Can I be Beauty?

Yes, for those of you who got the title of this blog, I mean Belle, as in Beauty and the Beast the Disney movie. I may, or may not, be watching it right now. Burr has his head buried in a 300 page document he is reviewing and I had some light work to do so I decided what better than to sing to my fav flick and work. Now, for those of you who think you are too old for fabulous singing and Disney music on a lovely Sunday. YOU ARE NEVER TOO OLD! You are scrooge if you cannot sing “Be our guest” for just a second when you hear it :-P

Weekend was FAB. Lee came into town. She is so helpful and efficient. I swear I get more done with 24 hours with Anne and Lee, then 72 hours with just Anne. I cannot help, when I’m left to my own devices I usually get horribly side tracked - shopping happens, some immediate need for baking occurs, and perhaps a little extra yoga or something (aka nap) ….then the next thing I know I’m late for meeting Burr and I’m thinking “Now, who can I pay to be my personal assistant and do all these things I was supposed to do!?)

So Friday night dinner with Jenks and JJ = amazing!! I’m going to try this tri-tip (sp?) carne asada Trader Joe’s beef asap. Thank goodness we were in front of company when she pulled out the ice cream – otherwise I highly doubt I would have shared. TJ’s- I heart you. Almost as much as I heart London’s M&S fruit. Seriously , I probably spent $100 a week on fruit at M&S when we were in London. It was so delicious, Burr can attest. I hit my minimum 5 fruits a day by lunch…oh…well at least I’ve saving money now without M&S. wagh

Saturday Lee came into town and we went to browse furniture EVERYWHERE! You know the problem with furniture….well there are a couple things

a) Its expensive

b) It doesn’t move very easily

c) It does not return like a pair of shoes as easily

d) Tax is higher…hence more expensive

e) I cannot take it with me during the day, it’s a stationary item – therefore I have a hard time saying I can spend XYZ on a sofa that I may or may not sit on daily….at least I will use a purse daily (I think I just talked myself into that LV I’ve been eyeing)

f) I have to clean it, or in our case pay to have it cleaned, but I don’t think it will be included in our 7 items for $27 at the dry cleaners down the road.

So I think I’ve come to this conclusion – everyone should just donate their furniture they don’t want to me. Then I can use our money to go travel and on clothes, how I like to spend money!

Perhaps we should leave our living room completed bare and empty as it is now….I can think of some fabulous uses it for it. They are:

1. Group Jazzercise at Anne’s house (technically burr’s house too – but who’s counting) *

( *Side Note – I can just picture it now, 6am, and all us gals are step-togethering-stepping or grapevining our way through Britney’s “On my radar” when Burr comes stubbling out wondering why it sounds just like a herd of elephants…lol)

2. Group yoga at Anne’s house …ummm…too stinking…PPPP..UUUUUU

3. Dance party at Anne’s house. Yes please!

4. Slip and Slide? Is this possible without the water? If not….I don’t think it’s a good idea with our new floors.

5. Meditation room *

*Side Note - (I have tried this, but all I can think about is..”time is money” and how I just wasted a very useful 15 minutes by sitting around…and I didn’t even get to sing to Beauty and the Beast while doing it!)

6. Roller Skating room - I would have to buy roller skates, then I would have to buy an outfit to go with the roller skates , and at this point I probably just should have bought some actual furniture.

7. Bigger closet (DING DING DING) and we have a winner !!! - “Hello guests, welcome to our home – don’t mind my dresses in what should be a living room, I just like to fill our space with beautiful pieces….hehehe”

Oh and today we did Myers Park Pres with Anne Brady as she became a deacon. Way to go!!! And tonight Sally and Andrew came over for dinner – they just live around the corner now! And we had a little early celebration for their bdays. I made homemade pasta sauce (and bought fresh wild mushroom pasta from Pasta and Provisions) – check this out:

Turkey Spaghetti Sauce (super meaty)

In crockpot, on low 6-8 hours

1 lb ground lean turkey

2 cans V8 juice – low sodium

1 32 oz can diced tomatoes

1 jar no sodium TJs pasta sauce

Lots of spices (no, don’t ask me what they are, I just toss things in)

Onions/mushrooms.

DELISH!

Kisses to all – muah - muah.

What’s up this week:

1. Girls night – woo woo 2. Matt Nathanson concert 3. Dinner at E2’s (Emerill’s new CLT location)

Love

A


PS - HAPPY BIRTHDAY CLARE!!!!  I love you very very much, even though you love Burr more.

PPS - Back to the title of the blog, I'd like to wake up tomorrow and live in a palace (a fully furnished one)!  Wish me luck.

Menu Mastermind

Hello there! How was your Wednesday?
Mine was great, it would have been fabulous if my job was a personal shopper or something…but I woke up today and I was still an accountant. Oh well. Day in the life of an accountant was good too.

There was no work out to be had this morning, I was on a hunt for a research project so it was straight into work. But I did manage to grab some yummy food that my friends and I made on Sunday.

So this past Sunday we had “Menu Mastermind” – which is basically where 2 other gals came over who wanted to prepare yummy foods that were healthy. I bought all the groceries, started 2 crockpots early in the morning, and then we cooked 4 main meals and 2 breakfast items. Here are my favs:

1. Protein Pancakes – I think the almond extract in these makes them, they are delish! Especially if you add bananas and agave…..I wish I had more but I ate these on Monday and Tuesday for breakfast.
http://www.bigoven.com/recipe/236144/flaxseed-protein-pancakes



2. Turkey Meatloaf – I got the individual receipe for this so you make it in muffin tins. We also made with whole wheat cous cous….why? because its my house I only have white flour for baking cookies (i.e., when its absolutely necessary!)
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/turkey-veggie-meatloaf-cups/

3. Slow Cooker chicken tortilla soup - Any soup in a slow cooker is good! And this was awesome…perhaps a little high in sodium so I added some extra water instead of chicken stock.
http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=94735

4. Slow cooker pulled pork – Burr loved this stuff.

5. Asian stir fry – With just a little seasame oil and ginger this really changes the way veggies tatse

6. Spinach, Feta crustless quiche – this was good…only downfall was Anne provided the wrong pan to Becky and there was a bit of a spillage issue.
http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=308291

Tonight I went to a ballet barre class. Its unreal how you can barely move your body at all and it hurts SO BADLY. I hope I am moving tomorrow….ouch ouch ouch. Hoping I can make it to jazzercise but who knows.

Really looking forward to this weekend!!! Lee is headed to Charlotte to visit us  And Belle too.

Kisses

Anne

Anne is Back!

Anne is back!!!! WOO WOO …Did y’all miss me? I should certainly rename our blog, or perhaps I could just keep it as anneandburr and blame all my terrible spelling and grammer on Burr (side note 1*) , would anyone believe me?

*Side Note 1 – My mom is still correcting my grammer constantly, love ya mom, but I’m 30 (wagh) – do you think its gonna stick? Keep trying. Love you for trying! Lets hope for everyone who reads this it sticks, but I still get confused with “then” and “than” – yeah I know…but I know the difference between platforms and pumps, or pashmina’s and scarfs :-P

So you have been missing my blogging?! Me too! I totally miss blogging!! The problem I was having since our return to the US is I thought since we weren’t in London or traveling the world I had nothing fabulous to bring – but I thought perhaps I would just start again on the “Life in Anne’s eyes– just minus safari’s and malaria meds”

Today, as a I ran late-ish into the office (because I decided taking a morning jazzercise class was completely necessary) one of the Bank of America greeters was literally yelling at all of us as we piled onto the down escalator (Side note 2) – “Good morning! Have a FAAAAAAAA-AAAAAA-AAAAAAABBBBB-ulous day!” – it was so loud it nearly knocked me over and you know the first thing I thought – it was “SHHHHHH - you would terrify the British people I used to work with….shhhhhhhhhhh!” – seriously no one in the UK would ever imagine talking that loudly in public, they are all so soft spoken. I feel bad for any european’s traveling to the BofA corporate center – no wonder non-US folks think we are abrasive and loud, even our morning greets sound like they are coming out of a yelleader’s megaphone. I mean, I know she was trying to be nice – but perhaps she just needs a cute decorated piece of poster board [I’ll get right on that.]

Side Note 2- Down escalators, or escalators in general people! Or as I previously referred to them as, moving stairs…They are wide enough for 2 people, at least, maybe even 3 of some of the girls at work that eat celery all day, MOVE over people – hug a railing. Don’t stand in the middle. Don’t let your bag hang in the middle. You standing in the middle prohibits me from walking up and down the stairs. (or in some cases, makes me gently nudge you over, gently of course - hehe). And while we are at it – you stand on the right, move on the left. Lets go US folks…why are you standing on the down escalator anyway? You can’t move like 5 steps ? – reflection – my previous blog dated April 1, 2009 - http://anneandburr.blogspot.com/2009/04/scratch-thatburr-starts-today-anne-sent.html - discusses how I HATED having to walk up and down what I called the “MOVING STAIRS” – reading this blog made me laugh so hard!!! Now in comparison to the amount of moving stairs I climbed in the UK vs. how many I have in the US – I’m approximately 250 steps less everyday…and I wonder why I can no longer eat pound cake everyday around 3pm without gaining weight…wagh. Note to self: find additional stairs to climb everyday.

Other interesting items that happened in my day was catching up on this season of the bachelor…I feel this deserves its own blog entry which I plan on writing soon. For those who have not watched it – I highly recommend you do so, but only when you are alright losing brain cells and not looking for simulation…but perhaps motivation, there are lots of bathing suits.

Current question of the moment: To become a jazzercise instructor or not???? Hmmm…not as a carrer. NO NO NO, just as something additional and super fun to do. Some people love to run (I think there is something they feed to my TX family, they LOVE LOVE LOVE to run, or something in their food – I wish I did love to run, but I don’t even know if I would run with something chasing me…probably the lion from the safari, but then again what’s the point its just going to eat me anyway – might as well stand still and see what color its eyes are, right!?) and I love to dance in jazzercise. I swear its so fun and you burn calories without even realizing you are moving. I’m just singing to Britney, Biber, Selena Gomez, or J-Lo and all the sudden 1 hour has gone by I’ve burned like 500 calories and I’m done with my workout for the day. Yippeee. I am positive the chicks next to me are screaming “White girl syndrome – wow” * Side Note 3

(Side Note 3 – For the older folks out there, this means ANNE CANNOT DANCE, but THINKS she can)

So – perhaps I will start a poll on whether the investment to become a jazzercise instructor is worth it? Any thoughts? Anyone tried it? Don’t knock it till you tried it.

Kisses – MUAH MUAH

A