Faith-filled Friday: Think before you speak and some Aldi salad love

Good morning, Crushers!

In light of the recent heated outpouring of remarks made about the Mets' player who took a few days of paternity leave, I would like to use this passage for today's Faith-filled Friday:

My mouth will speak words of wisdom; the meditation of my heart will give you understanding. - Psalm 49:3

Yes, the rest of this Psalm provides a lot of commentary on wisdom and foolishness for the rich and poor, but I like this passage because of the words "meditation of my heart". It reminds me of the phrase, "think before you speak", but even more so because you're thinking with your heart. Is what I say going to hurt or help? Is it going to affect someone else's heart (emotions) if I say these words?

I hope that I can remember this as a parent and be as patient as my mom is. She always says that you never know what someone else is going through. Not that you're not allowed to be mad and have feelings, but you should not take them out on someone else. Even when the make crazy statements about paternity leave or "you're still pregnant?!".  Yes, yes I am.

Anyway, considering how much I LOVE Aldi grocery stores, I'm shocked to learn that I discovered only today that they have an app (for iPhone and Android), tons of recipes online, and a test kitchen just an hour or so away from my house. I wish I could take a peek in there!

While I was making my weekly menu, I decided to check out their recipe section to see what was there. Um, HELLO! This is awesome!

Here is our menu for the week:
Saturday: Sweet and Creamy Bacon and Sausage Linguine
Sunday: Grill out
Monday: Tacos and beans
Tuesday: Homemade Pizza
Wednesday: Leftovers
Thursday: Wing it/Salads
Friday: either go out to eat or go to the hospital to have a baby

Yup, next week Friday is my due date, so we'll either be sticking to this meal plan or we'll be tossing it all to the wind and raiding our freezer meals. (Speaking of freezer meals, I broke down and used one on Wednesday night for dinner - Mozzarella and tomato chicken pasta - and it was amazing!)

Anyway, one more thing I love about Aldi is their really wonderfully priced produce section which means I can make up all sorts of crazy salads. Today's lunch was a romaine lettuce, red pepper, onion, cucumber salad with balsamic sprinkled on top. Oh, and a side of strawberries. Yes, yes we could go and buy all sorts of organic veggies, but that's just not in our budget right now. Instead, we are choosing to eat as healthy as possible in our budget. I think this salad works!

Delicious salad!

Also, it's pretty gestational diabetes-friendly. I ate it with a tortilla and cheese and the strawberries as my carbs. Yum! Speaking of yum, did you know that since Aldi is a German company, that all of their chocolates are delicious German chocolates? WHOO!

Have a wonderful weekend, Crushers!

Virtual Running Date 12: A real running date!

Good morning crushers!
The weather here in Wisconsin has been very wonderful lately. Some would say chilly, but I say, "At least it's not snowing!" You may laugh and say, "But Jen, it's June!" Well, when I was in kindergarten, it snowed in the last week of May. You are never really safe from snow, except in July and August where it's just too humid to snow or flat iron your hair.

Anyway, if today we were running together on a virtual running, date I would tell you about the wonderful weekend I had celebrating birthdays with family members! My brother, sister and I all married people with June birthdays. My adorable nephew, Patrick, also turns two this June. Since I travel for most of June and every one's summer schedules are hectic, we had one big birthday party for everyone. Of course, Patrick was the big winner because it is really hard not to spoil him with fun toys and hugs and kisses. Love that little man!

Patrick loves Mickey Mouse and trains. He also got top billing!

Saturday morning, Steve and I went for a run in the village of Wauwatosa because they have an awesome farmer's market. We kept meaning to go last summer and never made it. Well, we took full advantage of the gorgeous weather for our run and then visited the market to pick up some delicious veggies and eat breakfast. We have plans to go more often this summer as Saturday morning dates. We also ran into a ton of friends, which is always nice.

Enjoying the zoo and family time!
Also, it looks like we're starting to dress alike even though we've only been married  less than a year!

After that we went to the zoo, where I kid you not, I thought I was going to see an elephant fall out of it's enclosure into the moat that provides a barrier between the animals and the zoo-goers. I guess it really wanted to whatever leaf was just out of reach. See how it balanced on three feet to stretch out it's trunk? That elephant had wonderful balance!

REACH!

If we were running together, I would also tell you about this fabulous friend that I got to go on a REAL run with! Hannah from Corn-n-Kale has been making a renewed effort in her life to eat whole foods and life a whole life. She was the one that inspired me to add some yoga stretches into my routine. Me and my hips thank her! I would like to say that I'm her inspiration for running, but I think that I probably just talked about it so much that she was finally like, "FINE. I'LL GET ON THE STUPID TREADMILL." and liked it... muwahahaha!

Anyway, we ran by the lakefront in Milwaukee using the trails of Lakeshore State Park. We live on totally opposite sides of the city, so meeting in the middle worked well for us. Plus, who doesn't love a trail with city -scapes on one side and Lake Michigan on the other? It was so nice to run together and catch up!

If we were running together, I would tell you about this great sauceless pizza I made last night. Steve wasn't so sure that it would work without pizza sauce, but I thought we would give it a try. Plus, margherita pizza is one of my favorites to order out at Riverfront Pizza, or anywhere pizza place really, so I thought I would give it a whirl. However, instead of just putting on tomato, mozzarella and basil with a little olive oil, we ended up putting on more veggies and diced leftover Italian sausages from the birthday cookout. So good!

So delicious!

Steve's Homemade Pizza

For a little while now, we have been using free meal planning printables that I found on The Nest Effect. Tiffany is a very organized gal! It has been helping us plan our meals around nights out, meetings and the holidays. It also helps us organize when to pull things out of the freezer and in making grocery lists.

Last night, Steve was up for making dinner. He has been wanting to make homemade pizza for a while, but we had never seemed to come home from the grocery with pizza dough. Well, thanks to our handy meal organizer, we remembered to buy toppings and thaw out the dough!

Steve's Homemade Pizza:
Ingredients:
1 loaf of freezer pizza dough, thawed
1/2 cup of pizza sauce (to taste)
1/2 pound pizza sausage, browned (save the other half for your wife to use in stuffed mushrooms and on her salad for lunch)
18 slices of pepperoni
5 white button mushrooms, sliced
1/2 a large onion, diced
2 cups mozzarella cheese

Instructions:
Knead dough to warm it and make it pliable. Spread dough on a lightly greased, non-stick cookie sheet until it reaches all the edges. While you are working on this, brown the pizza sausage on the stove top. This should take about 5-7 minutes. Spread pizza sauce over the dough. You can add as much or as little as you would like. Just make sure it is even. Sprinkle the browned pizza sausage over the sauce so it is even. You don't need it every where, just evenly spread out. Place the pepperonis over the sausage so they are spaced out. Do the same with the onions and mushrooms. Sprinkle cheese over the entire pizza. You can use whatever other pizza toppings you choose, but these are what we used. Bake in a 425 degree oven for about 20 minutes or until the cheese and crust edges are a golden brown. Enjoy!

Slice and serve!