There's no place like home....

OMG, y'all! Only in New Orleans. Sometimes I miss it so much...

Posted by Lenny himself on his twitter.

(I'm such a nerd.) ♥

Pedal for your fruit

Hi peeps! I saw something cool at the farmer's market this weekend and thought I'd share. Sorry about the camera-phone photo quality.

Is that a blender on your bike?

Yesiree, That's a blend your smoothie on a bike machine! 50 cents off if you hop on and blend your own. I had to work this weekend, so it was a very focused trip through the market, but I think i may partake next weekend. Mango tango anyone? With a side of exercise?

What do you think?

If I were a smurf, my name would be Sleepy.

Ahhhhh, sleep. So peaceful, quiet, cozy. I am really good at sleeping. If sleeping was a job, I'd be a millionaire. Then I'd retire and do it for free.

I'd like to introduce you to a video analogy of my waking up routine every morning.

Sleepy Bear = Bam ~6AM every morning

I continue on in this manner for about an hour after the caffeinated beverage of choice has worked its way into my bloodstream, and unfortunately, this condition can last much longer if I have gotten less than a full eight.

I ran once this week, the day I lost my rings. It's so disappointing (the lack of exercise, not the rings), and I don't really have a good excuse. I'm not a die-hard exercise fan, I'd rather not do it if I didn't have to , but I definitely feel better when I manage to exercise regularly. It's something I need to make a bigger priority.

Where am I going with all this? My husband's solution is for us to wake up an hour earlier to go running or go to the gym. Help!

2010 Summer reading list

1. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet- I started this a while ago, got a little bit into it then left off. It's long. I need to finish it. Plus my favorite book of all time is Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. I like epic.

2. The Omnivore's Dilemna by Michael Pollan- because I like food, and growing things in my garden. My husband has been reading this for the past year. I'm the reader in the family.

3. Watership Down by Richard Adams. My husband told me that this was his favorite book that he can remember reading and I've never read it.

4. The Help by Kathyrn Stockett- Because several people when they find out I'm from the South have told me to read this. I'll let you know.

What's on your reading list?

P.S. Remember when The Babysitter's Club was your summer reading list? I wanted to be in that club.

Why summer is my favorite

In no particular order:

1. Pools (not mine, wish it was...)

2. Frozen drinks

3. Farmer's markets and fresh foods

4. Daylight

5. Weekend trips

6. Birthdays! (my favorite birthday candle ever! May have possibly been a road flare.)

Only thing I don't like:

The air is heavy, thick, and hot. Feels like 105 degrees. Feels like I'm back in Lousiana.

Passez un bon été

Hyperventilation. Tears. Fun times.

I am a dillhole. I lost my ring at the gym. Yesterday, I tried to enjoy some of the amazingly hot weather and I went to the gym to run on the treadmill. After, I took a quick shower and changed into my bathing suit to lay out by the pool. I took my rings off to put sunblock on my face, then went out to the pool. My friend came to join me ten minutes later, which apparently is exactly when the gym closed. So we packed up our stuff, went home and made plans for her to come over to dinner. Five minutes later I realize I don't have my rings and run up and down the stairs in a HYPERVENTILATING panic until I realize they are at the gym. Which is closed. And we saw the cleaning crew there. So I drive to the gym, tear into the front door straight to the women's locker room and run to where I left my rings...

They are not there.

The cleaning lady in the locker room, looks at me, and says "Oooooooooh, was that your ring?"

Yes, that's why I am a hot sweaty mess, near tears, standing in the gym locker room, twenty minutes after it closed. I nod. She tells me she found them, took them to the manager who would keep them in the safe. Her name is Molly and I gave her a hug.

So I call this morning at 6:30AM and tell the story to the manager who says "hold on", comes back 5 minutes later and tells me it's not in the safe and he has to "investigate" what happened.

Omigod i can't even take it.

He calls back and says "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but no one has any idea what you are talking about."

My response: "Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa? Are you serious?"

His response: "Just kidding! The night manager has it. Her name is Asia, she'll be here at 5."

So I found Asia and picked up my rings after work. She got a hug too. I still felt like a dillhole, albeit a relieved one. And I'll never take my rings off in public again.

Strawberry-rhubarb tart

Hey y'all, back with part two of my tart story. Pie crust story here. So after eating the original batch of strawberries fresh from our garden that inspired the idea, I went out and bought strawberries and rhubarb from the store. Because. I. had. to. make. this. pie. Again, here's the original strawberry-rhubarb tart recipe. It's awesome. I've had good strawberry rhubarb pie before, and this one was not runny or watery at all! Here is my version of the recipe:

FILLING

• 2 cups diced fresh or frozen rhubarb
• 3 cups fresh strawberries, sliced, divided
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest (didn't get this)
• 1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1 tablespoon cold water
• 3 tablespoons red currant jelly (not this either)

Preparation

1. Combine rhubarb, 1 cup strawberries, sugar and lemon zest in a large nonreactive saucepan. Let stand for 20 minutes (35 minutes if rhubarb is frozen). (Ha! try 10 mins) Bring to a simmer over medium-low heat. Cook, stirring often, until the rhubarb is tender but still holds its shape, 5 to 8 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, stir cornstarch and water in a small bowl until smooth. Stir into the simmering fruit. Cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture is clear and very thick, about 1 minute. Transfer to a bowl. Place a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface and refrigerate until chilled. (FF>> stuck it in freezer for 20 mins)
3. Shortly before serving, spread the strawberry-rhubarb filling evenly into the tart shell. Arrange the remaining 2 cups strawberries decoratively over the filling. (My "decoratively" involved pouring it on and making the top even. No fancy designs)
4. 
   Heat jelly in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly. With a pastry brush, glaze the strawberries with the jelly.
   
   Nom nom nom...

Pie crust

I am not a cook, meaning I don't braise or fricassee or whatever. I do make a lot of noise and a big mess in the kitchen, and oftentimes good food. And I can follow a recipe-mostly*-i'll explain. This one turned out pretty freaking awesome. It's for a strawberry-rhubarb tart. I'll go over the crust in this post, and the filling in the next. Between my husband and I, the whole pie lasted less than 24 hours. Yum. A big part I think was how the crust turned out, which was surprisingly healthy and delicious. I will definitely be using this pie crust again.

I am a pie crust connoisseur. When I was little, at any party or Thanksgiving, etc. I would secretly pinch off pieces and eat them. Like this:

Eaten pie crust.

I have left pies crustless before. And my dad would let me eat his crust off his pie slice so I had this crazy kid reasoning that crusts were for kids and the pie was for the adults. Anyway, we got an amazing strawberry bounty on one of our trips to our garden, so I googled some recipes and chose this strawberry-rhubarb tart recipe from eatingwell.com. My disclaimer is that we actually ended up eating all the strawberries before I could make it to the farmer's market for rhubarb. So I bought strawberries and rhubarb specifically to try this recipe since it sounded healthy, delicious, and easy.

*Of course I made the original recipe my own, since I leave out steps from recipes that I deem are unnecessary or sometimes too lazy to try. So here's how I made the crust, the original recipe with my own modifications:

Really awesome pie crust

1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats

3 tablespoons 1% milk (I used skim, it's what I had and I didn't want to go to the store.)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2/3 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest (Again, didn't have lemons, feel like going to the store, or zesting)

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons canola oil

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Coat a 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom (I used a 9-inch regular pie pan) with cooking spray. Spread oats in a small baking dish and bake, stirring occasionally, until toasted, 10 to 15 minutes. Let cool. ( I might have let it cool for 90 seconds)
2. Place the oats in a food processor and process until finely ground.Combine milk and vanilla in a small bowl. Whisk the ground oats, flour, sugar, lemon zest, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Drizzle oil onto the dry ingredients and stir with a fork or your fingers until crumbly. Use a fork to stir in the milk mixture, 1 tablespoon at a time, until the dough just comes together. (It forms a big sticky ball)
3. Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface and knead 7 to 8 times. Roll the dough out to an 11-inch circle, dusting with flour if necessary. Transfer to the prepared pan, pressing to fit. Trim the edges. (Here's what I did: Knead the big sticky dough ball in the mixing bowl 7-8 times, Call hubby to recoat pie pan with cooking spray before transferring to pie pan. Try to press out sticky dough ball getting all over your fingers then call hubby to save you. He FLOURED his hands then pressed sticky dough ball to fit the sides and bottom of the pie pan. No trimming.)
4. Line the tart shell with a piece of foil or parchment paper and fill with pie weights or dried beans. (Used rice as a pie weight, again, no beans, didn't want to go to the store.
5. Bake the tart shell until set, 10 to 12 minutes. Remove weights and foil or paper and bake until lightly browned, 8 to 12 minutes more. Cool in the pan on a wire rack.

Finished pie crust.

This is a seriously good pie crust. Love it.

Here's the rest of the strawberry rhubarb tart.

It's a start.

So last week my hubby and I ran five days out of six. ~2.5 miles x's 5. (12.5 miles total) Unbeleivable. Lately, I say things like "It's sunny outside." or "I ran yesterday." as excuses not to run. But this week he was in a I-won't-take-your-excuse-unless-you-have-a-note-from-a-board-certified-specialist-saying-you-are-incapable-of-moving-your-legs mood. So I ran. I may have probably been in a bad mood averaging about 60% of the runs. But this week, I'm feeling good about running.

Jessica and Justin. Or us if we keep it up ;) Source.

Hubby gave me the ipod shuffle over a year ago as a present to use on my runs. I only recently started using it regularly. I just now figured out that if the buttons on the headset stop working, it's not your sweat that "shorted" it out, maybe the battery is low. Annoying when you can't FF or the volume is stuck on deafening. It would be nice if it had an alternate form of "low battery" indication.

vs.

Guess I'm still a fan. It is less bulky. Anyways... If running next week goes well, I think we're going to sign up for a race! I'll let you know.

Letter to myself at 16

This post was inspired by the book What I Know Now, and this Brad Paisley song.

P.S. How adorable is this stamp?

It's a nice concept. My husband often says he wish he could give his teenaged-self advice, mostly to tell himself to study more, put more effort into things and be more confident. When he says that, I think for myself, I wouldn't change anything. My experiences definitely shaped who I am today. But in general, for everyone who does a version of this, it seems to be about your past self's uncertainty with what the future holds.

Dear 16 year old Bam*,

Hiya! How are you? First I'd like to thank you for doing so well in school. It's your natural inclination to study and try to get good grades, but putting the effort in is going to prepare you for the bigger effort of the next four years of college and the massive effort of the eight plus of graduate school. Second, thank you for listening to dad and joining the swim team. Yay for exercise!

I know you are worrying about college, and since you're at a nerd school, everyone around you is trying to get into to a far-away, fancy-pants, private school. You'll get accepted, and instead you'll end up going to LSU, but it's for the better. Yay for full ride scholarships! While I'm at it, Double Yay for no student loans!!

Advice for now: Try not to be so shy, people mistake it for snobbery. Don't be so quick to dismiss Dad's idea to take a summer or semester abroad, it would've probably been awesome. Don’t worry about listening to your conscience, it will keep you out of trouble. And even though you move out, keep calling your sister, she will become your best friend. Ever.

Also, I know you think high school is alright but you're wondering about the best days of your life concept, but as Brad Paisley says, "Have no fear, These are nowhere near the best years of your life." I'm not sure about the rest of it, but so far it's been pretty rad. And we're pretty optimistic, so i have a feeling it just keeps getting better.

Love,

Almost grown-up Bam ♥

*Age chosen because it's half my age now, a landmark birthday for girls in the south (and spoiled rich girls on MTV), and was my senior year in high school.

What would your letter say?

Is this thing on?

What's up y'all? Nice to meet you. Why blog? Three reasons.

I'm nobody! Who are you?

Are you nobody, too?

Then there's a pair of us — don't tell!

They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!

How public, like a frog

To tell your name the livelong day

To an admiring bog!

-Emily Dickinson

Number 1: I'm not expecting anyone to read this, so mainly for fun, to share and to see what happens. I like trying new things and sometimes getting obsessed.

See more stickers | Share this sticker!

Number 2: I like reading other people's blogs, so maybe peeps will like reading mine too. Internet stalking is fun. That's why facebook and twitter and blogs are so popular, right?

Available here.

Number 3: Also it's like a modern diary. I'll let you know what I'm up to, what I'm thinking of trying, or what I'm thinking of in general. Although I haven't kept a diary since middle school since my sister broke the lock on it and read it... Speaking of which she'll have things to share too.