In case any of you are wondering where I’ve disappeared to, the blog has moved! The new site is up and running – due to security reasons I’m not posting the new link here, but please email me at hogeruns@gmail.com if you’d like the URL!
Ch-ch-ch-changes! September 17, 2010
Hi Bloggies!
There are some big changes coming to Hoge Runs! The blog will be moving to a new URL, new name, new outlook! I’m excited to share all this with you guys…more updates to come in the next week or so!
Quiet weekend September 11, 2010
Evening blogaroonies! I hope you all had a wonderful Saturday 🙂
This has been a QUIET day at the Hoge Runs household. Last night C and I went to Carl’s Jr for dinner, I know…fast food burgers, the horror! Their french fries are like crack though…yummmmmmm 🙂 After dinner we hit up Costco for our mega-grocery shop and ended up finding some great deals, including a 6 pack of Pur water filters for $41.99 (after an in-store coupon). At Target, one filter is about $20 and a 3 pack is $37.99! Not bad Costco, not bad! When we got home I caught up on the week in celebrity gossip – we subscribe to a number of magazines using maghound.com and I’m so glad we do. On Friday nights I get Entertainment Weekly, Us Weekly and People then throughout the rest of the month I get Vegetarian Times and either Food Network Magazine or Every Day with Rachel Ray depending on which has an issue that month. Chris also gets 2 “gamer” magazines through the service and we pay $22 a month. For a magazine addict like me, totally worth it, and much cheaper than buying in the store! Plus, you can change your subscriptions at any time, and set up substitute choices for off-months so you’ll always get a magazine. Anywho…yep, we love it 😉
It was a crazy Friday night in the ‘burbs and I stayed up til the late-late hour of 11pm, I know…I need to get that under control 😛 I told Chris I was getting up at 7 this morning and he said no, you’ll get up at 9:30. Sure enough, I woke up naturally at 6:55 and thought it was too cold to get up (it’s been getting down into the upper 40s at night!) and ended up sleeping til 9:30. Whoops! Chris knows me all too well 🙂 When I finally did get up I was out the door in a flash, on a mission to find the perfect wool pea-coat for fall/winter. I ended up going to 2 TJ Maxx’s, a Ross and an Old Navy. At TJ Maxx I found the Calvin Klein jacket I’d been lusting over in my size, but they only had it in black and I wanted something fun/that wouldn’t act as a lint magnet. I wasn’t about to spend $80 on something I wasn’t 100% satisfied with! At Ross, I found a great Michael Kors jacket in purple but it was a bit on the cropped side and with a more well-endowed upper body cropped = line backer. Finally at Old Navy I found this little gem, and for only $60! Looking on-line this evening I saw they also have a navy and a great green color that they didn’t have in the store. Hmmm….
(Source)
What do you think? The color is called “golden gate” and C and I decided it’s like a deep grapefruit/burnt orange, definitely not a true-orange/pumpkin color. Earlier this summer I knitted a tan/cream colored scarf using bamboo fiber yarn and a matching hat in brown/cream and I think it will look great against this jacket. I’ll have to post pictures of those projects tomorrow!
The coat hunt took about 2 hours and I then needed to tackle the regular grocery stuff – yogurt, Larabars, milk, etc. Low and behold when I got home a miracle occurred! I am a big believer in Saturday naps (or Sunday naps post-long run, obviously) and after we ate lunch (natural un-cured hot dogs, Kettle Chips and apple slices) Chris said “I think we should take a nap.” Um, come again? Chris NEVER naps, he’s like a 5 year old who thinks he’ll miss something if he falls asleep in the middle of the day, but I love taking naps together, especially when it’s a perfect 72 degrees outside. I think it’s just having extra cuddle time that makes me like naps together, we’re always passing each other on the go during the week and it’s nice to have a couple hours with no phones, no work and nowhere else to go. We ended up crashing out for about 2 hours and now are just chillaxing around the apartment. I am going to work some more on the throw I’m crocheting for the living room, but need another ball of yarn and the idea of walking downstairs (our unit is 2 stories with a “mud room” and storage room on the lower level then 2 bedrooms/2 bathrooms/kitchen/living room/laundry on the upper floor) just doesn’t sound appealing. Complain, complain, complain, I know 😉
What have you been up to today? Any big plans for tomorrow? C and I are contemplating a game of Frisbee golf, here’s hoping it’s another beautiful day and the course is free! And of course, the true blood finale is tomorrow night, eek!!
A New Friday Tradition September 10, 2010
I have a cranberry orange scone and mega-iced coffee in hand…counting down the hours til the weekend! I have a lot of busy work to get done today and am hoping to head out around 4:30…cannot wait! This weekend will be busy:
- Hit up Costco for a mega-grocery stock up
- Go running for the first time in over a week (I’m not digging the pre-work darkness + there’s a massive, horrible fire raging up the mountain from us and air quality is really poor, please keep the people affected by the Four Mile Canyon fire in your thoughts, the last count I saw was 169+ homes lost to the fire).
- Try to keep up the daily yoga action
- Start working on getting the apartment as clean/organized as possible before busy season #3 for the year hits in October
- And finally…search all the TJ Maxx’s I can find. I fell in love with a Calvin Klein red wool/cashmere pea coat earlier this week and the TJ Maxx downtown didn’t’ have my size. Boo. I must have this coat. I looked online and found it for $130…folks, it was only $79 at TJ’s! Don’t worry, it WILL be mine 😉
Grocery shopping will be much easier this mega-shop as we just purchased a deep freeze (not a big one, just a little guy) last weekend. It was $170 at Home Depot – but we had 2 gift cards + a safety incentive from work, so we walked away with a really nice freezer for about $65! Love that 🙂 We’re also using the “nanny plan” for dinners. We stumbled across the Food Nanny on the BYU TV channel and while the nanny herself is a little over the top – the plan is a really, really good idea. Essentially, you plan out your meals for two weeks using a theme system. Our theme system is going to be as follows:
Sunday – Comfort Food (i.e. meatloaf, biscuits and gravy, beef stroganoff, pot pies, etc)
Monday – Ethnic (i.e. enchiladas, egg rolls, curry, etc)
Tuesday – Italian (self-explanatory, lol)
Wednesday – Pizza (not just run of the mill pizzas, we’re categorizing pizza as anything on a flat piece of dough and baked, hehe)
Thursday – Leftovers
Friday – Eat Out
Saturday – Easy/Leftovers/Do-Your-Own-Thing (i.e. eat whatever’s in the house to get a clean jump on the next week)
I really like this as it takes the guess work out of what’s for dinner for the next two weeks, lays out a clear plan of what you need a the grocery store and also with the theme nights – helps provide inspiration for different meals, so you don’t eat the same stuff every week. I’m going to take all my 2 week menus after we use them and file them in a three ring binder – then, we can recycle old menus over time. I also really, really like that there’s only full-fledged cooking 4 nights a week, with 2 of those nights being pretty easy (pizza/Italian) to prepare. Week 1 went pretty good, we did break down and pick up taco bell for dinner one night – but we’re going to blame the crazy neighbors on that (in other news, crazy neighbors seemed to have realized there’s a bar in the complex and went there last night instead of partying on their porch!!)
Since it’s Friday, and that’s something to be happy about in and of itself, let’s start a new happy Friday tradition! A local radio station does something once a week or so called “Tell Me Something Good” and I’m going to steal their idea. So, tell me one thing you plan to do this weekend and one good thing – it could be something good you heard on the news, a great piece in your outfit, or just that it’s a beautiful day and you’re happy to be living it! I feel like there’s so much negativity going on right now and even just a little bit of brightness is going to start our Friday (and thus our weekend!!) off right.
Plans for the weekend – True Blood season finale…need I say more??
Something good – Today I’m wearing my favorite gold sandals and I’ve accomplished everything on my to-do list for the week!
Four wonderful years September 9, 2010
Today is the 4 year anniversary of Chris and I’s first date! We’d been talking via email (we met on Match.com) for a couple weeks and decided on a whim to go to the movies. We saw a late-late showing of Hollywoodland and the rest, as they say, is history. Little did I know that 6 months later we’d be living together and engaged and 4 years later we’d be celebrating 2 wonderful years of marriage. It hasn’t been easy and some days have been downright bad, but it’s been comforting to have C by my side sharing in the bad days and always looking for a way to make me smile. Here’s a quick look back at Chris and I, from the beginning!
And with that mushy post…my lunch break is over and it’s time to get back to work! Have a GREAT Thursday bloggies!
*Le Sigh* September 8, 2010
zzzzzzzzZZZZzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZ……
The above “zzz” are me pretending to sleep, it was NOT a peaceful night at the Hoge Runs house last night. It’s been super quiet/peaceful/friendly/relaxing at our apartment complex for the last 6 months (can you believe it’s been 6 months since we moved in??) but last night, ugh. To start with, I get random bouts of insomnia which just plain stink to begin with. Last night C was quietly watching an unnamed cartoon with his headphones on and the light from the TV was driving me bonkers. If it wasn’t for the insomnia bout it would have been cool, so I waited an hour to ask him to turn it off start sighing and tossing/turning loudly. And then, around 11, the noise started. We apparently have new neighbors across the courtyard from us and they were SO freaking loud! They were playing random music – everything from techno to Jay Z to Colbie Calliat, had all their lights on, were sitting on the porch smoking/drinking/taking FB pictures (“oh my gosh, this pic is so hottttttt”) and finally at midnight we called the “Courtesy Patrol.” They’re essentially the mall cops of our apartment complex and sometime around 1 the neighbors either gave up on their mini-party (there were only 2 of them, so weird) or the rent-a-cops asked them to shut it down.
And then, I was awake til almost 2. Blech!!! And wouldn’t ya know, I woke up again at 5:30?? Does anyone have any tricks for dealing with insomnia? I get a random patch of 3-4 days every month or so and absolutely hate it.
A few fun eats from yesterday, as I’m barely hanging on mentally today and can’t carry on much witty banter 😉
BBQ cheeseburger meatloaf for lunch:
This was leftover from Monday night and so.freaking.good. It was the crunchy corner piece and all the BBQ sauce had caramelized on the edges and was loaded with flavor. I hadn’t made this meatloaf forever, and hadn’t made it with hamburger for even longer than that, but grass fed hamburger was on sale at Whole Foods this weekend and I couldn’t resist. The meatloaf contains 3 kinds of BBQ sauce (since we were running low and needed to finish the bottles), Paula Deen’s Butt Massage seasoning (hehehehehehehe), cubed sharp cheddar, bread crumbs, an egg, and bacon. The bacon truly takes it to another level…mmmm! Expect to see more leftovers later this week!
Along with my meatloaf I had a spinach, bleu cheese, tomato, carrot, celery, craisin, and candied walnut salad. For those of you who bring salads for lunch – do you have a way to make the spinach not get slimy by lunch time? I pack my salad the night before and it’s perfectly dry and crisp (I bring dressing in a separate container) and by the time lunch rolls around my spinach is wilted and kind of creepy. Suggestions??
And my afternoon snack was a pretty cup of lemon yogurt topped with fresh raspberries, perfection! I don’t know why I haven’t tried this combo before.
Dinner last night was chicken enchiladas – you’ve seen ’em before, you’ll see ’em again, so I’ll spare you a picture 🙂 Post-dinner I worked on a throw for the couch (pics to come soon as it gets a little bigger, right now it’s kind of like a sad scarf), and we caught up on this week’s episode of The Glades and The Colony. September is such a crazy TV month – True Blood finale, Dexter premiere, Glee premiere, Grey’s Anatomy premiere, Lone Star premiere, and on and on. What fall TV show are you most excited to see back?
And with that…have a wonderful day bloggies! I’m now going to go see about getting a coffee IV set up 😛
September, Already? September 7, 2010
Can you guys believe it’s September…post Labor Day? I truly can’t, before we know it it will be time to put up Halloween decorations!
I’ve been MIA and am still trying to figure out the best direction for the blog. Sharing my daily eats is fun, but feels like something’s missing! As you all know, I work ridiculous hours in a cyclical fashion so we don’t get out much during the week and weekends are spent playing catch up on chores/workouts/cooking/etc – so sometimes I feel like the blog’s a bit dull compared to others! I’m hoping to get back into the blogging rhythm and share eats, workouts, crafts, and books – things I really enjoy, and I hope you guys do too 🙂 Bear (bare?) with me as I figure out the right blogging rhythm for me, and hopefully we’ll share some fun posts along the way!
To steal from Allie – what was your highlight and lowlight of the long weekend?
My highlight was spending 5 days of QT with Chris, babysitting our niece for a full day and buying a deep freeze to alleviate some of my food storage stress. The lowlight was not being able to sleep last night after my body adjusted to a long-weekend stay up late/sleep in schedule 🙂
My Dream House August 11, 2010
Ooo, I've been thinking a lot about this question lately, actually. I randomly looked at real estate in Key West and fell in love with a 600 square foot house in "old town" (near the Southernmost Point). It's very classic "beachy" house, simple, with a big front porch and a little yard. I would LOVE to take a leap of faith and move down there, start a bakery or work in a tourist shop until we figured out our next move and snatch up that little piece of paradise. There would obviously be fruit trees in the yard, since you can't grow them in CO, it just sounds exotic to me to go out and pick a lime off the tree 🙂 Inside, it would be very simple and we'd spend our spare time fixing up the house in a Carribean/beach theme with dark woods, ceiling fans and gauzy curtains. We'd probably be on the verge of poverty between quitting our jobs, moving across the country and buying a house that's almost 100% dilapidated, so weekends would be spent on the beach collecting shells for decor, and I'd obviously have to learn how to sew by hand to make all of our sheets/curtains/etc.
Ok, I've actually put way, way too much thought into this and now my day is going to be overrun day dreaming about a future home purchase 😉 What is your dream house, where, and why?
My Weirdest Pet Peeve August 10, 2010
Hands down, repeating myself. I HATE it. I really, really don't think I have a super quiet voice or that I mumble, but it never ceases to amaze me how many times I'm asked to repeat myself…the worst was on the light rail going home from work late one night and I happened to leave my badge and light rail pass (on the same key holder) on my desk at work. The light rail attendant was older and apparently hard of hearing as he was yelling at the top of his lungs that I was now a "known offender" in the light rail system and that the next time I was caught without my pass I'd be fined and removed from the train. This was of course after he'd had me repeat my name, address and phone number at the top of my own lungs…I'm really glad there weren't any stalkers on the train that night 😉
Oooo, and now that I think about it, I also HATE people reading outloud. If you want me to read it, give it to me, and I'll read it! Or, if I give you a card, please just read it quietly to yourself, things that sound great on paper, sound horrible when you read them! Funny that I don't mind reading things to people…unless they ask me to repeat myself 😛
When the Lights Go Out
The last time we were without power for an extended period of time was in the 2nd apartment my husband and I lived in (at the time, we were engaged…or maybe not even engaged yet, now that I think of it). I had a crock pot of minestrone going all day and made it home just in time for the power to go out. And stay out…for probably 4-6 hours! I was so glad I'd made soup in the crockpot, and we used the hot soup to thaw our French bread we had as a side dish. After dinner, we played card games and Mad Libs by candlelight until bed time. Scandalous, I know 😉
Hoge Runs...and Eats! 