Wednesday, December 23, 2009

snack for the day

this was my snack today at work..
I have been working really hard on a project and i think i went a lil crazy..taking random pictures of fruit..yep i have lost it!

tonight is another Christmas and I am excited to spend time with the fam!
I'll take pictures!
I am making tiramisu for our dessert!

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

these boots are made for walkin'


Well Friday we went to Table Mesa.. and let me tell you it didn’t disappoint! We had the cheese dip of course and we decided to split the chorizo fajitas with the homemade guacamole. Oh my goodness it was so good and since Kelly and I split the meal I was not like fat kid full. I was satisfied.

We normally are all about the tradition. This year though we both really just wanted some clothes. Rather than go shopping separately we decided to go ahead a do it together. It did make it less of a surprise, so I decided since I love surprises to sacrifice some of my Christmas shopping money to give to Kelly so he could get me some surprise stuff..
We did Christmas with my mom on Saturday night, kelly and i cooked a gourmet meal of take and bake pizza from sam’s! It was a lot of fun, my mom loves cheesy girl movies so I got her Made of honor & PS I love you (which by the way if you have seen this movie, it is good… BUT the book is 1,000 times better!) I got her a couple other random things that she loved. It is funny cause she always makes a point to thank Kelly, when we all know Kelly was just as surprised to see the gift as she was!


She got Kelly and I some stuff for the house as a joint gift. She got Kelly a gift card for his single present and then…First off let me say this- I love my mom, but I also KNOW my mom and when it comes to shopping, she really isn’t the biggest fan. She hates the crowds and just has never been a big shopper, so when I put what I wanted on my list I really didn’t expect her to go out and get it.. I just put things on there that I would love to have, but don’t really expect. I also know that she hates shopping on-line; it kind of stresses her to know that someone can see all her information and her credit card number.

With that being said, for Christmas I asked for grey boots the ones that look super cute with skinny jeans. Knowing that they were hard to find I was really just dreaming and I GOT THEM! So not only did my mom face the crowds to find them, but when she could not find them she went on-line to find them! This is a huge step and I am very proud of her! I also feel very special that she went to such great lengths to get the boots for me!

So I asked Kelly to take a picture of them for me to blog about, this is what I got.


Such a boy.

When I realized what he had taken a picture we had to go back and do a re-do…

SO here are the boots!


Mom had to get her grand-dog a present too!

I tried to get him looking in the bag but he was to quick for me!

this is where he stayed for the rest of the night.



Friday, December 18, 2009

"i should be a hair model"

Random title i know... but..
my husband has great hair and unfortunatley he knows it, so the other day he looks at me through our bathroom mirror and says, " I should be a hair model"
OH GEEZ! Then last night a group of us went out for dinner and everyone at the table started talking about how great kelly's hair is.. so now i would be surprised if him and his "great hair" will fit through a door way! :)


So I made my pumpkin soup.. not gonna lie, it was not the best experiment that i have done. It was not bad, but again it was not the best either. It was just a little bland. I had to add a bunch of Texas Pete to it. So I am pbly not going to be making it again.
Tonight though Kelly and I have a date night. I could not tell you the last time we have had a date night, normally it is not in the budget. Tonight however, we made an exception. We have Christmas shopping we needed to finish up and it stressed me out to think about cooking. We decided to have a date night instead.

Normally we each do our own shopping and then we have our traditional Christmas and doing stockings and gifts on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day…Well this year we are heading to AZ for Christmas Eve and won’t be back until Tues the 29th. Then on New Years we are having some friends come in town and we have a wedding so we won’t be able to do it then, and I am big about making a night of it so I want to do it on a weekend. Well that leads us to date night. Kelly and I both want clothes and rather than send the other one off unattended. We have decided to shop together and spend our $$ that way!

We are starting the night off with…
Table Mesa
I love table mesa! When Kelly suggested it i was overjoyed!  It is on the square downtown. They have the best cheese dip i have ever had. HANDS DOWN!
After dinner we will head to Belk's cause kelly always finds good deals there, then maybe to the promenade for me.. banana is having a sale.. :)

Tomorrow we are getting up early and going for a run. Our first real run since the marathon. I am excited about it! After the run we are going to head to the gym for some classes then off to the movies! PS. I hate the movies. I know it almost sounds unamerican, but i just hate going. Kelly loves them though.. so he knows the way to get me to go is to offer a good ole' fashion chic flick! Which is why tomorrow we will be watching:
NEW MOON! The we are having Christmas with my mom!
Very exciting weekend.
I will post on Sunday with pictures!

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

cooking with the carlson's

While I was in MN I had some butternut squash soup and I really liked it. So I decided to make some this week for Dinner.

Monday night's dinner:
I got a crock-pot recipe for the soup, but it required pumpkin.. I guess there was a pumpkin shortage this year!!! So I decided I would do a different recipe. Thank You Emerill!
The soup was so good! Looks like baby food, but so good!


secret ingredient is ginger...


It really was soo flippin good!


where Callaway sits when I cook!


I think it is cause his bottom gets cold! :)





Tuesday night's dinner:
Kelly felt bad for me that I was cooking until almost 8 on Monday and he decided to make dinner! So he took the ingredients that were supposed to be for pumpkin squash soup and used them to make a soup! I couldn’t be mad that he had made a soup with the things I needed for the soup, because he did make a wonderful dinner and took the burden off of me for dinner. We threw a little herb goat cheese and some hot sauce in the soup and it was AMAZING!






Wednesday night's dinnner:
It was Spaghetti Squash! When we went to KC to visit shores she wanted to make it for us, but since we had never had it, we decided best not change it up on the night before a race.
I have been very intrigued since then though and I wanted to try it!



So thanks to food network I found a recipe for it!
I am not gonna lie that it is a little gross to scoop out the guts kind of like a pumpkin, but it was good, and very easy to make!


the pumpkin type guts
ewww!


It really does look like spaghetti!


The finished product!
Yum!


Stay tuned for tomorrow when I post about the Pumpkin Crock-Pot Soup!

Totally Together Reviews: HP TouchSmart Computer Review and Give-Away!

Totally Together Reviews: HP TouchSmart Computer Review and Give-Away!

UMM so I found another site that is giving a computer away!!
I have decided that I need to have a larger following so that cool people like HP will give me a computer!!!

for free??


Anyone need a new computer??
Cause this girl does!!!

So then I check out another site..
PS. I am now in love with the girl.. she is funny and not one of those "to perfect girls" that make you throw up a little in your mouth when you read about their life.. no.. she seems very real..

And a nother...
MY hope is that one of these beautiful ladies will take pity on me and that I don't have a computer.. and share the love!

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

DIIRRRTTYYY Santa

Sunday night was our Dirty Santa party..


WOW here are some of the pictures!


Darin got Ross and Rachel's son Michael's old Pez dispenser.. when Michael realized this he was very sad!
Darin also recieved some Business Cards with Ross' name on them as well as a college text book! Very HANDY!

Abby got Honey Buns!


Jimmy, Kelsey, & Kelly too!


Kristen was worried she got diapers..
Instead it was a purse

Kelly thought he got a crock-pot, but was sad to realize that it was a candle warmer!

jimmy got some "sexy Little thang" purfume
Which he really wanted!

Monday, December 14, 2009

20 below & a PT loser..

I am back!
I spent the week in MN doing sales calls for work..

The sky line from my hotel


This is what I woke up to!
20 below and a beautiful day


I was given a PT cruiser for a rental car, really?


You would think that if there is 3-5 feet of snow on the ground they would have SUV's accessible.. Not so much! I hate PT cruisers! hate them!



I was able to go to the mall of America! HOLY COW! It is very large, I was able to navigate my way through there quite well, but was a little disappointed.. Don't get me wrong it is HUGE, but at the same time they didn't have just some plethora of stores. I did get to go in the H & M and fell in love with the store! I also went in to Nordstrom’s and I love love love Nordstrom’s. We don’t have one in AR and I very rarely get to shop there. Now it is not like I bought anything, but it was FABULOUS to walk around. They have an amazing cosmetics department.

*So on the way to MN I had a 1 hour flight to DFW, then a 2 ½ hour flight to MN. I finished Eclipse about 10 min in to the flight to DFW. I was crying so hard that the man across the aisle was staring at me and went so far to check and see if I had just received some troubling news.. nope just heartbroken for Jacob, don’t mind me! For the rest of the flight I slept and dreamt of twilight.. I have a problem.

First free minute I got, I went to the bookstore. (Wal-mart’s are hard to come by once you navigate away from Bentonville!) To Barnes and Noble I went. So I find the book, they only have it in hard back, but I was desperate so I take er’ on up the counter sooo excited and she tells me Fifty bucks! A*&()&%^$^%$#!!! FOR A BOOK?

“well, it is the special edition with the DVD, soundtrack, and poster!”

WOW. Well I will suffice my romance addiction with a little Nora Roberts. Good ole Nora, she was only 8.

Well the only problem with that was I finished that one in a day. BACK to the bookstore. Got another Nora Roberts book. One that I have been wanting. Bed of roses. It is the 2nd one in a quartet. The first was Vision in White. I read it a while ago and fell in love with them. It is about 4 best friends that started a wedding company. One does the flowers, one does photography, one does food, and the other does the coordination. Each book is from a separate girl prospective. SOOO good. Romantic and cheesy, but I love them!

I finished that one on the plane home.. I flew through it. I was sitting my these very lous talkers. They kept describing every detail of this stupid came with armor, and different powers and time travel with kings and stuff. They then got on the subject of time travel and home to build a machine. Oh and lets not forget the Star Trek convention that one of them went to.. “it was totally awesome”

PS. They were at least 40 years old, and one of them smelled like a dirty diaper, a day old dirty diaper at that!

I was forced to summon all of my focus on the book and breathe through my mouth for almost 3 hours. Good times.

More tomorrow about the rest of my weekend!

Monday, December 7, 2009

2 Timothy 4:7



I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

I am now a marathon runner! 26.2 miles!!!
We left for Memphis Friday afternoon. Kelly drove while I read Eclipse. I am also happy to report that I am almost done! I was going to read it on the way back, but I drove home and chose to listen to Harry Potter and the order of the Phoenix instead because I am trying to finish it too! The whole ride was a little tense cause I have been soo nervous.

We got to downtown and decided to eat prior to going to the expo. There was a couple of restaurants to choose from, but Sara told us spaghetti warehouse was good. So that is where we ended up. When we walked in there was no one waiting, by the time we finished our pasta the entire entry way was packed from people carrying their St Jude marathon bags. I was very glad we ate first, I would have been flipping out if I would’ve had to wait and hour to eat.

We went to the convention center next to pick up all of our stuff. I felt that I had gotten punched in the stomach when I walked up to the shirt table, only to have the unfriendly girl tell me that “they no longer had any small shirts”, ok then med I say. “Nope, no med either.. large or extra large is all we have.”

I know that this may be silly to most of ya’ll… but to me.. This is a huge freaking deal. It was like an omen. An all knowing sign that my race was going to be absolutely horrible and I was going to collapse on the side of the road and refuse to finish. I know it is amazing that all of this can be foretold just because they did not have my correct shirt size. I just can’t explain the mental frustration I felt all week. In my mind all I could think about was I was about to do what only one tenth of American’s have actually accomplished! What If I hit the proverbial wall that everyone keeps talking about, what if I just can’t do it and have to quit? Then the lady tells me that my first marathon will not be able to be commemorated with a shirt!!

In all fairness though, I signed up for this race in Aug. That is 4 months prior to the race and 2 ½ months prior to the race being capped. To me this is the point of pre-registering. So that you know exactly how many people and how many shirts you need!!!! If the race was capped in the middle of October, you would think there would have been adequate time to order the correct number of shirts, as well as put them with the appropriate bib number.

I did find this shirt though! Almost as good!


I want one of these, kelly said not so much..

So we get back to the hotel, “get race ready” and head to bed by about 9pm. For those of you who don’t know what race ready is.. It is when we do everything from pin on out bib number to our shirt to lay out the socks, I pod, and sunglasses for the next morning.

When the phone rang at 5:30am the next morning my stomach felt like it had hit the floor. I got up ate my normal pre-run breakfast (whole wheat bread, skippy natural peanut butter, and honey sandwich) and was ready to go by 6:10. The race didn’t start until 8 so I was left with almost two hours to get in my head and think/stress about everything! It was FREEZING!! We got to the Redbird Stadium at about 6:45 and it was a warm and cozy 29 degrees and great running weather!


race ready at 5:30am!

I will spare you the mile by mile breakdown since I have lived through the agonizing hole by hole account when my husband plays golf and I know how painful it can be!! I will give you some of the major points though. We ran through the St Jude’s campus and I almost started crying. They had the patients outside cheering us on and they had made signs for us that said stuff like:

“Thank you for supporting St Jude’s you are helping with my treatment”

“Thank you for running for me because I can’t”

“Don’t give up, you are running for my cure”

I could go on, but again it makes me tear up, so I won’t. They even had signs through out the course that would say the same type of stuff. Even if you wanted to quit, you would read those and it would renew your spirit.

I got to see Sara and Ben at mile 19 and I was SO excited to have a familiar face. They had even made us a poster. I can not express the happiness that I felt at that moment to know there was people there cheering for me and motivating me to push harder.




WOW! I was a happy kid!

I didn’t hit the wall either! Maybe because I was so worried about it to begin with that I had the “wall” before I even started running, or maybe it was because of all the prayer and encouraging words from everyone, but regardless.. I never hit it. I will say though that I don’t remember the race much. From mile 1 until about mile 19 they flew by. There was water at every mile, complete with a sprit group and they just ticked off, so much so that I don’t even remember running Beale street for the 2nd time, or running by the pyramid until I saw the pictures! Kelly struggled a little bit at mile 23. At one point I heard him singing.. yes singing, “tonight’s gonna be a good night” People must have thought we  he was crazy! He told me after the fact that he was singing to ignore the pain and he was thinking about all the people and there encouragment.




us sprinting to make our goal of under 5...


4:59:59
(they had wave starts so the clock didn't match our gun start)






After the race we headed through the food line for a piece of cold pizza and an orange slice, then off to sara's. Where I might add I wanted to curse out load when I saw that she had stairs!! AHHH STAIRS!!

 We then set off in search of some real memphis BBQ. They took us to the original Corky's BBQ. YUMM! It really was soo good and I am not even saying that cause we just ran a marathon either!!
Here is our dessert!


My personal favorite is anything Reese's
Kelly however had to be difficult!


The gas station had a "make your own milk shake machine"
So being the ice cream lover that he is.. we had to make one!



The next morning we put the sticker on!!!


So proud!!



I am on my way to MN this week so I may be a littl MIA, but I will try to take pictures!

Friday, December 4, 2009

marathon mania

we are leaving on a jet plane, don't know if i'll be back again.
Actually we are not leaving on a jet plane, but we are leaving on a jeep. I hope we come back again!!
Everyone be in prayer for us as we run 26.2 miles!
We will be home on Sunday, but I go to MN next week, so I am not sure how much blogging I will do, but I will try very hard to give you all and update!

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

there will be NO "walking in Memphis"

We have our run this weekend. It has been weighing on me a lot… I know that most people including my husband think I am silly, but it means a lot to me. I just feel like, If I am going to train and work at this for about 6 months, then I better do a dang good job and give it my all. That is the other thing… I don’t know if I will want to do another one, so I need to make sure and do a good job on this one cause I may have no desire to do one ever again after the pain I may go through on Saturday.



I am also a worrier by nature, so no matter what the topic send my stomach in to flip flops. Anytime anyone asks about it I get the nervous butterflies and can barley answer, and I still have 3 more days! Can you imagine the shape I will be in by Saturday?

My friend Sara is coming though to cheer me on! I am so excited that she is coming! I know I will need the support! I did watch biggest loser last night and they ran a marathon. Without a real training plan either. This makes me more motivated. If they can do it- then I can do it!!



On another note. I am at work today, and there is a girl in the break room making a salad complete with feta cheese, cranberries, and almonds-YUM. Then another co-worker walks in and comments on how yummy the salad looks. The salad eater then tells her will you will have to wait a few more months before you try this. I am instantly confused? The salad on-looker says, “yeah after the baby is born I will have to try that.”

Now I can no longer help my curiosity.. “WHY?” I ask “well”, replies the salad eater, “you can’t have feta when you are pregnant.” I am sure I look like a freak as I demand again. “WHY?”

“Because, says my prego co-worker, “Certain cheeses aren’t pasteurized and they have live bacteria and could be bad for the baby.”

I am speechless… yes I AM SPEECHLESS.

I walk back to my desk and promptly share this with my cubbymates.

They think this is crazy as well, until I get this site:

http://www.americanpregnancy.org/pregnancyhealth/foodstoavoid.html

This site tells me that I am not allowed to eat queso, or any other types of those yummy cheeses that are used to make up the fatty goodness that is cheese dip.

I have decided that I am still not ready for babies, if I am not able to sacrifice my love of cheese dip for my own child.
One of the other girls tells me that she thinks that have taken a lot of this stuff overboard.
I reply with a, yes, but knowing my luck I will eat some chips and queso, my baby will come out with 3 arms and I will bare a scarlet letter- C- for cheese eater! Everyone will know that I disobeyed the rules!



or..

tough choice i know...

On a lighter note, I am all the way through Twilight, New Moon, & Midnight Sun (Edwards version for those of you who are out of the loop) I have started Eclipse, but I have had to use an extreme amount of self control not to get wrapped up in it cause I have so much to do this week.
So to my fellow bloggers- keep Kelly & I in your prayers on Saturday!

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

picture perfect


It makes me a little sad that the weekend is coming to an end. I feel like it just flew by! Thursday morning we did our turkey trot. Kelly & I ran 10 miles then headed to our first thanksgiving at my grandma's.
We had to strategize what we ate though, being careful not to eat to much and save room for the other thanksgiving. I am not gonna lie though I did sneak in a nap before i got up to help prepare. I was in charge of making the mac and cheese this year, and the 5 cup salad. My grandma always makes it and I love it! I get these on-line recipes and i got one last week for mac and cheese... i was a little nervous about trying a new recipe on thanksgiving, but it turned out very well!
**i will post pictures whenever i have time to get them off the other camera!**
We stayed up late playing wii again.
Friday morning me julie and kaylee arose at the beautiful hour of 3am to hit up black friday. We even had out route mapped out.


walmart 5am
old navy 3am
Kohl's 330
Starbucks 4
walmart 430
target 5
jcpenny 530
bath and body works 6
sears 630
home and in bed by 7? nope... i am the type of person who once i am up it takes a bit to get me back in bed..
So at about 1230 I headed for a nap. Slept until 2 then got up to get ready for dinner and the basketball game. We were going to dinner at ShoGun for kellys bday..
PICTURES--- i will post those when kaylee emails them to me! :)


Basketball game Friday night

I started reading New Moon on the way to dinner.. Kelly was very concerned when he heard me sniffing, until he realized that the tears were from me reading the book. "Are you crying?!" So needless to say I had to power through the rest of the book by Saturday evening so I could find out exactly what happened.

Saturday we had family pictures. We took them with Jeremy
We were supposed to be there at 2pm, we ended up finishing at about 4.. I know we are just so fun he didn't want us to leave!






He is so good! I love how artistic his style is!



Taking a break for football


Phat tire bike shop in bentonville kept us entertained for a bit!

 
So did RockBand..


After modeling for 2 hours we were starving so we went to Bobby's favorite place for dinner...







I love Whole Hog too though, so it is not like it is much of a struggle! I went home a finished New moon, and I was a little stressed out that I would have all of sunday with out my next book, until Kaylee told me about midnight sun, edwards version. So I googled and found it and it has held me over until today when Kerri could deliver Eclipse!