Wonderful Weekend

It's so very hard to handle Monday after a fun three-day weekend. We jammed about as much as we could into one weekend. Here's the rundown:

Hit up Motor City Comic Con

Went downtown for the Detroit City FC game (we won!)

Took an impromptu road trip to Lansing for the best sushi.

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Snuck in the best breadsticks to Star Trek: Into Darkness

Other highlights include pulled pork nachos, buying some American flag shorts, outlet shopping, and winning some jean shorts (and Green Dot Stables coupons) at the DCFC game.

Where else are you going to see a jean shorts cannon??

I also bought a couple things at Comic Con:

I love Totoro!

All in all, it was a pretty great weekend. How was yours?

Nice cream

I'm sure you have tried or at least heard of banana "ice cream." Something magical happens when you freeze bananas and blend them up -- they take on the texture and a lot of the taste of vanilla ice cream. 

My friend and I were talking the other day about those Yonanas machines (and knockoffs). She said she had used some berries and it turned it into soft serve. I had some strawberries I had to use, so I decided to try freezing them and mixing them with the banana. The results were delicious. 

sorry for the great quality of this photo.

This was last night's concoction. I mixed a 60-calorie container of Kroger-brand low-carb white chocolate raspberry yogurt (that I had frozen first), frozen strawberries (about 6 large, sliced), and one frozen banana (also sliced). I also added some sugar free chocolate syrup. The result was a huge bowl of tasty goodness.

Sometimes with just the bananas, I will crush up a chocolate chip cookie dough Larabar for pseudo chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. Other times, I will use peanut butter and cocoa powder. 

I can't wait to try this with raspberries! 

On the other end of the food spectrum, apparently some Taco Bells have waffle tacos? It looks like a waffle folded over with sausage and egg inside. Why don't the Taco Bells near me sell breakfast!?

After going to that link, I kept going down the Buzzfeed rabbit hole, and came across this:

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Doughnut ice cream sandwiches? That's genius. More here with the 23 most perfect foods in the universe (I don't know if I agree with that, but some of them look pretty good). 

This post is a bit of a contradiction but you know what? Who cares? It's Friday! Let's party!

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Puppy Problems

WARNING: This post is not intended to be read if you are in the process of consuming food or beverages.

So I had a pretty interesting wake up call the other night. At around 2 in the morning I woke from a peaceful slumber to the sound of my boxer puppy jumping off of our bed, running into the hallway, and releasing explosive diarrhea everywhere. As upset as I was at that moment, I do applaud him for running onto the tile floor instead of ruining our carpet or bed. Then I got the privilege of cleaning it all up by myself because the smell alone made my poor husband instantly sick from the other room. I can already foresee into our future, him gagging every time he has to change our child's diaper and handing the job off to me. Ohh joy...

I love my puppy very much, and it is amazing to see him grow so quickly, but I am totally ready for this puppy stage to be over. In one aspect I feel as though I am failing horribly at properly training him because my husband and I are at work all day, but then I think about how he won't let me leave the room without him being my little tail wagging shadow, and it makes me feel like maybe I am doing something right after all.

When we first brought Sammie home we were able to house train her within a few weeks, and ever since then she has been the most well-behaved dog. However, Champ seems to be the complete opposite and still struggles with his training. I think the worst thing to happen lately is catching him in the act of eating his own feces. Yes you read that correctly, and I hope that I haven't totally grossed you out at this point. I read that this problem, also known as Coprophagia, is very common for puppies and is caused by a number of reasons. Boredom or anxiety could be a cause, as well as overfeeding, feeding a dog food low-quality food that lacks in nutrients, parasites, lack of exercise, emotional stress, or their need to "clean" their area. I am not sure which of these could be the cause to Champ's problem, but I read that incorporating a small amount of canned pumpkin, pineapple juice, or spinach, to the dog's food helps to make their feces repulsive to them. I suppose it is worth a try.

For those of you that may share my debacle, or are struggling with training their dogs, I found some helpful infographics that may aid you in your quest:

 

The Dog Training Secret

Hella Wella

If anyone has any helpful dog training tips and tricks that they would like to share, I would love to hear from you!

I also came across this great website called The Dog Bar, that is full of goodies to spoil your animals. They are located in Miami Beach, Florida. The prices are a bit steep for me, but I still have fun browsing!

Looking at stores like this also make me really interested in one day owning my own pet store/bakery/spa/training class/hotel/park/hangout for fellow obsessive pet lovers :)

A girl can dream..

- Jenny

Self love

I was planning on posting about something else today, but this morning at work, I opened up one of my notebooks and found this quote:

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I have no clue where I saw this or when I wrote it down, but it smacked me in the face this morning.

Like many women, the climbing temps have me feeling the pressures of swimsuit season. Most of the time, I'm happy with myself and my habits, but I still struggle. I try to keep the habits of healthy eating and working out regularly, but I'm not perfect (especially in the food department). 

Still -- these things are just that: habits. I should aspire to them, but not be dictated by them. On Monday I had a late lunch with a friend that I hadn't seen in a while. We had a great time, but I got home too late (and too full) to fit in my workout. Instead of being happy about spending time with a friend, I felt guilty about skipping my workout. This is when habit crosses into obsession.

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I tend to do this a lot. I feel so overwhelmed when I get home from work, because I have to work out, shower, make dinner, do the dishes. I don't even have kids! (Kudos to all you moms out there!) This is all pressure I put on myself, for no reason. These should just be things that I do, and if they get skipped, no biggie. 

I think my biggest problem is figuring out the balance. Sure, I can't sit on the coach with a spoon and a jar of peanut butter every night instead of working out (even though that sounds wonderful). But if I have the opportunity to actually do something, I shouldn't feel bad about choosing that experience over a few crunches. Nothing is going to change that drastically overnight. 

Working out does make me feel good, but it shouldn't be a chore. 

Does anyone else do this to themselves? I feel like women are so much harder on themselves than men. Why do we do this, ladies? We need to build ourselves up! Let's all love ourselves a little bit more this week. And everyone, man or female, should try to be a little bit more like Ron Swanson.