Operation Birthday Surprise!! | Washington Or Bust!

I’ve been sneaky lately.

I’ve been plotting, scheming and nearly ruining surprises for over a month. Seriously. I’ve had to lie and cover up and bury email chains and all of these things I am not programmed to do.

My husband had a birthday coming up and I wanted to surprise the heck out of him with a trip back home to see family and friends. I wanted it to be a huge surprise. Not just like “Hey. Look. I made you waffles. Surprise.” but like “SURPRISE!! We’re going on VAYCAY!  OMG, DID YOU JUST PEE YOUR PANTS?!” That’s what I was going for. You know, something subtle.  It worked. I don’t think he peed his pants, but he was definitely in shock. It took a solid thirty minutes before it all set in and he realized he best pack a bag.

So, off to Washington we went!

My brother-in law picked us up from the airport and helped coordinate a bunch of Pete’s oldest friends to meet us at an Indonesian restaurant. There was a lot of food. This was the only picture I took that night. I was really busy stuffing my face with Nasi Goreng, drinking too much vodka, and reveling in all the merriment. At least I captured the trick candles. This is the third time Pete tried to blow out that cake. Why does that never get old?

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Grilled Eggplant Parmesan

Back up, Dudes. This girl totally learned how to grill this summer!  That’s right, I made fire. I made the charcoal glow. I totally put stuff over it and let it get all warm and crispy. I flexed my inner stud-muffin and grilled the heck out of  meats and veggies alike!  Did I almost light my hair on fire? Maybe. But you know… there’s always a learning curve. Me + Fire + General Clumsiness = Could have been worse. I think I might make my husband nervous. Even though I told him to back off, and in his attempt to not tell me what to do (because, really…who likes that?)  I can see him peeking at me from the other side of our sliding glass doors. Probably best. It’s always good to have a teammate when you set your hair on fire. One person to scream (me) one person to extinguish (him).

So… we all have vegetarian friends, right? I know I do. For some reason most of my really close friends are of the non-meat eating varietal. This used to stress me out. Am I allowed to say that? I know, I know, weird right? This coming from the girl who doesn’t eat gluten. Look at that big fat double standard, eh? I’m sure my gluten eating friends totally talk about how frustrating it is to feed me. It’s cool. We make due. I respect you. Let’s all just have a glass of wine. That’s vegetarian. I think it’s even vegan. If we found a bottle of wine in a back alley, that would technically be freegan. Beautiful. I like where this is going. It’s most likely going to end with a lot of exuberant dancing and a headache.  […]

Fig & Dark Chocolate Scones {Gluten Free & Paleo}

For most of my life, I thought Figs were a mythical kind of fruit. You know, like the fruit equivalent to a Pegasus or a Griffin.
To be fair, I never actually saw a whole fig in the flesh until my adult life. I had two fig references in my wheelhouse:
1) Fig Newtons: A delightful snacking cookie. I thought the person who made these cookies was named Mr. Fig Newton. I once asked my Grandfather what the filling was inside these cookies, to which he replied “something prunes.” As you can imagine, this threw me off the scent. As far as I was concerned Mr. Fig Newton was sitting in his house baking cookies filled with “something prunes.” I asked no questions.
2) Christmas Caroling: You know those lyrics in We Wish You A Merry Christmas? There is a whole verse where we demand something called “figgy pudding.” In my mind this sounded totally gross, and I didn’t ask questions. I assumed this so-called pudding was probably mushy, stinky, and something from tales of yore. I had visions of people clad in bonnets and bodices scooping chunks of wobbly pudding out into the hands of Christmas carolers. Whatever this stuff was, it was for sure old timey, as I’d never heard of it in my modern world. What ancient sorcery was this?  I don’t know. Maybe it was “something prunes.” Probably “something prunes.” […]

Pump Up The Beet Juice | A Juicing Recipe

Pump up those beets, pump them UP… while your feet are stompin’, and the beets are pumpin’. Look at here the crowd is jumpin’!!

It’s normal to change Technotronic lyrics to match your green juice recipes, right? Cool. I thought so. Can we remake this video too? Maybe the flashy background could be a bunch of psychedelic beets and we could wear hammer pants that are covered in veggies?  Let’s keep all of their dance moves though. That choreography is solid. Bless the 90’s. They were good.

Did I lose some of you? Probably. Just watch the video. It will get your Wednesday movin’.  Dare I say it might even pump it up? I said it. Can’t take it back now.

So, this morning I realized out of all of the juicing we have done here, we have never juiced beets together. What?! How is this possible? I love beet juice. We’ve made juice that tasted like a mojito. We’ve definitely juiced carrots. We’ve even juiced a watermelon. We’ve taken beets and blended them into one of the best smoothies of my life. Seriously, that smoothie is something special. I’ve even taken beets and made chocolate cake out of them. Whoa.  Yet, I haven’t shared with you my go to beet juice recipe. This just seems wrong. Let’s fist pump and right this wrong together. I’ve got that Technotronic song in my brain so hard that my top half is typing these words to you, but my bottom half is dancing. Pump it up!! Can’t control myself.

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