I had every intention of bringing them back to work and sharing… but they didn’t make it back to the office. Whoops.

So of course after lunch I was telling my friend Demi about them (I know… horrible friend) and she was saying that she had never had one and asked “What’s the difference between macarons and macaroons?”

First of all, these are the commonly known coconut MACAROONS

And these are French MACARONS

MacaROONs have almond paste, egg whites, sugar, coconut, and when I made them they had flour and vanilla and almond extract.

MacaRONs have almond flour (finely ground almonds), egg whites, sugar, and different flavors/colors depending on what you’re making. (cocoa powder, espresso powder, etc).

MacaROONs are mixed up, placed in balls on a cookie sheet and baked.

MacaRONs are mixed, the egg whites are whipped and folded, sugar is added slowly, batter is piped and allowed to set before baking and being watched oh so carefully before being taken out of the oven.

MacaROONs are easier to transport, can be dipped in chocolate to jazz them up, or eaten plain.

MacaRONs are delicate and come in many, many flavors.

I’ve made both and I love both, but in my mind, they are completely different things. The name for both comes from the Italian word maccarone, which means paste, and comes from the word for crush, or beat. Makes sense, since they use a crushed or paste form of almonds.

I took a macaRON class and have a huge appreciation for the art of making this cookie. They are so tempermental and sensitive to humidity, time, etc. Its a little victory every time they come out perfect.

If you want to check out some real French macarons, check out Gillian’s Macaron Battle from Paris. Like I need another reason to want to go back!

Have you had macaroons and macarons? What’s your favorite flavor of macaron? I’m partial to chocolate, but had a delicious cinnamon one the other day!

April is over and so is the WEGO Health Writers challenge. I didn’t do so well with this “challenge”, and that’s okay with me. I realized that I approached this challenge the way I approach working out, or eating healthy, or anything else.

• I was open to and happy to have inspiration
• Thinking about posting every day or not at all stressed me out a little, so I posted when I could.
• When I did post, I felt good about what I put up, I didn’t just go through the motions for the sake of posting

Get the picture? As much as I love blogging, the rest of my life gets in the way a lot of the time. And as much as I love running and working out, sometimes sleep is more important. And I’d love to be able to make all my meals from scratch every day, but sometimes I just need to order out.

When I blog, work out, cook… I want the end product to be worth my time. I’d rather have 3 quality workouts in a week than go to the gym 6 times and half-ass it… what a waste of time that would be.

I am not an all or nothing person. I thrive on structure and a daily schedule but I don’t like being forced to stick to it. It has to be on my terms.

So while I was supposed to post every day in this challenge, I didn’t. Because I strive for a healthy balance, and driving myself nuts to post every day really wouldn’t make me feel very balanced. I did really enjoy the posts I wrote and thought of other posts to write for the future, so… thanks for the inspiration, WEGO!

What’s your inspiration??

Right down to the paisley card, she nailed it. A Kashi bar, a Planters bar, dried apple chips, a little jar of Stonewall blueberry jam, pita chips, Nutella To Go (complete with mini breadsticks! I’ve never seen these before, what a fun snack!), a white chocolate peanut butter bunny, coconut water (my favorite!), and two new teas to try – Chai Green and Chamomile. I LOVE tea and especially love trying new kinds, neither of these are in my collection so I’m excited to try them! And if that wasn’t enough…

Homemade pickles! We love pickles here and I can’t wait to try these! Thanks, Alyson!

And a big thanks to Lindsay for everything she does for Foodie Pen Pals! Interested in joining? Here’s how it works:

-On the 5th of every month, you will receive your penpal pairing via
email. It will be your responsibility to contact your penpal and
get their mailing address and any other information you might need like
allergies or dietary restrictions.
-You will have until the 15th of
the month to put your box of goodies in the mail. On the last day of the month,
you will post about the goodies you received from
your penpal!
-The boxes are to be filled with
fun foodie things, local food items or even homemade
treats! The spending limit is $15. The box must also include something written.
This can be anything from a note explaining what’s in the box, to a fun
recipe…use your imagination!
-You are responsible for figuring out the
best way to ship your items depending on their size and how fragile they are.
(Don’t forget about flat rate
boxes!)
-Foodie Penpals is open to blog
readers as well as bloggers. If you’re a reader and you get paired with a
blogger, you are to write a short guest post for your penpal to
post on their blog about what you received. If two readers are paired together,
neither needs to worry about writing a post for that month.
-Foodie
Penplas is open to US & Canadian residents.  Please note, Canadian Residents
will be paired with other Canadians only. We’ve determined things might get too
slow and backed up if we’re trying to send foods through customs across the
border from US to Canada and vice versa. So, I’m going to keep two separate
lists and match US w/ US and Canada w/ Canada!
If you’re interested in
participating for April, please CLICK
HERE to fill out the participation form and read the terms and
conditions.
You must submit your information by April 4th as
pairings will be emailed on April 5th

Happy Monday, everyone!

Did anything fun happen to you this weekend?

I’m tempted to write about my hip/IT Band injury and how I learned about proper training and stretching, but that would be the easy way out, and readers of my blog have heard enough about that.

So I thought back to the first bad decision I remember making. At the beginning of the summer after 6th grade, my mother cut her hair short. I’m talking boy short. Well, guess who thought that was the coolest thing ever and followed suit.

I so wish I was joking, but that’s exactly what it looked like.

Then, right before school started, it grew out just long enough for me to perm it, and that’s exactly what I did. I was not one of the cool kids to begin with, and had just come off of a rough summer camp experience, and going to school and being asked “what died on your head?” was a horrifying way to start seventh grade.

I obviously couldn’t wait to have my long hair back, and even the growing-out-stage was awkward. Straight on the top, curly on the bottom… I don’t even know what you’d call that. A vertical mullet?

Even the cat hated it.

Finally, it grew out to shoulder length and beyond and all was well in my brace faced, NKOTB adoring world.

Lesson learned: don’t do something just because someone else, even if its your mom, is doing it. And perms are bad.

What’s a lesson you learned the hard way?

Alrighty Here goes:

I’m all about balance, and this girl certainly looks balanced. She looks physically balanced, that’s for sure. And she looks strong and fit, which is my overall health goal, not necessarily losing weight.  And doesn’t she look mentally/emotionally balanced and at peace? She actually doesn’t even look like she’s trying. Which makes me hate her a little.

This one is pretty self explanatory.

I picked this one because this picture makes me feel so peaceful. Some people feel peaceful at the beach, I feel peaceful in a snowy field. With one tree.

And if I didn’t have these moments of peace, I would not feel balanced. I can work, exercise, spend time with friends and family, etc, but if I don’t take just a few moments to slow myself down and achieve some sort of inner peace, I don’t feel balanced and I go out of my mind.

What helps you feel balanced?

First of all, I do not handwrite first, but I find it interesting that there are people who do that! I’d say my writing style is more research-based. Whether it be about food, exercise, a product review or a travel recap, my best posts (in my opinon) are those that I really gather information for and write in the spirit of sharing that information. There are times that I’m thinking about a post all day before I go home and write it, there are times that I take pictures while I’m cooking with the intent of writing a post, and there are times that I sit in front of my laptop searching for something to write about. I write about what I know and what I feel would benefit others to know.

Its definitely not my style to write in the stream of consciousness style, or an emotional post that reads like a jounal entry, and I admire bloggers who do write like that. Even if I were to write about a struggle, it would be more to share facts and advice about what I was going through. Having said that, I do go back and edit most of my posts while I’m writing them and even after I post them. I write 99.9% of them on my couch with my laptop in my lap, and usually with television on in the background… maybe if I turned off the TV or went in the office, I’d have an easier time writing, or even coming up with titles, as I sometimes have trouble with that, too!

Do you have a blog? What’s your writing style?

This morning I looked in the mirror and thought “man, I need a haircut. My bangs are crazy long.” Then I thought about how proud I was of myself for getting up early every day this week to go to the gym. Yes, I know that some people do this every day, but I’ve been out of the habit for a long time and this was the week that I vowed to get back into it. Its not because of how I look, its because of how I feel. For someone who bases her life around balance, my proverbial scale has been way unbalanced lately, missing the all-important exercise piece. I am so lucky to be so happy in my every day life, which helps me feel balanced, more often than not.

I also thought about how my past year has been and what my next year is going to be like. Yes, I think of these things on a daily basis. No, I’m not going to elaborate on what that means. I just know that I am emotionally and mentally stronger than I ever thought I was and I need to get back to being physically strong, too. I rocked a vending machine the other day to help a kid get some candy out and I hurt my back… if that doesn’t scream “get to the gym”, I don’t know what does.

It only takes 21 days to develop a habit, so I have 17 left to go!

I try to live honestly, fully, and with integrity. I do think about how I’ll be remembered, as morbid as that is. I love this song because all of the lyrics speak to me. We are lucky to be given each day that we have and we all have a chance to make a difference to someone every day. And we should always take advantage of the time we have, whether it be to help others, pursue a dream, make positive changes.

I know some people hate on Nickelback, but I find this song so inspiring. Enjoy!

“If Today Was Your Last Day”

Been busy this week

No time for blogging or rest

Need some more balance

I like wine and cheese

I also like running races

You do too, sue me.

Happy Friday everyone. Write me a haiku! I’m terrible at them!

I work with kids and this is a pretty common icebreaker question, so I’ve put some thought into it. Also, when we were talking at work about winning Mega Millions (c’mon… you did, too), I said that as nice as it would be to have that money, it would be better if you could buy… time.

My superpower would be to be able to be showered, hair done, makeup on, dressed, lunch made, out the door – in the blink of an eye. It would give me so much more time in the morning, and I envision using that time to go to the gym or run, bake more, do more around the house, or when needed, take an hour or two to myself.

Oh look, me in the future.

Basically, whatever I needed to get done, I would get done. A lot of the time, I cut out exercise when I’m short on time, and with my new power, I wouldn’t have to do that! Of course, some may argue that I may not actually use that time wisely… but I wouldn’t know unless I had the power, right? Oh, and caveat… Every time I used my power, I’d look GREAT.

How about you? What superpower would you have?