Aggies Do It Better

Well Hello There! I've been swamped since we got back from our trip at midnight Sunday night so I'm just now getting to posting about my race! My to-do list just keeps growing... We had a great trip, and I'll make another post about the rest of it later this week hopefully. For some reason, time has just gotten away from me this year. For the past few years, I've had the goal of having ALL the Christmas shopping and stuff DONE by Thanksgiving, and once you do that once, it is eye-opening! It really lets me relax and enjoy December. This year is the first year in a while I'm feeling any stress about getting things done! Having trips planned for Thanksgiving and Christmas probably factor in to that. Anyway! The race went great! The weather turned out BEAUTIFUL. Thanksgiving day was HOT, the high was like 86! But Saturday was very cold and rainy and about 60 I think. (yes, 60 is cold to me!) Sunday morning, we rolled up at the race in the dark and the temp was 57. As t...

So here are the side-by-sides I was talking about earlier. After this I'll leave Halloween be!! This is the pattern I used: McCall's MP373. I know the pic is tiny, but you can see that it is one pattern with different ears, tails, and other add-ons for a basic jumpsuit. This is the only Garfield costume I could find online. Basically I made the jumpsuit out of orange material, and got some black cut to make the stripes, etc. Then, by using this picture and pictures of the actual cartoon on line, as a guide, I made all the details. the face part I made separately, sewed a back on it and then stuffed it, then hand-sewed the corners to the hood. I hot-glued on all those stripes on the back. I cut out diamonds of the material, then cut those into strips. Here is the picture of the Odie costume. I did sew spots on the sides, evenly, unlike this "Odie", but you can't even see them in any of the pictures! Also, after some debate, I wound up sewing the "tongue...

Well, in seven days I'll be running in my first ever half-marathon. I am excited! My dad is running in it too!! He has been running much more than me lately so he'll probably smoke me! Hopefully I'll get some great pics and will still be alive in as I cross the finish line!! I haven't been running as much the past week, I'm just taking it easy so I don't get injured. And, it's been cold and rainy and gross here, so not much in the mood either! Wish me luck! If any of you follow me on twitter you'll probably get updates on the race progress sooner than I'll be able post here! I'm going to try and tweet some pics from along the way, The Space Shuttle will still be on the pad so hopefully we'll see it from the course!

This Thanksgiving, or before, who are we kidding?, Drink your Dessert! Ok yall. Seriously. Hang on to your hats. This recipe is a compliation of several I found online plus my own tweaks to make it easy to make with every day, inexpensive items. And, I wanted to make sure I brought you the best possible version. It took many tries. I was willing to do that for yall. You're Welcome :) Ok, here we go: Here's a pic of everything you need. It looks like a lot, but it's not really. Also, you will need some Pumpkin Pie Spice, I forgot to put that in the pic! This makes ONE drink. Martini shaker. If you don't have one, you could probably just put this in a large glass and stir it up really well. Also, you don't have to use a Martini glass, but it just looks cooler. 1-ounce measuring glass or shotglass. Or, if you're brave, you can eyeball it. Vanilla vodka (or regular vodka plus vanilla extract, which is what I used, because we are not fancy enough to have the f...

In case anyone has been wondering, I've temporarily put this project on hold. Ever since I got a little behind a few weeks ago, the Aggies have started winning. Against good teams. So, in true sports-fan fashion, out of superstition, I won't be posting any more until we lose or the season's over!! Gig em and Beat the Hell Outta Nebraska!! WHOOP!!!!!!!!!

I made this golf-themed cupcakes for my husband to take to work last week for his birthday. Aren't they fun! They are from "What's New, Cupcake?", one of my favorite cupcake books!! They weren't that hard to make, really, just time consuming for the "grass" part! Good thing for my fur/grass frosting tip that I also used to make these Elmo cupcakes (that I just realized have never been published on this blog, so that's a link to my other site!)

The second thing I tried with the mandoline was vegetable chips. I've seen these in a bag, so they can't be that hard, right? WRONG. I'm really trying to avoid frying them. Here's my first attempt: Zucchini. This is all from ONE zucchini, sliced at 1/8 inch. Wowza! I sliced them up and layed them out on parchment. I put some S&P on them. I meant to toss them in EVOO, but forgot. I don't think that made the difference, we'll see next time. Same thing as with the apple chips : 350, 10 minutes on each side. Here's what I was left with. They look pretty good in the pic, but they were actually not crisp at all. I'm not sure why! I was really planning on having those with our dinner, and they didn't turn out. So back to the interwebs I went, and found this recipe for Zucchini chips. Except, they aren't exactly chips, more like a "parm", like chicken or eggplant. Whatevs. It was good. Here's a simple breakdown. Slice up one Zucchini to...

I sense this blog becoming a little bit more food-driven in the coming months, I blame it on new kitchen gadgets and the upcoming food-centric fall/winter months. So if you're not into that sort of thing, bear with me! There will also be alot of pictures, because I think that's the most important thing when you are trying to learn something new!! One of my bday gifts was a Mandoline, which is a fancy name for a slicer. It has a fixed blade and a "runway" that allows you to make uniform slices at a variety of widths. The blade also rotates to expose thick and thin julienne blades too. If you don't have a mandoline, some regular cheese graters have a straight blade on them. I'm not exactly sure how thin it slices, I've never really trusted my self to use it. And it isn't big enough for me. The mandoline I have is pretty fancy, but Bed Bath and Beyond sells a little hand one for like $15. Or, if you have MAD knife skills, you could try with just a butcher...

Um, Yikes. I seriously need to get my patootie runnin. I didn't run last week at all, like nothing since the 14 miler. I was up with both boys individually every night for 10 nights in a row. Sleep deprivation combined with a husband who was gone half the week = NO running for me. I'm okay with it, life just happens sometimes. I'm going to try to make up for it this week! My goal is M, W, F, then a longer run Sunday. I basically just need to keep at a constant pace and do a little speedwork between now and November 28. Then,I will have one of these around my neck....

I am waaaay behind on my baking projects, including the Big XII. I am still trying to get caught up! Here's part of the reason: the few spare minutes I had last weekend went to making some fun Halloween food! I made these "fall harvest" cupcakes, totally last minute , for a Halloween party we went to. I had no idea what I was going to do, especially since all the ones in my cupcake books required alot of supplies that I didn't have and didn't have time to go out and get. So I did a little survey of what I did have, and came up with these! I also made these for the boys, the night before Halloween. They're from one of my Halloween foodie mags! Cute! I don't think I have any pics of our actual Halloween dinner, but I made hot dog mummies....very cute!

I'm gonna go back a few weeks to get this old bloggaroo up to date. A few weekends ago was my birthday. My husband and his 2 little accomplices decided to whisk me away for the weekend to Atlanta just to get away. We all needed that! It's only about a 4 hour drive from here. We had a great time, and to cap it off, the Blue Angels just happened to be having an airshow that weekend, so we got to see them perform on our way out. It was the most people I've ever seen at an airshow in my life, and let me tell you, I've been to many. The main reason he chose Atlanta is because they have this: Papadeux. Jumbo Shrimp Brochette. And the best grilled asparagus anywhere. This is heaven on a plate. It's one of my favorite things to eat anywhere. It's very heavy and filling and usually I can barely finish it...I hate to leave one little guy scraggling but with the asparagus and the better half of a bottle of wine, it's the best I can do! We joke that alot of our trips r...

Welp, a trip to Hawaii can sure throw off one's half-marathon training and blogging about said training! But sometimes, you gotta take one for the team. I've been a bad little blogger and bad little runner. I'm gonna try to get caught up this weekend, along with a ton of other things! Last up, I had completed my 12 miler, and it bout did me in. I had 2 weeks until the 14, and I was seriously doubting my ability to do it. Luckily, I had a weekend off (convienently the weekend I was in Hawaii) from long runs. While I was in Hawaii, I ran twice, once 3.25 miles and once 2.5 miles. That's pretty good! Can't beat the weather...but you have to go early because it gets hoooot!! Don't worry, I'm not waiting for any pity. Once I got back, it's been a whirlwind of jet lag and sleep deprivation from being up all night with the boys coughing. But I did manage to do my 14, which I was dreading, last weekend. And, I survived!! 2 hours and 40 minutes, way under 3 hours...

Well, it's here! I finally finished the boy's Halloween costumes, with a couple days to spare!! Go me!! This is one of the few times, if ever, I will be posting pics of the boys. They make such cute little models. They are thrilled to be wearing them, for the most part, which is a huge relief! Even #2, who, wants to put his on when #1 has his on, and take it off the same way. He wants to be just like his big brother!! Here they are.... straight from their debut at my mom's group Halloween party this am! Garfield and Odie! Next week I'll do a side-by-side with the costumes I made and the ones I found from the internet that I was "inspired" by. I think I came pretty close! And I think my Garfield stripes are better! #1 "Odie" #2 "Garfield"

Yall didn't think just because I'M IN HAWAII RIGHT NOW that I would skip this week! No Way! This week is Kansas! Ok, not much chatter for today, I'm gonna go have another mai tai!

I can't believe how close it's getting. All my training has been going well, and I DOMINATED my 10 miles 2 weeks ago. I was not worried at all about logging in my 12 miles (another record for me) this weekend! I wound up having to do it today (Monday) because we were out of town this weekend for my b-day (more on that later). Let me tell you, there is a world of difference between 10 and 12 miles! GAH! I finished it but barely. I walked alot. I did finish in my projected goal time frame, surprisingly, but still! At least I know if I can do this, I can probably squeeze out another mile for the actual half (13 miles). However, I still have a 14 and 15 mile run between now and then. I honestly don't know how I'm gonna do those! So, that's all for now...I have 3 days to get ready for my trip to Hawaii for my brother's wedding this weekend. I'm going Thurs through Tues. Hopefully during that I'll be able to squeeze in a few short runs inbetween the mai tais! ...

This week the Aggies play Missouri. This logo is the last of the hard ones I think! God bless the easy schools with just big letters (N, OU, TT, BU, UT). I couldn't decide whether I was gonna put this guy on the white background or not because he has so much white on him.

Hello, My name is Jennifer. And I'm a project-starter. (see also: Project Halloween , Tour of the Big XII ) So, if that's not enough, I decided I needed to do a "Cupcake of the Month". This will allow me to branch out with my cupcake flavors and try out how some of my favorite holiday flavors do in a cupcake. It doesn't help that we are officially in the "baking season", my bread and butter! (mmmmm.....bread.....) I decided October needed to be something fall-ish, but not to Thanksgiving-y, we have November for that. I guess I kind of already did this with the Candy Corn cupcake , but since I did that before now I can't really count it! So I decided on Carmel Apple. The idea was red, apple-flavored cake with Carmel Buttercream frosting. The trick is findng a recipe for apple cake that's JUST apple, not apple-cinnamon, or spice, or something like that. Not so easy! I decided on trying out 2 recipes. The first one was just adding a bunch of choppe...