Run For Your Lives....From Zombies!

Yep, I'll be running for my life from zombies this Saturday, October 22nd. A 5k complete with 12 obstacles full of climbing, mudd, hills, and the possibility of getting lost all while being chased. Have to be quick thinking while being chased?!? Probably not my strength, but I'll have 3 other people to throw in as bait running with me just to give me a little extra time. I'm scurd being that I have not trained for this besides playing lots of flag football on the weekends. I'm not a distance runner, but a sprinter, so I'm hoping being chased by flesh eating zombies will kick in my adrenaline and help me out a little. Maybe it will give me a taste of what's to come when the zombies REALLY take over!

I'll keep you posted on whether or not I win against them zombies...or I became one.

I'm a Spartan!!!

Well, not a real one! This past Saturday, I did my first 5k ever. It wasn't the traditional one and I didn't even train for it. It was a 3 mile, military style obstacle course....very tough, but lots of fun!

It started off on a muggy morning in Aldie, VA at Pev's paintball park. My nerves were getting to me since I had no idea what to expect. The people entering the race ranged from marathon runners, to the average Jane, to even the odd one. I saw people sporting wigs, superman booty boxers, spandex, bare foot, etc. Shots rang out every half hour to signal the next heat of racers that consisted of about 100 people.

I took off at the back of mine at 11:30 am. I didn't want to get caught up in the craziness, nor did I want to hold anyone back. I ran down the single file trail of trees and mud to come to our first obstacles....jumping over logs. A long line of people waiting to climb them, one after another. I was actually being held up!

Then we continued to obstacle after obstacle. There were walls that kept getting bigger to jump over, more gigantic logs, nets to climb, monkey bars that were widely separated, crawling in 400 feet of mud under a barbed wire, climbing under a tarp where I got pelted with a paint gun, more walls, and logs, spear throwing, balance beams, and then the Spartan that I had to pass at the end to complete the race...which I ran by with no problem since I waited for him to get someone else! Oh yeah...and can't forget the 30 burpees I had to do after the 4 obstacles I failed at...the balance beam. spear throwing, paintball test, and jungle gym.

I finished in just over an hour, which is pretty average. Didn't do it to win, but for fun! I walked away covered in mud, bruises all over, and the knowledge of what to expect in the next race. So bring on October, when I will run for my life in the Zombie run in Maryland. This time I will train though and do it to compete!

If you wanna fight off the zombies with me...let me know!

Mi0 Liquid Enhancer....

I'm always trying to find ways to cut calories especially in my drinks. It's so hard to drink straight water sometimes. While shopping at the grocery store, I came across some liquid enhancing drops called "Mi0." You squeeze them into your water and they claim to add more flavor......More flavor than what????? These drops rang in at a whopping $3.99 and they do not provide enough flavor to make it worth it. I would much rather stick with Crystal Light!

If you are thinking of trying these, save yourself the hassle and money and go with something else!

Korshi Buffet.....Craptastic!

Have you ever gotten really excited to try a new restaurant, but to find yourself let down? Well that is how I felt after visiting Korshi Korean Buffet in Centreville. I bought a Specialicious coupon.....$35 for 2 people. This place is usually $30 per person for dinner. I read the reviews on the place and people ranted and raved about it giving it great reviews. In my opinion, they must been smoking so much weed where they got the munchies and the grass flavor overpowered the food.  

So I went with a friend and my daughter in hopes of trying Korean BBQ for the 2nd time and chowing down on some sushi. We get there and there is a wait. This is totally expected since it's a Saturday evening. Well, they keep calling people ahead of us and when we ask why we haven't been seated, they tell us tha they have to sit the people before us with 4 people at a bigger table. Umm...we only have 3 people. It's not like there is a 3 person table. They sit us at the same size table as the people with 4 in their party.

I get to the table and there is this grill looking thing in the middle, not very clean and you can tell there are remnants of food from the people who ate before us. I'm assuming it's for the Korean BBQ, but I didin't know since the servers didn't bother to ask us if it was our first time or tell us what the hell it was. I had to look around to figure out what it was being used for and how to turn it on.

I get up to the buffet.....and there is raw meat that looks like cow guts sitting there. I couldn't bare to look at it too long and wondered if it was any good since it was sitting out next to the hot food. I'll pass! I went down the line of food and grabbed a little bit of everything that looked intersting and not picked apart. There was an assortment of meats, noodles, sushi,, and other miscellaneous items.

The sushi wasn't any better than anything you would purchase out of your local grocery store. Majority of the rolls were generic and looked like they may have been sitting for awhile since they looked squishy and picked apart. I didin't even look at the sashimi because that stuff scares me. The food was a bit bland. Nothing stuck out as fantastic. Oh, and were the hell was the steak that is advertised on the sign? I couldn't even bare to absorb anymore calories than was on my first plate because it just wasn't worth it.

On to dessert.......This was probably the best part of the evening.  They had a decent assortment of goodies from eclairs, to brownies, to jello, and ice cream. I sampled a little bit of everything and it wasn't that bad. Maybe Betty Crocker paid them a visit and made the desserts because it definitely didn't go along with the taste of their food.  

I will definitely not be recommending this place or visiting it again. The price at $30 per person and $15 per child is a bit ridiculous for the value you get. The ontl good thing about this place was the Trader Joe's across the street. I'm gonna stick with actual sushi places and Harris Teeter for my sushi and places like Honey Pig for Korean BBQ.

Fluffy Thoughts..

Ok, so I get this intense sugar craving due to the stress at work. I search and search for bakeries, cupcake shops, anything to satisfy this craving before I start throwing something. I find "Fluffy Thoughts Cakes." in McLean, VA. I MUST GO!

So I get there and its this cute little bakery with an abundance of cupcakes. Yum! The cupcakes are decently priced at about $2.50 per cupcake and $1.00 for day old cupcakes. That's a deal compared to other places such as CakeLove. So I get 4 cupcakes.....2 fresh, and 2-day old's.

I distributed 2 of the 4 to co-workers at work because I don't need the extra sugar going to my thighs. For myself, I got the german chocolate cupcake  (Chocolate cake with chocolate ganache), and a chocolate cupcake with peanut butter topping. Now I have had awful experiences with cupcake shops besides the Cake Boss one in New Jersey, but I still wanted to try these. They did not differ from any of the others I have tried such as Cake Love and that one in Fairfax Square that doesn't deserve mentioning. Bleck!

The cake was pretty dry and didn't taste much different from Betty Crocker. The icing was decent, nothing to call home about. The peanut butter didn't taste like peanut butter. Not sure what it taste like, but not right! Maybe I'll have to give it a try on another day and maybe I'll have a different outcome, but for now, I just inhaled some useless calories that i will now have to go burn off :(

Check out the website --->Fluffy Thoughts Cakes

Vintage..

So it seems I'm a Groupon whore! I purchased a Groupon for the Vintage restaurant line of 3 restaurants ($20 for $40 worth of fare)......Vintage 50 in Leesburg, Vintage 51 in Chantilly, and Catch 52 in South Riding. Doing what I do best, I evaluated the menus of all 3 restaurants before deciding which one to visit. Based on my review, I chose Vintage 51 of Chantilly.

Of course I couldn't go by myself because.. 1. I would look like a total ass at a nice restaurant by my lonesome..2. There was no way I could eat $40 worth of food on my own. So, I brought a friend to sample with. My friends are so lucky!

Anyways, I ordered the pulled pork sandwich and my friend got the NY Strip. While waiting, we were brought biscuits to nosh on. Yeah, not that great. Usually the bread is one of my favorite parts, but these biscuits tasted slightly stale. I'll pass on them next time for sure. Definitely don't need any unwanted calories.

Our meals arrived about 25 minutes after we ordered. My sandwich looked like, well a pulled pork sandwich drenched in BBQ with fries on the side. I wasn't entirely impressed by the sandwich and almost regretted getting it once I saw the NY strip. I didn't completely regret it though since the NY Strip was a whopping $29 and if we each got it, it would put me way over my groupon. The NY Strip was delish! It was perfectly seasoned and not too dry like some steaks we get in other restaurants that shall remain nameless. We both got fries.....ummmmm, they were excellent! I usually don't care for the fries that come with meals, except Red Robin's of course, but these fries were definitely good and I must say, tasted better than the BBQ pulled pork.

I planned on getting dessert since it was free with the purchase of 2 entrees (Tuesday's special), but I was stuffed! I probably could have burped and created room, but I don't really need the dessert anyways.

Overall, I would give this place 3 stars out of 5. the service was good, it wasn't overcrowded, and the food was decent.

Check out the menu here---->Vintage 51 menu

Happy Mother's Day!

Ok, so there has been this long standing joke within my family about my cooking......I absolutely suck at it! It all stems from way back when I was about 16. I attempted to make chocolate chip cookies from scratch that I read the recipe off the Nestle can. The outcome was....oversized cookies that tasted horrible due to the excess baking powder added. Obviously, I ignored the measurements. Ever since that day almost 14 years ago, I have not been able to live down my cooking, although I have mastered mac and cheese without milk and other foods.

Anyways, for Mother's Day I decided to make my mom, stepdad, his fiance, my daughter, and my younger siblings dinner. Don't ask about the family line-up...it's a long story. LOL. Well, I decided I was going to make fried chicken for the first time, salad and biscuits. Totally forgetting that we had a vegetarian in the family, I decided to add a mozzarella and tomato salad. My mom was nice enough to bring a 5lb bag of shrimp, in case the chicken proved disastrous, and 3 pies (chocolate meringue, lemon meringue, and boston cream).

When I printed off the recipe for the chicken, I only read the ingredients instead of the steps on how to make it. Apparently, I thought I was just going to pan fry the chicken in a little oil for a few minutes and it would be done. I got to reading them about half hour before the family came, and noticed I had to cook each batch of chicken for at least 30 minutes! And I only had small frying pans. Holy Hell!  Turns out, my family was late as usual so I was ok on time.

The outcome of the entire dinner was definitely good! The chicken may have not been crispy and most of the skin came off in the pan, but it still tasted good. Don't worry, I won't be opening a fried chicken restaurant anytime soon since I'm pretty sure KFC and Popeye's would put me out of business quick.  The salads were easy and tasty as well was the biscuits and shrimp. Usually I would jump on the pie, but I was able to resist and have one piece of the chocolate meringue and boston cream instead of half like I usually try and do.

It was nice havng the family together sonce it is a pretty rare occurence with everyone's busy schedules. In the future when we do get together, I will make sure to make something easier that includes the grill, since I'm pretty good at that, as well as read the instructions way in advance.

Hope everyone had a Happy Mother's Day!


Pictures to come.....