Eeeps! of Excitement

I've had a little bit of fun going on lately, and I just wanted to share.  My blog post this past weekend was a tad on the serious side, and after I posted it, I realized there were so many other things I wanted to bring up, but didn't.  Although I do have to admit, I'm happy I was able to stay so on topic on that last blog.  It needed to be done.

(Note....if you're a facebook friend, you've seen most of this on my feed.  But, well, I have peeps who read my blog who aren't on facebook.  Just humor me.)

Back to business.  Last Friday was a quiet afternoon at work.  I know....I shouldn't complain.  I'm not.  It gave me time to finally resurrect my bling board!  Yippee!  I've actually had a lot of people stop to look at it and ask me about it.  Some even told me they want to run/walk a 5k, and I have a co-worker who is signing up for a Tough Mudder.  So I think it is cool how the bling board is once again serving as a conversation starter.

Sunday was food prep day.  I have to admit, cooking/chopping all my stuff for the week on Sunday (and portioning it out) helps me so much during the week.  I don't have to think about what I'm eating for breakfast, or what I'm packing for lunch.  I just grab a bunch of containers and go.  This is what my fridge looked like once I was done.  I made my peanut butter baked oatmeal with craisins; cut strawberries, kiwis and clementines (the cuties are finally in season!); portioned out cottage cheese; made a sweet potato and chickpea stew (super yum); and defrosted chicken breasts and a peppercorn pork loin for Chris to grill.  

Some of you might know that I'm going to be playing co-ed softball this Spring.  (On a side note, I really gotta figure out who all said they were interested in joining....need to organize!)  Anyways, I've been going to the batting cages, and even asked Chris if we can go to the fields and work on sprinting/running the bases once the snow melts.  (I know....who am I?)  Well, you know a girl has to look cute while she's playing softball....at least, this girl does.  So Chris let me get a pair of turf shoes!  I was going to just use my trail shoes that I have for running, but b/c it was softball related, Chris had no problem letting me spring for these bad boys!

During the weekend, before my cooking extravaganza, I had purchased a ginormous bag of almonds at Sam's club.  I wanted to attempt to make almond butter, so I asked around and was given this recipe.  I've known people who tried to make almond butter with great results, and others who had epic fails.  I figured I'd give it a shot.  (But would be thoroughly pissed if I had to toss a nasty batch of almond goopiness.)

My first question was this:  How do I know if the almonds are roasted or not?  The bag didn't say they were, so I stuck them in the oven for ten minutes at 350, hoping that would work.  I then followed the recipe, but had to mix it quite a bit longer.  Also a note....it definitely takes on more of an almond butter texture after adding the salt (I used half a tsp) and letting it mix forever.  This was the finished product:

The four cups of almonds made a decent amount.  This is a two cup container, and it was filled to the brim before I put some in a little container to take to work tomorrow.  Plus, I had to try it out and ate some with a granny smith apple (while doing a happy dance).

That's been my past couple days in a nutshell.  Tomorrow I'm shooting for a swim in the morning, and I'm going for a massage after work.  Ahhhhhh.