courtneyb

Protected: Ho Ho Ho – Christmas 2009

Thursday, December 10th, 2009 | randomness | Enter your password to view comments.

Take the movie, leave the popcorn

Monday, November 30th, 2009 | randomness | No Comments

I keep meaning to post something about this, and it just came up in conversation so while it’s on my mind I better do it.

We went to the movies this weekend — I took my niece to see Planet 51 while Kelvin took his parents to see The Blind Side. I always stuff snacks in my purse, or at least I have since the great weight loss journey of 2008. And this is why:

Here is a link to the NYTimes article where I pulled this from

Where did November go?

Saturday, November 21st, 2009 | randomness | No Comments

I can’t believe we did our Thanksgiving shopping already, and Kelvin’s parents and our niece will be here Wednesday. We were looking at the schedule between now and the end of the year, and we have a packed schedule.

Our big race in Memphis is coming up so quickly; we only have to long runs to go before our 13.1 for St Jude. I feel so fortunate that we have such good friends and family; we met the $1000 mark this week in our fund raising. If you’re reading this and you want to give to St Jude to support our run, you can check out our team site on St. Jude Heroes.

Tags: memphis, running, stjude, thanksgiving

The Slacker is back

Saturday, October 31st, 2009 | randomness | 3 Comments

I’m sure you are all clammoring for me to return to the site and begin being more consistent about posting.  I can tell this because not a single person has visited the site in months– got to love google analytics! But I figure maybe at least a few people look at Jess’ blog and see my last post and know the pickle post is still the most recent thing; and we’re way past pickles around here.

I will save you from the recap (in this post at least), and just start with this weekend– MY SISTER IS HERE! She and her husband J got in on Thursday night. The only thing she explicitly asked to do was to go pick apples and make a pie; and she can check that off the list. After I escaped early from work yesterday we drove out to Oldwick, NJ to eat lunch at the Oldwick General Store as per our friend E’s recommendation. The sandwiches were fantastic.

Once we stuffed out faces we went across the street to Mellick’s town farm for some apple pickin’. We waited patiently for the woman working to finish rining up a few people ahead of us and then we asked for the full orientation. She set us up with baskets, a picker and a quick lay of the orchard. I asked about Honeycrisp, and she responded “you know about honeycrips?” and after reading the blank look on the faces of Josh and Cara she promptly went over, grabbed one out of a peck for sale on the table and told us to enjoy it as we walked through the orchard.

Of course, we ended up with probably more apples than we can eat, but we already worked on two pies and I have my eye on a few other recipes that I’ll share later especially if they turn out yummy.

Tags: apples, josh&cara, newjersey

25 random things

Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 | randomness | 1 Comment

i keep getting tagged in facebook to do this 25 random things post. i’m going to put it there, but i thought others may enjoy this…

1. i’m always always up for a spontaneous trip. 
2. my friend Ramsay taught me to drive in his Ford Festiva. 
3. i have an irrational fear of basements.
4. i can’t really cook without Tony Chachere’s creole seasoning.
5. i’ve been to two emeril live tapings– thanks kelly.
6. not sure i could live without ice cream and cheese. 
7. i had a pet pygmy hedgehog when i was in grad school. 
8. i think i weigh less now than i did in high school. 
9. i wore bubba teeth on my first date with kelvin. 
10. if i wake up in the middle of the night i have to brush my teeth before i can go back to sleep.
11. i broke the same bone in both feet five years apart. 
12. dancing was to blame the first time; dancing and vodka were to blame for the second.
13. i don’t drink vodka.
14. i don’t write in cursive. 
15. i’m allergic to asparagus and kiwi. 
16. i’ve always wanted to sing well and in public. 
17. i think most people who know me really well would agree i’m a pretty creative person. 
18. i miss my southern friends. 
19. i would move back to memphis in a heartbeat.
20. i have an irrational fear of my house catching on fire. 
21. i’m better at teaching people to dive and knit that i am at actually doing these things. 
22. my favorite cereal of all time is cap’n crunch
23. i can’t ever remember who sang a certain song or what actor/actress played a part but i can pretty much tell you what i was wearing (and maybe what you were wearing) on most days.
24. i love to chop things — onions, nuts, peppers — and obsessively make them a consistent size. 
25. england, ireland, france, germany, belgium, st lucia, china, russia — it annoys me when i have to ask the immigration agent to stamp by passport. 

Random photo of me

Wednesday, January 28th, 2009 | randomness | 1 Comment

another benefit of this snow day is the time to just surf. in the process, i found this post about the Moodle Meeting on the NITLE website. that’s me… from last year.

Snow day

Wednesday, January 28th, 2009 | randomness | No Comments

first snow day of the year, so why was i so cranky about it this morning?

because seriously lafayette, k got a text from his school around 5:40 letting him know school there was cancelled. i called our number at 6:28 and no message. so i showered, dressed, fixed breakfast for us, got my lunch ready, had my gym bag packed. i was dropping my phone in the purse and thought; i’ll check email one more time. that’s when i got the email from my boss letting me know a meeting was cancelled since work was closed.

i guess i should be glad i checked email before i left for work, but it still made me cranky. i sat on the couch and fummed for a little longer before i went up and changed into clothes that appreciate a nice coat of dog hair.

it’s possible being awake and ready did help me use my snow day a little more wisely. i did a few things for work (thank the heavens for the VPN), upgraded to WP 2.7 for this blog, paid bills, cancelled two magazine subscriptions, baked yummy banana oatmeal bars and made some chicken, sausage and okra gumbo for lunch.

here’s the part of the afternoon when the wheels are likely to fall off this productivity wagon. so i’ll put on some coffee and check on facebook…

Tags: baking, rant, snow, wordpress

Happy (early) Anniversary to us!

Monday, December 15th, 2008 | randomness | No Comments

Celebrating our 6th Anniversary

As is his usual MO, kelvin had a fun weekend planned for us to celebrate our anniversary this weekend. We left Saturday morning and stopped to leave Braut with our friends E&A before getting on the road. I had no idea where we were headed so when we got on 78 headed east I thought maybe NYC or maybe upstate NY somewhere. But then we turned off and headed south in New Jersey. The weather was beautiful and we ended up at the Seaview Resort just outside Atlantic City.

That evening we had a great dinner at Bobby Flay Steak inside the Borgata. We enjoyed some Prosecco, Le Colture ‘Brut Spumante’, Valdobbiadene n.v. that I hope to find at a wine shop somewhere. We started with a lobster crab cake and the romaine salad. Then moved on to our NY Strips. I splurged for the Philladelphia style sitting on a provolone cheese reduction with three little mounds of carmalized onions. We really didn’t even need the wild mushroom mashed potatoes with truffle oil or the butterscotch and chocolate layer cake with raspberry sauce we shared for dessert. The pastry chef added a Happy Anniversary plaque and a candle.

Kenny Rogers Christmas show

Though the dinner was amazing, we weren’t finished yet. Kelvin had tickets for us to see Kenny Rogers at the Taj Mahal. We certainly were outliers for the demographic, but the show was great. He came out and many of his big hits or medley’s of them. Then while the band played a holiday tune, he changed and came back out to do a Christmas show. It was so fun to see him, and the fact that Kelvin admitted to having a good time was great.

We finished up the weekend yesterday with a trip to the hotel fitness center and the amazing Sunday Champagne Brunch at the SeaView– mimosas, lobster claws, oysters, shrimp, and I splurged on a yummy biscuit.

The weather was beautiful for our drive home, and we stopped at one of the big malls to finish up some shopping. Just spending time together always reminds me how lucky I am.

Tags: concerts, food, photos, travel

All we want for Christmas

Sunday, December 7th, 2008 | randomness | 2 Comments

Unbelievable that we’re already well into December– where is the month going? and where has the past year gone? We’ve been busy this year, and it absolutely shows.

At Zach's holiday party, Dec 6, 2008

After Christine's holiday party Dec 9, 2007

I made lifetime at weight watchers this week. All that means is that I made it to a goal weight and have maintained that for six weeks. It’s pretty exciting to see the changes in both of us captured here in photos taken almost exactly a year apart.

The best part isn’t how we’ve done it, it’s that we have. We’re probably more healthy now that we’ve ever been in our lives.

We were in Delaware. Kelvin helped Zach get ready for the holiday party while I did a little shopping. It was great to spend some time with the Delaware crew.

Kelvin’s made plans for us to celebrate our anniversary a little early next weekend. I have no idea what we’re doing, but his track record is pretty solid so I’m sure it will be great.

So all we really want for Christmas we have– our health, our love and our friends and family.

Tags: photos, ww

Acorn Squash Ravioli

Thursday, October 2nd, 2008 | randomness, recipes | No Comments

My friend A has me almost convinced to try our hand at making fresh pasta for acorn squash ravioli. The idea of using my virgin ravioli cutter is tempting, and I do love squash. Though I hate to even calculate the points on this one so maybe I’ll talk her into waiting a week or so until I get down to my goal for WW (only two pound to go!). It could be our celebration dinner.

But until then, here is the post she found with the recipe from A Chow Life: Make pasta tonight. Acorn Aquash Ravioli.

Tags: dinner, veggies, ww