Rants, Recipes, and Running

Happy Saturday! Here are my "current" currently's. Current Book : "If I Stay". It's an easy summer read...which I'm in dire need of, with my poor reading skills lately. It's about the outer-body experience of a teenager who got in a tragic car accident. She's watching her body in the ICU, and trying to decide whether to stay or go. It's really interesting to the nurse in me. Current Excitement :  It is looking like the next guarenteed weekend Ryan & I will have together is in August when we go to Minnesota for a week @ the lakes w/ family! Lame that he works so much during July, but I'm focusing on the positive!! Cannot wait to see family and meet my niece/God-daughter Evelyn! Current Fashion : I'm really loving the maxi dresses. Only for evenings out. It's too damn hot to wear a maxi dress during the day in Tucson (for this girl, anyhow). Current Drink : Iced Green tea with Raspberry @ Starbucks. I've sipping ...

I think it's been established, but Ryan and I are a bit spontaneous when it comes to weekend get-aways. Back in May, we had planned on going to San Diego for a 3-day-weekend last weekend. But Ryan's work scheduled changed 6 times (I'm not exaggerating). So we decided to put that dream on hold for while. We didn't know if he was going to have the weekend free until 3:45 pm on Friday. And when he called with the news that he did - I started packing like a mad-woman. We had the car loaded up, and we were headed up the mountain by 5:30 pm for a camping trip! We were having a discussion with someone recently about camping, and how it's so much work and planning. But we have proved that theory wrong! But our "camping skills" did not happen overnight. Here are a few tips about camping, that I've found help tremendously. And I will finish off with a short rant about the "ugly" of camping. 1.  Heavy duty plastic containers will be your best fr...

I've been finding my "mojo" in the kitchen again lately, and we've been cooking some really fun stuff! I made a recipe last week that I had to share. It was so fun and delicious. I thought this would make a really good dinner party appetizer. Especially in the summertime. How I came up with it: We bought our 1st "produce share" through a Groupon this month. It was $20 for a basket of fresh, organic, local produce. In the basket, we got eggplant (and green beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, oranges, and garlic. Mmmm). I'm not a big eggplant fan, but was determined to find a way to like it. So I decided that basil and tomatoes (and cheese) make everything good. Ingredients: (super easy!) 1 eggplant, sliced handful of fresh basil leaves sliced tomatoes whole mozzarella 1/2 cup balsalmic vinegar 1/4 cup olive oil s & p to taste How to make: Slice the eggplants, and soak in a container with the olive oil & balsalmic (10 min) Grill for ab...