I am [this] close to being caught up on blog posts. Heck yeah! I always feel so bad when my meet-up posts are days behind other bloggers. At least you won’t get bored reading the same thing from 7 different bloggers in one day.

Monday night I had big plans to get together with my blogger friends. I don’t know if the feeling is mutual, but I really love this group of girls. It is so nice to have people to workout and go to dinner with. This dinner is really the main reason I cam home on Monday. Otherwise, I think I would have talked myself into staying in Fayetteville another day. I would have been very “sick”, of course (BTW, I never call in sick. Only once in 2.5 years and that was after an outpatient surgery. Good reason, right?).

 Groupon had a gift certificate/coupon for Dandelion Market last week and I jumped right on it. Dandelion Market was an option for a blogger meet up way back when, but we ended up going to Zada Janes instead. When I saw the Groupon I bought it right up and tweeted Katie about doing dinner.

The next thing you know dinner was set and we had a nice sized group getting together for dinner.

The decor was so charming with exposed brick walls and interesting pieces of art. Lighting was low so please pardon my pictures.

Even though the group was all girls I wanted Brian to go to dinner too, and he was such a good sport. I love for him to try new places with me! Initially some of the other significant others were going to come but they had to bail at the last minute, he wasn’t crashing the party like Simon on RHNJ.  We split everything you see here.

We had a house salad in a parmesan bowl.

Ale and cheddar fondue. I love almost anything cheese (as you will see in this meal), and this was no exception. You really could taste the ale and I enjoyed the flavor.

Mushroom and thyme flatbread.  It was really earthy and delicious, and the crust was perfectly chewy for my taste.

And B’s pick was the scallops.

I don’t normally care for scallops because I think they are too mushy, but these had a nice crust and were quite firm. I really enjoyed them!

B stood in as the photographer and took a picture of the whole group, which included Michelle, Me, Katie, Kelly, Jen, Jen, Brittney, and Diana.

Have you ever had one of those weeks where at the end of the day you just need to get in you car and sing? Maybe that’s just me. I couldn’t believe how long this week felt considering I only has to work 3 days.

Ugh, getting back to real life after vacation is the pits. At least I have been eating well.

Wednesday was a daze getting back into the swing of things. Apparently my east were not that impressive because I didn’t bother to take pictures. Dinner was awesome though.  It was just some Barilla Plus pasta, boiled shrimp, and local tomatoes tossed with balsamic vinaigrette.

We ate this delicious dinner after a  hot blogger walk/run in the park.

I met up with Caitlin, Lauren, Brittney, Jen and Kelly (not in this picture).

Jen and Kelly.

Lauren, Me and Brittney.

It was so nice to get to do some “group” exercise and get to know all of these ladies better. I can’t wait for us to get together again!

After we got home on Tuesday afternoon we made a quick trip to a local farmers market where we picked up the tomatoes for our pasta salad, peaches and blueberries. I dreamed all night about how I would use the fruit in my breakfast the next morning.

I made a gorgeous, fruity waffle stack with banana, honey Greek yogurt,  peaches and blueberries. It was so good and so different from what I usually make myself for breakfast.

I tried to make lunch a bright spot in my day too, but it was a big fail. I can’t even go into the details.

I ended up picking up a couple eggrolls to have for lunch instead.

At least dinner was a success. I made us lamb chops, broccoli and cheese, and some broccoli slaw salad. Good stuff, but nothing compared to what we ate on Friday!

I don’t know how I ever did it. And by" “it” I mean blog 2 –3 times a day. In the past couple of months I have been lucky if I am motivated enough to blog 2 –3 times a week.

And now blogging can just be embarrassing. I claim to be trying to live healthy and find balance but I am no where near it.

I don’t think most healthy, balanced adults decide to forgo cooking dinner when their spouse is sick and eat a greasy Totino’s pizza instead. I did that on Tuesday night while my poor husband was recovering from a nasty stomach bug and eating chicken noodle soup (the kind from a packet).

Which also happened to be the same day that I ate a popsicle for breakfast on my way to work. Nice, right?

I have no excuse. The move is over. We are all settled. I have no more travelling, outside of fun leisurely stuff. I am loving the junk food and I just won’t make myself stop. I don’t even need to stop completely, I just need to moderate…. a lot. I need to get active too. That would definitely help.  In my defense, I have made some efforts at eating well. Like veggies and hummus. And this really delicious salad that I had for lunch today.

But those efforts seem substantially diminished when I am washing it down with coke and/or eating fast food for lunch multiple days in a row.

Or when I go to a blogger meetup and order a black bean burger cover in meat chili and mayonnaise covered cheese (pimento cheese).  Don’t get me wrong, the food was delicious, but definitely not balanced, especially after I had 2 spicy chicken go wraps and fries for lunch.

I did however get to meet these lovely ladies (left to right: Kelly, Tiffany, Brittney, Jen, Me, Lauren, and Katie). It was a great evening at Big Daddy Burger Bar in Ballantyne!

This was my 3rd time getting to hang out with Katie and I absolutely love her! I am sooooooo glad she moved to the area.

I guess the whole point of all of that is that I really need to start making more of an effort to find balance and live healthy. My eating habits have got to change and I have got to find a way to find any form of exercise that I find fun (and at least somewhat tolerable in this crazy heat we have been having). I will work out. You will see….eventually.

On other news, I got my new car!!!!

Check it out! I am so excited that B let me get exactly what I wanted. It is so nice! Such an upgrade from my 2004 Saturn. And we got it just in town for our beach trip this weekend.

I really can’t believe it is mine.

Today is my Friday and I have a nice long 5 day weekend ahead of me, kind of. Tomorrow is full of cleaning, packing and errands so I am not sure if it counts. Plus I have a big deal meeting (big deal for me) that has me completely stressed out. Ugh! I need some encouragement but I can’t give any more details, which I hate!

I guess it would be wise to attempt to get an adequate amount of sleep tonight. Maybe I will wake up refreshed and can take Piper for a walk since the temperatures are looking much nicer than they have been. Please send good vibes my way. I need them!

Sorry for my lack of a post last night. I went out to dinner and did not get home until late….or late for me, and went straight to bed once I got home.

Now to where I left of yesterday….

Since I didn’t do my normal lunch thang yesterday I was snacky all afternoon.

I pulled on some cornbread from Wednesday night. I wasn’t good. I ate 2 bites and threw it away. It definitely need some butter to something to spruce it up.

As an alternative, I raided my office’s candy stash. These little guys got me through my afternoon. Them and knowing that I had a blogger meet-up to go to last night!

After work I ran by doggie daycare to get Pipe. She must have played hard all day because she progressed from this…. To this….

To this…

in mere minutes.

As soon as we got home she promptly ate a bowl of food and konked out.

And yes, I am a crazy dog lady, as Katie put it. I can admit that and am okay with that.

Dinner was going to be later than I am used to, since we weren’t even meeting until 7 PM, so I had a handful or a little more of Triscuits.

I was not familiar with where the restaurant, Zada Jane’s, was located so Jen met me at my house around 6:15 to make sure we got there on time.

We were actually way early and ended up sitting in my car chatting until it was time to go in. And when we went in Katie was there waiting for us. I was so excited to meet Katie because she was one of the first people I really interacted with in the blogsphere! She had seen that I wanted to try PB&J Larabars and decided to share some with me when she found them in her local TJMaxx. So sweet!

I was trying to take a picture of the candle….but that is Katie there too.

This is Diana in action. She had this amazing looking crab cake sandwich!

Sorry, no group pic or pic of Jen. I was a slacker in that area.

I was really torn on what to order for dinner. There were so many good looking options.

I finally decided on the wild mushroom ravioli with sage butter sauce.

Which also came with a side salad.

Apparently I was starving because my food disappeared in no time!

We didn’t stick around Zada Jane’s for dessert, instead we went over to enjoy some French-style pastries from Amelie’s. This was my second trip in a week!

I ordered a raspberry fruit tie for myself and a chocolate croissant to take for B (sorry, no picture). There were no available seats in Amelie’s so we went into the atrium to find a table. The Atrium has such a neat decor.It was a great night getting to connect with some other bloggers. I definitely look forward to future meet ups with these ladies.

How did you spend you Thursday evening? 

****Don’t forget to enter my Amazing Grass sample pack giveaway!!****

On top of being in a super icky mood yesterday I was really ready to get off of work so I could head to a blogger meet up for dinner. Seriously, the anticipation of this meet up is what has kept me going this week. If that makes me lame I don’t care.

Dinner wasn’t until so I had a snack to try to hold me over.

Surprisingly this orange held me over until at least 6:30 PM. For me, oranges don’t usually have that kind of staying power. Maybe I was just nervous at meeting these bloggers for the first time.

The occasion for dinner was not random, Holly the Everythingtarian is in town visiting so it was a perfect occasion to get some food bloggers together for dinner.

I came straight from work and got to the area super early and ha d over an hour to kill. I spent my time checking out Marshall’s, Rack Room Shoes, Ulta, and Books A Million, all that walking made me hungry. By the time 7 PM rolled around I was starving.

Me, Meredith (Whit’s sister), Whit, Holly, and Stacy.

Whit had been to this restaurant before, Blu Basil, and quickly ordered the hummus platter for the table.

This stuff was tasty. I love bread, especially when covered in hummus.

My good hair day was long gone by this point.

The menu looked great, but there was one thing in particular that caught my eye. There was a picture of their spaghetti and meatballs in the menu and I knew that is what I was having.

I also ordered a side of sautéed veggies.

The food did not disappoint. Plus there was so much! I brought at least half home to eat for lunch today. I had to save room for dessert.

For dessert we all split chocolate cake, turtle cheesecake, and tiramisu.

They were all good, but the tiramisu was definitely my fave. They also had some red velvet cake that looked amazing.

Thanks to Whit for getting this dinner organized!

I was really sad that I missed the fashion show at Marshalls, but this girl had to get home. I can’t wait to hang out again.

And while I am on a roll I will go ahead and show you what I had for breakfast.

Oats! I was going to call them AB&J oats but they are more than that.

I started by heating up 1/2 banana in my pot. I looked like it was melting. Then I added 1/3 c oats, 1/3 c water, and 1/3 milk. I seasoned with a little salt and some cinnamon. I topped 1/2 microwaved apple with my oats and then topped them with wheat berries, Nature’s Path granola, AB, and strawberry preserves. This was a great combo, nice and chewy.

This morning is flying by, thank goodness! And I have to get back to work.