First Anniversary!

A while back I started doing yoga at work on Fridays at lunch time. The instructor is super sweet and just the right mix of sass and zen, so when she mentioned she was going to be doing a yoga retreat in Bodega Bay, I was really excited to talk to JB about it. We had been looking for something to do for our anniversary that wouldn't completely break the bank, but would still be a nice weekend getaway. Given the cost of the all-inclusive retreat per person, we decided to go for it.

The retreat included accommodations at a beach house in Bodega Bay, 3 days of yoga, all meals/wine, a facial, and a massage. And let me tell you, the cost was LOW for all that.

Saturday we hiked to the beach and did yoga on the sand with the waves crashing. It was one of the coolest experiences I have ever had.

Namaste

We had some down time between yoga and our scheduled facials in the evening so we wandered into town to do some exploring.





The town of Bodega is where the Alfred Hitchcock movie, "The Birds" was filmed so I took a pic of the church they used and the little general store that had all the cool memorabilia. After that we headed into a little antique shop next door...so creepy.





Before we headed back to the house we stopped at this little wine store right on the water and did some wine surfing.




We came back to the house to our long awaited facials and some organic wine tasting with paired appetizers.  Later we had dinner and then people who had signed up for massages that night, got them.  We all thought we were getting 30 minute massages, but since the masseuses got lost and were a few hours late getting there, they gave everyone a full hour.  I was going to get mine in the morning since it had gotten so late, but the masseuse offered to bring the table into my room and let me get mine before bed.  It was amaze-balls.  It had been too long since I had gotten a massage and this guy was GOOD.

Val gave us the master suite since it was our honeymoon and we were so grateful.  We had our own bedroom and bathroom all weekend and the in-room massage was heaven.  We also had views of the other amazing homes in the community and on Saturday night, a beautiful sunset.

To top it all off, today, I received this in the mail:

 

Back cover with yummy recipes

It's a mini scrapbook of our weekend!  I only knew JB, a coworker, and Val before we got there.  Spending the weekend with a bunch of strangers for your anniversary could go really good or really bad, and I am so glad it was good for us.  What a great way to remember our first anniversary!

Fitness Friday: Body Rockin'

Oh hey!  Fancy seeing you around these parts, stranger!  And yes, I am talking to myself.  Good news for the 5 people that read this thing, TAX SEASON IS OVER!!!  That means I can get back to shenanigans like blogging and shiz.

One of the things I have missed the most during tax season is the gym.  I know, I'm crazy.  As I have mentioned, right before I dove headfirst into this whole tax preparing adventure with H&R Block, I was working on the LiveFit Trainer on bodybuilding.com.  I was pretty dedicated with both eating and workouts and saw some great results in the 2 months I was able to complete.  I never made it to that final phase, though.  The only problem I had with the trainer was finding/making time to get it done.  The workouts in phase 1 were around 30 minutes long, but as it progressed, workouts were 60-90 minutes.  I don't know about you, but I don't have that kind of time.

A while ago, I found out about Bodyrock.tv.  I can't recall how I came across the videos, but when I saw that all of the workouts were built to do at home and they were all under 20 minutes, I subscribed to their youtube channel immediately.  As I said, that was a while ago, and I had yet to do any of their workouts...until this morning.

I did this little number:



12 whole minutes and it kicked my booty!  their blog gives you the links to any equipment you might want to purchase, one of which is an interval timer.  I really like the cute hot pink GymBoss one she uses, but it's $20 and there are plenty of FREE apps on your smart phone that do exactly the same thing (I use "A HIIT Interval").  I "Like" them on facebook and they post a video everyday.  They also have a couple of 30 day challenges on their blog.

Today I did the workout above with a couple of sets of dumbells, 5 and 8 pounds.  During my last round I was exhausted and my arms were burning, but all I could think to myself was, "Wow, this is already almost over!"  I put in some serious work in a short amount of time and felt really good about it.  I also did yoga downstairs at lunch, so hopefully I won't be too sore tomorrow.

If you are looking for something to change up your routine and fit into your busy schedule, I highly suggest you check them out.  And don't be intimidated by the super fit chick that is doing the exercises, you can modify the exercises to your capability and might even find out you are stronger than you think!  The workouts are suitable for both men and women, so don't hesitate to get your significant other involved!  If you do try it out, come back and let me know what you think!

Weekend Wrap Up - Tahoe Edition

This past weekend was our somewhat annual cabin trip with some of my college friends.  I say somewhat annual because we have skipped years here and there due to weddings and other events.  Basically we get a cabin, a bunch of booze, and a bunch of junk food, and hibernate for most of the weekend.  Saturday night we usually venture to stateline and gamble/dance the night away.  This year was no exception.

The sad part?  This is the only pic I have:

I just realized after looking at this pic that the girls were significantly outnumbered by the guys....

Anywho.

I almost didn't make it up to Tahoe.  JB and I had planned to head up around 1pm and carpool with some of the other folks that were going.  I woke up Friday morning feeling not right.  You know that feeling your body gets when you are going to get sick or have a fever or something?  Just kind of foggy and tingly?  No?  Oh, guess it's just me.  So yeah, I felt like that.  I refused to acknowledge it and pushed through my morning routine put my suitcase in the car, and headed to work.  A few hours into work, I was not feeling better.  In fact, I was feeling worse.  I was terrified it was going to be that stomach bug that has been going around, so after my morning smoothie, I didn't want to put anything else in my stomach.

By 11am I had resigned myself to the fact that it would be better to wait out the night and head up in the morning if I felt better instead of getting up there and wanting to die all weekend while all I can hear is everyone else having  fun.  I let my friends know to head up without us and I headed home and passed out on the couch.  When JB got home a couple of hours later, I still felt weird, but less so.  I had him get me a sandwich since I hadn't eaten since my smoothie and decided if I felt fine after eating and digesting a little, we could hit the road.

We reached the cabin by 6:45pm and proceeded to party with our blue solo cups.  I have felt fine ever since.  It was seriously the oddest thing.  Unfortunately, one of my friends who went up at 1pm ended up in bed early and stayed there the ENTIRE WEEKEND.  Poor guy. 

Saturday night we headed out to the casinos where some of the folks in the group played (and won!) craps until about midnight when we headed to the club to get our groove on.  I realized something that night...

I.Am.Old.

I used to be able to dance the night away for hours on end and after a couple of hours my knees were hurting, my quads were sore, and my feet were KILLING me.  I was also trying to be conscious of how much I was drinking because I was scared of the hangover I would end up with the next day.  Yeah, OLD.

All in all, it was a great weekened.  Great times with great friends.  Do you have an annual trip you take with friends or family?

Fitness Friday - Why Women Should Lift Weights

I was going to share with you my breakfast smoothie recipe today, but I came across this article that I thought was important to share.  All to often women think that cardio is a main component of losing weight and toning up, but the truth is, you can't tone what you don't have and prolonged stints of cardio actually burn muscle.  I found this article to be straight and to the point so I wanted to highlight some key points here:

1. Strength training can help you lose weight.

Too many women focus on cardio workouts or diets alone for weight loss. In reality, our muscles are the "engines" that actually burn the calories we consume. If we don't use that engine and keep it progressively tuned, it can't burn the fuel. Strength training is a powerful tool to help you achieve your goal weight.

2. Strength training can help reduce stress.

If you’re looking for something cathartic, try a good strength workout. There is nothing more stress-relieving than deadlifts, kettlebell swings or ball slamming. Heavy work raises the levels of dopamine and serotonin in the brain. Most antidepressants work by doing the same thing. Strength work can give you a happy boost and calm you down as well.

3. Strength training makes you stronger.

Having functional strength helps with everyday life. Ever rearrange your living room? Do you lift children or groceries or both at the same time? Training makes you feel empowered when you no longer need to recruit a man for help.

4. Strength training is good for your heart.

The American Heart Association recommends strength training as a way to reduce the risk of heart disease in cardiac rehab patients. By making your body stronger, you also increase your endurance which puts less stress on vital organs.

5. Strength training can reduce your risk of osteoporosis.

The "use it or lose it" rule applies here. When you lift weights, you are putting a healthy dose of stress on your bones. This continual stress builds bone density and can help keep your bones strong and healthy.

When I have more time available, I will do more weight lifting, which was a main component of the Live Fit Trainer I was doing late last year:

"Many women are convinced that lifting weights will transform them into fist-pounding, growling wrestling stars. I get it. No woman wants to look freakishly ripped. However, unless a woman is taking large doses of hormones and eating pounds of protein a day, she won't be able to look like a man.

Women don't have enough testosterone to get the big muscles. A program of whole body functional movements (lunges, dead lifts, squats, presses) with low repetitions of progressively heavier weights will make you stronger, not bigger. This is key."

I put that last paragraph in bold because this is the thing women fear the most about strength training.  I definitely got leaner as I was lifting, not bulkier.  And now I feel strong and find myself checking out my muscles in the mirror sometimes :)

When I don't have a lot of time, or if I am really trying to lean out, I will do high intensity interval training:

"These circuit exercises are short in duration (between five and 20 minutes) and usually involve more than one repetitive movement. You will be breathing hard and they may have you teetering on the edge of passing out.

Even though this type of training tends to be short, it increases your metabolism rate and burns calories even after you've finished. You may be sore for days."

A lot of times, hubs will train me at home with some HIIT.  The workout lasts 20 minutes, tops, but I work hard in those 20 minutes and it takes me a while to really cool down from that.  I like my workouts to be efficient and effective and HIIT really gets that done.  A great resource for these types of workouts is BodyRock.Tv.  They have great tips on eating as well as 30 day challenges with videos that can all be done at home with minimal extra equipment.

I hope you got as much out of this article as I did.  What are you waiting for?  Get to work!

Baby, Baby, Baby, Oooooooooh!

I just realized that title could make you think this is a naughty little post...if you're a sicko!  Get your mind out of the gutter! 

In all seriousness....

Justin Bieber is now legal. 

How do you feel about that?  I saw this tweet today:

"Justin Bieber turns 18 today.  Congrats to Selena Gomez, you're no longer a statutory rapist."

I almost spit water on my keyboard and computer.  So funny because it's true...hence, funny.  I hear he sounds a lot more like a man now, but I haven't heard anything from him in a while.  Regardless, I love that little lesbian.

Happy Birthday Biebs!!

Happy Birthday Daddy-O!!

Yesterday my dad began the last year of his 50's.  We celebrated by heading down to his house for a day of food and family.  My dad loves to BBQ and be surrounded by all of his children/grandchildren, so that's exactly what we did.  We got there early-ish for a little brunch action with mimosas and bloody marys and stayed until dinner time for tri-tip and asparagus. 


With the fam

Forgot one!  Seester had to take the group pic.

No cake is big enough for 59 candles :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!  I hope you got everything you wanted!  Love you!!!

Fitness Friday

It's been a while since I have written one of these.  Mostly because it has been a while since I have had any sort of workout routine going on.  I was hitting it hard for a solid 2 months and then classes got crazy and then I started working my second job and was too tired to get up in the morning and working til bed time.  Yes, those sound like excuses, but I believe proper nutrition and needed rest are what help keep you in good shape, so I will take those over running myself down to get mo' fit.

Wanna hear something crazy?  Since I stopped working out in November, I have lost 10 lbs.  Your eyes do not deceive you, my friend, you read that correctly.  TEN.POUNDS.  This would be great if I was obsessed with the scale.  I still only weigh myself at the gym on the same scale, but I have only been weighing myself when I go in to get my hair done.  Yes, the gym has a salon in it, which my friend works at.  So anywho, back to that 10 lbs....

I started to notice a change in my body as soon as I stopped working out.  It was like my body waited to respond to all the work I was doing until after I stopped doing all the work.  I haven't really changed my eating habits since I stopped working out, except for cutting out the extra protein shakes after workouts and I have been able to maintain.  Knowing what little I know about body composition, I knew that if I my body seemed to be staying the same as I was losing weight, it was because I was losing muscle.  I had hubs measure my body fat and sure enough, even though I had lost 10 lbs, I had gained 5% body fat, meaning my muscles were dwindling away.

I refuse to have my body looking it's best during the winter months when it is hiding under all these layers and then plump up just in time for summer, so I need to get back on track.  Luckily, tax season is slowing down and will be over on April 20th, so I can get back to the grind.  Apparently if you don't use your muscles, you lose them.  And from what I have heard, it's harder for women to maintain muscle mass, which means I have to work that much harder.

I do my best to encourage people who are working on their fitness goals to focus on the changes they see in their body instead of the numbers on the scale and to use a different form of measurement than just their weight.  For me, standing at 5'6" and weighing 155 isn't an issue when my body fat is only 20%.  I am currently 146 with a 26% body fat and that tells me there is room for improvement.  Hubs sent me a photo he found online to prove my point:

It will be interesting to see if the number on the scale starts to creep back up as my body fat percentage decreases.  I'll be sure to keep you posted.

Monkey Turns 1!

We had little Monkey's first birthday party on the 12th, but I have been waiting for my SIL to post pics so I could share them with you because we all know I am incapable of bringing a camera anywhere with me.  Let's see a little comparison of my Monkey Moo:

What a chunky monkey!!!  Look how itty bitty she was!  She is now standing up on her own and I think she is pretty close to walking.  I love to see her face light up when she recognizes me.  I get to babysit on Saturday and I can't wait!  Here are some pics of Cupcake with her cupcake:

 And one more shot of me, Monkey and her birthday twin/namesake, GG:

Weekend Wrap-Up

I had quite an eventful weekend, and amazingly enough there are some pics to prove it.  Okay, so they are just phone pics, but better than nothing, right?

Friday night I got some free tickets to see this hottie at The Davis Graduate:

That's country singer, David Nail.  He sings wonderful songs like "Red Light" and his newsest single, "Let it Rain".  I was surprised to see that the guy who opened for him was this man:

That's Tyler Hilton, and if you are a One Tree Hill fan, you may know him as Chris from season two.  He helped Hayley with her music career, but caused a rift in her marriage with Nathan.  That scoundrel.

Let me tell you how excited we were to be at "The Grad"...well, maybe a picture would explain it better:

Yep, that pretty much sums it up.  This is an all ages club right across from a college campus, so it always smells like shame and vomit.  The only good thing about this place is that they have a bazillion beers on tap.  We waited in a line for ten minutes for a beer and when we got to the front of the line we found out it was a cash only bar and they have no ATM inside.  We headed over to the other bar that accepted cards and had a shorter wait and got the most gigantic beers I have ever seen.  I only had one because I was the DD, and it got warm faster than I could drink the whole thing, so...

The problem with this place, other than the place itself, is that there are giant beams and pillars all over the place, making positioning yourself to see the stage a difficult task.  Instead, I took pics with my friendies:

and at almost Midnight, I took a pic with the birthday girl who turned 30 on Saturday:

The show was great, and I had a fun night out with my girls, but I ended up going home with a headache that stayed with me through the next morning so I couldn't get up and go to work at the tax office.  Raging migraine.  I slept until 10am and then had to pump myself full of coffee and ibuprofen to get the pain to subside.  I went and got my hair did and then we headed to an engagement party for this lovely couple:

Sunday we went wine tasting at some nearby wineries for Tiff's birthday.  It was a gorgeous day and we went out to Sugar Mill which has several wineries in one location, so you can just walk back and forth to all of them and we had a nice little lunch outside.

I think Todd Taylor was the favorite of the day.  We went there last and got to take a tour of the back room and see how they make their wines.  We all headed back to one of our friends' house for dinner and more wine.  It was a great weekend with a great group of people.  The whole weekend I just kept thinking to myself, "I love my friends."

And now I am thinking of this video, ugh:

You're welcome.

5 More Weeks!!!

Hunger Games opens on March 23rd and I just found and instantly fell in love with this little number today:



Hunger Games + Taylor Swift = Swoon!

Happy Friday!

Major Letdown

So, I was over reading Shades of Gray and Caroline was talking about her childhood crush, who also happened to be mine.  Good ol' Jonathan Taylor Thomas, or JTT.  I was OBSESSED!!  I shit you not.  Hardcore obsessed. 

Some examples for you:

• I had to buy every single issue of Bop, Big Bopper, Tiger Beat, YM, and any other magazine that has his picture on the cover. 
• I would tear out his centerfold pics and made them into a border around the top of my walls. 
• I watched the Lion King a ridiculous amount of times, and to date it's my favorite Disney movie simply because he was the voice of Simba. 
• I have the timeless classics Man of the House and Tom & Huck on VHS, which I have also watched countless times.  Well, not since DVDs became all the rage and I lost track of my VCR.  Sad face.

and the thing that gave me ultimate fan status...wait for iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit....

• When I got my braces off freshman year and they were ready to make my retainers, they told me I could pick out whatever color I wanted and if I wanted to put a design or picture in the actual retainer, I could bring one in.  I got teal, because teal and purple was the most awesome color combo of the mid-90s (and the colors of my Lion King bedding, obvi) and I gave them a magazine cut-out of JTT's HEAD!!!  I legit had homeboy's dome piece on the roof of my mouth 24/7. 

Yeah, that really happened.  Unfortunately I put it in a napkin while I was eating nachos at a wrestling tournament my brother was in and it got thrown away :(

So while I was reading Caroline's blog and saw that he had gone from this:


Yummy

 To this:

Yucky

I was extremely disappointed and had to come over here and write this blog immediately.  Honestly though, when I just googled images of JTT, I was taken back to sitting on my twin bed staring up and the amazing border of his pics around my room.  Sigh...

My V-Day

 What if this wasn't at all a post about my first Valentine's Day as a wifey and was actually about a trip to the Gyno?  I would probably lose some readers. 

Lucky you, it IS about the former, not the latter...

I was actually scheduled to work at the tax office until 9pm on Valentine's Day until I got to work on Monday and my boss realized that he had totally C-Blocked my first Valetine's Day with my new hubby.  He let me trade my shift for Thursday night instead.  Given the situation, hubs and I had no V-Day plans and decided to pretty much keep it that way.  We haven't really done anything for birthdays, anniversaries, or Valentine's day in the past few years because of finances, so we probably wouldn't have really planned anything anyway.

Yesterday afternoon hubs texted me from work and I said, "When are you going to come and take me to lunch?"  Something we rarely ever do because he leaves one job around 1 or 2pm and heads to the next one.  Turns out he didn't have to work at the afternoon one yesterday, so he was able to come pick me up for an impromptu lunch date.  We went to Chicago Fire and shared salad and pizza.  Basically we stuffed ourselves silly.

Later that afternoon we had the conversation about dinner, but we were both still so full.  After deciding on turkey burgers and sweet potato fries if we ever got hungry again, he laid out some ground turkey.  After work, I decided to stop by Coldstone and use my groupon to get us a treat to surprise him with.  It was almost 7pm when I got home and neither of us were really hungry yet, so we just opened a bottle of wine and hit up the DVR for some Smash (Fave show of all time, BTW!!).  About an hour and one bottle of wine later, we decided to forgo the turkey burgers and just share a plate of sweet potato fries.  We finished the night off watching Biggest Loser while stuffing our faces with ice cream.

  

With as much as I have been working and as little as we have seen each other in the last few months, this was the most perfect Valentine's Day I could have asked for.  I don't need cards and flowers and jewelry to have a good Valentine's Day.  I'm not saying I would refuse them either, just so we are clear.

Single or in a relationship, what did YOU do for Valentine's Day?

Show Me The Money!!

In case you haven't noticed, it's tax season.  I have been trying really hard to keep up with everyone's blogs, but working 70 yhours a week right now is not the business when it comes to blog reading/writing, as you may have noticed.  I posted one whole blog in January....

Anywhoooooo....

Hubs and I have been talking about all the things we might do with our tax refund this year, so I thought I might jot all of these ideas down and get your opinion.

The original plan:

We have quite a bit of credit card debt left over from the wedding and I need to get the 90,000 mile service done on my car, along with some new tires, so the plan was to get that taken care of and then put the rest toward the credit card debt.

Then...

Some friends of ours have a timeshare in Cabo and it's only $100/night that would be split among 3 couples ($33/night) for 8 days of tropical deliciousness in a 3 bed/3 bath beach front condo.  So we take the money for the car stuff and then the money for Cabo and then put the rest on the credit card.

But then...

I figured, we have been in our house for 2 years and still have nothing but dirt in our tiny backyard and our justification for not doing anything back there has been that we have no money.  How can we justify spending $2,000 on a trip to Cabo and not get the backyard done.  So....since the car service is a must in all of these scenarios, we take out that money and then get some estimates for the backyard and see what we can do back there with what we have and then put the rest on the credit card.  JB suggested maybe we just take a smaller trip for our anniversary to San Deigo for the World Fitness Convention in July.  I loved the idea, but when all was said and done, we would still be spending the same amount on that trip as we would be going to Cabo.  The upside was that next year JB can deduct the trip as a business expense because the expo offers continuing education units for some of his certifications.

We still haven't come to a conclusion on this.  The expo would be $500 for 3 days for him and almost $200 for me to go for one day.  I asked him to think about just picking the day he would most like to attend and then we both go that day.  Two one-day passes for the price of almost one three-day pass.  Luckily we can drive down there and we have friends we could stay with for free, so the only thing we would pay for is gas/food/expo.  Like I said, the jury is still out on this one.

Next up we have....

I am pretty set on the backyard idea and the car is a must.  The SD trip is up in the air, but one thing I know for certain, I really, really, really, really, really, really want an iPad.  For multiple reasons that are almost justifiable, but mostly that lately I have been in such a technology rut.  I love-love-loved my iPhone, but I gave it up because I couldn't get one through work and I couldn't afford the $100 monthly bill anymore.  Now I have a droid for work and I HATE it.  Nothing is easy to do from my phone, especially blogging/twitter/FB (plus it's a work phone, so I probably shouldn't be doing all of that from there anyway, LOL).  I know this sounds really trivial and I am almost embarrassed to be writing this for all of you to read (especially Sean), but it's so true.  So, I think when the iPad 3 comes out, I will just get a wireless-only 2, since they will be cheaper then.  We'll see. 

Then today...



Minus the DVDs and Treadmill

 I started thinking about our unfinished room upstairs that is attached to the loft and used as attic space right now.  We don't have much stuff to store so we could probably cut the storage space to only a quarter of the room, throw up some sheet rock/texture and throw down some rubber flooring, and turn that bad boy into a workout room.  Lucklily I am married to a personal trainer who knows how to design amazing workouts without any major equipment.  We would need some sandbags, kettle bells, a mounted TRX (or something similar) and a few other items and we would be good to go.  The room already has an AC register, so we don't have to worry about figuring out how to control the climate in there, and I know some pretty handy people who could help make this happen fairly easily.  This one is a definite possibility.

So, what do you think?  Which option would you go with?  Are you getting a refund this year?  Any big plans?  Wanna play 20 questions?

One ingredient: That's Bananas!

Oh hey!  I'm Bre.  Remember me?  No?  Good, because I am not here for long today.  Just long enough to introduce my good pal, Jobin. 

Okay, her name is really Monica and she blogs over at The Painted Pisces.  We work together and bonded over I Love You, Man.  Hence, the nickname.  Jobin has been my go-to  for quite a while now and today she is leaving our office and transferring to a different department to pursue a career in cultural resources and use her antrhopology degree.  I am so excited for her, but sad for me.  From now on I may only get to see her every other Friday.  Congratulations Big Mack!  I wish you all the success in the world...okay, save some for me.  After you finish reading here, go visit her blog and leave her some love.  She is super crafty and likes to share her projects with the world!

Take it away, Jobin!

Did you know I am a Gwen Stefani/No Doubt fan? Well, see here:

That actually has nothing to do with this post though, haha!

Eric does 99.99999% of all food preparation in our house, and he is amazing for that. BUT, I don't want him to feel like he carries all of the weight and responsibility of feeding our family. I am getting interested in recipes so that I can relieve him of his (delicious!) duty. Don't worry, I CAN cook, so I doubt I will poison anyone when I'm in the kitchen, I've just never particularly enjoyed it. I actually really enjoy baking, but our oven is less than reliable, so that doesn't happen too often.

Recently, I found this sneaky little recipe for banana ice cream somewhere, and while I can't find where I originally saw it, it is on maaaaaaaaaaaany websites and is just so easy I don't think I'll need to site anyone. It's really only one ingredient: bananas! Der!

The recipe I found/forgot said to chop up bananas, then freeze, and when frozen, puree in a blender/food processor. The texture is so very similar to ice cream, its bananas! (Insert wah wah bad joke sound here.)

When I told Eric about it, he had an even BETTER idea: use the ice cream maker! If you have one of these, the recipe goes from a 1-2 hour process to about 30 minutes. Genius!

First, gather your ingredients and kitchen tools:

4-6 bananas (for our family of four, this gave us very generous helpings)

Food Processor

Ice Cream Maker



Break up your bananas, toss them in the food processor and hit "mush" (Really a setting! I swear!).

We added a few tablespoons of peanut butter once we had baby food consistency (I know that makes it now 2 ingredients... so sue me), then plopped it into the ice cream maker.

Within 20-30 minutes, we were ready!

We topped it with crushed cocoa-dusted almonds. Mmmmmmmmmmmm!

Hannah was not really feelin' it though. But that's okay, at least she tried it.

Elisa was very pleased!

If you do not have an ice cream maker, freeze cut-up pieces of banana for 1-2 hours, then throw the frozen bits in the food processor and hit "mush". It will look crumbly, but once you scoop it, it will get that nice "ice cream" look to it.

Enjoy!

Just Another Manic Monday...

Whoooooaaaaa Whooooooaaaaaa!

First off, I want to say hello to all the new faces around here!  It is still crazy to me that people I don't know care so much about what I have to ramble about, but I love you all the same!  Apologies in advance for the less than riveting post you are about to read.  I hope you'll stick around after this...

I have been in a serious blogging funk lately.  In case you haven't noticed I get this super amped up motivation and post every day for a WHOLE WEEK and then nothing for like 2 weeks....or a month...

Whateva, whateva, I do what I want!

To be honest, I am just not feelin' it right now.  I finally let happen what I swore I wouldn't.  I got sucked in and let another blogger get me down.  I have also spent the past couple of weeks reading Christmas recaps and New Year's Resolutions and I barely had the energy to read them, let alone recap my own.  I'm just not feelin' it folks.  I love you all and want to read about your holidays, but since I only get to read like once a week, a thousand recaps and resolutions posts in a row were a bit redundant and overwhelming.  It's pretty obvious why I follow the blogs I do though, because they are all very similar :)

Tax season has begun so I worked all weekend.  Seriously ALL WEEKEND.  7 hours on Saturday and 8 hours on Sunday.  So today doesn't even really feel like a Monday.  I have the next couple of weekends off for various reasons, but I am pretty much working all but one weekend in February.  The good thing about a seasonal job is that there is always a light at the end of the tunnel so it doesn't really seem so bad.  Plus, I'm making that money, YA HEARD?  If you know anyone in the Sacramento, CA area that is looking for a tax professional, send them my way!

I know we only had our honeymoon 6 months ago, but I am seriously having vacation withdrawals.  I think it's because we did Europe instead of sitting on the beach with a drink in our hand getting couples massages.  I'm not really complaining about going to Europe, but I am itching for a paradise fix in a bad way!  It doesn't really help that everyone is posting about their winter vacations to tropical destinations and cruises.  It also doesn't help that I don't see anything like that in our near or distant future.  Booooooo!

I have worked out a handful of times since the end of October.  I went from working out 6 days a week, to working out like 6 times in 2 months.  I don't know what it is, but I need to get my mojo back.  I really enjoy being able to head straight home after work, but I don't like feeling like a fitness slacker.  I keep saying I am going to get up and go in the morning, but my get up and go won't get out of bed.  Bitch.

I don't do resolutions, but I do to-do lists, so here's mine:

• Finish wedding and honeymoon recaps before June.  If we have a year to get Thank You cards out, we should have a year to get the recap posts up too.
• Get my fitness mojo back.  Before I know it, it will be bathing suit season.  Luckily my eating habits haven't changed from when I was working out, so I am not packing on the pounds that winter usually brings.
• Remember why I started blogging in the first place, which was to keep friends and family updated on my life and keep a log of memories and milestones.
• Work harder to avoid comparing myself to others.  I can only control myself and my situation, so none of the other stuff matters.

I hope your year is off to a stellar start!!!  Maybe I should use it as a reset button for the ol' bloggy blog.  Let's see what 2012 brings!!