Bad Weekend for the Hondas

It was one of those weekends that you really just want to re-wind and start over again, but at the same time can have a good laugh at what happened :)

Don’t worry my car is fine…now, however my friend Jocy got it a little worse than me.

Let’s start at the beginning:

Saturday morning Jocy get’s her CRV bumped by some other car while she’s pumping her gas.  No damage, just an idiot who didn’t even realize he hit her car even though they were touching.

Fast forward a few hours, Jocy, Brian, and I are on the way to a friend’s BBQ out near Worcester (about 1 hr from me).

We are trying  to find the house, and perhaps that caused a little “frazzle” in the brain, but Jocy goes to pull up behind this other parked car on the side of the road.

Slowly moving up towards the other car, she goes to apply the brakes…

only she didn’t hit the brake pedal….woops.  The breaks are on the left, not the right.

Yeah.

SMASH!! Into the other parked car.  But as we all said that day…this is what insurance is for :)

Hehehe, looks pretty ghetto without the Honda “H”…sorry Joc!

Hissssssssssss.  That was the sound her car was making from hitting the radiator or the part that connects the AC.  Luckily that stopped and the car was still safe to drive.

After we (she) calmed down, we ended up enjoying our afternoon at the BBQ, and thankfully the owner of the other car was very understanding…plus there was almost zero damage to her car, the poor CRV took all the brunt on that one.

So enough fun for one weekend right??

Wrong.

I bring you to today.

Well, lets see, the events of today we’re actually fun and blog worthy…but let’s get to the damage.

After our day in the city, Jocy and I parted ways to go home.  Not 2 minutes later, I am turning right onto a side street with a what appeared to be a fairly new looking sidewalk with nice fresh sharp vertical granite curbing.

smash!

Yeah that would be me hitting the curb with my tire…good one Bridge. 

It was pretty loud, so I think 'you know maybe I should pull over and see if there was any damage”

Hissssssssssssssssssss

That would be my tire release air out of the nice gash in the side.

Awesome.

So I pull over (thankfully it was a quite street!), call Jocy, luckily she’s only 5-10 min away and we proceed to change our very first tire!!

Now, as I said this was a first for both of us and I was a bit nervous, but I got out the manual and got down to business.  Things I learned.

• ladies, you may need to apply your foot + entire body weight to the wrench to get those lug nuts loose!  But it worked!
• It’s always better to do this with a friend, with whom you are wearing a matching workout outfit as.  Makes for good comments from people who come to help.
• Hopefully a nice man, who happens to be a mechanic, will come assist.

Yes, we got help but I am POSITIVE we would of been fine on our own, however as I said he was a mechanic and did guide us and give us tips.  He didn’t just take over and do it, I really wanted to change my own tire and I did!  We had already begun jacking up the car when he came by.

Oh yes.  There’s me in my little Lululemon running skirt + hot pink top, jacking up the car.  Again, thank GOODNESS this wasn’t a busy road ;)

I look way too happy…in reality I was just sweating in the heat and laughing at how much of an idiot I was haha.

Things I learned from Bryan, the mechanic (not my Brian):

• always loosen and tighten the lug nuts in a star pattern.  Don’t go around in a circle.  Start at one, go across to another, then across again…and so on.
• This is important so that the entire tire loosens evenly.
• It’s even more important when tightening.  He said you do not want some lug nuts in one area a lot tighter than others because that can damage your rotor…which in turn will cause break issues, and that costs WAY more than a new tire!
• Make sure the jack is clicked in to its correct spot before starting to raise the car (we had that under control).
• If your on a hill, especially if removing a front tire, make sure the e-brake is on.
• HOWEVER, I was not on a hill and it was a rear tire so he told me to take the e-brake off and that gave us the ability to rotate the tire around while starting to tighten the lug nuts, so we didn’t have to deal with the wrench hitting the ground while trying to tighten the nut closest to the ground.  
• Tighten the lug nuts a little at a time, don’t go all out on one then do the next.  Do them all a little so they are snug, then lower the car back down, then tighten them all a bit more. 
• And then go back and tighten them all again with your foot again!!!
• You want them very tight as those spare tires can loosen up when you drive on them.

H.O.T.

Thankfully I went straight down the street to a tire place and was able to get a new one installed :)  No need to drive on the donut more than absolutely necessary.

PHEW!!!  What a weekend! 

Hopefully some of these tips will help one of you out someday too :)  I feel confident now that I could always change a tire in a jam.

Now, as to not have a completely bummer of a post…

This morning started out great!  Joc and I are running our first 10k!  We are doing the Tufts 10k for Women on Columbus Day!  So far, from everyone I’ve met that’s run this race in the past, they all LOVED it! 

We are somewhat following a training plan, and today was a 3.5 mile run!  We ran at one of my favorite spots, Castle Island.  This is also where we took our engagement pics!

(taken from an old post)

We did 3.5 miles, grabbed some iced coffees and headed to Flour Bakery in Fort Point for a little breakfast. 

We split a breakfast pizza :)

Brioche topped with: egg, roasted red pepper, goat cheese, and I believe parmesan (or similar).  I think that was it.

So flavorful, and the brioche “crust” was delicious!

We also shared an almond croissant, but sadly it wasn’t out favorite.  The filling was very good, however the pastry itself was pretty dense for a croissant in my opinion.  Still good, but I prefer delicate flaky croissant.

After some errands and a lot more walking around in the 90+ degree heat, we cooled down with Berryline.  Can’t believe this was my first Berryline all summer!!

I got mine with strawberries + mango+Oreo.  Perfectly refreshing on this hot day.

After the fro=yo was when things went awry (see above).

Not that I really want to go to work tomorrow, but I think it’s for the best that this weekend is OVER :)

Hope your weekend was a little less “eventful” than mine

Out in the Outer Banks

This was the first time I had ever been to the Outer Banks!  One of our friends organized a group trip and 14 of us rented a big house in Avon, NC for a week!

felt kind of like Real World, without all the craziness…well a little craziness

We drove.  From Massachusetts to the Outer Banks (OBX), and that should be roughly a 13-14 hour drive.  Of course I have no luck when it comes to traffic, and even though we split the drives over 2 days (staying in a hotel in Delaware), it was rough!!  I hate that my last memory of the trip is being stuck in a car going 8mph through NY and CT, so hopefully this post we make me remember the fun stuff!!

(I will say I am going to think hard before doing another road trip that long again…I’m a flying kind of girl ;)

Our first “taste” of N.C. came in the form of this baby:

We all stopped at Morris Farm to stock up on fresh produce rather than dealing with what may or may not be available once everyone and their mother hits up the grocery stores down there. 

That pecan roll was heavenly…not greasy or anything just soft dough with cinnamon, sugar, and pecans!

We at at the house for nearly every meal, and most of my mornings started off like usual…

Greek Yogurt + Fruit + Granola.

I brought plenty of TJ’s Greek Yogurt to last me the week :)

And those PEACHES!!!  OMG!!!  I wish I brought back bags and bags of the peaches we got down there….best I’ve ever had!!

Most everyday was spent basking on the sandy beaches and playing in the water which was a perfect temp.

Speaking of peach, this guy was deliciously refreshing:

Each night one of the couples or groups of people would be in charge of dinner.  I wanted to go first to get it out of the way so we cooked that first Sunday night!

I really wanted to do something “different”, not crazy different but not your standard “group dinner”.  I did want to grill and wanted to make sure there were lots of veggies involved :)

(check out these ginormous zucchini’s from our garden we brought!)

To set our meal apart we went with lamb!  I know that’s not very “different” but turned out that almost half the group had never tried it before!  I LOVE getting people to try things!

I knew they’d love it because it had been marinating for about 2 days and this marinade was AWESOME.  Recipe to come!

To accompany the grilled lamb, Brian and I did grilled veggies plus an orzo salad with more veggies and Feta!  I’ll have to save the actual breakdowns for another post, this one is too long already!

(excuse the classy paper plates and craptastic picture, most were taken with the old camera)

The verdict?  Everyone LOVED it!  Score.

I also whipped up a homemade key lime pie that came out sooooo good.

Other adventures of the week included:

A trip to one of those fabulous beach stores to get the boy new sunglasses as he sacrificed his to the waves.

You know, the place where you can get anything airbrushed on a t-shirt??

A mini crab-fest by the pool…mmmm I love crab meat!!

A Ferry over to Ocracoke for the day.

A little thunderstorm

Boogey Boarding!!

And a final delicious dinner out with Brian on our way home at Ocean Boulevard Bistro

I got a GIANT crab cake, it was divine.

Such a fun trip with great friends!!

Wish my tan would stop fading though ;) 

Weekend Recovery

Hey Guys!  This past week Brian and I spent some time relaxing on the sandy beaches of the Outer Banks in North Carolina!  I’m still working on a vacation recap, but all you need to know was that the beaches are amazing and the ocean water is a perfect temp!  Being a life long New Englander, we are used to FRIGID water.  I recall the days when I was younger we’d have to “get numb” before we could play around in the water…yeah I don’t do that anymore ;)  So this water felt AMAZING.

For now this beautiful sight

Another beautiful sight was this one that I saw when I walked in the door Saturday morning after an awesome run.

Oh yes, he did!  I ran about 3.8 miles around Lexington (part of which I did on the Minuteman Bike Trail!)  Then when I walked in the door I discovered a beautiful breakfast was minutes away!

We had a bag of red potatoes leftover from the trip and Brian mentioned something about home fries but I didn’t really think much of it. 

He made home fries with fresh oregano and thyme from our garden.

Then made delicious Caprese style breakfast sandwiches with egg, fresh mozzarella, and tomato and basil from our garden!

I added some sliced banana and strawberries to round it out.

It was just the thing to re-fuel after my run and it was delicious!!  A big THANKS to my awesome husband :)

The rest of the weekend consisted of re-organizing, errands, and more delicious food!

It was surprisingly cool and rainy today (which is actually a welcome change…maybe my lawn will turn back to green soon!), and it totally put me in the mood to cook and bake!

Also brought up a craving for a hot cappuccino…mmm foam

A compromise of a soup for a cool day but summer fresh ingredients were found in this Cooking Light recipe: Summer Squash and Corn Chowder

The actual recipe in the magazine had this soup served with bruschetta which I also made.      

The bruschetta was simple:

• mix chopped tomato, basil, a little bit of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and a sprinkle of salt
• toast bread/baguette on a baking sheet in the oven at 425 for 6 minutes.
• after removing from oven, rub a fresh garlic clove on each slice
• then top with tomato mixture

 

The soup had a fresh sweet flavor that was brought out by the corn!  I used mostly fresh corn off the cob as opposed to frozen.

The blended corn + milk gives a great creaminess without any actual cream.

The best part is of course the toppings of sharp cheddar, bacon, and scallions :)

I also baked up some tasty apple walnut muffins based on the Moosewood Muffin recipe, but I am not liking how the pictures came out (still working the new camera when there’s no natural light).  So, I shall do another muffin photo shoot in the morning with the sun shining in :)

It’s great to be home, but I am not looking forward to work tomorrow…boo!  At least I had muffins to look forward too!        

Enjoy your last hours of the weekend!