NaBloPoMo: Distance

February is my Blog Post a Day Month and so i have jumped onto the blog wagon and will post a blog a day based off of the prompts given by @blogherblogging. This month's theme is all about family.


NaBloPoMo Prompt of the Day (Feb. 10): Do you live close to your family?

I live 1000 miles from my mom and stepdad and 2000 miles from my dad and the rest of the crew. Even though they are only a flight away it still feels like a a LONG distance.

Thankfully they will always be there via phone when a crisis emerges or when i simply need to tell my mom about the wacky package i got from my grandmother. P.S. It was a sock full of quarters today. Yikes!

NaBloPoMo: Quote

February is my Blog Post a Day Month and so i have jumped onto the blog wagon and will post a blog a day based off of the prompts given by @blogherblogging. This month's theme is all about family.


NaBloPoMo Prompt of the Day (Feb. 9): Talk about this quote: "Fate chooses your relations, you choose your friends."

This is such a true quote. When i look back on my 30 years of life... this is something that i hold dear. Granted i do love my family...some more than others but regardless of how i feel about certain members, i am stuck with them. Thank goodness that fate made a good choice in my parents, they are a great support to me.

Friends are a choice and as i got older i found that i cared less about the "cursory" friends and focused more on the true friends. There is absolutely no reason to have thousands of friends and to be honest, a thousand friends seems a little unmanageable. So that being said i think that i have chosen some great friends throughout my life and will continue to do so throughout the rest of my life.

NaBloPoMo: Best Friend, Another Sister

February is my Blog Post a Day Month and so i have jumped onto the blog wagon and will post a blog a day based off of the prompts given by @blogherblogging. This month's theme is all about family.


NaBloPoMo Prompt of the Day (Feb 8): Do you have a friend who is practically a brother or sister?

The answer would be a resounding YES!!!

By the time that this posts, it will be 36 days til i visit California and get to see my best friend Melissa who is like a sister. We have been friends since high school and she is the first person i call in any situation. She is my sounding board as well as support and is always positive and uplifting no matter what the reason is for my call from the midwest.

We have so many funny stories from college and our adult life which have continued to bring us closer together.

One of my favorite memories involves a year that i showed up as a surprise for a party which was also the first time that i met Melissa's future husband. He immediately walked up to me and introduced himself and said that he had been instructed that he had to kiss my butt if he wanted to date Melissa.

As a result of this there is photographic evidence that he kissed my butt. See below...

Since i live in the Midwest, it is hard to see each other all the time but we have the kind of relationship where nothing is missed by distance... things just pick right back up.

Chicken, Sweet Potato and Apple Skillet

I made this yesterday and it combines some of my favorite things (Sweet Potatoes and Apples). I think that I might try adding zucchini next time. This recipe is perfect for a cold night when comfort food is the only thing that will satisfy.


Chicken, Sweet Potato and Apple Skillet

1lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1/2" cubes

4 tsp olive oil

3 slices of bacon, chopped

1 1/2 cup brussels sprouts, trimmed and quartered

1 medium sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1/2" cubes

1 medium onion, chopped

2 golden delicious apples, peeled, cored and cute into 3/4" cubes

4 cloves of garlic, sliced

1/4 tsp dried thyme

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1 cup chicken broth

1/8 tsp salt

• Season chicken lightly with salt
• Heat 2 tbsp of oil in pan over medium-high heat. Add chicken and cook until lightly browned and cooked through, about 5 minutes. Transfer to plate.
• Return pan to heat and add remaining 2 tbsp oil. Stir in bacon and cook until brown, about 2 minutes.
• Add Brussels sprouts, sweet potato, and onion. Cook, stirring occasionally, until crisp-tender, about 5 minutes.
• Stir in apples. garlic, thyme, and cinnamon. Cook 3 minutes.
• Pour in 1/2 cup of broth, bring to a boil, and cook until evaporated, about 2 minutes. 
• Add chicken and remaining 1/2 cup of broth. Season with salt and black pepper as needed. Cook until hot, about 2 minutes.

NaBloPoMo: Favorite Person in my Extended Family

February is my Blog Post a Day Month and so i have jumped onto the blog wagon and will post a blog a day based off of the prompts given by @blogherblogging. This month's theme is all about family.



NaBloPoMo Prompt of the Day (Feb 7): Who is your favorite person in your extended family?


My favorite person in my extended family would have to be a group of people. It would be my cousins.

Amanda and Melanie are similar in age to my sister and I. We had so much fun as kids. My favorite memories of them are from summer/winter's in Lake Tahoe where the four of us would spend several hours practicing and putting together a singing show for the rest of the family. We were the entertainment for the rest of the family when we were kids. They are two great women who are doing great things in their communities.

NaBloPoMo: Tell us about your grandparents

February is my Blog Post a Day Month and so i have jumped onto the blog wagon and will post a blog a day based off of the prompts given by @blogherblogging. This month's theme is all about family.



NaBloPoMo Prompt of the Day (Feb 6): Tell us about your grandparents

My mom's parents

Oh grandparents.... they are so much more than a Christmas card and 20 bucks on your birthday. I lost my grandfather between Thanksgiving and Christmas in 2011. He was an amazing man who til the day he died would refer to me as "eric" or "peanut." Some of my favorite childhood memories with him were over the holidays when we would watch football and cheer on whatever team i liked at the time. My grandmother continues to provide comic relief into her 80s. As she has gotten older, her "absent mindedness" has continued to show itself.

Roommates in college will attest to the random cards and newspaper clipping that i would receive about topics ranging from student debt to weight loss. I guess that she was trying to send me a message.... naw! After college and in graduate school, this grandma graduated to packages and random things. Whenever a package would arrive on my front door, it was usually the "free crap" given away at the casinos that grandma thought that i absolutely needed.

The package that takes the cake is one that was full of unmentionables. My grandmother has battled through cancer and the loss of lung and as a result has lost a lot of weight. Because she lost all of this weight, she got it into her mind that i would love to have her old clothing that no longer fits her. WRONG! As she was going through this "spring cleaning" process, she decided to mail me a box full of bras and undies... granny pants up to your boobs and full coverage bras... not my style at all. The roommates and i got a huge laugh out of this and since that day, that package has gone down as "the package heard 'round the world."

My dad's parents

So on to the other set of grandparents...they fight and nag each other like cats and dogs but it is entertaining as hell. Every Christmas morning they host the breakfast meal of apple and banana fritters and pineapple sausage. All of the cousins meet there and it is the one time of the year that we are usually all in the same place at the same time.

Some of my favorite memories of these two involve a box of macaroni and cheese in their old house. I remember as a kid that my sister and i would always make our way over their house and immediately request mac and cheese. It didn't matter if it was 8 o'clock in the morning or night... we wanted that yummy cheesy mac from the blue box.

I also had a step grandmother from my stepdad who was lovely lady from Austria that always had chocolate in her house. Whenever we would go visit her she would have chocolate in the fridge that we would immediately gravitate towards.

The last set of grandparents are from my stepmom. While Manuel passed away a few ears back, Tomie still lives on and makes tons of food for everyone. My favorite memories of these two together are gathering on Christmas Eve and singing Feliz Navidad while Manuel strummed the guitar. Tomie still to this day makes tortillas and pesole which are two of my favorite things!!!!

Month 2 of Couch to 13.1 miles

Here is my month two schedule of couch to 13.1 miles. I am still doing yoga and walking on my days off.  

The weather has been so nice around here that I am still training outside. I have a sneaking suspicion that this month will be the month that i transition to training inside simply due to the weather changing and usually being horrible in the month of February. I am loving to run and so motivated for what is to come.