I Heart Pizza

Pizza is my absolute favorite food. I eat pizza every week. I guess you could say that I'm slightly addicted to pizza. (I feel an intervention coming soon since I just admitted it.) However, pizza and fitting into a bridesmaid dress don't exactly go well together. 

The reason that I cannot eat as much pizza as I would like to. :( 

I've been working out, of course, but I saw Cassey from Pop Pilates posted a "Cheap Clean Eats" segment on a flourless pizza and I was intrigued. I decided that I HAD to try it and see if this healthy pizza tasted just as good as a real one. (Cassey said it did, but I don't really trust people on pizza.) This began one crazy adventure in cooking! 

Ingredients

Chopping up the cauliflower

Yes, I did buy a food processor for this recipe. 

I'm not that great at making a circle. 

I can measure out ingredients like a boss, though!

Don't be fooled! This does NOT taste like real pizza!

Ok, so it wasn't an epic fail in the kitchen. The pizza wasn't THAT bad. When you are a pizza addict though, it doesn't take the place of the real thing. So I had a second pizza adventure. I used Money Saving Mom's homemade pizza dough recipe and tried again. 

Ingredient round up

Is this what the yeast is supposed to look like? 

Time to knead some dough! How do I know when I'm finished? 

Is it just me, or am I about to cook Australia? 

After google verification, I did cook Australia and it tasted amazing!

Second pizza attempt was a success! Some things to note: (1) I did not attempt to make the dough look like Australia. I really suck at forming a circle and once I realized my pizza looked like Australia, I decided to keep it like that. (2) I wasn't sure if the yeast was actually working, so we also ordered a pizza from Pizza Hut in case this was a total bust. It was a good thing we did because we were all so hungry that both pizzas were completely gone!

  

Homemade Christmas Gifts...From Me

I know, I know. I'm not crafty. The title of this post may have thrown you because you know that and are shocked that I would dislike anyone enough to give them a homemade Christmas gift. WRONG! I love my brother and when I found these super hero ornaments on Pinterest, I knew they would make the perfect gift! Besides, they didn't look too hard to make. Wrong...

I started with the very essential process of buying paint and cutting out super hero logos. I learned that sometimes it is worth it to spend the extra 40 cents on "real red" because "red rose" looks orange. Hence the reason there is an Aquaman ornament.

I thought we were going to be painting these, but it was even easier than that! You put the paint in the ornament and then let it fill itself. This was hard for me because I have ZERO patience. This was the worst part for me, but somehow I made it through. 

The mostly final product! I went back to the store for red paint to do the one for The Flash and I picked up some silver paint to do Batman (my brother's FAVORITE super hero!). My brother will have a complete set of ornaments that he'll actually like. 

Pat on the back to me for finding a craft on Pinterest that kind of turned out like it was supposed to!

Technology Jump

Yesterday, I made the jump into the Iphone world. I've had some issues with phones over the past year. I had a Droid that I LOVED, but the battery corroded. The replacement phone had a microphone that didn't work. (I wondered why nobody could hear me when I was yelling into my cell phone at them.) When I brought that phone in, they didn't have one to replace it with. They told me I could wait a week to get one identical to that or get an old school slide phone. Between my job and being a single mom, I knew there was no way I could go a week without a phone, so old school slide phone it was! A few months ago, that phone started to slowly crap out. It would randomly begin to turn itself on and off and I kept telling myself that if I could just make until June for my upgrade, it would be fine. Yesterday, I went to see what they could offer me. I asked what the cheapest option was and it was an Iphone for free. Begrudgingly, I am now part of the world of complete touch screen phones. I don't like it. I have a master's degree and my Iphone makes me feel stupid. Since the kiddo is with the grandparents for the rest of the week, I'm playing with an Iphone all weekend. Let's see if my opinion changes by then.


So I have an Iphone 4, but this still applies.

Overcoming Shame and Pain

That was the title of my devotion this morning. I'm on day one of a 31 day series entitled Women of Courage. As soon as I read the title of the devotion, I knew that God had something planned out for me to read. The scripture is from Luke 8:42-48 and to sum the story up, it is about a woman who has had a physical condition that has made her unclean by the standards of society. She has faith that if she can just touch Jesus, that she will be healed. She risked everything to be in the crowd that day just to have the chance to touch him. She pushed her way through and was able to barely touch his cloak. She was instantly healed. Jesus had felt the power leave him, so he turned around to find out who had touched him. The woman was intimidated, but came forward to tell her story. Jesus said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace."

The author of the devotion goes on to say that most people have something in their past that they are ashamed of. The question follows as to what would we do if our hidden sin was made public knowledge. I know about this all too well. For many years, I used casual sex as way to feel a connection with guys, without actually having to make a connection. I'm not the most attractive person, and I tend to get friendzoned quickly due to my love of sports and my ability to talk about them non-stop. I felt that casual sex was easy. I could feel some sort of bond, but never have to put myself out enough emotionally to get hurt. If a guy started to show interest beyond that, I made a point to make a quick exit and cutting off all communication on the way out. Then something happened that changed everything. I got pregnant from a one night stand.

Now, some people would say that this a way of my behavior catching up with me. However, it was a major shock to me because I had been told there was a very slim chance that I would ever have children because my ovaries are pretty screwed up. I was also on birth control at the time. Combine those two together and seeing the "pregnant" on the screen of the test was more than I could handle. Somehow I knew the day after that I was pregnant. I went to church the next morning and it was the Sanctity of Life Sunday and I just sat on the back pew and practically bawled my eyes out. God had let me know then, but I didn't want to admit it. Science had said that in order for me to have children it would take loads of money and fertility drugs and once I was told that I became completely career focused. God was right, I was wrong. I was going to have  a baby.

I dreaded making the phone call to my parents. If I was ever going to be rejected, this was the moment. My dad is a Baptist deacon and both he and my mom are Sunday School teachers. They were about to find out that their daughter was pregnant by a guy who's last name she didn't even know. The conversation went about as expected, but they came around. I found more support than I could have ever dreamed of in the people I worked with. I began interning with them 4 months early, and had just come on full time a week before getting pregnant. I believe that those 4 people were placed in my life to show me what unconditional love really is. They listened to me work out all of my emotions and never tried to push me to make a decision one way or the other. My friends were extremely supportive and while they made their thoughts and opinions known, they never tried to force me to follow their advice. They were honest but loving, and that's exactly what I needed.

Unlike the woman in the story, I didn't have faith that I would be accepted in my moment of shame. God used this situation to help me realize that I didn't need the fleeting feelings of acceptance that I had been looking for through casual sex, because I had His acceptance just as I was. He has shown me that the people who have chosen to stick around in my life through this situation are the people who's acceptance should matter to me. Especially the acceptance of my daughter, even when I don't live up to being the #moty she deserves.

Resolution Recap

Hello Summer! 

It's officially the end of the craziness that is work, at least for 2 months. While part of what I love about my job is the fact that once the seasons start there isn't much downtime, it's still nice to get a few months to recharge before the crazy hits the fan again in August. So what exactly does the summer have planned for us? I'm going to enjoy being able to hang with the kiddo more often, but we've decided to keep with her regularly scheduled weekend trips to Bebe and Daddad's house. This way she still gets to see her peeps in Louisiana and gives her some sort of routine. This is how the weekends in the month of June are going to play out for Mommy since the kiddo will be spending hers in Louisiana:

Weekend 1 will be spent reading, straightening the apartment up, watching some NCAA baseball regional action as well as my Texas Rangers, catching up on the blog, and spending some time in the sun at the pool. It's too gorgeous to NOT go outside, so I'm actually typing this blog post from my makeshift "porch" in front of the apartment.

Weekend 2 will be spent helping a good friend get rid of all of the crap that her ex felt the need to leave in her apartment, a possible date for me, the Belmont Stakes, some grocery shopping (since there will be money in the bank account again) and more reading.

Weekend 3 will be spent at Bebe and Daddad's celebrating Father's Day.

Weekend 4 will be spent at my best friend's wedding shower! I'm so excited. I have the PERFECT gift for her and really just hope it comes in before the shower. If not, I guess I'll have to do a massive box with the picture of the gift. :)

Weekend 5 will be spent either roadtripping to a Rangers game, or spending the weekend with the kiddo. The roadtrip is dependent upon whether there are free tickets involved and if we have money for gas by that point in the month.

Adventures in Cooking

I have been on a massive baking kick lately. I've become addicted to this: 

I seem to baking it on a weekly basis. I add in chocolate chips and it is to DIE for! Try this; you won't regret it. 

I also found this recipe for Skinny Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies. I HAD to try these when I saw that I had all but one ingredient to make them. I almost regret doing so because I'm obsessed. I couldn't found my brownie pan, so I made muffins out of them and they are AMAZING! I had to stop myself from eating the entire batch in one sitting. 

#MOTY Playlist

This is the playlist that helped bring you this blog post, and a few others you will be seeing over the weekend. 

Bad Romance - Artists v. Poets (Punk Goes Pop)

Over Again - One Direction

Let Me Go - 3 Doors Down

Jukebox Hero - Foreigner

No Surprise - Daughtry

Southern Comfort Zone - Brad Paisley

Ms. Robinson - Simon and Garfunkel

Angel - Aerosmith

Honeybee - Blake Shelton

Begin Again - Dropkick Murphys

Cruise - Florida Georgia Line

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend - Miranda Lambert

Right Here Waiting - Richard Marx

I Don't Need a Man - Pussycat Dolls

Crawling - Linkin Park

December 1963 - Frankie Valli

Takin' Off This Pain - Ashton Shepard

Maybe I'm Amazed - Paul McCartney

Give Me Everything - Pitbull

RESOLUTION RECAP 

(1) Cook one meal a month. Big fat fail! I've been too busy to even THINK of things to pull out of the fridge to heat up, much less a meal to cook. 

(2) Read one book a month. Surprisingly, I do really well with this one. Taking Chances; The Dark Heroine; Reflected in You; and Barred to You. 

(3) Donate to charity each month. The TRF (Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation) is my standard charity of choice for the month of May since it's the start of the Triple Crown races. 

(4) Place $500 in savings. Thanks to my tax refund this one is accomplished, now the goal is to keep the majority of it in there. 

(5) Visit William. I seriously need to call him back. I'm a bad friend sometimes. :( 

(6) Exercise/Drop Weight. Consistent. I need to shake things up a bit, and I think June is a GREAT month to do that.