Purely Indulgent

Good evening all~
Lookie what I found in the comments on one of my long-time fave bloggies, Oh She Glows .... another like minded chicka! Angie started a discussion on our "favorite quotes" and this one caught my eye immediately:

Hmmmm, seems like a lot of girls struggle with this same issue: too much planning! My friend Leana told me she does it too, and she hates it! Why do we do it if we hate it? I hold that it's natural for women to be overly concerned and we have to actively fight the tendency to over-think and over-plan our lives.

-- Shout out to Leana her because it's her birthday today!!!! Happy birthday beautiful!
I can't wait for our sleepover next week girl, we're gonna have a blasty :D --

Back to planning though: there's definitely a fine line between being spending enough time planning to be well prepared and being a frazzled wreck from excessive worrying, planning, re-planning, and then ending up no better off than when you started. Talk about a cruel curse of womanhood! Ooof.

So there's that little nugget... what I really got on to blog about are the things that I found truly irresistible, indulgent, and so enjoyable is utterly indescribable this week... Mmmm mmm!!

No matter what, there are 3 things that never fail to make me happy:

1. Clothes ...... Two words: Retail therapy, not so cheap sometimes $$ (ok so never)
2. Food .... I love cooking and food blogs! But sometimes it's not such a health comfort. Must resist the sweets!
3. Music .... Play on play on! This one has never gotten me into trouble :)

~ Clothes:
We will begin with clothes and the pleasures I've found on el Internet this week. Oooo yes my friends, I have bad case of cyber lust with some serious clothes cravings! Luckily such cravings rarely end in kitchen raids or ruining my contest diet so I see no reason not to INDULGE! (As long as it's window shopping)

Exhibit A: Sky Dresses (as seen on Jamie Eason)

Every since one of Sky's dresses. IN. EVERY. COLOR.

I love dresses <3 They make you look so good and people always compliment my "cute outfit" when I wear one, little do they know that 9 times out of 10 the reason I wore a dress is because I am terrible at making cute outfits and/or was running late and didn't want to put on more than one piece of clothing! Easy and stylish? Win Win.

Exhibit B:  More luuurrvely dresses. Courtesy of UrbanOg.com

I am also fascinated with 4 Ways to Wear Tom's Shoes. There's actually cute ways to wear them! Who knew.

~ Food:
Moving on to Numero Dos... FOOD. Warning, prepare to fend off instantly induced snack-attack from the following food porn. "Hi, my name is Ruthie, and I google 'peanut butter and chocolate'."

Peanut Butter Fluff Donuts

Read the recipe... You'll understand my obsession...

 Oreo Stuffed Peanut Butter Lattice Mini-Pies

So flipping adorable...
Oreos + PB = Perfection.

Magic Eight Bars 

Eight layers of bliss.

In my defense, I did have a good reason to google decadent deserts! I am putting together goodie bags to give to my friends and fellow Bikini competitors backstage after the show. TRUST me, they'll be ecstatic.

Now the rest of these recipes have no defense. They just looked awesome!

I've shared my love for pumpkin on my blog before, but in case you missed it: I have a huge thing for pumpkin, I just love it! It's good for you and tastes like heaven. What's not to love? I'm the crazy chick buying 10 cans of Libby's Pure Pumpkin as soon as it hits SALE at Safeway. Gotta stock up!

Naturally, I found this thread on the RxMuscle Recipe Forum: Pumpkin Recipes

Pumpkin Bread

Pumpkin Pancakes

The classic: Pumpkin Pie

What you don't know is another of my weird food obsessions ... unless you've lived with me and witnessed my many oatmeal concoctions... but I have a slight obsession with making "gourmet oatmeal." I could eat oatmeal every morning for life and be as happy as a clam.

A Bazzillion Ways to Make Oatmeal

Butterfinger Banana Oats.
No words can describe my excitement :0

 

Okay enough food, I am making myself hungry! Moving on to Numero Tres:

~ Music:

I sometimes forget the power of music to change my mood, but luckily today I remembered just I was having a seriously tough time getting into my evening lifting sesh. I was doing that whole worrying about the future thing and totally zapping my energy... until I broke out my tune-age!

My energy went up about 500% as soon as I started jammin' out :)

I must have really been feelin' Adam Lavine today, because this song had me literally dancing up the stair stepper...

Another awesome jam:

Some real deep Derulo lyrics: "This girl is passin' out in my lap... She's a blond." Ha-ha because that explains it!? (Okay it kinda does.)


Bow-chicka- bow-wow, J-Lo you're one fierce woman! Diggin' her song with Wheezy, "I'm into it!"


One more  kick @s$ tune, and one more fierce woman - courtesy of Gwen Stefani and NoDoubt... a golden oldie!



Oh Gwen. She's got it. Still got it. Always will.


Dang it, now I am all pumped up and I have to go to bed! I have to get some sleep though, I fun plans for tomorrow in Seattle: I'm getting a haircut + color to blend my short hair into the extensions I'll be wearing on stage at the bikini show. I'll share pictures later!

For now it's off to bed to at least try to sleep.
Buenos Noches Amigas :)

~ Ruthie

Happy Thanksgiving

To all my American readers: Happy Thanksgiving!

I know Canada already beat us to it, but we in the great USA still have alot to be thankful for. If you've been outside, one of those things might be a huge puffy coat... BURRRR!!
Minus twenty wind chill? No thanks. All the snow sure is pretty though....

I just wanna say thanks to all my friends:

Happy Thanksgiving from me to you :)

You've been there for me through all the laughs, cries, frustrations... tough tests, snowboarding trips, concerts, summer floats, movie nights, cookie baking get-togethers, photo shoots, shopping trips, bball throwdowns, and everything else... I really cherish your friendship. Seriously :) You know who you are!

Some of your were lucky enough to get some home-baked goodness :)... Maybe I'll share the recipe with you all sometime for the "Pumpkin Butterscotch Muffins" I made for my friends (don't fret if you didn't get any, I can only buy so much pumpkin without the cashier @ Safeway cutting me off and putting me on some sort of watch list for mass pumpkin purchasing).

So many things we take for granted, but a few of the awesome extras I'm thankful for are:

• My boyfriend Joey is here to visit until Sunday!
• I passed my First Responder test with >90% (a true miracle haha)
• Quality time watching movies with Joey (we're watching Alice in Wonderland tonight, and watched the first Toy Story last night.... love that one!)



• Joey got me that amazing bracelet I have been eye-ing for Christmas

Life is good :) I wish you all safe travels for who ever is going to be on the roads (especially those dedicated shoppers @ 4am on friday!)

~~Stay warm~~

My parents house this morning...

..... Lots snow on the railing and -8 degrees F on the thermometer!

The Thanksgiving links Round-Up! (yes more pumpkin haha)

Homemade Pumpkin Butter from Oh She Glows

Get Into Fall With These 5 Healthy Pumpkin Recipes

" Healthy" Pumpkin Pie

Rock and A Hard Place

Good evening friends,

I am thrilled about this holiday weather. Thrilled! The snow on the trees is just so beautiful, and I can't get enough of baking. I will hold off on the recipes for a bit (no promises on how long :p ) I've been making all things pumpkin: pumpkin lattes, pumpkin smoothies, baked acorn squash with apple and pumpkin topping (this was divine) and just adding pumpkin spice to my coffee in the mornings.

Can't wait for Thanksgiving and the 'official' pumpkin dish...

Pure festive bliss.

However, the topic of tonight's post is last remaining vestige of my summer activities... before it all becomes a distant memory! Hold off on the Egg Nog for now... it's quite possible next week will be as sunny and warm as it was when I had the adventure of.. Rock climbing!

Besides pumpkin, another obsession of mine lately has been all things rock. When my boyfriend, Joey, visited a couple weeks back we went rock climbing out at Queen Spire by Pipestone. My great friend, Cameron, went with us, and he also let us use all his gear he-he. I told you he was great! Here's a couple action shots:

Me belaying Joey



Stealing a kiss between climbs :o



Cameron showing his pro-skills

The "end" of the day... lol

On to the next rock adventure! This time I mean actual Rock music.

ie: Skillet, Papa Roach, Trapt and My Darkest Days. All in one place. Life is good :)

Although I must say, I totally just went for Skillet. I saw them for the first time this summer @ Creationfest and they're so awesome live.

Leeza and I drove to Billings together and hit up the mall first, and played with the sunglasses stands ha-ha.

We finally decided to go to the concert, considering that's what we went there for... and met up with Kynsi (with Leeza and I below), Tadd, Jon, and Dylen. It was mosh-tastic my friends :)

Skillet came out swingin'

Fist pump 24-7 !! lol

Skillet's sweet Comatose performance made the entire show

 

After the show we met My Darkest Days drummer

So that's it for my rock adventures. I'm off to watch Big Bang Theory with Miranda. G'night!