Livin' the Dream in Lima

Since my half on Sunday, I've been taking a few days easy... no running. After lots of high mileage weeks, I'm sure my body is thanking me.  So what does a girl do when there's no training plan to adhere to? Lots of things! On Sunday after the race, we hit up my favorite place in Columbus - Easton Town Center . We had a leisurely breakfast/lunch at Panera, and then followed up with some shopping. Although my legs were screaming at me for walking so much after the race, it actually ended up being good in the long run. My legs weren't nearly as stiff as they would have been if we had hopped in the car and driven straight home. We went in a few shops, including Anthropologie . I love  all their kitchen accessories. Seriously. I could drop thousands of dollars in that store. I have slowly but surely been acquiring a set of bowls  from there. The perfect bowls for oatmeal, cereal, soup, ice cream... pretty much the perfect bowls for anything. We got two new colors S...

Yesterday's Surprise: So, as you know, yesterday was my Business Man's birthday. He turned a whopping 24 years old! I mentioned that I had a few surprises up my sleeve, and one of them was that I co-conspired with his team members at the office to throw him a potluck lunch. I brought our favorite chicken salad (with Hawaiian buns, of course!) and s'mores cookies. The lovely ladies also brought in goodies to make a complete feast. I was able to sneak in the back door without him even noticing, and set everything up in one of the back rooms. He was actually very surprised! (Especially considering he stopped at home to grab his phone charger when I was making the chicken salad that morning. I just told him I was making ice cream cake. And he believed it, even though I was chopping celery at the time. Celery ice cream cake? Yum?) For dessert, I made S'mores Cookies . (Recipe from Picky Palate .) These were good!! A little tricky to make, but very cute.  It'...

So what does a business man's wife do when her Business Man goes away on business?  Oh, the endless opportunities... *She might go to Meijer for a super-couponing adventure... All this for just $18.31! Saved over $24 due to combining coupons with sales. Boo-ya! All these items (except the fish) were free! Usually I would not  buy Party Pizza, but it was one of my Business Man's favs before I moved out here. Although I couldn't bring myself to purchase the "pepperoni" or "sausage"... the little chopped-up chunks of "meat" freaked me out a little. He'll have to suffer with plain ole' cheese. Don't mind the huge glare in the middle of the box. I haven't quite mastered the art of successfully photographing my groceries. Hmmm. I also got my favorite cereal on sale, 2 for $5. Not the best deal, but usually it's $4.29 a box so I got a couple today. *When she gets home from the store, she might do somet...

As some of you may know, I've been  traveling around quite a bit this week for my spring break. I spent some time with my BFF in Moline, IL before heading up to Milwaukee with mi madre for a whirlwind "foodie fun" trip.  Our first stop: Taste of Home magazine visitor center! Rather than give you a play by play of the trip, I thought I'd just highlight the important details. Much more fun that way. At the visitor center they have an awesome outlet store for Taste of Home products.  Like this super-awesome " Egg Cuber ." Because everyone needs to be able to make a square egg. (?!?) To be completely honest, I would probably eat hard-boiled eggs more often if they were square. And if they didn't give me gas. Unfortunately this super-fab product did not come home with me. I might have purchased 4 new cookbooks though. Whoops. They also had a great selection of clothing at the outlet store. Forget the Limited, I'm stocking my wardrobe wi...

Yesterday was a crazy day. First of all, it was a Monday. Monday's are always kind-of nutty. Second of all, I knew that if I was still in Illinois, I would have had yesterday off school. Why don't we celebrate Casimir Pulaski Day in Ohio? Why, why?? Third of all, it was the first day of spring track practice. I'll be helping out with my school's track team this year, so I was excited to get to know and run with some of the kids. Of course, I left my meticulously packed bag of workout clothes at home, so I just got to watch and cheer them on. This also meant that I had to spend extra time getting my run in. I didn't get home until just after 7pm. That is very late for me. And then we still had to make dinner. We have been surviving on leftovers and frozen pizzas the last week or so and I was ready for some home-cooking, or at least as close as we could get. When we were in Columbus this past weekend, we spent some time in our favorite bookstore, Barnes...