The one where Rachel was too tired to write anything decent.

I walked two miles yesterday and got a blister. This is going to be a long road to becoming marathon worthy. It might be a long road to becoming 5K worthy. This weekend is highly anticipated. My little brother is in town to fish, float down the river, and celebrate Matt's birthday. We got tickets to a pretty sweet beer festival in Tampa and I've taken some time off of work to be able to absorb all of the goodness of having people you love around you. I can't wait. My mom made me dinner last night which was so nice. I forgot how nice that was. Steamed vegetables will have to wait for another day. Have a great weekend!

A surprise haircut

A couple nights ago I started to make peanut butter.  I'd bought a bag of Spanish peanuts at the market because Alton Brown says that those are the correct peanuts for making your own peanut butter (and he is the end of any google search when it comes to a recipe, he is always right). 

 I don't think I let the peanuts cool long enough before adding them to the food processor (read:: I tossed them in right after roasting) and that apparently is the key to making really crappy peanut butter.  

It turned out more like peanut goo than peanut butter so I added about a half cup of golden raisins, a half cup of oats, two tablespoons of honey and a packet of Stevia.  I spread the mix into a glass pan let it cool in the refrigerator overnight.  Matt didn't like them but I thought they were good so I cut them into bars and wrapped them in wax paper and brought them to work.  My work buds ate them and I'm going to call them really cheap Larabars.  Dates would have been better but I didn't have any.  A box of eight Larabars costs $5 on sale at Target, and these cost around $3 to make 12.  They weren't as good as a Larabar (the best bar out there other than the Clif White Chocolate Macadamia Nut which isn't worth comparing to anything else, it's amazing) but they are a good source of energy if you have that stuff lying around.  

So good for breakfast with iced coffee and cherries. 

 

My in laws are going away for Spanish immersion classes so we had them over for lentil bowls before they leave for their trip.  I sauteed lentils with taco seasoning and served with brown rice and lots of toppings.  

Corn and jalapeno salsa, onions, cilantro, sriratcha, and corn chips.  It's all about the toppings. 

My hair needed a trim very badly.  The ends were long past dead and I decided that I could not live one more second with it.  I looked up how to cut your own hair on Pinterest and found an easy ponytail cut.  Yes!  I took about three inches off of dead hair and while it isn't salon quality by a long shot, I slept soundly knowing I wouldn't be haunted by split ends.

I have no idea why a patch of my hair looks black.  I may have overdone it with filters, but I spend a good amount of time trying to find that section of hair with no success so I'm going to call it bad lighting.

Keeping it in the hood.

I tried making almond butter yesterday and it did not process the way peanuts do.  I let mine run for about 6-8 minutes (the time my peanut butter starts to turn into a butter) and it was still too crumbly so I added two tablespoons of coconut oil.  That didn't help.  Then I added two tablespoons of water.  Then I added 2 tablespoons of molasses.  Then I added about two teaspoons of vanilla.  Now it was becoming very clay-like but not very buttery-like. 

It was very good though.  It tasted like an almond version of the inside of a Reese's cup.  So probably not the picture of health and, sadly, not the stuff I layer bananas over on my sandwiches. 

A friend gave me some advice on Facebook about almond butter requiring 20 minutes of processing time (versus my 10 minutes), taking time to scrape down the sides.  Round two coming up.

Because almond butter/banana sandwiches were not in our future, Ella's was a good plan B.  We met my aunt and uncle for some deliciously local dinner. 

I pinch myself that I'm lucky enough to live a mile away from one of the best restaurants in Tampa. 

Ella's is solid too. 

The burger I got was $11 for something I could eat half of and it came with the tastiest sweet potato fries for nothing extra.  I actually don't think they have regular fries though.  The veggie patty was topped with onion straws, some fine guacamole, curry sauce, and pea shoots.  The bun looks house made but I'm not sure.  It was good.  And we discovered their happy hour.  $3 drafts? 

Yes, please, thank you, on my way.

At half of my burger and almost half of my fries left, I should have stopped eating.  But the fries were too good. 

Luke thought it looked good too and was mad we didn't take him.  He knows they allow dogs and I know he loves sweet potatoes. 

An early celebration of a great Dad.

Last Christmas, I gave you my heart my parents got me a case of my favorite beer which only comes in huge liter size bottles.  I happily consumed the case but it was annoying that I couldn't just have one bottle and HAD to drink the whole liter <--sacrifice, I know.  I have a special place in my heart for brown ales (and red ales, and pale ales, and IPAs, and stouts, and everything).

This is NOT a gimmicky flavored beer.  It is just a good beer.

At Gino's last night, they had these miniature, normal sized bottles which were perfect.  Where can I find these to buy Rogue??

Gino's has a pretty stellar happy hour.....all American craft beers (bottled, and they have a very extensive list and it includes some really high gravity beers if that's your thang) for $2.50 a bottle.  Since we are going to be away this weekend, we got to celebrate Father's Day with my Dad early and Gino's is his favorite place.
Happy Father's Day!

When we got home, the coconut oil fairy had stopped by our house.  Seriously, next time the coconut oil co-op orders you should get in on it.  Such a good deal for raw, cold pressed, organic, extra virgin, local (every buzz word in the foodie handbook and I made up the local part...does Tampa grow coconuts?) coconut oil.  I think my three jars were $15.   One jar of the good kind is around $8-12 at Whole Foods. 

The bonus is that burglars stay away because they think the jars are full of pee and no ones wants to rob a house that stocks mason jars full of urine.

And if you have never played Citadels, you are missing out on all the nerdy action going on.  Such a fun game.  Even more fun if you have friends that laugh at all of your jokes.  Then living is way more fun too.  And don't be fooled by the healthy sweet snacks going on.  There were lollipops fresh from Valentine's Day passed around as well. 

A very dirty post...about our yard. Gotcha!

It's for certain, we need to plant some grass in our front yard.  Mowing just stirs up the dirt and all we are actually mowing is weeds.  I say "we" but it is usually Matt.

Exhibit A:


Matt isn't tan, just dirty

 We are having a memorial service for Matt's aunt this weekend and his grandparents came to town to support the family.  They are treasures.  "Mama Gran" makes some killer apple pie too and made one for us to enjoy last night.  She even makes her own pie crust which deserves some sparkly mansion in heaven, making pie crust from scratch is not for the weak. 

Matt's brother and his girlfriend are coming to stay with us this weekend which gives me another taste of communal living.  Looooooooove it so much.  

Randomness and inappropriate google searches.

I'm so sorry Web MD for abusing your services.  And I'm sorry you know more about me than my closest friends.  I'm not sorry for cursing you when you told me the solution to my lower back pain brought on by spontaneous dancing can only be cured by surgery.  Maybe I didn't tell it I was a juicer.  And juicers are healthy people with no back problems. 

Yesterday this gem wouldn't load onto the blog but now it has so you are lucky.  My parents FOUND this awesome float on their boat.  Who needs a real jet ski when you have this little guy to balance on.  And they tried.  They tried so hard. 

Also this......my dog loves to hug.  He is the cuddliest pup I've ever seen.

Yesterday NOTHING worked.  My iphone had stopped communicating with GMail and Blogger, my office email passwords expired at some point and our service desk is in St. Louis so I couldn't call until 9:30am, our office phones weren't calling out, and our internet went out around the time some of these things were being resolved.  It was like a Monday amplified with a thousand bugs bites and back pain.  I needed an Arrested Development marathon in the worst way possible.

Last night we ended our Memorial Day weekend extravaganza, non stop partying with a game night with our small group.  They are really smart and really smart people don't title teams, Girls vs Guys.  They use chromosomes.  At least I thought they were chromosomes, hope they are.

Another amazing thing.  The most competitive guy in the world is in this picture.  And he is not holding a dog.  He is wearing a hot dog shirt.  It was hard to take his competitive spirit seriously last night with that beauty on.  Where do you find something that amazing?

A very merry birthday surprise.

So I've had to keep it on the down low but my brother is in town!  He came for my Dad's 60th birthday extravaganza and Matt and I picked him up from the airport last night before a small party at my Dad's favorite bar.  It was so fun, my parent's friends are great. 

I also got some quality time with one of my second moms growing up, a total babe. 

Funny story about last night.....upon getting home from work I became a baking tornado, I toasted almonds, made the best texas sheet cake ever, hummus, curried chicken salad, browned sausage for a casserole, and whipped up my own personal recipe for oatmeal pie that is too embarrassing to share but so delicious.  It was a fury of flour and sugar flying every way.  (For the weekend we set up a schedule so no one got stuck with bringing all of the food for everyone and my contributions were the hummus and veggies, birthday cake, part of lunch, and breakfast on Sunday morning.)  Honestly, as soon as the sausage was done cooking I shoved it in the fridge put on jeans and off we went to pick up Logan.  From there we needed some beer so we hit up Total Wine and then straight to the bar for my Dad's epic surprise.  It was go- go- go all day and I seemed to think it would be a good idea to drink two large glasses of wine on an empty stomach....

Turns out that while it seemed like a bad idea (and wine makes me very chatty so I'm very sorry to the poor people that got stuck talking to me for days) to drink wine while recovering from a cold, on a very stressful day, and on an empty stomach, IT WAS THE BEST IDEA!  I felt great.  I'd skipped my run yesterday morning because I felt so crappy but as soon as we got home at 9:45pm I was feeling so good I just went with it.  And the leftover wine warm fuzzies made the miles extra peaceful and flew by:)  I kept thinking that it was too good to be true until this morning I woke up feeling almost better!  So apparently juicing is a miracle cure but not in the raw, organic, freshly pressed way....it needs to be fermented.  Pro tip.

I look forward to spending the next few days living in bathing suits and sunscreen, relaxing on the river, boating, kayaking, paddle boarding, swimming, and laughing.  So. Much. Laughing. 

Eating really well doesn't make you immune to sick.

The Hires' household is a sad sight these days.  Matt has been sick for a week and while waiting at Home Depot with materials to fix some fence posts and re chain our porch swing, a hail storm erupted forcing us to walk the aisles of the store dreaming of better light fixtures and upgrades to our door knobs so we didn't get drenched.  Exciting stuff.  Even more exciting that while I was touting how incredible my immune system was, I started getting that itchy throat feeling that ended up being the beginning of a cold.  Boo hoo.  We skipped our bible study last night in favor of PJs, veggie bowls, and Jurassic Park. 

My juicer couldn't have been replaced at a better time.  Any good recipes for miracles?

I will be throwing down these every three hours for the next couple of days along with drinking so much water, my germs don't stand a chance.

I've found since completing my Bob Harper three week plan, I've been eating more vegetables in general.  I just love them.  They are even better when seasoned. 



Veg life.

 Something else I've found that I love are these.  The coconut is my favorite so far.  Yum.  And it sounds so fancy when I tell Matt a zillion times a day, "I'll just have a La Croix". 

Only two more days until crazy party weekend.  This annual get together at the weekend is my favorite of the year.  It is better than my own birthday. 

The post about a fly.

Everybody is home!  We had our families over last night for dinner and to celebrate Matt's parent's birthdays because they were in Africa and we didn't have a chance to sing the Hires' family's favorite song (true story, if you are a member of the Hires family, every single member calls you on your birthday and sings the entire birthday song, even on your answering machine). 

Matt made his famous cobbler.  Hardly any butter in his recipe as you can see.  Ha.

And I even set the table.  That is a rarity.  Also, kept it classy with red solo cups.

Matt's dad takes really great photos and showed us some highlights from their trip.  It was insane how they remembered every one's names.  There were a ton of people they met and the names were really hard to say and they remembered almost every single one.  I think that speaks to their love for relationships.

Another highlight of the evening was killing this fly. <---Things get pretty wild over here.

 It was so nice out so we left some doors open and unfortunately the flies in our neighborhood are fed some growth hormone. I chased this guy around the house with a dish towel for about ten minutes to no avail but Matt got him in a single clap.  It was amazing. 

What I should have been celebrating.

Lots to celebrate but I didn't really.  This weekend was VERY low key.  I pulled weeds, hacked away at a runaway vine in our front yard, mopped our floors, went to church, had lunch with my parents, and watched a lot a Damages (my new favorite TV show). 

What I should have been celebrating was:

Cinco de Mayo with a pup that knows how to party.  He was mad because I didn't bring out the tequila for the occasion.  Two more weeks my little furry friend. 

Logan's Birthday!  Oh man, this picture is so precious.  Who wouldn't want to celebrate with that guy?

And finally, after 3 months of being gone (he came home twice, once for two days, once for three days) Matt is back!  I picked him up from the airport after yoga so I probably smelled pretty funky but so happy to have him home.  One of our bikes got stolen out of our back yard last week and I am feeling so much more secure with him home knowing there are burglars preying on the single ladies.  It's like they don't know I'm armed and dangerous.  Have I mentioned how many weapons I have?

Photo from C1 Design and Photography

Also, my in laws are back from Africa.  Some girls might find this distasteful but I have some really great in laws.  They don't keep a blog (which is pretty dumb) but they are always up to incredible adventures.  So happy to have them back.

Song of the South

Tallahassee was great.  I love it up there and realized it had been over two years since my last visit.  Far too long.  After this weekend, I’m 100% sure I am destined to live in a commune.  The buzz of a full house is just addicting.  When I got home, the quiet of a house with just me and my dog was odd.  I love the chaos of lots of people living in the same house. 

Some highlights….

Where else can you find dog/cat repellant?

I found these on the kitchen table.  The smell could possibly be toxic.  My grandma said that gin soaked raisins help circulation.  I’m pretty sure she made that up.

My grandparents own a ton of land and grow lots of fun things including the best kumquats I’ve ever tasted.  Sorry, Granddad for eating the rest of them.

These camellias were beautiful, I don’t think they had really bloomed yet but I cut them for the kitchen table anyway, they reminded me of ranunculus.

The house my dad grew up in….

85 years young, however, people live to 100 regularly in our family.  Good genes. 

My aunt perfected the potato salad.

My grandfather built this apartment on top of his work shed for his family to stay when they visited.  He is amazing.

My grandfather said he saw an animal in the field across from the house.  These kinds of things are very exciting in these parts so everyone needed to see it.

After a big southern-y lunch we headed to the woods for a family hike which included timber yards, stocked fishing ponds, hunting perches (?), ticks, barn exploring, and of course, laughter. 

My dad and I went for a run one morning.  Holy hills Batman.  The sunrise was lovely though, and I needed to run.  Obviously, my aunts’ honey bun cake and homemade dinner rolls were the reason why Bob Harper’s plan took a backseat this weekend.  Oui vey.  I probably should have run 14 miles but Dad and I stuck with 4 hilly beautiful miles through rustic homesteads and farms.

I've no idea why this bathroom towel is here.  Our family's name is "Mahaffey" and not one person's name starts with a "T". 

I can’t wait to get back this summer and pick all of the blueberries before my aunts get there.  They love arriving to bushes that have been picked clean. 

While I was consuming salt for two glorious days (oh the salt I consumed....I think my feet are swollen), I asked my parents to stop for some boiled peanuts.  Boiled peanuts should come from places that look like this. 

Please oh please. Just one more plank. Don't make me sprint again.

Tuesdays are my yoga day where I fall into a gentle slumber after returning home relaxed and stretched out <--yeah right.  I have stuff to do and that never really happens because a day doesn't end at 6:30pm but I think it would be nice because yoga does make me sleepy. 

However I felt like sweating.  And I never feel like that so I figured it was a sign that I should sweat while the motivation was there.  Mary, a local trainer, who writes, unlike mine, an incredibly informative blog, Food and Fun on the Run, and she creates killer (like you want to scream/die/be killed) workouts.  She is a Jillian Michaels/Dexter hybrid.  I've done many of her workouts and they ground me.  When I am done I am laying on the ground for a good five minutes while Luke licks my armpits (it's so weird, please tell me someone elses dog does that too).  She created one a few months ago for her husband (so Mary, when you see the creeper that searched your blog for your husband's name and "workout", it was just me trying to find this and not a picture of your husband working out).  I only did this once because I was going to the gym later but it was great.  I was dripping sweat, which makes me extra beautiful.  Mary, you rock, I never thought I'd think of a plank as a rest period. 

At the gym I had about an hour before yoga and love circuit workouts so I gave myself 10 minutes on four different machines which I thought would give me time to cool down before my class.  I ended up doing about 12 minutes on the rower (my new favorite machine at the gym), exactly 10 and not a minute more on the stair climber (my absolute least favorite machine at the gym), 10 minutes on the spin bike, and about 5 minutes on the treadmill sprinting.  I used a lot of gym wipes but I was never bored.  I was also very sweaty going into yoga.  I found a back corner where I thought no one could see me but it was packed so everyone did.  At least my pants weren't see through like usual so I didn't blind anyone. 

On Wednesdays, I feel really productive because I run my dog at 5:30am (typing that makes me feel impressive so be impressed) shower, make breakfast (to go because there ain't no time to eat), make coffee, get some cuddling in with Luke, talk to Matt (because he's on West coast time and goes to bed when I wake up), and head off to the morning bible study at Hillsborough High School.  It is right down the street from me and I love the kids there.  Even the ones I just meet in the hallway are nice and hold doors for one another and it doesn't hurt that the campus is beautiful.  They have NRT testing which is pretty much the worst.  So extra prayers for the teachers there and students taking these really stupid tests that are supposed to gauge their intellect because legislation says that teachers aren't capable of that.  Maybe if we paid teachers more, it would be a job intelligent people would want to do, and maybe if teaching was a profession that our legislators respected then they would allow them to gauge student performance, not a week of testing with impossible questions.  It is so stupid.  No wonder we outsource.  Rant DONE. 

Tonight I have to say good bye to my in-laws as they are leaving for Africa soon.  This is the perfect fit for them.  They love people so much and to send them out into the world where people need hope, is just so perfect.  Pray that they receive the funds needed to operate on the ground there.  They are holding a training to teach pastors and really want to have the funding to provide meals while the pastors and their wives are attending.  This would be such a blessing to those couples as they make very little money and hardly enough to travel and stay for the conference. 

I'd also like to add that they are not the pastors you see on TV that say they love Jesus and ask for money to help people and then live the lives of royalty.  They sold their house last year to live in an RV so that their expenses would be smaller and they could give more.  If you ever want to hear the whole story let me know and you can meet them because they are so great. 

As a testimony to how much love these two, I'm making curry tonight (shocker) with no spice which is a struggle for me. 

A Glorious weekend, a picture overload, and a lot of made up words.

I got an email on Saturday that was going to change my weekend. 

An invite to go strawberry picking.  I love strawberry picking so much.  I'm sure the owners of the farms think anyone that goes to pick their own are such suckers.  It is terribly hard work.  But they are so cheap and my friend found a farm that grows berries that taste like they are from California.  I am not the only sucker though.  My friends are too and got to my house early so I hired them to shell garbanzo beans for no pay.  I pretty much won the "friend game".  They shelled those babies while I sipped iced tea and fanned myself by the window.

The work is hardly rewarding, it took about 30 minutes to shell a big bag of the garbanzo beans and after shelling you get about a cup and a half of the beans.  Raw, they taste more like a pea but once steamed, they develop a "beanier" taste.  I'm very technical with my culinary terms.

The friends we went with swear by Spivey Farms in Plant City (I think that is where it was, I was along for the ride and everything looked like Plant City- I don't know anything about geography). 

They give you those quart containers to measure how many berries you pick and pay at the end.  We brought big Tupperware containers to dump our strawberries as we picked and each person reported how many quarts they'd picked for our grand total.  Each quart is .50 so we paid about $30 for the amount we picked. 



Why do I pick beautiful people to be my friends?


And to be called a "grand total", you must have a "grand" amount.  Drumroll please...61 quarts, thank you.  We went a little overboard.

I hulled and bagged about 3/4 of what I brought home and kept the rest fresh for lots of strawberry recipes and of course, what I wait for every year....strawberry vodka.  It's amazing.  Like better than amazing.  Mix a little (or a lot) with some lemonade and you've got yourself a pretty great night.  To balance out the vodka though strawberries on top of my oatmeal for the next few days sounds pretty stellar too. 

Easter was fantastic.  Judging from my friend's Facebook updates, it looked like not one person in Tampa stayed inside to celebrate.   The day itself was such a gift.  I got a little ambitious with my barista skills after my heart artistry last week and tried to make a bunny.  Too bad a bunny doesn't look as much like a heart as I thought.  I settled on it being a stone rolling away and called it an Easter miracle anyway. 

My parents joined me for worship so I didn't have to attend church alone on Easter Sunday and I pretty much cried the whole time, it was such a beautiful service.  I go to an incredible church, I can't stand it.  If anyone ever wants to go with me, I'd looooove it.  There were so many people yesterday the lines for communion were off the chain.  What an awesome problem.

I grew up in the most beautiful neighborhood in Lutz.  Living now in ghetto city, it's like a sweet breath of fresh air going home and some friends I grew up with volunteered to host our families for Easter lunch in their beautiful home on the lake we have so many memories in. 





It was a potluck and everyone brought something.  Everyone was really sweet and omitted butter from some of their recipes for me which was amazing.  I brought a layered salad that looked like it took a lot more time than it did (maybe 6 minutes to put together). 

Superfood Salad:

2 cups of cooked barley

1.5 cups of cooked black quinoa

5 salad peppers (I used the yellow ones for color)

5 cups of chopped kale

1.5 cups of fresh garbanzos or regular ones (edamamme would be good too)

Cherry tomatoes (I used yellow and red)

Dressing:

One tbsp of olive oil

1/3 cup of orange juice (I freshly juiced mine for extra Martha-points)

three minced garlic cloves

one tsp of salt

freshly cracked pepper (I have a squeezy pepper grinder and gave it about three squeezes)

1/2 of rice wine vinegar

The grains were seasoned with salt while cooking.  I didn't use broth to cook them in but I'd imagine that would have made them tastier.  I put the kale in a big bowl and massaged the dressing onto it for about one minute.  This is a crucial step.  Kale is slightly bitter when raw but becomes fabulous while being massaged, much like me.  Then I just layered the ingredients as I went along into a trifle dish.  There was some dressing left at the bottom of the kale bowl that I poured over the top once finished.  It was light and very reminiscent of Spring.  Layered salads are my jam because you can use whatever you have around and it makes for a super impressive presentation. 

Such a relaxing day filled with laughing and catching up.  My friend recently completed her first marathon so I asked her a million questions while she was trying to eat which I'm sure she appreciated.  Can I please be put under hypnosis and run one?  That way there is no anticipation and I still get to say I ran one.  I'm afraid of pain.