Happy Halloween!!!

I LOVE Halloween! Although it's probably my 4th or 5th favorite holiday (behind Christmas, my birthday, Thanksgiving, and maybe New Year's). But still, it ranks right up there. Work was fun yesterday seeing all of the little kiddos dressed up. Today is a cold rainy day so far but it should still be a fun one. I currenlty have a Charleston Breakfast Casserole in the oven and later we have plans to take Bailey trick-or-treating at our next door neighbor, Kingston's house, followed by watching some Penn State football and ending the evening keeping the order at a couple of Halloween parties. Sounds like a pretty good day to me!!

Bailey the Ballerina!

*This was just us messing around last night (and tricking her with treats!!) We wanted to order this banana costume from Target for her but they were sold out :( So I found my tutu from when I was about 5 years old and guess what? It fit Bailey perfect!

Neighborhood Dogs

Bailey's neighborhood friends are all very awesome and unique, I can't believe I haven't blogged about them yet. I really really wish I had pictures of each of them to do it justice, but I don't really want to weird out any of our neighbors by asking them if I can take a picture of their dog for my blog! So I will do my best to give you an idea of what they're like by describing them and then stealing pictures from the internet :)

Our immediate next door neighbors have a 4 month old pitbull named Kingston. He pees the second he sees you and he adores Bailey. He always tries to lick her face and run underneath her. When they first brought him home, Kingston looked like a clown. He had his ears cropped and taped with a little bar in between to keep them up and he has GINORMOUS paws!!

Then we have Lil' Bit. The guy that lives below us has a live-in girlfriend and this is her dog. Lil' Bit is this tiny, 14 year old, gray, sickly looking dog that the guy below us lovingly calls "The Rat." I think he's some kind of terrier mix. He's not really too fond of Bailey. He'll sit on the balcony and when he sees Bailey come out for a walk he does this kind of half-growl/half-bark. It's like he's saying "I don't like you but I'm old and I don't care enough about you to even bark." Also, he's afraid of tennis balls.

Diagonal from us we have a bulldog, Calvin. Calvin is awesome and his owners are doing their best to teach him how to skateboard! Unfortunately, all Calvin wants to do is eat the skateboard. He's always panting real heavy and if he decides he wants to check something out when his mom is taking him for a walk, she just has to hold on tight because he pulls her all over the place. Calvin is also a Georgia Tech fan.

Relaxing weekend

Why do weekends always seem so short? Always. We had a pretty fun yet relaxing weekend. Saturday we watched Penn State destroy Michigan (wooooooooo!!!!) with some friends. Our friend Doug moved to Baltimore a few months ago and he was back this weekend visiting his girlfriend, our friend Paige (aka Jack's mom) so we hung out with them a bit. And that means the puppies got to play with each other! They chased each other, chewed on each other, and Jack even whined to me when Bailey stole his rawhide. I caught up on some much needed sleep this weekend (quite frankly, I'm embarrassed to tell you what time I woke up today). And for dinner tonight I made crock pot buffalo chicken sandwiches. Yum!! We have a regular week ahead of us as Halloween is quickly approaching! We have a few parties lined up and some pretty awesome costumes thanks to Jackie! Stay tuned!

I love this pic. Bailey is like "You play with my dad, I'll bite your neck!"

World Series Bound Baby!!!!

The Phillies are going to the World Series for the second year in a row!!! Wooooooooooo!!!! I've had so much fun watching them this post-season - I hope that fun continues into the World Series! (I also hope we don't play the Yankees - for the fans sake - because someone is definitely going to end up getting beat up). My brother called me last night after they beat the Dodgers and I think his exact words were:

"This is crazy - I've never seen anything like this. It's midnight and people are everywhere in the streets. Someone is playing the bagpipes, the police are driving all around, and people are banging pots and pans. I've never seen anything like this!"

Just wait until the world series!!!

Happy Physical Therapy and Breast Cancer Awareness Month!

It's just by chance that Tom and I are both in professions that happen to celebrate the same month. October is both National Physical Therapy Month and Breast Cancer Awareness month.

The APTA has actually just started a new promotional brand of physical therapy "Move Forward" and CNN money ranked Physical Therapy as the 7th best job in America!

You all know I work in pediatrics, and I'm sure many of you have been to see an outpatient orthopedic physical therapist or know someone who has. In fact, when people think about physical therapy, they often think of someone working on your knee or your shoulder, or perhaps working with an individual after a stroke. While these are common, I want to make you aware of the many, many different areas that physical therapists are involved in.

Did you know that within the APTA, there are 18 subspecialty sections** which therapists can become a member of if they work or are interested in that specific area? And within each section, there are usually 2-4 "SIG's" (special interest groups) that focus on even more specific areas. And even with all of the sections and SIG's, there are still even more specific areas out there that PTs work in but aren't popular enough to have a national focus group. For example, I work primarily in pediatric oncology. I'm members of both the Pediatric Section and the Oncology Section but there is no SIG for pediatric oncology. Also, I've become a lot more involved in the PICU (pediatric intensive care unit). While the adult literature is just starting to boom in this area, there is no research on early mobility in the ICU related to pediatrics.

To sum things up, (sorry - I can easily go off on several tangents on this topic!) there are so many options within physical therapy. In fact, if you think of any health related problem, there is a good chance that a physical therapist could help with it (from diabetes to lymphedema to solid organ and bone marrow transplants to broken bones to cancer to wounds to anoxic or traumatic brain injuries to spinal cord injuries to high risk pregnancy to developmental disabilities to autoimmune diseases to COPD to asthma to obesity to CF to cardiac-related problems to surgeries to incontinence to sprains and strains to PAIN to amputations to burns to premature babies to mitochondrial and genetic disorders to arthritis to osteoporosis to stroke to sports related injuries to okay, you get my point :) Go see a PT today!!




**The sections include: Acute Care, Aquatic Physical Therapy, Cardiovascular & Pulmonary, Clinical Electrophysiology and Wound Management, Education, Federal Physical Therapy, Geriatrics, Hand Rehabilitation, Health Policy & Administration, Home Health, Neurology, Oncology, Orthopaedic, Pediatrics, Private Practice, Research, Sports Physical Therapy, and Women's Health.

Pesto Challenge and Baking Day!

First of all, Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!! It's FINALLY cold here in Alabama!! But I'm sure it will get a little warmer again before it stays cold, and that's fine with me. But since it is about to get cold I really need to find some uses for fresh Basil before my basil plant dies. I'm kind of sick of my go-to pesto recipe, so I did a little searching and found 3-4 new recipes. Today I made 1 of each, taste tested to see which one we liked best, and stored an abundance of pesto in the freezer for cooking this winter. The recipes I made were


1) Easy Pesto
2) Simple Garlic and Basil Pesto
3) Pesto Sauce

And the winner is..........Simple Garlic and Basil Pesto!! Except I accidently burnt the pine nuts when I was toasting them, so I ended up using ~1/4 cup pine nuts, ~1/8 cup walnuts and 1/8 cup almonds (all toasted). I also only used about 3/4 cup of olive oil. The other two weren't bad, but the simple garlic and basil pesto was by far my favorite.

I also made beer can chicken for dinner and 4 loaves of pear bread (2 are for work, 1 to freeze for later use, 1 to eat now). Consider this your recipe of the month post :) Our home has smelled amazing all day. We took a break in the middle of all of this cooking to take Bailey to Petco. Our neighbors invited us to a Friends and Family "Pre-opening" of the new Petco. Bailey loved checking out the new store and playing with her friend Kingston (stay tuned to learn more about Kingston). We bought her another tag silencer since she somehow managed to chew off the first one we got her.

I don't really have any pictures of the pesto because it wasn't that exciting or pretty to take pictures of. Here are some pics of the pear bread and of Bailey "helping." Sidenote: Doesn't she look like that creepy old guy from Family Guy's dog, Jesse? Haha. Gross but that's what she reminded me of in this pic.

Oh, and one more thing....Let's Go Phillies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Caving in.....

I'm THIS CLOSE --><-- to buying a brand new flat screen tv. I've been wanting one for years, but have been holding off because, let's face it, a brand new television is not something we really need. Our regular screen, 27" television that I just bought in 2004 because I needed a television still works just fine.

When flat screen tvs started becoming popular several years back I had a whole plan.
Step 1: Wait a couple years until they have mastered the technology so I can get a better product for my money.
Step 2: Let the novelty wear off after they come out with newer models so the prices drop.
And then with all of our moving in the last few years came Step 3: Wait until we are finally settled somewhere so my precious new tv doesn't get damaged during the move.

Well, Step 1 and Step 2 have panned out and I'm glad I haven't bought a new tv yet. LCD tvs seem to be the much better choice over the plasma (which was originally the most popular, and cheaper of the two). However, now they are coming out with LED back-lighting (and edge-lighting) for LCD tvs and these seem to be the "new wave" of technology. Last night I was googling the difference between LED LCD tvs and regular LCD tvs and came across this article that was written yesterday. (I think that it's a pretty strong sign that this was written on the day that I was looking up the information! ;)

Anyways, I'm 99% positive that I want to get a 46" Samsung LCD tv with 1080p and 120 Hz. I like the picture quality of the Samsungs the best and they seem to have good ratings online. Now I just have to narrow it down between the 20 different models that they currently have available! And you know me, the bargain shopping queen, so I've been scoping out prices at various stores/websites. You'll be the first to know when I take the plunge!!

Baking and Racing

I did it! I successfully made a pumpkin roll! And of course the pictures didn't do it justice at all :( It was perfect! Although I'll be making another one tomorrow since Tom committed a food offense in lab. Since the pumpkin roll recipe only uses about half a can of pumpkin, I also made pumpkin chocolate chip muffins. (Use brown sugar instead of white and double the cinnamon and the nutmeg). Yum!! I'll try to take some good pictures of the next one and post them.

Today Tom and I ran the Race for the Cure here in Birmingham. We had a good time and I really enjoy this race. It was raining almost the whole time and just plain GROSS outside so I don't have any pictures from the race except for the ones I stole from the internet :) There were over 14,000 people there this year! That's way more than 2 years ago when I ran it last. The rest of today was spent watching football and organizing my coupons. I seriously HATE cutting and organizing coupons but it's worth it when I go to my favorite grocery store and spend $29 while saving $71 :)

Race for the Cure

Tom and I are running in the Birmingham Race for the Cure tomorrow morning! You can go here or here to donate to a great cause! Pictures to come!

The Best Ever Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

This seriously is the best ever homemade chicken soup. The recipe is compliments of my friend Paige.

Ingredients:
1 whole chicken
1 chopped onion (I puree the onion in the food processor so we can't tell it's in there :)
1 large can cream of chicken soup
1 can chicken broth
4 tbsp Tiger seasoning (this is the "secret" ingredient - I went to about 5 different grocery stores and was unable to find it. You can also use Morton's Nature Seasoning Blend if you can't find the Tiger seasoning).
1/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp garlic powder
2-3 shredded carrots
1 pkg egg noodles
1 can milk (put milk into empty chicken broth can to measure)

Directions:
1. Boil chicken in a large stock pot until cooked then peel off and put back into the chicken stock.
2. Put onion in and let cook 5-10 minutes.
3. Put in noodles and everything else except milk and carrots.
4. Put in milk.
5. Put carrots in last.
6. Cook for 10 minutes - 1 hour. Even better the next day!!
7. Enjoy!!!

Goals

September Goals
1. Dry some of my basil for the winter Pass! Also, if anyone wants some fresh basil please let me know. Somehow I managed to do something right this year with my basil plant and it is growing out of control!
2. Start a new blog series for September...Recipe of the week Um, kind of pass? Okay so I've only blogged about 2 recipes. So I guess this goal is a FAIL! I'll try to keep it going for October.
3. Be at work by 7:45 4/5 days of the week Pass! I think we've been at work by 7:45 most days, and if not I was definitely there by 7:50 at the latest.
4. NOT get the swine flu from work So far so good! I was able to get my seasonal flu vaccine this past week. I've probably worked with 5-6 patients with swine flu in the past month so I guess it's pretty good that I didn't catch it!
5. NOT gain 5 pounds (or more) from eating dips and snacks every Saturday while watching football Pass so far! Fingers crossed for the next 2 months!!

October Goals
1. Increase savings by 10%
2. Run a 5K. (LAME goal since I'm signed up to run Race for the Cure this Saturday!) But considering work has been so stressful and I've only been to the gym once in the past week *gasp* it may actually be a challenge to run the whole thing. (Although I did run 3 miles the ONE time I went to the gym last week so hopefully I can pick back up tomorrow where I left off!)
3. Successfully bake a pumpkin roll (hopefully it will turn out better than the first one I made a couple years ago).
4. Take pile of stuff stashed behind the bar to Good Will
5. Open a Roth IRA. Okay, okay, I know I was supposed to do this back in August. And I had good intentions of doing it then too. I just didn't like the expense ratios at Charles Schwabb and they were the only investment company where I could afford the initial investment. (Don't I sound smart when I talk about expense ratios??? I'm like 90% sure I know what that means). Anyways, I found a new account through Vanguard (which is who I wanted to open with in the first place) with a smaller initial investment requirement. I'm really really going to open one by the end of the month!

A much better Saturday

Today was a much, much better Saturday than last Saturday. In more than a million ways. I wanted to sleep in, especially since I was EXHAUSTED from working 12 days in a row. I really tried, but a certain 4 legged creature kept putting her front two paws on the bed and trying to nuzzle her nose under the covers to wake us up. After succumbing to her wet nose and playful nudges, I got up and enjoyed my coffee on the balcony. It was cold enough to require a sweatshirt and socks but it felt so good to sit outside and sip my coffee!

Later in the morning we headed to the 2nd annual Bark for a Park Festival, where Bailey played for hours in a pseudo fenced-in dog park! She LOVED it! As soon as she got into the fenced in part and off the leash, she immediately led a group of dogs in a full speed race around the park.

After the festival we came home to watch the Penn State game in the comfort of our own home. (It's a good thing too, since coasters and plastic cups flew at one point.....) Bailey was exhausted and pretty much slept the whole afternoon.

After the game we had the best homemade chicken noodle soup ever (future recipe of the week....coming soon!) We ended the evening by relaxing on the balcony enjoying the cool weather and the smell of fall, followed by some late night football after it go too cold to sit outside.

Recipe of the Week

I've been CRAVING this fall dessert but haven't had time to make it yet. Hopefully this weekend I can get my bake on!

Pumpkin Roll with Cream Cheese Filling
Source: Very Best Baking

Ingredients
CAKE
1/4 cup powdered sugar (to sprinkle on towel)
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup LIBBY'S® 100% Pure Pumpkin
1 cup walnuts, chopped (optional)

FILLING
1 pkg. (8 oz.) cream cheese, at room temperature1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
6 tablespoons butter or margarine, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Powdered sugar (optional for decoration)

Directions

FOR CAKE:
PREHEAT oven to 375° F. Grease 15 x 10-inch jelly-roll pan; line with wax paper. Grease and flour paper. Sprinkle a thin, cotton kitchen towel with powdered sugar.
COMBINE flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves and salt in small bowl. Beat eggs and granulated sugar in large mixer bowl until thick. Beat in pumpkin. Stir in flour mixture. Spread evenly into prepared pan. Sprinkle with nuts.
BAKE for 13 to 15 minutes or until top of cake springs back when touched. (If using a dark-colored pan, begin checking for doneness at 11 minutes. Immediately loosen and turn cake onto prepared towel. Carefully peel off paper. Roll up cake and towel together, starting with narrow end. Cool on wire rack.

FOR FILLING:
BEAT cream cheese, 1 cup powdered sugar, butter and vanilla extract in small mixer bowl until smooth. Carefully unroll cake. Spread cream cheese mixture over cake. Reroll cake. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least one hour. Sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving, if desired.

COOKING TIP:Be sure to put enough powdered sugar on the towel when rolling up the cake so it will not stick. Also make sure bread bakes flat so roll can be thinner.

Happy Thoughts

So, most of this weekend pretty much sucked (working 8.5 hours Saturday, having to go into work Sunday for 1.5 hours, Penn State playing the worst I've ever seen them play) so I decided to concentrate on the happy things from this weekend that make me go "Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

• I set a new PR at Publix this weekend by spending $44.39 and saving a whopping $93.22!! That's almost $100 off!!
• I got a lot of free stuff this weekend (and this past week) including
  1) Gillette Fusion Razor for Tom
  2) eos lip gloss sphere
  3) Glade Fragrance Collection soy candle
  4) Oral B Advantage toothbrush
  5) Crest whitening plus scope toothpaste
  6) Nivea lip balm
  7) Quaker Quakes rice snacks (Ranch flavored!)
• Hanging out with Dougie D and company
• And last but certainly not least, Bailey got to play with her BFF Jack not once, but TWO different times!

Alabama State Fair

Tonight we went to the Alabama State Fair with our native Alabama friends Wes and Tara and a few of their friends. It was a little more "carnival-ish" than I had imagined. I thought it would be more like people bringing their livestock to be judged, etc. (I guess that's what growing up in farm country will do to you!) They had a ton of rides in the far section like your typical carnival. Then they had a petting zoo (where I had to wash my hands after we left and I didn't even pet any animals - some chubby, sweaty kid ran up to me, grabbed my hand and started pulling me before he realized I was NOT his mom), LOTS of fair-type food (Tom enjoyed a mustard corndog while I had a funnel cake), helicopter rides (with a dog chasing after the helicopter EVERY TIME it took off and assisting with landings - I'm not sure how the helicopter didn't land on top of him), a husband and wife monkey show (comlete with leopard print costumes - for humans AND primates), pig races, the world's largest hog (over 1100 pounds), and my favorite attraction.....Monkies riding Dogs (aka Banana Derby)!!

Baby Goats!

Pig Racer #2. He lost.

Monkey man and one of his star monkeys posing for the camera

Monkeys riding Dogs!!!!

Oktoberfest

We went to the Free the Hops Oktoberfest this weekend and had a blast. Yes, I know it is still September. (Please keep all "slow-south" themed jokes to yourself). They blocked off this little area downtown and had a variety of oktoberfest brews and German food. Here are some pics. We all look ridiculously happy in this first pic......how could you not be happy at Oktoberfest?! Some people even dressed up! They had a German band and one guy played this long horn (50 awesome points for anyone who knows what it's called). And when they came around with a tray of free donuts at the end, Brian and Matt made good use of their resources and dipped their donuts in the beer.

Things I am LOVING right now....

• Pumpkin Spice candles
• Football!!
• An excuse to eat constantly all day on Saturday
• My new position at work
• Anticipation of cooler weather
• Our newly organized linen closet
• This song by Lily Allen
• Baking
• Season premieres are starting this week!
• Bailey being fully house trained (she has been now for several months actually, I just didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t want to jinx it!)
• Kisses on my forehead when I'm asleep
• Oktoberfest (Both Sam Adams and the upcoming FTH festival)
• Bailey's tongue hanging out the side of her mouth when she is tired

Recipe of the week!

The pork loin from Sunday was too delicious not to post. Here is the link for the original recipe.

Roast Pork Loin with Crumb Crust

Ingredients
1 (4 1/2-lb.) boneless pork loin, trimmed
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 cup fine, dry breadcrumbs
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley
2 tablespoons chopped garlic
2 tablespoons coarse-grained Dijon mustard

Preparation
1. Sprinkle pork loin with salt and pepper. Place pork loin on an aluminum foil-lined broiler pan.
2. Stir together breadcrumbs and next 4 ingredients; press breadcrumb mixture onto top of pork loin.
3. Bake at 425° for 15 minutes; cover loosely with aluminum foil. Bake 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a meat thermometer inserted in thickest portion registers 155°. Let stand 10 minutes before slicing.



I used fresh sage instead of parsley because I had a bunch of it from a co-worker. (We did an "herb swap" since my basil is growing out of control and she has an over-abundance of sage). I've made it before with parsley and it turns out just as yummy.

Art and Football

This past Friday night we went to Art Walk for the 3rd year in a row. (You can read about year one here and year two here). Hopefully I won't write the same thing :) Although I must warn you (if you are anything like me), if you click on "year one" you will be craving a pepperoni roll instantly. Anyways, first we went out to dinner and had some awesome sushi at SPR. Then we met up with some friends to walk around and enjoy the art (and Good People). I ALMOST bought a glass plate that has multiple uses but I decided to not be an impulse-buyer and thought I would wait and just check out the artist's website to see what other designs she has. Too bad the artist is HORRIBLE at updating her blog and etsy site and she has nothing for sale on either. Luckily, I've seen her at other art events in Birmingham so maybe I'll buy something from her in April at Magic City Art. (And very nicely let her know that she needs to keep her websites updated!)

Saturday we woke up seriously ready to watch some football. We headed over to Stacy's because she is our hero and has Direct TV and ordered all of the fancy extra stations you need to watch Big Ten football in the South. We had 3 tv's going....the PSU Game in Stacy's room, the Iowa game in the living room, and the Florida game in Kelly's room. Luckily, everyone won and we all stayed friends :) Saturday afternoon and evening we reluctantly cheered for Michigan and Ohio State. (Okay - before you judge me, you try living in the middle of SEC country and listen to everyone bash the Big Ten for three years!)Bailey came with us to Stacy's and had the time of her life playing with Casper and Bentley. This is pretty much how she looked the whole rest of the night.

Today was spent running errands, attending a baby shower, and cooking the most awesome smelling pork tenderloin ever. (I'm seriously almost drooling right now - it smells like the holidays in our house). There were 5 coupon inserts in today's paper! Holla! Actually there were 6 if you live in the south because Publix had one in there too (in addition to their weekly little flyer that's always in there). And I love me some Publix coupons because you can pair them with a manufacturer's coupon for extra savings.

I also tried to curl my hair like this today. What a disaster. I think I pulled half of it out with my flat iron and then it didn't even curl. It did do this kinda cute flippy thing at the ends but it was definitely not worth ripping half of my hair out to achieve.

And I almost forgot I was supposed to be posting a recipe of the week! Check back soon while I find something yummy to share with you all. It might just have to be this pork tenderloin that is almost finished cooking...........

Bailey and the Chins....BFF

When we first got Bailey we didn't let her in to see the chinchillas for a week or two. I guess we were hoping that she would just "adjust" to them if she slowly realized they were there. At first she went CRAZY trying to sniff them through their cage and figuring out how she could get to them. After a short time, she got used to them and now she absolutely loves them. She'll go into their room and put her paw up on the cage and they will come over and nibble on her nails. (See pic below). It's the cutest thing ever :)