New blog location

Hey all, I moved my blog to wordpress, so you can find it http://www.themockingbirdchronicles.wordpress.com

A good lunch

I know it's been awhile AGAIN since I posted, but I haven't had internet access! Even now I'm using wireless from someone in my complex who didn't secure their network! I'm posting the amazing lunch I had last Friday that I've been recreating all this week...MMMM....



It consisted of 1/2 of Panera's Mediterranean veggie sandwich, 3/4 c. or so of spicy tomato basil soup(made that one up myself!), gluten free crackers and a big mug of tea(yogi organic green tea pomegrante.... this tea is yummy...it contains stevia leaf in the bag so it's slightly sweet after you steep in-no sugar needed) In this picture I'm eating it on my parents awesome new porch:
And for dessert:



SO Good. The sandwich has on it: hummus, roasted red peppers, cucumber, tomatoes, and onions(and feta cheese if you want, which I did not have) all on tomato bread. To re-create it I made hummus and roasted red peppers and put all the other ingredients on a toasted Arnold's sandwich thin.

The soup I made with 1 can of tomato soup+1 can of almond milk, tossed in some crushed red pepper, garlic, basil, onion powder and parsley and let it simmer for about 1/2 an hour. ..YUM!

My very first trail run

I'm at my parents house in Savannah, and the neighborhood they live in is off of a two lane road with NO shoulder and tight turns. Multiple bikers have been injured/killed on this road. My mom is adament that I dont' run on this road. So if I run around here I have to stay in the neighborhood, which is a 1 mile loop...I've done it many a time but it's BORING! So today I decided to drive on out to Skidaway Island state park and run the trails there.

I have NEVER run on a trail before so I had NO IDEA what I was getting myself into....I thought I'd do a long run of 9-10 miles. It ended up being 3.65 miles....due to a multiplicity of factors. First, I had a terrible night of sleep last night(I ate dairy yesterday...bad me) and then I slept in(till 0740, which is sleeping in for me!), then my I ate my pre-run snack of pumpkin bread and pb and was going to go get ready and my mom kept asking me for all this help getting ready(for work, nothing special!). then I had all these issues getting my stuff together to do. Finally I headed out and got to the trails around 0930. I headed out...If you loop all the trails it's SUPPOSEd to be 5 miles so I figured I could just do them twice and be done...well, the connector trail from the main trail to the two smaller trails was closed!! I also had NO idea how difficult trail running is! I was really putting in significant effort and only averaging around an 11:30-12:00 minute mile pace! After doing parts of the trails that I could I started running around the campground there. I was going to go for awhile but then I started getting a blister(and didn't have extra moleskin with me) and I knew I had to stop. Now don't think I'm some sort of wimp who can't handle a blister, heck I got blisters that bled and ulcerated during a half marathon last year, but since I have a race coming up on the 14th I didn't want to make things worse...anywho..

Stopped and took some pics on the trail:

Halloween 2009(aka hooker in a cab...)

Not a lot to say about halloween, other than there are a lot of girls out there who have significantly more body confidence than I do!! If you're wondering about the title of this post it has to do with a costume that my group of friends and I were witness to(unfortunately)....It was a very skimpy yellow/black and white checked bikini like thing...we still dont' know what it was...And trust me, the girl wearing it did NOT have the body for that revealing of a costume. Not that she had a bad body, but a little more coverage and she would've looked smoking hot...instead she just looked like....well, a hooker....and hubby mentioned the pattern of her costume looked like a taxi cab and so maybe she was a sexy cab driver/hoooker...hence..hooker in a cab(we should really market this...i mean hooters has their hooters air...

Anywhooo...here's some of the pics from my little point and shoot. hubby took some better ones of before we went out with our DSLR but it's in the car packed away. No editing has been done with these shots..

Oh yeah, I never told anyone what my costume was!! I have been trying to be this character for three years now but I always ran out of time to finish making the costume but finally this year it worked out! I was Satine from Moulin Rouge...and yes I hand-made the costume(people were asking me all night). It turned out to be this huge production and once I added all the glitter fabric to the basis of the costume it was too tight so I had to cut it down the back, add extra fabric and create a corset! What a pain! Hubby had to throw a costume together at the last second due to his friend backing out...he was Haru the great White Ninja(remember Chris Farley??)

Ta-da! Me and my friend Ron, who went as a Rabi cause everyone thinks he's Jewish(he's not...lol)



The Great White Ninja


All the girls...I guess I win the award for most sparkly!


the boys.

Who invited Achmed?

We did not plan to all be of the Moulin Rouge type theme together...but there you have it. I guess that makes them the Diamond Dogs if I'm the Sparkling Diamond!

Just what you always wanted...an upclose exclusive of my booty...LOL

I don't know who these girls are but they insisted on having a picture with me...

They call them the Diamond Dogs...teehee...I got stopped at a club by a guy who said I looked just like Nicole Kidman in Moulin rouge...UM...DUH!Finally, one of me and my bestest at the club...she was Lil' Red Riding Hood. Her BF was the big bad wolf which you can see if you go back and look at the picture of all the guys.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures and that they were worth the wait!

Lots of catching up to do...

So it's been awhile since I posted....1 week to be exact...All I can say is it's been a crazy week.

Halloween and then getting all my things together and tying up lose ends so that I would be ready for the (temporary) move to north carolina.

I'm sitting here at my parents house in Savannah waiting for my mom to come home so we can leave for my sister's house in South Carolina(before finally arriving in NC tomorrow...lol). In leiu of writing one long ass post to cover the entire past week, I'm going to do quick hi-lights and then a few separate posts for events that deserve their own post!

Halloween-getting it's own post so you can see pictures!

Sunday-today was senior picture day...whoever decided to put pictures on the day after halloween(and at 0830 no less!) was a true idiot. I had to get up really early to get all ready and make myself NOT look like I partied the night before! Pictures were okay, I hated the ones in the full regalia holding the fake diploma so I didn't order any of those. I used a new makeup product that I'd read about on a photographers website called Makeup Forever HD powder. I think it made a difference, but I'm not sure. I plan to do an official review of it later, and take photos with just makeup on and then photos with makeup on and it over the makeup and see if theres a difference. Long run in the evening-8 miles...it felt GREAT! and it was easy! The whole running 5 minute/walking 1 minute for my long runs is great. I dont' get tired and I feel like I could go forever like that! And because of the rest I get during the walking part my overall pace is the same as if I ran the whole time.

Monday-14 hours of class/board review/meetings...'nuff said

Tuesday-got up early and did a heart pounding faster 3 miles(9:30 pace...very pleased with this time), more boring bored...i mean board review. Went out for sushi with friends...had a veggie roll and veggie soup, quite good!

Wednesday-early day again...went to the gym and did 3.5 miles of hill intervals on the treadmill, plus an additional 10-15 minutes of walking(warm up/cool down). then did some ab work. I made an awesome green monster with pumpkin in it! Tasted just like pumpkin pie! Spent the whole day getting ready for my depature(packing the car, changing the oil, ect). That night hubby and I went to see the Panther's play. We usually buy our tickets the night of the game at the box office(they're so cheap-$10!!) but as we were walking there to get tickets a guy stopped us and offered us 2 lower bowl seats for $5...we worried if he was legit or not, but he went in through the ticket gate with us to show that they were legit. He was a season ticket holder and had been given extra tickets. We were only 14 rows from the ice!! It was so awesome! I've never sat so close. And funnily enough, my lasik surgeon was sitting a few rows in front of us!

Thursday-get up and drive, drive, drive! I had a great lunch. Stopped at panera and got their mediterian veggie sandwhich sans cheese. It was on some whole grain tomato bread with cilantro sauce, hummus, roasted red pepper, spinach and tomato...YUM! I ate half of it and the bag of chips they gave me. I'm going to try to re-create it! I also had a homemade larabar while driving. Got to Savannah around 1600 but went to a running store to get some calf sleeves(http://www.zensah.com/muscle-recovery-sleeve.html) that I read about in runners world(and some body glide http://www.bodyglide.com/). My mom had said we'd go to the gym but then she changed her mind so I didn't get a workout in, wah...nah, it's okay! She wanted to go to Atlanta Bread Company for dinner so we did. They did not have as good of vegetarian selections so I basically had them add stuff to their basic vegetarians sandwhich. I also had a balsamic salad on the side and finished my mom's tomato and fennel soup...yummers! I got hungry around 2100 so I made another pumpkin green monster....mmmmm...and hit the rack early. Woke up around 23:30 with stomach pains, I'm guessing cause I forgot to ask for my sandwich and salad sans cheese at ABC...learned my lesson!

So now I'm all caught up! Mostly...

Gracie's Story

I went back through my posts and realized that I never have mentioned Gracie or how we ended up with her. I mention in my first post that we have two dogs, and that's about it....Well, actually we have three dogs!

Our dog adventure started in 2007 with Bailey. About 10 months later we got Aspen to be a companion for Bailey. That was probably the best decision we ever made. Aspen brings such a calming influence to our wild and energetic Bailey. Aspen is also my baby. She is such a

mommy's girl.

Fast-forward to this summer. We knew that I would be going away for 6 months for my externships and that possibly I would also be going away for my residency and that I wanted to be able to bring Aspen with me. However, since Bailey has had the companionship of Aspen for 2 years now, she needs to have another dog around. She gets very anxious when she is by herself. So, we knew that in order for me to take Aspen with me, we'd have to get another dog. We hadn't started looking or anything when an opportunity arose.

A person was fired from the store that hubby used to work at before he went to bootcamp(he still works for Best Buy, just a different location) and they needed someone to work extra hours over there, so hubby volunteered. He was working with a guy from another store whom he(hubby) had trained back in 2006. Well, this guy asks hubby if we're interested in getting a puppy(!). Of course hubby said yes and come to find out it's a little girl, 7 weeks old, and a mix of a yorkie and a malti-poo. We talked about it and two days later we went a picked her up-a little black bundle of love-Gracie.

He(co-worker) had moved in with his girlfriend and both had dogs that were not fixed. Well, one thing led to another and Gracie and two other puppies were born. The co-worker and gf could not keep the puppies so they were giving them away(all we paid them for, was the vet care for Gracie)

The coolest part of the whole story is how Gracie got her name. She was the first puppy to be born. She was not breathing and did not have a heartbeat at birth. They thought she was stillborn. Co-worker decided he'd try to see if he could revive her so he started massaging her chest and eventually she started breathing. He said it was lucky that she lived and his mom said, Not luck, it was grace....so of COURSE she had to be named Gracie!

Now Gracie is 5 months old, 6 pounds and a wild licking maniac. She still loves to snuggle though and she and Bailey can play for hours and hours.

Dairy may not be my friend

So the cottage cheese experiment results are in....drumroll please......

is the antici..................................................................................................pation killing you? (ps...can anyone name the movie I stole that from-the anticipation part anyways?)

I have a stomach ache of the exact same nature as I had last night. Kind of a crampy, indigestiony, sour feeling. I also have, and this is probably tmi but whatever, non-productive acidy burps. I mean, you know how when your stomach is full of gas and you burp and it's relieving? Well, these burps aren't relieving and they have an acidic nature to them. My throat feels burned from the acid.

I've been researching about lactose intolerance and stuff, but all the websites say the symptoms from that come pretty quickly after ingestion of dairy(like 30 minutes-2 hours)...not 10-12 hours later! So I'm not really sure what to make of it. Maybe it's just coincidental that after 10 days of no dairy and no stomach aches I would have two stomach aches in a row after eating dairy??!!

All I know is, no more dairy for me(except my goat cheese, which is less than 1 oz/day and I've read that goat milk is easier to digest anyways), at least for a little while and then we'll see what happens!