what would you say?

rylan and i went to charleston yesterday and on the way home, throughout many topics of conversation, we talked about something that i cannot stop thinking about. 

i had a friend from college who told me a very interesting story. his mom was in line at the grocery store behind paul mccartney, or sir paul, if you please. my first and only question was "what did she say to him?" his response was "nothing. what do you say to a beatle?" well, what indeed?! of course this got me thinking, what would i say if i ever had the fortune to meet him?

a little back story for you: in my opinion, my dad is the greatest man on this planet. he's just a stand up kind of guy, and the older i get the more i appreciate him and grow more and more grateful for having him as my dad. i did not however start getting along with him until i was a freshman in college. he would drive down every thursday afternoon of my freshman year and pick me up and bring me home. then on monday mornings he would drive me back to tucson and drop me off. and we repeated this routine for an entire year. on the 2 hour drive (yes, for normal people it only takes an hour and a half to get from tucson to phx, but my dad drives like a sissy) my dad would pick random cd's out of his collection and put them in the 6 cd changer. i never got to pick, which i didn't mind, cause my dad's got pretty rad taste in music. we always always always listened to the beatles. and he would tell me stories about when he was in high school or boot camp or Vietnam. the only thing in my whole life that we have constantly agreed on is the awesomeness that is the Beatles. the first time i ever saw my dad cry was when i gave him the Anthology for christmas one year. 

so really, how could you say in a simple, coherent sentence, how music sir paul's music has influenced my life? i guess you could just say "thank you" but in my opinion thats too understated, and you are talking to a living legend. i thought about "my dad and i really like your music" but that sounds lame too. there's not a right or wrong answer here, it's just interesting to think about. i of course should never be allowed to meet him because besides peeing on myself, i wouldn't make any sense. words would come pouring out of my mouth in nonsense and it would be better if i could just be speechless, but i can't.

p.s. it's also the only music rylan and i can agree on. i know he knew who they were, but i'm going to take full credit for his love of the beatles. he's going to disagree with me on that one.

round two...

of eating better! here goes nothing.

this only needs to last until kristyn's wedding. i don't want to lose weight (i don't have weight to lose, i'm a skeleton) but i want to be healthy. i see the women i work with, and they look haggard and they aren't even 50 (i say this with all the love in my heart, they're great women on the inside!) granted they've all smoked their entire lives and i've never had one, but i'm tired of feeling tired all the time. i can feel the changes in my body from eating PDs every day and not getting as much exercise as i used to. i never really even exercised, but running around campus all day, or even running around the theatre, chasing 15 year olds, was better than the nothing that i'm doing now! 

so here's the changes i'm going to try to stick to: 

- i bought a blender and i've found some awesome recipes for super healthy smoothies. 

- i'm going to take the dog for a 1 mile walk at least twice a week. 

- do more yoga.

it's little stuff, but i just need a little kick in the butt to be more active (dancing around my kitchen only does so much). 

so here goes healthy kick #2!

oh, and about the smoothies: i bought almond milk, bananas, strawberries, peaches, honey, and whey protein. i made one tonight. whoa, so good!

another culinary adventure. and v-day

i surprised rylan with a trip to chipotle for valentines day! anyone who knows rylan, knows that its a huge deal. the closest one is in jacksonville, fl which is about 2.5 hours south of us. i didn't tell him where we were going, i just plugged it into the GPS and away we went. as the address popped up, his only response was "the last place i would've ever guessed is jacksonville".  he was pleasantly surprised, and very well fed. that made it so much easier to drag him to j.crew (hey, it's my valentines day too!) the rest of jax was kind of a bust, but at least we ate like royalty! 

he bought me mama mia. his only remark was "nothing says i love you like buying you a movie i hate". ain't he romantic?! i, on the other hand, bought him a kevin smith dvd and an awesome shirt from threadless with movie spoilers on it. but i didn't have a smart ass comment to go along with it.

i made chicken wrapped in bacon. the way into his heart is to wrap food in bacon. words cannot express how totally delicious it was. and theres this cheese sauce to go with it. outstanding! and i made another gooey butter cake. i've determined that i can make anything as long as all i have to do is mix stuff and then throw it in the oven. 

a little bit about our adventures in the kitchen lately.

i'm home alone this evening, so i decided to bake. jamie (one of my awesome bosses) talks about his mama's million dollar pie, so i thought i'd at least look at the recipe. well it looked pretty easy and tasty! i had to go buy a 9x13 pan which i am assured i will use again in the future (quite debatable). so far i have chopped pecans and made homemade whipped cream! all i can say is i'll never buy cool whip again. that stuff is good y'all! i just got the crust out of the oven and it's cooling. so far, so good.

the other night i baked chicken. you think "okay, no big deal" but for a girl who can only boil water, it was kind of a challenge. i wasn't aware you had to cover it in foil. it came out pretty dry but rylan seemed to love it. and then i tackled giada's lemon pasta. holy cow thats so good! i was quite pleased with myself.

rylan made awesome chicken parmesan the other night. and when i say awesome, that word doesnt even begin to describe how good it was! i've been begging him to make it again, but alas, he is quite content with hamburgers and tacos. 

although im not always a fan of sweets, since i tend to crave salty foods when i'm hungry, i do prefer baking desserts over making dinner.  my mother has been so proud of me lately that she offered to buy me a food processor. now what the heck am i supposed to do with that?! i really want a mixer. a pretty red kitchenaid one. it would look so awesome on my kitchen counter!

eating well... well, maybe.

so i'm sitting here watching oprah talk about living her best life and i'm getting all inspired and stuff. i take notes! i write down what we should not be eating and what kind of vitamins we should be taking. that dr. oz knows his shit, y'all! i start looking into getting a juicer and the benefits of drinking green tea vs. rooibos (red) tea. i make a healthy shopping list consisting of walnuts and blueberries and salmon and multivitamins (make sure its got iron in it!) 

and then rylan comes home from school and says he wants to go get burgers for dinner.

well there goes that idea out the window! maybe i'll start the healthy thing tomorrow... but i'm still thinking i want a juicer! that stupid infomercial gets me every time! 

our new years was a quiet one. we're not big party people (i'm sure you've figured that out by now) so we spent a nice quiet evening on the couch in our jammies with champagne.  so heres my soapbox about new years resolutions: why do you have to give stuff up for new years?! you have 365 days a year to kick your dirty habits. january first is just one of many days when you can start anew.  so i'm going to try to do more! i'm going to embrace my vices and then some. like, instead of lose weight, i'm saying eat more dessert! HA! i realize i sound like a total hypocrite after going on my oprah health kick, i have no excuse :)

we went ice skating on new years day. well, okay, I went ice skating. rylan crawled along the wall and then sat down the rest of the time. i hadnt ice skated since high school. i had a blast. i wasnt good but neither was anyone else. it was nice to get out with friends and do something totally different. and the best part: they played hangin' tough! we walked over to five guys burgers afterwards and had yummy yummy burgers!

fa ra ra ra ra...

we had a warm and wonderful christmas! but i'll start at the beginning...

3 days before xmas, a small jewelry sized box showed up under my tree... hmmmm

christmas eve started pretty early for us. i volunteered us to wrap presents at the mall for habitat for humanity.  wrapping presents is one of my favorite things about the holidays, so i thought this would be perfect for us, plus they were short handed of volunteers on xmas eve and we didn't have anything else to do. we got home and rylan started talking about our yearly tradition of opening one present on on xmas eve. so i picked one out for him and then (being a typical girl) grabbed the small box.  i opened it up, and he had bought me tickets to see twilight at 7:30. now i know im totally geeking myself out by admitting this, but i loved those movie tickets more than i wouldve loved jewelry! hahaha (oh and by the way, for inquiring minds, rylans early gift was the dark knight on bluray).  i made pot roast for dinner! it was awesome, if i do say so myself. i guess i can add that to my list of things i can make.

we got up early this morning to open gifts.  we made out like bandits, considering we didn't really know what to ask for.  rylans parents bought us a 32 inch flat screen high def tv (awesome!).  rylan got me an ipod dock with speakers for the kitchen. blaine and ginger got us gift cards to 3 different hamburger restaurants around town, as did nicki and jim.  andrea got me a "wicked" puzzle! we got books and clothing. excellent! excellent! nicki and jim adopted us for the second christmas in a row. we headed over there around 10:3o am. we ate good food, enjoyed wonderful company, and played wii bowling until my arm almost fell off! i'll admit it didn't feel like christmas without our own parents, but they are the best second family we could ever dream up! oh and to get back to my first statement about warm, it was 79 and sunny in good ol' Savannah today. if we didn't have plans with the hansens, we'dve been at the beach! 

hope everyone had a very merry christmas!

dear santa,

all i want for christmas is a new job.

xoxo chels

okay so the tree is up, and i'm waiting for one more package to come from a mysterious place that rylan cannot know about (yet!)... after i wrap that, i'm all set for christmas, with 2 weeks to spare! i think thats a record for me.  

i love this time of year. in my opinion there is nothing more beautiful than christmas lights. even the ugliest house looks nice with some lights up. okay thats a lie, some people go overboard and get tacky! those inflatable things that people put in their front yards are heinous. my parents neighbor in phoenix has the worst yard! i think you can actually see it from space, and thats not a good thing. we've noticed a lack of outdoor christmas lights in the sav. people are really big on wreaths and bowes, but not lights.