Married at work

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

Here's what you are getting from me and Laura this year, enjoy the video and turn your volume up :)

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Book Review: The Digital Photography Book, by Scott Kelby

Ever look at a picture and love it but don't know exactly why it looks good? Well this book teaches you how to take those pictures.

Ok I admit that I'm actually not completely done with this book. It's hard to continue reading it all at once. This book is wonderful for ANYONE interested in photography even if you just own a point and shoot. It has great how-to tips on what angles you should be looking for, how to light...just learn how to make a picture look good and know why it looks good.

In fact, it's the number one selling digital photography book out there. Scott Kelby does a great job at getting the point across quickly and doesn't bore you with tons of details. It's a must-own book for sure.

The Foods I Eat

A friend of mine has recently joined Weight Watchers and she has asked me to help her by giving her some food suggestions. I've done this before and I also want a list for myself (sometimes I forget what I eat) so I decided to post it here so I will have it forever and now it will benefit others too. Feel free to comment on the foods you eat that are healthy also. Of course fruits and vegetables are an obvious great choice for foods but I may not be listing those since they are indeed obvious. I will list foods that I pretty much always have in my house since I've been on WW and that I occassionally purchase too.

Dairy
Skim Milk
Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Breeze
2% Cheese
Fat Free Cheese
Low fat Sour Cream
FF or LF Cottage Cheese
Country Crock w/ calcium
Egg Beaters - original and southwestern
Yogurt (I try to stick with the natural stuff here)
Laughing Cow Cheese (light original)

Meat
Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts
Pork Loin
Lean Ground Beef
Tuna
Canadian Bacon

Snacks
Lowfat Chips (I like some of the natural kinds in the health food section)
TLC Crackers
FF Pringles
100 Calorie mini popcorn bags
WW cookies or bars
Hershey sticks
Cut up veggies

Canned
Soup (I like Italian Style Wedding)
Beans (kidney, pinto and black)
Fruit (pineapple, pears and peaches)
New Potatoes
Tomato Sauce/Diced Tomatoes
Corn

Frozen
WW desserts/bars
Frozen Vegetables
Frozen Fruit
FF Cool Whip
Edy's Slow Churned Ice Cream

Bread/Grains
Whole Wheat bread
WW english muffins
Wheat Pita Bread
Brown Rice (instant)
WW pasta
Bulgar
Barley
Polenta
Cereal
Oatmeal

Other
PB2
RF Peanut Butter
SF Jelly/Jam
Mini Choc Chips
Ranch dressing packets
Pickles
Hot Tea
SF/FF Pudding
Fruit Leather
Vita-muffins

Alot of times for dinner I'll make a pita pizza or english muffin pizza with just tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese. It's pretty low in points.

I think that's it, I'll continue adding to this if I think of more. Here's a recipe for Taco Soup that I've made several times and love:

Taco Soup

1 lb lean ground beef
1 large onion, chopped
1 can pinto beans
1 can black beans
1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 can corn, no salt added
1 can Rotel
1 can diced tomatoes, no salt added
1 packet taco seasoning
1 packet ranch seasoning

Brown beef with onion. Combine all ingredients in slow cooker, cook at least until heated through. 1 cup = 3 pts. Top with LF sour cream and/or cheese.

Monday, April 28, 2008

Do the Du, I Did

I'm officially a Duathlete! Yesterday my friend, Suzanne, and I raced in the 1st Annual Oronoco Duathlon. What does the Duathlon consist of you ask? We did the short course and this is what it was:

2 mile run
13 mile bike
2 mile run

I had never run 4 miles in my life! And man, the biking was a lot harder than I expected plus I need some serious help in that area. I did pretty well on the runs but biker after biker kept passing me. I passed one biker...she was walking :) And after the second transition (from bike to run), that was difficult for a a few minutes. My legs were numb! But once you find your pace and are comfortable it gets easier. I'm feeling it today. So I didn't rank the best but I finished and I didn't walk at all!! I'm proud of that. Plus it's my first Duathlon ever and I'm apparently not a biker...yet :) Looking forward to the Tri in July. Here are my stats:

Jennifer Elder
bib number: 4624
age: 27
gender: F
location: Stewartville, MN
overall place: 85 out of 92
division place: 5 out of 6
gender place: 40 out of 48
time: 2:01:03
run 1: 21:59
transition 1: 1:12
bike: 1:11:33 (yikes!)
transition 2: 0:52
run 2: 25:29

Summary
number of finishers: 92
number of females: 45
number of males: 47
average time: 01:39:44

Here are some pics, thanks for the awesome pics, honey!

Suzanne stretching

Before the race

Me and Suzanne

Me and Erin (a friend I met at the race)

Go!

1st Run

Eric and Leah showed up for support

More family support

Suzanne's mom and Mikayla

Random biker, cool shot

Start biking!

Bike graveyard

My legs hurt!

Ouch, I have to run AGAIN?

Almost there!

Victory!

Go Erin!

Finished at last!

To view more pictures you can go here: http://209.23.153.221/webgallery/duathlon/index.html

Now it's back to training...

Friday, April 25, 2008

Galena, IL

A couple weekends ago we went to Galena, IL for a mini family vacation with the Elder side of the family. This was a Christmas present to us "kids" and we finally redeemed it. I've been to Galena before with Sue and her sisters and I fell in love with the town. It's so cute with tons of little unique shops and resturants plus lots of activities going on year round. We stayed in a 3 bedroom villa. It's perfect because each bedroom is on a different level with it's own bathroom. Then on the main floor there's a living room with fireplace and a decent-sized full kitchen. So you get your privacy but also have a place to hang out too. The first night we enjoyed chili and a casual night of hanging out. The next two mornings I took advantage of the adult lap swim and fitness room to do a mini-triathlon to help train me for the triathlon coming up in July. Great workouts! Saturday we went shopping and Spence stuffed a turtle...a fake turtle that is. We then got ready to go out to eat and ate at an amazing Italian resturant where we were seated in our own little room...it was called the Dungeon. Scott loved the sauce so much he bought a bottle of it. Then we went down to the Rocky Road Candy Co and got some treats...caramel popcorn and chocolate covered rice crispy bars. Wow...rich! A bite or two was all I needed. Then we went back to the villa to play some Phase 10. It was a really great time together. The next morning Scott took a few more pictures but I wasn't feeling well (dang rice crispy bars) so we didn't spend a lot of time doing that (see, I slow him down).

The whole family in the Dungeon

Acoustic music at the resort grill/bar

An imported raspberry beer I tried (not normally into beer, it was ok though)

Our Villa (on the left)

Mom and son

Dad and son

Scott's artsy shot

I made him sit on a very old bench

I think he was singing when I took this

That's better

Downtown Galena

It's turtle-stuffing time!

Final Four 2008

I officially deserve the bad-blogger award. But hey, it's been busy and when I post, I POST! I don't want to leave my fellow readers with something that's not the absolute best I can do. So if it takes me a little longer, so be it.

A few weekends ago, Scott went to Illinois to watch the Final Four with his Uncle. They're making this a tradition, to watch it together every year. Next year they'll be coming up to Minnesota to enjoy the madness. Ahhh yes, it truly is madness! It's a great way for the guys to bond though so I have no problem with it.

I did not go to Illinois with Scott this time for a few reasons. One is because I wanted him to enjoy this time by himself with his family. I very much love his family and love going to Illinois but it's good for us to do our own thing once in a while especially since we are around each other so much. Also, I don't get very many opportunities to get together with some friends from college so I figured this would be a good time to do that. My friend, Stef came to visit me. We had a great time. We went to the comedy club here in town, Goonies and out to eat at Bilotti's. Then we went on a long walk Saturday and went shopping at the famous Gap :) She doesn't have one where she lives so she was looking forward to going there. Anyway, it was great to get together with her.

I must say that my time alone in the house was different. Maybe I'm a scaredy cat or something but I am not used to being alone. The first night was a little freaky, I didn't get much sleep. Gus kept getting up too which is what woke me up. My mom brought up a good point, I've never really lived alone! I went right from high school to college to living at home with my parents for the summer to married. After the first night alone I got a little more used to it and it wasn't as bad. I feel like such a wimp but I guess any major change is going to take some time to get used to. Laura came down with the kids and that was fun as always. Love my niece and nephew!

Scott had a great time. He enjoyed the time with his family and especially enjoyed taking his time with photography. Normally when I'm around I tend to not be as patient as he is so I'm more in a rush. He got to take his time and really appreciate what he was doing. Gives me a lesson to slow down a little! He took so many pictures and I've posted a lot of them here. He went around the town and took pictures of memorable places from his childhood, so to some of you they may not seem like pictures you'd care about but they mean something to him.

Downtown Barber Shop