Azlynn pictures

This lovely little lady is the daughter of a friend of mine. She is getting baptized and her mom wanted pictures with her white dress. We went to a beautiful orchard near my house and these are some of my favorite pictures (it was really hard to narrow it down!)


She was so much fun and such a little actress!




I put together this announcement for the baptism and I love it very much.
Thanks Aleah and Azlynn - you guys are seriously awesome!

Fruity Berry Salad

This is a copycat of my favorite salad at Zuppas - their Nuts About Berries salad. You will need:

Mixed greens
1 cup berries (strawberries, blueberries, blackberries)
Cinnamon almonds
Poppyseed dressing - there are lots of bottled varieties at the store to choose from
If it's not filling enough, I bet it would be good with some diced chicken.

To make the cinnamon almonds, put a handful of slivered almonds into a sautée pan. Add a tbsp of sugar, a shake if cinnamon and turn on the heat. Toss everything around until the sugar melts over the almonds. Don't let it caramelize too much and turn dark! Dump out on a plate to cool, break into smaller bits and you're done.

Week o' salads - part III

I can't remember having a bottle of salad dressing in the house when I was growing up. No matter what mix of vegetables we had in a salad, my mom would dress it the same way - a dash of salt and pepper, a drizzle of good olive oil and a few shakes of red wine vinegar. If we wanted to get really fancy we would add a bit of garlic powder or even a fancy vinegar (pomegranate red wine is excellent!) So it's weird to me when people live and die by their Ranch dressing - it's just not something I ever got into.

While similar to my Papa's garden salad from yesterday, this one has a little protein to make it filling. Substitute the tuna for chicken if you like. My favorite is the vacuum packed albacore tuna.


Fresh Salad with Tuna
Mixed greens
1 chopped red bell pepper
1 three-oz. package of water-packed tuna. If you accidentally get the oil-packed tuna (and I have), put it in a strainer and rinse it off for a while to get rid of most of the oil.
Drizzle of good-quality olive oil (about a tbsp)
Red wine vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste

Papa's Garden Salad

This salad is a great side dish - a winner if it's served along with a fancy pasta dinner or at a casual BBQ. While you get get tomatoes from the store, nothing is better than garden-fresh. Grape tomatoes are my favorite.

I posted the recipe last summer.

Some salads to try

Since I've started running, I've also been watching what I eat pretty carefully. Thankfully it is summer and there is an abundance of fresh fruits and veggies. And because it's hot outside, salads sound refreshing and yummy. I'm kind of afraid of winter and the surplus of thick soups, warm breads and holiday treats.

Sadly, restaurant and fast-food salads are tricky. Cheese, nuts, meats and dressings sneak in extra fat and calories that you don't need while you think you're being healthy. For example, a Cafe Rio pork salad packs in a whopping 800 calories! So I eat a lot of salad at home. Also I always have the dressing on the side where I can dip the lettuce into it, instead of pouring it over the entire salad. I find I only use about 2 tbsp of dressing with this technique.

So this week I'll share some of my favorite salads I've had this summer. They have been yummy and satisfying. Feel free to share your own!

Mango Chicken Salad

Mixed greens (romaine, spinach or any blend you like)
1/2 cooked, diced chicken breast
1 diced mango
1/2 cup berries (blueberries and raspberries are good)

Dressing:
1 large ripe mango, peeled, pitted, and roughly chopped (or 1 1/4 cups frozen mango cubes, thawed)
4 teaspoons nonfat plain yogurt
3 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Puree in blender until combined - store in fridge.

Shoe exchange

Wednesday I ran with my new shoes and by the next morning one of my ankles and legs hurt. I was so sad! I wore one old Nike and one new shoe around half the morning (prompting numerous 'helpful' comments from my kids) trying to pinpoint the difference. I also talked to Jenny about it multiple times but as she's 112 weeks pregnant and trying to will herself into labor, I'm sure she graciously wished I would fall off a cliff. Pray for her.

Finally I decided that the arch support was higher in my old shoe than the new one. The lack of support was making the arch in my foot stretch out too much and the muscles hurt all over. So I took the shoes back to 26.2 and they secured their place as my Most Favorite Running Store by exchanging the shoes and going through the whole fitting process over again.

Minnie is happy that I finally got my head on straight and picked pink shoes.

Green Chili Chicken Salad

For dinner last night I tried this recipe - a copycat of my favorite Bajio salad. It turned out really nicely and we all loved it. Although I cheated and didn't make the dressing. I just went to Bajio for chips and salsa and asked them for a few cups of dressing. I don't use a lot of dressing on any salad (that's where the sneaky calories hide) and the chili chutney was plenty of flavor so unless you're really craving the dressing, I think the salad can stand alone.

Now, let me go ahead and put this out there so you can all laugh at me and then Learn From My Mistake. This recipe uses jalapeno peppers and the ones from my garden were hotter than the fires of Hades. Which was kind of a surprise because last year they were as mild as a bell pepper. So I didn't put on the nitrile gloves that I keep in the kitchen for this express purpose. And what with the peppers and onions and all, my eyes were watering and I picked up a tissue to wipe my nose.

I'm sure you can fill in the blanks from there. It wasn't the best part of my day. And here's the lesson you're learning:

Skip the traditional home remedies. Unless you want to spend many uncomfortable minutes with a stick of butter and a popsicle** up your nose, searching the internet and reading about other people who have somehow gotten the pepper oils on their naughty bits and then chosen to share that information with potentially thousands of strangers. If that sounds like a poor option to you, just go straight to Plan B and get the thing that works.

WaterJel Burn Gel.

Joe used to keep it with his tools for the occasional muffler or hot-engine burn. Personally I think every kitchen needs a bottle of it too. Because at some point you're going to brush up against a cookie sheet or grab a too-hot handle or an extra-springy oven door is going to snap closed on your arm (don't laugh, it happened!) and then you will thank me.




**In a pinch, the popsicle will probably feel pretty good until you can remember where you keep the burn gel.

New shoes!

After running on Monday, my knees and ankles really felt like they had taken a beating. I've been considering new shoes for a while because my beloved Nikes have a lot of miles on them. I tried new insoles and it just wasn't cutting it.

So I went to 26.2 because they are my new favorite store for running shoes. The employees there have always been so nice and helpful. And they actually know what they are talking about which is a big change from shopping at Buy n' Large. My favorite thing is that they have a treadmill in the store and they will do a video analysis of your feet as you run (so bring socks and maybe your old shoes to run in.) They can decide what type of shoe you need based on the video of your gait. I didn't know this but I overpronate when I run, which basically means that your ankle rolls towards the inside edge. You can get a shoe that offers more stability to help support your ankles.
And I got these. Cute yes? Lisa loves them because they are shiny but has asked at least 28 times why I didn't choose pink.

I also appreciated the patience of the salesperson because it is pretty hard for me to find shoes that fit me the way I like. I think whoever determined my adult proportions had a weird sense of humor. My feet and toes are really long which I hate because it translates into a bigger shoe size. And they're really narrow which I hate because almost every pair of shoes is too wide and I feel like my fit slip from side-to-side in them. The poor salesguy brought lots and lots of shoes for me to try on before we found one that was not only narrow enough, but was the right type of stabilizing shoe. I'm sure he was wishing that a more normal person would walk in and demand his attention. But he was very patient and helpful.

THEN they will let you run on the treadmill some more and look at the video of your feet again to see if the shoe is doing what it promised to do! So yeah, this store is pretty much my favorite. And I'm excited to try out my new shoes.

Oh yes, I did 3.11 miles on Monday in 32 minutes, 13 seconds. That is a good time but I still need to shave off 2 minutes before the Labor Day 5K. I like to have goals.

I did it!

I signed up for a 5K. It's not until September and Joe is running the half-marathon the same day. My goal is to run it in 30 minutes.

There's a local 5K in August that we both ran last year. I should probably sign up. We'll see. Oh and if you're following my progress, I've lost 15 entire pounds!

Oh baby!

We had a lovely baby shower for my friend Jenny on Saturday. She has a little boy due in the next week or so. If you are a Regency-era literary type, you will appreciate the invite I did for her.

I wanted to do a table centerpiece and my daughter thought the phrase 'diaper cake' was the funniest thing she'd ever heard. Once I showed her how it was assembled, she warmed up to the idea. She even rolled up all the diapers for me! I just had to secure them (I used clear elastic bands) and then tie the ribbons and add the decorations. So I definitely recommend finding yourself a little moppet-helper before taking on this project.

Also I recommend the Luvs or ShopKo brand diapers because they are mostly white and you don't have the silly characters all over your pretty cake. Unless you are into that sort of thing. Also, now that I think about it Jenny, you should take that green ribbon-bow with the flower from the top tier and make it into a barrette or headband for Savvy. Hot glue the white flower on so it's more secure before you do it.

New camera

My beloved Canon Powershot finally freaked out and died. I loved that camera. It was the perfect size, took videos and lasted for years (we got it when Lisa was a newborn.) Finally though, I had to accept the fact that it was having problems. It only took pictures occasionally, the videos would flicker and dis-color and sometimes the lens didn't see anything at all. It was the camera-equivalent of a very old, half-blind, cantankerous person.

pic borrowed from blurbuger.com

After making the decision to retire the old PowerShot, the obvious decision was to replace it with a newer version of the same camera. So here it is. Our happy new camera that isn't quite as nice as the old one, but smaller and I think I'll carry it with me more often. And if I take moree pictures I might update my family blog more often. We'll see...