Year: 2013

Anyone that is addicted to Pinterest has surely came across the pin for baking hard boiled eggs in the oven.  I was a bit curious, so I decided to check it out.  This week Alex and I are hitting it hard with eating right and getting back into working out after our 2 week hideous of selling fireworks and getting caught up on energy!  I even started going back to my boxing class!  I stopped going during summer school because it was a lot of driving and WAY too hot to do afternoon workouts for me.  The 8:00 am class is hot enough for me but I have been trucking through!  I figure since I am technically off for 3 weeks that my morning workout can be my reason to get my butt out of bed!

Anyways, so now that we are back on our healthy lifestyle, Alex loves to eat salads.  He could eat them for every meal.  I will not go that far but I like them enough to eat them a few times a week.  I like a little variety in my life!  After boxing class yesterday I headed to Hyvee and picked up a load of salad stuff to get us through the week.  I even ate tomatoes on my salad (Alex was very impressed!) and I am not a big fan of tomatoes unless they are in ketchup or salsa.  It is a texture thing.  However I have made myself start eating bananas so why can’t I learn to like tomatoes?!  I decided this would be the perfect time to try making hard boiled eggs in the oven to eat with our salads or for a snack.  Who doesn’t love hard boiled eggs?

I pulled them out after 25 minutes and just set them to the side to cool.  Normally if I need them right away to make deviled eggs or something, I would set them in a bowl of ice water to cool.  I was pretty pleased with the results.  It was a lot easier than me dropping them into boiling water crossing my fingers that they weren’t going to break as I did it.  They peeled very nicely.  I think this will be something I will start doing more often!

 

 

 

So back in May, I ran my first half marathon.  It was a crazy time to do it, as school was coming to an end and my life was a little hectic!  It was a huge accomplishment for me as a runner.  I can remember when I ran my first 10K and it was the beginning of July and hot hot hot! I thought to myself…there is no way in hell I would be able to run a half marathon…and I did it!  I would love to run a full marathon one of these days but one step at a time!

I wanted a decal for my car window before I even finished the race!  I can remember going into Gary Gribble’s to grab some chews for my race and I was already browsing the decals while waiting in line. The only one they had in the half marathon were just black and white and BORING! So then I resorted to shopping on eBay…I just could not find one that I really liked, so once I started playing with vinyl, I decided that I would take matters into my own hands! I fired up Cricut Craft Room and started playing around with different fonts and decided on a dual layered decal to kick it up a notch.  I recently purchased some 12″x12″ sheets of colored vinyl to play with and I figured this was the perfect time to break them out! It is funny because after my first vinyl project, I was irritated and set on the fact that I would never mess with it again!  Now I keep dreaming up ways to use it!  I will still say that it is a pain but I am loving the final products!

 

I absolutely love it when I have a few bananas that get a little too ripe to eat alone.  I have never been a huge banana fan in general, so I have to make them exciting to trick myself into eating them.  To tell you the truth, they are kind of growing on me!  I had some blueberries left from my amazing friend Katie that brought them from a blueberry patch they visiting in Tulsa.  If there is one muffin that I love…it has to be blueberry!   I decided to give a banana blueberry muffin a shot and boy am I glad I did!  They were DELICIOUS!!!  Alex couldn’t stay out of them, so that told me they had to be good!

Ingredients:

3 Tbs butter
1/2 c applesauce
1/2 c Greek yogurt
3 eggs
2/3 c sugar
2/3 c brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 c flour
1 c old fashioned oats
2 ripe bananas
1 cup blueberries
1 tsp vanilla
Splash of milk

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 ˚. Lightly grease muffin tin and set aside while you make the batter.  Mix all sugars and butter together until nice and creamy.  Add applesauce, yogurt, and eggs and mix thoroughly.  Add oats, baking soda, vanilla, milk and mashed bananas to the mixture.  Fold blueberries in right before you are ready to put the batter into the muffin tins.  Fill the tins about 3/4 full.  Bake for 10-15 minutes depending or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Makes approximately 2 dozen.

 

 

 

I have been enjoying working in my yard so much this summer!  I have never been great at keeping plants alive but it is amazing what watering them daily can do…who would have thought?! My Grandma Bloesser helped me pot up these bad boys and I brought them back from Ulysses at the end of May.  I even made sure to have a neighbor water them while we were gone so they would be ok!  (Thanks Richelle!) Here are a few before and after pictures of them because I have to show them off!

Most people would agree that solicitors are not exactly anyone’s favorite people to deal with on a day you are home and trying to relax.  I can remember when I was little and solicitors would come by the house. We would all hide and be super quiet so they wouldn’t know we were home! To help alleviate this, I have been brainstorming up a No Soliciting sign for awhile.  In fact, my original plan was to make a mini sign to put into my watering can that I made-over for Alex.  I even painted a small wooden sign that I grabbed at Michaels and painted it red.  I was going to use white and black vinyl to make it but I really wanted something bigger.  I mean…let’s face it….we need it to stand out so they will see it!