Color me rad! 3 things

New things:
First 5k
First event with group of friends
First time doused in color.

Ok this event was seriously cool!!! Even though we started later than we wanted it was fantastic!

We met up early at my friends house that lives close by, I passed out packets and bibs, we got muffins took some before pictures and headed to the race.

We waited FOREVER at the start line and they had already started with the color. Waited and waited and the group of 7 of us got split into two different waves. That was unfortunate but we waited at the first water station where they were out Of water (argh!!!) and all ran a good portion of the red of it together taking the color stations slow. At the end we got in line for a good pic and spent a while taking some more of each other. We went back to get get our wallets and walked to go get some lunch. The next adventure is getting all this paint off!

All errands in a day

So I am not the type of person to set out for a day and get everything I need. That is because sometimes it is more productive to deal with things more spread out, for instance if I need to go to four shops I will spread them out over a week. Not this time.

Lately, and even more so a few weeks ago my day to day world was up in the air. As a person that plans ahead this made me crazy. But it caused me to plan ahead and take a different approach to things, which is really what this year is all about.

So I planned early, went through cookbooks for a couple of days to determine meals that could actually be made and allow me to keep my sanity. I categorized...four lists one for each place....I cross referenced, is there anything that would be practical to get one place instead of another? I multi-tasked. It was great. I got to my first place as it was opening and was in and out. Because I did have perishables I ran home and put them away an the headed to Target where I got a few random things, most importantly my rice cooker. Then I ran to my favorite grocery store. I got home and made use of anything I could by preparing it. When life gets crazy I will be ready.

Fire....

This is an oldie....a couple months ago I made a batch of scalloped potatoes technically this was my first batch that didn't use a recipe and I jus threw it all together. (First problem) I also thought I had a bigger pan, but it turns out they pan was at my parents house (second problem) I made the same size batch anyways.

Needless to say thi brilliant pan caused a little bit of an issue. And some run over.

Fast forward another week as I am preheating the oven for something awesome.

I think to myself....why is there smoke coming out of that burner? Weird

Open oven...FLAMES!!'

I asked hubby to get a first extinguisher but the one outside our unit had glass and there was nothing to break the glass with. I said forget it and it dyed out eventually (I knew enough not to registry give it oxygen sillies)

No damage.

Guess I should scrub my oven as much as counters....

Cinnamon Pizza

Last summer the hubby and I started our addiction of pizza on the grill. This summer I decided to continue the addiction, but I bought a few pizza crusts instead. Each summer we buy a large thing of mozzarella from Costco and it usually carries us through the jot wanting to cook inside summers.

This year I ended up with one extra crust, and cinnamon pizza seemed like a good idea. Growing up there was this horrible little pizza place in my hometown. I don't remember a lot, except I liked getting Sprite there ( never was a big soda pop drinker) because I thought it was cool that it was so carbonated that my straw floated. Their pizza was always lacking in sauce and never very good, but they had the best dessert pizza that I have ever had. All the cinnamon sticks, cinnamon rolls, etc. could not match this stuff, papa Murphy's could be close but it was different.

So I went for it. I slathered my crust in butter, added my cinnamon, threw in the crumble, sent the hubs for powdered sugar as I attempted this piece of amazingness....was it perfect? No, did it come close? Not really. But it was edible?


O well....

Hot Fudge Pie

I mean seriously can you go wrong? Gooey chocolate amazingness? I think not.

Perfect with ice cream. Very happy camper.

Thanks to my friend Amanda it was a grand adventure.

Plant imprints

So for the first month of school around here I had no idea what was happening from one day to the next. If you know me you know this sucks. If I had a day off I didn't know if it was really a day off.

When I had the chance for a day to relaxed I was stressed. So it was on one of those days that I needed something fairly thoughtless to help me keep my sanity. Thank you again Pinterest.

I had tons of canvas sitting around from a sale I hit earlier this year, so I grabbed a few and ran to Joann's to get some paint.

I started by painting each canvas a solid color.

Then I found some random plants and used spray adhesive (thanks dad) to stick it before dousing it in a shiny gold spray paint.

It took most of the day because I painted one canvas at a time to make sure it worked.

Pretty sure my stress level decreased that day....success.

TP wall art

This is a sensitive topic for me.

See, I can't just sit in front of the tv. I always have something, phone, computer, iPad, craft project. Something. It makes me feel productive. So march madness is a really sensitive time for me. I get a little bit crazy. I get a little bit tense. I need SOMETHING to relax me. (And Kansas gave me a few tense moments during the tournament last year)

Enter a million rolls of toilet paper. A cut them, I trimmed them, I sat with my hot glue gun. I stuck them loved them and saved them. I actually slightly blame myself thst I finished this project too early. Fun? Yes. Stressful games...yes. Should I have had scissors in my hand? Probably not.

Currently accepting ideas for crafts for march madness 2013.

Ruffle Curtains

This project is close to my heart.

I saw a curtain ruffle project on Pinterest and fell in love with them. I had some issues with sewing the pleats to ruffle them so I went seeking for help at my favorite craft store.

From this advice I found a really good sale on the sheer backing, that I bought right away, and experimented with some felt for awhile. I found ths I had to find a huge roll of felt and buy about 6 yards at a time to make it work and then cut that into four inch wide strips.

If you adjust the tension in the sewing machine and sew a basic hem up and down both sides it will ruffle itself on the second time and you can pull on the extra tension if you want it a little more extreme. The best part about using felt is that you don't have hem the sides. With one extremely long piece of felt (and a few new experiences you will hear about later) I was able to make 18 ruffles but I only used 12 (three for each panel)

If you have a dog make sure to trim the bottom or you will be re ruffling it later! It might look slightly nautical but I have enjoyed the pop of color the blue gives.

The ruffles are actually attached to the blue backing.

Tell me what you think!

Camping on Valley Floor

This was quite the experience!  I have camped in Yosemite one other tiem in my life....we were at the campground that was closest to the gate that was furthest from it....it rained on our way there....it was miserable!  I mean it was a lot of fun but it was crazy!  Camping on the Valley Floor was another experience! We could wonder around and then go back to our tent to make meals, we could walk down to Curry Village for anything that we needed.  Another first was eating the mediocre food from the o so adorable restaurant that they have in there.

Pretty great to be in what is practically a village and just wonder around....though I seriously won't lie, people are a lot crazier in the valley floor than they are in other parts of the park.  I heard screaming the entire night and kept wondering to myself....do those people see a bear?!?! are they trying to scare off a bear?!?! (this was after our crazy bear experience you see) I could have sworn I either heard or dreamed (though most likely dreamed) that a bear was walking by our tent more than once.

Bottom Line:
camping on valley floor=awesome
camping on valley floor AFTER being too close to bear=paranoid

Bear!!!!

So when I posted the last one I realized that this one wasn't up yet and probably didn't make sense.  More so I am realizing that many many many MANY of these are all linked together.

So getting a campsite in Yosemite is rare especially because we have so many other things going on it is hard to take a weekend and JUST GO but we managed to get a campsite last minute in April the same weekend that we finally had free time.

We wanted to take a couple of fun crazy trails and do something different.  It wasn't quite peak season but the animals were out and about and we stashed our food well.

Right off of the bus at the walk in camp group we saw a trail that led to the base of El Capitan...sounded good! Only a couple miles, relatively flat....etc.  So we walked, it was beautiful, and we saw a couple of lovely deer along the way.  We also kept our eye out and made jokes about what would happen if we saw a bear.  We were to the end of the trail...it was RIGHT THERE when i looked NO JOKE about 15 feet to my front right....and there was a bear a big don't want to get close let's get out of here RIGHT NOW bear.  Of course there was a guy coming towards us so we start making crazy motions until he turned around and when we high tailed it out of there.....While I was making crazy motions...Mr. Perf. looks around and sees TWO CUBS (It has been months and I am still pretty upset that I didn't see it as well)

I told the world the next couple months and that is my experience of seeing a bear.....exciting....but closer than I ever wanted to be....especially to mama bear!

Bike Riding in Yosemite

Mr. Perf and I go to Yosemite a couple times a year.  It is amazing.  Every time that we are there we think that we should take our bikes up and ride around.  It doesn't typically happen.  This year (after the whole Triathlon and having nice bikes and deciding to use them) we did it!  Mr. Perf got a bike rack....(though seriously he worst bke rack EVER!) and we got up early one morning made a lunch and spent the day riding around the valley floor.  We made a few loops, saw a BEAR! This has pretty much been the year to see bears over there!

It was wonderful to ride around and relax and you get places so much faster than the bus!  The down side?  The next morning the hubby felt horrible....keep in mind I am the one that was doing triathlons and running miles at the gym....Mr. Perf felt a little miserable the next day from the extra exercise.

Fabric softener towel removes dog hair!

Okay this is lame!  I know there are times it looks like I was getting desperate but bare with me because it is kinda cool!

So a few months ago I saw on Pinterest it would be a good idea to soak a rag in fabric softener, let it dry completely and use it in the dryer for a couple months.  This was a great idea...it worked well for about a week...here is the catch....I wash  A LOT of kitchen towels.  Unless it involves Raw Meat Nasty (RMN) it gets wiped down with a towel and the towel tossed into a bin.  Ever since I started to use my own cleaning products I have learned that they don't smell totally disgusting super fast and I can get by with wiping my counters down bi-daily (I know it seems silly but I love a good clean counter top!)

Anyways so there are times that I will pull said rags out of my dryer and not catch the fabric softener one until later.  It was one of these such days that I looked and saw that Molly had gotten the couch full of fur...I decided to grab the old fabric softener towel and it worked like MAGIC!!!! you know how fast that thing picks up lint?!?! I then proceeded to dust my entire house with it....and had to wash it which sort of defeated the purpose buuuut it was seriously cool and I am really needing to do it again....

10 miles

So I got the feeling around April or so that this year wasn't just about new things, but that it was about new HABITS.  I need to challenge myself like I have been the past few months.....and I have loved it when I have!

So when I reactivated my very long lost gym membership I started pushing myself. I was proud when I left after 5 miles on the elliptical, but it wasn't long before I found myself doing ten.  Granted that was burning the calories of the half a pan of brownies....but I did it! and continued that over time up until I froze my gym membership in favor of training on the open road.....

Rodeo

For years I have said I should go....for a girl that grew up in the midwest around friends and family that have been to more rodeos than I have had birthdays, this is unheard of.

So back in *gulp* May, one of my good friends sends me a message the day of asking me if i could go....that is what this year is all about right?  I rearranged a couple of quick things and made it work out! Had a lot of fun! Left my jacket in the car (oops!)

We had fun, I was cold....there was a concert after (basically another first the guy had been on American Idol) and I learned what a rodeo was all about....it was pretty neat and I am grateful to my good friend Heather for providing this experience.  

Face time

Last month my dad's side of the family had a huge reunion.  We are talking my grandma's cousins, my aunts, uncles, and cousins.....huge (though I didn't know a lot of them or see them in this experience)

I was unable to make it to this lovely reunion and I was a little sad....I have some pretty cool relatives that I do enjoy when given the opportunity to talk with them.  Don't worry this is 2012 and you probably have an idea where this post is going.

I decided to ring in and say hello (love cell phones!) and my cousin suggested that we try to facetime....so we hung up the phone, I got home (wifi connection) and called back.  It worked out well and my cousin passed me around, I got to say hi and wave to everyone, see some of my cousin's kids (they have grown up!) and "see" the family that I wasn't able to visit with.  Pretty cool.  Of course I have used facetime before....but only across the room to see what happened....so that doesn't really count.

Since that time last month I have actually gotten to use it again with the same cousin.  Technology technology....one of the times this year it has been cool.

Eclipse

Obviously this one is a bit old!

So exciting!  The day before this I was running around a little crazy looking for some welder's glass.  We were able to see it from our road outside....and a lot of people came up and we got to pass it around.....pretty beautiful....the only disappointment?  I wasn't able to get a good photo

Triathlon! 5 things

So this was back in the beginning of June....yes I am THAT far behind!  My life has been exciting.....that is that!

And with this event I can cut a few things off the list:
First open water swim
First ankle tracker
First race bib
First event for fun
First bike ride in the foot hills

So I didn't even register for this.....until 2 weeks before the event....I just decided to go for it.  I realized I haven't been really challenged in the last few years (other than the whole doing a million new things, but I am not doing too well with that one...) and I wanted to do something to push myself!

Triathlon has always been on that I wish I could but I can't list....why can't I? Is there a rule? NO! So I signed up had some crazy training and did it! My goal time was under 3 hours...and I came in just under 2.5.  My swim time was amazing (I would have been incredibly disappointed if it wasn't) the bike....SO DIFFICULT!  I know now there is a difference in road bikes (more on that another time soon)  There were a lot more hills than I was even remotely prepared for...and a lot of power walking for the lovely run...but I DID IT! I felt amazing....I want to do it again and I think i have the Tri bug! (3 months later that is still my plan, my training has picked up, but I have yet to find an event that I can make it to)

The ankle thing was pretty cool....I was able to look up the splits online totally cool!

And the race bib?  Very possibly keeping it FOREVER and I plan on accumulating a lot more over the next couple of years....very cool and exciting!

Rice cooker

Up until earlier this year (that I still haven't posted about) I have never made rice on the stove.  I don't make it very awesome, but when i do I pop it in the microwave and then all is well!

The problem? The microwave in our new place...pretty small....and only my plastic bowls fit....soooo i have avoided making it.  When I decided I was falling in love with Quinoa I also bought a rice cooker...SO AMAZING!  rinse it, fill it, walk away?  I think I can get used to this!

Quinoa

So yes these are VERY out of order....forgive me!

So for weeks now on Pinterest I have seen Quinoa, EVERYWHERE make it sweet, salty, savory, you name it and there is a way to cook it on Pinterest.  I have wanted to try it for ages....especially after reading about how much better it is for you than rice.

So at my FAVORITE bulk food store the other day is a nice large bag....I don't remember the weight but enough to fill my cutesy jar most of the way....

I cooked it in the rice cooker (more about that in the next post) and it turned out good....I LOVE IT!  I feel filled and good eating it and it goes well with many things....it has been about a week and a half or so and I have already added it to stuffed bell peppers and a round of pasta salad....I like having it on hand!