Cleaning, Play date, baking

It's Friday!!   I hope y'all's week has gone well and if it hasn't it's almost over!! 
If you weren't able to read Wednesday's post, head on over to see our NEWS!

Yesterday, I got up and had a small breakfast and some coffee, yay!  I am now wanting it again!  There were about 6 weeks where I couldn't stand the smell or thought of it! 
I hopped on the treadmill and knocked out a about 5.5miles when Ava woke up.  I got her breakfast and settled to watch Doc McStuffins and finished off a good 7 for the day. 
I took a shower and had a smoothie that Clint had made for us before he left for work.  He is so good at that!  Especially when he puts veggies in and that is the only way I want to eat them these days.

It was one of my two days a month that I go clean the office where I work.  I knocked that out in an hour and a half with my trusty helper, Ava.

Then I told her our next stop was a play date with one of my best friends and her three kiddos.
The kids played on the deck while we chatted at watched them.  Because of Christmas and her kids being sick, we haven't seen them in like 6 weeks!  It was a much needed playdate for them as much as the mamas.

We left around lunch time. I had packed us a lunch so we could eat while doing the rest of our errands.

I dropped of the water bill. A perk of a small town! 

Then we stopped at the oil changing place to see if and how much the Murano was leaking oil. 

There is a small leak, somewhere and they said we will need to take it to the dealer.  Thankfully it isn't a big leak...yet!

Eating her lunch at the so not cleanest place in the world.  What can you do, she was hungry!! ha
We got home and I put a load of laundry in the wash and put a "new to me" recipe of Herb Wheat bread in the bread machine. (It didn't look pretty, but it is pretty tasty!)  Apparently, I was in the mood to bake. Ava and I whipped up some mixed berry wheat muffins to have for breakfast the next couple of days or for a snack.  They turned out pretty darn good!

Clint got home and we chatted about the day and watched the DVR'ed Nashville from Wednesday night!  Love that show and seeing and knowing where they shoot the scenes is so neat!

I still had to do my 3000 club exercises for the day, so Clint asked us to go down to the garage with him and have family workout time.  I did 40 pushups, 40 burpees and 160 crunches.  The top abs are the only ones I am working these days!  I decided to try out the punching bag I got him for Christmas.  That was fantastic!  I had some pent up aggression from parts unknown.  I did 3x10 sets single arm punches and then 3x50 double fast punches. 

I headed up after I was done and started supper.  I made home made cheese fries for Clint and roasted some sweet potato fries, kale and onion for me. I also grilled us some Chile Lime Turkey burgers from Trader Joe's.  So yummy!!!

Well, I need to get to what I get paid to do! 

Y'all have a great weekend and I'll talk soon!

Shopping, Date night, Enjoying a Sunday

  Hey there sunshines!  I hope your weekend with swimmingly!  Ours did! Y'all getting ready for Turkey day or 6 of them?!  We have 2 this year and that is plenty!  We are doing Clint's side of the family at our house on Thursday and then my side of the family on Friday at my uncle's house.  That is after Black Friday shopping with Clint!  It is one of my favorite dates of the year with him! It will be our 5th Black Friday date!  We get up with the "crazies" and shop.  We have no plan, we just shop and laugh at the crazies!  Good times!

On to our weekend.  Saturday morning we got up and got ready and hit up a warehouse sale full of sports tailgating paraphanalia.

Seriously, it was a warehouse!!  This sale only happens once a year for 3 days.  We got Clint's dad'd Christmas present and a few other things for us.

No buggy here, you get a WAGON to carry all of your stuff around!  Ava loved it!

We needed a few things for our fridge, so we hit up Whole Foods. 

I will be honest, I prefer Trader Joe's over Whole Foods.  I know some people might scoff at me, but that is my preference!

I hadn't had breakfast and Clint was getting hungry after we stopped at Target and got a few more things. 

Enter Noshville.  It is a New York Delicatessan and pretty good.

She is telling us a great story!!

(That's not coffee in her cup either, but water. )

We came home and I ran 3 easy miles and we did a tag team house cleaning.  I pretty much keep our house clean because I am home 2 days of the work week, but it does get lived in and things are out of place.  It took us about 45 minutes to pick up. 

Clint's mom's friend was visiting from New York and she wanted us and Clint's brother and his wife to go out in downtown Nashville with them. 

My parent's kept Ava for us, so it was a date night!  We weren't sure what to expect, but off we went!

We all met at the Hard Rock Cafe.  They wanted the whole Nashville experience!  Our server was awesome and comet o find out lives in our town.  Small world people!

After supper, we took off walking.  We wanted to go to a "honky tonk" (country word for bar).  The only draw back was that my MIL's friend's daughter was only 19.  Ohyea, and she didn't have her ID on her.  Makes going to a bar very difficult!!

Finally, we found a place that would let her in ID free until 9pm with a parent.  It was only like 6pm, so in we went!  Let me tell you I have not laughed so hard in a long time!  My MIL is a dancing MACHINE!!  She got out on that floor and had not a care in the world!!  I had had one beer at supper like 2 hours before, so I didn't drink anymore, but let Clint partake in a few brew-has.  But people watching and watching my MIL was priceless!!   Being sober was never more fun!!!

Sunday I got up and ran another easy 3 miles and then we got ready for church.

It was a breathe of fresh air for my week! 

Lunch was at my uncle's house and we had tacos and banana pudding!  Favorite meal ever!  We had that for our Rehearsal dinner for our wedding!

We came home for a long afternoon of NOTHING to do!  The house was clean, well I did 2 loads of laundry and hung them to dry, but that was nothing really! 

We played, we watched tv, we snacked.  Clint started playing Call of Duty, so I scooped Ava up and we came down to the kitchen and made Wheat Banana muffins. 

My awesome helper.  Her helper, Piper, was falling down on the job!

Look at these beauties!! They were so moist and yummy!!

Well, this morning I took off of working out and slept another hour. yay!

I need to get some work done at the office!

Have a great day and I'll see ya soon!

His Call of Duty

That's right it is Wednesday!

I hope y'all had a great Tuesday!

Ava and I got up and I fixed her breakfast and I did my She Reads Truth reading and journaling.

This is such a blessing to my day!

I did my 15 minute workout and walked 2 miles in incline. Whew.  I got ready and got my coupons and plan of attack ready so we could go to Target and Kroger.

Target was up first!  I love Target!  I always scope the outer end caps for clearance deals!  You can use coupons on those and get even better deals!!  Plus you can use manufacturer coupons AND Target coupons on the same item.  OH and for every bag you bring in the store to use instead of theirs they give you $.05 back per bag?!!!   It is not much but EVERY bit helps!

Our first mission was to get

Call of Duty Back Ops 2 for Clint!

He really only plays video games at night after Ava goes to bed or just randomly, but each year for the past 3 I think we have bought THE game of the year.  Call of Duty is HUGE!  Yesterday, at one point there were over 400,000 people playing all over the WORLD!  And that was at like 4pm!  Crazy! I mean stores opened at midnight Wednesday morning for people to buy it!

Target was well stocked!!  YES!

We got some house cleaning products (METHOD products are AWESOME and plant based!), some VUE cups, M&Ms(coupons) oh and Ava some Christmas placemat coloring sheets! 

Next was Kroger.  We were both saddened that they didn't have to buggy car for Ava to ride in!

We started on our list!  Ava would walk down the aisles saying "we need this?" and I would say "nooo!(laughing the whole time at her).  We got to the pickles and she said "Aya needs pickles" and grinned like the Cheshire cat!  We didn't get the pickles. This kid is so funny!  I had her saying "crazy-pants" in the freezer aisle and the employee in that section was just a laughing.  Good times!

Apple for a snack on the way home!

We got home and to our surprise Clint was already home.  I guess he was excited to play his new game!

Ava was asleep, so I started to put together a recipe for homemade rolls and realized we didn't have any eggs. This is unheard of.  We ALWAYS have eggs until yesterday.  So, I told Clint I'd be back in a jiffy.  Well, 45 minutes later I got back home.  I saw my mom at the store and since I was getting her a turkey breast from that store (you could only get one and she wanted another for Thanksgiving) I told her to wait and I would run in and get it!   Well, of course she had to tell me stories from her Ladies Bible study from yesterday. 

I finally got home and Ava was still asleep, so I put the ingredients in the bread machine to make the dough and did some cleaning.  Clint was by then playing Call of Duty, so I emptied the dishwasher, dusted the house, sprayed the bathroom down and folded laundry.  While the husband plays, the wife gets housework done!  Ava finally woke up and we went up to the bonus room with Clint and hung out and caught up on The Voice from Monday night.  I went to put the rolls int he oven after they rose some.  They didn't rise that much.  I think the house was too cold.  Oh well, they were a trial run for Thanksgiving.  I know better for next week. 

I came down and made sausage cajun rice and cut up stuff for a salad.  Good, semi healthy and comforting supper! 

After supper was bath time for Ava.  Clint took care of that while I cleaned the kitchen and then it was family time until Ava went to bed!

All in all a good day!  No complaints and plenty blessed!

Have a good Wednesday and I'll see ya soon.

Hurry up and wait.

Hey there.  Good morning to you all.  It feels more like the afternoon to me since I have been up since 4:15am to train a client.  Sometimes the job has its perks and sometimes eh, not so much. 

I am really not sure where this post is going to go.  I really don't have a lot of neato-schmeato things going on as of the last 3 days.  But, let's see.  Maybe I can drum up some excited from my neck of the woods.

I don't know about anyone else that is TTC, but I CAN NOT GET BABY STUFF OFF THE BRAIN!!  If I'm not thinking about practicing getting pregnant, envying someone who is, or wondering what it will be like to see 2 PINK LINES, I am continuing my education on Google Ed., on The NEST or The BUMP, or reading blogs.  FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.  I am well on my way to being Rebecca De Mornay in The Hand that Rocks the Cradle.  (totally joking!!)

I am driving myself bonkers.  And all of this waiting.  PLEASE! 

I just finished my last day of my 2nd round of CLOMID 100mg.  It made me considerably more sleepy.  Good thing I took it at night!  Genius genes.

Now we WAIT.....AGAIN.......for Nov. 4th when I go see if the size of my follicles is up to codes.  I am trying to keep myself busy though.

HOW DO YOU KEEP YOURSELF BUSY, COURTNEY??
~Well, since I was asked.  I READ.  A LOT.  I probably read about 2 books a week on average. 

HOW DO YOU HAVE THE TIME TO READ THAT MUCH?
~Most people aren't aware of this, but gyms aren't ALWAYS busy.  Actually, the number of people who come to "sweat our their meanness" (g-ma saying)  dwindles after lunch and people trickle in or not at all.  This is when I read.  I can get in a couple of good hours worth of reading in this time and others that may allow it.

WHAT DO YOU READ??
~Mostly fiction.  Romance fiction.  Some biographies(if they appeal to me).  Blogs count?  Yep.  Right now I am reading a Nora Roberts collection about the MACGREGOR FAMILY.  There are love stories of each member of this clan and how they are all connected.  I love to find out what happens to the "supporting actors."  Don't you wonder, either in books or movies, "well what happens next?"  Do they get married, have kids?  I NEED DETAILS.


WAIT.....YOU WORK IN A GYM.  YOU MEAN YOU DON'T WORK OUT ALL DAY???
~Um. NO!  Trying to get pregnant here, HELLOOOOO.  Lifting weights lowers your body fat, and cardio burns the fat.  I need to hold onto what I've got to have enough hormones to function as a girl should.  Although, I do do cardio for about 30min 3-5 days a week.  This is to keep up my stamina some, plus it KEEPS ME SANE.  I do not do well, without some sort of exercise.  Clint welcomes a wife with happy emotions not one with head biting off tendencies.

WHAT KEEPS YOU BUSY WHEN YOU ARE WAITING FOR SOMETHING TO HAPPEN?


Onto other news, I wrote in another post how I LOVE me some pumpkin.  Well, my mom gave me a couple of little pumpkins to do with whatever.  Since, we already carved our pumkins this past weekend, I decided I would bake them and have fresh pumpkin for my daily dose of oatmeal goodness. 

I got on the web and research the temperature and method of baking the said pumpkins.  There were quite a few ways.

My way.
1. Cut them in half and scrape them out.  (save the seeds if you want, so you can roast them.)
2. Put about 1/2 in water in a baking dish and place the halves (flat side down) into the dish.
3. Put in oven at 375 degrees for about 45 min.  May be longer or shorter.  Keep an eye on it.
4. You will know when it is done, if you smell a little bit of burning(not that that happened to me) or if they collapse.
5.  Take out and take of the skin (it just peeled off for me) and let cool.
6.  Put in air tight container and refridgerate.

My thoughts on the amazing baking pumpkin experience.  Honestly, it was too much trouble, and tasted kind of off.  I would much rather my sweet friend LIBBY.  She NEVER fails me.

HAVE YOU EVER TRIED TO BAKE PUMPKINS? 
ANY WAYS TO MAKE IT BETTER?