Good day to you!

Hello everyone out there in blogland! So sorry for my absence. I'm just not feeling the blog thing lately- I've not been eating well, I've not been running, and I've just come from the doctor to find that I now weigh the most I have in three years. Awesome. In the past two years, I've gained about 10 pounds. That's not cool. I keep telling myself "After my birthday, I'll start eating better," "After the weekend, I'll start eating better," "After I start training for my half..." and so on. You get the picture. Ugh.

I do start training for my half in two and a half weeks. I still can't believe I am going to try to run 13.1 miles. YIKES. We'll see what happens.

Lately, we've been working with the children at church for the upcoming Christmas musical. Can you believe Christmas is not even two months away? I can't. Haha. It's a crazy time, but they are so cute and we have a lot of fun with the little ones. I've also started helping a great lady with the organization of Operation Christmas Child at my church. Instead of having people fill boxes and then bring them in, we are having people bring in a lot of stuff and then the women of our church are having a salad dinner and box packing party in November to get the presents ready for the kids overseas!

No recipes today... Like I said, I've not been on my game lately... It's been pretty bad around the Discovery household. Sorry blogland!

OH MY GOSH

You'll never guess what I did.



I registered for my first HALF MARATHON!!!

Three Weeks!?!?!?

This is my life as I now know it (and LOVE it):

Crossley and me!

JCREW! (Some of us)

Our group of kids at the Middle School Retreat

Danielle and me at the Middle School retreat!

Change Matters!

Rebi and me at Homecoming!

This girl is awesome! She was one of my brother's youth way out in Texas! :-)

Friends! So good to see Mark and John!

Clean Eating Mag's Country Fried Steak with Rustic Mashed Potatoes

Mexican Casserole

Chicken Chili

As you can see, the Discovery household has been pretty busy! This past weekend, we went on a Middle School Retreat with 20-something of the best 6th, 7th, and 8th graders EVER! It was a great weekend. Mr. Discovery and I were able to sneak away on Saturday afternoon to go to our Alma Mater's homecoming football game, which was really fun. I mean, what could be better than lunch at Macado's, touring all the new and cool stuff they've put on campus, and seeing friends who we haven't seen in forever?

This weekend, Mr. Discovery (you like my new names for our little family unit?) will be photographing a wedding at the Greenbrier. Oh, but it's not just ANYONE'S wedding. It's the CEO of the Greenbrier. Um... yeah. That's pretty stinking amazing. Haha.

Now that work is back in full swing (well as "full swing" as I can manage), I have a new-found love for slowcooker recipes and casseroles. Actually, I've always loved casseroles, but I have only recently discovered the glory of the slowcooker. :-) I might have to create a new tradition, like "Slow Cooker Sundays" or something. :-) The mexican casserole above was really, really good, even though I accidently left out an ingredient! Haha. The chicken-fried steak was a remake, but I still am not thrilled with this recipe. I mean, it's good, but nothing beats the deep fried goodness that is Texas Roadhouse's chicken fried steak. The chicken chili was OK yesterday straight out of the crockpot, but it was great reheated. It thickened up overnight and really improved, though the chicken was a little dry. I feel like this recipe emulates Bruswick Stew, which is my favourite, but it just wasn't quite the same... Perhaps that's why I didn't care for it as much the first night.

I took TWO weeks off from running, which was a big mistake. I ran 2.75 miles yesterday, but I'm so ashamed of my time that I will not be sharing that with you. I took a 2 minute walk break halfway through, but yeah... It was abyssmal. I felt newly motivated by all the Nesties who just finished their MARATHONS!