Presidents Day Weekend Fun

So I have been slacking a little on my blog duties. Mostly because I have been super busy, but also because our internet at our house went out after the sleet we had a week or so ago (and today was in the 70s...crazy Texas.) Chris was able to fix the internet before a tech from our provider came out, so I am back!

Our presidents day weekend was pretty busy, but started with a relaxing Friday night at home. We have actually been doing pretty much the same thing the last several weeks on Friday night, so I guess it is slowly becoming a tradition.  What is this new tradition??  Well it involves pizza, wine and ...

and

We start with our DVR'd American Idols while Fringe records and then watch Fringe after we can be sure that we can fast forward through all commercials! What did we do before DVR???  It is really the perfect Friday night...well in my opinion!

On to Saturday! It rained and rained and rained!  I went into town to run some errands, but the rain even though I know we really need it (remember we have horses and hay cost more with lack of rain) was driving me nuts. So, I just gave up and came home. But that is ok because we had a fun night planned for our friend Julian's b-day!  We indulged in a nice dinner at Del Friscos and then went on to Barcadia, which was fun, but does get really crowded later in the night with TCU kids.  I played a couple of games of skeeball and found a classic (well really the "classics" are all over, but this is the one I was fond of).  Does anyone remember....

  ??

Sunday Chris and I went to church and then I went to see "The Vow" with my mom.  I thought the movie was really good and I wasn't disappointed with the ending as several of my friends had said they were.  However, I was a little disappointed after I looked into the real couples lives (hey the movie intrigued me) and realized how much was changed, but then again they do have to make a movie out of it and it was entertaining!  The best part....

Monday was my fun girly day!!  The weather was beautiful and I got to go to lunch, shopping and pedicures with some of my favorite girls!!  It is so much fun to have days off and spend them doing girly things!! I then headed home to make dinner for me and the husband!  I made these awesome stuffed pasta shells (blog with recipe to come).

Photo by Chris Campbell :)

I really couldn't have asked for a better weekend.  I got to spend some quality time with my husband and then with my mom and then with my girlfriends!!! Just perfect!!

This cough is "whooping" my behind!!

This past week has kind of been a drag!  It started last Friday with a little cough that turned into a horrible cough that is still driving me nuts today! 

I had so much fun planned for last weekend, but I had to cancel all of my plans because I got sick. Instead of relaxing Saturday morning, I spent the morning at Care Now getting diagnosed with whooping cough.  They gave me a steroid shot, two antibiotics and a cough syrup with codeine to help the getting well process.  By Saturday night I was starting to feel better than I had the night before.  I decided one more day of rest before returning to work would do it and stayed in bed all day Sunday, continuing to take the meds as directed.  I work up about 3:15 am Monday morning with one of the worst head aches I have ever experienced in my life, no exaggeration.  I managed to fall back asleep, but when I woke back up to get ready for work, the head ache was even worse.  I could barely see my head ache was so intense.  I was also very nauseated and within an hour I started vomiting.  Luckily Chris had decided to work from home because after calling Care Now,  they said that I needed to come back in. There would have been no way I could have drove myself.  Once we got there they examined me and decided to run some test.  After everything came back ok, they finally determined that the codeine in the cough syrup was the cause of the pain.  They gave me another shot for anti-nausea and sent me home.  I slept for hours once home and felt much better once I woke up. I have just today started to feel back to my old self, although I still have this awful sounding cough.  It is super annoying and embarrassing.   

So as I said earlier this past week has been kind of a drag. I've felt bad, I had to cancel my fun weekend plans, I haven't cooked once, and I haven't accomplished any house work, all while having the annoyingly, awful, LOUD cough. 

On the bright side, it did give me the chance to finish the first and second book from the Hunger Games Series and I did learn that I am allergic to codeine.  So at least the entire week wasn't a waste!!

I hope everyone else had a better week than me and here is to an AWESOME weekend ahead!!

Anyone have any plans for Valentines Day weekend???

Chris' Favorite Recipe!

I search every week for different recipes to try.  I am trying to get two to three months worth so we have many to choose from.  We are in the testing phase right now, so I really haven't repeated any of the recipes we have tried. The first week I made Turkey Veggie Meat Loaf Cups and Chris has continuously requested them every week since and told several people about how much he loved them!  So, I finally made them again this week and he was so happy!!  

You can find the recipe http://allrecipes.com/recipe/turkey-veggie-meatloaf-cups/detail.aspx)

The Turkey/Veggie Meatloaf Cups are pretty easy to make.  I get to use my kitchen aid mixer (I mix the meat with all of the ingredients instead of using my hands) and my food processor (to chop veggies finely). Both help to make the job a lot easier, however you don't need either to make this meal.  They are pretty healthy and just as delicious when reheated.  The reheating is a big deal to us since I am just cooking for two and we almost always have left overs.

With the meatloaf cups I also made a delicious salad that I found on a blog called Kelly's Healthified Kitchen (I follow her blog).  The salad is called "That Good Salad" and that it is!!  I really could eat it everyday!

If any of you have a favorite recipe that you would like to share with me, please send it my way!  I have a lot more testing to do to build up my collection!

Ok I must be off to work now!  I hope everyone has a wonderful day!!

The New Year Resolution

For those of you who don't know, I made a resolution to cook more this year. I'm not a big fan of new year resolutions, but it just so happens that the same time I was evaluating ways to save more money, was the same time a new year started, so it just kind of happened.

How am I doing so far? Pretty good, if I do say so myself! My original goal was to start with at least 3 meals a week, however I have done at least 4 a week every week, even stepping it up to 5 dinner meals last week plus breakfast every morning (and just so you know we aren't talking cereal, energy bar, fruit or things of that nature. Chris will only eat things like eggs, turkey bacon, potatoes, etc. for breakfast. Nothing sweet). Am I the best wife or what?!?

All that being said, why in the world during our first 5 years of marriage have I hardly ever cooked? Here are some of those reasons/excuses:

1.  We live so far out and I already have an hour commute, the last thing I wanted to do was cook for another hour when I got home.
2. I didn't know what to cook.
3. When I did cook it was usually things like chicken breast or some other meat and a vegetable and who wants that every night....boring!
3. I thought cooking other things, besides the above, would be to hard. I mean every recipe seemed to always have some out of this world ingredient I had never heard of.
4. I can't stand going to the store on my way home....I'm in heals and I've been walking in them all day. The last thing I wanted to do was walk around a grocery store looking for that strange ingredient that I had never heard of.
5. And last but not least, I didn't think that I liked it. Everytime I cooked I felt rushed, like I needed to hurry up and get dinner on the table so it wasn't enjoyable to me.

So how have I managed to overcome those reasons/excuses so far this year? I took the advice from the accountability chart at work...lol! I awknowledged reality, made a plan of action and am now follwing through on that plan...I know I'm a total cheese ball.

Pretty much all I needed to do was awknowledge yes, I do in fact have a hour commute home...who cares!!! Then I needed to sit down find some recipes I wanted to make for the week (perferably ones without strange ingredients), make a list of what was needed and go shopping all at once (not in heals). It was that simple.

But there was still one more thing to tackle on my list of why I didn't cook, the big one, I didn't think I enjoyed it. Oh well, I could live with that. As adults sometime we have to do things we don't like. However, the biggest surprise of this entire "resolution" is how much I do enjoy it!

The second meal I made I was rushing around the kitchen trying to hurry up and get dinner done. Chris asked me why I was rushing around so much, like I was in some kind of race. I paused and thought I don't know? That was really the best thing that could have happened. I had this time schedule I had made that said I have to have dinner on the table by 6 and all the dishes washed or in the washing machine by 7. Why? We didn't have to be anywhere, we have a DVR so I am not going to miss any of my "precious" shows...I really don't know why, but now that I have taken myself off the time schedule, I really do enjoy cooking!

So now I have tackled all of my, lets just fact it, excuses and am glad that I decided to make this my new year resolution!!

A couple of questions....

Do you believe in making new year resolutions??

If you do, did you make one this year?  How is it going so far??

Testing the water!

It was a lot harder than I thought to find a recent picture of Chris and me.  This picture is from my 30th birthday trip to Vegas back in July of 2011. That wasn't too long ago,  but still ridiculous that we don't have any pictures that are more recent.  Which leads me to the conclusion that we really need to take more pictures together.

I know this is my second post in one day, but I am still trying to figure out how this works.  I see these other blogs and if I can get my blog looking half as good as some of the ones I've seen, I will be a happy girl!  So this is really a test!

Who am I??

Who am I? Well that is a pretty good question. I believe that if you would have asked me this question a couple of years ago I would have told you that what I do for a living is who I am. I think that if you are in some form of sales (and maybe all lines of work) there is a point in your career where you let what you do and how good you are at it, define you. However, I have learned that is not who I am, it is only what I do. I would answer this question now by saying that I am a girl who loves God and seeks to be the best person I can be in all areas of my life. Am I always successful? No, but I have learned that perserverence is key and relying on God will get you through anything...in his time of course, which brings me to the title of my blog and one of the reasons I have named it "I'm in a hurry and don't know why".

My personality has always been to plan things. I have always had drive and ambition. I set goals and want to hurry up and reach them (I'm not always successful at following through, but that's a whole other post). I am always wanting to get to the next thing. When I was in high school I couldn't wait to get to college, in college I couldn't wait to graduate and get to the "real world". Once out in the working world, I couldn't wait to meet "the one" and get married....and so forth. My friend Andrea used to always say that the Alabama song "I'm in a Hurry to Get Things Done" described me to a T. Why was I rushin' rushin' til life was no fun??? I'm not sure why (and don't let me totally fool you, I have still managed to have some fun), but I have gotten better the older I get at trying to live in the moment and enjoy things as they come.

I decided to start this blog to share things as they happen and to help me enjoy the moment I am experiencing. I plan (there are those words again) to share my thoughts on different things I experience in my everyday life, whether that be a review of a restaurant, a book I read, a recipe I try or just a "here is what happened to me today" post. It will really be just random rantings (another idea I had to name my blog, but Chris, my husband, thought the name I chose more appropriately describes me).

So do you really care what I have to say?? Maybe, maybe not, but here it is and if you decide to follow me through this journey cool deal! I welcome you! Otherwise it just gives me a way to put some of my thoughts out there!

My disclaimer: I am not a grammar pro (my best friend however is). I pretty much just type how I talk, which may or may not be correct grammar at all times. Sometimes I make up words and spell things wrong, but I am human. I don't mind a friendly correction. Hey how are you supposed to learn if no one ever tells you the correct way of doing things??