Blog Revamp

Ok, so it has been FOREVER since I posted on this blog. I decided to revamp.

Last time I wrote, I was headed to UCA for the Dietetic Internship. Well....a year and a half later, I graduated from the internship. I am currently studying for my RD exam and looking for a job. I decided with my free time I am going to post recipes and pictures from the meals I cook and exercise/workout tips and ideas. I am very passionate about eating....and eating healthy...and working out. I love coming up with new, creative meals and hopefully I can inspire and motivate some of you to try something new!


I wish this had posted under the recipes, but some day I will figure all this out. The picture above is from dinner last night. Baked chicken, green beans, and oven baked fries. The picture below is the creamy honey mustard I made to dip the chicken in. YUM!

FOOD

Sometimes Dan and I really CRAVE fried foods because we rarely eat them. When we are craving fried foods I will make my "healthy" version of chicken strips and french fries and I always add a green vegetable in there too. Last night was one of those nights. I made chicken strips, baked fries, green beans, and a homemade honey mustard dipping sauce.

Oven Baked Chicken

4 chicken breasts (or you can buy already cut tenderloins)

1 cup oats

2/3 cup reduced fat parmesan cheese

2 tbsp parsley

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/2 cup Italian dressing

1. Thaw chicken and cut into strips. Marinate in Italian dressing for at least 1 hour if not longer.

2. Combine all the dry ingredients in a plastic bag.

3. Spray in a baking sheet with cooking spray.

4. Dip each piece of chicken in dry ingredients, coat thoroughly and place on baking sheet.

5. Once all chicken has been coated, spray the tops with cooking spray.

6. Place in a 400 degree oven for 30-35 minutes.

7. Remove and enjoy!

Homemade Creamy Honey Mustard

1/2 cup fat free sour cream

2 tsp dijon mustard

2 tsp honey

Mix ingredients until combined. Use for dipping oven baked chicken (and fries).

Oven Baked Fries

Baking potatoes

Season salt, Tony Cacheres, Nature's Seasoning (seasoning of choice)

Cooking Spray (I use olive or canola oil)

Cut potatoes into steak fries, coat with cooking spray and seasonings. Bake on 400 for 10 minutes, flip, recoat, and bake another 25-30 minutes.

This is not a regular meal around our house but it is one of our favorite splurge meals! It is a great way to fulfill the craving for fried foods without all the added fat.

EXERCISE

As most of you probably know, I am a runner. I have been for almost 7 years now, which seems CRAZY to me. I learn so much new stuff about running, exercising, working out, etc. every day that I feel like I still don't know everything I should know to be a runner. I hope I can give a little insight from what I have learned over the years that may help you in whatever exercise you enjoy. I definitely don't claim to know much but have learned a lot from past mistakes!

I do not run every day of the week. On my days off from running I cross train (XT). For XT I like to do some plyometrics. Plyometrics is a type of exercise that incorporates high impact, jumping moves to improve strength and power. It is a good substitute for speed workouts if you are looking for something different. Sometimes I will use a workout video or I will just do some things on my own. Yesterday was a video day.

A few of the exercises from the video that are my favorites include:

- Squat jumps: start in squat position and jump (making a full 180 turn) landing in a squat position. Repeat, turning back and forth for 30-45 seconds. Do as many reps as you can in that amount of time. This works glutes, hamstrings, quads, and core really well!

- Pogo jumps: stand on one leg with arms straight up, bend at the waist and touch fingertips to the floor. As you raise back up, jump on the one leg and land back on the same leg. Repeat for 30 seconds on each leg. This is great for your core because of the balance it takes to bend over and touch the floor. It is also great for calf strength.

- Wide in-and-out Abs: start on all 4's with your hands directly underneath your shoulders and your feet spread wide (plank position with feet wide instead of close together). Using your lower abs, jump your feet towards your arms and back to starting position (keeping them as wide as possible). Repeat for 30-45 seconds. This one is hard to describe but I hope that description helps. It is great for your abs, obliques, and shoulders.

Those are the only moves I will share with you today. More to come!

Hope you can enjoy these recipes as much as we have and maybe try some new exercise moves!

Have a great Wednesday!

Jenny Odom

UCA Bound

Dan's one of many fish he caught!

Just chilling and eating a little lunch.

Eric and April...my brother and sister-n-law.

My studly husband :) Driving up the river...freezing!

View from our backporch.

Hello All!

The news Dan and I have been waiting for all year finally was revealed yesterday. I was accepted into the UCA Dietetic Internship!!!!!! It starts May 18 and I will finish in August of 2010. After that I will be eligible to sit for my Registered Dietitian exam as well as have completed my Master's. I am so excited! I set my alarm for Midnight on Sunday so I could wake up and check it. Once I checked it, I didn't go back to sleep until about 4 and my alarm was set for 5 b/c I was meeting a girl at 5:30 to run. Needless to say, I did not get much sleep and I had to babysit all day yesterday. It was hectic but worth losing sleep over. I am so thankful the Lord worked everything out so perfectly. He knew I would be at UCA this whole time and He provided that house in Vilonia for us. That way it is a much shorter drive than if I had gotten into UAMS or Nashville :). Thank you Jesus! Nothing else going on here. I have my last final for school today and my last clinic for LEND tomorrow. We are leaving Friday to go to Nashville, TN for the big race! We are so excited about the weekend and I am somewhat nervous. I am praying the weather is perfect and my legs are strong! I know it will be a lot of fun even if the race isn't what I am hoping it will be. We are getting to see a lot of family and spend time with them and that will be well worth the trip. My cousin Valerie and my birthdays are next week so my grandma is having a little cookout for our birthdays after the race. It will be great. I'll post pics later.

Thanks for all your prayers for the internship. I know the Lord heard and He definitely provided. The pics I am posting today are from our White River trip a couple of weekends ago. I finally downloaded them onto the comp.

God Bless!

Overdo

Hey guys,

I realize this is long overdo but at least I am getting to it now! Since the last update a lot has changed in our lives. A brief up date is as follows:

We have bought a house in Vilonia, AR. We close on May 1 and will be moving, painting, and laying hardwood those first 2 weeks of May. We are super excited! I will post some before and after pics later! That will put Dan 30 minutes closer to work so he is pumped about that....as well as am I so I will see him sooner in the day :)

I find out in 7 days about the internship. I will update when I know something about that.

I have one more LEND class and 2 clinics until my UAMS class is up and one more class and a final before stats is over for the semester! I am super ready for that. Friday is my big presentation on my research project and leadership project for LEND. It makes me extremely nervous to talk in front of people but it is real informal so that helps. Once I do that I am finished...so that is incentive to get it over with too!

My marathon is in 2 weeks. I am finished with long runs and ready for the race! I feel very good about it. All my long runs were good and within my goal time so I am hoping that the week of the race is the same. I know it will be good no matter what! I am just excited about a mini-vacation and time with the family.

Dan bought a new car! I don't remember if I told y'all that but he got a 2008 black Altima. We love it. Gas mileage is 10x better than the ole truck. We miss the truck but are happy about saving money for now.

Dan and I went fishing this last weekend on the White River with Eric and April. It was so much fun! We got there late Friday and fished all day Saturday and then enjoyed some Tommy's Famous pizza Saturday night. We caught lots of fish and are ready for a fish fry!

I am currently babysitting my friend Timbre's son...Mason. He is a cutie patootie! He's a rotten little boy but so fun to be around. He is 4 months this week. I don't know what I am going to do at the end of April as far as keeping him more. I keep him 2x a week now but when I find out about the internship next week we will decide about if I continue to keep Mason. I was tutoring a girl for about a week also. She is a dietetic student at UCA that was struggling in Physiological Chemistry 2 but ended up dropping it after the first week of tutoring. Guess that's not my calling in life :) Oh well!

I think that is a brief update on us. I will try to do better from now on.

Hope y'all are having a wonderful Monday.

God Bless!

Catching up

Above is our neighbor's son, Brayden, with Rex. He asked me how much I would take for Rex last night and offered up $1000. I told him there was no money in this world that could buy Rex from me. He is my baby boy!

Me and Libby in the chair. She found her spot on the couch real quick. If she's not in our lap that is where she is laying.

Dan had out the cheese. They were being good!

This is the cabin we stayed at in Jasper. So cute!

Resting after having gone through the cave.

Photo looking out of the cave to the entrance.

Dan loves when I take photos of him :)

Waterfall we climbed up.

Well, I have gotten a little behind. Where did I leave off...

That's right, Daniel and I were headed to Altus to hang out with Lauren and Justin and the McCains. We had a blast. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures, but we had fun. We wine tasted at all 4 wineries and had dinner at Wiedekher's, which was delicious. It snowed on us the whole time, which was not fun to me. After all the wine-tasting and dinner we headed back to the McCain's to play a little Sing Star. If you haven't played it, you need to. It was so much fun. And for those of you who know me, know that I am a HORRIBLE singer---but nonetheless, I still enjoyed.

The next weekend, Dan and I went to Jasper, AR for his birthday. Back up a couple of days and his birthday celebration was Wednesday (even though his bday wasn't until Thursday). I sent him on a scavenger hunt on his way home from work and then he ended up at the house where I was cooking a candlelight dinner. I think he enjoyed it. My goal was to make him feel special, I think it worked. On his actual bday, I went to work with him and then we celebrated that night with dinner at Kanpai's with his family. It was so yummy sushi! Finally, Friday we left for Jasper. We stayed in a log cabin that was awesome! On Saturday we slept in, got up, made breakfast, laid around then went hiking for the afternoon. We went into a cave that had a cool waterfall. It was just beautiful. Dan goes all the time so I was excited to finally see what he loves so much. I was not disappointed at all. After hiking we had dinner at the infamous Ozark Cafe. It was good except for the raw fish they served me. No worries...we got our dinner free. After dinner we went back to the cabin and played dominoes until 2 AM. And for those of you who know Dan and I...we don't stay up that late, EVER! So it was lots and lots of fun...we laughed a ton and just enjoyed the beautiful weekend in the mountains. We came home Sunday and went to LR for Dan's final bday celebration at my parents. Dad cooked steak and sweet potato fries. It was delicious. Then started another busy week.

I had my final Saturday class this weekend and had to give an oral report. All went well there. Glad that is over with. We played the Wii with our neighbor and his son last night. We are also keeping Libby...Dan's parent's toy poodle. His grandpa is in the hospital and not doing very well so they have been staying with him for the last few days. We are dog sitting until further notice. Rex and Libby love each other. THey do get very jealous of each other though. Today has been productive. Dan put some weed-killer in the yard, I cleaned house, we got groceries and worked out, now we are about to get showered and do some grilling. I love days like this!

Anyways, enough for now. I will get back to you sooner than later.

God Bless!

The above pic is just one I love of my two favorite boys! Aren't they cute?! These are just a couple pics from where Dan hikes in Jasper. That is him sitting on the ledge in the pic below.

I haven't updated you since I got Tyson back. He is one little toot! Once we got him home safely, Daniel bought new boards to nail up to the fence where he had chewed his way through AND put chicken wire at the bottom to keep him from digging out. Well, that worked for that spot! He has found a new spot to dig. We put bricks up and that kept him away all last week. This weekend we were out of town and when we got back....we found Tyson chewing on the gate! What are we gonna do with him? He has now chewed a hole big enough for his head to fit through. He will stick his head through and howl until we come out there at yell at him. He is just wanting some attention and boy has he gotten some attention since all this started. We chained him back up to the deck and he has been ok since then. We made an appointment to get him nutered on Tuesday to see if that will help calm him down. That boy is crazy!!!

Last weekend was so fun! I went to a cooking and wine tasting class with my mom on Friday night. We made some YUMMO food and has to great wine. It is in the RiverMarket and it is called Uncorked! Live. It is pretty fun. They do it once a month so I think we will be taking the boys back for that. Dad would love it. Saturday we woke up to rainy, cold weather so I waited until that afternoon to do my long run. I had breakfast with my good friend LJ (Laura Jennings :)) and then headed to the river for a 15.5 mile run. Felt great running, which is a good sign at this point in the training. After the run, Dan came to LR and we grilled fajitas and had margaritas at Mom and Dad's with them and the Russell's. It was a good time....maybe a little too much fun was had! :)
I mentioned Dan came to LR on Saturday....that is because he went to Jasper with all his guy friends on Friday and stayed at the infamous Gordon Motel and hiked in the Ozark Mtns on Saturday. He loves those trips they take. Everytime he comes back he just raves and raves about how beautiful it is and how much he wants me to go sometime. So, we booked a trip this next weekend. His birthday is March 5 so for his bday we are going to stay in a log cabin (sorry Gordon's) and hike some trails for the weekend. I am so excited to finally get to see this place. He usually goes 3-4 times a year with his friends so this will be a new experience for him :)

But before the fun trip to Jasper, we are making a quick trip to Ozark/Altus!! That's right, to my old stomping grounds. We are meeting my best friend Lauren and her husband Justin in Ozark on Saturday to stay with Mr. Mack and Mrs. Chris. We are going to do some wine tasting on Saturday and eat at Wiedekehr's Saturday night in Altus and probably play a little Sing Star at the McCains. We are looking forward to it so much. We haven't seen them in forever!

Dan just looked at the weather for Altus though and the high is supposed to be 40 degrees and there is a 40% chance of rain and snow on Saturday! AHHH....I don't do well in the cold.

Anyways, I'm off to hang out with my hubby on this Friday afternoon...which is a rare occurance so I am pumped!

Have a good weekend! God Bless.

Tyson Update

We found Tyson!
He had gotten picked up by the police/animal shelter on Sunday morning (not real close to here) and I went out to get him Monday afternoon. The lady was very gracious. We are supposed to get fined $20 for each tag he does not have on when they pick him up. Well, Ty had gotten out of his collar and didn't have any tags but Dan told her on the phone that they were on his collar in the yard. At one point, they were on his collar but not that specific day. He had gotten those off his collar sometime last week so before I went to retrieve him I got the vet to print new ones and put them on his collar. The lady at the animal shelter knew they were brand new but chose to let us go on the fee. We still have to pay since he is not nudered and was running "at large." We should really think about getting him nudered. They said if he was then we wouldn't get a fine but they can't have him going around procreating :) OH Ty-Ty! He has been a mess lately.
Rex got through his minor surgery alright. He was pretty lethargic that evening and had to wait 4 hours to eat. He did not like that. And...when he eats he has to have soft food. They told me to water his food down..how sad. Today is the last day of that. He is doing great and will finally let me get a good look at his teeth. They look good! No more stains for Rexinator! Now the challenge will be to keep up the scrubbing each week. I am going to do my best b/c it is a chore.
Well, thanks for the prayers! We got our baby back so hopefully he stays this time.
Have a good week.
God Bless!

Missing our baby!

Here are some pics of our missing baby! If you are in Conway and happen to see this handsome pit running around...it is prolly Ty! Grab him up and give me a call :)

Hey everyone!

Well, it has been a sad weekend for us. We woke up yesterday (Sunday) morning to find Tyson had gotten out of the fence and is no where to be found. We looked for a while yesterday but have no idea if he got out in the middle of the night or early that morning? He could be anywhere. BUT, with him being a pitbull, not many people like seeing those on the loose and more than likely someone called the animal shelter and they picked him up. They don't open until 10 today so as soon as we can we are going to call and pray that they have him. If not, please pray we can find him. We are really sad without him. Rex even knew something was wrong yesterday. He knew Dan was really down and sad and he kept coming up to him and loving on him and just sitting with him. It was so sweet!

On another note, Rex just got dropped off at the vet for his first teeth cleaning. For those of you who don't know, they put dogs to sleep to clean their teeth. He has some major plaque issues and stinky breath issues. Last time we went to the vet he told us to get this under control or Rex would end up with gingivitis real soon :( We tried brushinig but it was stuck on there pretty good. We finally gave in and decided to go this route. I know he will be fine. He was put under when he got fixed and had no complications with the anesthesia so I am sure he will make it ok. Oh yeah, and Rex's 3rd birthday is this week. I am going to take him to Petsmart if he does well at the Vet to find a new toy! I cannot believe I have had him for 3 years now. It is crazy! So Happy Birthday to Rex! Donations to his food bank are welcome :) Just kidding!

As for Dan and I, we are doing great! We are loving this beautiful weather, as everyone is I am sure. Dan is still chugging a long at work every week and doing very good at his job. The office got broken into Friday afternoon but thank goodness for security systems. The alarm must have scared them off b/c they got out of there without stealing anything. I am still working on my applications. I have to handwrite my Vanderbilt letter today and finish my Lipscomb letter. Once I do that and get all my recommendation letters back I will be FINISHED!! That is a good thing since they are due a week from today. Gosh, I get nervous thinking about it! It is all good though. If I am supposed to get in, I will. The LORD will provide. We have no plans for Valentine's day. We are just gonna take it easy and enjoy spending time together. It is supposed to be pretty so we might have a fun outdoorsy day. We shall see. Hope everyone has a wonderful day. I will post later with updates on Tyson!

God Bless!