The Godfather Feast

Mike came up with the idea a few weeks ago to invite a few people over to our place, make some Italian food and watch The Godfather part 1 and 2. Mike, Teddy and I brainstormed on ideas of what we should make in order to replicate a true Italian Feast. While sipping on some Mexican Martinis from Texican the night before I think we got all the ideas we needed to make a fantastic feast.

I woke up at 630am on a Saturday and started my day going to the grocery store. I picked up everything we would need for the party. I also spent some time cleaning up the place, which needed it!

The first dish I started making was bruschetta. This was my first time making it, and I was really excited that I got to try something new. I also learned a new technique; parboiling, which apparently is just boiling the fruit for a minute so you can then easily tear the skin off. For my bruschetta, I added peeled and diced tomatoes, fresh basil, garlic, salt, pepper and olive oil. It was quite an easy dish. Plus one of my guests brought some bread from Texas French Bread, which helped with the bread part of the Bruschetta.

Mike started his dish with making home made meatballs. I am not entirely sure of his recipe, but it involved some pork, ground beef, parsley, garlic, eggs, salt and pepper and parmesean.

Here are the meatballs boiled in some homemade sauce I put together. I used the recipe for the sauce from this Pizza book actually. It is spectacular and pretty easy to make. I made a few changes to it of course though, because that is how I tend to cook everything. The ingredients for this sauce included a tomato starter sauce (I use a kind called Pom), olive oil, oregeno, basil, fresh tomatoes, salt and sugar.

Because there were a few people at the party who either didn't eat meat, or were (or could be) picky when it came to their preferences of cheese, etc, I made the meal in a sort of buffet style. I cooked the pasta, and let them choose how much they wanted. I let them choose a vegetarian sauce or the meatball sauce. I also put out a bunch of different sorts of cheese including mozzorella, ricotta, cheddar, italian blend, etc. I had them all put their mix into a pie tin, and baked them for about 10 minutes to get everything warm and crispy (if that is what they prefererd). Here is my masterpiece. :-) (Note: I did not even eat half of this).


Mike bought some canolis from Canoli Joes, which supposedly has the best canolis in all of Austin, Texas. These ones were pretty amazing. The chocolate one had this cinnanom and vanilla taste, and the vanilla looking one had more of an orange flavor. I prefered the chocolate one, but loved them both.Teddy was really nice and brought some vegan cookies for the ones at the party who prefered to eat vegan style. These were banana chocolate chip heavenly cookies. mmmm.

Aside from the food, we watched The Godfather and had a great time. Watching it with a bunch of film graduate students was pretty funny, especially for the ones who were not in school to master in film theory. hehe. We never ended up watching the 2nd one, because like all real italian feasts, the meal was served several hours after the arrival, and no one had the stamina to sit staring at the screen for 2 or 3 more hours.

After the amazing time we had with The Godfather and chatting for several hourrs, we all ended up going to a theater to watch Drag Me To Hell. I HAVE to tell you about this movie experience. So when the trailers were rolling several people were picking up their phone and talking on them. The crowd was quite rowdy, which is fine for a horror film I think. But right in the first intense part of the movie, a real fight broke out in the theater. Not just a little scuffle, but a full on one family vs another family sort of fight. Apparently a baby was hit in the process. And yes, one family brought THREE babies to a 920pm showing of Drag Me To Hell. It kind of ruined the scene, because everyone started to pay attention to the fight. They actually paused the movie, got some cops to come in (which apparently are on stand by at this particular theater) and break the fight. I have to say, this was one of the most awkward, hilarious and uncomfortable situations I have ever been in at a movie theater. At least we got free tickets afterward when we asked. I think we might see Up in the next few days. Yay!

So today, Mike and I realized we had some leftovers we wanted to use from the party before they went bad. I had some riccotta cheese and mozzorella leftover that I wanted to use before it went bad. I decided to make a lasgna. Not that I needed MORE itlian food leftovers, but I figured I could at least freeze this and make use of our leftover meatballs sometime later on.

We also had some stale sourdough bread to use. Mike thought of the idea of making bread pudding. The only ingredient we needed for this was raisins, so Mike went for it. He made this all on his own, and it is amazing. It tastes like french toast, but better.

Mike and I are still pretty full from all the eating festivities this weekend, so we might not even dig into the lasgna or bread pudding (other than the tiny bites we ate). I think tonight it will just be a nice salad for us both.

In order to work off some of the calories consumed this weekend, Mike and I took the pups to the school in our neighborhood and we played soccer together. Ender likes to pretend he is a human and plays soccer very well. It is pretty hilarious. Mike and I also did some soccer drills and pseudo suicide drills. It was pretty funny. I definitely had jello-like legs afterward.

I am going to try to work out at least 4 times this week. I actually completed 4 times last week. Woo hoo. Although I do need to step it up a bit. Especially if I am going to eat like I have been. Although really, I have been pretty good with keeping the portions small in most things I eat. Plus I havent been that hungry recently, which really helps with me not snacking, etc.

Did any of you have fun weekend festivites?

Pretty Good Week So Far

Despite my lack of posting, I have actually had a pretty good week so far.

On Tuesday, I went for a long walk with the pups in the morning. Although not a hardcore workout, it was still something. I ate fairly well too. I did some errands at lunch and ate some leftover pasta.

On Wednesday, I did yoga in the morning for 45 minutes. That was intense. It is one of the best workouts I have ever woken up to though. It slowly wakes you up, and challenges you without making you move too rapidly. I also ate pretty well. At night I went to the paramount and watched "It Happened One Night" which was surprisingly very good. I am not too big of a fan of old movies, but this one was pretty great.

Note: this is 3 days working out in a row, because on Monday I went for a run.

Because I stayed up so late on Wednesday, I did not work out on Thursday morning. However, I ate very well overall. But on Thursday I also stayed up late again watching the playoffers, so working out in the morning did not work out.

Tonight I am planning for an event we are throwing at my place tomorrow. Mike and I are hosting a Godfather event. We are going to watch Godfather 1 and 2, and eat some tasty italian food. We are inviting a few people over, and should have a great time. Now to decide what we are cooking for tomorrow. And YES I will take lots of pictures and let you know how it goes.

I hope you are all doing well.

Any great plans for the weekend?

Memorial Day Weekend

It has been a spectacular weekend. Starting on Friday night, Mike and I went to see "From Here to Eternity" at the Paramount, a local theater that shows classic movies over the summer. We meant to see Casablanca afterward, but Mike was not feeling too well.

On Saturday morning we took Ender to the vet for his lovely array of problems. The vet did not give us much information and didn't really listen to my concerns and thoughts. But, he did seem to think Ender was just fine, and just needs some antibiotics to fight off some bad bacteria in his tummy. Let's hope it works.

After the doggie vet, Mike and I went to the Farmers Market in Sunset Valley. This is right next to my place, and for some reason I just never went. I think it is because I went to the downtown one and was incredibly disappointed. Not because it was BAD, but because I was spoiled in California with Farmers markets taking up 5 city blocks, etc.

This is an incredibly terrible picture of me. But I did have to document I was there. Note, seconds before there were carnival people juggling and what not behind me.

The Farmers market here was the best that I have been to yet in Austin. I wanted to buy a ton of different things, including strawberry jalapeno jelly, and a bunch of different fruits. I only ended up with some dill and some peaches. Mike however bought some coffee from Katz Coffee, who was donating every dollar for the self serve coffee to boxer puppies. "Saving Puppies with Katz" is what they said, which made me laugh.

Although I did not purchase, I did however see some macaroni and cheese pizza. I can't imagine how delicious this was. AND how horrible it was for me. I just HAD to take a picture for all of you to see though.

Mike also got a pineapple basil popsicle. He was nice enough to let me have a bite of it. And it sure was tasty. Mike kept going on and on about the basil, but for some reason it didn't hit my pallete as that obvious. Strange.

We also went to Costco, where they had Chobani greek yogurt (12 for only $11.79), havarti cheese for only $4.79 as well as some mini peppers, blackberries, etc. That was definitely a great trip, and for once, I don't think we will regret any purchases made there.

We later went to Central Market and picked up stuff for the cookies I planned to make. And we got suckered into buying crab meat and making the sample dish they provided for us. As well as the cowboy burgers, which were AMAZING. I wish I took pictures of the crab meat dip I made, but I did not. It sure was tasty though. Mmmm. I think we might add it to some pasta later this week, and Mike said he was adding it to his eggs tomorrow morning.

Later that night we hung back at the house, watched lots of True Blood, and Teddy came over and played Scene It with us. We also ended up watching Super Bad, which is still as hilarious today as it was a few months ago.


On Sunday, the pups got a MUCH NEEDED haircut. Here is one of Ender, who surprisingly was not being a ham for the camera. He always is usually.

Emily on the other hand was all about the camera. Great for me, and you :-)
Mike took me out to brunch on Sunday, at the Moonshine Patio Bar & Grill. I had read about it on Yelp, looked at the menu and decided it was for me! This place had their brunch set up buffet style, which was great for me, because it meant I got to try a lot of things. Mmmm. In order to not gain a million pounds I took small bits of everything I thought looked tasty, instead of big bits of things.
We also ended up getting some delicious mimosas, which are my fave. :-) Mmmm. Here you can see my lovely plate as well.
Here is Mike enjoying his Mimosa too, as well as his food. I think we both decided the bread pudding was the best part, but not by much, because everything was amazing. Below you can see my plate up close. I have some bread pudding there, some green eggs (eggs w/ pesto), some texas scrambled eggs, roasted potatoes with rosemary, one piece of sausage, and a bagel I never got around to. I also had another plate, with some gritz, pieces of muffin, sweet potato casserole and a crossiantwich. mmm.
On Monday, so far, I went for a run on a trail on North Lamar. Town Lake had some triathlon going on, and I didn't want to be running in the middle of it. It was a beautiful course, although Mike and I went when it was a bit too warm. I could only run 15 minutes straight before walking. I did walk back quickly the rest of the way. I feel again sort of pathetic, but come on, 95 degree weather is no fun to run in.

After that Mike and I did a little bit more grocery shopping, some reading, and making margarita cookies for a few co-workers of mine. I was told I needed to bribe a few co-workers with my cookies to get them to do this special project for me. It was nothing I HAD to do, but it did give me an excuse to make more cookies. One of the guys who will be doing this special project is always asking for margaritas for his help, in a joking manner. So my friend said I should make margarita cookies. We both had no idea they existed in real life, but with a little searching on the interwebs, I came up with Margarita Cookies from The Smitten Kitchen.

These cookies were a LOT more work than I have ever done for cookies. It involved a lot of grating lemon and orange grind, and WAITING for the dough to cool so I could form it into cute little cookies. My cookies were not as little as they were supposed to be, except for maybe that one in the middle below. Oh well. Mike thinks they taste good. I think they taste more like lemon cookies than margarita cookies, but he told me I am just being silly.

I am pretty nervous to bring them in tomorrow. They CAN'T get the same outcome as cookies with CHOCOLATE, but meh, whatever.

Somehow with all of this crazy eating, and experimentation, I did however lose a bit of weight over the weekend. Woo hoo. Now I need to just continue this.

Tomorrow I have book club and will have to workout in the morning. And Wednesday is another movie at the Paramount so I will also have to work out that morning. I should definitely make it a mandatory morning workout at least 4 days a week. Especially during the summer when there are so many other fun things to do.

Now I am going to hang out by the pool and finish up 150 pages of my book for the book club meeting. So far I read 110 pages in 2 hours, so I am not too worried about this.

I hope you all had a great weekend. I am looking forward to the next 3 day weekend.

Changes???

Sorry it has been few and in between with the blog updates. I am trying to think up a new way to do my blog.

I want to include pictures more. I want to include pictures of fun meals I make. But not sure what else. Is there anything you would like to see?

I also want to keep focused on fitness, and eating better. I also want to include an actual journal of what I eat everyday on this blog. I think I might do that with a little widget on the right. Do you have any better ideas for implementing this?

I need to make some changes in my life as well. I say this a lot. But have had a huge struggle with eating out. I am just so excited to be in Austin, with all these new restaurants to try, and new friends to make, etc. It is hard to be social without going out to eat, or going to a bar, or something.

Over the summer I am going to try to plan more outdoor activities, such as hiking or something. Now if only I had a reliable running partner. Anyone read this from Austin that is interested in a running buddy? If so, note that i am SLOW and can only complete about 3 miles right now (but got to a max of 7 last summer). Do you have any other ideas for outdoor activites that do not cost money, and also burn calories?

Do you have anymore suggestions overall about anything you would like on the blog that is not happening, or something that WAs happening but is no longer being done?

Thanks for all your help. I really appreciate it!

Food Blogger Potluck Party

On Sunday, I went to the May Food Blogger Potluck, put on by the Soup Peddler, David Ansel. In preparation for the event, I made Nutella with Macademia nuts cookies. I pretty much just used a peanut butter cookie recipe and added nutella instead of PB, as well as some macadamia nuts. They turned out to be more like a nutella crisp though, which is great by me, but interesting nonetheless. Below you can see a picture of them up close.

Here is about 1/3 of the entire batch. EEK!!

At the Food Blogger Potluck, we got to sample a TON of amazing food. The upside of a potluck with a bunch of food bloggers is that you get really tasty creative food. Below you can see my plate. There is a caprese sandwich, some edamame/lava bean pesto on a crostini, Cesar salad, Vietnamese rice type roll, beat salad, goat cheese w/ blackberry and pecan pasta salad, roasted potatoes with corn and onions, etc, and a piece of sausage that I ended up not eating because I was afraid it had chicken in it.

Here you can see me eating my tasty blackberry, goat cheese, pecan pasta salad made by Teddy from Funwithyourfood.

Here is Teddy nibbling on what I think is a portabello mushroom pizza type thing.

And here is Mike enjoying his first Food Blogger potluck ever.

I forgot to take a picture of my entire plate of desserts. There were a million things to try. Including an Irish Car Bomb cupcake, vegan cupcakes, cookies, tirumisu, pecan tart, pina colada cupcakes, cobbler, brownies, etc. Here is a picture of what Teddy, Mike and I brought home.

Other than the food blogger potluck, I also went to Uchi for my first time ever on Saturday. It was AMAZING. It was a runner up for a James Beard award in the region, and is also known as the best restaurant in town (as in actually acclaimed by all the food critics, publications, etc). I thought I didn't like sushi before I went, because the seaweed grosses me out. But this was so amazing I didn't even notice the seaweed. It was pure heaven and I am just dreaming of ways to go back there again. hahahaha. Too bad it is on the pricey side.

Other than those two amazing food events, I also sang my heart out to some oldies but goodies with Teddy, watched an amazing storm, and had a Lost party on Sunday night at home.

What did you do this weekend?

Food Making Whirl

Last Saturday I had plans to go to a Yogurt Making Party put on by Megan Conrad and Addie Broyles from Relish Austin. With this in mind, as I was catching up on blogs, I came across a recipe for home made granola from Love Of Oats and knew I had to make it since I was already going to be making yogurt and it is the perfect combo. I looked at the ingredients and all the ingredients could be found in my cupboards. I even added a few of my own ingredients, including pecans, dried cherries, and coconut flakes. Man was this AMAZING.

Here everyone is at the Yogurt Making Party. The host, Megan Conrad (in the apron), works for the Dairy Counsel, and wanted to promote dairy by teaching us how to make it. I felt so lucky to be invited to this, since I am not even sure I am a food blogger, technically.

We learned all the chemistry behind making yogurt, and actually put a batch together for ourselves. While our yogurt was being made Megan let us sample the yogurt she had made earlier. With it, we made this amazing apple dip. It included yogurt, peanut butter, honey and cinnamon. Although not a LIGHT snack, it sure is like pure heaven. I actually made it on Monday again with some pink lady apples and was in bliss. I even had a few co-workers try this and they loved it!

Once my yogurt had fermented all night, I knew I had to have a bowl of it with some home made granola, as pictured below, the next morning. This combination was great. Although it took a lot of effort to make home made yogurt, it sure was worth it even after the first bite.

For my friend's birthday on Sunday, I made her cookies (although I gave them to her late because my other dessert plans for her fell through). I had been looking at Cookie Madness all day with dreams of cookies, specifically Smores Cookies. I decided that I HAD to make them. I again had most of the ingredients at home, which made my decision that much easier. Mine were basically chocolate chip cookies, with graham cracker crumb mixed in and a few marshmallows on top.


I have to say I really love these cookies. I think they taste MUCH better cold (or cool) compared to warm, but any way you eat them they are still delicious. I brought a bunch of them into work on Tuesday and made my co-workers eat most of them. I still have some at home though, in the freezer. They are hard to resist. I am not joking. Give them a try if you like the main ingredients of smores and chocolate chip cookies.In other news, today at lunch, Amanda let me come over to her house for lunch to meet her kitties! Their names are Lucy and Dezzy and they are only 6 weeks old. One is 1 lb, and the other is 1.5lbs. hahaha. They were sooo freaking adorable!!!!

Here are the cute kitties eating out of their milk bowl. Look at how big they are compared to the show in the background!!! hahaha.
Not only was Amanda nice enough to let me meet her kitties, but she was also nice enough to make me an amazing meal!! She made me turkey cordon bleu (because she knows I am allergic to chicken and she is amazingly considerate), roasted red potatoes, and steamed broccoli. It was an amazing gourmet at home meal for lunch. I have to say, it was one of the best lunches I have ever had at lunch. It also kept me full for the entire day, until dinner time. Woo hoo.

The rest of my night so far has been spent taking my photos off my camera, downloading picassa3, and getting gilmore girls ready for my ipod viewing tomorrow. :-)

Oh also, I spent awhile reading one of Mike's papers that he has to turn in tomorrow. I am about to read another one. Thank Goodness he will be done with all of this nonsense by sometime tomorrow!!

We are going to celebrate on Saturday by going to Uchi (also as a celebration for his Birthday), which is the best restaurant in Austin (nationally and locally acclaimed). It is a sushi place, and the chef has actually cooked for me before at a Food and Wine Blogger event that Whole Foods put on several months ago. He fed me the only salmon that I have ever enjoyed. When I say enjoyed I mean thoroughly enjoyed. Normally I despise salmon, so this was sort of a big deal.

Mike and I will also be going to brunch on Sunday. It is his way of repaying me for helping him through all his finals stuff. Not that I actually did any work, but I was definitely there for emotional support, and editing. hehe.

Well, this has been a huge blog. I hope you all enjoy.

Recap

Whew, already busy week. I also had a busy weekend. I will be blogging about this soon with some pictures.

Let's do a quick re-cap.

Friday: I watched the rockets play the lakers with Mike and Kim. We had a blast. I made stoufers lasagna, some salad, and had some tiramisu and ate in small amounts.

Saturday: I helped Mike a lot with his papers, as in talked him through things, was a sound board. Took the pups to dog park. And then went to a yogurt making party. I learned to make yogurt, which was awesome and got to try a lot of different recipes with yogurt involved. I will show more pictures of this though later this week. After that I got thai with Teddy and Mike and then just went home and watched a movie or law and order with Mike.

Sunday: Did some errands, helped Mike more on his paper. Also watched the Rockets game at Pluckers, because time warner cable decided to go out right during the playoffs. LAME. And then played Bingo with my friend Amanda for her birthday.

Monday: Worked. I helped Mike with his papers more.

Tuesday: Walked the pups for 45 minutes in the morning. Worked.. Helped mike with his papers. Made smores cookies from Cookiemaddness.com.

Wednesday: yoga, working, planning on going to torchys taco with teddy and then celebrating wino wednesday and watch the lost finale!

I decided overall that I need to workout in the morning, especially in the summer, because otherwise a million fun things will come up that I want to do and get in the way. I hate working out in the morning, but the last few mornings it has not been that bad. Yoga is a great one to do in the morning because it gradually builds up to SUPER intense. I am going to be sooo sore tomorrow.

What are your tricks to get in your fitness routine into the day?

Lameeeeeeeeeee

So I got an email last night from American Express. They lowered my limit AGAIN, this time only $128 above my balance. Thanks for effing my credit score American Express and rewarding me ever so amazingly for paying the bill on time every single month since 2004, and having a good credit score, good job, etc. This makes me angry, if you couldn't tell. Money issues are payalyzing and I am not surprised how so many people actually kill themselves over it. Have you ever seen this movie: Maxed Out. I think it gave a pretty accurate view of how a lot of people deal with credit card debt. And no I am not going to kill myself over it, but if you allow it, debt can consume you. I am okay at not letting anything entirely consume that is negative, but it can still bother me for a day or two pretty hardcore. But this is good, because it trains me to NOT spend money, and learn to do whatever I can to pay off/transfer the debt to another card ASAP. Ending rant now.

In other news, I did a goood job in eating in small portions last night. Woo hoo. I watched th Rockets vs Lakers game last night with Mike and my friend Kim. I made stoufers lasagna, salad and we had a few beers and tirumisu. I ate bits of everything, and surprisingly was full.

This weekend I plan to eat out of my pantry/fridge. Experiment with what I have. Which won't be too hard since I actually do have a decent amount. This should be fun, and less tempting than going out to eat.

I think because I never used to go out to eat, that when I do, i think it is a special occasion every time subconciously and should just eat whatever I want. This is a terrible way of thinking. I have recently adjusted these thoughts a bit. When we got firebowl (like a pei wei) at work on Wednesday I actually opted for a salad. Definitely not as good as their other stuff, but I did not need their other stuff. Right? right.

I am planning on hydrating soon and going for a run at town lake. Hopefully the humidity will be down. I can't run too late, because it is already warm out here now. Fantastic for everything but runs for me. ;-)

The rest of my day is cleaning up around the house, relaxing, and helping Michael. I also may pick up my book club book with my Borders 30% off coupon. Sounds like a plan to me. I also am going to a yogurt making party at 5pm with some local food blogger. This should be interesting. i will try to take pictures of the event and show you!

Oh also, have any of you ever used the wifi enabled camera memory cards? Any luck with them? Let me know.

Yep, It is torture

I am counting calories, yet still gaining weight. Maybe this in part that Mike's birthday was Tuesday and we got mexican food and a mexican drink. ;-) and Then last night was wino wednesday, where friends come over, we drink some wine, talk and generally watch Lost. Maybe I should just not drink. Hmm.

Today I made some bad decisions as well. But that just means I have to run tonight. I counted the calories though, and i am not too far off. Just have to eat a TINY amount for dinner. No biggie.

I am at the highest weight ever. I am doing my best to not freak out. But seriously, it is hard not to.

Okay, question. Have any of you noticed that strapless bra's are tigher than regular bras? I got a strapless bra that is the same size as my other bras. The normal bra, i wear at the tightest level. On the strapless, I wear it on the loosest level and it is so tight it actually will cut into my skin if I wear it long enough. Am I just getting too big for the bra, or is it just that strapless bra's are weird? I have no idea. But would like to.

Plan for today:
Run 3 miles, although it is humid now, and i doubt i can finish it without stopping. I will not give myself crap if I can't.

If I get to bed before 11 tonight I am going to walk the pups tomorrow morning. A 1.37 mile walk, some of it uphill and fast. They need it, and so do I. :-)

How do you fit in workouts in your busy schedule?

Cinco De Mike-o

First off, Happy Birthday Mike!!!

So you will be proud. Yesterday I worked out twice. Neither of them super intense, but I am taking credit where I can. hahah.

I woke up with an incredibly sore neck, and so I did some yoga before work. It was a 37 minute one, but a wake up one, so not very challenging. But I was sore a little in my shoulders.

I then went to work. And actually went home for lunch and ate leftovers. I also started up sparkpeople again, because if I do not get ahold of myself I will soon be overweight according the stupid bmi and that makes me want to cry. hehe. So............ I am getting down to business.

After work I did some grocery shopping for Mike's birthday breakfast! I made him some breakfast burritos, per his request. And then we made frozen pizza and watched the Lakers vs Rockets game. Did you know pepporoni and sausage on digorno pizza has CHICKEN in it. Neither did I. So guess who had to take it off her slice of pizza? hehe.

Today I woke up early and made Mike his birthday breakfast and gave him his present.

For Lunch I went to Whole Foods with my friend Amanda. I got a salad from their salad bar, and an ice cream cone from mcdonalds. mmmm.

For dinner, I have no idea what is going on. Mike has yet to choose a place to go to. I guess he is in a bad mood about a paper he is working on. And so he doesnt feel like picking out a place yet. Not sure if I am going to just surprise him with a nice dinner at home, or force him to go out and celebrate. It's probably a better idea just to make him something at home. Hmmm. I have no idea. And I guess I need to get him tirumisu too, because he requested that. I was going to get it from a restaruant, but now, I have no idea what to do. One idea is coming into mind, make him lasagna and buy tirumisu from the store. Too bad it requires money. But I guess I would have been spending it anyway taking him to dinner.

Not a very cinco de mayo meal huh? Oh well. Lasgna is his fave.

How are all of you doing with workouts? Have any inspiration for me?

Sinus & Acid

This weekend I have been ridiculously tired, have had sinus/allergies issues and acid reflux. Weirrrddd. I think a combo of allergies and acid is related. But, I could be wrong. They tend to go hand in hand with me though. Does this happen to you ever?

On Friday night I opted to stay in with Mike. We picked up some CPK salads and watched American Teen. A movie which I had been renting from netflix for like 2 months. LORDY. I went to bed around 1030, because I was DEAD from the week.

On Saturday I went to lunch with my friend Kim. Then later I did some errands, which resulted in me spending too much money at target. I cleaned my bathroom pretty hardcore. I used this clorox bleach bathroom cleaner and it was amazing. My tile has never been cleaner. Ammazing for me. I felt pretty crappy most of the day. And forced myself to go on a run with Mike. I was literally pushing myself just to move. haha. The run ended up turning more into a walk. We ran for about 1/2 a mile, but because of the humidity and both of us feeling extremely drained (and me having some acid reflux problems), we didn't last any longer. Instead we noticed that the Pre-Historic Garden, which is part of the Austin Botanical Garden, was right by the path we were taking on Town Lake. We explored the area for awhile, getting lost a few times. It was a great adventure, and completely random.

Later that night I went to watch the Soloist with Teddy and her friend who was in from out of town. The movie was not a bad movie, but I still didn't like it, if that makes sense. I am not saying I hated it, but it was just not something I was that excited over afterwards. Jamie Fox does an amazing job, but overall, I was not impressed.

Today I woke up really late. Ended up going to Taste No Evil Muffin trailers near me, that Mike and I have been dying to try for a long time now. We also went this coffee hut, I think called Cuban Coffee. The owner's daughter was there and she was really adorable. She wrote us a personal thank you note. How freaking cute!!

I need to go to the grocery store and pick up veggies. But I feel like crap. I will go soon. But I have extreme sinus pressure. Blah. I also need to take the pups on a walk. They need it. They have been so bored they actually ate one of my shoes. They havent done that since they were REALLY young. I will suck it up and take them on a walk.

I am going to start waking up at 6am and taking them on a walk every morning. A 45 minute walk. Okay, maybe just 3 days a week. Or maybe just 5. I haven't decided. I am really good at talking myself out of working out in the morning, but I just can't trust myself in leaving my workout until late in the day. Especially lately with my allergies that seem to get worse as the day progresses. They have been leaving me super drained, and feeling like I am constantly STARVING, even though the allergies (or allergy meds?) creating an acid reflux situation. I hope this does not last months like last year. I need to start taking my Omega 3 pills regularly again.

So, new plan: take omega 3s, walk the pups in the morning, and workout as much as possible after work.

As you can probably tell, last weeks plan did not work out at all. I was drained ALL week. Even right now I can't even imagine calling one of my good friends because I just want to sit in bed and not talk to anyone. haha. Stupid allergies. Rendering me useless. And turning me into a lame, lazy person.

Mike's birthday is on Tuesday, by the way. So in order to start to celebrate, we are watching Wolverine tonight at the Alamo. I will probably be ordering my fave salad their tonight, the goat cheese one. MMMMMMM.

Any plans for the week?