Tag Archives: booze

Friday Night – Monday Afternoon

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Hello, hello, hello!  I hope everyone had a great holiday, we sure did!  I am actually typing at an internet cafe downtown so I’m going to try to keep this as quick as possible, sorry!

Christmas

We did a huge (40+ people) family and friend dinner at my aunt’s house.  I hit this selection of cheeses and spreads pretty hard.

I had one nice cold Coors Light, but mostly I stuck to club soda.

Dinner was buffet style, my plate had tomato, sweet potato casserole, cheesey potatoes, turkey, and coleslaw.

And I filled up this small plate for dessert.

When I got home I was actually still hungry so I made turkey and cheese sandwiches on two small rolls.

It was a pretty fantastic day.

Saturday

We got up early and hurried to the spa with my aunt and cousins, I love my snazzy purple nails!  Afterwards we got food at Barefoot Buddah, my favorite spot!  I had a yummy mango coconut smoothie,

and a Bigfoot Bagel Sandwich.

Holy.Yum!

We hit up another favorite spot later on, Udder Delight, the milkshake shop run by the local dairy.

I got a Jamocho Shake, made with skim milk.

That night we went to another party.  I wasn’t feeling the buffet dinner, but I might have had a few of these jello shots!

We went out with friends later that night and Adam was the best husband ever, ordering me a grilled chicken caesar salad so I wouldn’t be hungry.

Good thing too, we closed down three bars and didn’t get home until 3:45!!!!  I had one or two beers, unpictured, but mostly stuck to soda.  We had a really good time catching up with some old friends!

Sunday

Remember our 4am bedtime?  Especially awesome because we woke up at 7am to go run in a race!  We participated in the Kwanza 7k (for the 7nights of Kwanza).  I tried out one of these for “breakfast” 5 minutes before the race.

My leg(s) have been hurting like crazy and I know I’m out of shape so my plan was to do the Galloway method, slowly!  Adam stuck with me and we just might have come in 2nd to last!!!  I didn’t care though, I was just happy I finished, the course was super hilly!  We finished in an astonishingly slow 54minutes.

Overall it was a great experience, I LOVE TO RUN!!! Plus on the last lap there was a young (high school?) boy in front of us walking and we made him run with us and finish strong.

My uncle and two cousins ran the race too so afterwards we all went back for a refueling breakfast.  The star of the show was this –

Aunt Else’s, who I sampled in SF, generously sent me an Aebleskiver pan and mix.

Aebleskivers are like round fluffy pancakes that you can fill with all sorts of things savory and sweet.  I made the entire mix so I spent a looong time in front of the stove.

The first few batches took a little getting used too, but then I figured it out and started cranking out some beauties!

We filled them with chocolate chips, cheese, chocolate and cinnamon, and jam!  De-lish-ous!  Thank you so much Aunt Else’s!!!!

I actually was so busy cooking that I missed the rest of breakfast, all I managed to eat was three ableskivers.  I was pretty hungry when we went to the movies that afternoon so Adam and my dad snuck in some healthy snacks for me –

cheese, apple slices and baby carrots!  We saw “Up in the Air,” and sadly the snacks were the best part.

When I got home I snacked on some cole slaw too.

Then we met the family for a nice dinner at their hotel.  First we watched the sunset and drank some wine.

I started my meal with two slices of bread and butter.

Then I ate half of a conch fritter with mango.

And a bowl of Callaloo, a traditional island soup made with crab meat, spinach, and okra.

Soooooo good!

Unfortunately my dinner wasn’t quite as tasty.

Jumbo shrimp with veggies and chive mashed potatoes.  I just wasn’t feeling it so I ended up giving away 2 of my 4 shrimp.

We played games afterwards and had a blast, but once we got home I was starving.  My mom pulled two slices of pizza out of the freezer and baked them for me.

Super tasty, but I was stuffed, I should have stuck with one slice.

Monday

This morning I had another tasty pineapple Chiobani.

And a teeny (adorable) glass of locally made eggnog.

And when we set out Adam and I split a soda.

Now we are trying (once I get off the computer!) to walk around downtown.  Gotta split!

P.S. Sorry for the lame-o post.

P.P.S.  Today is Adam and my 2 year wedding anniversary!!! I promise some wedding photos once I get back to Buffalo if anyone is interested.

Reindeer Run 5k

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Forgive me physical therapy gods for I have sinned – I ran a 5k when I was told to speed walk.  But I didn’t run the whole time!  I’ll go back to the beginning….

This was the morning of the Reindeer Run 5k.  We signed up a  month ago, before my tendonitis diagnosis, so that I could have some race experience before my Half in March.  After my pt told me not to run we decided we would walk the course, so I could have the general experience and since we had already paid for our entries.  Adam was even super-husband and agreed to walk with me.  There was a little snow, but not much, so the setting was perfect.

The race was slightly themed, I saw several elves and one group went as Santa and all his reindeer.  We don’t have a lot of cold weather running gear, but I borrowed an old sweatshirt of Adam’s and did my best.

We picked up our chips a little late and ended up running to the start line from the pick up point.  And I just could not stop.  I love running so much.  I’m not very good and I’m not very fast, but it seriously fills me with joy.

We ended up doing some jog/walk intervals, and I always started walking whenever my leg hurt.  In the end we ran about half of each mile.  I don’t feel like I pushed too hard or set my recovery back too far and we had such a good time!  Here’s an action shot the husband snapped –

Our final time was 33:25.  I know most running bloggers are speed demons, and I’d love to keep up, but for jog/walking it and coming off a 1month hiatus that is pretty damn good!  And I’m feeling much more comfortable with the idea of my half now.

Afterwards we hit up the post race party.  They had hot dogs and pizza and cake.  Here’s Adam’s plate –

That just did not appeal to me.  My post-run breakfast was a little more my style –

But I’m not an angel, I did snag a beer!

All in all in my first race was a great experience.  I’m proud of my self for running, and I’m proud of my self for not running the whole time.  Everyone was super friendly and happy and the setting was perfect.  I had so much fun!

There was even more excitement on the drive home.  As we drove home from the Reindeer run 5k we saw a deer!

It was in a partially fenced in park.  Adam pulled over and I got out to take some pictures.  It go so close to me!

I’m not gonna lie, I was basically swooning, so fun!

Now I’ve got to hustle again so I can shower before Adam’s parents get here.  They are coming up to do a mass birthday/Christmas/anniversary celebration since we can’t connect with them later in December.  I can’t wait!

Have you run any races?  Which was the most fun and why?

Feeling Thankful

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Again, I’ll try to keep this quick, but it’s been a great Turkey Day.  I’m thankful for family, good food, and my wonderful husband.

We slept in until 10:30 this morning (I’m feeling sick again, boo!) and then woke up to the world’s tastiest breakfast.

My grandma is so cool, she had Greek Gods’ Honey Greek Yogurt waiting in the fridge for me!  I had a small bowl of fruit,

and honey Greek yogurt with berries and a sliver of homemade coffee cake.

Mmmmmmn!  I was in love with this breakfast!  If it wasn’t Thanksgiving I would have gone back for another bowl!  I think I’ve got my aunt hooked on Greek yogurt now too 🙂

We went to a family friend’s house for Thanksgiving at 1, so we headed out around noon to socialize.  Look how cute my grandparents are!

I’ve gone to Thanksgiving with this family ever year I’ve been with my grandparents and it’s always so much fun.  They have the best decorations, I wish I could have gotten more pictures.

I made a small appetizer plate with pretzels, honey raspberry dip, and crackers with dirty martini dip.

And I had a light beer to drink.

As I mentioned before, I am actually not much of a Turkey Day food fan!  I didn’t even eat any turkey meat!  I tried to just take a small bit of everything.

Clockwise from the top – stuffing and mashed potatoes with gravy, corn casserole, sweet potato casserole, roll, jello mold salad, cranberries.  I finished everything on my plate (except for the roll which I gave away).  I didn’t actually eat very much, but I didn’t do seconds because I knew dessert was coming.

I actually gave away that mini cake in favor of a second cookie!

It was great getting to catch up with people and Adam was definitely stuffed!  He took a fat nap before we even headed home, and hit the couch asap.  My grandmother and I wanted to take a nice walk but unfortunately it was raining.  The other disappointment was that there was nowhere for me to volunteer.  I really wanted to put in some time at a food bank or soup kitchen today but everywhere my grandma called had too many volunteers.

We ate dinner around 7, and I was actually hungry again.

Leftover sweet potato casserole,

and a yumtastic sandwich – turkey, cranberries, cream cheese.

Plus apple and celery salad on the side.

I was still a bit hungry so I went back for more salad.

We played cards after dinner.

I had a coffee with 2% and an amaretto stick,

a mini 7-up,

and a small handful of caramel corn.

We kept my grandparents up past midnight playing cards, I’d say it’s time for bed!

How was your turkey day?

Road Tripped

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We are in Ohio!  My grandmother’s internet isn’t the best and it’s been a long day so I won’t be able to be as detailed as I would like.  It’s been a good day though 🙂

We got up at 6:30 this morning and were out the door before 7am.  The trip was 400+ miles so we had to get an early start.  I packed up food for the road, a la Thanksgiving Challenge, threw on a sweatshirt and split.

I had some am amazing grass – 1banana, 1scoop grass, big pour skim milk, 8 ice cubes, blender.

I was so proud of the husband for drinking some too!

A few hours later I ate a yummy leftovers sandwich.

1.5 buffalo blue bean patties on toasted bread with honey and jack daniels mustard.

We split the driving fairly evenly – 2hours Adam, 2hours me, 2hours Adam.  The switches were a nice excuse for pee and diet soda breaks!

When we got in to Piqua my grandparents had a great lunch ready for us.

Carrot and dill soup was delicious.

And the two-cheese grilled cheese were so nice and gooey.

There were also spicy bread and butter pickles and sunchips on the table.

I ate more chips throughout the day than was a good idea!

To drink I had half of Adam’s holiday Coke,

and I split a lime beer with my grandmother.

For dessert I had a cherry cordial from the box of candy we brought as our hostess gift.

We had a great time hanging out with my grandparents.  We played Euchre and my grandpa bought us all fun lotto cards!

I didn’t win, but it was nice to dream.

My aunt and uncle drove up this evening and we all had a great dinner together (more soup and sandwiches!).

The soup was white chicken chili,

and the sandwiches were pulled chicken – I think we are done with chicken for a bit!

I also had one delicious deviled egg.

Dessert was homemade old fashioned cream pie.

It was awesome, but the crust was store-bought so I just scraped out the filling.

Plus coffee with 2% milk.

Look at their adorable sugar bowl!

Now it’s almost 10 and I would love to get in bed!  Overall it’s been a fabulous (filling) day!  My grandmother is such a good cook and it’s so great to be with family.

What do you usually pack for road trips?

An Early Thanksgiving

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I’m too stuffed to be sad!  I have so much to talk about in this post and I’m so excited (and so drunk) that I know things will be left out.

This afternoon I picked up the husband and we headed to my imaging appointment.  We were in the waiting room forever so I ended up snacking on an Apricot Pumpkin Prana Bar.

Good.  And the good – but not surprising – news is that I don’t have a blood clot.  Unfortunately, this meant I didn’t really get more information.  I don’t know how I feel about the doctor who saw me yesterday so I actually made another appointment, this time with a sports medicine doctor, for Monday.  Sadly, I decided to push back training one more time, so that I will have still been on a break when I meet with this new doctor.  😦

When we got home I started packing and one of Adam’s friend’s came over to hang out.  He gave the buffalo blue bean patties a rave review!

Once he left it was time to get gussied for date night.

When I introduced the Thanksgiving Challenge I warned you guys that we had a dinner out pre-planned, a reward for a check from my old job.  Tonight was the night.

We went to Juniper, a place on Elmwood that serves 100% local food.  Nothing comes from more than 50miles away.  Their menu changes seasonally, and the entire concept has had me in a tizzy for months.  Our date did not disappoint!  For starters, I was in love with the ambiance.

I even loved the look (and labeling!) of the menu!  [i. porridge / ii. relish / iii. bird’s work / iv. aristology / v. fixations]

I actually don’t like Turkey Day food all that much (gasp) and this ended up being my mini-Thanksgiving.  We ate so much food!  I am beyond sad that my camera isn’t better, because my shots aren’t that great.  It feels imperative that y’all understand how fabulous this was!

I started the evening with a glass of Dr. L, reisling.

Yums, I thought I wasn’t a wine drinker but I really really enjoy reislings.  Wine hits me pretty hard though, halfway through dinner I was definitely nearing wasted.  Adam got a beer made with Kona Coffee that was pretty kick ass as well.

And soon homemade foccacia and evoo were delivered to the table.

I ate the piece shown x2, dipped in oil.

The husband went soup and salad for his appetizer route.  romaine ‘taco white anchovy, oven dried tomato salsa, peccorino.

I only took a small bite but it wasn’t really my thing.

mushroom pearls miso, ginger, barley.

This soup was fabulous.  I only took a few bites because I knew he loved it but it was so nice and meaty!

For my appetizer I went slightly less traditional, bobo’s not wings eggplant tempura, vitamin f, grilled celery.

Ohmyfrickinggod!  This rocked my socks.  I would eat chicken wings every meal if the chicken wing part of the equation didn’t slightly skeeve me out, so this was perfection.  This appetizer made the top three list of best things I’ve ever eaten.  It was spicy and crunchy and perfect.  I demolished it.

For entrees Adam got the chicken little poussin, chevre, rosemary smokies, fig jam.

Delish.  The meat was super succulent and the fig jam was as good as you would imagine.  Adam said his favorite component of the evening was the dark meat of his chicken.  He ate every single scrap of meat he could find, and even did the wishbone with me!

I won!  I wouldn’t have mattered though, I definitely have everything I could wish for.

I ordered the ponzu salmon bok choy, forbidden rice, pickled lime.

I was pretty stuffed at this point so I only ate about 1/3 of mine.  I asked for my fish well done and I thought it was cooked perfectly.  The lime flavor on the veggies was out of this world.

Honestly though, the best thing on the table wasn’t even the entrees.  It was this random bowl of roasted squash.

Holy frick!!!!!  This is literally the best thing I’ve ever eaten.  When I took my first bite I made Adam stop talking for a minute so I could just sit there.

We were pretty stuffed at this point but we knew we had to try dessert.  Adam got the chocolate ‘bomb.’

I know this sounds crazy from a food lover, but I really don’t like chocolate cake!  I took a small nibble, and I could tell it was good, but it just wasn’t my thing.  He loved it though.  It had Grand Marnier and candied orange peel on top.  The homemade lavender chocolate ice cream was ridiculous.

I went with my favorite, trio of creme brule vanilla bean, cinnamon, pumpkin.

Gah!  Indescribable.  I don’t know how I managed to let Adam split this with me.  I was most excited for the cinnamon, but pumpkin ended up being out of this world.  This was another moment when I just had to sit in silence.

I honestly can’t describe how much I enjoyed this meal.  I must have thanked Adam 20times during dinner for putting up with my out of control joy!  I was in love with everything in my mouth.  I felt so thankful.

Now that we are home I need to finish packing quickly and get to bed.  The plan is to leave before 7am tomorrow and I do not want to be a sleepy driver.  I will hopefully be doing regular posts this weekend but depending on the internet situation there may just be a big recap.  Whatever may happen, I hope all my readers and their families have a fabulous Thanksgiving.

What is your favorite restaurant?  I loved everything about Juniper – the decorations, the flavors, and the ideals.  The only other place I feel so strongly about is Serendipity in New York City.

Bowled Over

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Hello, hello!  I’m up pretty late for a sick kid so I’ll try to keep this quick.  The movies didn’t really work out – we went to the mall and missed not one, but two! showings.  We ended up being at the mall for two fruitless hours, we walked around a bit and had a long chat on a bench.

I was actually glad we missed the second show because on the ride home I got a killer migraine that would have hit mid-movie.  After some Excedrin and a quick nap I was ready to make a fancy shmancy dinner.  I love brie, and was so excited to see some in my Foodbuzz swag.  And actually the inspiring recipe can from a magazine I read on my California trip!

We loosely followed this recipe from Real Simple, Pasta with Brie, Mushroom and Arugula.  Our changes –

  • we used ziti instead of penne
  • we used white mushrooms instead of button mushrooms
  • we used a cooking onion rather than a red onion
  • we subbed 1T butter substitute (Promise) for the evoo

It was pretty tasty!  But I guess it’s a good thing I’m sick or I’m not sure one meal for the whole day would have covered it 🙂

After dinner we headed out to meet some friends at a local bowling alley.  We called and found out games are $3 after 9 so it seemed like a good idea, even though I’m not a very good bowler.  We played (and drank) with three other couples and it was a lot of fun!

I managed to finagle it with the snack bar and the bartender to get a chocolate milkshake with a double shot of Jack Daniels.

Perfection.

And later on I had a diet coke with amaretto.

None of my games were great, but the second was the worst (I was playing under Benji’s name) –

Embarrassing!  I had a great time though, I definitely want to go back.

Now the goal is sleep before 1am.  My workload tomorrow is pretty light, I only have class one day before Thanksgiving some I’m hoping to get lots of pre-work done next week.  Sweet dreams folks!

Do you like ‘couples sports’ like bowling and mini golf?

This Needs to Be a No Crap Zone

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I’m a little drunk and have a scary amount of work to do tomorrow so I’ll keep this speedy.

I might not have gotten much work done this afternoon but I did have a very calming snack.

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A Tazo tea sample pinched from my hotel room and Frog Hollow Farms cookies.

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And I baked a pie!

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We had an extra Wholy Wholesome WW Pie crust and Adam is a crazy person who has been requesting ‘smores pie minus the actual ‘smores crust.  I followed my grandmother’s recipe, but subbed chocolate chips for bars since that’s what we had in the cupboard.  You better believe I did some nibbling while I cooked.

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Finally, it was time for showers and gussying.  I straightened my hair for the first time in my entire life and I think I like it.

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The semi-formal was at the Samuel’s Grand Manor, which ended up being a very nice spot.  Dinner was actually a sit down meal and the company was great.  Adam is so lucky to be in school with such a great group of people. 

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We hit up the open bar when we arrived; whiskey sour.  [I started drinking and the lights went down so my pictures were pretty much doomed at this point]

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And I had a small appetizer plate.

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Before the bar closed for dinner I had a bourbon and ginger ale.

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Yummy salad.

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Bread and butter.

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Vegetarian entrée.

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Since I don’t eat steak the waitstaff hooked me up with this veggie pasta plate.  I ate all the veggies but pretty much ignored the pasta.

There was ice-cream for dessert but it didn’t look exciting so I gave mine to Adam.  I did however, break into the centerpiece.

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We totally took that candy cane home with us too!

After dinner Daniele delivered the bourbon and ginger that put me over the edge.

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We hung out for a bit, but my foot hurts from my doctor’s appointment and without dancing we ended up leaving before 10:30.  We were actually almost to our house before I had the world’s most intense craving for chicken fingers.  It’s possible we drunkenly made our way to Denny’s (ew!) and I decided that this wouldn’t count towards the Challenge because I didn’t get enough dinner at our pre-planned event.

The craving –

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I ate three and then decided I should probably be done.  P.S. I am totally sick.  Every time we’ve eaten crap this year it’s been confirmed for me that I just can’t.  I didn’t overeat at all (in fact my dinner all total was probably on the small side) but I feel like I’m going to explode.  My body can not tolerate fried food.

I also got embarrassingly excited about this –

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Peppermint hot cocoa?  Yes please!  Honestly, it was worth Denny’s food to be able to sit with my husband.  We talked about my goals and possible plans for next year.  He is so busy and it’s hard to focus at home, it was nice to just sit and talk.

Now I’m going to brush my teeth (and possibly puke) and collapse into bed.  Please, God, please let me wake up and get some work done tomorrow!!!