The best gift ever!

Last weekend was Mr. C and I's first anniversary, YAY! He bought me the BEST GIFT EVER! (yes, I know I'm yelling but it was that good.) Now, let me tell you first, I come from a family that definitely shows love through gifts. I wouldn't say they buy people's love but there is a real excitement about giving someone the perfect gift. Mr. C's family thinks gifts are nice but don't nearly put as much weight on them as we do. Also, Mr. C is a male (shocker, I know) but, to me that says his gift giving skills are not quite equal to mine. So, I had used my cognitive behavioral therapy skills and rehearsed in my head that I would be happy with anything he got me. 

We even joked about it being an ugly sweater. We talked about honestly how I would wear an ugly sweater since there is very little that I won't wear and I sometimes like clothes that are off beat so a ugly sweater would be fitting for me.

Sidebar, actually as I write this post I become sentimental about how much I love my husband and think although the gift was quite nice, maybe that he loves me and puts up with my crazy is ACTUALLY the best gift ever. But, I digress. 

Anyway, to my suprise it was no ugly sweater but very thoughtful and loving and I was shocked and amazed about how great it was! He totally outdid me this time. 

Drum roll, please.... He had the doggy DNA test done on my mutt kids! YAY! He said since it was the paper anniversary that he wanted to give me some paper. He even made a homemade card that looked like Lulubelle and Rupert wrote it. I loved it so much I went on and on about it and still do! 

So, Mr. C did the wisdom panel insight. (I have no connection with the company. This is not an ad for them.) And he said it was super easy and got the results back lightning quick. 

So, this is Lulubelle the unknown. This is the new name I've given her. Her results were not fabulous. She is 25% Kuvasc, 12.5% Doberman, and the rest is a mystery. They clearly stated that if a pet is mixed breed 3 generations or back they can't ID it, so if she comes from a long line of mutts. Its ok, I still love her. She is mutt through and through. Actually, I never thought of it but she does look like a small doberman. She's only 30-ish lbs. (I'm sorry Lulu, I had to tell them your weight. Don't be mad.) But her build is a dead on and her ears try to stand up but I looked it up and doberman pinchers actually at birth have their ears molded to stand up like that.

This is Rupert the terrier! (by the way this is from the first day we got him. He doesn't look anything like this now but it is the cutest pic of him of all time! He was about 2 months old here.) Rupert was 50% Jack Russel Terrier, 12.5% Lab, 12.5% Staffordshire Bull Terrier and the rest unknown. This was a hoot! Rupert looks like a mixed breed lab and golden. He acts like one too! Have you seen Up! We call him Doug because that's what he acts like. Further, when we were looking for dogs I found a terrier that I loved named Checkers and Kyle said no terriers. Little J has a terrier and kyle hates him and calls him annoying, it's no secret, even little J knows. I think it's hilarious that his dog is a terrier. Yes, Rupert is his dog and lulu is mine. I'm not sure why but it just ended up that way. Really, day one we went to Fayetteville to look at Lulu because I thought she was SO cute. Kyle thought she was too old. We compromised by settling on two mutts. 

I love our mutts and my husband and my anniversary present. =)

An experiment

1. Mr. C is going to Florida for 2 whole weeks! He leaves tomorrow and doesn't come back until April 25th. "Booo" that's me crying while secretly doing a little jig because everyone needs time alone sometimes. It's ok to be slightly happy about my alone time. (Although, I believe that this will not last by Sunday afternoon I'll be bored and sad about his departure.)

 2. I have been running. On April 24 I will do my 3rd country music half marathon. I imagine it will be my greatest challenge yet. I imagine this for a couple of reasons. I have really slacked about my long runs lately because we have been traveling SO much. I love traveling but it's bad when even I don't want to go anywhere for a while. Anyway, I have had slacked on my running and now this week my knees are making weird noises and are beginning to hurt. I am having a minor panic attack due to the fact that my dad has horrible knees and constantly struggles with them. I am very weary about them. I am by far the most overweight I have ever been in my life. I am having a couple of panic attacks about this as well. I think its sort of the weird zen that is just meant to be with my 2 loves in life being arch nemesis. I mean really, being a "foodie" (although I despise the term and feel like it is the definition of uncool) who relishes in trying new things and running do not seem to mold well together. sigh. I will now at this venture have to put my "foodie" self in check, sort of...

3. I am inspired by all of these people making pledges to be more earth friendly due to April having earth day in it but, I am having serious difficulties coming up with what I can do. We can't afford everything organic or eco-concision but what we can we do buy. We already buy energystar appliances, I take bags to the grocery store, we recycle, and we are part of a CSA for our summer produce. I would say we are pretty green people. You know the whole thing about the green movement is it's really just cheap. Which would be a better way to define us. We don't want to waste money so we buy things that are durable that we can reuse and don't need to replace cheap stuff constantly. Really, what would make a huge impact would be to buy new cars that aren't SUVs but I don't see that happening any time soon. So, I know the statistics on dairy and methane. Although I don't eat beef, I can stray away from dairy.

So, I have decided to attempt being a Vegan (I think, maybe, we'll see) while Mr. C is in Florida. This is my pledge to be a better steward of our earth for the next couple of weeks. Now, I have to explain that I LOVE cheese. I think it's my whole a large part of my problem here. If I could keep it in check we would be better, maybe. Also, I am what my friend Kathy calls "a starter." You know a person who can think of new ideas not previously explored but isn't so great with follow through. So, As I make this declaration (to myself since no one else reads this) I am honestly thinking about making ice cream today before Mr. C leaves. Anyway, since I am blogging it I figure it will give me commitment to follow through. So, tomorrow I say "good buy my love" to dairy and Mr. C until he returns.

ATL

Well, I've arrived in Atlanta. YAY! I love this city. I would love nothing more than to convince Mr. C that we need to move here. I think he knows this but it's about as likely to happen as me becoming a millionaire. Actually, if I were to become a millionaire i think my odds would go up...hmm. Unfortunately, I don't really gamble because I believe it's a huge waste of my money so the odds of us being a millionaire are slim. Anyway, today we are going to Six Flags (pretend excitement here). Usually when we travel I feel like we always do what I want to do. I guess because I love to plan stuff like that and Mr. C is so easy going. So, this time I on purpose decided to make sure to insert Mr. C activities. Yesterday we played mini golf, his not so private obsession. Today roller coasters!

Back to reality

Well, I am back from my fabulous month of jet setting...almost. Mr. C and I are off to Hot-lanta tomorrow to celebrate 1 year of bliss. I totally will post pics and fun info on our adventure but Mr. C is doing a major wiring project in the living room and he dared me to asked about my pics. So, that'll have to wait.

So, on to business...

April's meal planning and Freezer Cooking.
Well, in march I really tried not to go to the grocery store but honestly went almost every week (oops). I know I drastically cut back and got mostly fresh produce and dairy but not a huge success with the pantry challenge. We still have A LOT of food. Also, things didn't really turn out as planned so I will just be transferring lots of the meals down to April. I will make some extra freezer meals. We did eat some of them and they were handy when we did eat them. My plan to come.

Homemade Granola Clusters

I have made the yummiest homemade granola clusters today. Even Mr. C who said "I don't like granola" as I excitedly tell him about them and try force him to try them said they were pretty darn good.

Now I researched lots of recipes but got overwhelmed and confused by all the conflicting ideas of what to do and made my own concoction. The best part? You can totally use whatever odds and ends that are chilling in your pantry and they'll turn out GREAT!

Now these are two part, but don't be overwhelmed, it's not hard.


For the granola:

2 cups of Old Fashioned Oats (but I bet you can use steel cut also)
2/3 cup of Maple syrup
1 1/2 cups of nuts*
1/2 tsp of vanilla**
1/2 tsp Cinnamon**

*really whatever you like, I did peanuts, almonds and sunflower kernels.  My peanuts were planters (i think) so you can use any regular nuts...if you use raw I would add salt as an extra ingredient.
**but really i saw post about cocoa powder or ginger which both sounded good but i didn't have.

1. Preheat oven to 275 degrees (lots of recipes say 300 but i found it was burning my granola)
2. Mix all ingredients together. Make sure that it's all evenly coated.
3. Cook for 30 min. at 275.
4. Stir about every 10 min.


Granola Clusters:

1/2 of the recipe of granola
1/2 cup of peanut butter*
1/2 cup of almond butter*
1/2 cup of olive oil
3/4 cup of honey
1/4 cup of crasins or raisins
2 cups of cereal... I used rice krispies and fiber one cereal 
1 cup of brown sugar

*I think you can just use one or the other but I ran out of peanut butter so I used both.

1. Heat peanut butter, almond butter, olive oil, honey, and brown sugar on stove top on medium heat until all melted together.
2. Mix with dry ingredients.
3. Divide into mini muffin cups.
4. Let dry 1-2 hours.

Enjoy and try not to eat all in one sitting!

I am learning picasa!

I am a therapist. I am not internet savvy. I married a engineer. I married an engineer so that I don't have to know things about computers. But, increasingly as I blog I want to be able to post pictures. I have discovered picasa and it's true love.

Here's my two beautiful children,



my debonair husband,



and me on Mr C's birthday trip last year.

I think I love picasa (now if i could just figure out how to rotate the pic of my puppies.)

Happy Birthday Little J!

It's little J's birthday (my sister), we just got back from Nashville seeing her and the rest of the family. I love my sister. (I will confess that we had a couple of rough patches in teenage years but, that's normal right?) This is why I love my sister...

Yes, This is disney...it is 3 am and she is totally striking a pose in a trash bag!

Now, if you are a nonrunner, FYI trash bags are normal. They will keep you warm and dry for the amount of time for the marathon to start and when it does you just tear it off and throw it away.

But only my baby sister would be striking a pose in her trash bag like she is wearing PRADA!

I laugh every time I see this picture.

Anyway, happy birthday little sister!

Now only 2 days until California...I am so excited I can barely sit still long enough to blog about it. YAY!