life+running » Humpday Blog Love

Humpday Blog Love: Better with Veggies + Chobani Giveaway

chimes — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 12:56:00 +0000

I’m guest blogging over at Chobani today — head over to see all my frozen yogurt recipes all rounded up. And keep reading for an awesome giveaway sponsored by Chobani!

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Meet Heather, from Better with Veggies. A vegan. A triathlete. A runner. A dog owner. A foodie. And a Whovian too.

Heather is (of course) a fellow Blend and I’m excited to meet her (and everybody else … it’s only a little over a week away!).

She’s from Atlanta, and besides running on gorgeous trails (with the Garmin that I covet) …

[ source ]

… she’s been brewing beer with her hubs lately. I’m extremely jealous of this because we neither have room to do this nor can I drink this kind of beer anymore.

[ source ]

She also has a plethora of delicious recipes. Including DONUTS. Yes. Donuts. And kale chips. I am pretty sure her blog is where I first learned about kale chips.

If you have a chance, RUN over to her blog and say hello. The scenery is beautiful over there.

[ source ]

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Okay — giveaway time! Chobani has graciously allowed me to host a giveaway of a 32 oz. container of vanilla AND plain yogurt — perfect to use for the base of your own batch of frozen yogurt.

To win? I could have you do all sorts of crazy things like tweet, facebook, pin recipes, etc., but today I’m taking a tip from one of my favorite bloggers and all you have to do is leave a comment. Any comment. Though ideas about yogurt and frozen yogurt are welcome. As well as cute dog stories.

Good luck!

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Humpday Blog Love: Kiss My Broccoli + Wool Eater Wednesday

chimes — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 15:00:00 +0000

This week I’m featuring Heather‘s blog, Kiss My Broccoli. Heather’s from Tennessee and has a lot of sass.

Not only does her blog have a catchy name, it’s got some great stuff. Including a LOT of recipes. And pancakes.

I started reading Heather’s blog sometime in the past few months along with all the other BLENDs’ blogs. I enjoy reading hers because she seems to have some of my personality traits.

Those of you who know me, I’m pretty sure you can see it in her profile picture. Um. Yeah. I think we might end up being BBFs (best blends forever … wow that was entirely too punny) after the retreat.

[ via kiss my broccoli ]

For instance can’t you see this happening to me? Her boyfriend went MIA for the evening and the crazy worry wart in her came out in a cleaning fury. This post still cracks me up.

And it seems like she’s always got a fridge full of Chobani. Jealous.

[ via kiss my broccoli ]

I also found out about foodie pen pals through her blog. And am now participating (yay!).

So if you have time, head on over to Kiss My Broccoli and show Heather some love!

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In other news, I finished my Wool Eater Blanket.

Finally. AND I weaved in all the ends. So It’s finished. For realzies.

It’s incredibly scrappy. I used up almost all my yarn. And go figure, the second I finished this thing, I found a big ball of yellow and a big skein of black. Maybe adding another row or two …

But until then, I’m calling it done and using it. Except that Barney has already claimed it as his own. I guess I’ll have to ask permission.

… or open up the windows in the living room so he forgets about the blanket and hangs out in the sun all day. He seriously won’t move.

But, I sincerely hope I don’t walk in on him … um … loving … my newly finished blanket. He has a thing for blankets. I don’t know WHY, but he does. He had his eye on this one before I had even finished it.

Have you finished any big projects lately?

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Humpday Blog Love: Oatmeal After Spinning + WIAW

chimes — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 11:00:00 +0000

This week I’m featuring Lauren’s blog: Oatmeal After Spinning, another BLEND** blogger.

I started reading Lauren’s blog in January after I signed up for the BLEND Retreat. I was eager to subscribe to all the other BLENDs’ blogs and start getting to know the people I was going to be spending a weekend with come May [I check back frequently to see if anybody new has been added ... I just added about 10 more last week].

The first thing that interested me about Lauren’s blog, is, I admit, her two absolutely gorgeous golden retrievers that she strategically works into almost every post, including my favorite recent post about rules for trail running. I swear every comment I leave on her blog starts out with, “OMG I WANT TO SNUGGLE YOUR DOGS.”

[ image from Oatmeal After Spinning ]

Lauren is a BodyPump [ my favorite class EVER ] and spinning instructor who lives just north of Washington DC who got her start living healthy by taking exercise classes and eating clean and has never felt better. She posts a lot of great clean recipes, shares a bit about her daily life — including her morning routine must-haves and the story of her and her hubby. She also has some great reviews of gear and other fitnessy stuff. I love her post about fitness DVDs, and I need to do something similar soon.

Head on over to her blog today and leave her some lovin’ … even if the real reason you’re there is because her dogs are so cuddly-looking. Tell her I sent you!

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Now for this week’s installment of What I Ate Wednesday.

Last week was crazy for me. I wasn’t home Wednesday and Thursday and I ate a lot of random stuff that was provided for our family by friends and more family during the time I was gone and at my Gram’s memorial service. I didn’t want people to be distracted by all my weird taking-of-food-photos, so I didn’t do it.

Instead, I bring you a few staples to my daily routine and some of the ~~best~~ most delicious stuff I ate this past week. And I had a lot of veggies … but we had a lot of bacon too.

This is how every day starts off for me: Giant mug of tea + reading blogs / blogging. If my day doesn’t start this way, I’m not happy. This makes for interesting traveling.

What kind of tea you ask? Green tea. I need a bit of caffeine to wake up, but I don’t like to have a lot or I drag later in the afternoon.Lately I’ve been sipping Yogi Green Tea Energy. I switch up the flavors and brands now and again, but I stick to green. My favorite is a tie between Tazo Zen and Yogi Green Tea Kombucha.

And every day I refill my Kleen Kanteen bottle twice. Maybe three times if I sweat a lot or if it’s hot.

Last week we went out to eat at one of our favorite local restaurants, La Fuente. It’s cheap. Somewhat authentic. But mostly, there’s margaritas.

And I consider this place a double score because I always bring enough leftovers home for a second [ sometimes third if I play my cards right ] meal. I typically get the fajitas and Mark gets the Yolandas — shredded pork on top of two enchiladas. For some reason I didn’t take a photo of my fajitas. But I got the vegetarian fajitas and had a couple bites of Mark’s pork.

Seriously. I wish they made the pork ala carte. It’s so good!

Also, have I mentioned how incredibly gorgeous Mark is? Yeah. He’s pretty damn good looking. At least I think so, and that’s really all that matters.

I ended up having 2 margaritas [ yikes! ] and eating even less of my food than I normally do. So I had quite a bit of leftover food. And what better to do with leftovers than to make something more interesting out of them? I present: Fajita eggs.

I don’t know WHY I was obsessing over BFD last week [ not big f*cking deal, breakfast for dinner, which is actually a big f*cking deal to me ]. But I believe I had salsa eggs and toast every night I was home last week. Except the night we went out. And the night I had fajita eggs.

Basically, you get your leftover fajita filling out, reheat it on a hot skillet and add eggs or egg whites [ I add egg whites ] and you can optionally sprinkle some cheese on it. If you’re awesome, you can make it into an omelet. If you’re hungry, you’ll let it set up and scrape it out of the pan onto your plate like I did.

Extra points if you serve with bacon. Even more extra points if you serve with Chobani and the KIND healthy grains granola I’ve been obsessing over recently.

YUM. I may have snuck another piece or two on the inside of fajita eggs.

Oh, and speaking of Chobani … we found a killer sale at HyVee this weekend: 2/$1. Granted, they were all going to expire by the end of this week … but I think we can manage to eat all this yogurt this week. Just maybe.

Oh, and you might notice above the yogurt that there is some beer. Yes. Beer. That I can drink!

Eeek! We found some New Grist gluten-free beer at our local liquor store on Saturday. It’s not the BEST beer I’ve ever had, but I liked dark wheaty beers, which obviously I can’t have any more.

Speaking of bacon …

Wait, we weren’t still talking about bacon? Oh. Well …

Mark made this amazing-looking BLT with his homemade bread and a homemade spicy mayo. He had BLTs most of the week. We’ve eaten a lot of bacon this last week.

… Mostly because my little jar of bacon grease was gone so we needed to refill it.

You heard me. I save my bacon grease. What of it?

You have to use fat for things anyway and this is full of flavor. I only use it for breakfast items that are already pretty greasy. My roommate uses it to scramble eggs and make grilled cheese, which is probably why we were out. Not because I made potato biscuits and gravy with it. Nope.

However, if you’re going to make bacon, the secret to great bacon is to use more grease. So we actually add grease to the bacon to cook it. Then dab it off with paper towels when we’re done. Makes really crisp bacon.

Also, we had a very successful pizza night. I had some leftover arugula from some salads I had been eating last week, so I topped my gluten free crust with garlic, mushrooms, arugula, tomatoes and red onions.

The boys had lots of various toppings but mostly sausage. And theirs was on Mark’s homemade pizza crust. The crust that I swear he perfected the second I found out that gluten kills my stomach.

Just look at those crusts!

I feel like I should do a What Mark Ate Wednesday because he makes some really great food that’s not exactly healthy [ but he's getting better at it ] but it’s really well-prepared and as healthily prepared as he can make it.

Anyway. I think that’s it. Did you have anything spectacularly delicious this week?

**Side note — IT’S ONLY ONE MONTH FROM BLEND TODAY! Do you have your tickets yet? I need to book my B&B’s for the drive there and the drive back since I can’t sit for more than 6 hours at a time. LONG DRIVE. And I just realized that flying is about the same cost as gas + B&Bs. Conundrum. Do I want to road trip ? Or not ?

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Humpday Blog Love: meals&moves + my first WIAW

chimes — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 14:00:00 +0000

First, some blog lovin’ then some What I Ate Wednesday (WIAW) action — because it’s what all the cool kids do.

It’s been a LONG time since I’ve done a Humpday Blog Love post. A very long time.

Since in t-minus-a-month-and-a-few-days I’ll be heading off to Colorado for the BLEND Retreat, I thought I’d give some blog-lovin’ to some of the lovely Blends (blogger + friends) that I’ll be meeting very soon.

I’m starting with one of the ladies who put this great BLEND retreat together: Janetha [ Janeeeeeeetha ] from meals & moves.

[ image from meals & moves ]

I’ve been following Janetha’s blog since 2010ish. And she’s informative, entertaining, and inspirational. She has two hilarious ~~doggies~~ kids — one of which, Randy, steals and buries food items that Janetha is given to to test, like Larabars, and saves them for later. Oh and she loves cereal … a lot. And I’m pretty sure she likes cookies just as much as I do.

Her blog is mostly filled with her take on fitness and nutrition — so there’s … you guessed it — meals and moves. Recipes + workouts. But there’s also a bunch of other things. Guest posts. Gear reviews. And she talks about her GI issues, which makes me especially appreciate her blog given I have GI issues and I feel her pain. She’s even more of an open book than I am [ guys, it's possible! ] and hits on tough / personal issues like suicide, drugs & partying, and her mother’s stroke.

Janetha’s the reason I started doing LiveFit. Specifically her abs in this post [ amirite? ]. Her review of LiveFit after she was done with it made me get my ass back in gear and honestly give Phase 2 another go … I was punking out on lifting heavy with my already large thighs and butt.

Most of the topics she covers on her blog should sound pretty familiar because I’ve gone off and tried most of the stuff she’s blogged about. And I typically leave a page-long comment when I comment on her blog. Or two. Or three. She probably thinks that I’m a weird-crazy-stalker-person. But actually, I just like good writers with a real message and well-thought-out content. And writers who take the time to react and respond to their blog comments — either by a follow-up post or by personal responses. She does a great job!

Anyway … if you’ve not visited meals & moves yet, you should probably go do it. Even if you’re not big into health and fitness, she’s great to read. She discusses a lot of other issues and has great stories about crazy happenings at work and about her dogs.

If you do, leave her a comment and tell her I sent you! If nothing else, scroll to the bottom of her page and read her most popular categories / posts.

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Now for WIAW, I bring you what I ate LAST Wednesday. I wasn’t aiming to go green, but boy did everything turn out GREEN. Even the fair trade chocolate I snagged on super-duper-ultra-sale. Check it!

And I apologize because half of these pix were taken with my iPod because I was SO excited that I remembered to do WIAW but had left my actual camera at home.

Breakfast was extremely green. I made another green monster and added some kale that was leftover from dinner on Monday. Note: Kale is not the best addition to a green smoothie if you don’t like tasting your greens. I was okay with it, but it was a bit much for breakfast.

For a snack I had some grapes. Purple. Not green. Mark likes the green ones, but I like the purple ones.

Lunch was leftovers from dinner on Monday — kale pasta toss from Eat Live Run — sans pasta and the feta. Pasta because I don’t eat it and feta because I forgot it.

And I assure you that this is MUCH better than it looks (look at her photos in her recipe in the link above). The chicken sausage in my pic looks kind of gross.

Afternoon snack was the rest of a green pepper that Mark had cut up for pizza night the previous Friday.

Wednesday nights I’m on my own for dinner, so I did a mental inventory of what was in the fridge on the way home and decided that I could do breakfast for dinner (BFD). I only had 2 hours between work and an embroidery class that I was taking, so it had to be something fast. But, I needed to pick up an item to make my BFD complete.

I’ve been working with a nutritionist-in-training (dietetics student) on campus and I’m actually getting more from her than I have from therapy regarding binge eating. She suggested that this week I pick up some binge items and have them in the house. And NOT HIDE THEM.

That’s kind of scary. So I thought I’d start with something that’s a little healthier than a bag of cheetohs. So, I picked up some Love Crunch granola. I’ve been known to eat an entire bag in one sitting (I’m sure I’m not the only one), but usually at night when I’m not even hungry.

And guys … I still have this bag. I can’t even tell you how exciting this is! When I have anything snacky or sugary, it’s gone in a day or two. It’s been a WEEK. It’s so empowering.

I had some for dessert after my amazing BFD: egg whites with asparagus and goat cheese. Holy ~~cow~~ goat was this yummy.

And no, your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you. Somewhere along the way I started eating all my dessert items with my baby spoon, so I snagged it from my parent’s house a while back. I have no idea why I do this, but I do. And it’s a ritual. Maybe it’s so I take tiny bites and the dessert lasts longer? I don’t know.

Oh, and one of the non-essential items I picked up at our local co-op? A Theo chocolate bar. They didn’t have my favorite kind, but they did have a mint one. So I picked that up. And giggled a little after I checked out and realized the granola and chocolate was all I got — because I knew I was going to do WIAW and both items are packaged in pretty similar green packaging.

And no, I didn’t eat the whole chocolate bar either. I broke off a square to taste-test it and stuck it in the freezer. Whoop whoop.

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Hump Day Blog Love: Smitten Kitchen

chimes — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 11:00:00 +0000

This week’s humpday blog love goes to a cooking blog that I’ve been drooling over for months. I’ve pinned a ton of recipes for future use. I’ve made several recipes from this blog and have yet to have one fail or have one not receive rave reviews. [images copyright smitten kitchen]

My favorite recipe on the site? The chili. Hands down best chili I’ve ever made. Or had for that matter.

[chili recipe + biscuits]

I also just baked some amazingly fudgy brownies that I’ve been wanting to try for a while.

[best cocoa brownies recipe]

Next up, I’m trying the fresh tomato sauce recipe. I have a load of tomatoes from my grandpa from my adventure last saturday. I’m excited to try this!

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Humpday Blog Love: DIY or Buy?

chimes — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 11:00:00 +0000

It’s been a while since I posted some love about another blog. But I’ve been wanting to post about DIY or Buy for a long time. And she’s been blogging a lot more lately, so I feel like it’s a good time to post.

DIY or Buy focuses on analyzing exactly what the title implies: should you do something yourself or are you better off buying? Her tagline is “Make it or buy it? We’ll help you decide.”

My favorite posts include dishwasher detergent, egg nog and granola. This past week she did a promenade of fried foods in honor of the Iowa State Fair. I slightly feared for her health, but she made it through!

Anyway … if you are in the mood for some good tutorials, fun things to do yourself and maybe some greening of your daily routine, check out DIY or Buy.

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Humpday Blog Love: Hatch Design

chimes — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 11:30:00 +0000

Okay, so this is totally cheating since it’s not a blog, but Hatch Design has a totally adorable website and they are having their 4th annual Easter egg coloring contest.

I’m in love with their website, and I just cast my vote. You should too!

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Humpday Blog Love — Featured on SewZinski, where flossy meets saucy

chimes — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 23:22:46 +0000

Hey all!

My friend, sewzinski, who makes AMAZING stuff just gave me a shoutout on her blog.

Go check it out!

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Humpday Blog Love: Hipster Housewife

chimes — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 12:21:25 +0000

This week’s Humpday Blog Love installation is dedicated to The Hipster Housewife.

The Hipster Housewife is a blog started somewhat recently by Des Moines’s own Cat Rocketship. If you live in the Des Moines area and haven’t heard of Cat, get out from that rock you’ve been living under. Cat is a huge mover and shaker in the Des Moines Art scene. She’s a painter. A director of a local indie craft show (that I blog about often — Market Day). And she’s just recently embarked on her latest endeavor: housewife.

Well — not in the sense of the word you would think of — she’s not a June Cleaver or a Roseanne. She moved her painting studio to her home and does an array of housewifey type things … like cooking, cleaning, and other things. You can read all about it in this fabulous guest post she wrote over at small strokes.

Anyway, The Hipster Housewife is where Cat chronicles her adventures. Some of my favorite posts include figuring out that you can EAT the honeycomb (I did not know this!) and making cheese with her friend Kyle.

I’m a little bit jealous. I would love to have a studio at home and do all these fun housewifey things. That, and I love Cat’s idea of feminism — I DO WHAT I WANT TO DO. Don’t tack on “… as long as I’m a doctor/astronaut/physicist”.

Anyway, go check her out. I’m sure she’d love to have more than my daily comment on her blog. I’m wondering if she’s beginning to think I’m stalking her …

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Humpday Blog Love: Little Pretties

chimes — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 11:19:38 +0000

This week’s Humpday Blog Love goes to my friend Cara at Little Pretties.

I met Cara a couple months back at Market Day. I didn’t realize until later that I’d been following her on Pinterest and that we have very similar taste in things. I bought an ultrasuede hair comb from her — which I’ve been in love with forever — and have yet to find just the perfect outfit to wear it with.

Cara makes a LOT of different things. She mostly makes jewelry and accessories.

Oooh and also, it’s CAR-a. Not CARE-a. Just like I’m CAL-ee not CALE-ee. I thought that was kind of funny.

Go check her out — she’s also featured locally at Vitae, The Art Store and Instinct Gallery.

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