This Week in Pictures

On Monday, I went to my first NBA game. Gabe’s work gave him tickets. Honestly, I was less than impressed. I’m not a huge basketball fan anyway, but there was too much hoopla happening for my taste – a dance competition, the mascot on a segway, stuff like that – throughout the whole game!

One of the neat things about working downtown is that I work right next to City Hall, and they have a lot of fun stuff. One of them was Go Rodeo day. In Houston, we get really excited about the rodeo. They had free food, animals, line dancing, the whole nine yards. But it was fun, and good excuse to get outside during lunchtime.

This guy was at the Rodeo Day too.

Another City Hall thing, and something I’m very excited about, is the Wednesday farmer’s market. It happens during lunch time every week. And while it has a few of the same things as a normal farmers market – breads, vegetable, home made jams and such, the real focus is food (since it is from 11-2). There are several food trucks, and most of the vendors have prepared meals from local ingredients. I can’t wait to try one of everything! This is a wrap from the It’s A Wrap truck. It was good, though not my favorite food truck meal by far.

On Friday night I worked a charity auction for the Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital. The theme was “Under the Boardwalk” and it was carnival decorated. Very cute. There were two men on stilts, popcorn center pieces, games. It was very clever. The picture is a little blury, but you get the idea – he was tall.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie

I wanted to share my favorite smoothie. It’s so good, and it sounds like the opposite of a smoothie (more like a milkshake, no?) but is so amazing. And fairly healthy to boot.

This is it. A banana, a spoonful of peanut butter, chocolate almond milk and ice. Blend away. Drink. The chocolate almond milk is low in calories, as well as non dairy and the peanut butter does a good job of giving you a little bit of protein.

It also makes a great dessert!

Our 4 Month Challenge

With the new year arriving a little over a month ago, it didn’t take long for me to roll my eyes at people’s resolutions to loose 30 pounds. Mostly because for half of them that just means pinning quotes about losing weight, and I think that a significant number of the others  also have body image issues. I might be a bigger girl, but I’m on a constant mission to try to at least lean toward healthy. I love dessert, but I also love fruits and veggies.

Gabe is also a bigger guy. We’re big people. It’s the way we are. But over the years, Gabe has been diagnosed with some (mostly minor) health problems, a variety of them related to his weight. And I worry about him. And I’ve tried to encourage him to loose weight, but it’s hard.

I finally came up with a solution to solve several problems. Gabe has been begging me for a new TV. If you ask me, the one we have is perfectly fine. It was also a point of financial contention early in our relationship, so I’m not eager to go through buying another one. Plus, we don’t even have cable. Who cares?

So I made Gabe a deal. 4 months. If he looses more weight than me, he can have a new TV. If I loose the most weight, no TV. We’ve agreed I can spend and equal or lesser amount on something I want (so many possibilities!) and the TV issue is off the table.

We’re both fairly competitive, so I think this will work. Mostly, I’m hoping that the timeline is long enough that once we get into the habit of eating better (consistently) and exercising we’ll notice that we feel better, and that it’s an doable goal, we can keep it up. But it’s not so long (say, a year) that we’d give up.

This morning we bought a scale, and had our first weigh in. I hope this works. I don’t need to be skinny, and I don’t need Gabe to be skinny. I feel quite positive I’ll never be anything close. But I don’t want to have to worry about health issues so much. We’re way to young for that.

I feel like so far, my new job has already got me walking consistently – just from my car to the office is a good 15 minutes! So now to work in more self control, less bad foods, and a little more movement and I think I’ll be off to a good start.

The Hunger Games

You know those books you can’t put down? That invade your brain and have you thinking about the story line and implications while your in the shower?

I just finished the Hunger Games trilogy, and I may be borderline obsessed. Which on one hand, may be slightly ridiculous since they are of the young adult category, but if you’ve read them and you know me also makes plenty of sense.

The story has a female lead, and she’s strong, smart and resourceful. There are a lot of social undertones right off the bat, that turn into flat out themes through the rest of the series. They were really captivating and definitely left me thinking.

There is a movie slated to be out in late March. I’m not sure if this will turn it into some ridiculous “team Edward” type commodity – or if it the larger message will really be able to reach out to people (pretty early on, you get the idea of the control works – the rich keep the poor hungry and it allows them a great amount of power).  Either way I’m so glad I picked up these books. I’d highly recommend them! Then come back, and we can talk all about it. (I didn’t want to go too much into it, in case you haven’t read it. But there’s always the comment section!)

Waffle Sandwiches

This morning I decided I really wanted to try a new Food Tuck I’ve had my eye on. It’s called The Waffle Bus and it serves a variety of sandwiches on waffles, along with some dessert values.

It was nice weather as far as temperature goes, but it was still pretty wet from a lot of overnight rain. It didn’t mean there wasn’t a line though. A long line. But it was worth it for a couple of reasons.

After they called out an order for “Owen” Gabe nudged me and handed me his phone. “I think that’s Owen Daniels, from the Texans” he said, showing me a picture. Turns out it was.

Gabe was totally star struck.

After a long wait in a line, but a shorter wait for food we finally got what we’d come for. A waffle sandwich with a piece of fried chicken, covered in honey and chipotle sauce and a side of waffle fries.

It was really good. We also got a dessert waffle sandwich, pretty much a smore served in the middle of a waffle.

They were all really good. The thing is, we had waited so long we still felt slightly hungry afterward, but at least now we know what to expect.

Houston has such a good food truck scene. I know they’re becoming popular in a lot of places, but I can say all of the ones around here are good food and creative ideas. And they (mostly) all seem friendly with each other, which is another plus.