Happy Halloween!!

~Happy Halloween from The Single Gal and The Housewife~

Hogan masquerades as Spiderman!

#1 Meets Her First Carved Pumpkin!

Y'all be safe and have fun today!

As God As My Witness...This Single Gal Will Never Go Hungry Again -- Well, Not This Week Anyway.

First off, many thanks to The Housewife for keeping the blog up and going for basically all of
October. This last month has been incredibly busy with training/complaining about training,
social activities, family stuff, etc.

I have been going non-stop for the last few weeks -- and I am exhausted.  Not
Scarlet O’Hara I-Lived-Through-The-Civil-War exhausted, but pretty close. I haven’t
been able to properly devote as much time as needed to my training this month
(Dear. Jesus. When. Can. I. Stop. Training. And. Run. This. Race. OMG.) 16 miles on the pavement this morning and our last 20 miles next week. We are in our training “peak”and it hasn’t worked out well with all the family activities, engagement parties, birthday parties, and squeezing in much needed time with The Housewife and our girlfriends that all ended up happening in the month of October. I tried my best to be everywhere and pretty much accomplished that goal.

So this weekend I gratefully fell into the black hole of “I’m {Happily} Not Leaving the House
(Except to Run and Maybe Go To Starbucks)” syndrome...or, we could dub this weekend -- “The Weekend I Finally Made Stuff from Pinterest!”

Since I am sick of microwaving almost all my Single Gal Meals I happily dusted off the crock pot and actually made a real meal (I am just as shocked as you are, trust.). One that I might be able to finish by Friday.

{chicken taco chili}

 

I ate this while having several severe heart attacks during the GA/FL game on Saturday. It
needed more chili powder and maybe some Tabasco to really get a good flavor, but since this
was my first try I’ll call it a sloppy win-- just like The Dawgs had this weekend. Georgia played some seriously sloppy football but thankfully ended up with a W.

And if you are wondering what I will be eating the rest of the week...

I also snagged this recipe off of Pinterest as well to try this weekend:

{pumpkin scones}

I am not sure why this picture is blurry.

 

Ok, these mis-shaped triangles of goodness don’t exactly look like they fell out of Southern Living Magazine, but they were delicious! And, as this example shows, no matter what they look like just throw them on a fancy plate, drizzle them with spiced glaze and ta-dah! 

Scones aren’t always my favorite because they are kind of crunchy and can be a bit dry but the spiced glaze really adds a lot to this fall pastry.  My house also smelled wonderful this morning while they were baking away in the oven.

{currently reading}

And, for those who may care about literature I also finished the book Dracula In Love by Karen Essex and managed to get more than halfway through a new book, The Silent Governess by Julie Klassen on my Kindle this weekend! I might even finish it tonight!!  I am not huge on book reviews so I have just linked them up to Amazon for your perusal.  I enjoyed/am enjoying both but they weren't/aren't 5 stars or anything.  

I love cooler weather where you want to cuddle up with the dog and your chicken taco chili and read all day!

Love you. Mean it. 

~Incredibly Productive Single Gal~

I ain't afraid of no ghost.

Halloween will be here Monday. I'm glad it will be over on Tuesday. Then we can begin to celebrate fun and beautiful Holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's not that I'm anti-Halloween...I'm just indifferent about it.  I'm pretty sure traffic on the night of Halloween is some of the worst throughout the entire year. AND let's not talk about scary movies.  The Turtle loves scary movies. The Housewife does not. Paranormal 3? Para- no-thank-you! I don't even like to hear the scary theme music while I'm locked away in the bedroom with a happy chick flick on. Something like You've Got Mail or When Harry Met Sally. Don't pretend you don't love a good Meg Ryan flick. 

 No trick or treating for us this year. Not because we don't believe in it but because I'm not buying a $20 or $30 costume to be worn for maybe 20 minutes. Plus, we don't live in a neighborhood and no one trick-or-treats on our street. We'll do it next year when #1 might understand and be excited about it. There goes parent of the year awards. The secret is out. #1 hits the sack at 7 p.m. anyway. 

Eating a sweet gum ball. Yummy.

Hope everyone enjoys their weekend! Here is a Pumpkin Patch picture of #1. It was very hard to get her face because she looks at the ground most of the time and tries to eat leaves, bark and the like. Sigh. That was much more interesting than the silly orange things laying around in her way. We don't have a fancy DSLR camera which is practically a parental requirement these days. (This post is just full of parental fails.) So we maintain our slow shutter speed and *might* get a picture where she is looking at us.

I do have an old dog Spiderman Halloween costume  that I dug out for Hogan. BUT.....like everything else in this house it has now disappeared. You hear me, Turtle? I'm talking to you. I know you did something with it because I left it on the dinning room table and it has vanished. Please return it.

The Housewife

It's the Final Countdown

No. It's not really the finally countdown but the Single Gal and I are in the final throws of marathon training. It's not pretty. We are whiny bitches at this point, seriously. In reality since we only run 3 days a week and occasionally 2 days depending on how far our long run is for the week there are only maybe 10 running days left in the plan. But it's almost 10 runs too much. We started base training in June. (That's the training you do BEFORE the "real" training.) Not that it wasn't great for the Housewife because I'm pretty sure I've lost some mad inches. I haven't weighed myself in forever and I'm okay with that because I have some slouchy jeans that basically fall off of me. Sometimes I'm afraid if I wear them in public I might be ticketed for them being too low off my waist. Like this. 

Yo Dog! Was up?

I found a really funny picture of a girl with her jeans hanging off but it was borderline pornographic in my opinion and we don't totally support that here. A little too much plumber butt for my taste. I got my new pair of marathon shoes to break in before the big day and some new running socks. I'm not sure if we covered the socks in our gear post but dry fit socks are a must have. 

The Single Gal and I are also on the detox train pre-race day. (Except for coffee.....that would just be dumb. Obvi.) We are off the drinking train until race day. (Only I cheated and had one glass of wine last night. Ugh......confession. Maybe the Single Gal won't read this.) So I'm starting over again today. The Turtle peer pressured me. I'm weak. And it really sucks that detox is during football season....especially when Alabama is going to play LSU next week. Only I won't be able to stay awake after running our last 20 miler and attending something for 4 hours immediately after that. 

PS.- Anyone else panicking about Holiday shopping yet? (I'm raising my hand.)

The Housewife

Who Let the Dog Out?

Me. I let the dog out. My worst nightmares coming true!!!!!! But before I tell you that story I should start at the beginning. The Single Gal had to go to Savannah Saturday night for our friend Little A's engagement party after our morning run. So she entrusted the Housewife household with taking care of Hogan. Which was apparently a big mistake on her part. (Just kidding. We really are seasoned pet owners we are just out of practice since Bailey has passed on from this world. She was blind in her last few years so she never strayed far in the end and would not run away.)

We picked the H-Man up on Saturday and no worries. He's visited here before and #1 quickly began following him everywhere and doing her "woof woof" speak and pointing at him. She loves dogs. A lot. Thankfully Hogan tolerates her shenanigans very well and shares his toys with her. Sunday morning we wake up with relatively little drama from H-Man that night. We get everyone ready to head out of the door to church and we are loading #1 up in the car so I run back inside because I want to make sure I "doggy proofed" everything that Hogan might think is tasty or fun to tear up. So come in my laundry room from the garage and go move two things and head back out but I pause........WHERE IS THE DOG???

Panic, panic and more panic. I hit the laundry room and the damn door is OPEN!! Why????? Who left the friggin door open? (ME! Stupid Housewife.) Turtle is waiting in the car at the opposite side of the garage and I fly through the door and spy Hogan just past our other car at the top of the driveway. Major panic now. I can't breath. How could this be happening? For those of you who don't know Hogan is a runner should he be let off the lease or escape the clutches of your home. I'm thinking the Single Gal is going to spike my head on a pole for this. The Turtle is highly confused as he sees me bolt down the stairs  in my skirt and boots chasing and yelling for the dog very much like Julia Roberts in My Best Friends Wedding when she is running after Michael who is chasing after Kimmie. Oh the drama.

So the dog bolts. Turtle gets out of the car and I run in the get the collar and leash and he goes after the dog. I yell at him because I'm not seeing enough sense of urgency. And he tells me no wonder the dog kept running because I'm yelling like a lunatic and chasing after him. True, I think to myself. So he goes off and I get the car and do a round and luckily when I'm coming back down the road Turtle has at least gotten Hogan back up on our street even though he's still lose. I jumped out of the car and calmly and rationally got the dog. Thank you baby Jesus. Disaster averted. Then as Turtle and I drove to church we debated the pros and cons of telling the Single Gal.

The Housewife aka Professional Dog Chaser

Dog Lady

Hi, I'm the Single Gal and I'm obsessed with my dog. But I'm sure you knew that.  Anyway, I scheduled a small family portrait session for myself and Sweet Hogan a few months ago and we had our shoot a little over a week ago and I have been dying for the proofs.  Seriously.  I thought I would die before I saw them.  I tried to show some of them to Hogan on my computer when I got home but he still just likes to do "dog stuff" like play with Nasty Squirrel.   And, I don't think he was cut out to be a model because poor guy slept for the entire afternoon once we got back from our adventure in photography.

Love and Sunshine

Our photographer was the lovely and talented Kaylan and she is based out of Atlanta.  She is super organized, totally nice, and gorgeous.  She was so nice to put up with my dog-lady self before I even had my morning coffee. 

View here website {here}.  Stalk her fun {blog} like I do. "Like" her page on Facebook.  Check out all of her lovely work.  Hire her for goodness sake!

You can find lots of our proofs on her blog from {our session}, and I will leave you with a few of my favorites, even though I love them all.

That's right, Hogan can do "Blue Steel". 

Besties.

~black and white~

<3

Happy Tuesday Y'all! It's a bit gray in Georgia this week but I hope you find sunshine, love, and happiness in something before the week is over. 

~the single gal~

Party Like It's 1999

OR........like you have to run 20.5 miles for marathon training BEFORE having #1's first birthday party this  Saturday. Yeah. Seems like a great idea. I'm only starting to mildly panic about the party prep (or lack of prep).

Gah. The Turtle and I have not even started to practice her smash cake yet. Not to mention now I want to make some of these adorable rice krispie treats for the party guests as well.  Similar to these except minus the additional hooker pink glitter on the top. Seriously, it's like clear heels on a stripper. Bad accessorizing rice krispie treats, bad.

I'm either doing to do a plain pink smash cake or a Cookie Monster smash cake. This doesn't look difficult at all does it?  I'm sure I can whip it together in a few hours perfectly. Right? The Turtle's mom made all of their cakes for their birthdays when they were growing up. Not just some cake with icing and piped on "Happy Birthday" but elaborate cakes. Therefore Turtle says "we" should make it. Does your husband or boyfriend ever "we" you? I get "we'd" all the time. ( "We" should change the sheets which equals the Housewife changing them.) As the Single Gal and I say it's about to be Cake Bossy up in here. #1 will probably cry because her cake is "looking at her." I'm kind of freaking out just looking at this picture of six cupcakes staring at me. They really do look like they are coming to get me.

If you need me I will be running errands to pick up party and baking supplies and when I'm running on Saturday I'll just pretend these cupcakes are chasing me with their large weird eyes and a cookie in their mouths.

The Housewife