Virus.. AGAIN!

Well our computer yet again has another virus! I swear it's a sponge for them. Right now i'm using Mikey's computer to check everything but it will be awhile before i'm able update about our Vegas trip. Just an FYI the pictures aren't that great since it was raining the whole time.

Cherry Pie and Chocolate Chip cookies

I was cleaning up my memory card (getting ready for Vegas tomorrow!) and realized I never posted about the CHERRY-TOPPED LEMON CHEESECAKE PIE I made a few weeks ago. For some reason I was really wanting to make some kind of Cherry pie. It was good.. a little too lemony but that could have been because I used a little too much lemon juice. Mikey, Frank and everyone at Frank's command (well anyone who got some) loved it. So it was good :)

Tonight I decided to make the oatmeal cookies I attempted two weeks ago (they were the ones with the messed up recipe). Just before I was ready to put them on the pan I realized I forgot to add in the oatmeal. I had used chocolate chips instead of raisins so Frank told me I should just keep them as chocolate chip cookies instead of making them oatmeal. They turned out great!! Now I'm ready to walk them off for the next 3 days.

OATMEAL COOKIES (or chocolate chip cookies)
Ingredients

1 1/4 Cups Flour - Sifted
1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1 Cup Butter - Softened
1/4 Cup Sugar
3/4 Cup Brown Sugar - Firmly Packed
1 Package Jell-O Pudding Vanilla
2 Eggs
3 1/2 Cups Quick Cooking Rolled Oats (if making them oatmeal cookies)
1 Cup Raisins or Chocolate Chips (optional)
1 Teaspoon Vanilla

Directions
Mix flour with baking soda (my mom left out where you put in the oats, so I guess you could do that know). Combine Butter, sugars, vanilla and pudding mix in large mixer bowl. Beat until smooth and creamy. Beat in eggs. Gradually add flour mixture; stir in chips and nuts. Batter will be stiff (if you use oats). Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls, about 2 inches apart, onto ungreased sheets. Bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes. 

Lunch Break

Is it just me or does it NOT feel like a Sunday!? Frank is volunteering with his command (I believe?) at the Chargers game today so I'm busy busy cleaning the house. That might not sound like a good time to you... however, I have problems :) So far I have the back half of our tiny apartment cleaned and laundry done, now the real work begins. DISHES! eek. I hate them, I'm sure it's just because we have no dishwasher and we have to hand dry them immediately or they get nasty water spots. Poohy.

Seems like the perfect time for a lunch break. Although now I am getting pretty tired... zip fizz where are you??

Last night for dinner we (yes WE Frank helped quite a bit, which was super nice) made Shrimp pasta in a foil package from The Pioneer Women. YUMMM!! The delicious smells it was sending off while cooking we're making me hungry. So hungry that when it was ready I dived in and forgot to take a picture. No need to worry Ree has much better pictures along with the recipe HERE if you'd like to check it out. Now don't be fooled with thinking the last step of putting the mixture in the foil is easy. It was anything but easy! It took us a good 10 minutes before we found a way that worked for us.. which of course wasn't the correct way. Oh well it still turned out amazing.

Hope everyone has a good week ahead, oh and any San Diegans hope you stay dry and safe!? We're headed to Vegas where lucky us it will also be raining. YAY ha.

Jillian kicked my butt!

Jillian, I am all yours! Target had '30 day shred' on sale for $7.70 (YIPPEE) so I finally was able to buy it. I also picked up some 3 pound weights to go along since they weren't too much. I recommend NOT eating pizza right before you do one of Jillian's work outs! Frank and I eat pizza very rarely, unless I make it from scratch so we know it's healthy. Tonight was kinda like a treat since we have no food in the house. Kinda wishing we got Subway or somethin.

I highly suggest this DVD even though i've only done the first work out. I'm feeling it for sure. Frank knew it wasn't going to be easy.. he knows how Jillian rolls. Hopefully he'll join me in a work out sometime during the day since he never goes to the 2 gyms right by his command!

Wow I'm really out of it! I'm going out to base with Frank tomorrow since he has some paperwork to do for some qual he's trying to get done, I'm going to spend my time at the gym... I just hope I have the energy. Yikes then we have to brace ourselves for the commissary : /

Pioneer Women

I haven't updated the blog in a few days cause we YET AGAIN have a virus. BOO. I do jump on the computer a few times a day to check blogs and all the fun stuff. It's a pain to deal with everything so I don't stay on long. Today I was checking Pioneer Women and she has the best giveaway going on right now. If you don't know about it you NEED to go to her site to check it out. She is giving away (2) $500 donations to the charity of your choice (the winners duh! hehe) to help with the people of Haiti. And she is donating 10 cents for every comment left. So if you're low on money like many of us, this is a great way to give to those in serious need.
HERE is the direct link to the page. Hope to hear if many of you helped out!?

Mission Accomplished!

Last night Frank did yoga with me! I didn't even have to beg, I asked he said "OKAY". He ended up liking it somewhat as well, so that makes me happy. From the sounds of it he might even continue to do the yoga DVD with me!?

Now that I've gotten into the yoga DVD I have been wanting to buy Jillian Micheals 30 day shred. From the sounds of it, people really like it and it seems to kick your butt. I need Jill to get mine in shape ; )

Now to change subjects... I can't even begin to explain how happy I am that we don't live in the mid-west, east coast.. or anywhere where people are getting hit with storms. It was 80 at my apartment today, I got in a good walk and am thinking about going for a second. I have the windows and backdoor open with a nice light breeze coming through. I'm happy and content. For those of you who are snowed in, stay safe and warm as much as possible.

Dinner last night was SOBA NOODLE SALAD. My favorite dishes are easy ones, and this one didn't let me down. I loved it, I'm not too sure what Frank thought about it since he wasn't really giving me a straight answer. If you like Asian food that's easy to make.. this is up your alley ha.

Fun with carrots

I've mentioned before that Molly and Ellie LOVE carrots! Every week or so we'll give them each a stick of carrot to play with then eat. Last night was carrot night. Frank gave them these gigantic carrots that they tore into tiny little pieces on the living room floor. Apparently they had planned it this way.. it was to stay there as a snack for later! How clever of them. Unfortunately for them I had other plans, the garbage. I did love watching them go play in the other room then come back a few minutes later to nibble on some carrot pieces then off they go to play again.. ahh they're just too cute :]

Dinner last was... superb! Both Frank and I have to agree it was one of the best meals we've had in quite a while. I have finally found the perfect lasagna recipe. Well to me at least, I plan to make a small one for Frank some day with the meat it calls for. I'm sure he'll love it even more then. Since I knew I was making lasagna last night I figured it was perfect timing to try the home made bread sticks again. I made sure to have enough time so I wasn't rushing myself. Our apartment still smelled of the yummy goodness this morning... mmmmm :] I of course needed a little green in there so I made cucumber-mint salad from the no-cook cookbook my mom got me for Christmas. It was good, I loved it the dogs loved it Frank was just okay with it. I had made it kinda early so it was left in the fridge to soak in the apple cider vinegar for a while. I'm guessing that's why Frank didn't mind it so much. It's pretty quick to make so next time I'll make sure to toss it together RIGHT before dinner. Problem solved!

CUCUMBER-MINT SALAD
Ingredients

3 cucumbers
1/4 cup fresh peppermint leaves
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
Sea salt or kelp to taste 

Trim the ends off the cucumbers and chop the rest into small pieces (I peeled it as well since the dogs hate the skin on cucumbers). Finely chop mint and gently toss with olive oil, and vinegar (I just eyed both she tends to use too much oil for my liking). Add salt or kelp to taste. Makes about 3 cups.

BREADSTICKS
I found this delicious, and extremely easy recipe at FOR THE LOVE OF COOKING. If you haven't popped on over to check out Pam's meals, it's a must! They are all so wonderful. The only thing I changed is the flour, she uses all-purpose and I chose to use bread flour. I'm craving some now... sad times.

LASAGNA
This is the original recipe with my changes..

• 9 lasagna noodles
• 1 tablespoon olive oil(I never use it with my noodles)
  
• 1 pound ground beef(of course not!)
  
• 1 pound bulk Italian sausage(see above)
  
• 1 (16 ounce) can sliced mushrooms, drained(again no, only in sauteed foods)
  
• 1 teaspoon garlic salt
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/4 teaspoon dried basil(1/2 teaspoon)
  
• 4 (15 ounce) cans tomato sauce(I used extra thick & zesty, I swear it made a difference!)
  
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 (15 ounce) container ricotta cheese
• 3 eggs, beaten(egg white beaters)
  
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 pound shredded mozzarella cheese(I just used however much looked good to me)
  

This amazing dish I got from ALL RECIPES. Once the maintenance man leaves I will be having some leftovers for lunch!

YOGA

Well folks I have now completed two days of Yoga! I give myself a pat on the back for that. The DVD I got has two "work outs" the first being a 30 minutes quick start. I'm going to continue with the beginners short session for the rest of the week, then add in the second one next week. EEEKK! I was surprised at how easy it was and how fast it went by. I can hear my mom saying something about "You've always been so flexible, of course it's easy for you.." There is one pose that makes me sciatica hurt just a little bit, but it isn't held for long so it's not too much of a problem. I also realized my tailbone still hurts when I have to roll over it. I was a little disappointed about that, but I've able to work with it still which is a HUGE plus. Something yoga needs to teach me is to slow down. I personally am more of a cardio person. I want to go go go get that heart rate up sweat everything out. So who knows, maybe I'll center myself ; ) ha.

This morning I invited Mikey over to yoga it up with me before our walk. We both agreed it was a nice way change things up. And now that Frank is taking the bike to work every day, I am able to make it out to 32nd street to hit one of the gyms a few days a week. YAY! I don't think I'll do that till next week since I'm trying to save as much money as possible for Vegas.

It's just amazing to me think I am FINALLY able to get back into working out, it has been long awaited. Many days laying in bed or the couch in endless amounts of pain just wishing I could go for a jog or lift a few weights. It seems unreal that it's finally happening again.. and not just a few times a month, but every day.

Now my next task is to get Frank to do some yoga with me... he could use it!

Steak Tartare

Since i've been slacking on the food updates I thought i'd update you all on a few things while watching Ellen. I don't have any pictures either since I... well I have no reason why, I was just being lazy.
For Christmas my mom got me this cookbook THE NATURAL NUTRITION NO-COOK BOOK DELICIOUS FOOD FOR YOU... AND YOUR PETS! (long name I know). I love this book, now I just have to wait for the blender Frank's parents are sending us since most the recipes require a one. The first thing we made was Steak Tartare for Frank and the dogs. Frank said it was just okay, but next time he'd like to try it cooked on the grill. The dogs of course loved it! We only gave them a little since i'm not trying to make them sick or anything, so now they can look forward to dinner everyday this week :]

INGREDIENTS
1 cup steak, sliced into small, thin pieces
2 roma tomatoes, diced {I left this out since this meal was for Frank}
1 small chili pepper, finely deiced (remove the seeds){again left this out.. just cause ha}
1 cup lime juice
2 tablespoons parsley, finely chopped
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon chopped basil leaves
1/2 teaspoon chopped thyme
Sea salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS
Put steak in a bowl, cover with lime juice, and refrigerate overnight; then drain and mix with remaining ingredients. The flavor will be better if you refrigerate the entire blended recipe for another hour before serving.

Something else I made out of this new cook book was a dressing. I made it specifically so Molly would eat her breakfast sooner rather than waiting a few hours. I didn't care for the dressing, but I think it's because there was too much olive oil for my liking. The dogs freakin love it though! Molly eats her breakfast right when I put it down in the morning. That makes me HAPPY :]

INGREDIENTS 
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons raw honey
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 or 2 teaspoons fresh ginger, grated
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

DIRECTIONS
Combine all ingredients in a bowl and blend well. Makes about 3/4 of a cup.

Last night I was really excited to make some oatmeal cookies from the recipes my mom sent me. The recipe ended up not being written correctly and the cookies didn't turn out. I was pretty upset since at this point I was craving some! So today I decided to make some banana bread. It's my Grandma Claudia's recipe, not sure if it's something she came up with or if it's one she found? It was okay, but my favorite is still THIS RECIPE {minus the nuts and chocolate chips} from Pam at Fortheloveofcooking.net.

INGREDIENTS
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup crisco
2 eggs
Dash of salt
3 banana's-well mashed
2 cups flour
1 cup nuts(optional)
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 tablespoon buttermilk*

Substitution
2 tablespoon milk*
1 tablespoon vinegar*

DIRECTIONS
In a large bowl, cream sugar and Crisco. Beat in eggs and banana's. In another bowl mix flour and salt. Slowly blend together. In a measuring cup add baking to buttermilk. This will foam up (I just realized I forgot to add the baking soda, now I know why it didn't foam!). Blend into other ingredients. Pour into greased bread pan. Drop pan on counter a couple of times to help remove air bubbles. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour 15 minutes, or until done. Makes 1 loaf.

Make sure to check back tomorrow afternoon to hear about my first time doing yoga in like 7 years!

Beautiful!

Sunday Frank and I took the bike out for a ride up into the hills by Jumal and came out behind Alpine. It was a gorgeous 80 degree day so we knew we had to take advantage of it. Frank had found this route just by looking at roads on google maps.. ohh it was a good one. We had someone riding with us, so if it was just us I would have had him stopping every 5 feet to take pictures ha. Since the roads we were on had lots of curves I ended up not getting many good pictures.. but I was able to get these.

As I sit here writing this, I'm thinking about what I need to get done today. When I first went to the doctor for my back he told me I should do yoga to help strengthen my lower back in hopes I would have no more pain from my sciatica. I'm not exactly the yoga type person so I've been putting it off for months. Last night I finally gave in and went and bought a yoga DVD. Now once I finish with this I need to pop it into the DVD player and hope for a good outcome! I guess you'll get to hear about it later this week!?

Don't forget for all you Biggest Loser fans the new season starts tonight!!! yay :]

A look back at 2009

2009 was a busy year for Frank and I, so I thought a walk down memory lane would be fun...

JANUARY
Well January definitely gave me a painful look into what the year would hold. I quit Bally's after a week of working in the new year.. oh that's a story in it's self ha. Frank and I took our first vacation alone since being married, all our other trips had been with people so it was nice finally going somewhere just the two of us. We headed over to SnowShoe in West Virginia so Frank could snowboard, and his hopes of teaching me. Within a half hour of being there, and within 5 minutes of "learning" to snowboard I fell and slightly fractured my tailbone. Needless to say I came to hate snowboarding and spent most of our vacation in bed. Along with the rest of January and most of February. Can you see the pain in my face? I needed one good picture from our trip.

FEBRUARY
Following the fall from January I spent most my time laying around trying to get comfortable.
We had a nice Valentines Day dinner at The Melting Pot. Man oh man was it good! We had a special menu for the night so we didn't have to worry about deciding what to get, but it wasn't cheap that's for sure. It was worth every penny.

{Sorry for the poor quality it was taken with my phone}

Around this time is when I somewhat starting cooking and baking. I made a heaping amount of sugar cookies and then took them over to our friends house and had there kids decorate them. Leiian had a bast with this, Julyssa slept through most of it.

MARCH

Nicole made her way out to Virginia and what a trip we had in store : ] We headed up to DC for a few days to see Britney Spears in concert {AMAZING!!} and to sight-see around our Nations Capitol. This was Nicole's first time there so I acted as tour guide as best as possible.

I can't get enough of DC! I absolutely love it there. I can't wait to go back with a nice professional type camera that I hope to own one day.. and maybe I'll make it there in the spring rather than the winter, which we managed to do twice. After DC we went up north.. ohh we couldn't wait... NEW YORK HERE WE COME!! This is something both Nicole and I have always wanted to do, so the fact that it was happening was a little surreal to us.

We got a good laugh from this, the captain of the boat was going around having people take pictures like this.

The only thing that we a bummer about our NY trip was that it was overcast about the whole time. I've been planning a week long trip since we left.. now when will we take it? Who knows ha. Before Nicole left we took her down to the Outer Banks in North Carolina, we wanted to show her why we love it so much.

APRIL

 After almost 3 months my tailbone was starting to feel better, enough so I could get back into the gym a handful of times. It felt SOOO GOOD to be back! It came at perfect timing. Frank was going to Panama City Beach for 2 1/2 weeks for a yearly mini DET his squadron does. Since it was going to be right before my birthday I headed down a few day's after he left. I spent 2 weeks just relaxing and soaking up the sun :] This trip was a first for both Frank and I and we both came to love Florida. It's somewhere we'd love to be stationed in the future. I have to say for the both of us, our favorite part was when we went para sailing! It was unbelievable. I wish I had a water proof disposable camera so I could have gotten some pictures.

MAY

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME! We also added a new member to our family, Ellie, Molly's sister. Our friends Erik and Haysel who had her weren't able to keep her anymore with all the problems she was starting to have {which by the way she has not stopped, she's only added more!} They were moving to Texas while we were in Florida so she spent a few nights with some other friends. Then became a part of the Longley household. Molly and Ellie are inseparable.. and both have been a pain for us, but we love them just as much! May was mostly spent at the beach with the pups. We could easily go everyday.. and we tried. I also started going through all our stuff getting ready for our big move to come. May was also the month I passed out and damaged my sciatic nerve. Unfortunately this is going to be a long long road to recovery. Many more months of pain to come. YAY!

JUNE

Being the beach bums we are we spent as much of June at the beach as we could. We were also full swing into organizing, donating, and packing. With the pain in my leg and back it made packing much more difficult, Frank being the amazing husband he is helped me with quite a bit. We donated at least 3 car loads of stuff to the Salvation Army, it's amazing how much we got rid of considering how much of an anti-pack rat that I am. Since we were moving ourselves I wanted to move as little as possible.

Sisterly love after a long day

JULY

Moving time! My mom came out at the end of June to help us drive across country. We were towing the truck behind the U Haul so we needed another driver for the car. The pain from my sciatica was pure torture so I was grumpy the whole way. I did try driving for a short time to give my mom a break, but after trying to hide the pain for so long I couldn't take it anymore and stayed as a passenger the whole way.

Our new home.. for the next 3 years. We spent a total of 3 days in California before we packed the car back up {the dogs were NOT happy about this!} and drove up to Washington for our yearly visit. Nick threw us a BBQ. This was also the first time we saw Nick since he started losing weight, I had him not put any pictures online so it would be a surprise for us. He looked great at that point I believe he had lost 70 something pounds!

Then the trip we were waiting for.. HAWAII! We were going with Franks parent's, his brother CJ and his girlfriend Kimmie. Cliff and Rocky {the in-laws}have time share so they invited us to join as long as we pay for our flights. We jumped at the chance as soon as possible. We had a great time while there, we were on Oahu so I got to visit with Carlee a friend from high school. One thing I was looking forward to the most was Dole Pineapple farm! We also went to The Polynesian Cultural Center, Hanauma Bay, Pearl Harbor {though we didn't get to go out to the memorial}, the beach! And lots of walking around soaking in our surroundings.

I swear we're not that out of shape, we just had to stand really weird with our guts out so we wouldn't fall over!

AUGUST

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FRANK! Starting August we were exploring San Diego and seeing what our new home had and what it had to offer. Like normal we spent lots of time at the beach, getting used to the Pacific Ocean again. Thankfully we had friends {Ashley and Tony} from back home who have lived here for a few years to show us around and let us know what to do. I went searching online to find places to go and found out about Sunset Cliffs, it's a must see if visiting the area. August is also the month I started this BLOG!

SEPTEMBER

We spent A LOT of time at the dog park this month! Frank started at his new command, and we celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary! Since we didn't have money I made us a nice meal and we relaxed at home.

OCTOBER

My favorite memory of October was paying off our personal loan! That was something we really enjoyed. October was also the month of my worlds famous PUMPKIN PIE. We also started going for hikes, I started going for daily morning walks with Molly, Ellie and my friend Mikey and her puppy Willow. I was getting better and better with cooking and baking. You can check out the food HERE.

NOVEMBER
My mom made her second actual visit to San Diego. The first time she has been here on vacation was 30 years early! Our neighbor had told us about Mission Trails so we spent a lot of time checking out the different trails to go on. My mom was visiting during Thanksgiving so we had to cram lots in before places closed for the holiday weekend. We took her too Balboa, The zoo, Hotel Del Coronado, Mission Trails, and Cowles MT.

DECEMBER
While my mom was visiting and we went to Cowles MT. Frank wasn't able to join us since he was working. I knew he'd love it so it was a must see for him! We also went to December Night's at Balboa Park for the holiday festivities, and we decorated our teeny tiny apartment for Christmas.

To check out all the other stuff we've done in the last few months browse through the blog.

2010 should be another fun, busy, exciting year for us. To start our year off we'll be going to Vegas for a few days! Make sure to check back to the blog to keep up with us.

2010 Goals

I guess it's that time again to look towards the new year and the things I'm  wanting to accomplish this year.
I really don't have much, just a few small things. I know for both Frank and myself our biggest goal this coming year is to get our credit card debt paid off. I was looking at our monthly budget planner yesterday for January 2008 then was looking  at January 2009 and thinking about January 2010. It's amazing the amount of debt we used to have for being so young. We were just that, young and naive. I can happily say that has completely changed in the 3 years we've been together. We have 2 credit cards left to pay off (it would be one.. but that's a long story ha, lets just say its not completely my fault-my credit card) and a personal loan. This is not including our car payment and motorcycle payment, I look at that the same way I look at the Cox bill. We're still waiting on our money from the military for moving, we most likely wont see that until February (12 weeks my butt! more like 20!). Then shortly after that we will be getting our tax return. It will be happy times in the Longley house after those two things arrive!

My personal goal for 2010... now you have to imagine me yelling and throwing my fist in the air... NO INJURIES FOR 2010!! Just healing my sciatica.. If this does happen then i'm hoping it turns into bigger and better opportunities for myself.

To everyone else and there new goals, good luck I hope you all succeed in 2010!!

HAVE A SAFE AND HAPPY NEW YEAR :]