Rock N' Roll Expo

Well it's about 1 day away...the lines were kinda of long and we went yesterday to pick up our bibs and shirts. I unfortunately did not realize that the shirts ran small and stupidly signed up for a small....grr...they said I can't exchange until the day of at the information booth I think. So we'll see. It's a nice shirt from Brooks so hopefully I can get it less skin tight. ** Was able to exchange today, there were no lines and there were two guys handing out mediums. Score, he said he wasn't supposed to but he did. The powers of a girl woman. Ha!

I love going to the expos, of course I always spend money. They had a Refuel with Chocolate Milk  booth there.  It would be great to be part of their team....but I'm not an elite athlete by any means. I do however drink chocolate milk after my runs or workouts in general, usually drinking while stretching, or contemplating life.  I picked Gary and I up some GU, strawberry with caffeine for me and cranberry apple for him, with caffeine of course. I also picked up some Jelly Belly Sports Beans with caffeine, watermelon for me and cherry for Gary, they were also giving away free samples so I scored some of those as well. 

My Freebies!

Of course they had lots of shoe vendors and clothes vendors and of course different headbands and sunglasses and more food samples.  Actually, the Marine Corps Marathon Expo was much bigger with more vendors.  They had the KT Tape Pro booth there. Last time I was there it was packed with people getting taped up. Luckily there weren't too many this time. I tried to get Gary to get his plantar fasciitis taped but he didn't want to wait around. He isn't as excited about the Expos as I, I guess he knows that I will just be spending money so that doesn't please him.  The Expo closed at 7 tonight and we had 20 min left with 3 people in front of my friend Jenna and I. Thankfully they moved along and I was able to get my right leg taped up for my interior shin splint. I chose purple and black, purple in memory of my father. Let's hope it works.  Some people swear by it.  If it does I'll be buying more of it.  Plus you are supposedly able to wear it for days, even in the shower, obviously if you are wearing it for days.


I won Gary a cool shirt at this Brooks fun area- I wanted it, but this will look better on him:

I was also looking for a running hat. Unfortunately I have  ridiculously small head and while the Rock N' Roll pink hat looked nice on me- I had to pull it so tight that it didn't stick to the velcro.  I was also potentially looking for sunglasses and new earphones.  Thankfully if it is sunny I can wear Gary's since he won't be and I don't really need new earphones, but it would be nice since I feel that I keep needing to adjust mine on long runs. Went back and bought another pair. Let's hope they work well:-) 

 I would like to run the New Orleans Rock N' Roll Half- pretty cool medal

Siesta

Who doesn't like a nap?  

I guess small children who are suppose to take naps.  Because no one is telling me to take naps, they sure do feel good. It's funny because when I am home and my mom says, "You look tired." My immediate response is, "No I'm not." My pets sleep the majority of the day, I have to admit I am a little jealous. 

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I need a hammock! Bliss

Apparently it's nap season for me, which means allergies are in the air and Spring Break is around the corner. I am using more energy trying to keep the kids orderly so it makes me more tired. 

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If that's a new extreme sport, I'm IN!

When I studied abroad in Spain there was "siesta" time everyday. It's meant to be during the hottest part of the day right after the mid-day meal, which also happens to be quite large. I mean think about Thanksgiving or Christmas, aren't you super sleepy after wards? Stores close down for 3-4 hours during those hours. It is kind of annoying if you want to shop, but restaurants and grocery stores are still open, although little grocery stores close. I feel like we'd be more happy. We are such a fast paced country, we walk fast, drive fast, eat fast. And....we are workaholics (well some of us). What's wrong with taking a few hours for yourself in the middle of the day. In my mind Spain has certainly got it right. I feel like there might be less burn out?!

Do you like naps?

I sure do, my husband refuses unless he is sick, or REALLY ridiculously tired.

Catch you in a few......

Straight to the core

This is how I feel when I do push- ups.

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In an effort to become at least somewhat bikini ready in um....19 days.....(I think my head just exploded, if not I'm at least screaming internally) Anyway Jamaica is in 19 days. So I've been trying to up my workouts. Doing a little more ab workouts, some more arm toning (triceps and biceps) and trying to focus on my core. 

It goes without saying that I am one of the least flexible people, or so I feel. I've been doing my burpees to increase my metabolism. Yesterday was day 29, which makes today day 30- groan. I have to say while 10 are ok and they look pretty easy, no such thing. I was huffing and puffing after 29 which means I will most likely be today as well.  Burpees kind of remind me of football pre-season up downs.....run run run, whistle, drop, up run, run run, except burpees are jump up, hands down jump feet back(now you are in push up position), push up, jump feet towards hands, jump up, hands up. Repeat many times.....I'm 80 away from my 110 goal. Ha!

I found that Shape has a workout trainer. You click on what you want to work on, abs, arms, etc...then choose 8 of the videos to do. I also found some fun core exercises to do here.  Thankfully Jillian Michaels 30 day shred has plenty of plank moves.

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Brinner

I am NOT a fan of breakfast, if anything I would rather eat lunch or dinner foods for breakfast. Leftover pizza or pasta are some of my favorites. On Saturday if  I get up late, which hasn't happened in awhile since I started training for the 1/2 marathon.  However I would most likely eat leftovers from our Friday night dinners out.  

I do however enjoy breakfast for dinner a.k.a. brinner, sometimes, so that's what I had last night when Gary was at work.  Since we don't have bacon very often I decided to make a fried egg on toast with some bacon on the side.  We only have bacon in the house because of the quiche that I made last week and I'm not going to let it go to waste. 

 I love that my little egg cooker has a little egg on the handle with eyes, feet and a beak. Cutie- although it could also be misconstrued as creepy too that I'm eating her/his friend....hmmmm.....

 Note the chocolate milk in the background. Any excuse to have some haha. Thanks to SR and HRG for introducing me to Refuel with Milk Chocolate! Is it wrong to have two glasses after a good workout?

A bunch of friends and I do "International" Dinner night once a month.  The hostess picks a country and they get to create the main meal while the rest of us attempt to bring side dishes that belong to that country.  We, though more I, have done Korea and Spain, both were successful.  I made bulgogi a Korean type of BBQ meat that we added to lettuce wraps. I had kimchi and some of the other typical Korean food items.  For Espana I made paella with chicken and shrimp. That took awhile to prepare, not to mention that it was kind of expensive those stupid saffron threads that make the paella yellow are super expensive for not much. We also made some fabulous Sangria which may have been a little strong.  Thankfully we have red couches haha!

Our first ever "International" Dinner was Macedonia, yeah that wasn't so easy. We've also done, France, Indian, Southern, Breakfast for dinner, Switzerland, Cuba, Man's dinner (which was essentially BBQ), Morocco, Italy, Greece and Peru, I know I'm forgetting some country, but I can't remember.  Fun times. We host this month and it's between Ireland and Belgium(good beers).  I dunno.

Any suggestions for countries for International Night? 

Do you have brinner ever? What do you usually have?

Foodie: Chicken Fingers

Hobby of the day: Cooking

I love chicken fingers, but I rarely get them since they are usually appetizers or part of the kids meal.  I do also like fried chicken, but I eat that sooo rarely that when I do eat it my tummy kills after....maybe it's more than just eating it infrequently that hurts me. We don't have a fryer at home. I have a friend who has two, I think if I had one I would experiment frying all sorts of goodies. One that I would love to try is fried feta wrapped in phyllo dough. I saw it once on Giada when she was in Greece.  Sounds yummy, actually any fried cheese sounds fabulous.  I think it's on the Travel Channel where they have Hamburger Paradise and Fast Food Paradise. They had one that was Deep Fried *insert drool here*  There is a place here in Alexandria VA that does deep friend candy bars and of course fairs have deep fried oreos and Twinkies and peanut butter cups. Oddly enough in the 7 years we have lived here we have never gone there.  After my Lent fast is over I am going. Haha...

I made chicken fingers with panko bread crumbs- yum, super crispy and they are baked, not fried.  I didn't have any chicken tenders and didn't want to buy more chicken when we already had some frozen, so I just chopped up the chicken breasts. I am not a big fan of handling raw meat I don't like the feel of it and don't feel like I really clean off the salmonella- ha. So I used tongs to hold the chicken and chopped it with a knife, so no hands touching of the chicken.  

Sorry if you don't like the look of raw chicken.

I dipped the chicken first in the flour mixture, which consisted of salt and pepper.  Then dipped it in the egg whites( no yolks to make it healthier) and then finally in the panko bread crumbs to which I had added Parmesan cheese, garlic powder and a little cayenne. I made sure that the whole little finger got fully covered then laid it on the cookie sheet. 

 

 Before putting into the oven I sprayed the tops of the fingers with Pam to help with browning. I flipped the fingers half way through and sprayed the other sides. Bake at 475 for 10-12 minutes, or until cooked. 

 

And....Voila! Crispy little fingers!

 I added the fingers to a pasta side- I heart pasta. I ran out of my favorite, angel hair pasta, so I mixed that with regular spaghetti which wasn't too bad if I do say so myself. I don't mind mixing pastas, sometimes it gives it a little more texture.  To the pasta I added Parmesan cheese, and Italian bread crumbs. I know right?! Weird, but it gave it a nice flavor almost creamy like, if it's too think add a little extra pasta water. 

 

Nothing like having a few condiments. We have BBQ sauce, Ranch dressing, Frank's Red Hot, extra Parmesan cheese and Gary's favorite, horseradish sauce (frown on that). 

Shop till we drop

Yesterday was another beautiful day, unfortunately it was also extremely chilly. It was in the low 40's, but today it's supposed to be in the 60's and then by Thursday in the 80's. Um...ok not sure how I feel about that one. I'm ready for spring weather, but not summer. 

My friend, Jenna and I have been waiting to do a spring shopping trip, preferably to the outlets- cheaper is usually better, well at least in this case, especially where my husband is concerned.  We are headed to the Queenstown Outlets in Maryland. Unfortunately we had to head across this bridge. She hates to drive over bridges, so I get the joy of doing so. I do NOT like this bridge.  People do not go slow.I also prefer to be in the inside lane, you know just as a little extra protection.

I'm not really sure what I plan on getting, I've been doing a lot of online shopping recently.  We have that Spring Break trip coming up in 21 days! Yeah! Still not bikini worthy, but I did purchase a few cute bathing suits from Vics Secret.  I purchased back in the day from them for my honeymoon,  but was cheap so I didn't get nice lined ones, ha jokes on me.  I got two cute ones that I can mix and match with other bathing suits that I have. In the past I've always purchased from Target, but maybe it's because I'm getting older *gasp* but they seem a little too pre-teen for me.  They've also started adding a lot more padding to their suits, as if we even need to show more skin at the beach/pool than we are already. Ha!

I also bought this super cute Old Navy tube top dress, in black of course, even though I would enjoy the other colors. I figured I would get more use out of this one. Plus, it is the only one that came in petite size, so my hope was that it wouldn't drag on the ground. Sometimes the "short" version of clothes isn't  short enough for me. Apparently they aren't offering short any more.

Be proud of me, I think I spent less than $100 at the outlets! I was reserved. Don't get me wrong there were plenty of things that I saw that I could have used and or worn, but that's not the point.  The Nike store did have some good sales, though not as many as I would like. I got florescent green shoe laces for next weekends Rock N' Roll 1/2 that takes place on St. Paddy's day and a pair of shorts. I only bought 1 even though it was basically 2 for the price of one.  I passed up a super cute pink pair with black and white checker designs on the side. I also bought Gary some compression shorts and a sweatband. I am looking for a good running hat but the ones that I tried on there and at Under Amour were too big or squarish on my head. 

Almost bought these, only $31! Super cute and lightweight, but I held back....

I also bought a cute dress from J. Crew super bubble gum pink, but with pockets. I love dresses with pockets! I was too lazy to take off my leggings and boots, but I kinda pulled it off, at least that's what the sales girls said, but they probably just want me to buy. Hopefully they were being sincere.  Jenna said that it "gave me a waist" lol. I don't really have one, I feel like I go straight down.  I passed up another dress there and a button down. I love their button downs, but 59-69$ for a button down is like $40 too much! I also purchased a super cute navy blue and orange striped shirt that was 40% off, plus my additional 15% off for teacher's discount. I love that J. Crew has teachers discounts even at the outlets and on stuff that are already on sale too! Some stores do not honor that. So score big points for you J. Crew and your super cute over priced clothes.

Old Navy was having buy one get one on their t-shirts, who can pass that up? I only bought one though I purchased a blue t and got the yellow one for free. 

I had tossed around the idea of buying a Michael Kors purse, but no good sales. I would really like one, but held back.  We went to Kate Spade and they were having super sales like 50% off on some purses, but I just didn't like their wool winter line and if I am going to buy a Kate Spade purse I'm going to buy the real deal. I want the Kelly green purse.....LOVE that color and stripes and polka dots.  Someday, it's on my want to have list.

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Which one would you pick if you could? 

When you go outlet shopping are you reserved? 

Sunny Days, Sweeping the Clouds Away

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Yesterday and today were beautiful days in the high 60's.  Sunny, peaceful, tons of people out and about. 

 I was informed yesterday by a student that my eye was red. Thank you, for being observant. I of course figured that it was merely allergies. Ha! Came home and yes indeed, the eye was red, angry. But, we had planned to run. I can't run in glasses that's miserable. I know people do, but I'm so used to contacts now. Plus, my glasses are too small and make my ears and head hurt. So Gary came home we decided on a quick 4 mile run, even though we had originally planned for 6. It was better though because yesterday was not his day. He is a much better runner than I and well, we all have our bad days. I know that when I can keep up with him, he's having a bad day. It was also windy out. Dang wind. The beautiful day was deceptive.  I wore my designer coach sunglasses, I mean seriously who needs the real deal.....I thought it would help protect the "angry" eye from dust/debris blowing around. Strangely enough while the run was his worst, it was one of my better runs. He is one fast buddy when he's feeling good. 

Today was another beautiful day, but of course I had to call out because I had a fear that I had pink eye....yuck! This is what happens when you are around children all day and when people are not thoroughly cleaning my room. Thankfully I have 27 wonderful little cleaners. Haha...not child labor, they love it. Unfortunately, I spent my day cooped up inside cleaning and doing laundry- my day off wasn't in total vain. Then I went to the doctors to which she confirmed my fear, as well as the fact that I'm having some serious allergy issues. I am smiling in the picture despite the fact that I hate those glasses, but I have meds and can wear my contacts tomororow. Thank you DC for making my allergies larger than life. I've heard that people who've never had allergies before and come and live here eventually get them.  We are not just south of the Mason Dixon line, but we are in the allergy alley. My term, you know kinda like tornado alley except not as dangerous, just miserable. I definitely feel like the person in this picture. Sometimes my head just feels like it's on a cloud. My students comment on how often I sneeze, at least they say bless you.

Aaaachoooo!

 P.S. I just ordered my Beckett glasses from Warby Parker, CANNOT wait to get them! 

 

 How do you cope with allergies? Or are you one of the many that doesn't have them?