And We're Off!

This morning I hit the floor running! My daughter started cross country “training” at school today which means she had to be at school for 8am. This means 2 school drop off’s for me 3 days a week for the next month because I don’t feel comfortable letting my son walk alone. Please understand…I’m not complaining in anyway! I always encourage the kids to participate in any activities that they want. This just means a change in the morning routine for awhile. I made breakfast for my son and myself after we dropped her off. He had his favorite…egg with the yolk, AKA sunny side up eggs, with toast. Here’s my oat combo for today:

Blueberry Banana Mandarin Oats

-1 cup water
-1/3 cup Flax Seed Porridge
-1/2 container of Heinz banana/mandarin baby food
-1/2 cup blueberries
-dash of cinnamon



This bowl was quite tasty. While I like the addition of the baby food, it’s not something that I would do regularly. The fruit taste can be a little overwhelming at first, but it mellows out by the last bite.

Around 11am I munched on my Blueberry Bran Vita Muffin. I don’t think I was really that hungry, just a bit bored. It was a slow morning work wise. Unfortunately, I tend to snack when I’m bored. I’m sure I’m not the only person who does that! I always make sure I have healthy stuff on hand at work for those “I think I’m hungry” times!



It kinda looks like a cookie in this photo!!

We are lucky enough to have an OHL hockey team in our city and their pre season games have started. My kids each had a voucher to get into one pre season game free so I went down to the box office at lunch to get four tickets for this Friday night’s game. One of my family’s favorite cold weather things to do is go to hockey games. My husband and son both play and my sitter boards two of the OHL team players so the games are a lot of fun! It’s a great way for us to reconnect and unwind after a busy week. While out at lunch I stopped by the health food store to stock up on my Almond Breeze. I also bought some cookies made by New Moon Kitchen. I’ve tried the ginger & moka flavors so this time I got a flavor called “bite me!” They are labeled as “seed & raisin” cookies.





These little guys pack a punch! WOW!! They are crammed with raisins, sunflower seeds, & brown sesame seeds. In fact, that’s pretty much the ingredients list! The other ingredients are oats, spelt flour, unrefined cane sugar, sunflower oil, cinnamon, baking soda & sea salt. Completely natural and good for you without tasting too “healthy”! The nutritional’s are pretty good, too…..150 calories, 6 grams of fat & 2 grams of fiber for 2 cookies. After reading about Lara bars on so many blogs, I caved in and bought one today. I’ve looked them over many, many times, but the high calorie count in most of them has always scared me off! All the flavors appealed to me so I settled on the Cherry Pie because (I’m gonna be honest here) it had the lowest calorie count. I saved it for dessert so more about what I think a little later in the post!




Lunch today was pretty much the same as yesterday! I made another salad using ½ cup of chickpeas, 2 garden tomatoes, 1/4 of an English cucumber chopped up and 2 Tbsp of Bountiful’s Hearty Italian dressing. I loved the flavor of this salad. It was just so satisfying! Of course I ate 2 of my cookies! I think this is my favorite flavor so far. I also packed a container of grapes which I ate at 4pm.





My daughter also started her dance lessons tonight. I know! Busy girl! Her and my son will be taking a cab after school Monday's to my parents and having dinner there. I will pick them up after work and drop her off at dance. That leaves just my husband and myself for dinner. In other words.....fend for ourselves night! Tonight I whipped up 1/3 cup eggbeaters, 1/4 egg whites and served it on top of 2 pieces of Weight Watcher's whole wheat bread with a few squirts of Frank's Redhot sauce. I roasted some asparagus in the oven and served it on the side.



As I mentioned earlier, my dessert was the Cherry Pie Lara bar that I bought today. I must say, not bad! I really dug the chewy, nutty texture and it had a rich, sweet flavor to it. I don't know that it really tasted like cherry pie, but I liked it none the less. They're not widely available around here so next time I'm at the health food store I think I'll grab one with more chocolate undertones. You can't go wrong with chocolate, as far as I'm concerned!

Speaking of chocolate! OH MY!! My daughter's dance studio does a chocolate bar fundraiser every year with the proceeds going towards the recital costumes. So this is what I have on my kitchen table right now....actually, there are 2 of them!



That's right, folks, 48 chocolate bars at my fingertips! To make it even worse, a letter came home from the school today letting us know that on Friday they will be starting a fair trade chocolate bar fundraiser to raise money for various needs at the school! I must stay strong! How do you guys out there stick to your resolve when you're around your food weakness??

Bye for now!