Happy Fall!

It's officially Fall and we had gorgeous weather today in Houston. I'm pretty sure this is my favorite season for many reasons - cooler weather, college football and candy corn. Yes, candy corn is one of my favorite things and Ryan swears it tastes like wax but I can't seem to get enough of it. However, I'm going back to the dentist in two weeks and I'm trying to hold out on eating a million little pumpkins so I don't have a mouth full of cavities again...

One of my other favorite things about Fall is the fashion. My mom picked me up one day last week for lunch and we managed to find ourselves at Anthropologie and I'm pretty sure I could have picked up a new wardrobe. However, my credit card wouldn't have allowed that. I did manage to pick up a few new cute tops (thanks Mom) and I can't wait to wear them. My only problem is my Mom kept all the bags from our shopping trip and then she whisked away to Sonoma, CA on a last minute trip. I hope she is getting good wear out of them in the wine country but I'll be hunting her down when she gets back :)

I also want to say that I have officially made a decent chicken salad. After my last post on this topic I had several good recipes and ideas and my future sister in law came to the rescue. She gave me a recipe for a "man's chicken salad" and it was quick, easy, cheap and super tasty. We concluded that this one turned out much better than my first attempt.

I've also noticed that my posts have lacked in pictures lately so I will leave you with the latest picture on my iPhone. Ryan, Benny, and I were on our way to a friends house to watch an OU football game a few weeks ago and I was attempting to get a picture of Benny and I. Too bad you can barely see Bennett but I promise he is there!

Have a good rest of the week!

One of the many reasons why I love my husband...

Ryan and I were chatting this morning on IM at work and out of the blue Ryan starts this conversation...

Ryan says: I would like to make furniture
Ryan says: I could have my own store in the heights
Ryan says: It would probably be a famous brand within a couple of years
Ryan says: I am going to start
Ryan says: I will draw my designs first
Lauren says: You are crazy
Lauren says: How are you going to make furniture
Lauren says: and who is going to buy it?
Ryan says: People that come to my store
Lauren says: ohh
Ryan says: I am going to make it out of wood
Ryan says: duh
Ryan says: All of our furniture in our house will be made by me
Ryan says: All of our friends will be jealous
Ryan says: Your mom will ask me to build some stuff for her house
Lauren says: HAHA
Ryan says: dream crusher

Wow - I make bad chicken salad and now I'm a dream crusher. I guess I need to work on that. Oh well, gotta love a man with a dream :)

In other news, Ryan and I are taking it pretty easy tonight and catching up on our DVR. Tomorrow morning I plan on running 7 miles (eek!)and then we're off to College Station for the A&M game. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

You know you had a good night...

• When you cancel your running date with Nicky T and decide that happy hour sounds like way more fun.
• You can't decide where to go and you want to branch out from the usual wine bar.
• Your husband recommends a new bar that is supposed to be cool.
• Discover that you are the only girls at the bar.
• Should of stuck with the wine bar.
• Let the bartender talk you into drinking a blueberry flavored drink with pineapple.
• Find out that Sweet tea vodka is also at the happy hour rate so you order one of those.
• Eat a greasy pizza b/c that's all the place served for food and you needed to eat.
• Decide that you are feeling young and brave.
• Dancing clearly comes to mind.
• Cross the street to another new bar that is supposed to have fun dancing- Rebels Honky Tonk. Yes, it really is called that.
• Realize that it is Aggie night at this bar.
• Don't have to pay the cover charge since you are in fact not an Aggie. Yay!
• The bar then plays the Aggie War Hymn.
• Have to have a $20 tab at the bar so clearly you must drink enough to at least cover that.
• Convince your guy friends to come up and two step all night long.
• Text your husband to let him know you are at an Aggie Happy Hour.
• Your husband then shows up at the bar (only b/c it was filled with Aggies, not to hang out with his wife)
• Pretend you are in college again and proceed to take a soco and lime shot.
• Wish that you had your bikini in your purse so you could win a trip to Cabo.
• Decide to head home before you foolishly get on stage.
• Get 5 hours of sleep.
• Stumble out of bed the next morning and try to make yourself presentable for work.
• Walk out the front door at 6:15 to see that the inner lining of your Antonio Melani stiletto is on the front porch.

That's when you know you had a good night :)

This may or may not have happened to me last night. I'm just saying...

Day in the Kitchen

So Ryan's new thing for lunch has been chicken salad sandwiches (odd, I know). He seems to go through phases with what he orders for lunch at work and lately he's been on a chicken salad kick. I think it has something to do with the buttery, delicious croissant it is served on but who knows, maybe it's really the chicken salad. Anyways, we were talking the other day and decided that we could save quite a bit of money if we just made the chicken salad ourselves and then he could take his own sandwiches to work. Since my culinary skills are very limited I googled "easy chicken salad" and came up with a recipe that only required 6 ingredients. Hmm, maybe I should have realized that these 6 ingredients (photographed below) were not going to make a good chicken salad. Oh well, lesson learned.

The recipe actually called for almonds too but Ryan declined the idea of adding that. Looking back I think it might have helped. Anyways, my next step was cooking the chicken. I can't believe I'm actually going to admit this but I had to google how to cook the chicken. Embarrassing, I know.

After I figured out what to do with the chicken I set out to chop the celery. Definitely something I can handle :)

And here's the end product - looks bland?? Yes, you're right. This recipe is very bland. I even think I actually did everything right but there just isn't any flavor in this chicken salad. Mom, Nicole, Alison, Courtney, (ANYONE) if you're reading this - I NEED help! Please help me find a recipe that I can handle so I can prove that I'm not a terrible wife and that I can make a decent chicken salad!!

Since I was unsure how my chicken salad was going to turn out I had also picked up a box of delicious goodness at the grocery store that I knew I could bake.

All I had to do was add eggs, vegetable oil and water to the mix. This is my kind of baking :)

I knew I could redeem myself with brownies.

Success - they turned out yummy! I'm glad I took a picture of the pan before we dug into them. That would of been embarrassing to admit how many we actually ate....

Fun in Norman

This past week I was able to spend a few days in Norman for work and I had a blast! One of the best parts of my job is working with college recruiting and I love going back to my alma mater for the Career Fair and to help recruit new employees. Even though I was there only a few short days I was able to hit up a few of my favorite spots and see one of my dear friends. I picked up a new pair of flats from Shoetopia, bought a pair of OU running shorts, drank a few Swirls @ The Mont and spent an evening with a sorority sister of mine, Kari. Looking back I wished I would of stayed through the weekend to attend the football game but I guess I'll just have to make another trip back up there this Fall for that :)

While I was there I also realized I need to pick up a few new items for Fall. All the girls at OU seemed to have the latest trends on and were already decked out with cute accessories and clothes for this upcoming season. Clearly I need to do some shopping today while Ryan's at school so I don't get behind...

Happy Saturday!

This & That

What's new with us?? Not much, hence the lack of blogging. However, here are a few highlights in the Rudy household...

• Ryan is really enjoying his classes at Rice so far. He's been pretty busy the last couple of weeks but has been managing work and school just fine.
• Running is still going well for me. The only downfall I've seen so far about all of this running is the amount of laundry that has piled up in my closet. Not only am I washing our everyday clothes I'm washing sweaty running clothes. Oh, and the other downfall is my toes are no longer pretty. I've noticed I have new calluses on my feet. I think I need to find time for a weekly pedicure to make up for this...
• I've signed up for another photography class.
• We popped some bubbly with my family at my parents new house. They are still in the early stages of building and we decided to toast to the occasion :)
• College football started!
• My Sooners lost :( However, the Aggies won and Ryan has clearly stated that the Aggies are having a better season than the Sooners. We'll see how long this lasts...

...and that's about it. Hopefully I'll have more exciting updates soon!