The winner for the CSN Stores $35 giveaway is….
#19
Congrats Nicole! Email me for your gift certificate code.
Thanks everyone for all your kitchen advice. The majority seems to think that we should close the pass through, which we agree with. It’s hard to tell from the pictures that I posted, but our kitchen has two entrances so I don’t think that closing the pass through will close off the room.
Posted in Uncategorized
My google reader used to always be 1000+ and while I managed to keep up with my favorite blogs, some others that I also liked would inevitably get skipped. Recently, I decided to go about my blog reading in a different way. First I organized all the blogs I read into the following categories:
• artsy
• Atlanta bloggers
• favorites
• food blogs
• running blogs
• randoms
Then I started taking advantage of the mark all as read button. If my reader gets to 100+, I just mark all as read. Sure, I might miss a post or two from some of my favorites, but this really gives me more variety. The next time I open my reader, there might only be five new posts, so I’ll read those which might be a blog that I might have skipped before.
How do you go about your blog reading?
This is your last chance to enter my CSN Stores Giveaway.
Posted in Uncategorized
It’s that time again. It’s time to start training for my next half-marathon, the Publix Georgia Half-Marathon on March 20th. I’ve had success with Hal Higdon’s training plans, but the intermediate plan has you running five days a week and that’ s little too much running for me. So I decided to do the Runner’s World Smart Coach plan instead. This is three days of running in the beginning weeks and then four towards the end. Much better.
Today’s workout was a 5-mile tempo run. I did it on the treadmill after work. I ran the warm up at 5.5 mph, the 3 mile tempo portion at 6.0 and the cool down at 5.5 again. I actually don’t mind tempo runs because they allow me to trick myself. When I go to the gym straight after work, it’s always too crowded to stay on treadmill the entire time. They have signs posted declaring a 20 minute time limit which everyone pretty much ignores. I do too, but I do try to limit my time on the machine to 30 minutes. So, I tell myself that I only have to run 3 miles and then 2. Then, I tell myself that the warm up mile doesn’t count, so I only have to run two miles. When I get back on the ‘mill the second time, I tell myself that I’m really only running a mile, since the last mile doesn’t count.
I know it seems silly that I sign up for all these races and I’m constantly tricking myself into thinking that I’m not running as much as I am, but it just works for me!
When, I got home, I was really happy to see the crockpot on the counter.
And even happier to see that Jason had filled it up and dinner was going to be ready in 20 minutes. After quickly hopping in the shower, I found Vegetarian Crock Pot Enchiladas waiting for me.
This was more of a tostada pie than an enchilada, but it still tasted good and was very filling. I love it when I get home and have a meal waiting for me, courtesy of the crock pot or Jason. Or in this case, both.
This is only the second or third time that we’ve used the crockpot. It was a wedding gift. It’s funny to see what appliances you use and which ones you don’t since when you get married, you suddenly become the owner of every kitchen appliance known to man. I’d say that I use my Zojirushi Rice Cooker the most (oddly enough) and my Juicer the least. What can I say? It’s a pain to clean.
Don’t forget about my giveaway.
Posted in Races, Recipe, Running, Vegetarian Meal
Even though we bought our house almost seven months ago, I haven’t put many pictures of it on the blog. The truth is, it needs a lot of work. Nothing big, no gutting of rooms or anything, but little things like new paint, new lighting, etc.
Room by room, we’re getting things done, slowly but surely. First things first, the dining room. When we first moved in, there was no overhead light at all. There were literally wires hanging from the ceiling. Jason eventually put in a ceiling light.
Better than the wires, but not attractive at all, nor did it provide much light. Isn’t this much better?
Yes, I think it is. I got this chandelier from CSN stores after I won a giveaway. (I think you see where this is heading!) The chandelier makes the room look so much more put together, doesn’t it? We also put wooden blinds in the big window which also made a huge difference.
Next order of business is the kitchen. Our kitchen is pretty big, but it has some…issues, if you will.
My biggest gripe is that we have ONE set of cabinets. ONE! Fortunately, we have a lot of storage space under the counters, but the one cabinet thing is ridiculous. We want to put in more on the right side, where there are currently shelves.
The other side of the kitchen has the stove and the fridge and a dog in the corner. According to my mother, the kitchen is set up wrong and the stove shouldn’t be over there, but let’s not talk about that. What I want to talk about is that pass through. When you first see it, it’s kind of cool, right? But after a while, we realized that it’s really not appropriate for where it is. A pass through shouldn’t be behind the oven. If any grease comes through the hole, it’ll go onto our tv which is on the other side. Plus, there is a weird glare if you are in the living room, actually watching the tv. I’m kind of at a loss for what to do. I guess that’s the next project.
Oh, you were waiting for the giveaway? Silly me, I thought you wanted to see my messy kitchen!
CSN Stores has generously offered to give an In My Tummy reader a $35 gift certificate to any of their sites. Whether you are into modern furniture, like we are, or cooking gadgets or even pet products, CSN Stores has something for you.
So, here’s what you do. Click on the link above and leave me a comment telling me what you’d most like if you won the giveaway. For a second entry, leave another comment telling me what you’d do with my kitchen and if you’d close up the pass through.
The gift certificate does not cover shipping costs but can be used on any of the CSN store pages. I will pick a winner on Thursday morning at 8 am. Good luck!
Posted in Our House, Uncategorized
It was a White Christmas here in Atlanta. First time since the 1940′s! (I heard that somewhere, but Jason said it was the first time since the 1800′s!) Now, I know that my Northern friends are going to laugh at our “snow,” but keep in mind that I do live in Georgia! I’m kind of laughing at it myself, being that I lived in Vermont for four years.
Fortunately, the roads weren’t bad and I was able to celebrate Jewish Christmas.
You better believe there was also Chinese food involved, although I didn’t take a picture. My friend Danny was an honorary Jew for the night, as he was in town, and we went to see The Fighter and then for Chinese. Christmas can be sort of lonely when you are Jewish and your family is far away (and your husband is working) so I was glad that I had a friend to hang out with. This was actually the third movie that I’ve seen this weekend. I also saw Black Swan and Inception (on dvd).
Although I’m sad that the 4-day weekend is ending, I am pretty excited because my friend Mariam and her husband are coming to visit next week for New Years. They live in London. Mariam and I went to high school together and I think we haven’t seen each other in about eight years. They had to reschedule their flight, I think due to snow, so I’m not exactly sure when they’re arriving, but in any case, I’m excited about it.
I didn’t work out yesterday. I briefly thought about going for a run outside, but since I have absolutely no experience running in snow, I scrapped that idea. At least, that’s what I told myself! Today, however, I got my butt to the gym and did a 3 mile run on the treadmill.
Like I said last week, I’ve been trying to run faster. It’s so easy to run at a comfortable pace (which for me is about 10:20) but I’m trying to save that for my long runs. Today, I ran the first mile at 10 and then the second two at 9:40 and you know what? It was fine! Sure, I felt like I was running a little faster than normal, but I didn’t feel like I needed to stop or slow the pace down. It might have helped that I had a new playlist on my ipod. I decided to make a playlist called “College Faves”. The playlist included:
• Dave Matthews Band
• Ben Harper
• The Samples
• Guster
• Rusted Root
• Phish
I might have been a bit of a hippie back in my college days. Want proof?
This was actually the summer before Freshman year of college, but my stylish ways remained the same all four years. What was I thinking? And why didn’t I tame my eyebrows?!
Posted in Friends, Running, Uncategorized
Since Jason had to work today, we celebrated Christmas last night. We sat by our fireplace and drank hot chocolate.
That’s not just any hot chocolate though. There’s a secret in the whipped cream.
Alcohol infused whipped cream! One of my co-workers had talked about this a lot, so we stopped by the liquor store and bought a can. It had a different consistency than regular whipped cream. I don’t know how to describe it. I also thought that it had a very strong alcohol taste. I wouldn’t buy this again, but it was sort of a fun novelty.
My stepmother sent us some gifts so we’d have something to open on Christmas, being that they gave us our Hanukkah gift when we were in DC for Thanksgiving.
(I look like I’m about 12 years old in that picture.)
I had to explain to Murphy that the blanket wasn’t a chew toy.
Jason also opened a gift.
And Murphy destroyed his.
Happy Holidays!
Posted in Family, Murphy, Uncategorized
Today has been fairly productive, considering it’s Christmas Eve. We managed to take Murphy for an hour walk, go the gym, have lunch, go to Publix and go to Pet Supermarket all before 3 pm. I had suddenly realized this morning that we hadn’t gotten Murphy a Christmas present and felt like a horrible dog mother. Obviously, that had to be remedied, hence the Pet Supermarket trip. He has to wait until tomorrow to open his gifts though.
Since we are in town for the holidays, we’ve been doing a lot of home improvement projects. Okay, if I’m being honest, Jason has been doing a lot of home improvement projects. He also built our first fire in our house and didn’t burn the house down!
I’m impressed. I grew up in a condo and while we did have a fireplace, we never used it. I think my mom was scared of it, as I would be too.
While Jason made the fire, I cooked a nice Christmas Eve dinner.
I think soup is probably my favorite thing to eat, especially in the winter. But I never think to serve it with something else. At least not until tonight.
This was Low-Fat Spinach and Artichoke soup that Tracy posted. This is a Souper Jenny recipe which is one of my favorite restaurants in Atlanta. I used to work near there and we used to go a few times a week. I think I might need to buy this cookbook. Jenny knows her soups. Thanks for the recipe, Tracy!
My salad also came from a blog. This is Quinoa with Roasted Veggie Salad from Green Plate Dinners. It was also delicious.
Now, I’m stuffed. Adding a salad to the soup, especially a grain-based one, really makes a filling meal.
Do you buy your pets Christmas presents?
Posted in Recipe, Vegetarian Meal
If you follow me on Twitter, you might have seen this tweet this morning.
I am lucky enough to have both today and tomorrow off, so I figured I’d be productive and get something done that I’ve put off for almost six months. Any guesses to why I’d be at the Social Security Office and then at the DMV? Yup, I finally changed my name.
I’ve been going by my new last name since we got married in June, but officially, I still had my last name. This caused some major confusion when I started my new job, because not only did I have a different last name on my paperwork than they knew me by, but I also had a different first name since Lee is a nickname. The HR person isn’t in our Atlanta office so she’s never actually met me and she was seriously confused.
The whole process took about two hours which wasn’t so bad. It helped that the DMV was like five miles down the road from the SS office. My old last name is now my middle name.
If you are married, did you change your name? If so, did you keep your middle name or did your maiden name become your middle name? If you aren’t married, what would you do?
Posted in Uncategorized
January:
I got a dSLR camera and took a million pictures of Murphy. This continued through the year.
We sent our our save the dates which I designed.
February:
It snowed! This was a big deal in Atlanta.
March:
Jason and I went to see Spring Awakening at the Fox Theater.
I ran the ING Georgia Half Marathon (my 6th half)
April:
I went to DC for our wedding tasting. It tasted good.
I turned 32. How did that happen? I still feel 22 (and act like it as evidenced by the 40 in my hands. Which was just for show, by the way.)
May:
We bought our first house!
I went to a Braves game.
June:
My stepmother threw a bridal shower for me.
I had a bachelorette party. Look closely at the straw.
Jason and I got married!
July:
Jason and I ran the Peachtree Road Race. It was my 5th time running it.
We went to Maui for our honeymoon.
Our favorite day was when we woke up at 2 am to drive to the top of a volcano and biked back down.
August:
Apparently, nothing of interest happened in August because I have like no pictures.
September:
We had a housewarming/Jason’s 30th birthday party! Yes, I’m older than he is.
October:
Not much here either! I did run another half marathon but I don’t have any photographic evidence!
November:
Jason and I went to Asheville, NC which was awesome.
Had Thanksgiving dinner at my dad and stepmom’s house in MD.
And then to my mom’s five minutes down the road.
December:
Had an early Christmas weekend with Jason’s parents in SC.
There was a lunar eclipse which I slept right through but Jason got an awesome picture of.
Okay, that was way too many pictures of myself, I know. I told you I had writer’s block.
Posted in Uncategorized
Dinner tonight was a no-brainer. Leftovers on Christmas colored flatware.
With last night’s soup, I also made some brussels sprouts. I used to hate brussels sprouts and I think it’s because the only way I’d had them was steamed or boiled. Sauteed or roasted is the way to go. I cut these in half and tossed them in some grapeseed oil and salt and pepper. Then I sauteed them for about 7 minutes and mixed them with some parmesan cheese and chopped olives. The olives were an afterthought; I had them leftover in the fridge from the soup and thought why not? It worked. We also had some un-picutred homemade hummus with triscuts.
I decided to work out at lunch today instead of after work so I could spend some time with Jason. The gym was extremely crowded for lunch time. Who are all these people that get the entire week off and why can’t I be one of them?
Sometimes when I see people on cardio machines talking on their phones, I think that person isn’t working out hard enough, if they can talk on the phone, they are wasting their* time. And then it suddenly occurred to me; I’m not working out hard enough! Sure, I run and I probably can’t talk on the phone while I do it, but I’m really not pushing myself as hard as I should be. I go to the gym regularly but I never seem to achieve the results that I want. Sitting in my sweatpants on the couch should be comfortable but working out shouldn’t be. I’ve been running at the same speed for years and for one reason. Because I’ve been running at the same speed for years! I guess I thought that I would naturally get faster. I thought that what was once almost a sprint would become a casual jog. But what I’ve realized is it doesn’t work that way unless you make it work that way.
My 10K PR is 58:42, (oddly enough, it’s double my 5K PR to the second) which translates to roughly a 9:30 mile. If I can keep up that pace for 6 miles, why am I running 2-mile training runs at 5.8mph, almost a full minute per mile slower for a run that’s a third of the distance?! Because I’m comfortable running at that pace. But if I want to get faster, which I do, I have to run faster. I sometimes repeat that over and over in my head while I’m running.
I’m not a morning exerciser. I’ve tried it before. I even went to a 6:30 am bootcamp for four months last year. But working out in the morning is just not my style. I prefer to go after work. But sometimes life gets in the way. I’ll try to fit in a workout where I can, which is usually at lunchtime. It takes me 10 minutes to get the gym and another five to change, double that and add an additional 5 for a shower and I only have 25 minutes to work out. Not a long time. So, what I really need to do is maximize those 25 minutes. Otherwise, I think it’s sort of a waste. I’m just wasting my time and my energy. Long runs are different. Long runs are slow, but short runs don’t have to be.
I don’t know why I didn’t realize this years ago when I first started working out regularly. I guess the simple act of working out, or in my case running, was enough. And for beginners, it absolutely is. But my body is used to this. I need to up the intensity. Unfortunately, upping the intensity is not fun. But hey, it’s only 25 minutes, right? I just need to remind myself of that the next time I try to jog.
*Also, I know it’s incorrect to say “their.” I don’t care!
Posted in Running
 | |
 | |
|
Bad Behavior has blocked 2412 access attempts in the last 7 days.
