Cashew Butter and Blue Shoes

1) Cashew Butter
Honey Vanilla Cashew Butter, to be specific. It's another awesome homemade nut butter, if I do say so myself! Are you making your own nut butters? You should be. It's so easy! Well...if you have the right equipment. Trust me, I'd know. So if you DO have the right equipment (food processor big enough to accommodate multiple cups of whole nuts), then you seriously should get on with yo' nut-butter-makin' self. Start with the cashew butter mentioned above (and shown below):

HONEY VANILLA CASHEW BUTTER
Source: My brain.

Ingredients
• 2 cups raw cashews
• 3 tbsp honey
• 1.5 tsp vanilla extract

Directions
1) Preheat oven to 250F. Mix cashews and honey in a bowl, then spread the resulting mess onto a cookie sheet. (Cover it with parchment paper to make cleanup easier.) Roast in the middle of the oven for 20 minutes. Let cool for about three minutes.

2) Put cashews into your food processor and let it whirl. This part takes some time, around 10 minutes or so. When it starts to smooth out, add the vanilla and continue to process until it reaches a consistency you like.

And that's it! Store in the 'fridge.

Next topic...

2) Blue Shoes
So the mommy in me needed some retail therapy a few days ago, and I had some Christmas moolah to burn. So I headed to Kohl's in search of some new kicks for the gym. Mine were quite finished...and did you ever realize that Kohl's has quite the selection of gym shoes? I've come to appreciate that store more than I ever have before, but I digress. My new shoes. For the longest time, I've been coveting a pair of Nike Free running shoes, but since I haven't been doing much running as of late, I figured something with a little more padding would do my body some good. So I stuck with what I know and love. Only this time...

...BAM, color in yo' face! Goodbye, black and pink...hello blue and yellow! Just to remind you: Nike Dual Fusion High Performance running shoes, that's what they are. And they very much remind me of spring. (Kinda like all this crappy weather we're getting up here in Michigan!)

So I'm looking forward to putting these to good use at the gym. Not sure when that will be as I am still recovering (and Hannah is still a bit little to be going out to a place like the gym). Right now, I'm shooting for February 1. Hannah will be almost a month old by then, and I should be ready for some track walkin'. Nothing too crazy right off the bat. I did just give birth. These things take awhile to heal, so I've been told.

And I certainly don't want to hurt myself.

But anyways.

Question: What are you running in these days?