After work I went to the gym and got a great workout in. I ellipticaled for 30 minutes and then did a pyramid strength workout from Pinterest that focused on upper body. It included planks, arm curls, pushups, dips, and more. I will have to dig this one so I can post it for all ya’ll.
As I pulled into our driveway after the gym, I noticed the UPS lady was at our house. What were they delivering to me? Keep reading and you shall see! But first things first.
Bachelor is on… still rooting for Casey B!
I have a belly full of home-made tomato soup with crackers and cheddar cheese. This turned out AMAZING! I loved it. As I said last night, I will be posting that recipe for you.
And am in the process of activating my IPhone4S BABY! I wanted to hug the UPS lady but I resisted. I am pumped!
That’s Dana’s manly hand btw, not mine.
My old phone was on it’s last limb. I was lucky if I could text on it because the keypad was so shot. It gave me a lot of headaches and tested my patience often. Needless to say I am ecstatic about this new phone. Dana is helping me get situated with it and next step is for me to start entering in a million phone numbers (because I have a million friends, duh, pahhaha just kidding) and learn how to navigate this bad boy. I have never even had internet on my phone before. Holy cow. I am moving up in this world, and getting caught up with the rest of the world.
I am so distracted right now I better get going. I have some learning to do. I hope everyone had a good Monday. Good night!
I marinated two tilapia filets. The marinade included 3 Tablespoons lower sodium soy sauce, 1 Tablespoon honey, 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder, and 1/4 teaspoon ground dry ginger.
I let Dana cook them up on the stovetop because I didn’t want to smell fishy since we were meeting up with family soon after. My hair absorbs smells so quickly and I didn’t feel like nauseating myself and everyone else the rest of the night. He was more than happy to help me cook…take a look for yourself! All smiles. 😛
We served the honey soy tilapia with some mukimame (also a soy product!) and some brown rice with soy sauce. It was a soy kind of a dinner I guess. Ha! The tilapia turned out wonderfully. I usually need to put some kind of sauce on my tilapia, but I didn’t with this recipe. It was so easy too! Give it a shot.
It was a light dinner because I knew we would be snacking and having a couple of cocktails later at my aunt and uncle’s. Upon arrival my uncle made me one of his famous margaritas! He used light margarita mix with a splash of orange juice so really he made us “skinny” margaritas. I truly appreciate that since I am trying to watch my waist a little bit these days! I also snacked on some chips and cheese and crackers with a light cream cheese spread. I negated the skinny margarita with the chips and cheese, but I don’t care. I enjoyed every bite of the salty snacks.
We had a great time visiting and catching up with my mom and dad, my aunt and uncle (Chip and Patti), and their kids. It is always so great to see them. I have the best family!
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Sunday Morning
First off, I love Sunday mornings. I especially love Sunday mornings when I know I don’t have much on the agenda for the day. I started my morning off on the right foot by heading down to the treadmill for a quick two-mile run. After that I through a load of laundry in the wash, folded clothes from the dryer, went through a bin of old clothes from the basement, clipped coupons, and eventually came around to making myself some breakfast.
Fresh blueberries, strawberries, and banana topped with a dollop of greek yogurt sweetened with honey. It tasted like dessert it was so creamy and sweet.
Next on the agenda will be finding an at home strength workout on Demand. I am hoping to find a lower body workout including lots of squats. Make it burn baby! I am in a productive mood today.
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Super bowl plans include staying home with the boys and snacking on some real good treats. I am not the type of person who can sit and watch the whole game, so it will be nice to be home so that I can get some stuff done around the house. I’m hoping this will include going through some more bins in the basement. I am not a hoarder but I do have a lot of junk that I do not need. Like Dana says, “just let go.” I need him with me when I’m going through my old clothes so he can help me justify why I DON’T need that swimsuit anymore that would most likely cover only one half of my behind. Kidding, but seriously, I do have a hard time letting go of old clothes.
On the menu for tonight:
Guacamole-made with avocado AND peas
Healthy bean dip
Home made sweet potato chips and possibly zucchini chips depending on how motivated I am
Baked chicken poppers
Home made caramel corn
We will see if all of these things actually get made. I also want to make up a batch of tomato soup to have for a week night meal this week. It sounds like I will be in the kitchen all day. I LOVE IT! I am feeling ambitious. I feel like someone injected a triple espresso into my bloodstream. I better stay on top of this.
I will be sharing ALL of these recipes with you once I have developed them! I am excited to get creative in the kitchen. Have a wonderful Sunday everyone! Much love to all!
First and foremost I have to say that my husband is a genius. He fixed my computer and I can now transfer pictures onto my computer from my camera. THANKS BABE!
This morning I actually got out of bed early to do my workout before work. When the alarm clock went off at 5:30 am I thought meh, I don’t know about this. I laid there playing the contemplation game in my head. Should I reset my alarm and sleep for another hour? Should I get up and just do it Nike style? I don’t want to get up. Remember how good you feel after a workout and how much energy it gives you throughout the day? After about five minutes of contemplating I realize I am still lying there awake. Just get up. So I did.
I headed downstairs to the treadmill and started off with a nice little 4.0 walk. I slowly began cranking up the speed to 5, 5.5, 6.0, then felt comfortable at 6.4 for a while. I decided to run spurts of increased pace, I believe they’re called fartleks. I would crank up the speed to 7.4 and run at that pace for a song, then bring it back down to 6.4, and I did this little combination for 3.5 miles. I got real sweaty this morning and I am SO happy I got out of bed early! Now I don’t have to go to the gym after work.
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Breakfast
Breakfast was a success. I attempted oatless oatmeal again this time with a couple of modifications.
I mixed together 3 tablespoons egg white, 3 tablespoons almond milk, 1/2 tablespoon ground flaxseed, 1/4 teaspoon vanilla, a dash of cinnamon and 1/2 frozen banana that has been thawed. I cooked this mixture on the stove top on low-medium heat for about 3 minutes. I removed from heat and added 1/4 cup blueberries, a little stevia to sweeten, and a touch of brown sugar (because I love the flavor of brown sugar). Voila. The consistency was great and the flavor did not taste like eggs one bit. I also had a small handful of almonds for added protein.
Tasted way better than it looks
Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work I go…
Lunch
I decided to stop home for lunch because Dana was going to be home. I ate my packed lunch. Any guesses what it was? Sorry to bore you. But yes, peanut butter banana wrap.
I love seeing him at lunch break!
To jazz up the afternoon at work I brought some Celestial Seasoning’s Black Cherry Berry herbal tea to sip on. I had never had this kind before but it was GOOOOD! It tasted kind of like fruit punch. That reminds me of kool-aid mustaches as a kid. 😛
Dinner
Another easy dinner tonight. I decided to pull some Rubollita soup out of the freezer that I made about a month ago. Since I made this soup before I started the blog, I didn’t write down the recipe, therefore don’t have a recipe to share with you. However, I will make it in the future again and will no doubt write it all down!
I discovered this wonderfully veggie filled soup when we were in Italy. Julie, a friend of mine, told me I had to try this soup when I was there and I am so glad she recommended it. Rubollita is a hearty Tuscan soup made with bread and lots of veggies. We were at a little Tratorria (a more casual type of dining restaurant) in Florence when I spotted it on the menu and decided to give it a go. It sounded like it was right up my alley. I topped it with fresh parmesan and devoured that bad boy. It was UNBELIEVABLY delicious, healthy, and very filling! I knew this was one I needed to recreate once I got home. So that’s just what I did. To give you an idea of the components of the soup, here are some components of the soup:
cabbage
tomato
onion
kale
carrot
beans
chicken stock
garlic
whole grain bread that has been dried in the oven
The process involves cooking all of the veggies in the stock, simmering, and then adding the bread at the end of the cooking process. You let the bread soak in for about 20 minutes then use an immersion blender to slightly blend the mixture. The outcome does not look the prettiest but it sure does taste good!
Don’t spill….don’t trip….
My bowl was filled to the brim. It tasted just as good as the first time if not better this time around. I love easy dinners like this. I’m thinking I need to whip up a batch of soup this weekend! What kind should I make? Hmm…..Creamy tomato? Pumpkin carrot? We shall see what this brain conjurs up.
I have a raging appetite today so I will no doubt be eating a snack later tonight. I’m off to relax and watch a little Wheel of Fortune! Good night!
Lunch was VEGGIE PACKED! I said I would work on it today and I did just that. I made a salad with mixed greens, leftover cowboy caviar from Friday night, shredded cheese, and a side of broccoli with honey mustard. It was amazing but left me with some real onion-y breath. I’ve had a lot of that going on lately! I also snacked on some Wheat Thins.
I did my chores including organizing the coupon book. Check it out:
Cute, huh? Yes, I absolutely love being and feeling organized.
After getting stuff done around the house, I did end up heading over to mom and dad’s for a little while this afternoon. It was so nice to hang out with mom, dad, and their dog Abbie (below). Abbie was helping mom cut coupons today.
It was what Sundays should be….relaxing. We watched a DVR’d episode of Ellen with Kellie Pickler. She is absolutely the cutest thing ever. I snacked on some Angie’s Kettle Korn lite.
On the way home I stopped at my favorite store, Target, to purchase an intense facial moisturizer. Minnesota winters can be pretty rough on the skin. I moisturize my face every morning after I cleanse it and also at night before bed, but it is still so dry on my chin and my t-zone. So, I hit the intimidating aisle of face creams/moisturizers/wrinkle reducers, etc. and searched for something that looked like it could handle this situation. I decided on Aveeno Smart Essentials nighttime moisture infusion with vitamins A, C, and E. I am going to start using it tonight so I will let you know what I think.
I snacked on some almonds and Craisins this afternoon as I tried to fix some computer problems. My computer is not recognizing my USB when I try to upload photos from my camera, so I had to upload my photos onto Dana’s computer and then email them to mine in order to post them. Yikes, I need to figure this out because that will get old REAL fast.
Dinner consisted of a lot of the same ingredients as lunch. I didn’t want the cowboy caviar to go to waste, but I also didn’t want terrible onion breath the rest of the night, so I decided I would saute the mix to mellow out the onion. After I sautéed the veggies for about 5 minutes, I made a well in the middle and cracked an egg in the middle. I cooked it over-easy topped with some cracked black pepper, Mexican Style reduced-fat cheddar cheese, and a dollop of salsa (salsa added after photoshoot). I love when the yolk covers over the veggies and adds a creaminess to the dish. Wow, this was good and guess what? No onion breath. Double win!
I made up for my lack of vegetables yesterday!
The rest of the night will consist of relaxing, getting ready for the week ahead, and hangin’ with my guys. It was a great weekend except it went way too fast as always!
Good Evening! Hope everyone had a wonderful Thursday.
I started the day off giving the Oatmeal minus the oats another shot. The goal was to get an oatmeal consistency versus cream of wheat consistency. The verdict is……..SUCCESS! Looks pretty good, huh? That’s because it was. This time I used frozen banana that I defrosted in the microwave and added a tiny bit of brown sugar and a scoop of peanut butter. It was fantastic.
It does such a good job of holding me over until lunch because of the combination of protein and fat from the egg, milk, flax seed, and peanut butter (I chose to exclude the walnuts again).
Fast forward to lunch time. I decided to brave the cold and go home for lunch. I wasn’t sure what I was in the mood for so I started with banana and peanut butter (second time today I know-no surprise), next moved to an apple with a laughing cow wedge, carrots, and then dipped back into the peanut butter a few more times. I am a crazy peanut butter addict.
I’m not sure if I am dehydrated, fighting some kind of bug, or what, but I am not feeling very well this afternoon/evening. After work I headed down to the basement to get a 3 miler in on the treadmill. I pulled through it but felt completely nauseous towards the end. Dinner time rolled around and I wasn’t hungry. Wheel of fortune was over and I was still not hungry. I’m always hungry though.
I grabbed a Powerade zero out of the fridge hoping that I was just dehydrated and it did seem to help a bit. I poured myself a small bowl of Quaker’s Life Apple Cinnamon Crunchtime and Crunchy Corn Bran with almond milk. It was just what I needed. I love it when the cereal is a little soggy, and a little crunchy. I am starting to come around now.
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I am very excited that tomorrow is Friday. I am planning on working on the blog this weekend; I feel like it needs so much work! I want to fill you in on workouts, wedding recaps, Italy, recipes, hopes, dreams, etc. and will with time! Thank you to those who are reading this blog right now and supporting me. Feel free to pass my blog on to anyone who you think might enjoy it! I will try to keep you entertained.
Now that I have given you a brief introduction of who I am, I want to introduce you to two other members of the household.
My husband, Dana. Dana and I got married just a few months ago, Oct. 1st, 2011. He is absolutely the love of my life and is so supportive of me and patient with me. We love being together whether it be cooking something up in the kitchen, hiking, running, grocery shopping, etc. He is willing to try my recipe renovations and continues to stay positive for me even through recipe flops.
Dana went to college with two of my brothers which is how we met. We ran into each other a few times, exchanged numbers, and started dating. We dated for two plus years, he proposed, and then we planned for our wedding which took place in MN. I plan to recap some of our memories from the wedding as well as our honeymoon in Italy! Plan on seeing this face quite a bit throughout the blog journey.
Next up: Moose aka Moosebear, Mooser
This is our 3 1/2 year old German Sheperd. He loves to play with his rope, chicken, chew on his bone, eat, whine, go running with Dad, play with friends at the dog park, and take naps. He keeps us laughing…all 92 lbs of him! Now that Dana and I are married, I am officially his mom. Love that little guy.
