So I have officially made the move from blogger to wordpress (not without quite a few glitches along the way…) but welcome to the new site!  I have got a lot to do before I am completely happy with it but it will get there eventually!  On that note, see ya next year

Happy New Year’s Eve!!

Hope your 2011 was great and your 2012 is even better!!

P.S. – Obligatory “Best of 2011″ and “New Year’s Resolutions” posts to come!

I apologize for my absence in the blogworld but the past two weeks have been busy! Here is a quick photo summary of my week…it included:

Making lots & lots of Christmas candy – third annual toffee making extravaganza with the MIL & hubby. The candy is Ahhhh-mazing but if I gave you the recipe, I’d have to kill you…j/k (or am I?). Honestly though, Brent’s co-workers literally request larger quantities because they love it so much.

Christmas shopping with my MIL. Brent has requested a lot of presents. Ask and ye shall receive – especially with all the sales we found!

Also, side note: Driving anywhere near any of the malls in San Diego this week has just been ridiculous!! I would assume it is probably the same all over…? It is just crazy to me that our economy is doing so poorly but malls are overrun with people and cars AKA people buying things. Whatev – probably all being bought on credit. Merry Christmas, American Express

Freckles stretched with me before my run because…

I actually worked out! Mainly because it made Freckles happy.

Secondly, because it made me happy. I just love having my face washed by a pup tongue after a long workout…and Freck loves her some salty sweat. TMI?

 Workouts last week -

 Tuesday – 18:40 – 2m & 20mins elliptical;

Wednesday – arms, planks & lunges;

 Thursday-Monday – lifting heavy objects all damn day.

Which brings me to the activity that has consumed my life for the last week…

MOVING/PACkING!!!! See empty bedroom above We have lived in the La Jolla area of San Diego for about a year and a half. We lived right down the street from one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen outside of Disney World. The pics won’t do it justice plus they put up a TON of christmas decorations so it kinda takes away from the building itself but just so you get an idea:

Yes, that big white castle looking thing was within walking distance of our door.

Pretty, right? I have definitely taken it for granted but at least I documented it during the holidays and before I was gone for good.

 I’m telling you, this place is insane. It’s like a freaking palace. & we would never even go inside to check it out because only members of the temple are allowed to enter. Bum city because I have heard it is even more beautiful inside. But I won’t be converting any time soon to check it out. I wonder if anyone has joined to get to go inside…

 Also, fun fact for you – a lot of Mormons will come down to San Diego to get married because of the beautiful location/castle BUT if you are part of the wedding party/mother of the bride/mother of the groom/guest/etc you cannot come inside to watch the ceremony. Crazy, right?

 So…sorry about my Mormon temple tangent. Back to moving. Or you can go back and stare at the temple some more. Whatever suits you…

 This is just ONE of the truckloads of stuff that we donated to Goodwill. We filled almost 3 full truckloads! How the heck did we manage to collect that much stuff?? All of those trash bags may or may not be all my clothes…and shoes…

I also realized I have a lot of nail polish (in addition to clothes I don’t wear and shoes I didn’t even know I still had). & I may or may not have just purchased a new holiday nail polish to put on tomorrow…

Look at my man work!

Our storage unit hallway…creepy, huh?

Annoyed face because I keep taking pictures of him instead of helping…I got a new camera phone! What does he expect from me?!

There he is!

We are currently transitioning – long story, won’t bore you (today) because this post is already super long…so we needed a storage unit while we stay with a friend. We totally filled that 10X10 unit up to the ceiling.

Pic in front of our address after we moved and cleaned out the entire place. We look goooooood! Ha!

Brent wrote that What a sweetheart…we’ll probably get charged for that lol.

Our sad empty living room

Creepy Freck looking at us from the empty apartment.

Brent is demonstrating how we felt on Sunday night at 10pm after packing/cleaning/moving since Thursday…and we still had to take two car loads over to our new place. We were TIRED!

And finally, here is what Freckles did while Brent and I worked our butts off:

Laid in front of the space heater…

Laid in front of the space heater some more…

Laid in front of the space heater even more…

Wrapped herself up in our Miami Dolphins/Philadelphia Eagles blanket…

Chewed on her pink monkey…

Stared at me while I got rid of a bunch of shoes she had her eye on…

Slept on my pillow…

Laid in front of the space heater AGAIN…(I swear, she is obsessed with that thing)

Played with her pink doggie…

Slept on Daddy…

Licked her chops while thinking of those shoes that another pup was gonna get to play with…

 And now, introducing the other two dogs Freckles will be getting to play with for the next few months…

The white pitbull mix is Jake and the brown bulldog is Luna. Sweet ones! Freckles is already in love with having buddies to play with all the time! I think she is gonna need a playmate some time soon…another rescue, of course Brent, you know you want another one!!

And on that note, I think we are all caught up. I promise not to leave again for so long.

PS – Christmas in 3 days!! Woo woo! Also, happy 3rd day of Hanukkah! My fam had a Hanukkah dinner last night and skyped me so I could (kinda) join in. Not really the same to look at Matzoh ball soup rather than get to eat it. Can’t wait to have some in January!! (My mother makes the BEST Matzoh ball soup EVER, fyi)

PSS – I have a nice Jewish breakfast prepared for my hub, MIL and GMIL tomorrow morning. I will take pics.

Nothing to exciting to write about so here are some things I’m loving and made me smile:

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That is some sound legal reasoning right there

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Happy Friday everyone

So I don’t have very much time to post today so I figured I would make it short and sweet.  & since it is Thursday, I figured I would make it short, sweet and split into three: 

Three Things Thursday –>

1.  Last night I adapted the Mushroom Millet soup recipe that I made a couple of weeks ago.  It was already very good but I really liked it with the changes.  And – it is such a super easy recipe!  Here is the recipe (again, adapted from the above link):

Spicy Mushroom Quinoa Soup

Ingredients:

• 1 cup uncooked quinoa
• 20 oz fresh cremini mushrooms, sliced
• 1 bag frozen diced onions
• 1 diced red onion 
• 3 large handfuls fresh spinach (about 4 cups?)
• 2 TB garlic, minced
• 7.5 cups water
• 2 TB vegetable bouillion (I used chicken flavored so I’m sure chicken bouillion or broth would work)
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 2 tsp garlic powder
• 2 TB sriracha
• 2 TB Bragg’s Amino Acids (Could substitute with low sodium soy sauce)

1. Boil 2 cups water with pinch of salt.
2.  Add 1 cup quinoa and bring back to boil.
3.  Boil on medium heat for 12 minutes until all water absorbed.
4.  Remove from heat, fluff and set aside.
5. Meanwhile, in a large pot over medium-low heat, spray Pam and combine frozen onions, chopped onion, and minced garlic. Sautee for about 10 minutes until transparent, stirring frequently. Add sliced mushrooms and spinach and cook over medium heat for about 15 minutes until most of the water cooks off.
6. Stir in water, along with seasonings (salt, pepper, garlic powder, veggie bouillon, Bragg’s, sriracha).  Simmer over medium heat for about 5 minutes.
7.  Scoop half of the mixture into a blender and blend until almost smooth (but still a bit chunky). Add back into the pot.
8. Stir in cooked quinoa.
9.  Serve! 

I think the sriracha gives it a nice kick and the spinach adds some more veggies.  If you like mushrooms, definitely try this soup!

2.  I have been super tired today.  And I really hate drinking coffee after noon because it is harder for me to fall asleep at night.  So I just have to tough it out.  Stay.Open.Eyes!

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3.  Last night, Brent and I were planning on having some wine with dinner…but somehow our wine bottle opener has gone missing!  We have no idea where it could have gone and I am sure that we will find it while we are packing everything up but it’s still very wierd. 

On normal nights, our go to drink is a little bit of scotch on the rocks but of course, we just ran out the other day.  So all I could find in the cabinet was a bottle of Jim Beam.  Needless to say, it was Jim Beam on the rocks with a splash of water as my nightcap. 

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Wasn’t actually all that bad   I may become an occasional Jim Beam drinker.

So everyone can be proud of me.  I have been sticking to two of my three December goals!  Stretching everyday has been a complete FAIL but I blame that on my achilles and the fact that my doctor told me stretching would not be helpful while it is healing.  Granted, I could have stretched other muscles and avoided that one but…I didn’t.  Whoopsie.

As for my water intake, I have been pretty good.  I don’t keep track on the weekends but I made the extra effort to make sure I was drinking water throughout the day on Saturday and Sunday.

But I am most proud of my “one dessert a day” goal.  I have been good – even when there were chocolate chip cookies sitting on the counter at work all day long today!  And because of my water drinking habit - I had to walk by them at least 6 times today when I was filling up my water bottle.  & I did not take one (because I already had a Twix at 10am ahaha)!  Go me!

As for the weeks meal plan I set out yesterday, dinner last night did not go exactly according to plan.  My neck was still killing me so Brent offered to make dinner – who am I to turn that down?!  So Brent made me hashbrowns and eggs with soy chorizo.  We had a little snafu when Brent dropped the remaining eggs on the ground – but at least we had enough for our meal!  And the meal was excellent.  I topped it off with a little Frank’s Red Hot (I am obsessed) and ketchup.  Now all the meals will just be pushed back a day.  No biggie

For my dessert of the day,  I made something I saw on one of the blogs I read since I had all of the ingredients already.  Yum yum yum – please make this –> Mango Pudding !  I would probably hold back a little on the protein powder but other than that I would not change a thing!  Super tasty.

Oh – I am totally procrastinating packing.  I hate moving!!  But before I leave (and cry into my moving boxes), here you go –>

Fun Wikipedia Wednesday Fact:

Did you know – although Los Angeles is considered the Gang capital of America, with an estimated 120,000 gang members, Chicago (which has approximately 1 million fewer people than Los Angeles) actually has a higher rate of gang membership per capita than Los Angeles, with an estimated 100,000 gang members. Also, the state of Illinois has a higher rate of gang membership (8-11 gang members per 1,000 population) than California (5-7 gang members per 1,000 population)(source)

I made sure to tell my friend who moved from LA to Chicago that now she has a higher liklihood of being in a gang.  I also sent her a few gangs she should choose from.  Ha.

So I mentioned that my achilles tendon had been bothering me last week.  Well, it hasn’t gotten any better so I asked my doc to look at it and let me know what he thought I should do.

He told me that I should refrain from any physical activity that would use that muscle (AKA everything!) for a week.  Really puts a damper on our already slow going half marathon training but I figured I would rather it heal 100 percent than risk sustaining a more serious injury.  Plus, Brent and I have to pack this week and will be pretty busy anyway…

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I signed Brent and I up for the NYC Half Marathon lottery today!  It is not guaranteed that we will get a spot but our chances are pretty good because we are from out of state (the lottery gives 1/3 of all spots to local runners, & 2/3 to out of state or international runners).  I am just hoping that we both get a spot! I really want to be able to run it together.  So we will just cross our fingers

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Since it’s friday – here are some furry friend related things to look at:

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What a little gentleman

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I know I do

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Of course you have all heard the Rebecca Black – Friday song but have you also noticed that she is really saying “Fried Egg” instead of Friday?  I think it is a subliminal message or something for the egg industry.  Just listen to the song again and I guarantee you will no longer hear Friday but instead you will begin to crave a fried egg…

But truthfully, Brent is really good at finding new words to throw into songs and then I never can sing that song the same again.  (For example, he has ruined Adele’s – Rumor has it…now all I think about is Uma Thurman – mmmm Uma has it.  Oh Brent…)

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Regardless, we we we so excited that it’s Friday that Brent and I were singing Rebecca Black all morning long.  Also, on an entirely different note – we are really cool.

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Brent and I are driving up to the Inland Empire (I.E for short – about 45-60 minutes east of LA) to see some friends who have flown in from Chicago!  I can’t wait to see them because they moved out to Chicago in May and we haven’t seen them since!!  We used to see them at least 2-3 weekends a month so it has definitely been too long!  I miss them!!  Plus, Papi (fun nickname, right?) is my Patron buddy & I love me some tequila   I may or may not still be tipsy on Sunday.  Just a warning.