Bad Bloggers...

...But we do have a reason.

We now have a wedding film business. And we are doing Apartment Life. And we both have full time jobs. (notice it is 1:06am as I write!)

So we are a little busy. :)

We are loving it though. Not to mention I get to do it all with my wonderful husband - how wonderful! You can see what we've been up to at candlelight-films.com or on our facebook page. It's a blast!

I'm not gonna lie, probably won't be posting again for quite awhile. But thought I'd let you know why! I'll leave you with a fun sneak peek of a recent wedding. Enjoy!

Anna + Josh :: Coming Soon from CandleLight Films on Vimeo.

my new way to cook

... www.supercook.com !!!



this website is AWESOME!! i'm sure there are others like it, but i have not come across one, or at least not one this useful. you go to the site and start typing in some things you currently have in your kitchen. i have used it by first entering the ingredient i'm really wanting to use, like chicken breast or ground beef or strawberries or whatever i'm needing a recipe for. then it will have a list of ingredients it asks you if you have, and you just keep clicking yes and it keeps giving different ones that will help you make more recipes. you can emphasize certain ingredients (i tested it and tried strawberries AND tomatoes emphasized, and it found things with both!) and/or add keywords (side dish, etc). it then lists on the right of the page links to all the recipes online that you can make with the ingredients you already have, or what ingredients you need still to make them if you don't have them all. but generally there are hundreds you can already make which is quite wonderful bc i do not want to go to the store right now, thank you. i have LOVED it!! you know how sometimes you have an ingredient and you just don't feel like those few things you usually make with that ingredient? well this solves and AND helps you be adventurous in cooking!

So far i have used it to:

- find something to make with ground beef when i didn't really even have everything for spaghetti - it gave me a meatball recipe (actually i had several to choose from) and it turned out REALLY yummy. i had never made meatballs before so that was fun. just cooked some pasta and added some sauce and viola! a yummy new dinner.

- find something to use my yummy large shrimp from sprouts. mmmmm i let myself have butter smothered cilantro grilled shrimp and it was amazing! didn't actually even mess up my calories for the day either!

- wanted to try a new zucchini recipe and almost made some "zucchini cakes"... never had anything like them, but i do want to try them sometime!

- wanted something then our other chicken breast regular recipes, found a balsamic herb grilled chicken that was YUM! Clint is becoming an expert griller.

- and now i'm browsing supercook for something to do with my strawberries i need to eat. i don't feel like just chopping them up and adding a bit of splenda like i usually do. i also need to make some tea and am looking for a more exciting drink to make. my options i have narrowed it down to are(and i really haven't been to the store in quite awhile, so my ingredient list is not too large at all!):

for the strawberries:

-strawberry gelato (or balsamic strawberry sorbet, or strawberry foam, or...)
-"puffy dessert omelet" with strawberries
- oatmeal chewy squares
-Bretton butter cake with strawberry topping
-sweet wine fritters
-frosty strawberry dessert

for the drink:

-strawberry lemonade
-rico's passionate pink honey lemonade
-chunky strawberry lemonade

and then i also played around and found tons of apple crumbles, bundt cakes, cookies, etc that i could make right now. so cool. i think im just really excited bc whenever i think of making a recipe i think i have to go to the store to get the ingredients first bc what are the chance that i'll have all the things for whatever i decide to make. and this changes that. so i love it. hopefully i'll update you with new things i cook that supercook helped me find. i did do a play by play with photos of the meatball making, which i will post eventually. mmm i want to make those again!

happy cooking and recipe searching....warning - it can be addictive! :)

i'm addicted!

I LOVE the kindle for iPhone app. Love. I LOVE to read and have had to curb my habit a bit by only reading about a book a month or so since husbands do not appreciate being completely ignored for several days in a row/wives that have only had 3 hours of sleep bc they read til it was almost morning/making and eating dinner alone/nothing ever getting done except reading. :) When I read a book, I READ a BOOK. Like, only ever read the book. So, I indulge myself every once in awhile when I know of a good book I can sink my teeth into. (the Twilight series really threw us for a loop! that one took extra days...)

Right now our book club is reading "The Help" by Katherine Stockett. I went to Barnes and Noble to find that it is only available in hardback and costs almost $30! In another life, that would not have phased me a bit as it is a BOOK. :) But, I've morphed into a penny pincher in some areas, and that $30 could certainly be spent on 8 starbucks lattes, a shirt, something for the house, or a yummy diner out. After the nice lady at Barnes and Noble showed me where the book was, I put it right back on the shelf and decided it was time for me to try out this kindle app. (After reading about 30 pages of Upton Sinclair's book, "The Jungle." Random, I know. But the quotes in our history books about the horrors of being an immigrant worker in those times flooded back to me when I saw the book - they had always been so interesting. So I decided I needed to take some time and see if I wanted to read the whole thing. I read enough. Too depressing. I hate (most) old timey things so the hour at Barnes and Noble reading about the horrors of old timey-ness really puzzled the husband. In the end, interesting, but too tiring and depressing.)

I looked it up and was pleased to find "The Help" for $8.55 on the FREE kindle app! I tried out a sample of the book on the app for free to make sure I could handle reading only on my iPhone. (We won't mention that I read the entire 5th Twilight saga unreleased book manuscript as a pdf file on my iPhone...). I LOVED IT! Its so easy to use and not weird at all to me to read on there - I do it all day long anyway. Also, its so great bc now I can read anytime during the day. Waiting in line, at a traffic light, waiting for the water to boil.. :) So now I can read a book without being a total recluse and it is wonderful! I fully recommend it, or at least trying it to see what you think.

The book is really great too - not done yet though, about halfway through. But I recommend it also.

Well, I guess I'm off to read on the couch while the hubby, brother and friend play xbox. It's still hanging out, right? :)

Bodybugg update

I realized I haven't talked much about my bodybugg lately and thought some (or most) of you probably were thinking I had fallen off the bandwagon - and with good reason! (Remember the Zone, P90X, etc?) BUT, I am happy to announce that I have NOT! I have been wearing my bodybugg and entering my food religiously now since Christmas. That's 9 weeks! And, what's even more exciting - I've lost about 9 pounds! My goal is to have lost 12 pounds by March 12 (not for any real reason, just bc when you set up the bodybugg program, it creates a 3 month goal for you with a certain amount lost each week). After that, I will create another 3 month program and keep on going! :)

On another note, I "sold" a coworker on getting a bodybugg and I'm helping her set it up this weekend. So excited! I'll keep you updated on how I'm doing with it more often now that I've realized it would be a good idea! Good accountability. :)

I'm even toying with the idea of promising to post my "before" pictures with some "after" pics once I meet my goal. But I would have to be quite a brave woman to promise that!! Clint and I took some intentionally unflatteringly lit before photos in swimming suits before we started P90X awhile back. I can assure you that NO ONE will EVER see them if there is not a pretty dang good after photo to put next to it. Even if there is, I'm not sure I could bear it. Who wants to look at a pic of themselves in a swimsuit at a time of life when they've decided they need to lose 20 pounds?! But we shall see! :)

Clint ordered me a pink strap to accessorize with for v-day, they had not come out with colors when I got my bodybugg. :) I'm loving it!



I also thought I would start adding a little structure to my blog with some tips/helpful ideas/takeaways from the Brock's life posts. So here are a couple tips/ways I've been keeping my calories down! (my goal each day is to eat 1650 cals or less and to burn 2250 or more. Most days I eat about right but some days if I sat around all day I do not burn as many as I'm supposed to).

-SOUP. Soup is awesome. I mostly eat Campbell's, but it's almost a guarantee that anywhere you go, soup is a good choice. I do not even really go for the "healthy request" Campbells bc I don't like them that much and the calories in the reeeeally yummy ones - think Chicken Corn Chowder - are not all that bad. Most are under 400 for the whole can. So that is what I do a lot of days for main course for lunch at work.

-Lean Pockets. 290 calories, and I think they are yummy. Amy's burritos are also good but cost twice as much. Another good lunchtime main course staple.

-I can't just eat those things at lunchtime though. I always want more/something else. So I bring things that are low in calories to go with it so I don't feel deprived. Individual diced fruit cups (80 cals), Chewy granola bars (90-100 cals), sugar free jello pudding (60 cals), an apple (100 cals or so), cutie oranges (35 cals), oatmeal sometimes for breakfast or a snack (160 cals), great value yogurt - GOOD and only 38 cents! (80 cals), or even a piece of candy (50-100 cals). I'll just bring one or two of these and I feel quite happy all day.

-At Starbucks I order it skinny and/or with no whip sometimes, but I really like my drinks there with whip, so a lot of times I will just go all out and make sure not to snack as much in the evening. It works out.:)

-For dinner/evening I try to have around 1000 calories left. Usually I'll eat 500-800 of them at dinner and then I like to have snack room left. But with 800 calories, you can really eat almost anything. Most meals at Olive Garden, notoriously bad for you, top out at about 2000 calories. So, if you split the meal (and they are giant!) you end up about right. At home, unless you are frying food or making something that is mostly cheese or cream (or eating too much food in general - I was before!), its pretty easy to stay under 800 as well. But, I will say we have a food scale and I do alot of weighing on it to make sure I'm entering the right amount of food into the program.

-I eat a LOT of sugar free 15 calorie popsicles. They are awesome. Dreyer's also has some real fruit ones that are 25 cals each but they are a splurge pricewise. We almost always have popsicles in the house.

-I still eat cereal occasionally, but I measure out a serving (usually 1 cup, sometimes 3/4) so I know what I'm eating.

-I enter my food I've eaten before eating something else. Otherwise I will enter my food and end up seeing that I ate too many calories and I underestimated. I can enter food on any computer so that isn't too hard to do multiple times a day.

-Deli turkey meat. So low in calories and so fulfilling and GOOD! We usually have cajun style and honey roasted. Mmmm I had 3 slices today as a snack when I got home from work. :)

-Hot tea with splenda and a bit of milk. Constant Comment Green or regular. YUM.


Wow, this is a long post! Sorry about that. I hope you skimmed through if you don't care about food tips! I'm planning on updating more regularly about what I'm eating and maybe working out (which I don't do that much but am starting to more now). Maybe that will help me not have bad weeks where I kinda give up (Valentine's weekend made that week a no-pounds-lost week...oops!).

Thanks for listening! I'm so enjoying STAYING on the bandwagon this time. It's a much better feeling! I'm also staying on the blogging bandwagon better this time too! Hooray!

Happy Tuesday! Have a great week! :)

solving the mystery...

..of poached eggs. Never had one, never made one, never really understood them.

The inspiration:



Everyday Food magazine. They insisted that poached eggs were easy and that you could put them on/with anything. We bought an 18 pack of eggs on our last grocery run and had lots left, so I decided it would be fun to try.

I made a little english muffin-mozzarella-tomato-spinach-toast thing to try eggs with. Turned out looking YUMMY!




I asked hubby if he wanted to try my first attempt and he asked if I was making another one. When I said I was, he said he would like to try the second attempt. Ha! But he isn't too fond of things that are mushy and runny and seem like they might be undercooked, (even moreso when his wife is telling him she doesn't know what these are supposed to look like when they are done) so it was still sweet of him to give it a try on round two.

First try:



I thought it was pretty darn good and ate the whole thing. :) I had to leave it in the water longer than it said because I don't think I let it get hot enough before I put the egg in. But all in all, it seemed good to me!

Egg #2: Hubby did try this one and thought it was pretty good. The english muffin combo was dang good with it! (Lucky for me, he only wanted the one bite, so I got to eat the rest!) Looks like I almost broke the yolk, but it held, yay!



And egg #3...perfection!





I happily finished off this one as well. :)



So, poached eggs are quite wonderful, and I think I might try some other recipes with them another time. Still not sure I did it exactly right, but they were good enough in my opinion. Maybe I'll have to order eggs benedict next time I go out for breakfast. :)

Since hubby wasn't too fond of the eggs, he opted for this:



Which he insisted on eating out of the saucepan, as he always does. Very manly. To each his own!



Happy Sunday evening! Have a great week!

a day for soup

I just made this soup, which I made once last year (thanks to Katy's wonderful wedding present, a year of Cooking Light) and somewhat forgot about. The snow today made me want soup, and I remembered how good this was, googled it, and found it while at Target. :) Bought the stuff I didn't have, and came home and made it while Clint hung things on our walls. Yay for snowy days and warm soup and staying inside!

I modified the recipe a little bc Target was charging like $2.69 per bell pepper and we don't even like them that much, so I didn't put them in (except for the ones in the can of corn). Also they didn't have Serrano peppers and I googled them and they are hotter than jalepenos, so I substituted with mostly poblano (bc I knew they had a good flavor) and a little jalepeno (who knew a fresh jalepeno was like, 6 cents?!) to put a little heat back into it. The poblano pepper was a perfect substitute as it kinda filled in for the bell peppers too. YUM!!! It is very creamy despite the fact that there is no cream in it. The little flour at the beginning and the potatoes go a long way. I ate WAY more than a serving!!!


Ingredients

* 2 tablespoons butter (I used smart balance and some calorie free oil spray)
* 1 cup chopped green onions
* 1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper
* 2 tablespoons finely chopped serrano chile (about 1 small)
* 1 (4.5-ounce) can chopped green chiles, undrained
* 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
* 1 1/2 cups 2% reduced-fat milk
* 1 1/2 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
* 1 1/2 cups frozen Southern-style hash brown potatoes, diced, thawed
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
* 1 (15.25-ounce) can whole-kernel corn with red and green peppers, drained
* 1 pound peeled and deveined small shrimp
* 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

Preparation

Melt butter in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add onions, bell pepper, and serrano chile to pan; sauté 2 minutes or until tender, stirring frequently. Add canned chiles to pan; cook 1 minute. Add flour to pan; cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Stir in milk and next 5 ingredients (through corn); bring to a boil. Cook 5 minutes or until slightly thick. Stir in shrimp; cook 1 minute or until shrimp are done. Remove from heat; stir in cilantro.

Nutritional Information
Serving Size: 1 cup

Calories: 212
Fat: 6.7g (sat 3.4g,mono 1.5g,poly 0.7g)
Protein: 19.3g
Carbohydrate: 18.3g
Fiber: 2.2g
Cholesterol: 130mg
Iron: 2.5mg
Sodium: 702mg
Calcium: 131mg

Let me know if you make this! I'd love to hear if you liked it.

The apartment is coming along but still not ready for its close up. We hung some things, but a pretty large glass plate then decided to fall back down and crash on top of my newly painted desk and crack into a zillion pieces. So I spray painted the scratches (yes, inside our apt) and pouted for a bit and got nothing else done. So there it is. Photos still to come. Sorry! I did score a lamp shade I really had wanted at Target for $4.24 though. Good things come to those who wait (and forget about things they saw at full price a long time ago and liked)! :) It looks perfect on the desk, even if it is a little big for the lamp I have it on right now. I'll just switch it out when I come across a taller lamp on sale somewhere. :) Me and Clint laughed at it bc it looks like it has too long of pants on or something. But I don't care. It's pretty.

Before and After

...of our new desk!

A couple weeks ago I searched and searched on craigslist for a desk with lots of drawers that was still cute and small, but could also house hanging files. It also needed to be not too nice so that I didn't feel bad painting it. I found the perfect one, paid $50 for it, and then it sat at my parents house for weeks while we waiting to move in and see what color it should be.



I had originally wanted to paint it a fun, bright color, but that doesn't really go with the modern, muted colors in our new place (which you will see in a post soon! we have a few more things to hang on the walls). So I ended up settling on a dark, muted navyish color, but bought the cutest green drawer pulls. It turned out better than I had hoped! Spray paint works wonders -- I highly recommend it. We had spray painted our bedroom furniture awhile back, so I kinda knew how it worked...but I forgot one very important thing - the spray handles! They make it so that you don't have to use your pointer finger the whole time. Hard to explain, but let's just say after a few minutes of spraying, my hands were stuck in a claw shape. BUT I had to keep spraying bc one, it was getting dark outside by the minute, and two, you have to apply the paint to the primer within an hour of putting it on, so I had to finish before it got dark. Not to mention the fact that it was FREEZING outside and the only shoes I had were my Uggs, which I did not want to ruin, so I was in my SOCKS on WET ground. Hence the almost frostbite. :) Though my forearms and hands had trouble doing simple things like locking my apt door or opening a can of soup today, the result was worth it! TADAHHHH!









I love it!!!

7-Eleven, Bodybugg, Family

Just took a wonderful walk with Charlie, Clint and my mom to 7-Eleven. We used to take the same walk when we were little and it was the highlight of the WEEK! I can remember picking flowers for the cashiers along the way and happily presenting them to him as we bought our slurpees. We also thought it was cool that Laine's birth weight was 7lbs 11 ounces so it was kind of her store. 7-Eleven is really a great store. Having worked with them now for a while (I work for their Dallas PRC on Tuesdays and Thursdays), I have really noticed how nice and hardworking everyone involved is. And they put out a quality product. It's like a happy little family...and it has been a part of my family since I can remember. I love 7-Eleven! If I was rich, I think I might even like to own one.

Part of the reason for the walk was to rack up some extra burned calories on my Bodybugg. If you don't know what a bodybugg is, as lots of people I have found do not...watch biggest loser!! Haha.

It is quite a little wonder. Very motivating...and motivation is not something I have been able to find in the last long while....like since our wedding! I have worn it for the past almost 4 weeks straight and have LOVED it. I'm threatening to become a salesperson for them on the side bc I love it so much. I got it from my parents for Christmas and got the digital display (the watch looking thing) from Clint Dad and Trish for Christmas. It's a pricey combo but totally worth it. It also comes with online software and a subscription so that you can upload your burned calories (you connect the bodybugg through usb) and enter your calorie intake. It tracks everything and shows you how much you should be losing if you are entering your food correctly. One of the best things about it is that it shows you how little it takes to burn a few extra calories in a day. A nice walk, playing some intense Guitar Hero (we have had two noise complaints since I realized this burns a good amount of calories!), simply standing instead of sitting, going to the mall to window shop instead of watching tv...so many enjoyable, non-exercise things can add to your burned calories and really help you have a good deficit for the day. If you do go running or something, it does it a lot faster, but it shows that all you have to do is try to be active and get yourself moving a little. And then you don't have to eat dry salad and grilled chicken all the time, you have some room. I believe I have probably had one indulgent thing every single day since starting this "diet," and I have still lost the amount of weight I was aiming for (so far). It's just keeping in mind how much you have had and choosing what/how much to eat with your brain instead of your eyeballs/how-much-do-I-want-it-o-meter. It's like a little game. Yesterday I entered all my food and pressed submit and it came out to my EXACT goal of 1650 calories. I raised both hands in the air in celebration (Clint said I looked like Brett Favre) at my preciseness. And, even if you do go over on calories because someone made chocolate cake or bought you dinner out...just play a little extra Guitar Hero at the end of the night. :)

Baby Rose has not showed up so far, so continue to pray for the wonderful Rose family who are in anticipation of his arrival! I'm so excited for them and their new family. I can't believe my best friend is having a baby!! I love you Roses and I know you will be the best parents ever. I'm glad yall are gong first because I know I will have a lot to learn from yall and you will be wonderful examples!

Catch up post

It always seems really daunting to update after I haven't in quite awhile. I feel like I need to have some awesome post, complete with pictures recreating the last months to you guys. But, if that's the case, then I will never do it. I think I will just allow myself to blab about whatever I wish instead, maybe with some catch up included. :)

This weekend was our Thanksgiving with Lorie and Roger and the fam (Clint's mom and stepdad). Jared was in town so we decided to stay the weekend at Lorie and Roger's. Clint and Jared had a golf day on Saturday and enjoyed the awesome weather while Lorie, Roger and I cooked, went to Sam's for the holiday sample feast, Lorie, Kara and I did our nails and toenails, and just had a leisurely day in general. It was quite wonderful! Then Sunday was the big thanksgiving feast with the whole family. If I get around to it during this post, I'll upload some pics from the weekend from my phone. We cooked up a storm and had a wonderful meal and time with family. Then Clint and I decided to stay over one more night and just go to work straight from their house Monday morning. Woo hoo! I have had some bad allergies and just didn't feel like driving/riding home and or getting anything done at the house.

Homemade croutons for our Thanksgiving salad - cheaper AND yummier than buying them! (Lauren N - thanks for teaching me how!)

I'm really liking my job(s) and having a great time at all the events that come with them. I'm so thankful to work for such great people! In the past few weeks we have been working on: Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 release, Maserati GranTurismo Convertible unveiling, Coca Cola Dallas Elevators Kick Off Pep Rally, New Moon Advance screening ticket giveaway event, Star Trek release, New Moon screening, and many other little details. It has been bussssyyyyy!

The new Maserati GranTurismo Convertible! Prettyyyyyy

Rock T from 97.9 The Beat MCing our Dallas Elevators event!

Leigh Ann and I "posing with" the New Moon cast! We had a green screen station at our event that created these for everyone. Fun!

Clint and my Dad have been working hard on the release of DragonFire SDK, the first software development kit that allows you to write iPhone apps - in Windows!!! Until now, programmers had to have a mac, learn the mac programming language, and then create an app to send to the app store. With DragonFire SDK, they can create and test apps using Windows code they already know ON a PC! Clint has had lots of fun with it so far, including creating the website for DragonFire and the graphics for their first app, Unstacker, that is used as an example of the first iPhone app to be created in Windows. It's free - download it from the app store! If you want to check out DragonFire SDK, go to dragonfiresdk.com - send it to anyone you know who might want to create an app!

The awesome logo Clint created!

Angela, Lauren N. and I also threw Katy's baby shower since my last post. It was SOOOOOO wonderful to get to see Katy and celebrate baby Rose. I am SO very excited about his arrival and am just dying to get myself up to NY to see him somehow. It was a great time with friends, I enjoyed it so much! It was so wonderful to get to hang out with Katy, even just for a little bit. She is such a dear friend and I miss her so much these days! It was so great to be able to share in this amazing time of life with her.

Clint, myself, Lauren and Ricardo ran the 5k they talked us into! It was fun, tiring and a success! It got Clint and I thinking about options as far as training for something, but so far I can't really think about running more than 3 miles. Not sure what we will do but we need to do something! It was a good time, thank you guys for telling us about it! Good luck on your 8 mile turkey trot! -- They weren't able to talk us into that one!

Before the run...we look much happier than we did afterwards!

Book club has begun. One day after work I went in to Barnes and Noble to just look through the book and maybe read a bit, since I was planning to buy it on Amazon for about half of what B&N offer it for. I ended up reading about half of the book sitting at B&N! If you know me, you know I am notorious for this, I just can't put books down! But now I'm thinking...maybe I don't need to buy it after all! A couple more trips to the bookstore will do it! :) ...To book clubbers - I teared up at least 3 times in just the prologue and the first few pages...get ready!! :)

This happened awhile ago, but I don't think I ever posted about it: Jillian's first OFFICIAL EP came out on iTunes!!! This album is really pro quality, it was produced by a wonderful friend of Jillian's named Chris August. It has a nice sampling of several of her songs, showing the different kinds of music she writes, plays and sings. Her myspace has a link to it on iTunes, as well as her upcoming show dates, where you can buy a physical copy and get the cutely designed cover. myspace.com/jillianedwardsmusic. You can also hear many of the songs there. More news to come on her budding career. Good things are happening! :)

Buy it on iTunes here!

I should really split these things up into different posts huh? That way it wouldn't seem like there was so long in between posts! Oh wellllll. I'm long winded.

On more thing...Clint and I have become Dave Ramsey followers! November was our first month on our new budget and it has gone very well! We HAVE occasionally slipped and called him "Damn Ramsey" (Freudian!!), but it's more love than hate in the love/hate relationship. I promise it is, Dave!! I know when we get to call in and yell "We're debt free!!" in 8098340698 years, we will be loving you more than ever. Anyway, it's nice to have a good budget in place and to know we are ready for Christmas, at least. Hooray for talk radio!

We also got to go see the So You Think You Can Dance Tour! It was awesome! This was a birthday present from Lorie & Roger and Angela & Charles. Thanks guys!!

So much fun!

Fall, birthdaying, jobs, and talk radio

It's Fall! I love it! We have the windows open right now and it is WONDERFUL!

Clint's birthday was this past week and we had a lot of fun. I gave him some jeans he had been wanting (and that I had been wanting him to have;)) and the Garmin Forerunner 305 for biking! It shows all sorts of things like the map of the ride where you can compete with your own last ride and your heart rate, speed, altitude, calories burned (you put in the weight of your bike and everything!), and then you download it all to your comp and use the cool software to analyze it (and google earth). He is excited about it! We had a relaxing day and lots of fun. :) I'm so thankful to have such a wonderful husband and I LOVE celebrating him as much as possible! We also went camping with his family last weekend and had a blast. Then we stayed the next night in Waco and watched the Cowboy game (grr) with Cole, Jill, and Amber! It was so much fun. I love them. :)

I started my new job this week. I'm working part time with the marketing company I've been working with and the rest of the part time with a PR company that I met through Hawaiian Falls. I have really enjoyed it so far and can't wait to really get going with it. I love the people I work with and am enjoying the work itself a lot too, so yay!

Ugh, the Cowboys aren't doing so well huh? Booooooo. This has made me start listening to the ticket after the games during the week, which then made me start listening to other talk radio in hopes of finding the Dave Ramsey show. Then I realized it had been a week and all I had listened to was talk radio! So I'm on a talk radio streak. Anyone know any good talk radio channels or shows?

Testing 1 2 3

I'm setting this up to post automatically to my twitter account in hopes that I will update more. Let's see if it worked!

By the way, I'm LaurenBrock on twitter, and Clint is JamStudioClint. :) Follow us and leave a comment that you did so we can follow you back. I love Twitter!!

***EDIT - Clint's personal twitter is ClintKBrock. JamStudioClint is his work one. Follow him too! :)

My Sister is Famous!!! Part 2

Jillian's first online album is now available at Cdbaby - click here to go to her page!

"Indie acoustic melodies and lyrics that sound like lullabies and feel like sunshine."

8 great original songs for only $5.99! How could you not buy it? :) Honestly, her songs are really some of my favorites. They make you think and also make you happy. You can hear excerpts at cdbaby too.

If you like Jill's music, please feel free to re-blog (is that a word?) this so that we can help her spread the word.

If you want to hear full songs, go to her myspace: myspace.com/jillianedwardsmusic.

Also, she is opening for Sleeperstar at House of Blues here in Dallas on May 1. Clint and I will be there and we'd love to get a group to go! Check it out! How cool is that?!?!













Isn't she just the cutest??

upcoming posts

We are in Waco right now, about to go see SING! :) So there will be an upcoming post about that. Also, we are overdue for a post-Valentine's Day post so that's coming too. It was wonderful!

Left town right after my wonderful friend Michelle's bridal shower. It was so much fun! We are so excited for her and Cody, they are getting married in 6 weeks! Cody is such a great guy and I'm SO glad Michelle found someone so wonderful. We had fun celebrating them!

Anybody on twitter? I'm getting addicted.

I really need to fix up my blog. I'm not in the know about all the new stuff. I still just have my old links to blogs that I never update or add to. Help!

blogging!

So, we thought we'd start video blogging now that we have a camera...but that isn't so much happening and honestly I don't feel like people like it as much. Or maybe it is just bc we haven't been posting consistently lately. Let me know if you have a preference.

Lately we've been playing a lot of Guitar Hero World Tour. I'm the drummer and Clint's the guitar hero. It's quite intense. The other night we had been playing for about an hour and I realized I had been sweating for awhile!! So I guess it's a little healthier of a habit then sitting on the couch watching tv, at least. AND I'm beginning to think I'm an actual drummer...so I might have to try to learn for real. Then I could say I play like...4 instruments (not to say I play any of them well enough to actually claim them, but it would sound cool at least). Right now Clint is practicing up on the drums. I think he is trying to make sure there is still nothing that I am better than him at in the video gaming world. Maybe THE coolest thing about it all is that we got to make our own rockers that look like us. Well, they are crazy rockstar versions of us, at least. We'd love to come have anyone play with us! It's a lot of fun and we crack up at each other a lot. Wow I talked a lot about Guitar Hero!!!

In other news, I got a free magazine subscription (Marie Claire - not my fav but it'll do for free!) from our coke rewards points! We've since stopped buying diet coke so I don't die early from some kind of aspartame poisoning, but my days of being a total diet cokaholic paid off. Pretty cool!

I'm not sure if I have told the blogging world about our breadmaker we got for Christmas from my parents, but we love it! We have made white bread, cinnamon swirl bread (twice! it's Clint's favorite favorite), and we just tried rosemary bread - like Macaroni Grill's - the best ever! It came out pretty close! It's so nice to be able to make something SO homemade without making too much of a mess. And it's SO yummy!

At work we launched the new website - tangle.com - after much hard work and anticipation. My profile is tangle.com/laurenbrock. Be my friend :)

I'm working lately on having a positive attitude in different situations. I've found that it actually does work if you just look at the positive and stay joyful, life is in general, better. I usually try this in the morning when I'm usually grouchy and really not wanting to be awake. Just smiling and knowing this day is one God planned for me makes me joyful and helps me realize all that I have to be thankful for. And that really helps me not be so grumbly. Just a random little idea I've been working through. :) Contentment.

Read the whole Twilight series in a couple weeks. Loved it. SO good. I'm a big fan. I need some more books to read. Also read The Shack. Anyone heard of it? I thought it was great...did I hear that it was controversial? Any thoughts? Any book recommendations?

We've been eating chili like manly men. We had a huge thing of ground beef that was on sale, had to defrost it all, made an insane amount of really good chili, and are trying to finish it in time. It's pretty funny. And yummy.

Valentine's Day is Saturday and I have Monday off!!! Wonderfulness! I can't wait. Our first one married. :) Happy Valentine's Day everyone! <3

Clint's Birthday Trip!

I know this is crazy late... but I'm blogging... shut it.

So my 27th birthday came around and we had a dinner planned at Houstons on friday with one of my best friends, Jason. He had been saying he wanted to take us out for Laurens birthday for more than a month now, he was now going to take us BOTH to eat. So I get home on Friday thinking I'm about to go out to eat and Lauren says I have to open this one present. My family always wanted to open Christmas presents before Christmas morning but I wanted the anticipation, it like... makes the presents even better! So I didn't want to open it, but she insisted... so I did. It was some bicycle tires I've been wanting! They're lyke totally crazy awesome, no slipping, no loosing traction and falling down huge hills anymore.

Ssoooo I thought we were going to go biking in the morning, little did I know that it would be in ARKANSAS!! She made me open another present which was a bike rack so we could take the honda instead of the Xterra. It pretty much paid for itself in that one trip. Lauren already had ALL of the "gear" packed so we went to the bike store, gathered all of the necessary supplies and hit the road, 5 hours to the Highway 27 Fishing Village. We put up the tent at about 3am and slept until it started POURING. That was day 1.


It rained for hours and hours, we actually left the tent at about 2 the next day. We drove into town (pop. less than my graduating class) and got firewood (from good-ole-boy-justin, friend of the gas station lady), went to a crystal shop because Mt. Ida is known for their crystals, and scoped out the best trails to ride the next day. We found an awesome spot to take pictures and I climbed up on laurens car to take them (pics below). That night we made hamburgers over the fire and then s'mores and hot chocolate. That was day 2.


Day 3 we woke up, got the bikes all ready to go, cooked eggs and sausage on the fire, packed our lunches and headed out. We were advised to wear hunters orange because it was the first day of hunting season... so we did... for a little while. It was sooo much fun, nothing like here in texas. The section we rode had something like a 600ft elevation difference between the highest and lowest points, but by no means was it a straight line. We had lunch on a big log on the side of the trail and met a few people along the way. It was a tough decision between calling someone to pick us up or try to bike all the way back to the camp because the Cowboys kickoff was in a few hours! We biked back and made it in time, but we were soooreeee. We convinced them to let us into a cabin that wasn't rented at the time so we could shower and then headed to hot springs to watch the game. We ate there and then cooked s'mores that night.

the pics below were from the trail. huge mountain behind us and a river in front




By day 4 we were really really tired and looking forward to the comforts of the apt. We ate breakfast at the Mt. Ida Cafe because Lauren found that it was THE place to go. Their slogan was "best vittles in Arkansas"... we thought, hmm... vittles sounds kinda strange, what are vittles? So we looked them up... they're food... just, any food. We're from dallas. Then we packed up everything and came back home. Since we didn't have time to make a cake I got candles on zebra cakes!! It was yumm! The next day we went to her parents house to celebrate with a real cake :) it was the strawberry family recipe, amaz. It was a GREAT surprise and a wonderful birthday. There is no way she is topping it next year, I don't deserve her.

More Charlie :)

cutieeee!

We really need to post...

Soooo...I really like my job! It's awesome and everyone that works there is really cool! I'm so thankful to have it.

We have been watching the olympics like we are friends with Team USA, even family members...we are very tired. We ALMOST had a baaaaad thing happen last night. There was a lot of thunder and lightning, and our power went out for a second, then our TV WOULDN'T TURN BACK ON!!! It was plugged into a surge protector, but for some reason it would not turn on! Clint moved it and tried it in another plug after a few minutes, and then it worked. We moved it back and now it works like normal. During the time it was down, we, or I should say he, brought my other tv in here (which we haven't turned on since the move...we haven't gotten cable yet) and turned it on to watch snowy olympics and...two of the corners were DISCOLORED!! So basically we had no good tv for like 2 minutes. It was a sad moment. But then his started working again and the discoloration seems to be fading some on mine. FUEF!

..........I got to see Braden today!!! (AND Ashley and Morgan and Brian!:)) He is so cute and tiny and perfect. He already looks like both of his parents. Love him!!!

Quick Update

Well, I got the book for my bday (thanks family!!) and finished it in 2 days. It was so good!! Made me laugh a lot and cry some. I definitely recommend it. Great writer. I. want. a. dog. bad. (but not for real - need a yard first - and I'm in no hurry to buy a house so...catch 22).

I got lots of other fun gift certificates and things (yaaaaay for shopping!), and Clint got me a beautiful one of a kind painting set (kind of 3 paintings that make up one picture) that I really wanted to go above our bed. I'll post pictures asap as he's hanging it right now. Yay! (We have had nothing on our bedroom walls yet up to this point) I had a wonderful birthday weekend - my sweet husband did so many sweet things for me (and gave me a new Starbucks card! I had just run out of the one he gave me as part of my wedding present...it has "Lauren "Hottie" Brock" printed on it which is sort of embarrassing when actually using the card but quite flattering. :) Love you hubby)

I also started my new job this week! Hoorayyyy! I'm the new Media Coordinator for GodTube.com. It has been great so far, everyone is so nice and I'm already pretty busy. It really seems like a great place to work and everyone there keeps telling me how much they love it. Sounds good to me!! :)

Morgan and Brian had their adorable baby boy, Braden Joseph. He's adorable and I can't wait to see him in person.

Laine comes home from a month stay at Kanukuk (sp?) tomorrow. Yay! Can't wait to see her! I'm a horrible sister and didn't write her a letter so here's my shout out to her. :) The best counselor ever ever!

I'm so excited that the weekend actually means something this weekend! Yay for work! :)

It is also my dear friends Katy and Kristian Rose's 3rd Anniversary today. I'm so happy for yall and hope you had a wonderful day!

Woo hoo Olympics! Go Team USA! Our days revolve around nbcolympics.com and watching them on tv right now...who needs sleep?

That's it for now, as I actually am in need of some sleep...

:)

Awwwww!

I want this book for my birthday!!!


(and a dog to go with it...or mom and dad, it would suffice if you just got one I could play with whenever I wanted ;))

Read about it here:

http://www.marleyandme.com/book.html

It sounds soooo good! I read a bit of it at Barnes and Noble yesterday and couldn't put it down!

I love dogs. Mom you need to read this book so you will get one. :)

:)

Clint likes to make me lattes with squirrels on them. :)



Not really. But sometimes. He is good at latte art!