Well, this has been quite the hiatus! In my defense, October has been crazy town. Stay tuned and you'll see…

Let's start with Natalie's birthday (aka Naturday) in Charlotte the weekend of October 3.

ACTUALLY, we need to rewind to the night of October 2… Kelly, Vann and I went to see the first showing of GONE GIRL!! We all read the book, so we were super excited to be among the first to see it.

Ok, back to Natalie (as always). It's our tradition to eat pizza, drink wine and watch Katy Perry on Friday nights together (because we're old and can't handle going out two nights in a row). This weekend was no exception. Added bonus - Natalie got us these matching Katy Perry shirts for my birthday.

The plan for Saturday Naturday was to rent a party bus, go to a haunted house and then to a bar. I do not like scary things, so I was really going out on a limb with this whole "haunted house" plan, but I survived.

Taco Cake for Taco Nat

DLT, please.

Natalie's newest roomie and my love, Whittney.

Party bus fun!

The whole night was so fun. I'm so glad we live within driving distance so we get to see each other pretty often. Happy birthday, princess!

After a weekend of fun in Charlotte, I headed home Sunday morning because Adam and I were babysitting JUDE for the first time!

I love the look on Jude's face - ha!

Passed out little munchkin.

Eeeeek! He's the cutest, ever!

After our fun little babysitting sesh, Adam and I headed to Atlanta Eats Live (work perks!). Before finally wrapping up a very busy weekend.

And now, for the recipe of all paleo recipes. I made this Tuesday night and have officially found my new favorite meal! We've made just the Cilantro Lime Cauliflower "Rice" before, but adding in the chicken carnitas made it the perfect mexican fiesta!

Without further ado.... Chicken Carnitas Burrito Bowl. (I left out the black beans and greek yogurt to make it paleo, and it's still my favorite!)

keeping busy until we're an aunt and uncle

Still. No. Nephew.  I leave for a business trip tomorrow and won't be back until Friday, so obviously I'm sure he'll make his debut during that window of time. In the meantime, we've managed to keep ourselves busy!

On Wednesday, I joined Allison for Glow Dry's 1st Anniversary Party. In addition to some fun mojitos and a DJ, you could also get a quick hairstyle or makeup fix. I went for the hairstyle, and I looked ridiculous. No offense to my lovely hair lady! Just not my style. (Think Heidi.)

Ruthie and Hank are always fighting over this bone, but they're typically moving too fast for me to get a picture. But BINGO, I got one. They make us laugh.

On Friday, we headed to 57th Fighter Group to celebrate Linda's promotion! Her daughter, Lindsay, and I have been best friends since high school and Linda and Johnny are basically a second set of parents to me. We'll miss them, but excited for their new adventure in DC!

Obviously, our parents are pretty close. After all, they had to deal with two crazy teenagers! :)

Right after the going away party, my parents and I headed to the James Beard: Taste America dinner in Atlanta. Allison had extra tickets and invited us as her dates!

 This is when I wish my parents had signed me up for cotillion - where do I start?

I was lucky enough to meet someone who scored me two tickets to the PGA Tour Championship in Atlanta on Saturday! I figured Adam would come with me, but he had to work. Then I thought I'd take my dad, but he was leaving for Dubai the next day and wanted to hang out at home. So I went to my go-to adventure friend, Madi! We had no idea what we were getting into - we had to google what we were supposed to wear.

They offered free parking at Turner Field, then a shuttle took you to East Lake Golf Club. I was super impressed by how easy everything was. I also hate waiting, so it was nice that they had so many shuttles to and from the golf course that we would just walk right on and go.

We had to ask the PGA-worker-lady who was who. (In my defense, I did pick out Rory McIlroy!) I'm holding Adam Scott, since he has the same name as my hubs I thought it was appropriate.

 Rory! One of very few golfers I know. (And by "know", I mean I know his name.)

After a fun day in the sun, I came home to take a nap while Adam finished the UGA game. Then it was off to date night! We decided on ONE Midtown Kitchen because they're a great client of mine and it was Restaurant Week!

Adam started off with this super cool drink! It was a Jack Daniels and Coke, but the Jack Daniels was infused with peanuts. Then it's poured into this old-timey Coke bottle and topped with peanuts. (I stuck with the ever-boring vodka tonic.)

After dinner, we decided to stop for a quick drink at Meehan's on the way home. And here's the only picture I got of us on our fun date night. FAIL.

Sunday we planned to take it easy and watch the Falcons game, but then Jeff came in town for a couple hours before he had to head up to Pennsylvania. As always, we met him at Taco Mac for a quick lunch before he headed out again. (This was especially crucial because Katie and Kalyn had just sent me a picture of them together in Dallas - so I was experiencing serious FOMO.)

And because I'm now Suzy Homemaker/Career Woman, I'm going to end my posts with recipes I'VE MADE. This is huge. And also may not last long. So listen closely.

Salsa from last week

Ok, this isn't a joke. This salsa is SO good. I may or may not have eaten all of my sweet potato chips in two days because I couldn't stop. And now it's just sitting in my fridge staring at me because I have nothing to dip it in. Except a fork... That may have happened. Don't judge.

Paleo(ish) Slow Cooker Pot Roast

-1 hunk of meat (See how good I am at measurements and such? I used a Cabernet Beef Pot Roast from Trader Joe's - my newfound Mecca)

-1.5 cups of small, raw carrots

-3 celery stalks, diced or chopped or whatever (Is a stalk one piece of the celery bunch? If so, I used that word right. And I don't know the term for how I cut them. Small-ish?)

-1/2 yellow onion cut up (Again with the cutting techniques.)

-1 cup chicken stock (I was probably supposed to use beef stock, wasn't I?)

1. Brown the roast over the stove for 5 min on each side, Med-High heat

2. Pour chicken stock into slow cooker

3. Add the roast

4. Place carrots around the roast

5. Place onion and celery on top of the roast

6. Cook on High for 5.5 hours (The Roast's packaging said 5-6, so I just decided the middle would work.)

If you leave it there (without reading all of the seasonings that go into the Cabernet Beef Pot Roast) - you've got a paleo meal! Since we had company over, I also cooked wild rice (that I didn't eat, thankyouverymuch). And I probably should have done some sort of bread/roll for them. Regardless, everyone loved it! Definitely keeping this made-up recipe around for chilly/lazy nights.

Pecan Crusted Chicken

While I was at the dinner on Friday, Adam made this bad boy. He said it was delicious - I had some leftovers and have to agree!

Paleo 2.0

I've decided to jump back on the Paleo-ish bandwagon, once again. After my summer of yes (meaning "yes" to any and all foods in front of my face), I accidentally stepped on an old scale at the Antique Store with my mom on Monday. I looked down and thought "surely this is just super old", so I made my mom try. For some reason, the woman knows how much she weighs and the number on this antique was the same as her scale at home. Yikes!

Now, I know I could take this post into the whole "weight ain't nothing but a number" direction, BUT after over 10 years I've finally come to the conclusion that it matters to me. I would love to eat whatever I want with no guilt, and not freak out about every imperfection. Really, I would. I read a lot of older celebrities (ha! #reality) say they wish they hadn't cared so much about their body when they were younger. I try to repeat that mantra in my head "Don't waste time worrying about it if you're just going to regret something so stupid in 15-20 years." However, that whole thought process doesn't work for me.

I pick and pick and PICK at my body. I'm sure I could pay a therapist a good chunk of change to try to get me to think otherwise, but I've got better things to do with that money. Like spend it on materialist items.

MOVING right along. Moral of the story - I spend way too much time everyday stressing out over my tummy pooch, and paleo is the only solution that has really made me happy since we tried it out for Lent in 2013. (Minus this whole "summer of yes" hiatus.) I've done pretty well about eating paleo during the week/while I'm at home, and then not really watching what I eat (to an extent) on weekends and when I go out. This week I kicked it back into gear, and made some actual meals! Ok, so I made one actual meal. But still. Baby steps.

My inspiration came from this book Meagan and Nathan let us borrow (that I have since kept - sorry!) when we first started. The intro is like 10 pages long, and I just couldn't be bothered with actually reading it back then. Guess what? Still can't be bothered to read it. But I did make a couple recipes!

After a life changing trip to Trader Joe's (where has this gem been hiding my whole life?!), I made the below Chicken Paleo Piccata recipe along with some broccoli.

 Ta da - It was delicious!

And because I'm a total sucker for chips and salsa, I made this salsa to go along with my sweet potato chips. Another winner (that I have already completely finished - oops).

A quick rundown on why Paleo is the best option for me...

• No counting calories. As long as it's paleo, you can seriously eat as much of it as you want. (I'm sure there's some "within reason" clause, but I'm ignoring it.)
• You feel full, but not "I'm-thisclose-to-throwing-up full."
• I'm more of a snacker, so during the day is easy because I just make sure I keep snacks around.
• I can find options at restaurants. I'm not super strict about it, so I don't ask waiters what the foods' seasonings are made out of. This leaves me with plenty of options. Any type of meat with a side of veggies? Paleo. Fajitas without all of the fixings and tortillas? Paleo. BBQ without the sauce? Paleo. Burger without the bun and cheese? Paleo.

Well, now that I've put it all out there I guess I have to stick with it. More recipes coming soon! (Assuming this isn't some 4 day recipe kick that I'm going to get tired of by Sunday.)