in to plow for us.

We still had about an inch or two to shovel, but one or two is much more manageable than 18!

I heated up leftover pancakes for breakfast this morning before the shoveling commenced.

And topped them with this!  My dad gave this to Bruce and me an oh my.  I may never go back to Aunt Jemima again.

I love how the steam is coming off my coffee in this photo.  I have no idea how I did that.

There was lots of coffee flowing in our house this morning.

He kind of got a kick out of the whole thing.  Really, I think he just wanted to play.

Unfortunately, we didn't have a sled. :( But the day went on ...

Post-shoveling, I was working on a blog post when my computer screen got a little bit darker.  The power had gone out!  I was hoping that it would be a quick fix, but unfortunately we only now just got it back.  9 1/2 hours without power!  No power = no water (we have a well, not city water) and no power = no heat (the electricity powers the furnace).  I feel like I've been roughing it at all day!

Since we didn't have power, we decided to meander down to some friends of ours in the neighborhood who had been on vacation to see if they had gotten back.  From the looks of their driveway (or their lack of driveway) we saw that they weren't home yet, so we meandered down to see some other friends who we knew had their key.

Can I take a moment and say how much I love living in a neighborhood again where I know and love my neighbors?

Once we got the key, we went back to the vacationing friends' house and Bruce fired up their snowblower and I grabbed a shovel and we cleared their driveway and back deck.  It was actually kind of fun and a great upper body workout, ha!

I was hoping when we returned the keys, we would be met with good news that the power was back on, but no such luck.  So we came home and made hot chocolate in the fireplace!

Bruce's camping supplies.

We actually didn't have a fire lit at the time, so Bruce just used a mini grill, but kept everything in the fireplace to keep it contained.

It's boiling!

Swiss Miss.  Stolen from my parents pantry (hi Daddy!).

Oh man.  After shoveling allllll morning and afternoon, that hit the spot.

Now at that point, we really didn't know what to do.  The power had been out for about three hours, but the power company didn't have an ETA for when it was coming back.  We couldn't cook, so we thought about going up to my parent's house, but the sun was quickly setting and knew it wouldn't be safe to drive home after it got dark.  We thought about spending the night there, but didn't want to leave Lilly at home with no heat and didn't want to subject my poor only-child cat to the zoo at my parent's house.

So I called the local pizza and praise-the-lord they had running generators!  One large pizza with mushrooms and onions, coming our way ...

Bruce (very carefully and in my mom's AWD outback that she let us borrow for a few days) drove down to get the pizza while I took a candle into our guest room and found a bunch of extra blankets.

Collages to show you that I did try to do things without a flash.  It just wasn't going to happen.

At this point we were staving because we had cleared two driveways (one of three inches, one of 18) and had only eaten two pancakes.  Well, I had eaten two pancakes, Bruce had only drank tea all day!  So we scarfed this entire pizza down and then happily curled up in front of the fire.

 These candles are leftover from my wedding 18 months ago.  True story.

Eventually we got a game of scrabble going.  I'm not sure who won - we kind of backed ourselves into a corner and eventually got bored.  As much as I am normally glued to my computer, the lack of connection was - dare I say? - peaceful today.  It was fun to just sit back and enjoy the simple things.

Okay, time to wrap this up - we moved all of our food out onto the porch so it wouldn't spoil in the fridge (it's 20 degrees outside!) so I need to bring that back in before I fall asleep and the raccoons decide to make it their dinner.  As annoying as it was to have no power, I am grateful that it happened during a time of year when we could keep all the food cold, for lot of blankets that kept me warm and a sweet husband who slaved over a fire all night.

Goodnight everyone!