Rants, Recipes, and Running

We have entered a new mode! House hunting has begun. We found a realtor that we're quite pleased with, and she's been shooting us emails all week with houses to look at. We looked at 5 homes on Monday afternoon. Ryan & I have been spending the past....year and a half spending mannny evenings searches the listings online and watching HGTV shows such as Property Virgins and House Hunters. All to decide what kind of "Style" of home we're looking for. It's tough not to get too excited, since we probably won't be making a move until I have a job (October - December). And HOLY-Bank-Owned!! -- There are more foreclosed homes on the market than not. It's really bizarre and eerie to me walking through some of these homes. It's like people find out they're losing their home, paint every wall a different color, rip up carpet, and take as much possible!! We've decided some of the big priorties with our home are the following: Great ki...

The last weeks of nursing school have been quite frazzling lately. And the best way to "burn out" any frustration, stress, and nerves - for me - is a good, hard cardio session! So here I am going to leave you with my favorite cardio work-out to get my heart pumping! I know we are all at different fitness levels, or maybe we aren't all runners. But this workout can be applied to walking, running, biking, etc. It's a cardio workout that involves INTERVALS. Make you sure pick a good baseline. IF you don't have a tredmill/exercise machine - then judge your intervals by the "breath test". How hard are you breathing and exerting yourself? So here it is! (I'm doing this running style at my pace, since that's how I "roll") 1-3 min...........Warm up (7.5 mph) - The pace ou pick here should be your "baseline" 4-8 min...........Interval 1. Each minute increase your pace a little more. ( ex: 8 mph, 8.2, 8.5, 9 mph) 9-10 min........

1. If given the oppotunity, would you choose a mediocre job that paid well or your dream job that paid poorly? I go so back and forth on this one. Mediocre job that pays well, will at least give me the money to buy happiness ;). And I know some of you are just cringing reading that statement. But when I think about it - if my mediocre high-paying jobs makes me dread work - then I wouldn't be happy with life. So, I would rather take the Dream Job - for my "dream job doesn't make me work holidays and weekends (why did I choose nursing again??.....) 2. What is your favorite thing about the 4th of July? (For the foreigners: What is your impression of the 4th of July?) Well, my favorite thing about the 4th has always been getting together with family - spending time outdoors all day - good fun and food. But, unfortunately we weren't able to get together with family this year. But we still had a great day filled with sunshine, good food, and fun regardless! 3. What...

Thank God we have some high-quality sleeping bags that can handle up to 0 degrees Fahrenheit. Because it got down to the 40's both nights- and our thin AZ blood doesn't tolerate the cold like it did back in North Dakota! It was a very surreal feeling waking in the middle of the night to the sound of coyotes...... We were up early to a beautiful morning. We walked down to the lake to do a little exploring. Ryan set up fishing lines....while I looked at wild flowers. This site of Ryan fishing, the nature, and boats is so peaceful to me! After a short morning on the lake, we headed back to camp to make breakfast. After breakfast, we took a drive around the area to do some exploring - and we saw a family of Elk. Elk were all over the place in this area! Just gorgeous. We decided to rent a boat for the day. So we packed up some food and drinks - and I brought books and magazines - and we enjoyed an afternoon on the lake.... Well...Kind of enjoyed..............;) We first t...