A Couple of Sick-Os

Richard and I were BOTH sick yesterday with a stomach bug. He came home from work yesterday morning and was out of commission the rest of the day. I was feeling OK and decided I better get a jump on house work just in case. Is it just me, or does anyone else get panicked when someone gets sick in the house and feels the need to clean as much as you can in case you catch it? I'm glad I did. By 5:30 I knew I was coming down with it too.

Poor Matt, hew was kind of left on his own. I think he ended up eating watermelon, candy, chips and queso, and a biscuit and jelly from the time he got home from school until bed time. By 8, he was asking me about dinner and I zapped him some pizza rolls in the microwave. The dinner of champions. I felt like I was in some kind of bad family sitcom because by the time I was tucking him into bed, I had to run out of his room so I could throw up. Nice huh? Surprisingly, he stayed in bed and went to sleep. While all this was going on, Richard was passed out in the bed recovering from his bout of sickness.

I have decided there should be some kind of law of nature that prevents both parents from getting sick at the same time. Now we are praying that Matt does not catch it.

Homemade Tortillas

I think I have gained 10 pounds the past two days. How you ask.

Two words.

Homemade tortillas!!!

I have always wanted to try my hand at these but thought they required special tools and, not to mention, lard. Then, on my fairy tale trip to Central Market, I discovered their tortillas. Their tortillas are like carb crack to me! They taste sooo good and are not gooey at all. When I read the ingredient list I was shocked. It was very simple and no lard, just oil!

At this point, I knew I could find a good recipe somewhere in cyber land to feed my carb crack addiction. Central Market is about a 40 minute drive from my house and with the price of gas, I would be broke before I ever got into the store!

Anyways, I did some searching and found this nice little recipe with a handy video. When I get a chance, I need to explore her website because it looks like it has a lot to offer if you love Mexican food.

Here is the cast of characters. How simple is this??? We all have this on hand.

2 cups of white flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. vegetable oil
3/4 cup warm water

She suggest you add the wet ingredients into the mixed dry with a fork one tablespoon at a time. This was the hardest part for me because I am not patient and I wanted to just dump the water and oil in :) It seems like it will never mix into a dough but it does.

It's getting there....

Finally. You also have to knead the dough for about 5 minutes. That's when I break out the stand mixer :) After that, you cover it with a damp paper towel and let it rest for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, you pinch the dough and roll it into small balls. Then cover with the same damp towel and let it sit for another 10 minutes.

Finally, sprinkle some flour on your surface and start rolling the balls out into tortillas. They are about an 1/8 inch thick.

Cook in a black skillet until it starts bubbling and flip.

YUM!!

I ate 4 of these slathered with butter hot off the stove. I made another batch the next day and used half wheat flour. They turned out perfectly and were healthy right?? Thanks for the suggestion Suzy!

These were so easy to make and really not all that time consuming. The best part is that they taste so much better than store bought and are cheaper. I will warn you, once you start making these you will not stop eating them!!!

Caught in the Act

Matt and Lola had no idea I was watching. Matt was suppose to be eating his snack.

Looks like Lola figured out she was busted :)

Running

Remember this post way back in January? The one where I ran my first ever mile and had the goal of running the Blue Bell 5k . Well, that never happened. We ended up having a conflict with the date and a few others in the area. Boo.

However, I am happy to announce that last week I ran two miles straight. I didn't think I would EVER get to two miles!! The first mile is killer for me and all I want to do after that is stop and walk/run the rest of the workout.

I can't tell you how good it feels to meet a goal! I hope it doesn't take another three months, but next up is 3 miles.

For anyone interested, here are my recommendations:

• Mix it up to figure out what works best for you. Try running at different times of the day. Also, try eating a snack before or running on an empty stomach. For me, I run better on an empty stomach in the morning.
• Make a playlist of your favorite music or download some podcasts. I like to use upbeat music to start with. One of my favorite songs to start off listening to is Diverse City by Toby Mac. It's just plain ol' fun and I bought it off itunes for 69 cents. The big problem I have with upbeat music is I want to run to the beat. This can be a problem since I run s-l-o-w. I also listen to podcasts by David Platt sometimes. He is the author of Radical and if you need some meat to chew on while you're moving, listen to him.
• If you have a smart phone, get a running app. I use one by Nike and Richard uses Run Keeper. I love my Nike app because it tracks my run, talks to me, integrates my music, and keeps a history of my runs. Also, when I start a run, it posts to facebook and everytime people like my post or comment, my music stops and I hear cheering and clapping. I love this feature.
• Buy a good pair of running shoes. I bought mine at Academy, but next time I am going to a running store to get some advice on what kind of shoe to buy. I didn't want to spend a great deal of money at first in case I absolutely hated running. Since I have stuck with it for this long and actually enjoy it, I am ready to spend a little more and get a really good shoe.
• Don't run in your "booby pad"! Wear a sports bra. For us girls, this might be more important then good shoes, lol.
• Make sure to stretch before and for sure after. It boggles my mind that Richard hardly ever stretches. I have to stretch, I guess it's the dancer in me.
• Drink water. Personally, I can't drink much before and since I do not run long distances, I don't drink it while I run. However, when I am finished, I load up.

Hope you can use one of these tips. What about you? I can always use advice in this area. Do you have any favorite running/workout songs or tips? I would love to hear them.

Booby Pads and Mysterious Leaves

Here are a couple of humorous highlights from the Lewis house today:

• While watching me chi my hair this morning (yes I actually did something to my hair today!!), Matt spied my clothes laid out. Of course, being a male, he grabbed my bra and started waving it around while chanting "I have your booby pads! I have your booby pads!" I thought, "you are such a guy". Then he said "I think Mrs. ___ (his teacher) has some of these too. She has booby pads, she has booby pads!" I finally said zip it. That's all I needed was him telling her about booby pads, lol. For the record, I do not call them booby pads. I have no idea where this came from but it was pretty funny.

• When I was dropping him off at school, we kissed and hugged goodbye and I said "sweet dreams"!! He looked at me like I was crazy and said "Mo-om!" I definitely needed a second cup of coffee.

• On the way home from school Matt states that he would like to start a collection. I think to myself, "Yes Matt, this is just what you need. More stuff!" I tell him he already has a collection, TOYS, specifically Legos. Matt says not that kind, he wants to "get a basket and collect cards, rocks, mysterious leaves, and sticks". If you know what a mysterious leaf is, please let me know because my son would like a huge collection of them.