Category Archives: ultimate blog challenge

We Are Gastronauts

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I was listening to a webinar yesterday when the gal being interviewed referred to herself as a gastro tourist. Say what? She then described what she meant and I thought, “I love that! We are totally that.”

gastro

I also like the idea of referring to myself as a gastronaut. 🙂

gastro tourism

We are heading to Florida today. On the way there, we will drive through Birmingham because it’s the most direct route. On the way home, though, we’ll be driving through Nashville. Why? Because we’re gastronauts.

When David brought me the moonshine last year, I spent a lot of time looking for recipes that I could use it in. While searching, google brought me to the Loveless Cafe and I became obsessed. I like them on facebook, I follow them in instagram. I want to go there SO badly and eat biscuits. So we’re going to drive out of our way to have breakfast there. 🙂

Given that we are going the different route, our drive will take us through Atlanta where we’ll have lunch with my friend, Kat, at Mary Mac’s. I only learned of this restaurant yesterday while we were planning our visit so now I have a new menu to obsess over. It looks delish!

I’m not sure what kinds of places we’ll visit while in Florida. We’ll be sharing several meals with old friends and I’m looking forward to the friends part more than the food but it will all be good, I’m sure! 🙂

I love to food spot and you can find me here.

Cookbook Cook Through: Week 4

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We’ve just finished up week four of the cook through of the Every Day Paleo cookbook. I made three recipes this week and they were all wonderful.

First I made the Dry Rub Burgers. This makes some tasty burgers. The recipe makes quite a bit so we’ve actually had these twice now. We love them!

dry_rub_burgers

Next we tried Frittata for All otherwise known as let’s watch Lauri and David eat a lot of eggs. It was delish! David can’t wait to have this one again. It was easy to prepare. I was a little afraid of putting my skillet in the oven but it was fine and the frittata turned out perfectly.

frittata

The third recipe I tried was Curried Cauliflower. We both love Indian flavors and roasted veggies so this was a perfect recipe for us. We ate it all. An entire head of cauliflower. Yum!

I’ve really been enjoying this challenge so far. We are going to Florida tomorrow so I won’t be cooking anything from the cookbook the week we’re gone but I’m looking forward to what I chose next! 🙂

Donuts!

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Donuts are just one of those foods. You know. They’re not good for you but they taste SO good. Especially with chocolate milk. Also not good for you.

We decided to take the Glambaby for a donut this a.m. to a place call OK Country Donuts. They make donuts into shapes and Nikki had gotten some baseball donuts from them for Geoff for his birthday.

When we got there, the fun donuts were on the bottom shelf of the case, just at the Glambaby’s level. They had pigs and snakes. Well, how do you decide between them? Both so fun?

donut1

You don’t.

You get them both. And enjoy them both.

donut2

We love donuts!

What food does it for you? 🙂

Renew Redo: Guestroom Headboard

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Sunday was an absolutely gorgeous day here in Tulsa. Although there was a high wind advisory, that never happened and the temperature reached 70 degrees.

I wanted to take that day to paint the headboard for the guest room that I got from Craigslist.

Bedroom

 

I fell in love with, not only this comforter set, but also the way the white headboard looked on the gray wall. So I was looking for a headboard that would show the wall through it.

I found this headboard on Craigslist within the $50 budget I set for myself.

before

Then I got three cans of white spray paint. Which was a bad mistake. I don’t know if I just stink at spray painting or the paint was cheap or what but it didn’t go on very smoothly. And my pointer fingers hurt so much from trying to spray the paint. So I ran to the store to get a can of white semi-gloss paint.

What a fabu idea! It looks amazing.

after

I can’t wait to see it against the wall with “Shaken Not Stirred” peeking through. 🙂

Cookbook Cook Through – Week 3

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It was week three of my cookbook cook through challenge and we had some good food!

We both loved Indian food so I chose the Better Butter Chicken to make first. It was really good and even better the second day. I searched high and low to find fenugreek but couldn’t so I ended up leaving it out. I guess I’ll check the Indian grocery to see if they have it. I will make this one again but I think I’ll serve it over riced cauliflower next time.

Better Butter Chicken

We had never had red chard, or any kind of chard, before and I was able to find it at Sprouts. It was pretty! I looked forward to preparing and tasting it. I wasn’t too thrilled with its taste and David didn’t like it at all so I probably won’t make it again.

The second recipe we tried was Nutty Cookies. One of the problems we always have when eating clean is that David misses his “fun food”. He has started bringing me recipes which I help him out by making but have been truly awful. The last one, The Life Changing Loaf of Bread was just, um, awful.

nutty cookies

So anyway, this cookie recipe looked like it would be far and away better than the bread recipe. Although it was a little involved, it wasn’t difficult and we ate the cookies for breakfast. They were good! I will for sure make them again.

Next week I’ve decided to try the Frittata for All and Baked Curry Cauliflower. Yum! 🙂

#napnapbaby

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I started taking a daily power nap in 2003, the best I can remember. Since I have been working for myself, nap time is always at 2:00 p.m. and it lasts 20 minutes. I set a timer.

Taking this 20 minutes to lay down and close my eyes, is just the pick-up I need to get through the second half of the day at top productivity.

I hear people who say, “I could never only nap for 20 minutes”. “That wouldn’t do me any good, I’d never get to sleep in such a short time.” I’m not sure I really sleep during my nap but I most definitely recharge. I know that if I were to lay down for hours every afternoon, it would ruin my ability to sleep that night and probably also make me feel sluggish for the rest of the day.

But at 2:00 p.m. every day it’s time for #napnapbaby. Even the dog knows what that means and heads for the bedroom. 🙂

A great how-to for power napping can be found here. A quick google search will turn up many articles about why napping each day is good for you.

Even when I worked outside of the home, I was able to fit my power nap into my hour long lunch break. It’s really worth it and I encourage you to give it a try! 🙂

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Ultimate Blog Challenge

So we are now halfway through the Ultimate Blog Challenge. For the most part, it’s been a good experience. I’ve written a blog every day, even though some days I’ve had to dig really deep, and I feel like my blog is getting it’s Rott-I-Tude back. That was my biggest goal in joining the challenge and that makes me happy.

I was going to wait to write this post until the last day of the challenge but yesterday was another day where I received only one comment on my blog and it’s been bugging me.

I am a rule follower. I don’t speed, when there’s an octagonal red sign in front of me with white letters that spell S-T-O-P, I stop, and when the directions say:

“If you participate in this optional comment chain then add your daily url and immediately comment on the two blog posts above your post in this chain or else do not participate in this chain.”

guess what? I post the link to my blog and then go to the two links above mine, read the blogs and leave a comment.

There have been two days of the sixteen where I’ve only received one comment on my blog. I won’t call the people out who didn’t comment but I know who they are. And they know it, too.

There are a lot of very diverse individuals participating in this challenge and they write about all manner of things. I have met some very interesting people over the course of the last month and I’ve read blogs about things that I would never have normally gone to read. I have read really long posts, I have read technical posts. But I read them and I commented on them because I added my own blog to the chain, expecting that I would then receive two comments on what I wrote.

My blog posts are not long. My blog posts are not technical. They usually involve a couple big photos and are written at a sixth grade level. They are easy to read.

It is disrespectful to the other participants for someone to post their link in the chain and not to read and comment on the two blogs above and I think it’s the respect aspect of this whole situation that bothers me the most because I believe, in a lot of areas in life, bad things boil down to lack of respect.

So think about that my friends. In business and in life, are you showing proper respect for the people you interact with daily?

 

Creative Writing Contest

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If you read my blog yesterday, you will know how much I love the library. The other day, I went to the Tulsa Public Library website and saw this:

Creative Writing ContestI had actually seen the same notice last year but it was too late in January when I saw it and I was too busy. But this year, I still have over half a month to prepare my entry.

I’ve written about my list of 100 Goals. Number 85 on that list is: Enter a creative writing contest.

So…

I am polishing up my entry. It’s the same one I would have entered last year so I already knew what I was going to write.

There are four categories:

  • Short Story
  • Children’s Fiction
  • Informal Essay
  • Poetry

Mine entry will be in the Informal Essay category and I will submit it next time I go to the library.

Judging will take place and then there will be an awards ceremony on April 12. I’m excited to actually enter a contest and to be able to cross number 85 off of my list. If I should get a prize, that will just be the cherry on top. 🙂

Cookbook Cookthrough: Everyday Meatloaf and Paleo Apple Muffins

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This was the first week for the Paleo Cookbook Cookthrough challenge that I decided to do and I chose one main dish recipe and a muffin recipe.

The first recipe I made was the Everyday Meatloaf. It is DELISH!

Everyday Meatloaf

I used fresh basil as called for in the recipe and it’s very basil-y which I love. I have seen the recipe on the Everyday Paleo site and it used dried basil which would be great in a pinch. But if you have the opportunity for the fresh basil, use it!

I mixed the meatloaf in the Kitchen Aid and, while it looked like it was completely mixed, there was a part of the finished loaf that had a concentration of almond flour. Next time, and there will be a next time, I’ll mix it all with my hands like it says to in the recipe.

I served the meatloaf with roasted garlic green beans which are a favorite here.

Uh-MAZING cold! I adore cold meatloaf and David and i were fighting over the leftover cold pieces. This is a great recipe!

Yesterday, I tried the Paleo Apple Muffins.

Paleo Apple Muffins

I did cut the recipe in half because there are just two of us. I know from experience, that if something is good, we have no restraint. Fresh muffins are best anyway, right? 😉

For paleo muffins, I give it five stars for texture and muffiny-ness. And they were okay tasting. We did eat them. But they are not very sweet. I expected them to be just a little more special. I will for sure make them again because when you’re eating paleo, sometimes you really want some bread and these would fill that need nicely. However, I think I’ll try adding some dates or stevia or something to make them just a little sweeter.

Next week, I’m planning to try Marvelous Meatballs and Brussels Sprouts N Bacon. I scored some beautiful Brussels sprouts at the new Sprouts Farmers Market grand opening and I can’t wait to eat them! 🙂

 

 

Cooking Through a Cookbook

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I’m going through my goals list (I need to write about that again) adding and subtracting and renewing it for the new year. I usually check it every six months to see if there are things that need to be removed. I always add new things as I think of them.

One of the things that’s been on my list since I first made it in December of 2012 is to cook through a cookbook. I read the book Julie and Julia and I thought that was the coolest story and thought I would like to do that someday.

Julie and Julia

Of course, when I first was thinking about it, I thought cooking, or rather baking, through a dessert cookbook would be how I would handle this particular goal. But honestly, even though that sounds like loads of fun, one of the other items on my goals list is to get the sugar out of my diet.

So…

I decided to chose the book Everyday Paleo by Sarah Fragoso. We’ve been eating a mostly paleo diet since November of 2010. Of course come the holidays, eating sugary treats becomes a slippery slope. One I’m ready to get off of and put behind me.

cookbook

I looked through the book paying special attention to things I’m kind of afraid of. In all of the paleo cookbooks I own, this book has less of those than the others. Portobello mushrooms and lamb specifically have me worried but I’ve never eaten a portobello mushroom and the only time I ever consumed lamb was when I did the Scarsdale Diet in 1980. 2 lamb chops on Tuesday if I remember correctly.

Anyway, David is not a seafood eater so I’ll have to plan those meals for when he’s out of town but I feel like this will be good fun and good food for us! 🙂