Weekend Pre-Party

We kicked off our weekend this morning with a trip to the donut shop. Probably some of my hesitation at wearing a running skirt is the fact that I will drive completely out of my way to go to a donut shop with a drive-thru. I don't understand why my part of town has only donut shops that you have to walk in to for a decent donut. Should someone with that kind of lazy commitment to donuts really be wearing a running skirt?

(Answer: that person should definitely put one on, then go run in it.)


Nonetheless, we found ourselves some sprinkle donuts and donut holes and made our way home.

Tonight kicks off the little guy's soccer season. First practice! Yes, Friday night. If you had ever told me at age 16 that I would be excited about watching little kids run rampant around an open field for fun, I probably would have looked at you like "that will never be me." But here I am, and there it is. We are probably more excited than he is.

This week my fave cooking collaboration blog The Kitchn kicked off the Kitchn Cure, which is 4 weeks of daily tasks designed to get your kitchen and pantry in shape for fall. I've been following along and am currently enjoying a sparkling clean fridge. So thanks to the Kitchn for inspiring me to take the time to really scrub it out. If you're into that sort of thing, it's a great way to divide and conquer the things you've been putting off in that particular room.

Have a great, time-is-ticking-on-summer weekend!

The Running Skirt as Casual Wear

So I have all these thoughts running through my head during the day that prior to staying at home, I would throw out to my co-workers (the female ones). Now they are all bottled up seeing as my preschoolers could care less about them, so eventually some of them make their way to the blog. That's the case with today's randomness.

Today I'm thinking about the running skirt as casual wear. Every trip I make to the Zoo or the big park, I see more than one mom in the running skirt. I have tried on about 10 of them over time, have sent as many embarrassing dressing room selfies to several trusted individuals in this contraption, and finally pulled the plug on one last week. I mean, I don't run, so really do I need a running skirt?

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

I decided that the answer is yes, I do. For a myriad of reasons. One, they're cute. Two, Target, which all ladies love, had a sign up in store last week calling it an athletic skirt which opens it up to quite a few other activities, thereby reducing my guilt for wearing and not running. And three, despite the fact that it is exactly like throwing on a pair of running shorts which I also do not run in, somehow it looks like you reached a little further/tried a little harder. Maybe not on that one?

The first 9 skirts I tried on I couldn't do it because they just seemed too short. My modesty was getting the better of me, although they all have shorts underneath and are probably the same length as running shorts. I finally tried on Lululemon's TALL length, despite the fact that I'm every inch of 5'2" and decided that's what would work for me.

I don't think I've been this conflicted about a clothing item since the poncho craze of 2003.

So tell me, what are your feelings on the running skirt?

Family Pizza Night (Product Review)

Recently I partnered with the Hormel Pizza Ready Blogger program. They provided complimentary product in exchange for my review. All opinions, as usual, are my own!

Last Friday night was make your own pizza night around our house. We tried out Hormel's new line of ready make sauces and pizza flatbreads called Hormel Pizza Ready. For once, everyone got to make the pizza that they wanted, instead of just dealing with the majority choice. Nice, huh?


Superman showed up to be the primary cheese applicator. I took care of the messier job of spreading the sauce. There are some things I don't think it's necessary to be a "yes mom" about, and red sauce is one of them.

My little guy loves helping with supper, so of course he was all over this.


The kids and I had mini pepperoni. We split two of the rustic white flatbreads between the three of us and let Mr. G have his own. He decided on supreme. He and I were really impressed with the taste of the tomato sauce, and of course, Hormel always has great pizza meat toppings. The kids just cleaned their plates, which speaks for itself.

I calculated the Weight Watcher points on these, because that's always how I measure what I'm eating, whether I'm following the plan or not. The Pizza Ready mini pepperoni was 3 points per serving (about 1.5 servings filled the entire flatbread), and the flatbread was 4 for the entire piece. Once I added mozzarella cheese, the entire flatbread was around 12 points. That's a fairly generous amount of pizza, and paired with a salad, it made a great Friday night supper.


You place the flatbreads on a cookie sheet and bake at 425 for about 5 minutes, then remove them and add your choice of toppings before baking again to melt the cheese to golden brown. We have enough supplies to make a few more, so I'll get creative and add fresh veggies next time.

My husband, the camping loving Eagle Scout, pointed out that this would be awesome for camping out. I never would've thought of that, but he's right, and the flatbread package even shows grilling instructions on the back.

We're looking forward with great anticipation to an awesome football season ahead, and with that comes lots of football watching parties. Using these products as a base to build your own pizza during football watching would be a creative way to have pizza to please everyone we have over.

(That's a spoiler alert to my friends. You will be seeing this at a future Aggie football watching party.)

Hormel is currently stocking Pizza Ready products in Albertsons around the DFW area. Below are a few grocery stores where you'll find them:

Arlington
301 SW Plaza Shopping Center
5950 South Cooper
6220 US Hwy 287

Azle
480 Northwest Pkwy.

Bedford
1300 Airport Fwy.

Burleson
833 NE Alsbury Dr.

Dallas
4625 Frankford Rd.
6464 E. Mockingbird Ln.
4349 W. Northwest Hwy.
7007 Arapaho Rd.
3524 McKinney Ave.

Fort Worth
7400 Oakmont
4400 Western Center Blvd.
10800 N. Beach St.
9300 Clifford St.
3563 Alton Rd.
850 E. Loop 820
3525 Sycamore School Rd.
6700 West Frwy.

Oscar de la Renta: Five Decades of Style

Last Friday, I headed east to Dallas with my friend Ashley to visit the Bush Center (President George W. Bush's Library) and to view the current special exhibit called Oscar de la Renta: Five Decades of Style.


The exhibit showcases dresses from First Ladies Laura Bush, Hillary Clinton, and Nancy Reagan, along with Jenna Bush Hager's wedding dress, dresses from de la Renta's archives, and from the collections of two other Texas ladies. And if the First Ladies aren't enough celebrity, there is a dress worn by Taylor Swift and Jennifer Garner's 2014 Oscar dress.

The hot pink dress above was from the de la Renta archives. It was absolutely breathtaking in person and was definitely my favorite. Also, there was a dress of Mrs. Reagan's from 1981 that looked like someone could have worn it to a special event that evening. So many of the designs were classic. Simply timeless! And the artistry was phenomenal.

It was the first visit to the Bush Center for the both of us, and I'll admit that we took an abbreviated trip through the permanent collection, knowing we'll be coming back with our families at some point. On a summer Friday afternoon, that section was somewhat crowded.

A little girl time was the perfect way to kick off my birthday month. If you're in the DFW area, gather your girlfriends and go check it out!

Motivated Monday

Last night I went to bed with the house a mess. That's a rarity, as we usually do some picking up family-style on Sunday evening, but last night, I was all, "meh, I'll do it tomorrow."

On the weekends I'm usually a little more lax in my tidying up, simply because I spend the entire week doing exactly that. It seems a little fruitless, but since my job is "homemaker" I feel like I'm taking a hit on my (self-scored) performance appraisal if the order of the house is less than what I want it to be. And I'd prefer the house to be within 15 minutes of company-ready, if at all possible. (Not always possible. You know, real life happens.)

When I was working, the house stayed a lot cleaner since we weren't here most of the day. Now, even if we have plans to be out and about in the mornings, we're still home at naps and usually through the rest of the evening, which leaves plenty of time to distribute every single toy we own in a location other than its home.

One of these days I will miss that, right?

Anyway, I spent most of the morning moving laundry, picking up around the small folk, and running errands. Supper's in the crockpot, and my car is even washed. It's nap time now, and I've settled down on the couch to the whoosh of the laundry room and a bag of brownie brittle. I'm a little late to the party on this, but it's amazing and only 120 cals per serving. It reminds me of the crispy edges of the brownie, if that's your bag. I'm trying to decide if I've only had one serving or if I've crossed the line into 2 (most likely). I found it on the cookie/snack aisle.


Here's to Monday's to-do's becoming done's.

Weekend Shopping

Stopping in for a little weekend update to say that, after looking all summer, I finally found a pair of white jeans that I like. And they happen to be on sale for around $15 right now at Gap.


image via Gap

If you've been looking for a pair, the price might be just right for you like it was for me. In store, these were marked down to $29.99, then 50% off of that.

And being summer's end, these cute Lands' End UPF swim tops are on sale with around 3% cash back through Ebates. This was a size down item.


image via Lands' End
And of course, the Nordstrom sale is going on through tomorrow. Time to order those back to school necessities!

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