spring break

Finally! I made it….

I’ve been crazy busy the last few days with school works (stats homework done-check!), article-writing and visiting with the fam since Abigail was home this weekend.

I started my spring break with a relatively early workout, and here I am now:

I had a coupon for a free oatmeal and decided to take my breakfast at Starbucks after the gym. Conveniently, my. Ext stop is Wegmans, which is just down the road.

Today I’m spring-cleaning the house (I cannot stand the hair and dust another minute more!), and making a Texas sheet cake for bible study tonight.

In true holly-fashion, I’ve already made to-do lists for each day that include housework, schoolwork (I have a TON) and, of course, baking.

On the docket: a fruit and nut loaf for tomorrow’s dinner, wheat sandwich bread for lunches, baked oatmeal, cinnamon raisin swirl bread, yogurt, regular oatmeal, granola bars and maybe some muffins. My goal is to stock the freezer with grab-and-go breakfast items and extra bread. Also on the list is yogurt–gasp! We’re out–and Mac and cheese for my lunch on Wednesday 🙂

So, I’ll be a happily busy girl this week 🙂

10-miler = 10-fold reward

OK, maybe not a “10-fold” reward, exactly, but I did have a great day!

I planned on doing a long run this weekend since we were in East Aurora. I LOVE running there. I have my usual routes, and sometimes I mix it up. Today, because I was going extra long, I combined my usual 4.5 mile route down toward the high school with a new “village perimeter plus some” route.

The weather this weekend was unseasonably warm (upper 70s!) and I probably could have worn a tank top if I’d brought one. It was beautiful and sunny and there was a hint of fall in the air. Despite the perfect weather, my run started pretty crummily…I blame it on the abundance of sugar I had the night before at Pumpkinville (two donuts–they were small!–pumpkin ice cream, pumpkin soup–which was more sweet than savory, unfortunately–along with fries and popcorn and M&Ms after we got home). So yeah, between that and my elevated stress level and lack of sleep (Hadrian never sleeps well at other people’s houses), I wasn’t exactly running on all cylinders. I was tired and with the first almost two miles being uphill, I could feel it.

Must stretch! I always do, and Andrew never does. I don’t get how people can NOT stretch. Turns out I must’ve underestimated my abilities this morning; I averaged about 8:20/mile, which is awesome! After a couple miles I did perk right up definitely felt that “runner’s high.”

I forgot my Honey Stingers at the hotel, so I had to scavenge for portable, energy-packed foods to take with me. Thankfully, I found some nuts and dried cranberries in the kitchen–SCORE! Go Mom Layer for having 100-calorie packs of walnuts and almonds! I threw in some M&Ms to make it like trail mix, but I didn’t end up eating any. In fact, for some reason, I didn’t need more than a couple bits of nuts–must have been that sugar overload. I carried a partially full bottle of water, too. I hate carrying stuff with me, but I hate being thirsty even more.

I had to write my route out on paper–too many lefts and rights! Disclaimer: I totally spelled “veer” wrong, and knew it immediately. I would normally correct it, but I was in a rush to get out the door. I’m not sure now which I would prefer; having it spelled wrong (above), or having corrected it and proving to all my friends that I really AM as OCD as they think I am.

Andrew and I have been craving Charlie’s Diner, and I figured today would be the perfect day to go–the weather was phenomenal, and I’d just burned like 1,100 calories running…

I enjoyed my usual post-long run Sprite–absolute bliss! I fantasize about Sprite while running sometimes. There is just something about how it tastes and quenches my thirst after a long run when water just won’t do.

BLUEBERRY PANCAKES! They have the best, hands down. Super doughy and sweet and GIANT plump berries! Seriously, they are that good.

We didn’t get there until after 12:00, so Andrew ordered lunch: a BLT.

We were hungry!

After lunch, we went back to the Layers’. Andrew headed off to work, Carolyn was off watching the Bills game with Ben and I enjoyed a fantastically quiet and peaceful afternoon in the kitchen. BAKING! (I also threw in some cleaning–we’d made such a mess in just two days!)

Pumpkin bread! (Andrew always hates it when I pose like this… He thinks it looks silly.) Oh well.

I used my mom’s interchangeable pumpkin/zucchini bread recipe. Except that I changed it around a made it healthier. It wasn’t my intention; I didn’t have butter, so I used both oil and canned apple butter (like applesauce), decreased the sugar (who needs extra sugar, anyway?) and mixed white with whole wheat flour.

I made one loaf plain and mixed raisins, oats and pumpkin seeds into the other.

After I started cutting them up, (of course I forgot to take a picture of both loaves still whole) I made a tasting plate of two teeny slivers. I had to make sure they were good…

I assembled a plate for the Layers and a baggie of half-pieces for the ladies who work the front desk at the hotel, then bagged up the rest for me!

Side note: Perhaps the biggest “reward” of today was signing our lease! The short story is that we found a small house in Orchard Park to rent and God has provided an amazing landlord who will let us have Hadrian and be flexible on lease terms (less than a year). I’ll post more details later, but I can say with certainty that neither of us thought we would be as excited as we are about going into a rental! We celebrated with more rewards–pizza and wings! (We are terrible, I know. But really, on what other day can I splurge like this than on a day I ran so much?) We tried out John & Mary’s, a place on Main St. The verdict: Not bad, but no Pasquale’s!

the cinnamon rolls come out at midnight

Literally, they did. At exactly 11:53 p.m. last night, Heather and I sat down to enjoy the fruits (or rather, breads) of our labor.

Heather’s getting promoted to Captain this Friday (yay!) in a small ceremony here at the house in the morning, followed by brunch. She really wanted to make Pioneer Woman’s cinnamon rolls, and since cinnamon rolls of any kind are a pretty drawn-out process, we decided to make them early and freeze them.

Thankfully, PW includes handy freezing instructions in her cookbook for busy times such as these. Lord, help me get through this week! And really, who has time to make cinnamon rolls, FROM SCRATCH, the morning of? Even the most adept pastry baker (which I am NOT) has to wait for bread to rise. And, I’m sorry, but I’ve done the whole refrigerate-overnight-and-rise-in-the-morning deal, and it’s never the same.

I digress.

We didn’t get started until Maggie went to bed, and by the time we’d warmed and cooled the milk mixture, added yeast (not sure if we got the right amount…Heather forgot whether she put one scoop in or two!), flour and let it rise for an hour…it was pushing 10 p.m. Part of this was my fault, as I’m trying to place an order for a “Scentsy” warmer and spent much of last night with my nose in about a million tiny scent pots trying to figure out what wax I want to buy!

Again, I digress.

Thankfully, I actually remembered to get the camera out. I’m still trying to get used to “documenting” as a blogger. All too often, I realize AFTER the fact that I should have brought my camera. Rather, Andrew’s camera. The one that’s really big and bulky… I’m asking for a new digital camera for my birthday–fingers crossed!

This is why I love Heather:

She makes me get a laugh out of life here and there. (Disclaimer: this photo is posed. However, she really did toss the flour bowl on my head after HAND-SPRINKLING eight cups of flour into the larger bowl while I mixed. This was a miscommunication on my part…)

Check out those arms! (I had to…) I also love Heather because she really likes to take pictures. This comes in handy for a blogger so that I can actually APPEAR in some of them every now and then. Check out the silicone pastry mat, too–incredibly handy for dough, although this recipe calls for you to roll it out in such a wide rectangle that it kinda defeats the purpose…

Here we are at 11 p.m. and no cinnamon rolls have made it to the oven yet. It’s going to be a long night. Heather busted out the chips and dip (again)… She is RUINING my diet! Oh well, at least I’m having fun 🙂

This could be called “Ooey, Gooey Goodness” by Heather A. Simone. Such a great photo!

Frosting….yum! I may have gone a bit heavy on the coffee and maple flavoring, but it’s still REALLY good. I like that it’s not that bright white, sickly sweet icing that comes in those cans of cinnamon rolls you buy at the store. PW also gives an orange variation in the book–definitely trying that next time.

At this point, we’re getting tired and goofy. But still having fun! I swear, in the month Heather’s been here, I think I’ve gotten the least amount of sleep in my life (including field training!), but it’s so worth it.

Loading cinnamon goodness into the oven. Again, please take a moment to appreciate all my hard work these last few weeks. I’ve finally lost enough weight to show off the arm and shoulder muscles I earned in the pool all those years ago. That, and my current lifting routine doesn’t hurt, either. (Side note: I’m planning a full “weight-loss” post once I reach my goal, which WAS only 4 pounds away but now might be more like 5 or 6 since Heather keeps pulling out the chips!)

Finally sitting down to enjoy! Heather’s “before” face, above. Her “after” face, below:

Now those are some well-earned calories! I have to admit, we both thought the rolls themselves were a bit “bready.” And we both swear the first time we had them, courtesy of Sara’s first time at house church, they were much “doughier.” Does that make sense? How can we make sure our bread comes out doughier next time? Does anyone know? Would really appreciate some help on this one…

And because Hadrian is a dog and has a nose and can reach the table…

…we spent the next few minutes giving him dirty looks (which didn’t phase him a bit) and shooing him away. The poor guy…he’s always smelling such great stuff (he seemed really interested in all the Scentsy pots!) and he can see it but can’t quite have it.

I hated putting our freshly baked rolls directly into the freezer, but I’m SO GLAD we have them taken care of for Friday morning, and I’ll get to make a note in my cookbook about how they turned out from the freezer.