Happy Birthday to my House

Today is Minh’s 29th birthday!!!! He’s been kinda joking around that he wanted to pick up the ukelele as a hobby when we moved to the UK. Maybe he can make some change on the side singing tunes in the town square…

Color & Photography Inspiration – Laura Ruth

Partay Art Print by Laura Ruth – Society 6

I originally saw this print by Laura Ruth back at the beginning of December 2012 on Creature Comforts. But I loved the photograph so much that I had to re-post it here. Kinda wish I took this picture myself.

Here’s another super cute print from Laura Ruth…

Will work for treats Art Print by Laura Ruth – Society 6

… which I couldn’t help to (sort of) recreate with my own puppy…

All tangled up in lights..

Hey.. I’m no photographer, but she’s still pretty darn cute!

“P” is for Pizza

What started as pizza night for 3 (me, Minh, and John) turned out to be a little pizza party for 10(ish). John had asked a long long time ago to make pizza in our spiffy “pizza oven” (Weber Grill + KettlePizza… modified a bit with some added metal and ceramic tiles). And since pizza is Minh’s favorite food, I’m a bit surprised that it’s taken this long to get a pizza party together..

Pizza dough.. pre-rise…

San Marzano tomatoes!

in the oven

toppings station

basic red

basic green

post-party clean-up

Toppings included.. basic pizza sauce (crushed tomatoes with olive oil), pesto, mushrooms, red peppers, red onions, pepperoni, prosciutto, basil, garlic, wild arugula, and of course mozzarella (shredded, bocconcini, and sliced). Dough was a basic neopolitan pizza dough from Serious Eats. Turned out pretty awesome, and we’ll probably have many more pizza parties in the future. Just need to tweak temperatures and times slightly… and maybe learn how to make the crust better (not the recipe, but be able to spread the crust thinner and bigger…). Any tips?

Detox: Week 2

OMG.. I’m so glad these two weeks are OVER!

Choosing foods got easier in this second week, but it was still very hard to pick meals because of the no-corn/no-soy/no-gluten rule. We did a lot more cooking at home and a bit less eating out, which was good.

Sunday:
Brunch – turkey breakfast sausage, breakfast potatoes, GF/Vegan pancakes, berry compote, sous-vide eggs (because I forgot that they weren’t allowed), almond champagne (because it was book club!)
Dinner – grilled rainbow trout, wild rice, grilled zucchini (King’s Fish House)

Monday:
Lunch: mixed greens salad with grilled salmon
Dinner: roast chicken with potatoes and crispy baked green beans

Tuesday:
Lunch: mixed green salad with chicken
Dinner: chicken curry and brown rice

Wednesday:
Lunch: “skinny” fish taco (lettuce wrapped – FREE!!), brown rice and black beans (Wahoo’s)
Dinner: vegetarian chili and brown rice

Thursday:
Lunch: brown rice sushi (Whole Foods – FREE!!)
Dinner: leftover chicken curry and brown rice

Friday / Saturday: …
I’ll admit it now.. I ended the detox early. I was pretty much over it, and didn’t feel any different other than craving foods all the time and not liking it one bit. I’m all for eating whole foods and being more aware of what you’re putting into your body, but the detox was just too extreme for me.  I will probably never do a detox ever again, at least not something so long and restrictive… you need to give yourself a break sometimes!

On the Water

A while back, as a wedding present to ourselves, Minh and I purchased a pair of brand new kayaks from REI… he got red, I got green.

We didn’t have a chance to take them out on the water because of the wedding planning, and the increased risk of sunburn (and weird tanlines) on the water. So the quietly sat in our house, first in the living room, then in the garage, and then on a rack that Minh built to store them. We FINALLY got to take them out this past weekend along with our friend Chris. We launched them at Huntington Harber and went for a little sunset glide…

Photo stolen from Chris’ facebook

It was so fun because we had no idea what we were doing and kept paddling in circles. It was also extremely hard on the shoulders, which just shows how little upper body strength I have. Here’s a little time lapse video that we took (because we’re in love with timelapsing now!)..

Looking forward to many more outings on the water!

Detox: Week One

I’m one week into a two week detox.. and it sucks! Granted, this is one of the easier detox programs… I can still eat a ton of food, just restricted on some things, and I have a supplement that I take twice a day. Nothing like those juice cleanses or 3-day detoxes where you can’t eat anything or you have to be by the toilet all day. No, this one is more about being mindful of what you eat and decreasing the amount of toxins in your body. It also focusses on avoiding allergens… not necessarily foods that you are allergic to, but foods that people are generally allergic to..

The following foods are restricted during the detox:

Dairy and eggs
Soy and soy based products
Gluten
Peanuts
Citrus
Processed foods
Refined sugar
Red meat
Shellfish
Tuna and swordfish
Chocolate
Caffeine
Alcohol

It’s been tough. Anyone who knows me knows that I love eating candy and junk food (like Flaming Hot Cheetos). I also love bread and cheese and meat (like Big Macs).. so it’s been pretty rough going. All I ever crave is barbecue, pizza, and candy (and now Big macs). Apparently, fruit alone is not sweet enough, nuts are not as satisfying as chips, and fish and chicken have nothing on a juice steak or burger….

So here’s what I HAVE been eating:

Everyday:

Breakfast Smoothie – consists of 1/2 c almond milk, 1/2 cup juice (pomegranate, apple, or carrot), 1/2 T chia seeds, 1/2 cup mixed berries, 1/2 banana, handful of baby spinach, handful of cucumber slices, + detox supplement powder

Breakfast Smoothie: Tastes better than it looks….

SNACKS: mixed berries (strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries), nuts (roasted brazil nuts, pistachios and raw almonds), veggies (carrots, celery, cucumber, sweet peppers) and hummus

Sunday:
Lunch: Salad – mixed greens, avocado, red onion, cucumber, grilled chicken, olive oil and vinegar
Dinner: grilled swai, mashed potatoes (no milk, just a mashed with a touch of olive oil), sauteed swiss chard with slivered almonds

Monday:
Lunch: rice pilaf and grilled chicken kabob (Daphne’s)
Dinner: acorn squash stuffed with quinoa, chicken and pecans

Tuesday:
Lunch: leftover acorn squash and quinoa
Dinner: sous-vide chicken drumstick, broccoli and mashed potatoes

Wednesday:
Lunch: brown rice, black beans, grilled fish (Wahoo’s)
Dinner: spaghetti squash with ground turkey and fresh tomato sauce

Thursday:
Lunch: sushi made with brown rice (Whole Foods – FREE!)
Dinner: grilled salmon and brown rice (Malibu Fish Grill)

Friday:
Lunch: leftover chicken, broccoli and mashed potatoes
Dinner: rotisserie chicken, green beans, plain baked potato (Claim Jumper)

Saturday:
Lunch: turkey leg (OC Fair)
Dinner: grilled salmon salad

Generally speaking, the food is good for you.. but I’m getting so tired of breakfast smoothies and veggies with hummus.. How am I supposed to survive another week? And how am I supposed to survive the fair on Saturday.. or book club on Sunday?? Probably would be only hurting myself with cheater days on the weekend, right?

Ushi Interview with Schleck Brothers

Watch in its entirety…. trust me, it’s worth the time.

The Vet, The Dog, and… the Worm

Minh and I have had Sprocket for 3 months now. And for the most part.. those three months have been pretty good, especially since we’ve been going to training (more on that next week). That is.. things have been going good until…

… I took her to the dog park. I’m not saying “Don’t take your dog to the dog park”.. by no means. Sprocket LOVED the dog park. It was her first time, and there were about half a dozen (bigger) dogs for her to run around and play with. She let out a lot of energy, and it was great to be able to see her interact with other dogs and run around freely. But.. she also got peed on, molested by a male pit, and after about 30 minutes was hiding under a bench from another dog who was trying to establish “alpha” status.

AND… I’m pretty sure she got tapeworm from the dog park. She must have eaten something while I wasn’t looking. For the last week and a half, she’s been peeing in her crate, which is something she NEVER did even after we took her home from the shelter. At first, we thought she had UTI. We took her to the vet yesterday, and while they didn’t find any signs of bacteria infection, they did find TAPEWORM!!! No wonder she’s still so skinny!

The vet gave us antibiotics anyway, just in case she had low levels of bacteria that did not show up in the urinalysis, and a shot to kill the tapeworm. We’re also upping her daily food because apparently we weren’t feeding her enough. So… with not getting enough food and the tapeworm stealing all of her nutrients away, she’s been trying to compensate with lots of water… which led to a full bladder… which led to more accidents… and lots of cleaning. We’re lucky we had the vet check for tapeworm or else we never would have known.

EXTRA: “There’s a battle in your butt between bacteria and antibiotics!” – Oh… the weird things Minh says sometimes. But.. I love him anyway..

And… TWO BIG THUMBS UP to the Animal Medical Center in Fountain Valley. The vet was great, the staff was amazing, and the place was much better than Minh and I were expecting. Only downside is that it’s walk-in only, no appointments, but I can handle waiting.

It’s Just Hair…

It’s been YEARS (since June/July 2007.. I think) since I’ve done anything dramatic to my hair. Not that I’m known for doing dramatic things with my hair (besides chopping it all off before starting highschool and getting mistaken for a boy during BOTH freshman and sophomore year), but that’s a long time to go without a change. I was originally going to keep it long until a special event happened… but WHO KNOWS (::cough:: Minh ::cough::) when THAT will happen. I’m tired of it being long.. so it’s time for a change.

BEFORE: Very long, damaged hair

AFTER: Short, healthy, and all one color!

It’ll take some getting used to, but in the end, it’s just hair. It’ll grow back! Luckily for me, four years of growing it out with only minor trims once in a while made for some pretty long tresses. I chopped off enough length to donate to Locks of Love. Hopefully, they can salvage the good from the bad (sun + chlorine + perm + no maintenance = really bad split ends) and make something nice for the kiddies.

AFTER: Back and side view

Thanks Michelle Talbot for the wonderful new ‘do!

I SCREAM!

Ok.. I haven’t been updating my blog lately because I’ve ACTUALLY been SWAMPED at work and super BUSY at home with my BFF’s baby shower this weekend. I have a few blog posts brewing in my head with regard to training and my first race of the year and some other random thoughts.. but I just HAD TO share this:

At first, that just looks like a martini glass full of icecream, right? Well.. in a way it is.. but what is the icecream made from??

Someone must following me around, because I had just had this AMAZING IDEA about a month ago to make icecream from breastmilk and wondering whether or not it would taste good (or too weird?). Too bad this is WAY far away and is super EXPENSIVE.. but it’s definitely innovation on icecream. Now.. I will definitely be trying to make  my own whenever I have kids.