Jogging My Memory

Did anyone else’s week fly by? I can’t believe it is Thursday already! And because I have no classes on Fridays, today is the last day for me before the weekend.

My week felt busy, but compared to some other weeks it really wasn’t. It also wasn’t the most productive week. I really got distracted by a number of things:

1. Tyler and I got our wedding pictures back!!!

They look AMAZING – here’s one as a teaser!

<3<3<3

2. Tyler and I also got new phones – you may have seen my tweets about it. We wanted to be on the same plan to save money and Tyler is very tech-savvy so we needed a provider that had the latest technology as well cheaper plans. We ended up going with the HTC EVO from Sprint. This is my first smart phone – EVER, yea I’m a little behind the times. The thing I’m enjoying the most is being able to check my e-mail from anywhere! (forgive my dirty fingerprints all over the screen!)

As a result of these exciting new things in my life, there were some late nights spent playing with phones and looking at pictures, and virtually no workouts – YIKES! I’m hoping to remedy that this weekend and next week.

I’m still adjusting to eating and my class and work schedule. Convenience and portability was very important this week.

Take for example, the 3 Cranberry, Mango, and Blueberry Bran muffins from Trader Joe’s I consumed throughout the week.

Pull them out of the fridge, cut them in half (or into quarters or pull the top off), spread on some butter, and you have a delicious and filling meal.  The bran really gives it staying power  and they have some fruit in them.

There has also been quite a bit of cereal. Three Sister’s Cereals were on sale at Whole Foods and I had to take advantage because I love their HFCS and trans-fat free take on kid’s cereals.

I LOVE their Marshmallow Oaties and Graham Crackerz! (I also love their Cinnamon Sweets but we bought the Graham Crackerz by accident and I happen to love them as well!)

And there was leftover pizza, because really what student doesn’t eat leftover pizza once in awhile.

But the star of the week was definitely this Shrimp, Mango, and Avocado Salad with Sweet Chili-Ginger Vinaigrette from Bon Appétit.

Tyler found this recipe on Epicurious the other day when we were looking for meal ideas for the week. When he read it, I was immediately impressed with the short list of ingredients as well as how clean and simple most of the ingredients were. The recipe calls for sweet chili sauce, unseasoned rice vinegar (I accidentally used seasoned rice vinegar because it is what I had in the cabinet), minced peeled fresh ginger, cooked shrimp, butter lettuce (we used romaine), mango, and avocado.

The recipe was fairly simple to make, although it definitely required more than the 15 minutes the recipe says it takes – come on it takes me 15 minutes at least just to prepare the mango and avocado (they are both halved, pitted, peeled and cut into slices in the recipe). It also makes 4 servings, so we made some minor modifications – we used medium shrimp with the tails off  instead of large shrimp with the tails on and we used more than the recipe called for for just 2 salads, and we used half an avocado, and half a mango. Note – I do have extra dressing which we’ll probably use up tonight. I should have just halved the ingredients all together, which would have been very easy to do.

Tyler and I both really liked this salad. The dressing definitely has a little kick to it from the sweet chili sauce, but the avocado cools the heat some. The combination of sweet and spicy from the mango and the sweet chili ginger vinaigrette was spot-on! We’ll definitely be holding on to this recipe for future use.

Alright enough about wedding pictures and salads. You all want to know who the winner is of the Sam’s Club Gift Card.

Using the husband random integer generator (I had him pick a number) – the winner is Comment # 7!

Congrats to Amanda from Bakingwithoutabox!

Don’t worry I won’t hold you to buying detergent and cheerios ; )

Please e-mail me your contact information and we’ll get that Sam’s Club gift card shipped to you ASAP!

Well I’m off to class! Enjoy the rest of your Thursday!

*Disclosure: the gift card and giveaway have all been provided by Sam´s Club and General Mills through MyBlogSpark.

One of Tyler and I’s other errands on Saturday was a trip to Sam’s Club.

From now until tomorrow, August 31, Sam’s Club has a back to school promotion going where customers can receive up to 6 Box Tops on select General Mills products. Remember Box Tops? I used to cut them off the cereal boxes to turn in at school. Not a bad way to earn some money for schools.

The lovely folks at MyBlogSpark provided me with an upgraded Plus Membership at Sam’s Club as well as a $25 gift card to the store.

Tyler and I used that $25 to stock up on one of our big box store favorites: Gatorade!

Source: http://lowcalcorner.com/g2-fruit-punch/

That gift card bought us two 24 packs of G2 (well almost, we owed a little over $7 in the end which included the 5 cent bottle return on all 48 plastic bottles). With all the running in the heat I’m doing, this G2 is much appreciated.

Now if you’re very lucky, you can win a $25 gift card of your own to Sam’s Club – and really who doesn’t love free grocery money.

So to enter this sweet little giveaway, you must:

• Leave a comment listing 2 items you would use your gift card to buy at Sam’s Club. If Tyler and I hadn’t gotten G2 there were some frozen veggie stir fry’s and spice mixes that I would have loved to take home with me.
• And for an additional entry you can tweet about the giveaway (please include my twitter ID @JuliaJogging) OR you can leave a second comment with your favorite thing about the Back to School season.

The giveaway ends Wednesday September 1, 2010  at 9pm Pacific Time (that’s 12am or midnight for you Easter Time folk). Then I will randomly draw and post a winner!

Disclosure: the information, gift card, upgraded membership and giveaway have all been provided by Sam´s Club and General Mills through MyBlogSpark.

Shocking I know, I’m posting two days in a row. What can I say, I really missed ya.

Tyler and I had a crazy busy day yesterday – he tried on suits at Jos. A. Bank (which he looked very handsome in I must say), I tried on a super cute dress at Ann Taylor Loft.

Yep it came home with me – for $30 there was no way that it wasn’t.

Now I just need an occasion to wear it. I’m thinking it’s a little too casual for the wedding next weekend, and it has a white background (don’t wanna be that girl that wears white to someone else’s wedding). Perhaps the rehearsal dinner which is a beach BBQ with a boat ride after? What do you all think? Rehearsal dinner? Make the hubs take me out to dinner?

We also ventured to Macy’s, Crate & Barrel (they have a dining room table-or two-I’m a fan of), and REI.

REI was lots of fun. We took my bike in for a major tune-up, to the tune of over $100+ smackeroos – OUCH! And since they were having a big sale we managed to do some other monetary damage, including two new camping chairs, a bike helmet for Tyler, front and back lights for both our bikes, and a bike computer and second water bottle holder for Tyler’s bike. What can I say, we plan on using those bikes more now that we live in a more bike-friendly area and can bike very easily to the American River Trail.

Today, Tyler and I started off the morning with Fantasy Football Draft – yep you heard right. It’s that time of the year again, football time. While I can appreciate a good college game, I really have very little appreciation for watching football 4 nights a week on the tube. Guess that’s the way the cookie crumbles when you marry someone who loves sports like Tyler does.

After the Draft, we got our run/bike on. I covered 11.5 miles in 1:46:30. I ate a serving of Haribo Gummi Bears and drank half a G2 during the run in addition to some more water.

The run was much better this week than last, but it was still rough. I need to get out earlier in the morning when the sun isn’t so bright on the desert stretches of the trail.

After the run, I did a lot of nothing. I stole one of Tyler’s Strawberry Banana Yoplait Thick and Creamy’s and had a big bowl of Three Sister’s Marshmallow Oaties with almond milk. Nom nom nom.

For dinner Tyler and I decided to use a Groupon we bought a few weeks back for Giovanni’s Pizzeria. We actually bought two and used the first one almost as soon as we got it. Our first Giovanni’s Pizzeria experience was delicious. The crust and sauce were both fantastic.

Today we went with the Calzone (with sausage instead of ham – sometimes you eat red meat for your man) and the Don Giovanni pizza with red peppers, sausage, and mozzarella.

The calzone had mozzarella and lots of ricotta in the New York crust with sausage. Unfortunately, there was way too much cheese for my taste (or Tyler’s) and the ricotta blend was very bland and required salt to be palatable.

Next came the Don Giovanni’s Pizza – this was our second experience with this pizza as we really enjoyed it the first time.

While the pizza looked delicious and was no doubt good, it was not as good as the first time we had it. I chock it up to a lack of pizza sauce. That tomato-ey sweetness really makes or breaks pizza for me, and without enough of it, I just don’t enjoy pizza like I usually do. And we still have most of that pizza left because after the calzone we both only had enough room for one slice of the pizza. Dinner tomorrow – yep.

So, our trip to Giovanni’s was less satisfying than expected. We aren’t writing them off completely, we really enjoyed our first pizza experience, but we definitely won’t order the calzone again.

After Giovanni’s we stopped at Trader Joe’s to pick up some groceries then we headed home.

Dessert was some Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Mints and a few Mini Peanut Butter Cups, while watching an episode of Dexter Season 2.

Well, it’s about time for bed. Have to be up early to exercise with Tyler and to do some homework for the week. Have a fabulous Monday!

I can’t believe it has been over a month since I last blogged, and over a month since I married the love of my life.

I promise a post with more wedding details, including our professional pictures, when we get them back. In the meantime I’ll share some of the photos taken by friends.

It was a beautiful and spectacular day, and I wouldn’t change a thing about it, even the fire-alarm, but that’s really a story for the big wedding post. Our photographer has given us previews of a couple wedding photos and I’m more than a little excited to see the rest and share them all with you.

Since the wedding Tyler and I have had quite a few other “major life events” including moving (Tyler moving to California and moving to our new apartment in Sacramento), Tyler starting to work from home, and the beginning of my second year of law school. We have also had more exciting developments in our extended family, but I’m staying tight-lipped on those for a little longer. Needless to say, it has been a very exciting month as newlyweds.

Tyler and I are both adjusting to living with each other and to each other’s schedules. For example, Tyler has to be up at around 6 or 7 to start work, his company is allowing him to work remotely from Sacramento until the end of October. I, on the other hand, have only 1 day a week where I have to be up at 9am. For me deciding when to get up on days where I could sleep later was a no-brainer. I get up with Tyler almost every morning, save those occasional mornings where I stay in bed for an extra thirty or so minutes. Its adjustments like this that are part of being married/living with someone else.

And I’m still training for the Nike Women’s Marathon – although my training was admittedly less than dedicated for the past month. I have gotten in some longer runs including a 16 miler a few weekends back and an 11 miler last weekend, but they haven’t been as easy as I would have liked. Hopefully tomorrow’s long run will go well.

Tyler and I are off to run some errands for the day. We have to pick up a suit for a wedding we’re going to next weekend, drop my bike off to get some work done (2 flat tires makes riding it really difficult), and pick up a friend’s husband up at the train station. I’m also hoping we can tackle some of the things that still need to be put away in our apartment. We’re close to, but not completely unpacked and put away.

Now that my schedule has settled down a bit, I will definitely be blogging more often. So you have lots of entertaining posts about feeding my husband and being a newlywed to look forward to.

Enjoy your Saturday!