It’s not often that my professional and personal lives so totally interconnect, but in the case of bacon, there is a clear cross-over. I work in the IT industry (for the awesome IT software company Spiceworks – check out this video about zombies and, yes, bacon), and I work every day with IT pros all over the world. What brings them all together? Bacon. Yep, IT guys love bacon just about as much as we CrossFitting Paleo nuts do.  And why shouldn’t they? Bacon is quite simply one of the tastiest treats out there, and I snarf down every little scrap when the opportunity arises.

Now, I really do love bacon, but it would seem that there are some folks out there who REALLY love bacon, and they’ve got the merchandise to prove it. I recently purchased a variety of bacon-related items as prizes for our software conference a few weeks ago – I had no idea how much bacon-related paraphernalia was out there.  It’s a little scary. And a little awesome. Check out what I snagged… Not gonna lie, it would take a braver woman than me to try out the bacon-flavored toothpaste.

Bacon-Scented Soap Plus, the bar of soap looks like a huge slab of bacon. Lather up!

Bacon Flavored Mints  Hmm, not sure my vegetarian hubby would be super pleased if I started popping these.

Follow the jump for more awesome bacon-ness.

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Just flew in from London, and boy are my arms tired…  I mean my brain. I mean my neck. I mean pretty much every part of me.  I just got back from a super-quick business trip to London over the weekend, and my poor body doesn’t know what hit it! Here’s what the last four days looked like:

• Flew out Thursday night and arrived in the UK on Friday morning (sat in the cheap seats, so I only got about 1-2 hours of sleep)
• Worked from the hotel during the day Friday and was able to drop in at CrossFit London for a jet lag-busting workout (more on that below!)
• Worked all day Saturday and took my team out for a fab dinner at the Spice Market (short ribs! slow-cooked ribeye! yum!) in central London
• Spent the entire day Sunday flying back to Austin (long, long day, but… I did get unexpectedly upgraded to business class on the Heathrow-JFK flight – woohoo!)

Needless to say, I’m ready to get back into my food and workout routine – that much travel is just hard on the body.  I will admit that I wasn’t 100% Paleo over the weekend, although I was pretty darn good.  My biggest non-Paleo indulgences were dessert on Saturday night at the Spice Market (it was simply too good to turn down!) and a couple of pints of lager with my team.  When in Rome, eh?

I did get to enjoy the very Paleo-friendly English breakfast during my stay… these guys do bacon right:

English Bacon and Eggs... Yum!

One of my very favorite parts of the trip was getting to drop in at CrossFit London over in the East End.

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Bacon-Wrapped Mini Paleo Meatloaf

I grew up loving my mom’s meatloaf. Really!  I have no problem with the idea of multiple ground meats mixed together with some veggies and tomato sauce and baked to perfection. The only way I can see making it better is to cut the gluten and add bacon (words for life, eh?). Most recently I tried the Seriously Tasty Paleo Meatloaf over at Health-Bent.com – loved it and wanted to make it my own.

So, here is my take on some fun mini-meatloafs that would be great for a casual get-together or family meal… and everyone gets their own!  I’ve opted to include veggies directly in the loaf in this recipe, but if you’ve got persnickety young ones, it tastes great without ’em, too.

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My Sunday breakfast plate (not going to lie, I had two more "muffins" after these).

These are a weekend favorite at our house… Make a big batch on Sunday, and then you can just grab ’em on your way out the door for a quick breakfast during the week.  (I actually find them delish cold.)  I first ran across the idea of doing these over at nomnompaleo.com (if you’re not reading this blog, go there right now and read it. It’s amazing!)  The great thing about these is that you can put just about whatever you want in them and they’ll taste good.  Today was a bacon and southwest veggie day…

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