Domestically Disabled Post: Energy Bites

With all the extra time I have from not studying I've decided to take on a few recipes from my friend Cassy's blog over at healthywithsass.blogspot.com. She has already put up some amazing easy to do recipes that are perfect for the upcoming holiday season.

My favorite recipe from her blog so far has been the energy bites. I like to call them peanut buttah bawls in my best New Jersey accent.  Anyways, I made these bite size balls of yumminess this week and they are so good! Just like Cassy I tend to skip meals or I forget to eat snacks in-between meals and  I find myself famished before lunch or dinner. This usually leads to really unhealthy meal choices. Anyways, I went and picked up some ingredients from Sprouts, and in less than 30 minutes I had an amazing snack! 

Here is the recipe from Cassy's blog)

Oatmeal Peanut Butter Balls

Here's what's in them:
2 1/2 cups of quick oats
3 heaping tablespoons of peanut butter
1/4 cup of honey or agave (vegan)
1/2 cup of cacao nibs (I used Enjoy Life mini-chips which are soy, dairy and nut free)
2 tablespoons of almond milk (You can add a little more if you feel your mixture is too dry) 
Here's how to make them:
Dump all the ingredients into a large bowl, mix together, this is a VERY sticky situation. I coated my spatula with coconut oil so that I didn't end up with a giant glob of mostly unmixed ingredients. Once it's all mixed up form into balls of any size you like, mine were ping pong sized. Put on a non stick pan or a plate and refrigerate for at least 15 min before you eat them.
I made about 15 balls from this recipe. You can also use whatever kind of liquid or nut butter you want as well. The mix in possibilities are endless. Which makes it even more awesome. 

Easy peasy!! It's the perfect snack and it's Señor approved. He seriously ate half a batch in one day. 

Try it out and let Cassy and I know how you liked it or how you changed it up. 

Enjoy!

A Long December

Oh yes, I love starting out a blog post with a nice cheesy title.  I bet all of you 90's kids out there have The Counting Crows A Long December song stuck in your head now. Nice. 

Well, it's been about a month since I last posted, but I’ll spare you guys the excuses on why I haven't been present on this blog. Chances are you probably already know why. 

The good news is I passed level 2 of nursing school! Hooray!! I'm half way to being a nurse!!! This semester was supposed to be the hardest semester of our nursing school career, and I'm happy to report that I survived it. Phew! Nursing school is full of excitement and dread. It's almost like riding a roller coaster with no sort of safety restraints, but you turn out okay at the end. 

Anyways, I have a month off before school starts up again and I plan on filling my break time with sipping warm tea, reading a book (not healthcare related), Christmas shopping, baking, hanging with family, and then heading to a long time friends wedding in Seattle. This is my first time being a bridesmaid in a wedding and I’m absolutely honored and thrilled to be a part of it all. 

Running has been going well and I'm still doing the running streak. I've modified it a little bit and have allowed myself to walk a mile instead of run on a few days. I've taught myself to listen to my body and sometimes running is just not part of the plan that day. I've mixed up my routine and I've been going to hot yoga a couple of times a week. I'm attending a new studio in town that is donation based and offered a great Groupon rate. The coupon allows me to attend for an unlimited time for two months, and with the recent burst of cold air that just came through NM going to hot yoga has been a real treat.  It's funny to think on December 1st of this year I was still running in a skirt!  I've asked good ol' Saint Nick for a new pair of running shoes, as my current pair of Asics are feeling a bit worn. I'm thinking of switching my brand of shoe to maybe Brooks or Mizuno. I love my Asics, but they just haven't been as awesome as I remembered them to be in the past. 

I think I remember reporting that I was going to do a turkey trot run. The run went okay. There were a lot of hills and I was not prepared for that. I did beat my pumpkin chase run by a few seconds, but boy was I beat up from that run. It definitely inspired me to add more hills to my running routine.  Below are a few photos I took on my runs. The 1st was from this past weekend in which the weather was freezing, but the scenery was still gorgeous. The 2nd one was from early November after the turkey trot run, I was in the foothills getting my hills on. 

It recently snowed her in Albuquerque and I've been excited about the possibility of actually going snowboarding this year. Also, it's nice to have the moisture here in the dry desert. It was seriously starting to freak me out how warm it was going into December. This afternoon we had a serious wind chill and my teeth were chattering during the first part of my run. I guess i'm going to have to start embracing the cold weather. 

Enjoying the snow! 

Anyways amigos! I hope you all are doing well and holidays haven't swallowed you whole yet. The Señor and I have a lot planned for the holidays. This year we are hosting Christmas Eve at our house for both our families. I plan on making a big pot of posole and making tamales for the occasion. This is our first Christmas as a married couple and we are enjoying the little things about the holiday. Such as getting Christmas cards addressed to us with my new last name....eek!  My husband and I have been married 4 months and it has been amazing.  We can't wait to see what 2013 has in store for us. 

Making tamales with friends and family

 I leave you guys with a picture of our dog Shed. Isn't she just the cutest? She sort of looks like a rambofied Christmas dog. 

Stay tuned for a domestically disabled post coming later this week! 

Turkanza 2012

TURKANZA!!

This past weekend, we celebrated our 5th annual Turkanza. Even thought this party can be a lot of work, it was so worth it. Over the past few years Turkanza has developed into a really awesome pot-luck style party in which our friends and family contribute some amazing dishes. Even though the celebration is mostly focused on the turkeys that we cook in the ground, we had a bit of a vegan/vegetarian twist this year. My favorite dish was the vegan tamales that my friend Cassy and her mom made.  You can check out her vegan tamales recipe at Healthy with Sass.  I added some fresh pico de gallo to the tamales and they were perfecto!

It was a great celebration with our lovely friends and family! Turkanza was definitely a nice break before I go into "studying hibernation." This blog post is my last attempt in avoiding the huge mounds of material I have to learn.

Running update:
I know in my previous post I mentioned I wasn't planning on running a Thanksgiving 5k. However, I signed up for the Hobbler Gobbler race with a friend from nursing school. She actually signed up for the 10k like a boss. I was throwing around the idea of running the 10k, but I wanted to see if I could improve on my 5k time from the Pumpkin Chase run.
Earlier this week I went on a run with my nursing school buddy after class, and she actually pushed me to run 8 miles. I was really hesitant at first, but It was great weather and I felt good. I guess it helps that NM nature/weather gives me a major runners high. I was only planning on doing 4-6 miles, but I ended up running eight and feeling great!!

I plan on doing short recap on my Turkey run and Thanksgiving, but afterwards I'm disconnecting myself till the end of the semester.

I hope you all are doing well and have some fun plans for the Thanksgiving holiday!
Happy Turkanza and Happy Thanksgiving!

The Great Pumpkin Chase Recap

I already know that I  haven't followed through on my once a week blog post.
I'm thinking I'll have more  luck with a biweekly blog post. We usually have an exam every two weeks in nursing school, and this is a good way to procrastinate studying. I'm sure some of you know what I'm talking about... How your house or apartment is the cleanest when you need to get something else done (e.g. studying or work project).

Even though life has been crazy busy as usual with school (I'm currently in the hardest semester in nursing school). I've actually managed to have a little bit of fun these past couple of weeks.
I'm happy to report to you BB readers that I have finally broken out of my running race slump. I honestly have not run a race since my half-marathon back in 2010...2010?!! Can you believe it?!

About a month ago my good friend Cassy (healthywithsass.blogspot.com) suggested we do a race with a fun theme. I was sort of hesitant because I didn't feel prepared to run a race. I hadn't trained at all except for some random 2-3 mile runs with Shed dog around the neighborhood.  However, I checked myself and concentrated on making the run FUN! That meant no Garmin on my run, and it meant wearing a silly costume. There was a point when the half marathoner in me crept out and tried to get me to do the 10k, but I wasn't having it. I was going to do The Great Pumpkin Chase 5k and I was going to love it!  The night before I laid out my "racing witch" race outfit and tied my Shwings (Shoe-wings) to my shoes and got my little witch hat out. I was ready for the race!

Shwings!

The next morning I got all dressed up  in my "running witch" outfit and we even dressed up Shed Dog for the occasion.  I bought her a cute skeleton outfit to wear for Halloween. Yes, I'm one of those dog owners. Anyways, we met up with Sassy Cassy at the race and did a little pre-race stretching. It was freezing cold out, but we did our best to warm up.

When the 5k started I felt good! However, I couldn't feel my feet. They were completely numb from the cold.  I did start to feel better once they warmed up around the 1.5 mile mark, but it was sort of weird running when you can't feel your feet. Anyways, the race was absolutely beautiful. It went through a historical downtown neighborhood (the neighborhood where Jesse Pinkman's house is for all you Breaking Bad fans out there), and along the river trail. Although it was freezing cold during the first part of the run, as I started to warm up it became perfect running weather.

As I ran by my husband around the 1 mile mark, I was happy to see him cheering me on! I loved it when he yelled "Good job, you're running so fast!!" I also heard our dog Shed losing her shit because I was running without her. I swear, if you could translate her dog fit it would have translated to: HOW DARE YOU GO RUNNING WITHOUT ME YOU BI***!  I got a pretty good chuckle out of that whole scenario in the middle of my run. On the last leg of the run, I was smiling and cheering on my fellow runners. I was able to give Cassy a high five on the trail and that propelled me to finish strong. I finished with a time of 25.28 and placed 28th overall and 3rd in my age group, and I got a MEDAL! I never thought I would be so happy to get one of those things. It was a little shocking to me because all I got after running my half marathon was a stupid pin.

I had so much fun running in the Great Pumpkin Chase event. I really can't wait to sign up for the next silly holiday themed race.  I think I'm going to skip out on a Thanksgiving run this year, but will try and sign up for a winter holiday themed race.  My plan is to stick with 5K's for now, but I think it's helping me build up my confidence for another 13.1 in 2013.  You gotta set goals!

I spent the rest of the weekend studying and catching up on errands, and just in case you were wondering, I wore my medal the whole time. :)

Click here to see Cassy's recap of the race and check out her yummy pumpkin oatmeal recipe!

**Crickets**

Hello...anyone out there?

Sorry for the lack of posts lately friends, but I promise you I'm going to try to get back to writing on this poor neglected blog at least once a week.  I do miss coming on to this blog and connecting with everyone.

This year has been crazy busy, with planning a wedding and nursing school it has really been a whirl wind of events. However, I feel like life is starting to calm down a little bit and nursing school is becoming manageable. It's amazing how much time you have when you are not planning a wedding.

I plan to update this blog soon and give the scoop on my beautiful wedding back in August, my running routine, my new obsession with hiking, and my journey as a born again cyclist!

In other news:
Please check out my dear friend Cassy's blog at: http://healthywithsass.blogspot.com/
She is a certified health coach and personal trainer and her blog is going to be a good one to follow. She is documenting her adventure with vegetarian cooking and is going to post easy to make recipes that even the domestically disabled can follow. Happy cooking!

I leave you guys with some photos from the fall hike we took on Monday. We went to the  4th of July Canyon Trail in the Manzano Mountains here in New Mexico. The trail is known for having beautiful fall colors and it did not disappoint. Next time I plan to bring a thermos of hot cider to sip on while we walk the trail.

Be back soon! Have a lovely week!

Wedding Countdown and Running Streak!

Hey everyone,

It's the wedding countdown!!
I was inspired by my amiga CindyLu who wrote about how she participated in the Runner's World running streak challenge on her blog Lotería Chicana.  The challenge was to run one mile a day for 38 days.  Our wedding isn't exactly 38 days away, but I'm going to start the challenge anyways. I guess we can call it a wedding running streak!
I found this challenge worked with my schedule really well. You see nursing school and wedding planning don't leave much room for much else these days. However, I find that if I set a goal or challenge myself I am more likely to stick to the routine. So the goal is to keep the running streak going up until the day of my wedding. Which I am super excited about. I just got to make sure nursing school doesn't drive me insane before my nuptials.
Anyways, I hope I can do it,  I'll try not to let you guys down!

I leave you guys with a photo from the night the amore and I first met. I really can't believe it's been 5 years since this photo was taken. I still remember how I felt when I first saw him..I would say it was love at first sight, but it was way better than that.

Cheers amigos!

Happy Breaking Bad Season 5 Premier Day!

Hello amigos!

 I started writing this blog at 5pm, but I got distracted because my cool mom decided to make an impromptu Breaking Bad Premier party at my house.  My family came over and I made a salmon dinner and we enjoyed the show. I actually enjoyed the premier of Breaking Bad and I am anxious to see what the season has in store for us.

I hope you all had a good weekend! Sorry for the short post, but it's time to read up about Diabetes.

pollos.