Super Bowl and Fruit Pizza Wal-lah!

Super Bowl weekend will forever hold a special place in my heart. 

It's the anniversary of the time I jumped out of a hot tub into a 4-foot pile of snow, in nothing but a itty-bitty-bikini, and back into the hot tub, losing my newly gifted engagement ring in the process (I hadn't even worn it for 24 hours yet and was it a few sizes too big). 

Some people may remember that weekend in Steamboat, CO for the epic amounts of snow, but to me it's the weekend my love asked me to spend the rest of my life with him, suspended in the air on top of a mountain, literally and spiritually. 

At the risk of becoming a one-trick-pony, I brought my old faithful dish over to the White House for this year's Super Bowl shenanigans. 

In my defense, it's been requested by the Mr. White I bare a fruit pizza with each visit.....and since my special recipe is both reliable and desirable, who am I to deny such a request for the sake of variety?

To be honest, just as I did those years ago in The Boat, I spent way more time drinking and blabbering 
to friends than I did watching the game, but the power loss episode was pretty entertaining.

 And just out of curiosity.......why was everyone on my social media bashing Beyonce's performance?? She squeezed in a ton a upbeat hit songs and danced her ass off with some pretty cool stage effects. It took all my self-control not to get up and try some of her moves.

 Despite the array of yummy food options available, complete with crawfish cornbread made by a New Orleans native, all Patrick could think about was ice cream, so we stopped at Sonic on the way home and got him a butter-finger blizzard. It would only make perfect sense that he dropped it while getting out of the car, spilling it on the driveway, right??? Good thing he was feeling greedy and ordered a large, so there was plenty left over in the cup to satisfy his craving (but you should have seen the look on his face when that cup when flying out of his hands). 

And as promised, here's all my secrets to the best fruit pizza in all the land.......

Fruit Pizza:

Ingredients:

2 bags of Betty Crocker Sugar Cookies (I've tried a few different kinds of sugar cookie dough for the crust, and this works the best)

Cinnamon

2 Eggs

2 sticks of Butter

1 8oz tub of Cool Whip

2 packages of Cream Cheese, softened

1 cup of Sugar or desired type of equally ratio'd sweetener

2 TBS Vanilla

Orange zest (optional)

Fruit (I use grapes, strawberries, kiwi, blueberries, blackberries)

Directions:

1. Mix the cookie dough per bag directions; sprinkle in cinnamon before adding the wet ingredients.

2. Lightly coat cookie sheet with non-stick cooking spray and spread dough evenly over sheet (The dough will grow/spread while cooking, so it's best to use a pan with edges to prevent cookie spills, but not too high edges or it will be hard to get the slices out later. I use a flat cookie sheet and make edges around it foil and it works like a charm, then the foil can be removed after baking the cookie.)

3. Cook cookie crust according to bag directions

4. Mix cool whip, cream cheese, vanilla and orange zest in container (use a blender), then chill in frig

5. Wash and slice fruit

6. When cookie crust is golden, remove from oven, set out to cool. After 10-15 minutes of counter cooling, may place in frig to cool  faster.

7. Just before consumption, cover crust with frosting/topping, and layer on fruit

Wal-lah!!

What's your must-have Super Bowl celebration food?

Family Fail

I should have known it was going to be an interesting day when it started out with a lady standing in her front doorway wearing a muumuu yelled at me for taking a picture of the limb of a tree in her yard. It was the first moment of many that day, I could have kicked myself in the butt for not being armed with my real camera. My iPhone miserably failed to capture the beauty of the tiny iridescent rain drops lingering on each tip of the tangled branches, separating itself in class from the gloomy sky. 

I called my mom to verify the family's arrival time to help move my brother and to make sure they were equipped with kolaches. Turns out they stopped and bought some for themselves, but not for Patrick and I........family fail.

When we arrived at my brother's new place, Saturday's story ripened..........HE HADN'T PACKED A SINGLE THING YET!

Then this nerd patrol asked me, and only me, to come with him to his old house to help him "pack the kitchen". Turns out "packing the kitchen" translated into packing everything, and he only had 3 soggy un-taped boxes with no packing supplies to make this happen..........you can imagine my disgust. 

In the meantime, Patrick went on an excursion with my dad, navigating him to 3 different Lowe's to get a couple of things, but they soon became stranded with a flat tire and spent the rest of the day at Discount Tire. 

Would you believe me if I said after 3 trips to Lowe's they still didn't buy the right thing?

Completely distracted by the unprecedented monopolization of one of my precious weekends off work, Patrick interrupts my agitation with a question, "Is it your Nana's birthday today?"

All I heard was "birthday". I completely dismissed his inquisition, "No," wondering why in the world he would be so crazy to ask me that, "But it's Haley's birthday today!" 

We called our niece immediately to wish her a good day.

A few hours later, unwinding over dinner and margaritas at La Hacienda with the best beef fajitas in the world, the subject of Nana's birthday arose again. 

OH. MY. GOSH. It really was Nana's birthday!
"I tried to tell you that, but you weren't listening to me!" Patrick chimed in. 

All day long I spent with my grandmother and completely did not realize she sacrificed her day to submerge herself in the ciaos of helping my retarded brother move ON HER BIRTHDAY ..........never once did she complain or say anything about it being a special day. 

At that moment, I felt just as ridiculous as everything else that had happened that day..........another family fail!

Luckily, I think Nana already knew her family is crazy, so none of this was a big surprise to the wisdom of her 74 years young. If everything else went wrong, at least we ended it right; celebrating a fantastic lady  that I don't know what I'd do without. 

Are birthdays a big deal in your family?

Coffee Cozies

By now, I think we are all striving to be more green, but as I mentioned before, there's just something magical about those disposable Starbucks coffee cups. Although I don't have a solution for that yet, I do have a solution to cut down on cardboard consumption by making your own coffee cozie out of recycled items!

I've been eyeballing these cuties on Pinterest for a while, and after researching all the ways people have come up with making them, I decided to take a sewing-machine-free route, with plenty of room left for uniqueness and versatility.

To start, stop by your local Goodwill (or raid a man's closet, hopefully without breaking any laws) and pick out some neckties that catch your eye while keeping in mind quality and width (these cost <$1!!!).

Supplies:

Empty coffee cup and cardboard sleeve for template (now you have an excuse to go get a cup of Jo from your favorite coffee shop)

Necktie

Buttons or Material Flower/rossette or whatever else you'd like to use as an accent peice (keep in mind, the flatter, the better)

Needle and thread (color to coordinate with tie color)

Sissors

Straight Pins

Felt (color to coordinate with tie color)

Fabric Tac

Velcro

E6000 glue

Instructions:



Drink your coffee. Smile. Take a deep breath; when you release it, make sure you don't blow it in anyone's face before brushing your teeth.

Remove the cardboard sleeve from the cup and gently take it apart (making it one long flat piece).

Lay out the necktie on a flat surface, place cardboard sleeve on top (pretending the pointy tip of the tie does not exist), and cut the tie about two inches longer than the cardboard sleeve.

Separate the layers of the end of the tie (the newly cut end), and cut out about 1/4-1/2 inch of the inside material.

Fold the edge over (towards the back of the tie, where the other seems and tags are), secure in place with a couple of pins and sew along the edges to secure (now you have a hem without any extra bulky fabric).

Pick out your accent peice and sew at the pointy end of the tie until secure.

 (Don't worry about how your stitching looks on the back of the tie, it wont matter.)

Lay the tie on the sheet of felt and cut to size (again, pretending the pointy tip of the tie doesn't exist).

Secure felt on back of tie (side with all the seems and sloppy sewing evidence) with fabric tack. 

(We use Fabric Tac for this part because it will dry soft and is machine washable.)

Then cut a square of velcro (hook side) and glue to inside of the pointy tip of tie with E6000 glue. Allow time to dry.

(We use E6000 for this part because it's super strong and resilant. Be sure not to get it on anything else, or you'll never get it off!)

Measure where to put the loop side of velcro on the pretty side of the tie by wrapping the tie around the coffee cup until it fits snuggly, slide the velcro in place to mark the spot (this part takes some coordination, experimentaion, and patience), then secure in place with E6000 glue.

Allow time to dry.

You're done!!!
Time to celebrate with another cup of coffee. 

I've Missed You....(Project Pretty Week 4)

(Project pretty is a personal commitment to share my weekly journey of keeping my non-New-Year's-Resolution: staying fit to improve quality of life while inspiring others to do the same. Let's all jump on the endorphin wagon!)

My entire body had really been missing yoga for the last few months, ever since I've been trying to save money on gym fees and quit my beloved gym. But being a member at a pricey yoga studio was out of the question....until I realized these deals for really great specialty classes were floating around the metroplex like hot cakes.

I became a member of Groupon and Living Social forever and a year ago, but never got serious about actively looking to purchase anything until a few weeks ago when I found 2 deals I couldn't pass up. The first being one of those fancy-shmancy ProSonic facial cleansing contraptions (which my skin absolutely loves). The second being 25 yoga classes for $25 (that's 93% off the the normal cost of $375), which I also absolutely love.

A couple of weeks ago I showed up late for my first class (barging in at what I thought was 10 minutes early, after trying to be 20 minutes early, but almost giving up on finding the place because it was hidden, and then finding out I showed up on the only day of the entire week that class starts at a different time). Turns out I went to the one and only beginners class of the week, and although it wasn't what I expected or thought I was in need of, turned out to be a really good learning experience. When all you've ever attended are people packed fast moving vinyassa classes, the instructor really doesn't have enough allotted time to critique each individual to perfection, but the beginner class is made just for this.

Carlos (the owner and instructor) is not what I'd describe as the stereotypical instructor. He's a long eyebrow'd squatty man, from some sort of Spanish decent, with a rounded belly and burly legs bared by his short cotton shorts. His accent is thick, but his passion for yoga is stronger. His standards for each pose and movement are high and I've always thought I had pretty good posture until now. 

 Apparently I lack body awareness, and require manual correction. I've always been direction-ally dyslexic when it comes to following moves in classes (thank goodness for the lady one mat over who mother-hen'd me during the regular class, gently hinting each time I adjusted the wrong extremity or moved the wrong way), but now I'm becoming more conscious of  the bad compensating habits that have managed to work their way into my practice. After I was corrected, my muscles started tremoring so badly I thought I was going to collapse; by midway through the class I couldn't see for the constant river of sweat pouring into my eyes.

Needless to say after of couple of those classes, my muscles are S-O-R-E, but with great satisfaction! Yoga just makes everything better; it's like a meditation, stretch, detox, and workout, all at the same time.  

......Did I mention you can't beat $1 a class?

What's your all time favorite type of workout?

Lost On Why, So Let's Dance

I forgot to talk about our very last christmas......and the legal crap I promised to explain.

Let's start with a baffling one sided conversation about how I can make the most complicated recipes in the world, but have never made a successful batch of rice crispy treats, and was far from successful with this supposedly "easy" candy idea. I let the Rollos melt too much, resulting in a sticky, broken, caramel mess.....and those kisses were suppose to be melted, not browned and crystallized!!! I guess if it's not "real" cooking, it's over my head. 

We took the successful dishes, along with my failed ones, and headed 4 hours south, to the Brenham family get together.

We played with some cute puppies, had a few drinks by the outdoor fireplace, enjoyed a good ol' fashioned time at White Elephant Christmas, and broke a sweat in the living room to the Nintendo Wii game, Dance Off, with the kids.

Now I'm convinced that we need a Wii, since I have the rationalization that rotting my brain with Super Mario Bros is nutralized by following it up with a healthy exercising competition disguised as dancing.

But before we got to do all that........something else happened.

Ever since we got our iPhone's we've had navigational issues, which contributed to missing a crucial turn on this trip, which snowballed into being flagged down by the patriotic lights of a small town officer with nothing else better to do than read the microscopic inspection expiration date on our windshield.........on probably the only day in the last year we were super conscious about not breaking any traffic laws. Go figure.  It didn't help our case when Patrick admitted to not having an up-to-date address on his driver's license, as I frantically searched through the pile of 20 expired insurance slips, promising that we pay for insurance but just can't find the current form.
I started having flash back's to last summer when I got a warning for not having my lights on at night, and having a very out of date home address on my DL. The officer gave me 30 days to fix it, and luckily didn't notice the registration was expired. I thought about how I've yet to fixed any of those things and just knew karma was catching up with me now.  Patrick and I looked at each other, took a deep breath, and braced ourselves for the shameful ticket coming our way. 

"I'm going to let you off with a warning. But you need to get these things taken care of," said the officer who will now go down in kpLove Blog history as one of the most character trusting good-faith-filled officer's in the state of Texas. Hallelujah, that day was saved! Sunlight transformed into beams from heaven shining down on us. 

I decided I better not try my luck again, which is why I got everything taken care of!

If you know how to make good rice-krsipy treats, what's your secret? How diligent are you about keeping all your legal requirements up-to-date?

I Almost Ate Concrete (Project Pretty Week 3)

(Project pretty is a personal commitment to share my weekly journey of keeping my non-New-Year's-Resolution: staying fit to improve quality of life while inspiring others to do the same. Let's all jump on the endorphin wagon!)

My runner friends are getting ready for the Dallas Rock 'n Run (I'm still riding the fence), so I've been taking advantage of their frequent running schedules to have a little company for my workouts. Everyone's been such a good sport about pretending to be happy to slow down to a tortoise pace for a run/chat with ol' pokey (me)......

Kelly Jo's lived in North Dallas her entire life and never knew about Oak Point Nature Preserve, so we bundled to brave the 20-30 degree temps and squeezed in a 4-miler. I had us a nice little scenic sidewalk map completely mapped out, but of course we got off track somewhere along the way and ended up winging it.

Everything was all fun and games until I stepped on what I thought was a melted puddle and almost ate concrete. Time stood still in that moment, and skating over 1 foot of ice literally felt like 400 meters. It caused such a dramatic scene, we decided only a reenactment would serve it justice.

A couple days later, Missy was looking for someone to cover 5 miles with. Neither of us had ever been to Russel Creek Park, and the 2.5 mile loop halfway between both our homes sounded like the perfect place to meet up.

It literally felt like I gained 300 pounds overnight and had to drag my butt the whole way (even my heart rate was higher than usual), so she did most of the talking, but it felt great to burn those 700 calories in the crisp morning air with new views.....it was just one of those days I don't think I would have finished without someone cheering me on.

I got so overheated by the end, I was down to just a Tshirt while munching on my cup of ice during our cool down walk around the pond in the 40 degree weather......surely everyone there thought I was a crazy loon (but not as crazy as this fish thinking it was a good idea to sunbathe).

I'm super happy to report my knees have handled the pounding a lot better this week, though there's always some ailment to be dealt with, like sore second toes (probably due to their freakishly long nature), mild shin splints, and my first ever running induced blister. Oh the aches and pains of getting back into long distance running shape.......

My favorite moment this week was post omelet being cozy on the couch in front of my space heater, ice packs on my knees, catching up on American Idol and texting Patrick at work, "I really need you to fill up my tea glass."
"On my way," he replies.
"Really?"
"No." (He was suppose to work out during lunch.)
I became desperately disappointed I was actually going to have to momentarily abandon my perfect set up to fulfill this task solo, but before becoming dehydrated enough to talk myself in to getting up, he walked in the door to the rescue!!! How lucky am I?

How often do you ice post workout?

Holy Moly

(Did anyone ever watch the acapella singing show called The Sing Off??? I loved it before it got cancelled, and discovered Pentatonix during one of the seasons. They are amazing, and from Texas, and I just found out they are starting a tour soon!!)

Time has slipped from my finger tips. I know what happened; I've been so exhausted lately trying to catch up with regular life that the life itself has been drained from my body like water through a colander......I had a lot of catching up sleep to do......and I was reading a book which always monopolizes my free existing moments. 

The Time Traveler's Wife....such a tragically romantic love story. It wasn't just the heavy feeling of the word content that imaged tragedy though, the book's physical presence was looking pretty dismalled after I got finished with it. I used to think there was a certain charm about a real life book.......but what a chore it was to flip pages, a pain to hold it in awkward ways while trying to use the flash-light app on my phone in bed to avoid waking a sleeping husband, and an inconvenience to not have a built in dictionary at my disposal. My Kindle has ruined me for life.

Operation tuck-away-Christmas-decorations has been postponed yet again (as long as they're up before Easter, right?) for more urgently important technicalities like grocery shopping, getting the battery replaced in my Polar watch (God forbid I workout blindly, without knowing my heart rate or how many calories I burned), letting Robbins Brothers shine my rings back to sparkling new, having the inspection done on our car and other important things that apparently the state portrays as "important", but is actually just a conspiracy conjured up for money stealing (.......pppssshhhtt, legal crap.....I'll explain later....).

Thank goodness I'm blessed with a wonderful husband who comes home from a long day of work to make me dinner while I take an afternoon nap on the couch for moments like these, and cleans the entire house while I'm away at work, and stays up all night long to write a song to make me happy, and goes to the grocery store to purchase all the ingredients to make me the elaborate breakfast I was craving a day prior, and gets everything all laid out in the kitchen to have it all made by the time I get home from work........but accidently over sleeps and wakes up to a dog licking his face and yells out "OH CRAP!" and falls in the process of sprinting down the stairs as soon as possible to see his wife already made the extravagant breakfast (but she's happy anyway because it's the super sweet thought that really counts).

I wasn't the only tired one.....

In other words, this month is flashing before my eyes.....which only means one thing: the closer we are getting to going on a much needed vacation!!!

How fast do you take down your seasonal decor? When it comes to reading which do you prefer: digital or old school? Why?