First visitors of 2012: Billy and Jordan

Billy and Jordan drove down for the weekend to have a mini-vacation from Chicago.  Since I am an over-planner, we went and hit up a lot of sites around town and had a great time.  We started out with lunch at Morgan Street Brewery, then headed over to Budweiser for the Brewery Tour.  

 

They got to try Budweiser Platinum before it officially came out to the general public so that was pretty fun.  

Afterwards, we headed back to the house to meet up with Terry and get ready for dinner.  It was Clayton (suburb of St Louis) restaurant week, so we picked one that we thought to be the best menu and headed out.  We've eaten at quite a few restaurants that were a part of this restaurant week and all were amazing....lets just say that we made a VERY wrong pick.  So much so that I'm not going to even mention the restaurant.  And I didn't take a single photo of any course in the meal.  THATS SAYING SOMETHING!!  So unfortunate, I felt awful.  

Afterwards, we headed over to The Venice Cafe for Billy and Jo to get the experience of standing in a kaleidoscope.

Saturday, we went to see the St Louis Cathedral Basilica.  Jo took a ton of pictures so when she sends them my way, I will put them up.  Always love going there.  Then we headed to The City Museum to be big kids for a while. 

Saturday night was very layed back.  We had Saturday Steak night with Bleu Cheese Polenta and Brussel Sprouts.  Then I made a blueberry and peach cobbler that they all seemed to love, as they devoured it.  Woohoo for making desserts I wont eat but that people love! 

 

 Glad that they came down to visit.  It's always nice spending time with old friends. 

Wanna be my Cheerleader (or Drill Sargeant)?

 In keeping with this Half-Marathon preparation, I made a little motivator for myself.  Clearly, I have to share it. 
I'm trying to build up my mileage while also not hating every moment of the decision I made in signing up for this crazypants idea fun. So what's more fun than a spreadsheet so I can see my progress daily in success/failure. Staring at me.  Yelling, "RUN WOMAN!" while I sit scared and staring at it... then staring at my red velvet cheesecake.  The cheesecake prevailed this week, but that HAS to change! (ohmigod it was so good though, if anyone wants the recipe, I'll send it over.)

Anywho, here's the spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ak2NRLqOHYpTdGtaQUVYZGwwWXBNenZVYncyVnRWMmc

Now: Here's what I need from you:
-If I'm keeping on track with my goals, you need to throw your Jazz Hands in the air for me. Maybe very quietly at your desk/cubicle/life of retirement say, "What what!" "You Go Girl!" "Atta Woman!".  Don't worry, I'll hear it as will your co-workers probably but that's ok!!!
-If I'm slipping, it is your responsibility to send hate mail, stern texts, "Run, Forest, Run!!" calls, etc., my way. Remember, the goal is for me to NOT die on April 15th.

MOST IMPORTANTLY:  If anybody has any tips to making this a better routine to get to my goal of not dying at mile 11 on race day, PLEASE clue me in. 

MLK day and why I hate our Kitchen Wall

I spent all day yesterday painting.  It was a relaxing day, always good especially when you don't have to work. :-)

We have continuously been unhappy with the paint color in our kitchen, and this has been an ongoing issue for the past 4+ months

It's kinda hard to see, but this picture has all the different colors so far that we've tried out.  The ceiling edge has the light green that looks great in our living room, but looked like a bad 1980's paint job in our kitchen.  The green that you can see here is the same that was in our guestroom, and it's ok, but it was just not right for the space. We wanted to try a whole different angle on this next try.  Attempting to incorporate in the tones from the backsplash, we started looking at tan/oranges: 

I think that I could be all right with the color if it looked like this in all the lights...

Unfortunately, it looks more like this.  Our modern sophisticated kitchen has some Miami flare right now.  

UGH!!  It'll more than likely be primed AGAIN this weekend.  Any tips on how to get the right color?? This getting the color wrong is really REALLY REALLY getting old.  Would love helpful tips. 

My nieces are the best

Thank you cards from Christmas; so cute!!

Snowy days are here again

Doing my best to appreciate it!

hello out there, and yes we're still alive

I promise I haven't forgotten about the blog.  I just have not had many exciting things to post about here recently.  And I'd rather not post anything than to post something frivolous or a waste of time.  We've been working on the house but it's more of hanging towel racks and cleaning the garage (boring).  So whenever I finally get around to finishing a book, or I get to where I can run 5 miles without feeling like dying, I promise I'll be posting more.  I do intend here at some point in the not to far future to do a week of Saturday night Steak Night recent menus, so maybe that will be up sooner than later.

How are all of you doing out there? Anything new?  Anything exciting?

My view New Years Eve

I'd say the view of the start of my 2012 looks amazing...