Banana Goodness

I love bananas. The flavor, the texture, the smell, all of it. I prefer green bananas but brown ones are perfect for recipes. I only wish Ryan loved bananas as much as I do. So when I stumbled upon a recipe for a peanut butter banana smoothie I thought it was the perfect opportunity to get fruit into his meat and potato diet.

The recipe is four ingredients (FOUR!). Bananas, oats, peanut butter, and milk. To make the smoothie you'll need:

     - 2 bananas frozen and sliced
     - 3/4 cup of milk
     - 1/4 cup of oats
     - 1/4 cup of peanut butter

One word to the wise, slice your bananas first BEFORE throwing them in the freezer. I froze them first - mulling over whether or not I actually wanted to do smoothies - and then sliced them. Needless to say, my fingers were cold! And it's more difficult to cut them frozen solid. Another helpful hint: rinse your measuring cup with water before scooping out peanut butter - it doesn't stick (as much) and you don't have to spend minutes getting every last bit of peanut butter.

I used Quaker Oats, regular Skippy peanut butter, 1% milk, and two 6-8 inch bananas, which is what the calorie count at the bottom will reflect.

The original recipe called for the use of a blender. Well, I don't have one, so I used my food processor. First throw in your oats and turn on the processor until they're fine and small.

Once that's set, you dump everything else in and turn it on until the mixture is smooth and creamy.

 

It's thick and really cold from the frozen bananas. Delicious! You get a big banana taste with an after taste of peanut butter. So my husband, who I thought might like this because of the peanut butter, didn't like it. Boo! But that meant more for me. Yay! This simple recipe took all of five minutes to make. Since Ryan didn't want his, I threw the smoothie in the refrigerator to have for breakfast this morning. It was like a banana sorbet and heaven in my mouth. Even better!

Try out this recipe and let me know how it comes out for you. Do you have any fruit smoothie recipes that are delicious?

Recipe Makes: 2 Servings
Calories per serving: 394
Calories by ingredient:
     Bananas: ~250
    1% Milk: 82.5
     Quaker Oats: 75
     Skippy PB: 380
If you want more peanut butter flavor, I would suggest adding an additional 1/4 cup of peanut butter and up the milk from 3/4 cup to 1 full cup to ensure the smoothie isn't too thick. The calories based on the adjusted recipe is 598. Let me know if you tried the recipe with extra PB and milk.

Only you can be you

A long time ago, one of my friends showed me a video on youtube where a guy danced around and sang Katy Perry's "Peacock". It was hilarious. Mainly because he encountered a lot of men, and was dressed in various women's clothing including bikinis. Some were completely taken aback but others were good sports and laughed.

I had forgotten about him until someecards reminded me in my twitter feed. His newest video features more dancing and more women's clothing. This time the music is Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe". It's a song that I think most people have heard. Even if you haven't the repetitive lyrics and catchy music will have you humming along in no time.

For some reason I've been off lately and haven't felt much like myself. But his videos (seen under users SteveKardynal and SteveKardynal2) are pretty funny and can really change your mood. This guy marches to a different drum and doesn't care about the negative remarks and weird looks he might get. I wish I could be more like that - not being bothered by people's reaction or negative comments. It's kind of inspirational in a way. 

So I'm making a (short) list of things that motivate/inspire me. I'll use this as a reminder that if I do my best that day then it's been a pretty good day and that even if I feel disappointed, I tried and things will change.

1. No matter how slow you go, you're still lapping everyone on the couch (in fitness).

2. Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you'll look back and realize they were the big things (in experiences). 

3. You decide every moment of every day who you are and what you believe in. You get a second chance, every second (in decisions).

4. Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise (it gets better). 

5. Let it go, this too shall pass (in life).

A celebration

Ryan and I just got back from doing an anniversary shoot with my favorite photographer Keith Hitlin. When I first emailed him and his wife Meghan...they were a little confused. So was my husband, truth be told. Why shoot an anniversary - especially the first one? Well, to me one year was big. We've done so much in one year - we moved out, got a few hair cuts, and lost a crap ton of weight. And just because we're a family of two, doesn't mean we can't (or shouldn't) have yearly (that might take some smooth talking) family photos.

Once I got my husband on board, the photographers were on board too. Megs came up with a great theme of a "where we are" kinda deal. We did a few shots around our apartment. On a side note: I absolutely love my husband for putting up with my craziness all day. We did some in the front hallway of the house and then outside. That concluded our Lansingburgh part. We changed up our outfits and headed down to downtown Troy.

Ryan and I go to River Street every single Saturday we're around (and not up visiting his family) for the Farmers' Market. I absolutely love it. Not only do we support local bakeries, farmers, and wineries (yum!), but we spend it together, holding hands enjoying one another's company, truly, utterly happy. Shooting in a place that reminds of that makes me truly, utterly happy. And I got to be a goof - which I'm sure will come out in pictures.

Keith and Meghan shot our wedding, a little over a year ago. I love, love, love their technique and the way they captured our day. Their dynamic teamwork produced amazing photos which I will treasure for the rest of my life. If you're engaged, getting married, having a baby, or just want some damn good photos go to the link above. You will not regret it. Seriously - check them out. Even if it's to browse the photos.

Have you done family photos for two? Or if you have a bigger family - how often do you get them done? Link up a picture of your latest photo. I'd love to see whoever reads this!

So for now, I sit. I wait. Hitting F5 until a teaser shows up on their Facebook feed. Pitiful? Maybe. Worth it? TOTALLY!

Another one lost

Internships at GE are coveted. A lot of students in the Capital District apply. A select few get in and generally they're pretty good. On my team we always have two interns - one for Pension support and one for S&SP and Family Services support. Unfortunately for us we only get to keep them for a year. Yesterday one of those years was up and we lost a terrific intern.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Nicole alongside my coworker Stephanie. Out of the three interns we interviewed, I thought she was the best. She had been in banking, went to school for accounting, and she seemed like she was ready to learn.A year later, she's made a great impact on our team: improving processes, making reconciliations more efficient, and really making my job a little easier because I NEVER have to worry.

Tuesday was her last day. I typically work from home on Tuesdays but when she texted me I knew I had to be there to see her off. I wanted to give her a token of my appreciation, so I used some Pinterest inspiration and on hand document frames to make her an inspirational white board. This one was black metal but it had some dings in it which made the silver shine through. Good thing I have my Martha Stewart paint!

 

Again, I covered my lap desk in plastic wrap (I swear I'll use more of it for that board than I will on food). I took the metallic Martha Stewart paint and using an "X" type brush stroke on leftover fabric from a previous project. I did a few layers to make sure the dings were covered. While that was drying (sorry, I apparently didn't take a picture of the painting step) I took out my button/string collection. This is just a collection of all the buttons/strings that any of mine or my husband's clothes come with. Typically if you buy a button up shirt it comes with extra button - so in the bag they go. 

I looked for white buttons because I thought they'd go well with the silver. I also had about 8 inches of silver ribbon from some random craft in college and a whole roll of white ribbon. I cut two pieces of white ribbon and used about half of the silver to tie three quick, cute bows. With 3 buttons I was set to go. Hot glue gun in hand - the ribbons and buttons were quickly attached.

I wanted to give Nicole something more than just a white board so I looked for a quote that was inspirational but not overdone. I found one by Pamela Vaull Starr that said "Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal." I chose Artistamp Medium for the larger words and Appleberry for the others. Together I think they look really neat.

I know Nicole grew a lot in her role as an intern and I hope she continues to through her experiences in NYC. Best of luck!

Since I think my steps are generally straightforward I'll include just the cost of materials:

Supplies
1. Document Frame - $2.99
2. Martha Stewart  Metallic Paint (Polished Silver) - $5.48
3. Copy Paper (500 Sheets) -  $3.72
4. Hot Glue Gun - $5.97
5. Buttons - Free with purchase of any button up shirt!
6. Spool 'O 1/4" Ribbon - $1.99 (look at Hobby Lobby when their ribbon is 50% off)

Total cost for the project considering percentage of paint, paper, ribbon, etc used is probably close to $3.15.

He's crafty too!

My husband is a self-proclaimed beer snob. Although he doesn't like the term "snob;" he prefers "geek." For his birthday I bought him a Groupon for a beginner's brew kit. It was perfect and he loved it. Before he redeemed it he read EVERYTHING he could about brewing your own beer. He can to the conclusion that 1. an Irish Red was easiest, 2. it was probably going to be terrible, and 3. he didn't want me anywhere near it (I'll explain that part in a bit).

Off he went to Midwest Brewing Supplies and ordered his first beer kit complete with ingredients for brewing FIVE gallons of an Irish Red. The box arrived just around his birthday in mid-June. Since we were moving at the end of June, Ryan patiently waited for us to be in the apartment so we could start brewing. The first full weekend in our apartment we had friends over. No beer. The following Friday though, was beer brewing day. Boy was he excited. The kit came with additional videos and reading material which HE. ATE. UP. I'll have to blog about his love/hate relationship with reading another time - but for him to read all the material is a lot - which shows how excited he was over this. 

So July 13th, Ryan bought a huge stock pot (read: 21 quart stock pot) and went to town. Now, he initially wanted me to be excited and happy for him (which I always am) but to stay far, far away. The reason? I have long hair...and it gets everywhere. Not on purpose but it happens. Ryan had this idea that nothing would get in the beer. No hair, dust, or random particles. But alas, beer brewing is really not a one person job - so he broke down and asked for my help. 

Unfortunately I didn't taken pictures of brewing the grains and adding the hops. Beer brewing is a lot like baking with specific temperatures and baking times - which Ryan followed to the second with hopes for the best possible beer. After you brew the beer on the stove (where the stock pot took up the front and back burners of one side of the stove) you have to pour it into a five gallon bucket...which is fun with a burning hot pot. Then you add a little plastic bobbing device to ensure the bucket is air tight and wait. 

Two weeks later, your bathtub will look something like the following. And that's only if you've been saving beer bottles for the last six months (yes, we moved with EMPTY beer bottles - I was not a fan). Rather than buying empty bottles from Midwest, Ryan saved up all his empties and took off all the labels. Which is why they sat overnight in a mixture of water and baking soda.

After a good soak - and another three hours of peeling off any stubborn labels - we were ready to bottle. The fermenting bucket (with the original five gallons) went on the counter. The bottling bucket went on a dining room chair. Before the fermented beer could go in it, Ryan had to simmer caning sugar and water for the carbonation phase. The bottles were filled on the (clean) floor. Ryan was so excited to start bottling. Here are his first couple. The little bucket next to him was for drips that might come out of the bottle filler - a very neat little device. He was all smiles after filling the first couple. He even let me try a couple.

Ryan filled the bottles while I capped them. Not to brag (but really to brag) I capped about 53 of them and got them all right. Ryan tried one and needed two caps to cap the bottles. I knew we were bound to get some beer on the floor...just wasn't banking on the puddle at Ryan's feet. He claims was from him being distracted by my awesome capping. Note the perfectly dry towel six inches from his left foot. That little bucket I mentioned earlier was also not fully utilized obviously.

Below is a picture of the almost-finished product. The bottled beer now has to sit on the pantry selves for another two weeks while the caning sugar works its magic and carbonates the beer.

Four weeks isn't so bad for your own beer. Right? Ryan's now trying to get me into wine making - which I'm not sure I would have the patience for - which takes three months at least. Here's hoping the beer's good - we've got another two weeks to see how that plays out. I'd love to give some beer away too (friends, family, or if any of you are interested).

Has anyone else tried home brewing? What's your success rate and what kinds of grains, hops, etc have you used? I'd love to pass it along to Mr. Beer Crafty. Any tips would be amazing too!

One year down, so many more to go

Yesterday marked our first wedding anniversary. A longer year than most (366 days) but I wouldn't have spent any of those days differently. I love Ryan and I'm so glad to have him as my best friend and partner in crime.

Traditionally, the first anniversary is the paper anniversary. Since we're kinda broke, I decided to make a couple things that I found on Pinterest. I'll cover one today and the other tomorrow.

At first, I was going to come up with 365 things I love about Ryan. I would have then put them on Post Its and then stuck them around the apartment. After trying to come up with 365 reasons why I love him, I quickly gave up. I mean, I love the guy - but it's hard to put everything I love about him in words. Then I found this blog about putting 52 reasons on a deck of cards. 

First, I wrapped my kitchen island with plastic wrap - it's brand new so if I put paint on it I probably would've cried. I then laid out the bicycle deck with 56 cards (52 playing cards, two jokers, and two with the rules of Texas Hold 'Em). There was some white semi gloss paint laying around and I managed to find a foam brush to boot!

I kinda "white-washed" the face of all the cards with one coat of paint (it's thick paint but not thick enough to cover it in one coat). The cards curved up with the wet paint but flattened as they dried. I did two coats on each side of the Texas Hold 'Em cards so I could use these as the front and back covers of the notebook.

Then I set out to come up with 52 reasons why I love this guy:

It was pretty easy. A few of my favorites include his laugh (you'd have to hear it to understand), his ever present smile, and the way he always makes me feel absolutely beautiful. So I put them all in Excel - which is perhaps my favorite MS Office application. I put a plain box border on all the boxes (which were 168 X 271 pixels in case you were wondering). I also used three different fonts to add some variety to the pages - not sure he noticed but I knew.

Once I printed all of them out, I used scissors and incredible patience to cut out each box. I hate doing repetitive things and often mess up if I do it to much. But I made sure to get all the black border so I had a thin white strip of paper outside each box. Once they were all done I went to town with a glue stick and glued all the reasons on the face of the cards. Because I didn't do a lot of rearranging once they were on the card (I tried to stick them to as center as possible) so I was able to put heavy things on top of them (ie binders, 3-hole punches, and staplers) to help the items dry and stay together. I gave them about 45-60 minutes. After that I hole punched them. I used the jokers to find the best hole punch positions - I threw them out afterwards. One in each corner. There was no way to set up my hole punch to do that (at least not that I know of) so I did the following 4-5 cards at a time.

After that I covered several items (lap desk, old VHS taps, empty boxes, etc) with plastic wrap. I laid out all the cards again and modge podged them to make sure they had a nice glossy finish on the face side. This is NOT necessary and I'm not sure if I would do it again. Although I probably would - but you don't have to. Why the move from the kitchen island where everything fit to random flat items? I almost had my husband convinced I was making a notebook of sorts at the beginning (when I was "white-washing" the cards) but if he walked into the kitchen and saw me modge podging cards with random things on them I'm pretty sure he would stand there and read them rather than be suspicious of why I wouldn't let him in the den. He knew I was making something for him but he was a good enough sport not to ruin my surprise for him.

After the cards dried I used 1" binder rings through the two holes to bind the little notebook together. From what I saw in form of reaction - he started reading it while I was in another room - Ryan liked it. This is what the finished product looked like:

Here's a breakdown of the products, cost, and steps:

Supplies
1. Bicycle Cards - $1.50
2. Foam Brush (for value pack) - $1.89
3. Leftover wall/molding paint - $0.00
3a. Acrylic paint (substitute for 3) - $4.99
4. 3 Hole Punch - $16.84
5. Binder Rings - $1.88
6. Modge Podge - $9.00
7. Glue stick (pack of 3) -  $1.17


I'm sure you have a few of these things sitting around the house (especially if you're a crafter but I'm including the prices just in case your new or don't have them and want an estimate). I base all my prices on Amazon - but you can probably find it cheaper at Wal*Mart. I'll link a product if I get it from a specialty store or if I found it at an amazing price.

I had a few of these things laying around so the total I spend for the project was the cost of the binder rings and modge podge. But I have rings left over and pretty much the whole thing of modge podge for future projects.Total cost for the project considering percentage of paint/modge podge/binder rings/brushes used is probably close to $5.00.

Steps
1. Plastic wrap a large flat surface (like a counter or kitchen island).
2. Lay out all cards in single layer.
3. Using leftover paint (or acrylic) lightly coat the face of each card using the foam brush.
4. Apply a second coat to jokers about 30 minutes later (cards will bend but should flatten out as they dry!). Rinse out the brush so you can reuse it!
5. Allow the cards to dry for a couple hours or overnight.
6. While the cards are drying - come up with 52 reasons why you love the person!
          a. Think of physical attributes (nice eyes, cute butt, sexy legs?)
          b. Think of personality (funny, kind, your kind of crazy?)
          c. Think of quirks (snore, snort when laughing, talk to themselves?)
          d. Think of what they're passionate about (math, books, beer?)
          e. Think about how they treat you (make you laugh, make you feel gorgeous, always brighten your day?)
7. Write out the reasons (or use the computer) on white paper with a border (if you want).
8. Write out a title and dedication for the notebook ("52 Reason Why I Love You..." "Happy 1st Anniversary")
9. Diligently cut out each reason and the title.
10. Using the glue stick, coat the back of each piece of paper and place it centered on the dried cards.
11. Lay out all cards and place heavy objects (like books) on top of the cards.
12. Allow the cards to dry for about 30 minutes.
13. Using the 3-hole punch, punch two holes on the left-hand side of the face of the cards (one at the top, one at the bottom - see pictures above).
13. Plastic wrap a large flat surface again and lay out all the cards.
14. Coat the face of each card (where the reasons are glued to) with a thin layer of modge podge.
15. Allow the cards to dry for 1 hour.
16. Place the cards in order (or randomly) and hook through the binder clips.
17. Done! Present unwrapped or with a ribbon around it (I used some leftover streamers that I had).

The times, they are a-changin'

Things have definitely changed over the past year. Even since my last post - ten months ago.

Last October, Ryan and I decided we needed to make a change. We downloaded MyFitnessPal and started to track our calories. After some success we wanted more. In March, we added P90X. We got through about 40-45 days of it and then I had to travel for work. With every intention of working out - Ryan and I traveled to Saint Petersburg, Florida. And we didn't work out.When we came back to New York - it was hotter and more humid than Florida - so we waited until it cooled off (mainly because we didn't have air conditioning). And the waiting never stopped. And then life got in the way.

Which leads to another big change: Ryan and I finally moved out! July 1st we moved into our own space, our own one bedroom plus den space, our first apartment! We have most everything settled - aside from hanging a million photos and frames. We couldn't be happier. It feels so great to have something that we take care of. Having complete (shared) control of a home is indescribable. I am ecstatic,

Now that we're in a good grove, I figure I'll have more time to chronicle what's happening. More about our joint weight lost, healthy (and not-so healthy) recipes, diy craftiness, and overcoming life's struggles.

It's everyday life and it's always changin'.