Some good eats!

It seems as thought this summer, I have not got to do a lot of something that I love and that is cook. The training plan that Brett and I are following has us running every night during the week and since he gets home so late, we usually end up with something quick and easy when we get back. This week, though, we were in for two yummy treats. Last Sunday we had the perfect day...one of those that you sit and quietly pray would never come to an end. After our long run in the morning, we enjoyed coffee and donuts (thanks Nat and Jase!) on the patio and then spent the afternoon reading on our new lounge chairs. When our bellys started growling loud enough to hear, Brett fired up the grill and made some amazing steaks while I boiled some of the best corn ever ( Mirai corn from the Wheaton French Market, but there early, it goes fast). Doesn't this look like a happy boy ready to eat some meat!

We also had some tasty wine (in the backgorund) with such a clever name - Vin De City Red :-)

Last night, I tried a new recipe that Sam had given to me from her Rachael Ray magazine: Chili Stuffed Zucchini. Click the link for the recipe, but I did make a few changes and have some ideas for next time. First, I used ground turkey instead of beef. I also had no idea what pickled jalapenos were so I used regular slices like you would put in nachos. Next time i would buy the hot ones thought because they didn't have much of a kick. The recipe also suggested that you could sue potatoes instead of zucchini, but I really like the zucchini! I would definitely make this again, but I think I would go with an Italian taste for a change. Season the meat with some basil and oregano, use mozzarella cheese and maybe even sprinkle on some bread crumbs. Very tasty and the possibilities are endless. And last, this was the fabulous snack I had yesterday afternoon that allowed me to beat my four mile time by two minutes! Water, shades, and some light reading only made it better...

Fresh banana, organic cottage cheese, and a dark chocolate granola cookie, Mmmmmm!!!!

What have I been reading...

I know I have done a little complaining about how busy I have been and that I have been feeling a bit stressed. In between summer school, classes, yard sale,and all the other things that have been keeping me running, I have found some time to read. At the beginning of the summer I made a summer reading list for myself. Unfortunately, it took me half the summer to get started and it seems that these books are on a lot of other people's list and are difficult to get from the library.

But, so far I have read the following chic books and was not disappointed by any of them:

• Such A Pretty Fat by Jen Lancaster
• Pretty in Plaid by Jen Lancaster
• Something Borrowed by Emily Griffin
• Something Blue by Emily Griffin
• Shopaholic Ties the Know by Sophie Kinsella

And I read the following non chic book and was not disappointed in it either:

• Night by Elie Wiesel
  

Not bad given that it took me until half way through July to get started...

So, anyone read anything else that I should move to the top of my list? Happy Reading!

Scotty comes to town!

Last week my brother Scott and his friend Stephanie came to spend some time with us. We had a busy and fun filled week showing them around. The highlight of their trip was Wednesday night when the went to see Blue Man Group. They loved it and even got be part of the show - the people who come in late.
Brett and I enjoyed a fabulous dinner at Jack's on Halstead while they were there. The food was so good, you only get to see what was left or rather, what was not left on my plate...
On Saturday we went downtown. We decided for a change in mode of transportation that we would try out the water taxi. So fun! I think from now on, I will go to the city and just a ride around on one. I never knew how many neat things there were to see from the river level. I now have a whole new list of restaurants to try! The ride really gives you a whole new perspective of the city and Brett had dun seeing what kinds of pictures he could take. Pretty cool...

After our water taxi ride, we exited onto Navy Pier. It is such a touristy pace, but I always enjoy walking around and being close to the water. Everyone was staved so we had a very delicious lunch at Bubba Gump's and then did a bit of shopping on Michigan Avenue, where Stephanie made her first Tiffany's purchase.

I always love when one of the boys come to visit and this trip was no different. I do however wonder if they'll ever make a trip out together...hahahaha! We did a few other things - made ribs on the grill, tye-dyed t shirts, shopped at Woodfield, went to the outlets and otherwise just hung out. Another great summer visit!

Just checking in...

Here I am again...stopping by for quick hello and a quick update. The past week has been a blast - two teenagers int he house! Scotty and his friend Stephanie came for a visit and just left last night. So one of my many "To Do"s today is to download pics and give them a respectable post.

So what else is going on? I have two distance learning classes due at the end of July and I have barely started them. Distance Learning means that you sign up for a class over a to month period, they send you all assignments and reading materials and you have to be self motivated enough to budget your time to complete these classes. Well, I took two over May and June and two over June and July and here I am with a lot of work to do.

Tomorrow is our Summer Challenge Day meeting. For anyone who doe snot know what Challenge Day is I urge you to go to ChallengeDay.org and see what it's all about. Here's a little preview:


I told you in the last post that I had a bit of a surprise. Well, the surprise is that as of the start of this school year, I will be starting a new position. Still in the same school and still special ed teacher but in a much different capacity. Before, I was the inclusion facilitator and worked mostly with students with Asperger's Syndrome, something I became very involved in and passionate about. I accepted a new role as an instructional teacher that will allow me to have my very own classroom and actually teach! I will be teaching 4 English classes and will have a caseload of about 10 kids. What a change and a challenge it will be but I am so excited. My own classroom is something that I have been wanting and this opportunity, while very hard to make, will be a good next step! My old job has been filled by a new teacher. She is a doll and I think she will do a phenomenal job. even better, I was asked to be her mentor (so awesome, but add in another 2 days of training for that!) so we will be able to work together to make this an easy transition.

With everything else I have going on, the thought of this new job has been making me very anxious. Needless to say I have not done a lot of the things I wanted to this summer, mainly take too much time for myself. Hopefully over the next few weeks I will be able to do that. For now, I will stop blogging, get off of facebook, and stop checking my email so that I can work on my classes. First up - Teaching with the Brain in Mind!

Have a lovely Tuesday!

Worst Blogger Ever Award

Yep - that is the award I am giving myself for my lack of posting over the last two weeks. I received the following email tonight:

Marissa,
Are you guys ok? No blog-aganza in over 2 weeks???? You've got me worried.
Love you,
Aunt Z

And so I decided that it was time to catch y'all up on where in the world the Clancys have been. I don't even know where to begin because we have just been so darn busy.

1. My baby brother turned 18 on June 27. Happy Birthday buddy!

2. We attended a wedding of the brother of a long time friend of Brett's. He's always been close with their family and it was such a great night! Who doesn't love a good time in Bloomington!

3. The Brownlees came to town! The first night here, we had a delicious meal of ribs cooked on the grill by the Mr. and they were YUMMY!!! I managed to get a picture of everyone tearing the meat off the bone and Brett got a good one of my - very dirty and a little embarrassing! As always, they did not disappoint with the amount of work they got done. Thanks to Dad the fence and garage is painted and thanks to Mom the flowers are happy and the jungle is gone form behind the garage. Scott - as always supervised.

4. We went to the July 4th Cubs game and spent the entire day in Wrigleyville with the Bergers and their friends. What a day!

5. We had a yard sale this weekend so that pretty much took up all of last week trying to get organized and ready for the sale. It was lots of fun though simply for the fact that people that come to yard sales are...interesting.

6. We had a girls day at Wrigley...Natalie, Jess, Sam and I headed to Wednesday's game and had a blast. A little rain never stopped us from having fun!

6. And last, but certainly not least, we just finished Week 3 of training! That means 9 weeks until the race. Today was our longest run yet - 5 miles - and it was the first time I have ever run that far. It has certainly not been easy but very rewarding.

That's all for now...our schedules don't seem to hold much down time in the future so it may be another two weeks until I post. Scott is coming to visit again this week, a few weddings coming up, summer school wraps up this week, and I have a some good news to report soon. It is exciting but I will wait until I have time to give it a post unto itself. However, it does not involve babies!!!

Well wishes to all my friends and family who read. I love that I have this outlet to let you all know what is going on in our crazy life. I have recently been feeling a little overwhelmed by everything but I am reminded on a daily basis that my life is filled with the most wonderful people to support me. For that I thank you all!

Another catch up blog!

Happy Friday! Things have been super busy around here lately. We saw the Cubs beat the Indians last weekend AND I got my picture taken with Ronnie "Woo Woo".

Monday we started training. I mean for real. The Chicago Half Marathon is on September 13 and we are officially registered. There is no turning back now. We are following a training plan by Hal Higdon that came highly recommended by an awesome girl that I work with who truly went from walking to running her first marathon this year! The first week wasn't too bad other than all the running we did was in 90 or above weather. It's true love when Brett will still give me a "good job" kiss with all that sweat running down my face!

Today I am trying to accomplish a million chores. OK, that is an exaggeration but I feel like there are a million things on my To Do list. We are leaving in the morning for a wedding and then driving straight to the airport Sunday to pick up my parents and Scott who are flying in a for a few days! So excited to see them but I want the house to be ready when they get here so it all needs done today! I am making some new recipes given to me by the lovely Mrs. Natalie Leslie Billings. Since I probably won't be blogging for a while, I will share them with you and give you some fun summer treats to make!

Chicken Salad

Bake 3-4 chicken breasts, shred or cut up in cubes
1 cup green seedless grapes, quartered
2 1/2 oz. raw almonds, slivered or chopped by a food processor
1/2 c. Helmans mayo
1/2 c. miracle whip, or to taste
1 tsp. lemon juice
1 tsp sugar

Mix all ingredients together - great served on mini crescent rolls

Strawberry Fluff Something
1 pkg. Cream Cheese
1 c. COLD milk
1 3.4 oz box dry vanilla instant pudding
1 1/2 c. thawed cool whip
20 Nilla wafers
1/2 c. strawberry ice cream topping
About 12 strawberries, quartered

DIRECTIONS:
Beat cream cheese until creamy.
Gradually add in cold milk.
Add in dry pudding to mixture and beat for 2 minutes.

STIR in cool whip, strawberries, broken up nilla wafers, and strawberry topping

Freeze and thaw for a while before serving in waffle cups.
If you prefer, you could put entire mixture into a chocolate or graham cracker crust and freeze.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

"3 Miller Lights and I am So Over It" or "Sushi in the Chi with Bergers"

So what's with the title? Last night, I took the train downtown and met Brett and the Bergers after work for dinner. (after their work that is. you know. because I am a teacher. and I teach summer school. and my weekend starts on Thursday at noon. not gloating.) We just love hanging out with the Bergers and always excited about the fun new restaurants they take us too that we would never find on our own because we are not city folk. We are suburban folk who very much wish we were city folk.

Last night, not only did we get to try a great new restaurant, we got to try a brand new mode of transportation - the city bus. I refused to ride it the last time thinking that I would get peed on, stepped on, mugged, or worse. But yesterday we submitted to their wishes and road the bus. It was so fun! Not at all filled with smelly people like I imagined. Most were just people going home from work. The greatest part about the whole trip was a young lady sitting right next to where Liz and I were standing. I looked back at Liz once and giggled but I wasn't sure she was hearing what I was hearing, turns out, she was. This young lady was having a conversation that should have been from the privacy of her apartment, but instead it was being had for all to hear. It went something like this:

"So I asked him to go to dinner and he said he had to spend time with friends. The I asked him what he was doing this weekend and he was like oh I have to shopping for a new TV with my grandpa at Sam's Club. So I was all like OK I guess I get that because you need a membership and all."

The conversation continued in this manner of her telling stories of a guy who blatantly is blowing her off. The pinnacle of the conversation was when she made this quote:

"So, I went home last night, had 3 Miller Lights and I am so over it!"

I could hardly contain my laughter! Really, light weight? Three Miller lights is all it took to get over this guy? He must have been a real winner!

The other part of the title comes form the fact that as I was getting ready, I kept singing "Sushi in the Chi with Bergers" to the tune of "Lucy in the sky with diamonds." I am the biggest nerd I know but it made me giggle to myself!
So, we arrive at a tiny little restaurant called Sushi Mon on Clark in Lincoln Park. Liz and I grabbed seats at the counter and the boys went to buy beer because this place is BYOB which I have decided might be the greatest thing ever since you don't spend a million dollars on drinks. So the gentleman behind the counter apparently is transplanted in Chicago form LA and seriously makes THE GREATEST sushi. It was to die for! His name was Bat and he was way cool! Brett and i are not as experienced as Liz and Adam when it comes to sushi so it was awesome having them suggest things that they like and having Bat suggest what to try. We were absolutely stuffed by the end of our meal! We headed across the street for an after dinner drink and then we called it a night to catch the train back to Wheaton since Brett was getting up at 5 for golf.

Where is the time going?

So I thought that this summer, I would be able to blog all the time but it just doesn't seem to happen. The down side to doing so many fun things that I could be blogging about is that I can't find time to actually download pics and write a blog. Soooooo...here's a quick snippet of what has been going on with Team Clancy.

May 31 Cubs vs...they lost.

June 7 Sox vs. Cardinals game...Brett is not a fan of the White Sox AT ALL, but we did get to chat with his friend Jamie Carroll. Brett played with Jamie in college and now Jamie plays for the Indians. It is kind of cool having a player walk over to the side of the field and acknowledge you. We went to the Sox game to celebrate Father's Day with Brett's fam. Gotta love Fan Photo!

A little shopping at TJ Maxx...love that place! Other than that, we have been tyring to keep up with the house, do a little running when we find the time and keep the dogs active. It's hard when your dogs would rather do this...

or this...
The running has not been going fantastic but Monday is D Day. As I previously mentioned Brett and I are considering a longer race at the end of summer. By longer I mean a half marathon. Yes, that is what said! 13.1 miles! i am scared out of my mind simply because I know what a head case I am about running and I already have negative thoughts telling me I can't do it. For now, I am trying to take advantage of my last few days of not needing to worry about how much I run, what I am eating, how much water I have drank. Ugggh!

On another note, Brett and I sat down to discuss our schedule for the summer. I don't know whether it is a really good thing or a really bad thing that we have barely 1 weekend until I go back to school with nothing to do. Yickes!

Ta Ta for now, friends! Hope everyone is experiencing some relaxation and warm weather happiness!!!

"Deck Party '09"

Last weekend the Leslie-Billings family decided to kick off summer by hosting the first deck party of the summer. Funny, it's June, school's done, it's definitely summer and I am pretty sure I never took off my fleece...chiiiiiiily!

The party was a blast as captured in the following photos...

A wild game of Flippy Cup was played. Team "Gayson" vs. The Girls.

Another game was also played...something involving poles, a Frisbee and beer bottles. It didn't end well. Matt's nose ended up swelled and bloody after meeting the Frisbee in a match that Matt did not win.

No party is complete without a cute pic of all the chics.

Corruption of a minor...don't worry, she didn't inhale!

All before 9 am....

So this morning, Natalie arrived at my house at about 6:30 am. She's crazy, but that is a different story. Today was the day of our 5K, the Cosely Zoo Run for the Animals. So we left the house at about 6:50 with the intent of parking a bit far from the race, walking to the start, stretching and then leisurely running our race. Well, things just don't seem to always go as planned.

When we get to the end of my street with see a Boston terrier running around, crossing streets, no leash or owner! We also noticed his that he was carrying his back leg, poor guy. So, we pull the car over and twice try to coax him in the car...it worked the second time. Cute little guy jumped right in and was so sweet! I got his collar off and of course there was no ID tag but he did have his rabies tag on. I called Animal Control, no answer, so then I dialed 911. I explained to the dispatcher that it wasn't an emergency but also that we didn't know what to do with this dog. As we are talking we continued to drive to Animal control. The police officer said that someone would meet us there so we park the car and this sweet dog so running all over the car - so funny!

So....we are waiting..... and waiting....and waiting...and it's after 7:00....and finally someone from the animal control walks up. We ask if he works there, "Yes", so we explain the situation and he takes the tag. When he returns, he tells us that he called the owner and they are on their way. OK, great! Now take this dog...I have a race to run. Nope....he tells us just to wait here for the owner! AHHHHH!!!! It's 7:25....did I mention the race is at 7:30?

While we are waiting for this lady to come, the police call us back and tell us it is going to be a while before an officer can get there because they are really busy. Umm....yes...I know they are busy. There is a run blocking off the entire town of Wheaton that I AM SUPPOSED TO BE RUNNING IN!!! The lady finally pulls up and she is almost in shock. So cute! She even brought her other dog to come and get..."Gus". She told us that he has recently figured out how to get out of their back gate and she tells us she feels terrible about the race because she sees our numbers.

We leave animal control, fly into Wheaton, only to discover the place is a and house and there is not much parking. We park way far away form the race start, Natalie runs into caribou Coffee because she is ready to pee herself....by the way you need a key for their restroom, back out to borrow a key, OK done. So now, to get to the race. Seriously, I felt like we were in a movie. We run, not walk, to the starting line to discover that the race is started, there is not a runner in site and they are packing up the pad that you have to run across to get timed. So the guy tells us to go, we run across it the starting line already out of breathe and find that we are the absolute last people in the pack even behind the walkers! So funny! The good news is, he told us how far behind we were and after crossing the finish line I realized that I met the two goals I had set for myself.

1. To not walk any part of the race...check!

2. To finish in under 30 minutes...check!!!!!

Below is a picture of the very technologically advanced timer thingy on my shoe that allowed me to get such an awesome time...AKA, it's the thing that times you when you run across the starting and finishing pad. HAHA! I thought it was really cool!

After the race, we walked around and got some good laughs about our eventful morning. We met two very nice ladies in Starbucks who were willing to listen to our story and took our picture!

Insert photo here when Natalie sends it to me :-)

Nat - I love ya! What a great morning!!!

UPDATE: I just checked the website...I got an official time!!!! I didn't think it was going to register since they were packing up the start...I did so much better than last year; my official time was 29:47.6 and I came in 24/99 in my age division. OK, not much under 30, but under nonetheless. YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!