This Weekend

This past Saturday was the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, and I have to say, there's nothing quite like being part of such a huge event. Normally we're not the biggest fans of waking up before 7 on a weekend, and I was lucky I could even get Branden to come with me. In fact, the only reason he agreed was because I organized our team.

 On the way back to the car we walked through a part of downtown that I rarely get to see. I love finding interesting architecture like the old Salt Lake Stock Exchange (now it's law offices).

Afterwards, Branden and I headed to Rocky Mountain Grill for some great Omelets. If anyone out there is going Primal... I would recommend it. They are great about substitutions.

After months of working on custom team shirts, obtaining e-mail approvals, recruiting team members, and holding networking events I was glad to see it finally come all together...and I must admit, I'm glad that it's pretty much over.

P.S.
On Sunday we headed to my Aunt & Uncle's house for family dinner like we usually do. We had a nice impromptu puppy play-date.

Going Primal

Branden and I have decided to take the jump and "go Primal." That pretty much means that we've agreed to give up all processed carbs (I'm still working on the candy...). So, we've been re-vamping some of our favorite recipes, and it means that I'm putting a bit more thought into our meals now. This week we are having vegetable beef stew (recipe to follow), Chicken Tikka Masala, and Lemon Beef Brisket. Branden figured out that a dessert can be made following the guidelines, and we've also discovered that an old favorite (broccoli salad) is Primal too! I'm not sure if we'll stick to the Primal thing, but for now I'm willing to give it a shot.

Broccoli Salad

Thoughts

We spent most of the day yesterday at the boat. I love our boat, but since we race with Hank on his Santana, we don't spend nearly enough time on our own. I realized yesterday how silly it was that we bought it (right after I justified buying a new stereo for it... can't wait to figure out how to wire that thing!). We race almost every weekend with Hank. And starting in May, most every Wednesday too. That leaves only Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday evenings to get all chores, errands, and sailing in. Chores and errands usually win out. Which is why, yesterday when we went to put up the sails, we found a birds nest--complete with a bird and three eggs--IN our sails. Hopefully we'll be able to spend more time on our boat soon.

Thoughts

• I never seem to be able to finish unpacking/cleaning out boxes ... no matter what deadline I give myself.
• I'm having trouble figuring out how to finish decorating my bedroom. I have decent decor, but the walls are blank. I really want to spend about $200 on picture frames, but that just seems irresponsible
• I want to blog more. Here are some topic ideas - Things I love - Something that happened this week - Thoughts on life - Diet topics
• We got a puppy-- he's a Maltese. Malteses are known for having bad teeth. Ideally I should brush his teeth every day. If I usually find it to be a huge hassle to brush my own teeth every day, how I am I going to brush my puppy's teeth?

Off Work

I love the few days I get off work.Last weekend I spent a ton of time looking at evening gowns. I have to wear one this June, and I think I found the perfect dress!!!

While I was doing that, I found this pattern

Source: simplicity.com via Elizabeth on Pinterest

I'm thinking about making it in white in a jersey fabric. It just breathes summer to me... only catch is, I can't decide to make it into a long maxi dress, or to leave it knee length.  What do you think?

House

I don't know what it is about living in a place that makes it so difficult to keep clean -- case in point, I just jabbed a dry spaghetti noodle into my foot. I don't know what it was doing in the carpet under the kitchen table anyway... I mean I just vacuumed two days ago. Anyway, I'm sure that it has something to do with my new pinterest habit. I recently found out that I will get to attend this year's Miss Provo pageant, and that I'm going to get to wear an evening gown. Talk about fun! I've missed those types of things (they make me want to be a pageant director myself, ha). In any case, I spent most of the day looking for suitable dress. I'm tempted just to wear one of my old dresses, but they either seem out of style, or a bit childish. It's only been 5 years, but I feel like a completely different person. So far this green one is my top pick, but green doesn't look very good on me.

Source: lightinthebox.com via Elizabeth on Pinterest

I went ahead and ordered a somewhat similar blue dress that I'll embellish just a little. Hopefully I'll like it when I see it.

Adding more hours to each day ...

Whenever my manager asks me if there's anything I need, I usually respond that I just need someone to insert a few more hours into everyday.

I hate that moment when I realize I won't be able to get everything done that I want to in a day. And it comes every day, no matter what. At work? Yep. At home? Yep. On the weekend? Yep. On vacation? Yep.

My husbands answer is usually to abridge my to do list, but I think u finally figured it out. Multitasking.... But I really mean multitasking.

It all started when one of our cars was in the shop. Branden would drive me to work, and I discovered that I could save 10-15 min every day by doing my makeup in the car, and today I discovered two new tricks

1. Cooking. I usually have trouble finding time to put things together for our meals. But since I'm on my new budgeting kick, I'm trying to make our food $ stretch, and that means more home cooked meals and bagged lunches. Tonight while fixing dinner (oven-baked chili tilapia, green beans and creamed potatoes) I decided to take advantage of my cooking equipment. After I cubed my potatoes, I cut veggies for our lunches and for tomorrow's meatloaf, and made tuna salad for my sandwich tomorrow. Ass soon as I get home again, I'm planning on mixing up some eggs for an omelette tomorrow morning. Hopefully this will mean a healthier and more budget friendly eating style for me and my family.

2. Me time. This is usually the first thing to go when I'm running out of time in the evenings. So tonight, when I wanted to spend some time checking out pinterest, I could only justify it if I kept it from being a distraction from the things I needed to get done. So what did I do? I downloaded the pinterest app, and did it while on the elliptical, and I wrote this post.

To-Do:

Here's my to-do list for the day: