Today

Source: None via Becky on Pinterest

You can tell a lot about a girl by her Pinterests

Have you seen this website? It's my new favorite way to waste time. Although, according to this print on Pinterest, it is not actually time wasted.

Today I saw a list of my Pinboards, and it pretty much summed me up. Food I would like to eat. Places I would like to travel. Quilts I would like to make. Hair I would like to have. Ha. I was worrying that it really was not the best use of my time, and then I decided that it's my "Vision Board." You know--those exercises where you make a collage of everything you'd like to see happen in your life and look at it daily to motivate you? I've decided Pinterest is my vision board.

Looking at my "Wanderlust" board daily should be helpful in achieving my goal to travel more:

However, looking at my "Food that makes me drool" board? Only helpful if I want my clothes to shrink.

Those cookies on the bottom right? Those would be browned butter bacon chocolate chip cookies. Jillian and Zuzana would so not approve. I'm making them tomorrow.

Spicing things up with JM

It seems a little weird to blog about this bee-otch, but I've decided it's finally time to introduce her since we talk about "Jillian" in this house almost as much as we talk about kale and banana smoothies.

Last September, after a summer of running on beautiful trails outside, it was time for me to hit the gym again. And I was in a funk. I just was not feeling it. So I decided I needed a plan. Something to spice things up and give my workouts a purpose. I dusted off this book that I'd had for a couple years and hadn't used (except once--I did one workout when I bought it and decided it was too hard.)

But those shoulders. They continued to call to me. I pulled it out and skipped over all the diet stuff because slow, medium, and fast oxidizing sounded like her own pseudo-science, or at the least rebranding of existing diets. And I got to the workouts. The plan consists of ten 45-minute workouts, done 4 times per week, with two of those weekly workouts hitting the muscles on the front of the body, the other two workouts targeting muscles on the back of the body. If you've done any of Jillian's workout videos like the Shred series, these are similar high-intensity circuit training workouts. I committed to it for 30 days to get me back in the swing of things at the gym.

I questioned that commitment 35 minutes into the first workout when I was sitting on a weight bench with my head between my knees, willing myself not to throw up.

And then I questioned it again 35 minutes into the second workout, with my head between my knees, willing myself not to throw up.

I think it took 3 weeks before I stopped feeing like I was going to lose my banana smoothie during the workouts. They were hard, but by the third week I could feel myself getting stronger, and it felt good to come to the gym with a fast, efficient workout that made me push myself every day. I felt like I had a trainer, and I only had to pay $6 for her because I got her at Half-Price Books.

After the 30 days I was enjoying it so much that I decided to keep doing it. Around that time, I coaxed Kolby into trying it out. I told him I just wanted to see what he thought of it. He said, "Isn't it a girl workout?" I said, "Probably. Just try it for me." He said, "I'll have to do each circuit three times instead of two." I said, "That's cool." And then I sent him to the gym with my little printed out workout. And I waited anxiously.

He walked in the door and I said, "So?"

Kolby came around the corner looking a little pale. A little green. And he said, "I couldn't finish. I had to walk around for a while so I wouldn't barf." And I clapped my hands and laughed my most evil laugh because he'd had his ass handed to him by my "girl" workout. And no, he did not do each circuit three times.

It almost made up for the time he knocked me down with a medicine ball.

Since then, we've both stuck with our "Jillian workouts" and I'm still "enjoying" them. I hate them, especially that first workout because it still makes me feel like puking, but I like the structure they give me at the gym, and I feel like they are still making me stronger, and they actually give me that runner's high sometimes. When I first started I couldn't do more than 2 or 3 non-girly push-ups. By the second month I could do about 10. Now I do all of the push-ups without modifying them, and I can do all of her push-up variations as well. (Although I can only squeak out 5 plyo push-ups at a time. And they are barely plyo).

After nine months, I'm starting to get ever-so-slightly bored with the workouts, so I'm modifying them a bit, substituting a few exercises from her videos (her new Ripped DVD is a great one!), and some exercises from my new workout bee-otch who I was introduced to by my cousin, McKell. This is Zuzana and her heaving breasts. I call this "Workout Porn." And I actually prefer the adorable Zuzana to Jillian hollering at me not to "phone it in."

My ambitious workout goal for the summer: be able to do one pull-up.

Thai Peanut Wraps: Did They Eat it?

My sister, Jodi, sent me this recipe a couple weeks ago, and I knew I'd love it, but my experience with Asian cooking has taught me that it requires hours of chopping, so I kept putting off trying it. I shouldn't have. I threw this meal together in less than 15 minutes.


Thai Peanut Chicken Wraps

Ingredients:
1/2 tsp garlic salt
1/2 tsp pepper
3 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into strips (I diced it before cooking so it would cook faster)
1 tbs cooking oil (Jodi uses peanut oil, I used sesame oil)
4 cups broccoli slaw (Jodi uses one bag, I didn't have it so I chopped up a few crowns of broccoli)
1 medium red onion
1 tsp grated fresh ginger
Tortillas

Butter lettuce (aka Boston Bibb lettuce), rinsed, leaves separated whole and dried

Peanut Sauce:
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup peanut butter (creamy or crunchy work, I kind of like crunchy for the added crunch)
3 tbs soy sauce
5 tbs water
3 tbs cooking oil
1 or 2 cloves freshly pressed garlic cloves

Chili garlic sauce to taste (Jami's addition, because I like my Thai food a little spicey)

Directions:
Season chicken strips with garlic salt and pepper. In a large skillet cook chicken in hot oil on medium-high until no pink left. Put aside and keep warm. In same skillet add broccoli mix, onion, and ginger. Cook until crisp but tender.

Make peanut sauce while veggies cook. In a small saucepan combine sauce ingredients, heat and stir until dissolved.

Serve by layering the veggies, chicken, and sauce in a tortilla or piece of lettuce. Wrap it up. Eat it up. Lick your plate. Makes 6-8 wraps. (Makes a great salad too!)

Optional toppings: cilantro, lime, chopped peanuts, sweet chile sauce (which is a must, in my opinion. Although I put sweet chile sauce on everything. Even kale.)

These were fantastic! The girls and Kolby ate them with tortillas. I ate mine with lettuce because I love lettuce wraps. Kolby joined me in my lettuce happiness after his tortilla. I love sweet chile sauce, and Kolby and I both agreed that the sweet chile sauce elevated these to an "11." Ha. I had the leftovers the next day as a salad and it was delicious. I might try a little less sugar in the sauce next time though.

Did they eat it?

Amelia: This is so good! I'm eating it all. Even the chicken. Can I taste your lettuce? No, don't mess that perfectly good lettuce leaf up with that chicken, please.

Madeline: My thumb is 80% up. Can you figure out how to make it without chicken? Like maybe hot dogs or something.

Kolby: This needs to be in the "saved" folder. It's really really good.

Jami: My sister is so cool.

Peony envy

Oh no she di'n't.

She did. She also considered "Does the size of your peony matter?" and "Not your average peony" and "peony enhancement" for titles.

(In my best Jim Gaffigan old lady voice, "Oh, I don't like that at all. This is a family blog!")

But seriously! Peonies! This big? It's hard not to make the jokes. Especially if you pronounce them "PEE-uh-Nees" (like we do up here) instead of "pee-OH-knees." The girls can't say it without giggling.

I feel pretty

Whenever we stay with the Sanders in Portland, Madeline wears one of Emma's gorgeous dresses just because, "Yeah, whatever, we're just kind of messin' around and I put this on because it looked comfortable and then I didn't feel like changing." And then she wears it the rest of the weekend, acting very disinterested in it, unless you catch her walking by a mirror. It is essential that we act just as nonchalant, other than a very casual "You look very pretty in that dress" comment now and then.

So her graduation from elementary is coming up and I suggested going dress shopping. Her immediate reaction was, "Awwwwww. I have to wear a dress?!"

I played it cool. "No, of course not. But I thought you might like a dress like one of Emma's to wear since it's your graduation and all. What do you think?"

She played it cool right back. "Yeah, I guess that'd be alright."

And about 12 seconds later, "I think I'd probably need new shoes too."

So yesterday we had a girl day with a little dress and shoe shopping (forgive my terrible photos. I love everything about my phone except the camera.):

Followed by lunch at the Nordstrom cafe for our favorite tomato soup.

And dessert of course, because no shopping trip is complete without chocolate.

I had such a fantastic time hanging out with Maddie for the day. It's fun to see her growing up, having opinions and preferences, and feeling a little girly. I mean comfortable. These dresses were not girly dresses. They were comfortable dresses.

Almost guiltless pleasure

I am so making this tonight. With peanut butter. Which will make it two ingredient ice cream. (I wonder if I could add kale? Haha. Kidding. But you know it crossed my mind.) I might even throw in some mini chocolate chips.

Banana Ice Cream

I'm sure it won't compare to the Butterfinger ice cream which has been calling to me from my freezer for the last three days. (Sometimes I respond.) But I'm counting on it to keep me out of said Butterfinger ice cream.

Follow-up: Did they eat it?

No.