My husband seems to be glad that I have this opinion—no pressure on him.  And while we don’t celebrate the ‘holiday’, we do wholeheartedly appreciate any cards or gifts that are sent our way by those who love us (ie: our parents).   

I was pleasantly surprised to receive a special package in the mail this week.

cereal in a can!

My mom knows me so well.

In a past blog post I mentioned how this cereal had piqued my interest, and being the thoughtful person that she is, she ordered me a tube of my own cereal.  Aptly titled, Katie & Goji. My very own custom cereal—How exciting! 

I promptly opened it and had a taste test (no matter that it was mid-afternoon. ANY time is cereal time).  Mmm…yummy!

nutritious & delicious!

I love that it comes from a small company, they personally mix your cereal and add their signature, as though they’re a long lost friend sending you a care package.  The canister is twice the size that I expected it to be.  It’s huge.  Even so, I’ve been doing my best to not have my usual giant servings so that I can keep this around longer than just 3-5 days like I tend to do with any cereal.  

I especially enjoy the dried blueberries and goji berries, and there certainly is no shortage of them.  Not only is it tasty, but I feel good knowing that I’m putting awesomely nutritious foods into my body—artisanal cereal, almonds, goji, blueberries, wheat germ, and chia.

I’ve never had chia seeds before, but they’re like poppy seeds, fairly tasteless, and are apparently excellent nutrition for runners.  I just hope I don’t start sprouting like a Chia Pet!

Thanks, Mom & Dad!  You’re the BEST!

Ah, Cereal.  America’s favorite breakfast food.  Perhaps one of my favorite foods, no matter what time of day it is.  And no, I’m not talking about Lucky Charms or Fruit Loops, or any other sugary nastiness which is marketed as edible food.  (thank you, mom, for not allowing us to eat that stuff)

I prefer the fiberful, whole grain, low sugar cereals.  I normally rotate between 4 different cereals, depending on where I do my grocery shopping.  Trader Joe’s High Fiber cereal, good ol’ Kroger brand Bran Flakes, and 365 Organic High Fiber or Barbara’s Bakery Ultima Organic High Fiber Cereal, both from Whole Foods.  Obviously, I like to keep myself ‘regular’, and these do the trick.  But really, they’re tasty.  Bonus, these are all under $3.

My perfect way to start the day:

1. big bowl.  
2. berries. 
3. cereal.  
4. berries.  
5. 1 tablespoon of organic sugar.  
6. 1% milk. Pour in until you see the milk peeking through the cereal. That’s the perfect amount, leaves just a little bit over to slurp up at the end.
7. maybe a few more berries on top, just for fun.

Anyways, what got me thinking about my cereal fascination was this new custom cereal company I’ve been reading about— [me] & goji.

Not only can you create your own healthy concoctions with natural and organic ingredients (berries & more berries for me, please!!), but you can give your cereal a name.  Perhaps that’s the most appealing aspect to me.  I do love to name everything I own.

I’ve been playing around with my custom cereal and this is what I would order as my first batch:

Granted, I haven’t quite convinced myself that $12.50 (+shipping) is worth it for a custom cereal, but if I cut out a couple of coffees and put that money into a special cereal fund, then maybe I’ll feel more justified.   

Until then, I’ll keep enjoying $3 boxes of cereal with my beloved berries.

p.s. oh look, they have gift certificates!  * wink *

Well, Santa (ie: husband) did well, and took me on a trip to our local Apple store to pick out my new toy before we left for Christmas in Idaho.

I also felt it was necessary for me to get a protective cover since I have a past history of dropping my phones.  I know, it’s not likely that this cover will save my phone if I drop it on our concrete floor, but it is now less likely to slide out of my hands or pocket and much easier to grip onto, especially when I’m wearing gloves.  

I would highly recommend the incase Protective Cover if anyone is looking for a case for their iphone. They have a rainbow of colors to choose from. I love my green one.

Behold….my poor quality photos of my iphone 3G.  I’ve named him Oliver. 

He has become my new close friend and addiction.  I’m already telling myself that I should try to go a whole day without using him for anything other than phone calls, but when I think too much about it, that just sounds completely ridiculous

i’ll be sure to post some pictures when we get all settled in.  it’s bittersweet— we’re losing an awesome view (bye bye sunsets, space needle and Olympic mountains), but gaining more space and quietness (sayonara tiny kitchen and obnoxiously loud recording studio)  i we finally get to start unpacking and using some of our wedding gifts instead of keeping them piled up in the closet!!  i’m excited about that beyond what any exclamation points can say.

well, i better keep on packin’—these xbox games aren’t going to box themselves up.

Here’s a recent blog, One Dollar Diet Project, I discovered about a San Diego couple who decided to go for one month of eating on $1/day each.  Check it out, it’s an interesting read about how they succeeded and raised awareness for the billions of people around the world who live on $1/day and don’t have the option to resort back to spoiled eating habits.

It made me realize that we unconsciously eat and eat until we’re full, and we throw food away when it’s only a couple days old, and don’t even think twice about paying $3 for a latte.  I’m just as guilty as anyone. Part of the reason why I run and exercise is so that I can eat whatever I want and enjoy eating out at restaurants or fixing the more expensive/less healthy pre-packaged foods at the grocery store without the worry of gaining weight. 

And to think that there are people around this world, this country, this city who have never had the ‘worry’ of eating too MUCH food or not having organic food available or concern over gaining weight. They’re more concerned about getting any food to eat and not dying from starvation.

Makes you think twice about the food we eat.  I’m not sure yet where I’m going with this whole dilemma, but I think I’ll start by being better at making more foods from scratch instead of buying them.  Being in charge of our budget now (and the one who does the grocery shopping), I’m challenging myself to reduce our food spending and reducing waste.  

I’m pretty certain that Todd would resist doing any $1/day food diet (and I honestly wouldn’t want to either, with not being able to enjoy fruits the way I like to), so I’m not thinking of doing anything that drastic.  Just starting with small steps and moving forward from there.  We’ve already made changes to our coffee and dining out habits since I’m not employed right now, but I know there’s so much more we can do.  We’ll see where I can go with this.

Hopefully this will prompt you to think about your own eating/spending habits and make changes of your own.    

And unfortunately, I don’t recall the names of any of them, except that they were pretty much the best wine I’ve ever had.  Between the six of us, we knocked off those 3 bottles and finished a couple more (not so tasty after you’ve had Italian) bottles they’ve had sitting around, as well as about 50 pounds of cheese and cookies.  

Good friends and good wine—doesn’t get much better than that.  Some 3D glasses were discovered, which we felt necessary to use for modeling purposes and we ended the evening with a game of FRIENDS Scene-It.  Girls won. Of course.  (the competition wasn’t too fierce)

ooops, got a little delayed in posting Halloween pics. I better do as promised now, in order to free up subsequent blogs for other fun events and randomness coming up.

our friends Davey and Kristen hosted a Dead Man’s Chest murder mystery party loosely based on the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.  Everyone was assigned a character and given fact sheets and bits of info to clue us in to the evening’s events.  My character was Elizabeth Stanforth, the ‘highly desirable’ British Governor’s daughter.  I was excited because I’ve dressed as a pirate before, so this year I got to be the pretty princess type girl.  

(sorry for the grainy image, but this was the only full body shot we got and it was from Todd’s phone)

I fashioned my costume from hoop skirt, brocade tablecloth, wire (couldn’t seem to find any needles and thread…), and a lace corset top I found at Value Village.  My pirate medallion was pieced together with a gold necklace and my state cross country medal. Total cost was approx. $30 (and 2/3 of that cost was the hoop skirt).  

I did not win for best costume, but was told I lost by the flip of a coin.  Oh, also, I was not the murderer, nor did I figure out who the murderer was, nor did I manage to play the game right and get on a ship off the deserted island….obviously, I am not good at those types of games.  ’Tis okay with me, I enjoyed being all dolled up for the night.  

Probably the most fun of the night was that Todd’s character was a Spanish aristocrat who my character was engaged to, but despised, so he was wooing me while I got to act like I hated him.

He did an excellent job as ‘Don Inigo de Velez y Contrera’, but it was refreshing to go back to loving him after the game was over.  It was hard work pretending not to like him.

Some other photos from the evening:

Oh, also I was assigned to bring Brain Cupcakes (LOOK like brains, not MADE FROM brains) so after the very time consuming and messy frosting job, I just had to take a picture of my handiwork.  Helping my mom frost thousands of cupcakes and cookies while I was growing up paid off somewhat, though I’ll never have the skills she has.  Next time I’ll use red velvet cake mix.

With this past weekend being Halloween, I thought back to recent years and decided to get out some old photos of my costume couture. I’ve never been one to take the easy route and buy a pre-fabricated costume, preferring instead to use cloth scraps, tablecloths, safety pins…whatever I can find around the house. 

Katie the Ladybug – senior year of high school. my wings has strings with bells so I could ‘flit’ about.

Belly Dancer – freshman year at K-State. the last year I was able to wear a stomach-bearing costume….oh, college, so bad for my waistline.

Statue of Liberty – my mom was the star seamstress behind this masterpiece. that’s right, I was 21 and I had my mom make my costume  it has been my favorite costume ever.  I made the torch from a squirt bottle.  

Pirate – with my fellow Collegian ad designers. (and cute Mindy - can’t believe they have their own little son to dress up now!)  love y’all. 

Magic 8 Ball – easiest and warmest costume ever. I predicted peoples’ futures when they shook me. 

More on this year’s Halloween festivities in my next post.

thanks to my awesomely computerific husband, all i really had to do was find a layout i liked, make some minor tweaks (ie: my Seattle header) and he pretty much took care of the rest.  he’s savvy like that.  i <3 my geek.

i’m making a conscious effort to keep on keepin’ on with my blog posts during this transition.  but if you’ve missed anything, every single one of my old blog posts is now on this site [wow, i've been at this for 3 years], so feel free to catch up or jump in right now.  

i will still be keeping my previous style of posting random bits of my life and my running updates, so don’t fear (or hope for) any significant changes.

It made me nostalgic for my days of college football tailgating. While I don’t miss it so much that I want to be out drinking beer and eating burgers with them, it did make me remember all the great memories I made with friends and fellow Wildcat fans during my 4.5 years at K-State. Tailgating was an important part of my college days– behavior I’ll never go back to– but something I have such fond memories of.

I especially recalled the morning several of us woke up at 4:30 am (unheard of for normal college students) to walk to the stadium and wait for an hour behind the barricades……sprint to the stadium gates…..stampede down the stairs to get prime spots….and then wait another 2 or 3 hours for the live broadcast of ESPN’s College Gameday from Manhattan, KS to begin. (yeah, this was back when our team was ranked in the Top 10…not so much the case in recent years)

I’m pretty sure my friends and I never got on tv, but who cares? We were part of a faithful following of crazy fans who devoted our Saturdays to supporting our team.

I went back through my photo albums for some good memories.

Tailgating before the 2000 Big 12 Championship vs. OU.

I was a cheerleader at heart. But I was too tall and about 30 pounds too heavy to make the real squad.

Junior year tailgating with girlfriends.

With my brother in his notorious I Eta Pi gameday apparel.

Hard to believe some of those were 8 years ago.

Eat ‘em up, beat ‘em up, K-S-U!