It’s been an eventful few days here!

I had a fun weekend, which finished off with my boss’s wedding on Sunday evening. It was absolutely beautiful and such a good time!

Unfortunately, little miss me seems to have been bitten by some bedbugs at the hotel we stayed at. I have a few crazy itchy bites on my right foot, which I just can’t stop scratching. Yuck.

Worse than that, I’m terrified that I’ll have brought some of those little suckers home with me! I didn’t realize that they could be bedbug bites until late last night so I didn’t get to wash all my bedding until today. Everything was freshly laundered in hot water and dried in high heat a few hours ago though, so hopefully I’m safe. Fingers crossed!

On the other bad news front, I’ve been experiencing some popping in my left hip since Friday. I’ve been resting since then in the hopes that it’ll clear up, but no go yet. I’m terribly antsy and can’t stay away from the gym much longer!

A bout of bad luck here, but to bring it back to some good news, I wanted to share the lovely goodies sent to me by my foodie penpal Jen this month. Oh so late, I know, but better late than never, right?

The following was immediately stashed away into my purse for snacking purposes:

• Raw cashew butter: Saving this and can’t wait to try it!
• Dried cranberry and pineapple: I inhaled this almost immediately.
• The Good Bean sea salt roasted chickpeas: I usually don’t go for salty but these are so delicious. I need to find out where I can get more!
• White chocolate macadamia LunaBar: Love me some LunaBars! I finished this in a day or so.

And the following were immediately stashed in my kitchen:

• Homemade cookie bars: Did I say “immediately stashed?” I meant after one was eaten, of course. These were delicious and I can’t wait to eat the other one!
• A dried chile: I am a little intimidated by the color (it looks so spicy!), but I do like spice in moderation.

It was some gooood stuff! Thanks, Jen.

I feel like I’ve been away from my blog forever! I got back from Hawaii on Friday evening, but unfortunately, I’m still more than a little out of it.

The jet lag has been rough! I went to sleep around 3 am the past two nights and woke up at 1 pm on Saturday and noon today. Anyone who knows me at all knows that this is absolutely ridiculous for me. Let’s just say that I amnot looking forward to getting up at 7 am for work tomorrow.

Anyway, I’m really late on this one! But I still wanted to make sure I wrote this post because it’s my first month participating in Foodie Penpals and I loved it! Thank you, Lindsay, for coordinating this every month.

My foodie penpal for July was Nicole of Fitful Focus. She actually lives just one town away from me and it was her first month doing foodie penpals too!

I mentioned to Nicole that I love nut butters, granola, and anything with dried fruit, coconut, and dark chocolate. She definitely took all of that into consideration and totally delivered! Here’s what I found in my box:

Homemade granola, dark chocolate peanut butter, a chocolate-dipped coconut LunaBar, and two bags of Trader Joe’s Organic Ginger Pear White Tea. While I absolutely loved every single thing she put in my box, the absolute highlight for me was the homemade granola!

And yes, I’d already had a good chunk of it when I took this picture. Nicole was even nice enough to let me post the recipe on Sleep and Repeat! So here it is. Enjoy!

Here they are written out!

The goods:

• 4 cups old fashioned oats
• 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
• 2/3 cup slivered almonds
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cup chopped dried fruit

The prep:

1. Preheat oven to 300°
2. Combine oats through cinnamon
3. Heat oil and honey in a small saucepan over low heat until just combined
4. Pour oil/honey mix over dry ingredients, add vanilla, and stir
5. Spread in 9×13 pan and bake for 35 minutes – stir every 10 minutes
6. Add fruit and let cool
7. Eat like a madwoman! (I added this step myself. )

I will definitely be participating in foodie penpals again in August. Thanks for being my first foodie penpal, Nicole! I loved everything.

Fingers crossed that I’ll be back in my groove tomorrow. I’ll be back with some photos from Hawaii!