Weekend Round Up with Recipes!

Friday:

Matt and I went to dinner with some of our friends at a Mexican restaurant. Now, this not your typical Mexican food....as it is actually called mod mex and the restaurant serves things like duck and boar taquitos, weird flavors of margaritas, and crazy types of guacamole. Excuse me for not being sophisticated enough to understand the coolness of "mod" but I really much prefer chicken soft tacos, chips and salsa, and a regular lime flavored frozen margarita...but whatever...no one asked me.

Dinner was followed by....wait for it...salsa dancing lessons. Ha! Obviously not our idea. It was...interesting...but overall pretty fun. We learned the basic moves of salsa and were given a chance to do a little dancing after the class. My dear husband, bless his heart, did such a great job. I was so proud of his effort. He was the cutest little salsa dancer I had ever seen.


Saturday:

This weekend was filled with all sorts of yumminess! Thanks to my wonderful friends Lucy and Shaina...I was introduced to the amazingness that is pumpkin. Matt and I headed out to buy some ingredients for my pumpkin baking extravaganza and also bought a few more decorations for the outside of the house which I will share later this week. They may or may not include hay stacks and pumpkins!

I whipped up some pumpkin chocolate chip bread as well as pumpkin cream cheese muffins in the afternoon. They were both delicious. I was partial to the bread...because of the chocolate of course...but Matt fell in love with the muffins and had three for breakfast the next morning :)

Sunday:

Still overflowing with apples from our apple picking adventure of '09, Matt and I made an apple pie in the morning. We also tried our hand at homemade pie crust which was oh so yummy!

Here's a before picture of the pie before it went into the oven:


And the after:


It smelled delicious. And this is coming from a girl who does not like apple pie. Matt loved it...and I loved the crumb topping...so success all the way around :)


With the leftover pie crust we made these fabulous pie crust cookies!


Baked up...they were freaking unbelievable and ruined my diet for sure.


Matt went to the Browns game with a friend Sunday afternoon...so I hit up DSW for a new pair of black boots and Old Navy where I snagged these gorgeous fall items:

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I had a coupon for $50 off! Who can beat that??

I hope everyone had a great weekend! I am looking forward to getting out of work and heading to the gym to try and work off all of those devilish pie crust cookies!

XOXO

I'm a Runner!

While we were out on the town Saturday afternoon (do you consider Chik-fil-a out on the town?? I do.) I picked up these beauties:




They are my very first pair of real "running" shoes! They actually said "running" on the sign with the price so I know it's legit. I've been wanting some new shoes but have been hesitant about spending boat loads. Have I mentioned I'm cheap? But I know running is something I want to continue to do so I figured it was an investment. I don't want to get hurt because I AM wearing the wrong shoes, right? Right!

So I forked over the $100 (DSW rocks my world and gave me a $65 discount from the original price) and got them! I just couldn't pass it up. I've used them twice already and I really like them. They have tremendous arch support which is great and are super light weight. I can almost feel the air moving through them as I run!

I now officially feel like a runner.

And I have amazing news! I'm on the last week of my 8 week training plan. This is the week where all of the interval training comes together into full out runs with no walking in between. Well, Monday, I ran 20 minutes without stopping...and without dropping my speed!!! I have never run more than a mile (without walking) in my whole entire life...and I finished 1.68 miles! I really wanted to stop after about 1 minutes...but I kept going. You know what gave me inspiration?? This amazing post by Chic Runner. I freaking love this girl and she is so inspiring. She just happened to write this post the very day I had to start my long runs and boy did it help. She really gave me the confidence in myself to keep going. So thank you so much Chic Runner! You rock my socks off...and even my new running shoes!

And another milestone to celebrate...my 100th post! You're looking at it! I was going to do one of those "ask me anything" posts...but everyone and their mom has been doing those lately...so I think I will hold off. But stay tuned!

Baby Boy!!

My very good friend Tammie had her baby this morning!! She went into labor last night...so I'd estimate her labor to be around 12 hours. Whoa! I'll be sure to get some details ASAP!

Anyways...Tammie and her husband Kevin now have a healthy baby boy!! I can't wait to meet little William! He is 21 in. long and weighed in at 8 lb 1/2 oz.

So..my dilemma...what to buy my new favorite baby boy (until BEB's baby is born..and then Mr. William will take a backseat!)?? I have been searching on Etsy all morning for the perfect little monogrammed gift! Here is what I have found so far:











Help me people!! Do you like any of these?? I need some serious suggestions! Have any other ideas??

Shopping Spree! No! Window Shopping!

I've been dying for this New Balance tote ever since I found it in my Shop It To Me e-mail the first day I signed up. I have been looking for a new gym bag and I think this would be perfect. It keeps coming down in price...so I think I may finally break down and get it this weekend. It's only $26.99...originally $45! And free shipping...for which I am a huge sucker.



I'm also in love with this little Ralph Lauren number. I would never pay $300 for a dress...and I know no idea where I would wear it...but alas, I am still in love with it.

Some other items I am currently coveting are as follows:

Ralph Lauren's Parker Striped Golf Shirt (perfect in pink for a new golfer like me!)

Calvin Klein Sweater

Tote from J. Crew

Knee-high Argyle Socks from J. Crew (only $4.99!)

What's on your wish list??

Shop It To Me

Have y'all heard of Shop It To Me?? My BFF Jill just sent me an invitation for the site. It's basically a site that is your free personal online shopper. What could be better than that, right??

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You can select from tons of brands such as Ann Taylor, Banana Republic, D & G, Express, J.Crew, Kate Spade, Lilly, Michael Kors, and more! You can enter in your sizes for shirts, pants, bras, anything....and it will search sites like Nordstrom, Saks, Bloomingdales, Bluefly...anywhere where the brands you select are sold...and send you an e-mail summary of which new items go on sale in your size. You can sign up to receive e-mails as often (or not so often) as you like. AND...it's totally free! What a great deal, huh?? They also have shoes, handbags, and jewelry!

I'm currently in love with this Kate Spade tote. Still too expensive for me...but now I have my eye on it!

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As you can tell, I am very excited about this find and I wanted to immediately share it will all of my blog friends! If you want an invite, leave me a comment with your e-mail (if it's not linked to your blog) and I'll send one your way!

Happy Shopping!!

Weekend Plans??

It's finally Friday! This has been a rough week at work....we are letting 4 people go today...AND there have been rumblings that our Site Manager is leaving. More on this if it's true!

But onto brighter things....

Today I am going for a little shopping trip with one of my newest Cleveland gal pals, Tammie. She is the wife of one of the guys Matt works with. They live super close to us so we decided we needed to become friends! We're hitting up the open air mall by our houses after work. This will be our "first date" alone together...so hopefully we won't have any of those awkward silence moments...you know? Making new friends is hard! Tammie is pregnant and is SO super close to her due date...like two weeks...so I'm excited to see her. It may be awhile before she's up for hanging out again.

Tomorrow Matt and I are heading WAY east to meet up with some other people that he works with and their significant others to watch the NCAA Tournament. Well...since Purdue is officially out...insert sad face here...I'm rooting for North Carolina. I have them winning my pool and I am currently in 3rd place out of 100 people...so I have a very good chance of winning some serious cash!

I decided I would make the famous Oreo Truffles that I have been bringing everywhere...since they are always requested and always a hit! I'm going to try to decorate them like little basketballs. I had the idea...and then I saw them on this website!! It's exactly what I want to do!

What are your plans for the weekend?? Anything exciting?

Junior League and the Best Surprise!

So Friday evening was my very 1st Junior League event. It was a happy hour that apparently "actives" have monthly...but they decided to invite the newbies to in order to make some informal introductions before our first big meeting at the end of the month. IT WAS SO FUN!! Let me tell you...I was so nervous about not fitting in and people being snobby...but it was SO not like that. All of the women were FANTASTIC! And I knew I picked the right outfit (I went with black pants and the pink sweater top from Express) when I was introduced and two girls said, "Oh...you're new? I thought you were already a member?" Ha! I LOOK like a member!!

The woman that is in charge of recruiting was extra nice...and get this...she lives down the street from me!! An actual female that I could see myself being friends with lives close to me! Also, she complimented me on my purse...which was super similar to her purse! By the way...mine was from Walmart...$5 and she definitely had a super fancy brand. Yeah...that's right baby! I cannot wait for our next get together. I'm so glad that I went!

Enter Saturday...I get up every Saturday and go to my Zumba class at the gym. Well, today when I returned...I was greeted with this:


What's weird about this you ask?? Well, my husband has been sporting the whole Wolfman look since Christmas...full on beard and mustache. Recently, I have been asking him...well downright begging him to shave. I was just getting so sick of it...it was itchy and just felt weird. I wanted my smooth husband back!

Well this is what he gave me! Yuck!!!!! He "says" that I told him I wanted to see what he would look like with just a mustache. I DO NOT remember this...and even if I did say that...now I've seen it...I want it gone! It is super creepy! After I stopped laughing, I asked him when he was going to shave it off. He said, "Oh I don't know, maybe today or tomorrow." I laughed again and said, "Um...you're going to leave the house like that??!"

**Update** He shaved!! Here is my smooth honey bunny...I'm so glad he's back!


We then did our usual grocery run to Walmart and look what I found for $10!!!


I'm on a sale roll man! I just had to have them! I can't wait until it's warm again.

Hope everyone has a fabulous rest of the weekend!!

And by the way...head on over to Monograms and Martinis in Manhattan and enter her giveaway! You could win this!

Shopping!

In lieu of my first Junior League event tomorrow, I decided to hit up the stores yesterday after work to see if anything caught my eye. I must warn you though, I am entirely too frugal for my own good and never even look at anything that is not on sale. This makes shopping a tad difficult for me...but I think I had some good finds...and only spent $40.

My first stop was J. Crew. I tried on a ton of stuff, but settled on a sweater. I couldn't seem to find the exact picture of the one that I bought, but this one is similar..

c/o J. Crew

I happened to have on one of my bazillion "wife-beater" tank tops so I tried it on underneath because you could totally see through it. Any other suggestions about what to wear underneath this?? Colors??

Next I went to Express and found this super cute sweater.

c/o Express

The one I actually bought was light pink. You can see the picture of it here. I think the sleeves make the whole outfit! I can't decide if I should wear this tomorrow or not though. It's been freezing here...really, below 30...so I'm thinking I might be out of place in short sleeves. What do you think? I MAY have some sort of jacket to wear over it...but covering up the sleeves makes me sad.