WahooWa!

I am so excited for this weekend! As we speak we are driving down 29(hopefully not sitting still in Obama traffic) surrounded by beautiful Fall leaves on our way to our favorite town. We are spending the weekend in Charlottesville for football and fun in our college town.

While they have had a pretty rough season, we can't wait to cheer on our alma mater

Hang out with the mascot

Have a sip or few of this

and hope for a win

We will also spend a lot of time on The Corner

reliving the good old days

all while enjoying a beautiful Fall weekend in one of the most beautiful places in the country

There's no other place I'd rather be!

Random Thursday Thoughts

*Dry Shampoo*

Oujon Rub Out Dry Cleanser

I'm a little behind on this, but I recently purchased a bottle of dry shampoo from Sephora. I can't believe I waited so long for this amazing product! I have naturally curly, and thus, very dry hair that benefits from not being washed every day. In fact, my hair dresser suggests that I only wash my hair a couple times a week. Limiting hair washing does not go well with my daily runs/work outs. So it's dry shampoo to the rescue. I have the Oujon shampoo and it has worked great for me so far! Have you tried dry shampoo? What's your favorite?

*Yoga*

I have rediscovered my love of yoga! About 2 years ago I initially discovered a love of yoga when I joined my gym. I stopped attending classes as my mileage increased last Spring during my half marathon training and just never got back into it. That all changed last week. I have been working on increasing my weekly running mileage. But by last Thursday I felt like my poor legs needed a break and stopped by my gym's yoga class. It was amazing! I left the class feeling so incredibly relaxed and refreshed. I also forgot how beneficial the practice can be for my running and injury prevention. During several poses I felt how tight my IT Band was and it felt amazing to stretch it and many other muscles so well. Since I have been running and doing Body Pump classes regularly I did not expect to be sore from one yoga class. Boy was I wrong! Almost a week later I have sore muscles that I never knew existed!
*Paper*

My MIL sent us this adorable Wedding Anniversaries towel for our 1st anniversary. How perfectly appropriate is it!?! Now VABeau no longer has an excuse to forget what type of gift to get me :) In fact, he was looking at the towel last night and mentioned that we never got each other "paper" gifts since we planned a trip in lieu of gifts. He suggested that maybe we should invest in some good stationary for ourselves to satisfy the "paper" requirement. I, of course, loved this idea! Now the tough job of picking out something we both love begins...
I could be tempted to do something fun and original....

Or something with the best of both worlds, a classic monogram with a creative twist...
Boatman Geller
But the Southern girl in me can't resist the classic monogrammed stationary....
The Stationary Studio
But then again, this is the perfect time to have stationary that shows off our life as newlyweds. It doesn't get more personal than Ashley Brooke's newlywed cards. I am pretty tempted by her designs!
Ashley Brooke Designs

Sweater Heaven

I will be perfectly honest, I have been incredibly disappointed with JCrew lately. So disappointed that I spent a record low amount of $$$ there this past Spring and Summer. This has been amazing for my bank account, but not so great for my closest. I just never thought I would see the day when I would walk into a JC store and not want every single thing in the store. But over the past year, I have seen very little if anything in store that I am dying to own. That all changed recently when they rolled out their Winter sweaters. One area where I am sure JC will never disappoint me are their sweaters. So imagine my excitement when they discounted all sweaters by 20%! If you're like me and can't resist super adorable sweaters, check their sweater sale out now!

Chalet Zip Sweater
I am loving the zipper details this season

Merino Boyfriend Beaded Sweatshirt

Cashmere Tie V Neck Sweater

Probably at the top of my sweater wish list. The color and bow are perfect and so feminine!

Dream Zip Henley

Merino Crochet Sequin Cardigan
I could use some sparkle in my wardrobe and this would be the perfect addition!

Merino Dore Cardigan
The pockets on this cardigan make it so irresistible

Alexie Sweater
A classic in my favorite Fall shade

Remini Cardigan
The only sweater I have given into so far! It's so unique and makes my boring t shirt and jeans combo much more interesting.

Tie-Front Cardigan
I have been lusting after this cardigan since it first came out months ago. But somehow I have resisted. Anyone tried this sweater IRL? What did you think?

Any other sweater lovers out there? What are your favorite sweaters this season?

Menu Monday

Monday (A+)

*Assorted Pork Sausages
Kielbasa and brats cooking in our cast iron pan

*Fresh Cheese Spaetzle

*Warm Potato Salad with Pancetta & Brown Butter Dressing
Literally the best potato salad I have ever tasted!
VABeau selected all of the recipes from Food and Wine Magazine for our amazing Oktoberfest meal. It was the perfect dinner on one of the first truly cool Fall evenings we have had this year. Everything was so good, in fact, that I cannot wait to make this meal for friends and family. While all of the recipes required a decent amount of time, both side dishes can be made ahead of time making your life pre-dinner much easier. I still cannot believe that we made homemade spaetzle, lucky for us the recipe was pretty full proof. Check out the Spaetzle recipe below!

Tuesday*Oktoberfest Leftovers
I could not get enough of this perfect Fall meal!

Wednesday (A-)

*Cafe Assorti Take Out
After our run Wednesday night, we decided to make dinner at easy as possible. Nothing is easier than take-out and VABeau had been wanting to try the new Eastern European Bakery/Restaurant that opened in our neighborhood. I was not very familiar with most of the items on the menu but somehow we made great choices for our dinner. We split the Beef Cotelette and Chicken Crepes. The crepes were amazing and I cannot wait to try their other varieties. Cafe Assorti provides a great meal full of comfort foods so I am sure we will be visiting this restaurant a lot during the Winter months.

Thursday (A)

*Fireworks Pizza
We were very bad last week and ate out 2 nights in a row! We went next door to our new favorite bar/restaurant for a pumpkin ale and appetizer with full intention of returning home to cook dinner. However, after the first 2 pizzas were carried past our table, we could not resist. Their pizza is always delicious and their beer selection cannot be beat. This time, however, we tried one of their delicious Fall appetizers, Tempura Battered Acorn Squash. It was delicious and went perfectly with our Fall brew! I hope they make it a menu staple.

Friday (B+)

*Spaghetti and Turkey Meatballs

*Caesar Salad

*Baguette
Friday was the start of my 3 night work weekend. VABeau whipped up a delicious salad in addition to spaghetti tossed with Trader Joe's Turkey Meatballs, mushrooms, and a tomato basil sauce. It was the perfect meal to get me ready for a night full of "snow baby" deliveries.

Saturday

*Leftover Spaghetti and Meatballs

*Caesar Salad

Sunday

*Egg, Pancetta, and Cheese Sandwich for VABelle

*El Tio Grill with our Small Group from church for VABeau
Our church has small groups composed of several couples in similar life stages that meet for dinner and other events once a month. We recently joined a small group composed of young married couples and have really enjoyed the experience so far and the other couples are awesome. Unfortunately, I had to miss our monthly dinner for work but VABeau still joined the rest of our group for Mexican. He was even selected to give the opening prayer at dinner making me wish I could have been there even more. I could not be more proud of my husband!

Fresh Cheese Spaetzle

• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon milk
• 1/4 cup small-curd cottage cheese
• Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup quark
• 1 1/2 tablespoons snipped chives

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. In a medium bowl, beat the eggs with the milk, cottage cheese, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper. Stir in the flour until a smooth, thick, sticky batter forms.

Spoon the batter into a colander with 1/4-inch holes. Set or hold the colander 1 inch above the boiling water and scrape the batter through the holes, using a rubber spatula. Stir the spaetzle once or twice to separate them.
As soon as they rise to the surface, use a slotted spoon to transfer the spaetzle to a clean colander and drain well.
Melt the butter in a large nonstick skillet. Add the boiled spaetzle and cook them over moderately high heat, stirring and shaking the skillet occasionally, until the spaetzle are browned and crisp in spots, about 5 minutes. Add the quark and snipped chives, reduce the heat to moderately low and cook, stirring, until the sauce is creamy, 1 to 2 minutes. Season the spaetzle with salt and pepper and serve right away.

An Oktoberfest meal is not complete without an Oktoberfest brew. Hacker-Pschorr was perfect and may be my new favorite Fall beer!

Sweaty Bands!

I have a new obsession that I cannot stop talking about! Sweaty Bands have literally changed my life. I have A LOT of hair. To make matters worse, i have incredibly heavy, wild, uncontrollable hair. My hair is definitely not conducive for my favorite hobby of running. I have tried everything: hats, heavy duty hair bobs, multiple hair clips of various sizes. Nothing worked! Half a mile into my runs my shorter layers were flying in my face and sticking to my neck. Gross!

Some of my favorite Sweaty Band patterns

All of that has changed since finding Sweaty Bands! The head bands are not only incredibly cute (it took me hours to pick the one I wanted from the ton of cute design options) but they actually stay on. I have worn mine in a body pump class, for a fast 3 mile run, in a pilates class, and on today's 6 mile run. The band did not budge! Oh and did I mention that it looks incredibly cute? So cute in fact, I am not afraid to share a scary post-run picture of me wearing my new Sweaty Band.
I cannot wait to order more bands and start using them more and more. I have the skinniest of the bands which come in 3 levels of thickness. They are so cute that after I order a few more I plan to even wear them when I'm not working out. They will totally dress up my boring scrubs at work! If you share my hair woes while working out definitely check out the Sweaty Bands website.
Oh and for my DC friends running the Army 10 miler this weekend, first of all Good Luck! Secondly, I'm super jealous, it will be a beautiful weekend for a race and I will be stuck at work all weekend. Thirdly, Sweaty Bands will be at their packet pickup and expo, check them out!

Random Thursday Thoughts

*I'm NOT the Only One Who Says It That Way!*
This random thought is devoted to my brother in law, Nick, and all of the other friends and family members who have teased me over the years for saying a certain word funny. They have teased me so much that I have over time trained myself to say this word correctly. Granted I still occasionally have my slip ups, but they are much more rare now.
So I was reading my new Cooking Light last night while Cougar Town was playing in the background. I was not paying much attention to the show until about 1 minute in, Jules (Courtney Cox) friends started teasing her for not being able to say a certain word. Obviously this grabbed my attention just as I heard her say the same word I struggle with the exact same way I used to say it. I was thrilled! For years I thought I was alone in not being able to say "ruined"! I know it's only a TV character but the shows writer must know someone with my same issue to give them the idea for this scene:
(I could only find the full episode, but don't worry, the scene I am talking about happens within the first 2 minutes)

Are Jules and I the only ones with this issue? After this episode I'm starting to think there are more out there like us!

*We Have the Best Family and Friends*

We had a great time celebrating our first anniversary of marriage. I expected the day to provide us with the perfect opportunity to reflect on how fortunate VABeau and I are to have each other and our life together. What I did not expect was to be reminded of how fortunate we are to have so many incredible friends and family members. Everyone was so incredibly thoughtful and it was so nice to be remembered on our special day.
Our friend and VABeau's groomsman, Bobby D., went out of his way to make us feel special. He decided to save our wedding gift for our 1 year anniversary. He pointed out that etiquette-wise he did have a whole year to give a gift and it's much more fun to get one at the end of that year as opposed to the beginning when all of our gifts were pouring in. He was so right! Soon after we arrived home from Saint Michaels Sunday evening he came to our apartment to give us our gift and share some anniversary champagne with us. His gift was so incredibly thoughtful and I realized that he actually reads my blog regularly and saw this post a few months ago. Knowing that we love our wine and learning from the previous post how obsessed we were with enomatic machines, he started searching for a place close to our home that has an enomatic. I had no idea DC even had such a place! The gift card he gave us for The Tasting Room Wine Bar and Shop covers all of the enomatic fun we could ever want!How perfect was that? I was so pleasantly surprised with our gift since he had me expecting a wood sculpture.
On top of that we received numerous cards, messages, and gifts from family and friends and a bottle of our favorite sparkling wine from Neil and Elise.
None of these gifts or messages were expected and I think that's what made them even more special. Thank you to everyone for thinking of us on the 10th!
*My Health Report Card*
Last week I found some motivation to watch what I eat and continue to run. My hospital hosted several free health screenings during my shifts last week and I attended one during my break mainly for the $130 they pay you if you attend. It's a good thing I took the time to go. While my blood pressure and blood sugar were great, my cholesterol was incredibly high for my age. My cholesterol has been high since college but I guess I expected it to decrease over the years. Boy was I wrong! Ideally, you want a total cholesterol of less than 200. Mine was 241, yikes! I do know that the main cause of my elevated cholesterol is genetics-I have my Dad and paternal grandparents to thank for that-but I should try to improve it as much as I can now. I was told to decrease saturated and trans fats and limit my cheese and eggs consumption. This girl limit cheese? Never! But I will try to cut saturated and trans fats where ever I can. On a positive note, my good cholesterol (HDL) is incredibly high and thus, my risk for heart disease is reduced somewhat. The screening nurse said my running is partly to thank for this. So it looks like I will be hitting the pavement for many years to come. It's just scary to realize that while I feel great and am in good shape physically, I can still have underlying health issues.
*Favorite New Show*
Our DVR is already packed full of shows we love so there was not much room for new shows this season. I gave several new shows a try but only one has remained in my DVR, Better With You. I absolutely love this new comedy. It follows three very different relationships in one family. I find the comparisons between the couple that has been together 35 years to the one together 9 years and the one together 8 months absolutely hilarious and incredibly easy to relate to. Have you seen this new show? What do you think?

Menu Monday has returned!

I really enjoyed all of the traveling we have done over the past few weeks. But after eating most of our meals out during our various trips, we were incredibly excited to get back into our kitchen. Last week's meals were pretty basic since we were still recovering from all of our trips, but we still enjoyed cooking and eating them together in our own home.

Monday (A)
*Trader Joe's Marinated Ahi Tuna Steaks
*Trader Joe's Sweet Potato Fries
*Side Salad
Thank Goodness for TJs! Monday was the start of my first full week of work after 2 weeks of traveling. VABeau and I were both craving a light and healthy meal that was also easy. Luckily we had tuna steaks already marinated and sweet potato fries in our freezer. The tuna steaks were delicious and only required 15 minutes in the oven. I have heard rumors that a TJs may open a few blocks from our apartment. After this easy meal I really hope that's the case!
Tuesday (B)
*Slow Cooker Chicken Thighs with Carrots and Potatoes
*Italian Dinner Rolls
I had 4 chicken breasts defrosting in the refrigerator and 2 more nights of work ahead of me. Our slow cooker came to the rescue! I found this slow cooker recipe at Southern Living online. However, I substituted the thighs in the recipe for breasts. The carrots and potatoes were well cooked and delicious and the chicken had amazing flavor. However, the chicken was dryer than I would like. My theory is that since the recipe called for 6 hours of slow cooking, but I was determined to get 7 hours of sleep, the total cook time was increased by an hour. VABeau also pointed out that the bones in chicken thighs help keep the meat moist. I will definitely give this recipe another try since it was so easy and full of flavor, but next time I will use thighs and actually follow the cooking times.
Wednesday (B)
*Leftover Chicken, Carrots, and Potatoes
*Italian Dinner Rolls
Yay for easy leftovers!
Thursday (A+)
*Chicken Meatball Kabobs
*Rice
VABeau and I are huge suckers for Costco samples. It's incredibly hard for us to taste something and not buy it in bulk during our Costco trips. A few weeks ago they were sampling Aidells Teryaki and Pineapple Chicken Meatballs. They were so delicious we snatched up a pack of 50.Last week we realized we should probably start working on our gigantic box of meatballs and as a result, this meal was born. We made kabobs with the meatballs, pineapple, red and green peppers, and red onion. We coated them in teriyaki sauce and grilled them until warm in our grill pan. They were incredibly delicious and easy! The grilled pineapple also could not be beat!
Friday (A+)
Dinner party hosted by Neil and Elise
*Omaha Filets (Bobby D's generous offering for the dinner)
*Rosemary Red Potatoes
*Asparagus
*Bakeshop assorted cupcakes
Friday night was perfect! We joined N&E, Mieke, Bobby D, and Duncan for a small dinner party at Elise's parent's home in Alexandria. The filets were delicious and N&E's side dishes were perfect. The red wine continued to flow throughout the night and we had a great time catching up with our favorite DC people.
Saturday (A)
*Leftover Chicken Meatball Kabobs

We drowned our sorrows after an embarrassing UVA loss Saturday night with more kabobs. It was during our second meal of the meatballs that VABeau finally realized they were made of chicken. They are so good we did not even miss the red meat!

Chicken Thighs with Carrots and Potatoes
Southern Living October 2009

• 1 medium onion
• 4 medium-size new potatoes (about 1 lb.)
• 2 cups baby carrots
• 1/4 cup chicken broth
• 1/4 cup dry white wine or chicken broth
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 1/4 teaspoons salt, divided
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper, divided
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 6 skinned, bone-in chicken thighs (I used 4 chicken breasts)
  

Halve onion lengthwise, and cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices. Cut potatoes into 1/4-inch-thick slices. Place onion in a lightly greased 6-qt. slow cooker; top with potatoes and carrots.

Combine broth, next 3 ingredients, 3/4 tsp. salt, and 1/4 tsp. pepper. Pour over vegetables.

Combine paprika and remaining 1/2 tsp. salt and 1/4 tsp. pepper; rub over chicken. Arrange chicken on top of vegetables.

Cover and cook on LOW 6 hours or until chicken is done and vegetables are tender.