8 miler

Today we completed our 8 mile run. Here's a tour...

Tell Me Something Good.... Hexagonal Furniture Makeover

So tomorrow a SWAT team is coming to the place I work (a high school) to run an active-shooter drill with full regalia. Seriously??? It's stressing me out. So... I go back to my furniture.

One of my students told me that he is convinced I'm someone from the future. But, actually, I'm probably someone from the past.

And here's how I brought the funk back to 2013. Tell me something good....

Good ol' 70s hexagonal wooden. furniture. I totally forgot to take a true before picture, but here it is, all scuffed up from sanding. It was actually in pretty good condition when Brad swiped it from the side of the road while he was at work the other day. Such a stud, Brad is.



After I sanded the inside and outside, I started priming it. This time, I almost learned my lesson. I did most of it with a paint roller, to get a nice, thin, smooth coat. However, some of the dust particles stuck to the top, and that rather annoys me. But whenever you DIY, there's always going to be something small that you notice that most people won't. Anyway, this is what it looks like all primed up.



Then I went to Loews, expecting to buy turquoise and do something fun and different, but they had this cool 3-toned dresser in a picture, and I was totally inspired. So I came home with Valspar paint and primer in one (I had no intention of priming the inside) in a lovely winter ocean-gray color, a deep blue ocean color for the top, and a beachy sky blue for the sides. This is the nearly finished product:



Now, it's not entirely done, there's still some painters tape up top, and I plan to spray paint that ledge the same as the bottom of the piece--that nice blue gray. And I also need cool hardware for the doors... Any suggestions? I needed a little happy today, so this is it :-D

Final, minus hardware:



What do you think???

16 Miles. 34 Degrees. St. Patrick's Day. Great Craic.

Today I woke up and consumed delicious whole wheat Irish soda bread, care of Beebe. I drank a cup of Costa Rican Coffee. I did my lesson plans. And then Brad and I hit the pavement around 11:00 AM.

We ran to the beach. It was windy. Very windy. Very, very windy. So we decided it'd be better to run into the wind on the way out, so we would have the wind at our back on the way in. Therefore, we made a left, and headed into Monmouth Beach.

We ran through Monmouth Beach, through pits of wind blown sand all over sidewalks and roads, past houses completely devastated by Sandy. We ran through Sea Bright, where the devastation was even worse, and there was even more sand to run through. We ran straight into the wind. We ran all the way to the end of Sea Bright, right before the bridge to the Atlantic Highlands.

Then, we turned around. Finally.

We ran home. My stomach felt so queasy for most of this run. It was not fun. It was not pleasant. It was not easy. The GPS didn't start right away, and then my phone died anyway (yes, we outlasted Siri), but this was about an 1800 calorie burn workout.

The best part? It's over.

The second best part? I didn't need ice in my water bottle.

The third best part? As we were on the home stretch, some lady was walking her two dogs and said, "Hey, didn't I see you guys run by at 11:00 AM?" I said, "Yes." She said, "God bless you! That's great!" I said, "Thanks, we need that right now!"

The fourth best part? Brad is wearing my BC fleece pants right now.

The fifth best part? IT IS STILL OVER!!!

Beachy Furniture Re-Do Preview: Green for St. Patty's!

Found this piece curbside in Oceanport. Scooped it up, disinfected it about 3 times, sanded it down, primed it up, and painted it with a spring green. Still have some work to do with this piece, but wanted to post how far the project has come thus far! Happy St. Patrick's Day Weekend!

Spring Lampshades

Around Christmas, I made these babies:



But now, I'm rooting for spring, wanted to add some yellow to my dining decor (to pull in my new DIY Hutch: Hutch) so I made these. Quite simple:

Cardstock from the scrapbooking section of any craft store. Even better when it's on sale :)

Make a template by wrapping one piece around your lampshade. Cut the rest to match the template. Use a little gorilla glue and a clip to keep them together. Voila, instant spring!

Sugarush Red Bank

This is a Guinness Cupcake from Sugarush. Apparently, it is only available St. Patrick's Day Weekend. If you have never had one of these, let me tell you, you are missing out on one of the most delicious, incredibly scrumptious desserts I have ever tasted. The cake actually tastes like a perfectly poured pint of Guinness. I have no idea how they do it. It almost tastes like you're actually taking a sip of the Irish liquid gold. And the triple chocolate frosting is so rich and smooth. Mind blown.

But, if you're not there on St. Patrick's Day...
In the quaint town of Red Bank, NJ, on Front Street, you'll find a little hole in the wall cupcake joint that channels Serendipity III in appearance. On one wall, random candies, games, and kits, and on the other side of the galley are the cupcakes. You pick the cake (usually vanilla, chocolate, "sugarush" (looks like funfetti), red velvet, and carrot. Also, the daily special which can range from German chocolate cake to Guinness depending on the day and the holiday. Icing has a slew of varieties, with my favorite actually being their vanilla buttercream (you can see the bits of vanilla bean in the icing--if you look closely in the picture, you, too, can see it! Picture is Red Velvet with vanilla Buttercream icing). I normally am a chocolate buttercream girl, but this is just fantastic. They also have peanut butter, triple chocolate, raspberry, etc. And they have stuffings and drizzles. So you can mix and match like an old-fashioned ice cream parlor. Two cupcakes will run you $5.08. Not too awful. In Manhattan, one cupcake would probably run you $5.08.

Similar to how a good cannoli place will fill the cream in front of you, so it doesn't get soggy in the shell, Sugarush puts the icing on top in front of you, which adds to the deliciousness. Plus, if you can keep away from it long enough, these cupcakes give off the most amazing aroma. Sweet whiffs of buttercream frosting.

They also do cakes, and have done Drita's birthday cake from Mob Wives. Everything from birthdays to weddings to pop-on-overs.

Check them out at their facebook page: Sugarush or their own website: Sugarush Experience or, just head on over to Front Street. Enjoy!

Spaghetti Squash with Meat Sauce

So this recipe is inspired by Jackson on "The Biggest Loser." It's ridiculously easy and quite delicious, with a few additions and subtractions. Today was a great day. My students were good, the English Department threw me a surprise party for my impending wedding, which actually surprised me, and I am so grateful for their kindness and generosity. Just sayin'. So I was having a STELLAR day, even in light of this awful Saturn storm attempting to screw with my post-wedding (not quite Honeymoon) plans. So I invited my friend Ursula over for dinner and cooked up a storm.

Here goes:

Preheat oven to 400
Slice a spaghetti squash in half. Scoop out the seeds. Place on a baking sheet and roast for about 30 minute. I also roasted a red pepper that I sliced into 4 large pieces (de-seeded) for 20 minutes.

While that's roasting, I cooked 1 package of chicken ground meet with a little bit of garlic powder in a saucepan. No added oil or butter or pam or anything. After it was cooked through, I added one onion, half a package of sliced mushrooms, and the roasted pepper from the oven. I cooked until the onion was becoming translucent, and then added my favorite Jersey Tomato Sauce Fradiavolo. I love this sauce because it's low in sugar and made from all natural ingredients. If it's on sale, I stock up like crazy!

I let that simmer until the spaghetti squash was done. I also added a side salad of romaine lettuce, celery leaves, and freshly shaved parmigiano cheese.

Once the spaghetti squash was cooked, I took a fork, made it into strings, added it to a bowl, put the meat sauce in a bowl, put everything on the table, and it was DELISH! And if you only use a cup of spaghetti squash and sauce, it's only about 250 calories. For dinner, that's incredible. Enjoy!

Mexican Chocolate Cookies

So Brad is at a sales meeting in Pittsburgh. Right. So, today I did my lesson plans for the week after Easter (HOLLA!), ran 7 miles (in less than an hour, what what!), made brownies for our faculty meeting tomorrow, cleaned, made a salmon Caesar salad with freshly shaved parmigiano cheese, and played with Shea dog.

In other words, I ran out of things to do, so I decided to read my cookbook. And yes, I read cookbooks. Don't judge.



So, here is the Mexican Chocolate Cookie recipe. I chose this because:

1. No eggs
2. No butter
3. Sounded fun and delicious.

First, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Make sure your shelves are at the very top and very bottom for this recipe.

Then, in a bowl mix:

1 cup whole wheat flour (that's what I always use regardless of what flour the recipe calls for)
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (I use Ghiradelli because I am a chocolate snob. Ok, no, it's what I had, but I <3 it!)
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Mix it up all good until it is a light brown color.

Then, in a separate bowl, mix:
1/3 cup reduced fat sour cream
1/4 cup light olive oil

Mix it really well.

Then add

2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Mix it up.

Add this to the flour mixture and then add 1/4 cup mini chocolate chips.

Make it into a lovely dough. You have a choice now. Either scoop it up by 1/3 cup and flatten it into 4 inch rounds (Makes 8 cookies) Or make 1 tbsp sized cookies and don't flatten as much. I went somewhere in the middle, with 10 cookies total. I didn't have parchment paper, and I need new baking sheets, so I used the dreaded tinfoil. Oh well. Bake for 20 minutes. After 10 minutes, rotate the sheets: top to bottom, bottom to top, and front to back.

Now my house smells like cinnamon and my belly is full of warm deliciousness. Happy!