Great Friends & Homemade Sushi

Man, yesterday was a great day!

When I left you yesterday, I immediately went and made myself some lunch. Homemade bread (recipe coming soon), with cinnamon pB2, bananas, and chia seeds, with a clementine on the side.

After lunch we went and picked up Moose from the groomer…

He was brushed and looks so handsome!

Then, Dana and I registered for our very FIRST HALF MARATHON! June 3rd, 2012. I was so nervous to hit submit in the registration because that means I have actually committed. It’s official, submitted, fees paid, and there’s no turning back. I am so pumped! Bring it on!

Dana’s parents came over shortly after and visited for a couple hours. It was nice to catch up with them as always.

Next, I got ready for our sushi night with friends. I prepped some of the veggies for the sushi and also made some chocolate dipped pretzels to have out for dessert. I had to decorate them with Christmas sprinkles because I didn’t have valentine sprinkles on hand, but they were still pretty and tasty! I snacked on a bunch of pretzels while I made those sweet treats.

The night was full of Asian-inspired snacks: Baked sugar snap peas (crunchy and salty, so good), edamame, and we even tried seaweed snacks. I wasn’t a fan of the seaweed at all. I know they are supposed to be extremely good for you, but I just don’t love the taste of sea and plants combined very much. At least I tried.

We ate lots of homemade sushi which turned out awesome! We stuck to California Rolls with carrots, cucumber, avocado, and crab.

It was a great, relaxing night with friends including getting my tush whooped in Scattegories (and Dana didn’t even cheat)!

Can we please, please do this more often? Love you guys.

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This morning began with a fruit and yogurt bowl and coffee (“the best part of waking up, is Folger’s in your cup!”).

Coupon clipping, grocery shopping, and Byerly’s salad bar for lunch while we were out and about. My salad was loaded with: edamame, peas, zucchini, beets, mushrooms, carrots, jicama, pumpkin seeds, sprouts, cheese, sunflower seeds, tofu, ground flaxseed, and light ranch dressing. Holy cow I guess I got my veggies in!

After lunch, we scoped out Byerly’s fresh fish selection for our Valentine’s Dinner. I think we are going to go with the swordfish. Swordfish and roasted artichoke hearts and fennel. Dessert is to be decided still but we are leaning towards warm brownie with vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt.

And now I am home, and can’t keep my paws off of chocolate. That’s all I want to do the rest of the day…veg out and eat chocolate. I’ll probably do some laundry too, and also I plan to post that bread recipe for you all too, and maybe go to the gym or for a walk on the treadmill.  We’ll see what happens! Okay, that’s it for now. Enjoy a relaxing Sunday!

Continue Reading Great Friends & Homemade Sushi

A Colorful Lunch

How is everyone’s Saturday?

I ended up running 3 miles on the treadmill this morning. I think I have the winter running blues. I am so bored of running inside. After my run I did 5 sets up 10 knee pushups and some ab work.

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Lunch was very colorful! I started off munching on these while I decided what I wanted for lunch.

Then through this little guy together. In the mix was mini bell peppers, tomato, green olives, and Laughing Cow Swiss cheese wedge. I topped it with some honey mustard dressing and called it a lunch.

Off to run errands. I packed an apple just in case I needed a snack while we were out (which I ended up eating). We ran to Target to get some Super bowl food for tomorrow, Costco where I had an AMAZING chocolate cake sample, and the Mall to stop at Bath and Body Works and get their 5 for $15 antibacterial hand soap. One is missing because is out in the kitchen already!

For dinner I have some tilapia marinating in a honey, soy sauce, garlic powder, and ginger mixture. Time to cook it up so we can hit the road to my aunt and uncles!

Oh and real quick. I FINALLY finished the Help. I loved it and highly recommend it. I can’t wait to see the movie now! I refused to see it until I had finished reading the book.

K, I need to go now. Sorry for the condensed version of my day today!

Good night!

Continue Reading A Colorful Lunch

Got my veggies

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!

Continue Reading Got my veggies

Insomnia Insanity

I had good intentions of getting a great night of sleep last night. I snuggled into my most wonderful Tempurpedic bed at 9:30, with book (The Help) in hand. Within a half hour I was asleep, but that lasted all of about 45 minutes. From then on I was up. I never have problems sleeping but the last two nights I have slept terribly.

Being that I am an eight hours of sleep to function kind of gal, I was in rough shape today. I felt awful and actually had to call in to work which I just don’t do. It makes me really feel for those people out there who actually suffer from insomnia. That would be very difficult and I can only imagine.

Okay, so as I was awake all night. I tried reading my book again, thinking random thoughts, and watching infomercials. I am VERY intrigued by one I saw. It is a workout series called “Insanity.” It is a 60 day at-home workout and you don’t need ANY equipment, just your own body weight. However it’s roughly $120.00 (maybe more?), so if I would need to be very sure that it was something that I was going to stick with (and I would possibly suspend my gym membership).  Something for me to ponder.

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During my day I laid low…

I read my book, tried to nap but just ended up resting, watched Rachael Ray (love her), and ate a quick but delicious lunch. Shredded chicken with buffalo sauce in a La Tortilla Factory tortilla smeared with a laughing cow wedge. Unfortunately I had to go skimpy on the buffalo sauce because we ran out. Frank’s (Buffalo) Hot Sauce—“I put that $#@* on everything!” Anyone else hear that commercial a million times? Or is it just me. If so, it’s not funny to you at all.

I will continue to rest on my laurels and then go to bed early tonight. I hope to be up and running tomorrow.

Have a great night everyone!

 

Question to you all: Has anyone tried Insanity or know anyone who has? What have they thought about it? Any input would be greatly appreciated!

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Chocolate Chip Cookie Love

I am so happy today is Wednesday. I really like Wednesdays because it’s halfway through the work week  and especially like today because my wonderful co-worker brought me home-made chocolate chip cookies that were to die for (you are the best). Thanks for the nice surprise!

Breakfast

My day started with a favorite but with a little extra jazz. A perfectly ripe banana topped with slightly warmed peanut butter, sprinkle of cinnamon, and chia seeds. It was so so tasty and did a great job of holding me over until lunch which is a good thing because work was VERY busy.

Quick morning snap shot before heading out the door….

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Lunch

I decided to head home for lunch which I have been doing more often than I ever used to. I used to run errands on break but instead of going to spend money, I am going home. Plus, I love not having to pack a lunch every day. I have a hard time knowing what I’m going to be in the mood for until the time comes to eat! Ya know?

Today’s lunch looks a lot like last night’s dinner except in a bowl, and I added some bright banana peppers on top. It was so delicious. I also had a couple of Pepperidge Farms Cheese Chips then finished off lunch with a dark chocolate Adora disk and another bite of peanut butter.

I gave Moose a kiss, then headed back to work to finish off the afternoon.

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Dinner

Driving home from work I felt so hungry, but couldn’t decide exactly what I wanted for dinner. I had a feeling it was going to be a snacky kind of dinner, and I was right. I started off with some carrots.

Then moved on to some protein. Hot pinto beans with BBQ sauce (I’m in a BBQ sauce kick apparently) and a sprinkle of onion powder.

A Wasa hearty grain cracker with a Laughing Cow Light Swiss Cheese wedge.

The last of my chocolate chip cookie gift.

And that’s when I stopped taking pictures of my snacks/dinner. I continued on to have some almonds and dates. I will probably have another snack before bed because that’s just the kind of mood I am in and have a bottomless pit stomach today. Off to stretch the legs a little while on the treadmill and then call it an early night hopefully!

Buenos noches amigos!

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Training Plans

I am so looking forward to celebrating Betsy and Matt’s birthdays tonight, but first there are a few things I need to do.

This morning I headed downstairs to the treadmill to get a 2 mile run in before meeting my long time friend Amanda for ZUMBA! I have taken a couple of Zumba classes before but they are all so different because each instructor has their own style. Today our instructor was this spunky little thing and I loved her! She kept us shakin’ our booties for a solid hour and let me be the first to say it wasn’t just my booty that was shakin’ (har har)! I had such a blast and can’t wait to go back.

After Zumba I went back home to tackle two more miles on the treadmill. Running again after Zumba? Come on, seems like overkill right? Well, that’s because Dana and I are training for our first half marathon!

We have not officially signed up because registration doesn’t open until February, but we have started our training and are pumped! The longest run we have done is a 15k or 9.3 miles, which was in August 2011. The race we ran was for more “elite” runners and it was set up as a 3-loop run. Needless to say we are not elite runners, and it was a little degrading finishing our second loop when a good chunk of the other runners were finishing their third. We did finish in under an hour and 30 minutes which was our goal, but when we both finished we said, “I am not doing that again.” Ha, we’re eating our words now.

Ear buds are out, I see the finish line!

We think/hope that our next experience will be a little more fun, and it should help to do one huge loop versus three small loops. Plus, we have other friends planning to run it too!

The training plan we used for the 15k was one from Hal Higdon. For this round of training, I found this half marathon plan by him and Dana found this training plan by Jeff Galloway that he is following.  I can’t decide which one to do so for now I am just kind of doing a combination of the two. I like the idea of running Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and having Saturday be my long run which is what Hal Higdon suggested, but so far have not done the short run on Wednesday, so I am pretty much following the Jeff Galloway plan. I don’t know, we’ll see. I will keep you posted about training progress as well as registration for the race. Runners are chosen through a lottery once registered.

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Breakfast recap

Coffee and peanut butter banana much like this one except a little more sloppy and on a paper towel to go.

 

Lunch started with some appetizers (samples) at Costco: chocolate chunk cookie, protein bar, bite of meatball which I handed off to Dana, cowboy caviar, and mango peach salsa, all served in bite size samples.

Once we got home I threw together a whole grain tortilla with a laughing cow wedge, lettuce, tomato, and mustard and a handful of almonds.

I wasn’t sure how this would taste but it was actually pretty good! After lunch I finished up the birthday dessert I started making last night which I am bringing to tonight’s festivities. Now I am off to tackle a couple more weekend “to-do’s” and get ready for the rest of the day including a much needed shower.

Happy Saturday!

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