So You Think You're Oblivious?

While I should've been at spinning tonight (sorry Kathy!), I skipped it (again) in favor for a night in the beautiful state of New Hampshire. One of my friends from work lives up there, but her delicious cooking makes it well worth the drive to get dinner cooked every once in awhile. Here is the chef, Melanie...

Kinda seems like she should be wearing an apron, huh?

I was SO excited when I saw the wine choice for the evening...
I went to Mondavi when I was in Napa last year and I didn't get to try the Pinot Grigio, which is generally my favorite kind of wine. It was just as delicious as I expected it to be!

Do you know those houses that you visit and they automatically make you want to decorate your house better? Yeah...Mel has one of those houses...
Oh yeah and you know those people you kind of want to move in so they'll cook for you every night? Yeah again...
Delicious chicken parm, no cheese for me though :) So good. On the way home I spotted a Walmart. There is not a Walmart to be found near me, and I'll be honest, New Hampshire has no sales tax. I went a little crazy...
Now, look carefully at the photo above. In it, you can see picture frames, bottled water, a night stand for our guest room, and two bar stools for our counter. Look reallllly carefully. Notice anything, WEIRD about the photo above?

Okay fine, I'll give you a clue...This is what my bar stools looked like when I got them home...
AWWWW man...those are SO not the same size!!!!!! At first I tried to blame it on the fact that I had them upside down in the cart. But after looking at the picture above, I really can't say that. It's pretty clear. Fortunately, Eric was very nice about it and suggested that the big one was for him and the small one was for me. Haha...looks like another trip to Walmart may be in my future...

I never claimed to be a detail person...

Exercise Attention Span & Sour Pancakes?

Good morning! I got all my work done so I'm going in late today which means you get an early morning blog entry from me...lucky you :)

Lately I've had no attention span when it comes to exercise. I've been exercising, very consistently, but I can never do the same thing more than a few times. Even spinning, which I love, I rarely attend more than once a week. I tried to do the daily yoga challenge, and though I am still plugging away pretty frequently, I find myself trying out different yoga videos, different poses and even mixing in some pilates. Last night I went to do "Yoga Sculpt" On Demand and I suddenly couldn't find it (I'm hoping it was just a fluke and today it will appear again). I decided to try Pilates instead and did a 20 minute Total Body Pilates video. I loved it! It began by focusing on the stomach muscles, moved into the butt and upper thighs and finished with some back exercises. I think I must work the stomach and upper thighs in other work outs that I do because it was mainly my back muscles that were sore later. The only thing that annoyed me about the video was when the pilates girl, Nicole Stewart, would talk in the same rhythm she wanted us to be breathing in...really unnecessary. I will definitely be doing this video again, but I do look forward to when I can mute it, no offense Nicole :)

I used to be a big pilates girl long before the interest in yoga, spinning and many of the other things that I do now. I started doing pilates in high school and actually got pretty good when I was going consistently in Australia. For some reason I can't seem to find a pilates class at my gym that works for me time wise, but I'm hoping to incorporate more at home if I can. At least for a few weeks, then I'll probably have a new obsession. What's your exercise attention span like? Do you tend to stick to one activity or change it around all the time?

On a completely unrelated note I'm having a major baking issue and I'm hoping one of you can solve it for me. My mom has been making these delicious oatmeal pancakes forever and when I moved out I took the recipe and started making it for myself. Everything went well, they were delicious, I was happy. Then, one day I made the pancakes using the same recipe and they had this TERRIBLE sour aftertaste to them. I thought I did something wrong so I tried again a few days later and the same thing happened. My mom and I blamed bad baking powder, so I got a new one and tried again. Still terrible! I have tried making them probably five or six times since then and it's always this terrible taste. I have to know what the problem is, I really think all of my ingredients are fresh! The other VERY strange part to this story is that I made oatmeal apple muffins that use the same ingredients (plus additional ingredients), just different measurements and they always come out fine.

So I am going to post the recipe and please tell me if you have any ideas of what could be going so wrong!

Oatmeal Pancakes

1 egg (I use egg whites only, 3 tablespoons I believe)

1/2 cup plain non-fat yogurt

2 tbsp. oil

1 tsp. sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 cup oatmeal

1/4 cup flour

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp cinnamon

Alright, you fantastic bakers out there- please tell me what I am doing wrong so I can make my favorite breakfast again!

Restaurant Review: Thai Moon

The first time I ever tried any Thai food was in college. My friends and I used to go to a small restaurant called Rod Dee in Brookline. I have to admit though, I totally stuck to spring rolls and dumplings, in an effort to make my food as Chinese as possible. I tried Thai again later at Mango II in Tewksbury, and got a little more serious about my Thai food, but I still have been meaning to try it again for awhile.

This past Sunday I got coffee with my friend Timna so I could hear about her honeymoon in Thailand. Her description of delicious food secured my decision to try out Thai Moon in Arlington on Sunday night. Since it was early on a Sunday night, the restaurant was pretty dead. This ended up being great for us because we got a nice window table, perfect for people-watching.

Eric and I do not always order appetizers, but at Asian restaurants, we always want to. Eric ordered "Thai Pancakes"...
I ordered Steamed Shumai (yup, I admit I love Japanese Shumai).
Both appetizers came with a delicious (though a bit spicy) ginger sauce. Eric and I both enjoyed our appetizers, but agreed we probably would've been satisfied with just our main courses next time. Eric is also a big soup fan, so he tried the Tom Yum Chicken Soup.
For our main courses, Eric ordered Beef Curry...
...and I ordered Chicken Pad Thai (believe it or not, this major peanut butter fan has never tried Pad Thai). I am in love, it was so amazingly delicious that I continued to use it in small portions for the next two dinners I ate.
Eric was equally pleased with his curry and was excited to enjoy some leftovers the next day as well. When Eric has leftovers, you know that the portions are good. The service at Thai Moon was very attentive (though, there were only about 3 other people in the restaurant). Also, even with all the food we got, the bill only came to $40. I'm pretty sure we will be returning to this restaurant at some point in the near future.

Do you like Thai food? What's your favorite Thai dish?

A Stuffed Acorn Squash Makes My Day

Hello and Happy Tuesday! (complete lie, is it Friday yet?) Today I woke up with a huge amount of motivation and went back to old Kelly that used to work out before work. I started walking on the treadmill and since my knee has been feeling good decided to run for 2 minutes. Later in the walk I ran for 2 more minutes. Just to make it clear, that's four total minutes of running. At five miles an hour (read: very slow). Then, I stretched...a lot. THEN, I iced.

Result? Pain all day. My thoughts? Total frustration and anger. Since I have been "injured" I have watched people recover from surgery, broken bones and sprains and run again...while all the while I STILL cannot run. It doesn't make sense and it's really annoying. I've been to my primary care doctor, a physical therapist, an orthopedist and a running coach. Most were helpful, except for the orthopedist who just told me that we don't worry about these things until there has been pain for a year. Correction: He may not worry about things like this until there has been pain for a year. I continue to worry.

So today I made an appointment with a different orthopedist for a second opinion. I already think me and this guy are going to get along much better. 1. He actually had an appointment after 4 on a Thursday which means I don't have to miss tutoring and lose money yay. 2. He listed one of his hobbies online as "long distance running." I'm guessing he is not going to tell me that not running for a year is fine and dandy. My appointment is not until December 10th so I'll let you know after that. You guys have been really supportive about this knee dilemma and I do really appreciate it. Most of the time I go along just fine with everything but occasionally the frustration really comes out.

But, on a positive note (you did know I was going to turn this around right?)...my dinner was SO delicious I just had to post it. It seems like everywhere I look everyone in the blog world has been stuffing acorn squash lately and I have been dying to try it. I finally decided to stop by the farm near my house this afternoon and get myself a nice big acorn squash to try.

I was a little concerned about cutting the squash in half by myself (Eric wasn't home this time to do it for me) but after one unsuccessful attempt, I put the squash in the microwave for two minutes and it was soft enough to cut right through. Then I let it cook in the oven while I made the inside.

I decided to fill my squash with Harvest Grain Blend from Trader Joe's (Israeli Cous Cous, Red Quinoa, Baby Garbanzo beans, and Orzo), fresh tomatoes also from the farm and a few pieces of leftover pad thai chicken from my sunday night dinner. I have to admit that while I fully enjoyed my first experience with pad thai on Sunday, my stomach was less than pleased with all of the oil. I decided with all the other wonderful things I would be eating tonight, my stomach would be okay with a small amount of chicken. This is one of the great things I have learned from having IBS (yes, there are small perks). It's okay to have something with a little fat, but try to mix it with a lot of other healthy parts to your meal. The result was fun to look at...

And more than delicious to eat. So delicious I interrupted my phone conversation with Katie to announce how amazing my dinner was. I don't do that for the average meal. I finished off my meal with a small piece of this...

I know, a healthy blogger like me should be finishing my meal with a piece of dark chocolate. But frankly, I don't like dark chocolate and I don't eat chocolate to be healthy. I can get antioxidants elsewhere. This is my favorite kind of Lindt chocolate because it is milk chocolate with white chocolate on the inside. Yum.

How is everyone's week going? Mine is dragging. I was so bored during tutoring today that I told my 3rd grader the best way to remember how to spell crocodile is to remember that song "crocodilly oh my croc croc croc" because when we say crocodile, we say it as "crocadile" and in that song we say crocodilly, which if you ignore the silent e rule entirely could be spelling crocodile. Um, what? Haha. Poor girl is going to be singing "crocodilly oh my croc croc croc" during her spelling test on Friday. Oops :) Though she'll probably spell the word right. Just get me to Friday.

Breakfast for Dinner

Does anyone else totally pay for Saturday night fun on Mondays at work? Of course the wedding was a blast this weekend, but I was dragging today... big time. I decided to skip spinning tonight in favor of more rest, but I'll probably go later this week instead. Gotta get to 100 miles in November, I'm already more than halfway there!

Tonight I decided to make breakfast for dinner. I have trouble with breakfast sometimes as far as thinking of things to eat but I think it's easier at dinner time when there is more time to make it. Jenny inspired me to make Pumpkin French Toast. I did consider ending the pumpkin obsession, but it's not time quite yet...

I made it according to the exact ingredients (for maybe the first time ever haha), but I didn't make the peanut butter "frosting" because my stomach is still not in love with me after the weekend so I wanted to be as nice to it as possible. Instead, I added some banana and a really small amount of maple syrup (I discovered it had high fructose corn syrup in it...yuck, those commercials can not convince me..."corn" does not equal healthy!).

It was amazing. Way better than whatever I would've shoved into my mouth before spinning.

In other news, I am one of the "featured bloggers" on a new awesome website that launched today Boston Sports Woman. It is basically an online magazine for the Boston female sports fan. But, even if you are not a Boston sports fan...you may want to check it out because there are also recipes ideas, health/fitness articles etc. Another thing I really like is that you can find a list of active/health related events in the Boston area. I spend hours searching for these things and now they will be in one place for me...yipee!

This is totally random, but does anyone else watch Little People Big World? I'm starting to worry about the parents on that show. I think the advertisements from Jon and Kate Plus 8 during their show are making them turn into the two of them. Seriously. What is the world coming to?

Okay I'm done now. Early to bed for this girl!

Tiff's Wedding Recap

After I left you last I was headed out into the monsoon for the day of getting ready before the wedding. Normally I never wear my hair up, but I was afraid nothing good would come from a half up do in the pouring rain, so I went with a full updo. I actually liked the way it came out...

The getting ready process went very smoothly and we had more than enough time to relax, take a few pictures and get to the church.

Wondering how my ceremony jobs went? First of all, I was supposed to wait for the priest to nod and that meant it was my turn to walk down the aisle. I swear the priest nodded WAY before I was supposed to go (my dad says he saw the nod too so I was not imagining things). I decided not to go at the first nod because I didn't think the music had really changed yet and it just did not seem like it was time. After a really long minute or so (where I thought oh jeez am I supposed to be going?) about five times, I finally saw the TRUE nod and it was time to walk down the aisle. I felt a hundred times better doing it time #2 so, I don't know what my problem was at Katie's wedding haha. My second job was to hold the gospel while the priest read it. I have to admit I passed my flowers to Lisa twice when I thought I was going to have to hold it and then finally it was time to actually hold it. So basically I rocked my jobs, people should hire me for this stuff, haha.

The ceremony was very interesting. There were some things I really liked about it. For example, you know how usually in a ceremony, everyone walks up and then stands on either side of the bride and groom (or sits in the front row). Typically, there is some sort of hierarchy- first maid of honor/best man, and then it sorta feels like each person goes down in importance from there? Clearly no one up there is not important because they are in the wedding, but there is some sort of hierarchy? In the Greek/Albanian church they don't do this. Everyone stands in sort of a semi circle, so no one is actually farthest away from the bride or the groom. And, everyone has different jobs they have to do, so many different people participate in the ceremony besides just the maid of honor and best man (although they do have a lot more jobs, as they should). I really liked this, because like I said before clearly everyone in a wedding party is very important to the couple so why rank your friends?

I think overall the ceremony went really well and Eric even managed to get a photo of their first kiss! (and that's me in the background holding my flowers too high, as always)
They also got a picture of me coming out with my two groomsmen. Tiff had 5 bridesmaids and Ronnie had 9 groomsmen so there were a few more guys.
While Tiff did the receiving line, I got a picture of me and Eric...
On the way back to the hotel the whole bridal party (and parents) took a trolley to the hotel. The trolley had karaoke which was pretty fun. When we got back to the hotel, we headed to our own special room to take pictures. They had drinks and appetizers for us and we sat down and chilled out 'til we had to pose.
After the pictures, we still had time to attend the entire cocktail hour because there was a gap between the ceremony and reception. I'm sure it was not as fun for those not in the wedding party to wait, but I enjoyed attending the cocktail hour. During the reception, we sat at a table with my parents, and Lisa's entire family. I have known all of them since I was very little (I started taking dance lessons with Lisa when I was 3, then pretty much lived at her house during middle/high school) so it was fun to hang out.
Dinner and cake were delicious. I had halibut for dinner and it was probably my personal favorite meal I've had at a wedding. I have a lot of difficulty eating at weddings, so it was really nice to be able to eat an entire meal at a wedding.

I only had a bike of cake but it was delicious.

Overall, the wedding went really well. The whole time I was just so happy that Tiff was marrying Ronnie. Unless you have known Tiff as long as I have, you may not appreciate this as much but Tiff has had some interesting boyfriends (no offense Tiff haha). As an example, she dated this guy in high school who had been the trouble maker of my elementary school. He wasn't even in my grade but he was just the guy you knew was bad news. He really had not gotten any better in high school, and after he and Tiff broke up, his new girlfriend was pregnant in like a month. The bad thing is...the next two guys after that make elementary school trouble maker turned baby daddy look amazing. Tiff's mom said that when Ronnie asked Tiff's parents if he could marry her, her mom was like "Ronnie, you should've seen some of the characters that have come through our door..." haha. But, as always, Tiff knew something we didn't. She wouldn't spend the rest of her life with any of those "characters."

I already liked Ronnie based on what I know about him now...he makes Tiff happy, he's nice to her friends and he is fun to hang out with. However, I also think you can tell a lot about a person based on their friends. Ronnie has chosen for himself a lot (9 groomsmen alone...plus other friends) of really good friends. They clearly love Ronnie, they clearly love Tiff and they are even nice enough guys that they made an effort to get to know Tiff's friends this weekend. There were times when they clearly could've just hung out together that they sat with Tiff's friends instead. Here is a pic of a bunch of them dancing around Tiff and Ronnie :)
Well, that's all I have to say for now about the wedding. Everything was perfect. I hope Tiff and Ronnie had as much fun as everyone else did :)

Tiff's Rehearsal

I realized I have to eat breakfast before I go, so I might as well blog :)

The rehearsal itself was very crazy. Tiff is Greek Orthodox so things are a bit different than the other rehearsals I have been to. The priest went through literally every step (which is smart since none of us had any clue what was going on). He also was like changing around the order and randomly assigning jobs and fortunately Tiff was totally relaxed about it. I would've been like no, I want her to do this job and him to walk down at this time etc. Tiff was just like yeah whatever do what you want haha. Thank goodness. I have a couple of jobs to worry about including being the first bridesmaid to walk down to the aisle so I have to wait for the head nod from the priest. Let's hope I don't miss it. Then, me and one of the groomsmen are holding the gospel at one point for the priest. He claims it's really heavy. Obviously they did not take into consideration who is actually strong and just did who is standing close to him. Hopefully all that yoga pays off. Overall though, I think it's going to be a really fun and different ceremony and I'm excited to participate in it.

Now before I go on to the rehearsal dinner, I have to say that I actually do not like rehearsal dinners. And not just other peoples, I really truly do not want one myself. My friend Timna actually did this which I thought was amazing, but there is really no chance I can avoid a rehearsal entirely due to the fact that we are totally making up the ceremony and we have a pretty big bridal party (Timna had no bridal party). I can't very well make people attend a rehearsal without a dinner after, so I have to have one. I don't mean to be a total wedding party pooper but the reason why I don't like them mainly has to do with my stomach. Basically, my stomach and have an agreement that in general I promise to be extremely nice to it, feed it only things that make it feel good and keep my stress at a minimum. In exchange, it tolerates small slip ups here and there...sometimes (not even that reliably). Enter: the wedding weekend. There is no way given all the stress involved (I thought not being maid of honor I would no longer be stressed...still am haha) that my stomach is EVER going to tolerate me, eating badly, staying up late, drinking, and being social with lots of people I don't know for two nights in a row. So I end up feeling terrible for the wedding itself (usually the rehearsal too lets be honest) and since I like the wedding the most, the rehearsal gets my dislike. Sorry rehearsal. Give me a new stomach and we can discuss my feelings for you changing.

So, as far as rehearsal dinners go, it was a good one. Sure my stomach was absolutely killing me, but at least I was sitting down, right? The rehearsal dinner was at Maggiano's Little Italy. I've been here once before and remember the food being good and it definitely was last night. The flowers were very pretty and orange, Tiff's favorite color...

The other thing that was amazing is that I somehow ended up sitting right next to Tiff. Yay! I got to sit next to Katie at her rehearsal dinner, but I figured I couldn't be lucky enough to sit with Tiff too. I think it was because Ronnie's friends all know each other well and Tiff's friends not as much (though after all wedding related events, we know each other a lot better). I was really happy I got to spend that quality time with Tiff at the rehearsal since I wasn't staying at the hotel with her last night (couldn't put my stomach through another thing, it might have died on the spot- can your stomach die without you?). Anyway, I have to get going to go into Boston for girls getting ready time. Here are some pics, Tiff and her sister...
The beautiful and handsome bride and groom...
Lisa giving a toast...and I was mentioned in it, whoa hoo! haha
Me and Tiff...
Back tomorrow morning with wedding pictures!

Oh and I almost forgot to mention the COOLEST thing ever when I got home last night...

Caroline (my sis) had decorated my whole back porch in pink Christmas lights! YAYYY!