Chobani Giveaway! (CLOSED)


Posted by YSP
Chobani Champions

Chobani Champions

I love Chobani yogurt. LOVE IT. We use it in our green monster smoothies a few times a week, and we eat in plain all the time. I buy the plain yogurt for cooking/baking, and we buy the big packs for breakfasts.

Sadly, I still haven’t tried the blood orange, which is the flavor I’m most excited about, but I have plans to remedy that at Target this weekend along with grabbing an apple cinnamon for Aaron.

In what I considered to be ridiculously exciting news, I got an email from Chobani yesterday! I seriously have NO IDEA how this happened, since I’m not a big huge blog. The good news? They’re launching two new flavors of their kids Champions line, and they’re sending us some to sample! I loved both the berry and honey-nana flavors that we’ve already tried, so I’m SUPER excited for us all to try the two new flavors:

Chobani Champions Chocolate Chunk

Chobani Champions Chocolate Chunk

Chobani Champions Orange Vanilla

Chobani Champions Orange Vanilla

As soon as they show up, we’ll review them officially. In the meantime, Chobani has also offered two of you the chance to try them as well! Here’s what to do:

  1. Leave a comment telling me your favorite Chobani flavor or your favorite way to use it.
  2. Share the giveaway on Facebook and leave me a comment with the link.
  3. Share the giveaway on Twitter and leave me a comment with the link.

I’ll choose the two winners on Monday morning! (Seriously people, I am so excited about the chocolate and orange. Would it be wrong to mix them together?)

UPDATE: Check out our official review here!

DeliciousDiggFacebookFriendFeedGoogle BookmarksGoogle GmailGoogle ReaderLinkedInLiveJournalMySpacePrintRedditStumbleUponTumblrTwitterWordPressShare

Beef StrogaNOT


Posted by YSP

I’ve been really wanting beef stroganoff lately… but we have no sour cream, mushroom soup, no egg noodles… essentially nothing that any recipes called for. What I did have? Ground beef, mushrooms, and quinoa. Enter a gross looking but totally delicious dinner.

StrogaNOTBeef StrogaNOT

  • 1lb extra lean ground beef
  • 8oz chopped or sliced baby bella mushrooms
  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • 1/2 cup skim milk
  • 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp black pepper
  • 2 tsp garlic powder
  • 2 tsp ground mustard
  • 1oz mozzarella cheese, shredded
  • 1 cup (uncooked) quinoa

Cook the quinoa per package directions. Mine said to add 1.5 cups of water, bring to a boil, cover and let simmer until the water was absorbed.

Brown the ground beef in a large skillet until cooked through. Transfer the beef to a plate or platter (I used a paper plate).

Add the chopped/sliced mushrooms and butter to the already hot skillet. Saute until browned. Add the beef back in.

In a small bowl, whisk together the milk, flour, and spices. Add slowly to the beef and mushrooms, stirring constantly. Add the cheese and stir until melted.

Add the quinoa to the skillet and mix. SERVE!

This made a TON of food. I made it six servings, and they were hearty and super filling. I’m excited to eat the leftovers for lunch tomorrow! This was super easy, and it really did end up tasting a lot like stroganoff.

DeliciousDiggFacebookFriendFeedGoogle BookmarksGoogle GmailGoogle ReaderLinkedInLiveJournalMySpacePrintRedditStumbleUponTumblrTwitterWordPressShare

Chocolate Salted Caramel Bars


Posted by YSP
Chocolate Salted Caramel Bars

Chocolate Salted Caramel Bars

These awesome bars were inspired by GML’s peanut butter blondies. I made changes and substitutions based on what I had in the house and turned out with a really good recipe.

- 4 tbsp ICBINB spray
- 1/3 cup honey
- 1/4 cup french vanilla Chobani 0%
- 1/2 cup Archer Farms Chocolate & Sea Salt Caramel Dessert Sauce
- 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tbsp water, 1 tbsp white vinegar (used as an egg substitute)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup all-purpose flour

Put simply, I just mixed it all together until it was super well mixed, then baked it at 350 for 24 minutes. I sliced it into 8 wedges. It made a chewy, thick, awesome bar with a great tang from the yogurt. It’s not too sweet either, and it was a great way to use the Archer Farms stuff that was otherwise underwhelming. The pieces ended up being a pretty good size, and only ended up having about 150 calories per piece. I’m thinking you could use just about any nut butter, spread, or dessert sauce. I’d really like to try cookie butter!

DeliciousDiggFacebookFriendFeedGoogle BookmarksGoogle GmailGoogle ReaderLinkedInLiveJournalMySpacePrintRedditStumbleUponTumblrTwitterWordPressShare

Train with purpose…


Posted by YSP

Double DigitsI’ve added a training page to the site. My awesome friend Rebecca has offered me the chance to try out her services as a running coach, and I’m really excited. While the running schedule itself is something I might have been able to come up with on my own, having a running coach makes ALL the difference.

She’s only got me running three days a week, instead of the four I was usually trying for, which means it’s a lot less likely that I’ll miss a run. She’s also taken into account that Evi is with me during the week, so my shorter and more manageable runs will happen during the week and my long run will be on the weekend. She’s asking me to stick to actual running intervals again (instead of my current run-when-I-wanna plan) and I’m excited to see how that goes. I’m guessing it will be a challenge, but hopefully a welcome one.

She talked to me for a long time about my habits, goals, and fitness before we got the plan together, and now she’ll chat with me every week to make sure everything is going as planned, then send me a new plan for the next week. It’s perfect.

My only (small) concern is getting the weekday runs in at all while Evi is potty training. I’m thinking if I schedule them JUST RIGHT I might make it into a window when she won’t have an accident. I wish I lived anywhere that had an indoor track and a babysitter, because I’m pretty sure I’d happily pay $5-$10 for an peaceful hour to get these runs in without worrying about toddler potty breaks.

So week 1 begins on Monday. According to my old plan, I was supposed to get a run in yesterday and that just didn’t happen. It could have, but I was having a cranky, grumpy, cloudy day and I let it slip by. Today I’m planning to get some strength in, and/or maybe some yoga, and tomorrow I’ll head out for a run!

The plan is just running, but I’ll be adding in 203 days of strength/cross training during the week to keep myself strong. For my strength training, I’ll probably be alternating my current favorites:

I have a few other DVDs including three Jillian Michaels options, another 10 Minute Solution, and two ExerciseTV DVDS (abs & buns) that may well make it into the rotation as well, but I really love the Curves Ahead workout. I tend to avoid the Jillian options because I end up horribly, painfully sore for DAYS afterward. The others cause me some soreness, but nothing unmanageable. The Jillian DVDs make it hard to function.

And now I’m just yammering… I’ll keep updating the training page as each new week of training is planned, so you can check out my schedule there!

DeliciousDiggFacebookFriendFeedGoogle BookmarksGoogle GmailGoogle ReaderLinkedInLiveJournalMySpacePrintRedditStumbleUponTumblrTwitterWordPressShare

Dumb


Posted by YSP
Med School - Toy Story

source: tumblr.com

I still honestly believe that leaving the post-bacc program saved my sanity and my family. I was killing myself. But honestly? I still can’t think too much about it because walking away from it left me questioning some of how I see myself.

Be prepared, I’m about to indulge in some serious self-pity.

I’m smart. I got excellent grades my whole life, and did it without working very hard. It’s just the way my brain works. I got used to, and very much liked, being good at academics.

So when I consistently got mediocre grades in that program? I hated every second of it. I KILLED myself studying, slept WAY too little, drank WAY too much coffee in a desperate attempt to pull off the grades I was used to, the grades I still believe I would have needed to get into med school.

And? I just couldn’t. Yes, there were some extenuating circumstances like raising a toddler and, more importantly in terms of disruption, my five hour daily commute. I firmly believe that if I’d lived much closer to or on campus, like I believe the other students did, I would have had an easier time. It still would have been tremendously hard for me, but I think I could have pulled it off. And sometimes that really gets to me, that I’ve walked away from a potentially great path because of circumstances beyond my control. That being said, in the end I really don’t think it was the right path for me.

A good hard look at my priorities actually had me wondering why I’d ever chosen the program in the first place. At what point did I decide that making a lot of money would be worth spending years away from Evi, as she blossomed and grew? I think it might have been doomed from the start. I would have missed her too much.

Sometimes though, I wonder if I really could have done it. Sometimes I fear I was just not smart enough. I was literally giving it everything I had (and then some) and just wasn’t keeping up. For someone who has always defined myself in terms of my academic achievement, who has drawn much of my sense of worth from my perceived intelligence, how do I come to terms with academic failure?

I don’t know. I’m not even sure why I’m writing about this now, except that I’m hormonal and the (largely) useless job hunt I’ve been plowing through since September is starting to wear on my sense of worth.

DeliciousDiggFacebookFriendFeedGoogle BookmarksGoogle GmailGoogle ReaderLinkedInLiveJournalMySpacePrintRedditStumbleUponTumblrTwitterWordPressShare

Running Shoes


Posted by YSP

When I started out trying to run, I had a pair of New Balance shoes that I got for free from FitBloggin (which, for the record) I would KILL to go to again this year. I honestly never put too many miles on them of actual running, though I did walk in them a lot. When they started to feel worn out, I emailed New Balance and they helped me figure out what current model was the closest to what I’d already had.

New Balance Women's WR759 NBx Running Shoes

New Balance Women's WR759 NBx Running Shoes

For Christmas 2010, I got these New Balance shoes as a replacement. They were the model recommended by the company, and they felt pretty similar to the old shoes, though I liked the red much better than the old blue ones.

I still didn’t put too many miles of running on the new shoes, though significantly more than the previous year. I also used them for lots of walking and generally wore them anytime I did any form of exercise. So they were definitely more used than the first pair, and they seemed to show it faster than I wanted. By late October I was getting shin splints a lot, which I felt wasn’t reasonable considering the amount I was running (not a lot). I felt sad about it because I love New Balance and desperately wanted to be brand loyal. I still don’t know if it was something I was doing, something about that individual pair or what. In the end, I think it just wasn’t a good match.

When I started looking for a new pair of running shoes (it’s becoming a traditional Christmas gift for me) I reached out to some running friends, and particularly a few who self-identified as having a similar body type to mine. I couldn’t afford anything too crazy, but I was willing to spend a little more. Several friends recommended Mizunos. I headed over to their online precision fit tool and was SUPER impressed by how much more comprehensive it was than most shoe finder tools. It asked a TON of questions about my weight, stride, arch, speed, miles… It wanted to know the angle of my knees in a lunge, the direction my feet tended toward… It was awesome. I felt like I was getting a MUCH better evaluation of my needs.

In the end, the tool recommended a support shoe, which was right in line with what some other heavier runners had recommended to me. The tool recommended the Wave Nirvana 7, the Wave Inspire 7, and the Wave Nexus 5. The links all go to the newer versions of each shoe on the Mizuno site, but the Nexus is still the cheapest of the three models. Because I wasn’t sure I’d like them, I went for the least expensive option.

Mizuno Women's Wave Nexus 6 Running Shoes

Mizuno Women's Wave Nexus 6 Running Shoes

As far as looks go, I think the Mizunos look a lot like most other running shoes. There’s nothing incredibly special about the way they look, though the model I have did come in a pretty purple/grey that I like. When I first put them on, they definitely felt a lot more substantial than the NB shoes had.

I’ve put almost 50 miles on the shoes since I got them, and so far they definitely seem like a better fit. The shin splints are gone even though I’m running farther and faster. I am having some knee issues recently, but I don’t think that’s the shoes since it started up after I did a particular workout DVD and seems to be slowly improving since then. So I’d say it was a great match for me. I’m super happy.

—————————————————————————–

On an entirely unrelated subject, do you guys ever get sort of randomly dizzy? A lot of times in the morning, after I stretch my arms, I get dizzy. I yawn a little, stretch my arms out and up, and then have to wait for the room to stop spinning. It takes a second or two and then passes. I also sometimes get a little spinny if I just stand up too fast. This has been happening since before last year’s weird bout with vertigo, so I don’t think it’s related. It’s not a big deal, I guess. It’s not causing a problem or anything. It just seems… odd. So does it happen to anyone else?

—————————————————————————–

And finally, a potty training question. We’re doing pretty well with potty training… but I’m losing it stuck in the house all week, especially since we’ve been stuck in the house for the past two weeks with various levels of illness. We need to go grocery shopping this weekend. So how do we work it? Do we do diapers, or underwear and hope for the best?

What about later when I (hopefully soon) get a job? The drive to her daycare is almost an hour. Do we do diapers? Do we stop midway for a potty break? Do we hope she makes it? HALP!

—————————————————————————–

And finally, an FYI: the cake batter chocolate bar in the Valentine’s section at Target (amusingly in the weird, uber-stereotypical MAN section) tastes AWFUL! It tastes like cheap, over-sugared chocolate and the “cake batter” filling is horrific. Don’t buy it.

DeliciousDiggFacebookFriendFeedGoogle BookmarksGoogle GmailGoogle ReaderLinkedInLiveJournalMySpacePrintRedditStumbleUponTumblrTwitterWordPressShare

What NOT to say…


Posted by YSP

I had two interviews today. While I would like very much to talk about the first one, and I will at the end, I really need to talk about the second one, because it was… epic.

Inappropriate

source: cheezburger.com

Seriously, this was the most awkward and uncomfortable interview I’ve ever had or even heard about. Let’s go with a list that gets progressively worse.

  1. The pay is dismal, even for this low-paying area. He prefaced this was a long winded speech about the economy, despite having previously boasted about the current success of the business.
  2. As the “lowest girl on the totem pole” (no really, he said that) I’d be closing every night.
  3. He hoped I didn’t mind other women telling me what to do. Huh? What a weird thing to say.
  4. All of the other women in the office are (AND I QUOTE) “kept women” so the pay isn’t a problem since their husbands make “all the money”
  5. Along with the dismal pay, I’d also be expected to shell out nearly $1000 for a certificate within two months of getting the job. No reimbursement, and the certificate would require classes all weekend, every weekend for months.
  6. And he called me fat. Okay, he said that he really wants the people in the office to be at optimal health (it is a health based company) which (AND I QUOTE) is “obviously something you could work on.”

Hmm… Let me think… Do I want this job? Hey, NO! When he said the fat thing, I actually stood up, thanked him for his time, and said it wasn’t the right fit for me. I got to the car before I let out a good, long angry laugh. The whole thing was super ridiculous. I can’t believe it even happened. I’m glad I’m not in a place where I feel awful about my body anymore, or I would totally have cried. Instead, I’m mostly just amused.

On the positive side, my morning interview was WONDERFUL. The job seems like the perfect fit, the interview was fun and relaxed, and everyone seemed to enjoy the time. I should hear back by Monday, so send good thoughts!

DeliciousDiggFacebookFriendFeedGoogle BookmarksGoogle GmailGoogle ReaderLinkedInLiveJournalMySpacePrintRedditStumbleUponTumblrTwitterWordPressShare

Bacon Cheeseburger Ring


Posted by YSP

Utterly by accident, I stumbled into a recipe that would make a great appetizer/snack for a football party or a great, easy dinner.

Bacon Cheeseburger Ring

  • 1 can Pillsbury crescent rolls (8 rolls)
  • 1lb extra lean ground beef
  • 2 teaspoons garlic powder
  • 2 teaspoons black pepper
  • 2 teaspoons celery salt
  • 1 tablespoon paprika
  • 4 slices American cheese
  • 4 tablespoons crumbled bacon
  • 1/8 cup ketchup
  • 1/8 cup yellow mustard

Brown the ground beef in a skillet until fully cooked. Season with garlic, pepper, celery salt and parika.

Preheat oven to 375 and spray a cookie sheet. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, break up the cheese into small pieces. Mix in the beef, bacon, ketchup, and mustard.

Arrange the crescent rolls in a circle on the pan so that the wide ends overlap, like this:

crescentsBehold my Paint skillz! And yes, that only shows four. I just got tired of messing with paint. Yours will look more like a “weird sun” as Evi calls it. Spoon the burger mix onto the inside of the circle like this:

crescents2I know. Mind-blowing talent, right? Anyway, once you’ve got it all spooned in a nice ring around the inside edge, pick up the corner of each crescent and fold it over the filling carefully. When I do it, I always try to stretch them a tiny bit as I pull them up, and then I rip off the extra tips that end up on the inside and use them to cover the space between the crescents if I think it looks too big.

Tuck the ends under securely, bake for 15-17 minutes. When it’s done, it looks like this:

Or, you know, significantly better… if your eyes function better than my crappy camera phone. When we eat this for dinner it makes four servings, but you could easily cut it into smaller slices for an appetizer type deal.

DeliciousDiggFacebookFriendFeedGoogle BookmarksGoogle GmailGoogle ReaderLinkedInLiveJournalMySpacePrintRedditStumbleUponTumblrTwitterWordPressShare

Potty


Posted by YSP
Elmo on the potty...

source: tumblr.com

THIS IS ALL ABOUT POTTY TRAINING, SO I PROMISE NOT TO BE OFFENDED IF YOU DON’T READ IT…

We’ve officially started (restarted?) potty training (again?) this week. Evi was doing great for a while, right on track, and then a few months ago suddenly and totally lost interest. For a while we didn’t try any attempts at all because every time we even mentioned the potty she totally freaked out, and the last thing we wanted was to turn potty training into a traumatic experience. So for about two months we just went back to regular diaper changing.

About a month ago, she started letting us know when she had a diaper again. That was how it started the last time, so we started trying to encourage potty time. She wasn’t really into it, but at least she stopped acting like we were trying to kill her. Spontaneously the other morning, she asked to use the potty and wear underwear instead of a diaper, so we went with it happily.

We made it about four hours before she got tired of the constant reminders. We had two wet couch incidents in that three hours, and I think it was stressing her out. She wasn’t interested in going diaper-free again after that, but she did at least agree to sit on the potty a lot more.

Last week offered a new motivation that seemed to rush her a little. We went to the mall, where they offer a free two hours of childcare and the kids get to play with iPads while there… but they have to be potty trained! That was last Thursday, so we came home and started bringing the potty up a lot more. Over the weekend we did candy rewards for potty time, big HUGE deals for using the potty, etc.

This morning we’re trying to go for it all the way. No diaper, no pants. She insists on cute underwear. We’ve made it two hours – zero successful potty attempts, one dirty pair of underwear. We’ll see how it goes from here…

DeliciousDiggFacebookFriendFeedGoogle BookmarksGoogle GmailGoogle ReaderLinkedInLiveJournalMySpacePrintRedditStumbleUponTumblrTwitterWordPressShare