The Nifty Foodie's Life

• This woman is amazing. AMAZING. Enough is enough….obese people are people too. We’re definitely more than a number on the scale.

• I really want to make these hats for a couple of holiday gifts. Problem is, I knit. I have no idea how to crochet. Any crochet-ers want to chime in and let me know if this is a feasible project for a beginner or am I absolutely NUTS? It won’t hurt my feelings if you tell me I’m crazy.

• I went for a run last week (I haven’t run since, because the weather change made me pretty darn sick…ugh), and the weather was much less humid than usual, so I just jogged at the pace that felt right without staring at the RunKeeper app. Three minutes later, I looked at my pace and it said 12 minutes/mile. The minute I saw that, I got super excited. Then, my mind got to me and I felt tired and had to slow down…I shouldn’t have even looked at the app. 12 min/mile is a CRAZY pace for me. It makes me excited to see how my pace will improve with the weather feeling cooler and cooler.

• Wholly Guacamole sent me a prize pack of their products last weekend (lucky me!), and now, my latest snack addiction are these. I need to find a healthier dipper option besides tortilla chips, though. 140 calories for 7 chips? UGH. It really makes me wonder how many calories I used to consume in a tex-mex restaurant when they’d bring out basket after basket of chips.

• I’m so glad that Pumpkin Spice Fraps are back. The light version (grande size) is less than 200 calories, and I only get one when I go grocery shopping at Target. It makes that annoying errand (moreso because of rude shoppers) a little more pleasant.

• We decorated our house for Halloween two weekends ago, and when I went to take out the fall wreath, I was super bummed to find out that most of the decor fell off of the wreath. NOTHING bums me out more when I have to make a trip to Michaels (ha!). I think the wreath looks adorable now…I wanted to go for a more rustic/nature feel with this one.

• I FINALLY finished a quilt…this quilt. I can’t wait to give it to the person I made it for. I think between the wreath and the quilt, I got the craft bug back. Since it’s the fall, though, I couldn’t help but fork out the knitting needles.

• I have a slight problem with lip gloss. I probably have about 5-6 lip glosses in my purse, and probably 10 more in my make-up organizer. It’s a bit crazy, but I love gloss much more than lipstick. I recently bought this lip gloss (Buxom is seriously my favorite brand of gloss, y’all) in Clair. Yeah, it’s crazy sparkly in the tube, but on my lips, it looks fab. I don’t look like I made out with a jar of glitter, I swear.  Please don’t tell me I’m alone here…there has to be other lip gloss lovers, right?!

• Ok, so this is something silly about dogs. Do you ever do work-outs at home with your dog right there? My dog will just sit and chill for most of the work-outs until it’s floor exercise time. The minute my back hits the ground, Millie will run to me, get in my face and lick me like crazy. Does your dog do this? It’s adorable, but dangit, how am I supposed to do a crunch like that?!

• So, this stuff is addictive. I’ve seen is all around the food blogs, and thought that perhaps Biscoff was just paying a bunch of bloggers to say nice things about their cookie butter. I decided to buy a jar and try a spoonful. OMG…don’t buy this if you’re on a diet y’all. It’s just so good. SO good. I prefer the crunchy (with cookie bits)  over the creamy, personally. They sell it at World Market, in case you’re curious. 

• Supposedly, New Orleans is having some unseasonably impossible weather. Chance of snow in JUNE? Womp wah..

  

• So, I took Millie to the groomer last week. I got her pretty shaved down for the summer, but I kept her tail long (typical Border Collie grooming, I think). This is the first time a groomer has ever put fuzzy PONYTAIL HOLDERS on my dog’s tail. Do you guys remember those things from childhood? So hilarious…I had to take those things off since Millie was biting at them. She looked so 80s. (Don’t mind the vacuum cord in the background there…)

• Does anyone love Figment as much as I do? When I was super young, my parents brought the family to Disney World, and they took video. I was infatuated with Figment apparently. My grandma even told me I used to cuddle with a stuffed Figment all the time. So, when my good friend went to Disney, she got me this. How thoughtful is that? IMAAAAAAAAAAGINATIONNN!

• This weekend is going to be one of those weekends where I hope to pass time, because I’m secretly jealous. BlogHer Food is this weekend. Couldn’t go last year, because my little sister was graduating that weekend, and this year, well…Seattle is just way too far. Please BlogHer Food planners, have BlogHer Food in the South again next year?

I feel like I have a ton of things to post about. This year is just flying by…wasn’t I just drinking a bottle of wine out of a plastic cup (so fancy) to welcome the new year?!

• It’s snowball season, y’all. A snowball is basically super finely shaved ice coated with flavored syrups. My favorite flavors are nectar (tastes like cream soda) and wedding cake. A new place opened near our house, and oh man, I’ve been visiting that stand way too much! It’s just so dang tasty. If you’re ever in New Orleans during the Spring/Summer, I highly encourage you to try one of these babies.

• Before Easter, I crossed off a major craft to-do. Two years ago, I bought a bunch of Spring colored felt to make into a gorgeous ruffle wreath. They were pretty popular around the bloggy world back then, and I finally found time to make one. It’s on our mantel now, and I absolutely love it! It was a bit time consuming to cut out all of those felt circles, though. I actually think this will go on the craft room door once Spring is over. I just can’t put it away!

• These border collie magnets just kill me. They basically describe Millie perfectly. I’d buy them, but I can’t justify spending $20 on four magnets.

• This mixer makes me want to open a bakery or feed a crowd with nothing but cookies and cakes. While I really only need a mixer that big for the holidays (hello bake-palooza), I think if I magically came across $550, I’d run to Williams-Sonoma and snatch it up.

• I’m pretty sure I’m about to give up caffeine again. I really hate that my body is SO dependent on it, so I’m going to go off of it cold turkey. I love you, Advil.

• I’m really sad that strawberry season is over out here. See ya next year, strawberries!

• I STILL haven’t gotten my 5% lost pedicure. There’s just not enough time in a weekend, y’all. As far as weight loss is concerned, things have stalled a bit for me. What? I’m human…it happens. I’m still 19 lbs. down, so it’s not like I completely messed things up. I’m going to get back on track next week, and this time, my diet is going to be a good bit more strict. I’m pretty stoked about it, actually. I love seeing results!

• H and I are about to celebrate our 3rd anniversary. Huh? Didn’t we just get married last month? I can’t believe it’s been 3 years already!

• I got accepted into a campaign for Essie nail polish on Klout. I feel like I sort of sneaked in on that perk…I’m SO not a beauty blogger. I actually have a make-up post in the works, but I feel like make-up/fashion is a subject I just can’t write well about…I just stink at it. In fact, I always criticize the way I do my make-up, and wish I had half the talent some of those YouTube gurus have.

• Also, thank you Kate Spade. Your sample sale didn’t tempt me this time around.

• I have a weird self-conscious confession. I really want to go to a local running store to get fitted properly for a pair of shoes, but at my weight, I’m afraid of getting stares in a store where mostly fit people go. I know you’re thinking…shut up, stupid, things will be fine, but I’m very self-conscious. Ugh. Now, I did just buy a nice pair of Saucony shoes on RueLaLa, but I’m wondering if there’s a better shoe out there since I tend to walk on the outside of my feet (if that makes sense) looking at the way my shoes wear out.

• On a rare make-up note, I finally found some lip butters at the Walgreens near my house. Since I’ve been reading raving reviews about “The Balm” on various blogs, I bought two of them, one in pink satin and one in nourishing nude. Since I don’t like too much color on my lips, I absolutely LOVE these lip butters. LOVE. I also saw Revlon’s Lip Butters at the store, but I’m waiting for them to go on sale. L’Oreal’s were BOGO 50% off this week, so that’s why it was easy to take the plunge and buy two. (cheap cheap)

• My husband decided to start calorie counting with me this week. Things are going a lot better for me since he’s also on board. There’s no junk in our house anymore, and so far this week, I’ve cooked every night. Wanna be jealous? Two days after starting calorie counting, the husband lost 2 lbs. Lucky duck.

• I’m super stoked that JoAnn’s is finally opening a store in Baton Rouge. Since we moved to the other side of town, it takes me a good 20 minutes to get to the nearest craft store. When JoAnn’s opens, they will be 10 minutes away from our house and also easily convenient to go to on the way home from work. This is awesome and bad.

• We’re getting a tax refund this year, and I secretly just want to splurge it. However, since I’m an adult (or something like that), the only responsible thing to do is to throw it in the ol’ savings account. ::sigh::

• Since the other house sold, we’re slowly starting to work on projects we want to do with our current house. We’re getting gutters on Friday, and also hired a contractor to vent our kitchen outside. Since our kitchen is against the brick outside, this should be seamless/easy. A couple of small changes, but all awesome! There’s also a couple more projects in the works, but they aren’t anything major. Since our house is only 5 years old, so there really isn’t much to do.

• I’d currently like to eat a pint of cake batter ice cream. I won’t buy it, but a girl can dream, right?

• Just to note: I’m attempting NaBloPoMo again this year, since last year was so fun. I loved how it motivated me to share more on the blog, and I hope that I can do it this year! With the new house and holidays approaching again, I’m sure I have a ton to blog about! If you want to sign up for it, the site has changed over to BlogHer’s site and you can sign up there.

• We held a crap dump garage sale on Saturday. I had to laugh when one of my friends mentioned to me that we have a lot of garage sales. Totally didn’t realize that, but we usually have 2 per year. We really buy too much junk and need to seriously get a handle on that. My brain fart of the week is that in ALL of the ads that we posted/paid for, the date said Saturday, August 29th. And before you ask, yes, I had people proof it…guess we’re all having brain farts. Fortunately, I was able to correct 2 of the ads. It seemed like people who read the newspaper classifieds translated August 29th to October 29th, though.
  

• As you might already know, our old house is for sale. We’re trying the for sale by owner route to save 6%. Some of you may think we’re cheap, but 6% of our asking price is about $8400. That’s a lot of moolah, y’all! So, fingers crossed that this house sells. We’ve gotten quite a few calls and have done one showing so far. I’d love to have this house sold by Christmas, but I’m sure not many families house hunt during the holiday season.

• I’m back on the weight loss wagon. I’ve been counting calories for 2 weeks, and I’m starting C25K this week (tomorrow actually). The number on the scale made me cry two weeks ago, and I never want to see that number again. EVER. I’ll eventually share it with you guys, but it’s really embarrassing.

• The new house is ::almost:: unpacked. There’s just a bunch of little things now, so we’re in the home stretch, for sure! Unbelievably, our house warming party is this weekend (time flies!) so the boxes need to be gone by then. Can’t wait for our families/friends to see the new digs.