Gruene Texas and Chocolate Beer

Life gives you so many little things to appreciate without even realizing it.  We have some many little Texas towns, that I believe, Texans DO appreciate.  We take the time to love our land and take it all in, be it bike rides, rafts, or car trips-like the one I took Joey’s mom on yesterday.  About 20-30 minutes away is a town called Gruene Texas (prounounced like green).  The oldest, still running, dancehall exists here.  So many famous people have performed here (including George) and it’s a landmark of Texas, one to be proud of. 

While here, we enjoyed a nice lunch at the Gruene River Grill and did some shopping.  It’s amazing the ideas and styles you find while in little towns.  It was a really nice day trip and takes you back to reality. 

Upon coming home, we watched a double feature and I enjoyed a delicious Boulevard Chocolate Ale (from Kansas City).  I recommend it for its dark chocolate and caramel infusions.  Just a great day, with great company, and a great brew!

The little details in the home

I told you all I was being crafty and making flower arrangements and I wanted to share what I made!  I feel it’s the little touches in your house that make it a home. 

In the living room:

In the master bathroom:

In the master bedroom:

I got this little lizard in Cabo for my kitchen, really goes well with my paintings and margarita glasses!

I got this painting in Cabo as well, to add to my master bathroom and remind me of my new favorite place.  This was a finger painting, if you can belive that!

A childhood favorite

Imagine this….

Footlong hot dogs on perfectly toasted rectangular buns

Ice cream that is sooooo good and all the cones and toppings you can think of

A great time with my family you can always remember

Coops Scoops

Free Kibble!

Go to www.freekibble.com and for every dog and cat question you answer (1 per day), they will donate 10 pieces of kibble or cat food to a needy shelter. 

Now who can say NO to those faces!

Drinks anyone?

Anyone who knows me knows that in some ways, I try to be totally off the wall and different (and yes, not with all things).  Joey’s mom sent me money for my birthday and told me to get these gorgeous glasses that we found at Bussey’s Flea market in Schertz.  Are they not gorgeous!?  I was going to initially get margarita glasses and a pitcher.  But then I thought, well I can use these regular glasses for margaritas AND lemonade and whatever else!  I got them in all different colors as well, so no one can mix up their glass with anyone elses.  It’s like drink charms, but charmless!    Anyway, I think they are gorgeous and can’t wait to use them…that was an invitation!!!

Flying Saucer UFO Club Member

I’m a new member of the Flying Saucer UFO club.  I enjoyed a few delicious beverages and added them to my card, now only 197 to go before they throw me a party worth $100 and put my name on the wall!  I hope to find out today how frequent I will be using my card.  And Jeni, there is one in KC, so we WILL be going there for a get together!  Nothing like a refreshing brew to end your hard day. 

The Lord now has my path in his hands, whatever he decides my fate will be is what I’m supposed to do.

Eating clean is no easy feat!

In my line of work, and with my experience in training and competeting, I find it a pleasure to help people with their diet and nutrition plans.  After all, the way you eat greatly affects the way you look, even more so then exercising.  Look at it this way, you will more likely see those abs if you choose to eat oatmeal and eggs for breakfast than a muffin (which, coincidentally, might give you a muffin top, lol-please I’ve had 5 hours of sleep and just got a venti skinny latte, waiting to kick in).  But I run into trouble when trying to help my male clients.  Do I give them just larger portions of what my females eat?  How much MORE protein do they really need?  How much fat?  Do they eat 8 times a day? 

Those questions are always on my mind, although I fair pretty well when giving men diets, I have a male client who has lost 20 pounds since December!  Tosca Reno has helped millions of women already with her best selling book, The eat-clean diet for women.  I bought this book as soon as it came out in 2007 and read it cover to cover and it does change you!  I let someone borrow it and alas, they lost it, so if anyone feels the urge to buy me one feel free!  Tosca explains in details about the protein, carb, and fat needs of women.  It’s basically a bible on how you should eat every day of your life. 

This month, with the collaboration of her husband, Robert Kennedy, editor of Oxygen magazine, they came out with the Eat clean diet for men!  Yeah!  I just purchased it off ebay this morning and can’t wait to rip into it.  Not only will it help with my male clients, but my confidence will increase in that area as well as my knowledge to provide fat loss and muscle gain for men (including joey).  With 60 recipes to boot, I’m sure it can help any male looking to just eat healthier and lead a better lifestyle. 

A couple of other books I hope to get this year too are Tosca’s Eat clean Diet cookbook:

 

And her book about eating clean with family and raising healthy kids:

 

All are VERY useful books I recommend to EVERYONE!  Just keep taking what you eat one day at a time and try to eat clean, whole foods, no processed.  I find it help to keep a food journal to be held more accountable.  I love for my clients to keep one for me to check on them.  Maybe you would think twice about eating that bowl of ice cream if I had to see it huh?

New shoes for hitting the pavement

I got some new shoes!  Who doesn’t love new shoes right?!  But see, I can count it as a business expense! 

I have a couple clients that want to train for a 10K (6.2 miles for those of you who don’t know).  It would be necessary for me to get news shoes.  So I got the Puma Voltaic for women.   I searched all over the malls for this to no avail (but I did find a dress for my sister’s graduation so not a total loss).  Finally a nice man in Finish Line (where I would have gotten 20% off) reminded me of the Puma store in Westagate, by the Cardinals stadium!  Alas, I crossed town and ta da, I am in my new kicks, pink and white! 

Out for a run now!

Organization 101

Joey and I have decided to make our lives much more organized (and backed up if any more computer problems arise) and less cluttered.  We have purchased this:

After having a virus and not being able to use the computer for 3 weeks, we decided it would be wise to get an external hard drive to back up all of our files, pictures, music etc.  It’s a Toshiba 400G.  I have gone through all my physical pictures this week and am going to scan and load them onto the hard drive and toss the actual pictures.  I will always have them here and it will take up less space in my house!  I will save a few, especially ones that mean a lot, like baby pics, but the rest I will have forever in computer land!

Then we got Joey this:

An Asus netbook (160G) for his school/work.  I have taken the pic next to the coffee cup to show just how tiny this netbook is.  Joey, at this point, has a shelf full of notes on our bookshelf and it just looks cluttered.  His job this month (or however long it takes), is to type up all the notes he wants to keep, scan images, etc. and recycle the paper when he is done.  This will provide him with a guide he can take with him to school, and work in the future, to look up info when he needs it. 

Way to go for us being organized and prepared!  And then we got this for us for fun:

An Ipod docking station/radio/clock for the bathroom to listen to tunes in the shower and while I get ready and around the house.  Sometimes you don’t always want to turn on the ole computer just to listen and this is nice, remote and all!  I also FINALLY found a camera case I like, pretty huh? 

I”ll keep you updated on how it goes loading the pics to the computer, I’m sure this project will be ongoing!  I’ll prob be posting some good ones too, so just a warning to my family!!!

Soy Sauce Alternative

My client gave me this soy sauce alternative the other day and I will be making a shrimp stir fry Friday to try it out.  It comes with a spray top to even limit the amount you use.  Amino Acids are the building blocks of protein your body uses.  Lack of amino acids makes it hard for our body to use the vitamins we consume.  So this is definately a bonus, along with less sodium consumption.  No table salt or preservatives are added to this product.  The salt you taste in this is naturally occurring from the soybeans from which is it made!  Its even okay for those on a low sodium diet.  I’ll be using it and then I will let you know how it really is lol!  I typically use low sodium soy sauce, which is still so salty, but lets see if I enjoy the taste.  This product can be found in most health food stores if you are searching for it!