Well, I had big plans to post something about my blog anniversary and…I missed it. Whoops! My blog turned three years old on August 25th! She’s getting to be an old lady! For fun, check out my very first blog post way back when:
I have loved sharing the last three years with all of you! I can’t wait to share the next three!
♡-Bethany
If you don’t know, I have been spending a lot more time on Twitter lately (@OneGirlsTaste). Part of the reason is to connect with other bloggers (and part because I like tweeting funny pictures of myself and the boy).
One day, after clicking around on the Internet, I landed on Fitness Cheerleader’s blog a day writing challenge. Basically she listed out a bunch of topics and you wrote about each one on the given day. Now, being as I don’t write a daily blog, I didn’t have answers to all the questions, and I just found the article about 2/3 the way through the month, I am not going to be participating. Or am I?
I looked at each of the questions and picked several out that I could use as inspiration for those times that I don’t have a recipe or an update to share. Today is one of those times. It’s really quite handy to have a list of blog topics at your disposal! I’m very excited she is going to continue this into September.
I chose to talk about workout songs today. I am one of those people that has to listen to music to really get going at the gym or outside. Fast, upbeat music makes my feet faster, my heart rate speed up, and just makes me happy in general. Here are the top 5 workout songs that really get my feet flying:
1. Hurricane Streets – Hey Monday
2. Ignorance – Paramore
3. Got It Made – Theory of a Deadman
4. Can’t Stop – Maroon 5
5. Stronger – Kanye West
Bonus Song: Real World – The All-American Rejects (probably my favorite running song)
Man, listening to all these songs this morning has made my feet itch to go for a run!
What is your favorite running/workout song? What gets your feet moving?
In the last few months, my Instagram usage (not to mention my Twitter usage) has increased exponentially. Here are just a few pictures I’ve taken that I love:
Instagram – badesjarlais Twitter – @OneGirlsTaste
I’m not a big fan of trail mix. I mean, I am, but I don’t know that it’s the best bang for your buck when you’re trying to eat healthy. Case in point, take a look at the ingredients for Target’s Monster Trail Mix:
Yep, you got it. Nuts, candy, fruit, candy, candy. Now, I know there are healthier trail mixes out there, but really. Who doesn’t want chocolate and peanut butter chips in their trail mix?
So, back to my original statement: I’m not a big fan of trail mix (when you’re trying to eat healthy). When you want an indulgent snack, I’m all about it! You see, I can’t stop at the recommended 1/4 cup serving size. My serving size is more like 1/2 cup 1 cup.
Of course, this didn’t stop me from grabbing a bag of the Monster Trail Mix a few years ago when I was looking for a “healthy” snack. After all, it’s healthier than a candy bar, right? Anyone? Anyone? That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.
The first thing I thought when I popped a handful of mix in my mouth was, “OMG how delicious is this?!” The second thing was, “This would make excellent cookies!” The idea was born. It only took me two years to make the cookies though…
Monster Mix Cookies
(adapted from the Nestle Toll House base recipe)
2 1/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1 package Archer Farms Monster Trail Mix
Preheat oven to 375º. In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix well. In a second bowl, cream together butter, sugar, and brown sugar. Add the vanilla and mix well. Add the eggs one at a time until fully incorporated. Add the flour mixture slowly, scraping down the sides as necessary.
Once your batter is fully mixed, add the bag of trail mix. You can also add extras if you’d like. I prefer adding an addition bit of peanut butter pieces if available, but then, I love peanut butter almost as much as I love Jakey. Almost.
(Is this not the cutest picture?! I giggle every time I see it.)
Once mixed, use a small scoop to portion out the cookies onto a baking sheet. Bake for 9-11 minutes or until lightly golden on the edges. Let cool and enjoy, preferably with a glass of cold milk.
Tip: You can also scoop the dough out onto a silpat or piece of waxed paper and freeze unbaked. Once frozen, move them to a Ziploc bag and store in the freezer. When you’re ready to bake, preheat your oven or toaster oven and bake frozen until desired doneness is achieved. Works beautifully!
Make sure to save some to take to your pregnant friend along with chocolate milk. I forgot. Bad friend. Next time, girl! Next time!
I have a ton of blog topics rolling around in my head, but have found myself with a lack of pictures for blog posts. I think I know why…
The camera thief is at it again! Hoping to steal it back and regain photography control soon. Happy Wednesday, y’all!
My birthday was last Wednesday. I requested to have the following weekend off to celebrate with my boys. And celebrate we did!
Jake and I started the morning off by hanging out at home while Daddy ran some errands and stopped by at work. It was a gorgeous weekend so we had the doors and windows opened the whole time! We waved bye to Daddy through the screen. Daddy, don’t go!
Little man is standing all by himself (supported by various inanimate objects of course)!
Such a cutie pie!
This was one of the first weekends I’ve had off that I haven’t had somewhere to go and some place to be! Jake and I hung out all weekend long!
We played with a big diaper box! He looked under it,
tasted it,
but ultimately decided it was best for riding.
Then Jake helped Mommy with the laundry.
I couldn’t ask for a better helper! After our chores were done and Daddy came home, we all took a trip to a local park. What fun we had! Daddy and Jake played on the swings.
And Daddy took Jake around on the playscape. I think Jake liked being up high!
Playing is serious business.
He lightened up eventually though!
I’m thinking he didn’t know what to think!
Then it was Mommy’s turn to carry him around. Cheese for the camera!
Baby’s first slide! Wheeeeeeeeeee!
As we were leaving, we saw the cutest little chocolate lab puppy! Don’t get any ideas, Jake…
It was a great weekend!
Today is my birthday. I am 31 years old. I originally wrote I was celebrating the fourth anniversary of my 27th birthday, but then I realized I had no problems admitting my real age.
I have never really let age affect me. When all my other friends were worried about turning 30, I looked at my mom who greets every new year with a warm hug and a mug of cocoa rather than a crucifix and garlic. She looks at getting older as a privilege rather than a punishment. (She is a grief counselor. Maybe it’s stemmed from her profession??)
Anyhow, I will admit I had a couple moments of trepidation last year when the big 3-0 was looming on the horizon, but I brushed it off, pulled on my big girl panties, and got my mug of cocoa ready. Hell, I even threw in fuzzy slippers and a bathrobe!
One year ago I was 5 months pregnant and feeling great. I was married to my best friend and had a pretty good job. This year, not much as changed. Well, actually everything has changed but not so as you’d notice. I’m still married to my best friend and have a good job, but now we have a beautiful baby boy. He and Jeff are the light of my life.
I am proud of my age. I’m proud of my 31 years of experience. Every year (especially these days with an infant around) I gain more and more knowledge. I have learned several things in the past year I will take with me forever:
-No amount of worrying or preparing will make childbirth go any differently than fate determines. If you are destined for pain, you will feel pain…until the epidural kicks in. If it’s in your cards to throw up in the middle of childbirth, well, then, you’ll throw up. Don’t worry. If your husband’s anything like mine he’ll say you looked cute doing it. (Isn’t he the best?)
-Babies are hard work. No seriously. Let me write that down again. Babies. Are. Hard. Work. Newborns especially. For the first three months, just resign yourself to the fact that you will not sleep, eat, shower, or do anything else like you used to. Everything is a race against the clock. Get it done before the baby wakes up. If you’re lucky, you might get a whole shower in!
-It gets easier. I suffered from moderate depression in my first couple weeks after I had Jake. I had to keep telling myself “It gets easier. It gets easier.” I knew it had to. Around three months, everything shifted. Jake was…different. I really don’t know how to explain it except to say he changed. He was more predictable (or maybe we just learned his schedule), he was more content, he was easier to be around. One of my baby books says babies are born one trimester too early. This would make sense to me!
-Not getting your oil changed in your car can (and probably will) result in your engine pooping out on you before it’s time. Then, you will be forced to spend $$$$ on an engine for a car you planned to sell within a year. Note to self: must get oil changed! I’m going to really like having a new car that reminds you it’s time.
-Don’t sweat the small things. This is still a work in progress for me. It probably will be for a long time. I have been told I overreact and am dramatic about things. (Nahhhh…..me?) I know I do. I am wound up so tightly sometimes the littlest thing can cause me to snap unnecessarily. I am working on relaxing, slowing down and seeing the bigger picture. I’m not perfect and learning this is not going to be quick, but it’s probably my most valuable piece of wisdom I have gained in the past 12 months.
I have a niece starting college next week. Turning 31 has made me think of her and realize she is about to get hit in the face with the knowledge stick. I hope she takes it all in, makes mistakes, experiences triumphs, and learns from everything. I’m so excited for her. Good luck, Riley!!!
I know this post has been all over the place (blame it on me getting up at 3:00a this morning to go unload a truck at work), so thanks for bearing with me. All that being said, I’m going to go watch a movie in bed. (Read: sleep with a movie playing in the background.)
Have a wonderful day, everyone!
It’s so secret that I love to cook. I like being able to make my family dinner on a (somewhat) regular basis. With my crazy work schedule, that takes planning. See, on any given week, my schedule could look like this:
Sunday: 7:30a-5p
Monday: 1p-10:30p
Tuesday: OFF
Wednesday: 4:30a-2p
Thursday: 1-10:30p
Friday: OFF
Saturday: 7:30-5
So you see how challenging dinner making can be? On days I’m off or early, it’s not a big deal as I’m at home for dinner. On days I close (work til 10:30p), it’s a little more tricky. I have to plan meals that my husband can make like a casserole, crock pot meal, or something that’s already cooked and just needs to be reheated.
I used to have a spreadsheet that listed the day of the month, my schedule, and what meal I would make. This was a pretty good system, but I could only plan a couple weeks at a time because I needed my work schedule. I only get it a couple weeks in advance, you see.
For some reason, I got away from this meal plan. I think it was because every day was a free for all. By that I mean I didn’t have a set cuisine type for each day. I just filled in the meals with what I had a taste for. This is a fine way to do things, but I found myself always picked the same meals. Meatloaf, beef stroganoff, and sloppy joes were big hits and always found their way into the plan.
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about a new way of meal planning. With this new way, I took a calendar and assigned a cuisine or meal base to each day of the week. It looks something like this:
I wasn’t sure how it would work out, but I quickly found myself actually following the plan! I would grocery shop for the week on one of my days off, then prep any meals I needed to.
The nice thing about this meal plan is I can switch days around if necessary. For example, you’ll notice in the first row I had Steel Drums Chicken on Monday and Chicken Spaghetti on Tuesday. Steel Drums Chicken has to be grilled and Chicken Spaghetti is a casserole. Since I closed on Monday, it was easier for Jeff to reheat the casserole than it was to watch the baby and grill chicken. Who are we kidding? Jeff doesn’t grill. Well, not much anyhow.
One thing I have run into, oddly enough, is having too much food! If you look at my original post, you’ll see there are no days for leftovers. My plan, initially, was to have the leftovers for lunches or to only make enough for one meal. Well, some days I don’t want the same thing I had for dinner. My plan for August incorporated a leftover day. Know what happened? Yep, we ran out of meals for leftover day and I ended up having to order pizza, something I was trying to avoid with this whole plan!
It’s a work in progress.
For the most part, however, the meal planning has been a great project. It has allowed me to make some of Jeff’s favorite meals (read: meatloaf) as well as try out some of my pinned and cookbook recipes. I have more cookbooks than I have shoes.
I am still perfecting the system. I am trying to get healthier meals included instead of just ones that sound good (like Paula’s Glazed Bacon Wrapped Chicken which we had last night…YUM!). I am also trying to put the meals I make into My Fitness Pal so I can just add them when I eat them. That is a big downfall for me…eating dinner and then not logging it because I don’t want to put each ingredient in my log.
Some of the meals I have tried out with this new meal plan are Chicken Stir Fry, Swiss Burgers with Caramelized Onions and Balsamic Glaze, and Pulled Chicken Quesadillas. What are some meals you have pinned or bookmarked lately that you most want to try?
I know I say this every month but…where does the time go? I know before I can blink I’ll be buying him stuff for his dorm room. Oh, God, let’s not think about that…
So, I was supposed to have this post up on Wednesday. I typically write my blog posts the day before and have them auto release early in the morning. Well, instead of drafting my post on Tuesday, I played with Jake the entire day! Many of you know how rare that is for me but for those who don’t…
I have a retail job and, while I actually do like my job, I don’t like the hours. I work days, nights, weekends, holidays, you name it. The nice thing about my schedule is that I get days off during the week. More often than not, I go ahead and send Jake to day care since we have to pay for it anyway. Then I’m able to get my list of chores done (read: cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, food prep, running errands, etc) more quickly and efficiently than if I were to have him with me.
When I’m with Jake, the whole world stops. I try to focus 100% on him, playing, laughing, tickling, etc. This is the main reason I take him to day care even if I’m off. I want to be able to focus and get my stuff done so that when I do have him with me, I don’t have to worry about that.
Jeff has been doing a great job of pitching in lately. So much so that I decided to *gasp* spend a whole day with my little guy! It was fabulous. We played in the morning, he took a 2.5 hour nap (from which I had to wake him!), went to a play date, went in to Mommy’s work, and then came home. What a great day!
Long story short…I didn’t get my blog post written. #sorryimnotsorry
So here it is. Two days late.
But who’s counting?
**************************************
Jacob is eight months old. Eight whole months. He’s such a stinkin’ cute kid. I feel like his last month or two have really been full of milestones! Here are a couple new things we’ve learned to do in the last month:
He is completely sitting up by himself unsupported. He’s alllllllllllmost able to pull himself to a sitting position. Typically he rolls on his side and then tries to swing his torso around so it’s upright, but a lot of the time he just kind of clunks himself down. Silly boy!
He’s had a ton of new foods! His list of foods include broccoli, apples, peas (loves them!), green beans (blech!), banana, and peaches just to name a few. I have pretty much stuck with purees, but he has recently shown an interest in puffs, so we’ve been practicing on those. He loves these pouches. I unscrew the lid and just let him suck the contents out like a juice box. He is actually really good at it!
I am going to start moving more towards the baby led weaning approach (where you give them bits of actual food and let them eat it), but I still get nervous every time. He has gagged several times in the past with banana and the puffs, but hasn’t had an episode in a while. I’m thinking he might possibly have figured out what he’s doing.
He can stand pretty well. I like holding him up in front of me because I can easily hold him and hug him at the same time. We use this table thing to help him stand. He can hold on to it pretty well and it’s got pretty colors and lights on it to keep him interested. Jeff said when he picked Jake up at daycare today, they were talking about how Jake can stand (assisted) really well and that he had been trying to pull up on things all day. We think he’ll be standing on his own very soon. Perhaps by his next birth month?
He is all about the crawling lately! He started scooting on his front. We called this the army crawl. Then he started getting up on his hands and knees and just sort of bouncing or rocking back and forth. Then one day, he figured out what to do and started crawling! He still does a mix of the two, but it is so cute to watch. One of his favorite things to crawl after is the camera.
Mommy doesn’t like that though.
He threatens us unless we give him lots and lots of yummy food. The other day, he grabbed on to Jeff’s adam’s apple and I snapped this picture. It’s grainy (thank you, iPhone) and sort of hard to see, but it’s cute. Jeff’s face is priceless!
He is the happiest baby when we go in to get him from his nap or from sleeping overnight. Speaking of that…he sleeps through the night! He’s been doing it for a couple weeks now. Every few nights, he wakes up crying, but I typically just put the monitor face down on the bed and try to tune him out. Usually within 5-10 minutes, he’s back asleep.
It’s funny. Just last month, I was contemplating calling the doctor to try and figure out why he wouldn’t sleep through the night. Then I told myself to just be patient and see if maybe he’s just stubborn and he’d do it in his own time. I was right! Let’s hope he doesn’t revert…
He officially has two teeth! In the Seven Month post, I said he was just starting to get teeth. Now he has two beautiful pearly whites. They are the bottom front two and they are so cute! Of course I don’t have a picture of them. You’ll have to make do with the cute one above!
He really is the happiest baby. He gets fussy between 6-7:30p as I’m assuming many babies do as they are tired. We were putting him down around 6p, but he was waking around 4a, so that was quickly changed. Now we do our best to keep him up until at least 7:30p. Sometimes he does great and stays up until 8 or 8:30p. Other nights, he is so tired he’s practically asleep sitting up by 6:30p. Those are the nights we pull out the big guns: bathtime.
He has such a great time in the bath. I have been putting on a swimsuit (yes, I know I could just get in naked, but for some reason I don’t feel comfortable doing that…call me crazy) and getting in with him. It’s much easier to wash his hair if I’m able to be right in the middle of the action.
So anyhow, happy eight month birthday, Jacob! You get playtime, I’ll take the Starbucks. After all, they never miss a birthday!
The other day, my sister sent me a random text about her favorite pulled chicken. She and I do that sometimes. This was the second time she’d told me about the chicken in a month, so I asked her to resend me the recipe. “She must really like it!” I thought.
She linked me to the recipe and then added these instructions:
“I add a packet of chili seasoning to the onions while sauteing. And I toss a can of rotel into the crockpot when adding all the stuff together… Pretty spicy. Freezable though.”
I added it to my monthly meal plan immediately!
Saturday, before heading to work, I quickly threw the ingredients in the crock pot and left serving instructions with Jeff. I called him later to ask him how it was and he said it was good! When I came home from work Sunday, he excitedly told me what he had for lunch.
“You know that chicken you made yesterday? I turned it into a quesadilla!”
What a great idea! I was on my way home from work today when the image of his quesadilla popped in my head. I couldn’t think of anything else I wanted, so I came home and threw one together real quick.
It. Was. Delicious.
This chicken is probably the best pulled chicken I have had in a while. I forgot to add the chili seasoning, but I did throw in a can of black beans! Corn would have been great with this too. If you’re looking for a quick, slow cooker meal that your whole family will love, make this pulled chicken.
Quesadilla optional.
Pulled Chicken Quesadillas
(adapted from this recipe on Good Life Eats)
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts, trimmed
1 1/4 tsp cumin
1 tbsp chili powder
1/2 tsp coriander
1/4 tsp paprika
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/3 cup chicken broth
1 good squeeze Gourmet Garden cilantro (or 1/3 cup chopped cilantro leaves)
2 limes*
1 large onion, chopped
1 jalapeno, seeded and minced
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp olive oil
1 can Rotel
1 can black beans
In a large skillet, heat your oil and then saute the onion until soft. Add the spices and mix well. Let cook for about 2 minutes.
Meanwhile, season your chicken with salt and pepper, then put in the slow cooker. Top with the juice of both limes. Put your spice and onion mixture over chicken. Add the cans of Rotel and black beans to the slow cooker. Cook on low for 3-5 hours, or until your chicken is cooked through.
To serve, pull the chicken out of the slow cooker and shred with two forks. Put chicken back in slow cooker to soak up all the juices. Then use however you desire. As stated above, our favorite way is in quesadillas, but you could have soft tacos, hard tacos, taco salad, enchiladas…the list is endless.
Enjoy!
