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We were without wifi/broadband service at home for a bit, so even though we've been really cranking out these freezer/crock-pot meals, I haven't been able to post/blog about it. We've had some winners - hoorah! We've had some losers - womp. I think overall though, we are in the positive and my husband is changing the way he feels about the slow cooker altogether - major win.

Wanted to, in the spirit of this trial and error blog here - share a little Valentine's Day DIY mani review with you this post instead of a boring 'ol recipe review share. Even more than I love cooking do I love products and being girly - so my Birchbox subscription is my monthly slice of luxury brand heaven. Each month I get a box in the mail with various products, skincare, haircare, nail polishes, make up, lifestyle items - etc. All for the low cost of $10 a month! I'm going to review a product that popped up in my January box, Nail Rock Nail Glitter Manicure Glitter (uh that sounds redundant but it's what's on the box...). I got a nice red shade and we were just passed Christmas but Valentine's Day is/was right around the corner.

So, I went to my bestie's house for a visit. Said bestie recently had a baby and is basically a hermit due to newborn care and our ridiculously cold & snow covered PA winter. Brought some dinner and my mani set all set for a night of baby rocking, nail painting, Smurf watching, girl talking and Matchbox car racing. I will say the set is pretty easy to use, I will also say, that you will make a mess - plan accordingly. Additionally, it is possible that you will leave stripper dust, a.k.a. glitter, all over a newborn if you are not fully dry/set and careful! The kit retails for $6.99.

First - apply a base coat (this color will stain your nails if you don't - lesson learned).
Second  - apply the color then a second coat - wait a minute...you want the polish to be sticky but not totally wet for step 3.
Third - roll your finger nails in the glitter, this is the messy part, obviously!
Fourth - shake off excess glitter and let dry (15-20 minutes) .
Fifth - add a top coat, my suggestion so the mani is lumpy and catching on things.


 And voila! The finished product:

Disclaimer - don't expect this mani to last more than two days if you do not have a dishwasher and/or actually do housework! I also think a glitter pedi would be fun, but I would have to invest in a brush for the glitter application I would imagine?

If you're interested in checking out Birchbox/getting your own subscription click the link below.
https://www.birchbox.com/invite/mrshawk

That's all for now - Happy Valentine's Day, muah!

Reviews are coming in...

Wow, ok - so in the past few weeks we've all begun to sample our freezer/crock-pot meals and I think it's safe to say some are better than others. Disclaimer* our crock pots vary, as do the hours these babies cook while we are at work as well as how we serve the dishes. I'm going to start the reviews with the Chunky Beef Stew since Shawn & I just had this tonight. We enjoyed this meal and so did one of our other "chefs".  Now as I mentioned in a previous post that we like to cook, we like to add a twist to conventional fare and experiment in the kitchen.

This morning I placed the beef stew slush in the crock pot. A little background on this particular crock pot - it is straight from my mother in law's kitchen circa 1975. The stew cooked on low from about 8AM - 6:30PM (all of these recipes call for cooking on low 6-8 hrs). The stew was runny when I got home but the potatoes were cooked through. "P" had issues with the potatoes being a little tough so make sure when preparing you cut them thick enough that they won't disintegrate but small enough that they will fully cook. The original recipe didn't give any direction on the potatoes. I added the stew to a pot on the stove and thickened with cornstarch/beef broth. I will mention that I also removed the potatoes. These crock pot meals have needed some sprucing up, we've tried a few and none have really impressed. One way I can ALWAYS get the hubs to eat foods is to make mashed potatoes with the meal...I also feel like I'm kind of contractually obligated to make mashed potatoes for Shawn once a month since he got me the kitchen aid diva mixer for Christmas ;). Cooking Light mag inspired us to add some sautéed kale and green onion to our redskin mashed potatoes (NF organic milk/butter/salt).

Our meal was delish! I really liked the flavor of the stew, we both did, the tomato base with the spices worked well and the kale mashed potatoes finished it perfectly. There may be no serving beef stew without them in my future. The best part - plenty of leftovers so I get at least one night off this week. Attaching a photo if the recipe from whoneedsacape.com and a photo of our creation which will go into the recipe box. This recipe was made even simpler by buying pre cut stew meat from my
favorite discount grocer. We also did not brown the meat prior to packaging - just kind of threw everything in the freezer bags! Win!

Selling out with the Slow Cooker

Shawn and I have been married for about 5 1/2 years, together for 10, we have no children but two hectic work schedules and some after hours things that keep us on our toes - for him a tax business, for me licensing studies and my love-hate relationship with all things gym/work-out related.
We live in a house with NO dishwasher - yes you read that right, and we cook every night. I don't mean I throw together some Hamburger Helper (no offense if that's where you're at) but we prepare homemade meals that are not processed every. night. Some nights are easy, throw a chicken breast on the grill, make a salad and cook up some spiced couscous - other nights I feel as if every pot in the kitchen is used and its 9PM until I finally sit down.

Some friends and I decided we would try a meal making day - you know a poor man's version of Let's Dish or Dream Dinners. And we would further simplify by making them all crock pot meals!
Now I will say that my husband strongly dislikes the crock pot - I don't know if there was some childhood trauma or the sous chef in him (from his college days) is just totally turned off by the laziness of the thing...but he reluctantly agreed to go along with this experiment.
I'm going to give some credit to the group of women over at whoneedsacape.com for coming up with the idea of 40 meals in 4 hours. "C"stumbled upon this blog post and we ran with it.
Now these ladies REALLY took away a lot of our leg work - selecting recipes (hopefully testing them out) and creating a master shopping list.  All good things can be made great though, right?

Because we like to go big and make everything a social event - instead of one person making 40 meals, how about four people make 80 meals? What on earth could go wrong? Just made sense - no one has enough freezer space for 40 meals and what if they are awful? Who wants duplicates - not us!
So "C" and I  - the organizers of the bunch - decided that we would go shopping for everyone and "L" & "P" could just reimburse us. We would take the master shopping list provided by the gals at WNAC and get it done after our Saturday AM kickboxing class. After a quick review of the list as we sipped our post work-out lattes we noticed our first hint of trouble...pantry items - jalapenos? Who keeps jalapenos as a staple? Also - amounts/measurements of spices and sauces were conspicuously absent as well (and we were doubling everything!)...with no time to review each recipe with a fine toothed comb we had to roll with it. Some awesome things about these recipes 1) they are mostly healthy 2) they are super inexpensive - roughly $6 per meal per family - yes way! 3) they are so easy some ladies full of pinot grigio can prepare them. 

Ok - so meal making day arrives and we are loaded up with canned vegetables, sauces, meats and produce. Everyone was asked to bring some spices (again, from the list of pantry items since we were flying blind), knives, and cutting boards. Here's what we would also include in our list of to do's if we are/were to attempt this again and/or if we were advising others: 

1) Everyone bring a can opener - the more pop tops you can buy on your shopping list - the better!
2) Everyone bring soy sauce - good god there was a lot of soy sauce...make it low sodium while you're at it
3) Compare the master shopping list with the recipes and then compare the list to your cupboards. I know it's a pain in the a$$ but it will save you time and money in the long run.We found ourselves without Island Chicken and Orange Chicken because the MSL instructed us to buy meats by weight but the individual recipes were for numbers of drumsticks or chicken breasts.
4) You don't need that many diced tomatoes - we had a shit-ton leftover -we still don't know where they got those figures...
5) Better buy the gallon freezer bags 
6) You're going to need more wine
7) You're going to need longer than 4 hours, take your time and enjoy yourselves - cheers!

Next post - some recipes and reviews as we all start to sample our handiwork!

Here's what -

I'll start this blog post by stating that I'm NOT training for a 1/2 marathon! Woo....
We ARE doing the Color Run in Hershey, in June, and it's a 5K so I'm not looking for a ton of inspiration at this point. After the Gettysburg 1/2 - which was a disaster - I pretty much hung up my Brooks running shoes, my waistline can attest to that. After a gnarly ankle sprain in NOLA (on Bourbon might I add) last year, I thought my oft injured ankle was toast and my running days may be behind me altogether. In the year plus since my last blog I've slowed down, um, not at all! I've managed to pass my PA Life Accident & Health Insurance exam, travel...a lot, entertain and laugh...a lot, work 40+ hours every week, hold down the fort at home...oh and QUIT SMOKING! For real this time, I'm nearly 4 1/2 mo. in (can I also blame this for some of the weight gain?!).

I'm in the process of studying for my general securities licensing exam -  the dreaded Series 7, would love to shed some lbs and get a more regular work out schedule. So yes - I'm still, in essence, Running on Empty and thought perhaps you'd like to follow along :). In all seriousness, my main motivation for returning to the blogosphere is that some friends and I literally spent all of yesterday doing a meal planning day. Myself and two other working women (one a mother of 4 1/2 yr old), doing their best to balance it all, and one retiree who just wanted to try something new. We live in a world full of blogs, Pinterest pins, google searches, etc. What if I/we tried the things that you've been meaning to try - work the bugs out and report back? Sound good? Will try to give a play by play on the meal making day later this week - should have some recipe reviews (kid reviews?) as well. I'm hoping to have guest bloggers and make this as interactive as possible.

Is there a recipe you've been wanting to try but didn't want to waste your time or money without some more reviews (lets try to keep them semi healthy)? How about Pinterest? Is there a particular craft or idea that you think just can't be as easy as @MsPerfectMom1 is making it look? All of those Facebook recipe shares - does anyone really make those things? Why don't you send it my/our way  - this could be fun...

What a Difference a Year Makes

So strange.

This training thing is so very different for me this time around.
Of course I have a new training schedule. It's odd for me to think that I'm fully training for like 14 weeks instead of a full year like last time.
But I'd already done the grunt work. I'd already conditioned my body (so says the sister-coach). Maybe if the hard part only lasts 10-14 weeks, I'd be more inclined to do it again...or maybe not.
We are currently 70 days from 1/2 marathon #2.
This go round I'm preferring evening runs to those early AM runs of last year. I'm also preferring road runs or treadmill runs to my beloved squishy track. My calf's hurt more for some strange reason when I'm running there - and of course, this close to the start of the school year, I'm fighting  for track time with the cheerleaders, color guard, soccer and field hockey players. No doubt I'm a sight to those kiddos. Running (slowly), still huffing and puffing, going round & round the track. Take a good look ya'll - this is what 33 looks like ;). Yep - as of 8/8/12 I am officially a 33 year old. I even ran my neighborhood on the MORNING of my birthday. I can honestly say, a few years ago - I would have never, not even for a second, imagined that was how I would be starting any of my birthdays.

Here's what I've been up to since my last post, now mind you - the RunKeeper app has been generous with distance and average pace lately...I feel like I need a new app, but it's so hard to break up with this one - it's seen me through so much!

July 27th - 3.37 Miles 32:15 Frontier Town Run OCMD - Two vacay runs = gold star :)
July 29th - 3.01 Miles 41:02 Frontier Town Run OCMD (this one seems more accurate)
August 5th - 2.5 Miles 27:31 Neighborhood run, with two pitiful pups for the first .75 miles - they give me this face when I put on my running shoes...they love to run. I mean when they don't even have to run. I run, they trot, they make it look way easy. They probably could have done the whole 2.5 miles, but the heat makes me nervous
August 6th - In an effort to make up for the days off between 7/29 - 8/5 - 1 HR of Zumba + 2 mile run at Golds gym
August 7th - 3.28 Miles 36:46 - Track Run
August 8th 4.82 Miles SO WRONG - Closer to 2.25 Miles I'm sure - neighborhood AM run before work...gettin them hills in
August 9th 2.59 Miles 25:38 - Track run...closer to 2 miles as that's what the schedule called for
August 10th - rest day...AC with ladies
August 11th & 12th ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^see above...over did it in AC with ladies. We stayed beach & boardwalk front, but there was just no dragging myself out of bed for a run before check out. Vacation fail...or is that a vacation win?!
August 13th - 4.67 Miles 45:30 - Making up for lost long run time on the crazy ladies weekend...closer to 4 miles but I feel like I'm improving.

That's all for now...

Unlikely Allies

I'll get into the recap of my training for the past week in just a bit.
This weeks' post requires a little back story.
When we lost our friend Corey in January of 2011, it seemed as if he brought an old friend back into Shawn's life, and a new friend for me as well. It's funny how things work out that way...

When I met her, she was enviable to me, I know that sounds ridiculous, but let's face it ladies - we size each other up. We envy someones hair, style, size! And well, this girl was a size 0 soaking wet, well put together, and relishing her life as a stay at home mom and dog treat baker, yes really.
She had a degree in health promotion (obviously), loved to party plan, and discover ways to healthify just about anything - black bean brownies, e.g. She sewed her own reusable zip lock bags...she made green look good. This girl was practically a polar opposite of myself. And though I typically shy away from hanging out with size 0's, (No offense, ya'll make me look bigger!), in her I found a kindred spirit.
Sometimes it feels good to believe that Corey brought us together because we needed each other.

Over 2011 and into 2012 we grew closer, we vacationed together, we celebrated the news her pregnancy and crossed fingers for a successful round of IVF for Shawn and I.
By March of this year however, we were left consoling each other. Another failed attempt at pregnancy for me, the loss of a pregnancy for her.
There we were - unlikely allies.

When I announced that I was again training for a 1/2 marathon - she agreed to be on the sidelines cheering me on, but made no mention of a desire to train along side of me. She's active in her own way - she'll go for a short jog, go to the gym and use the stair stepper, has regular dates with Jillian Michaels. She stays in shape because she enjoys it - I wish I had that DNA!
Something changed though within the last week.

We agreed to meet at the gym for a Zumba class and well, she wasn't feeling Zumba, and well, I knew that I should really be running three miles. So we set up shop at the treadmills and she stated that she would run until she got  bored, that she had never run 3 miles before...wasn't even sure that she could.
Now mind you, it was so thick and disgustingly hot & humid in there - I wasn't even sure I could finish 3 miles. I huffed and I puffed, and I sweat, and I chugged Gatorade and I got through it.
Miss Thang, however, made it look effortless. I mean her shirt was sweaty, but that's about it. She bounced around, looking damn near flawless, increasing her speed and incline occasionally, of course - she's a natural runner.

Must have stirred something in her, because two days later we reunited at a local park for another 3 miler - this time, she left me in her DUST near the end, I watched her ponytail sway in the distance. She joked about how she has a run skirt that she considered wearing, but thought I might have a little too much fun at her expense for that one. She also mentioned a desire to forego the tank top for just her sports bra...only to agree to do that when I'm not around, haha. No offense, but I don't need to see your six pack too - not while you're kicking my a$$, at my thing, with no training - you heard?!
We each ran our 4 miles on Saturday separately (she wanted a copy of my training schedule), and when I texted that I may not get in the 2 mile recovery run on Sunday, I was shocked to get a "2 miles down!!" text in reply a bit later. Them's fighting words! So I reluctantly, begrudgingly, after grocery shopping, before making dinner, ran my 2+ miles.

I didn't expect to have a run buddy, and I may get frustrated at how easy it is for her to do what I've been struggling to do for over a year now, but she's helping hold this girl accountable and keeping this training thing interesting. My unlikely ally, my friend I love to hate, my greatest gift from Corey.

Deja Vu

I honest to God cannot believe I'm typing these words right now...I distinctly remember posting something to the effect of would I ever run a 1/2 marathon again?..."hell to the NO", just 8 short months ago.
But for the same reason I started this blog, and took that initial challenge from my sister - I'm back. Reluctantly, begrudgingly, back.

I cannot hold myself accountable, I can't. I've run since the 1/2 marathon last year - of course, here & there, even joined the gym, doing some Zumba when the schedule allows. I've also been sleeping in, enjoying vacations, BBQ's and everything else life has to offer. I realized that I never even composed a post race entry after the Philadelphia 1/2! It was an incredible experience, it really was...I was just so ready to shuck that life, that training schedule, and never look back. But for as much as I despised running, I loved the results. And for as much as I didn't want to admit it - I needed an end goal to remain focused on my fitness. For as terrifyingly hard headed and strong willed as I can be, I lack some sort of chip, I'm wired wrong...still...even after the grueling training for the year leading up to the 1/2 marathon, I could have easily flipped that lazy switch and reverted back to the person that I was - all of that training down the tubes.

In the past 8 months of my life a lot has changed actually. True to form my husband and I keep busy professional and social calendars. New job for him, new professional opportunities for the both of us, a vacation to the FL Keys, weekend trips here and there, and a failed round of IVF. Yep, I said it.
I'm sure some of you may have wondered how we fared after my commitment to getting into "fighting shape". Well, not so hot. The doctor visits stretched on for months, the medical bills stacked up, and at the end of the day we were left with little hope, no insurance coverage for future treatments, and well, those stack of bills. I lie, we were also left with our incredible union that has withstood a steady stream doctor visits, tears, hormone infused meltdowns and more. Once the dust settled, we came out on the other side knowing that we'd weathered this together and that even if parenthood doesn't happen for us, we are luckier than most, and grateful to have each other...and the fur babies :).

So, once I realized that I wouldn't be on some sort of pregnancy restriction - I agreed to another 1/2 marathon with my sister-coach. This time a little closer to home and we are just over 14 weeks out. The Gettysburg Blue-Gray 1/2 will be here before we know it. I downloaded a new training schedule from Fitness Magazine...it's a 10 week training routine, will just repeat week one for at least a week and adjust as needed. You know me, I like a point of reference...not a carved in stone routine, ha!

Here goes nothing:

Mon - Cross Train...may need some help with this?
Tues - Run 3 miles
Wed - Run 2 miles
Thurs - Run 2 miles
Fri - REST (Hallelujah!)
Sat - Run 4 miles (grumbles...)
Sun - Run 2 miles

Alright alright...let's do this.