It's Foodie Penpals Reveal Day!!!

This is easily one of my very favorite days of the month!!! For those of you who don't know what Foodie Penpals are, where have you been?? Is it dark under that rock??? Now that we have gotten my snarkiness out of the way, let me tell you about this super fun link up I do every month. If you ever went to summer camp and longingly wished your parents send you care packages of your favorite foods, this is going to be your dream come true!!!

Here's how it works:
  -On the 5th of the 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 can choose 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 Penpals is open to US, Canadian residents & UK residents.

Now if you are interested  click HERE and tell Lindsay at The Lean Green Bean how excited to be a part of it!!  She does a ton of work so that all of us can enjoy this and it is really awesome :)

Michelle, who blogs over at Esculent Dreams sent me my box.  You should check out her blog if you get the chance.  If you are an oatmeal addict like me, you will love the page she calls the OATMEAL DIARIES.  She has some really great recipes posted.  I've hit her up a bunch looking for different variations and I intend to keep checking it out. Michelle really listened to me when I said I am off and running in different directions all day long and sent me lots of on the go treats.  She also manage to get me addicted to some new fun foods...  One of the absolute coolest things Michelle did in this box was include a note about every product she sent and why she sent it.  There has to be something written in the box but she definitely made it more fun with the post-its.  I'm totally stealing this idea for next month :)  So here is what she sent me:

 

all of my loot!

 
I was s decent size box and Rob and anger dove in with me to see what they could stake claim on.

This made me giggle because I had sent the very same thing in my box.  I guess Justin's Nut Butter has become a household staple!  Okay by me :)  I often keep one of these tucked in my purse for emergency snack attacks and sometimes use them instead of GU on my longer runs.  

Michelle also found a great way for me to combine dark chocolate and peanut butter.  This, of course, was claimed immediately by Danger and we used it the other morning for our breakfasts in a brilliant stroke of genius.



 

Some quick on the go snack/protein bars that will get me through my next couple of crazy days

She also sent me some treats.  I tried not rewarding  my good behavior with snacks and food but to be honest, I rather enjoy a fun snack to celebrate a great run, workout, or kick ass day at work.  Food is fun and I like using it to celebrate.  That said, I have learned to manage the celebrations quite a bit better and Michelle helped me out with that.

Both of these are yummy, not so high in calories and make me feel like I'm sneaking something even though I'm not. 

Michelle also sent me some canned fish, which make quick, easy meals for our fall on the go schedule.  With school starting on Tuesday, karate 3 days a week and baseball another 3 days, we are always out of the house.  When we aren't running from one side of the town to the other, I'm at work spinning my wheels and trying to pack easy meals that won't look boring compared to what my coworkers order from take out.  I was very excited to see the tuna and salmon. 

So there you have it...  my foodie pen pal and the box she sent are totally awesome.  If you are wondering what I sent to my pen pal, take a look at Kiersten who I also got to meet and get to know this month.  her blog is also super fun and I was excited to have been paied with a runner so I could share lots of my favorites with her.  I hope you all enjoyed your boxes if you got them and if you didn't, what's stopping you???  hurry up and sign up before the 5th of September.