Farwell 2008, Welcome 2009!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Well, the computer issues seem to be resolved! Let's start with Friday night’s hockey game. It was a riot! We had some of the opposing team’s fans sitting near us which made the game that much more interesting! We won 5-4, though!! Before the game I had 2 pieces of oven ready pizza….I think it was the “Risorante” brand….in veggie.


Not bad, not great. That’s all I had time to eat because we thought the game started at 7:30, but it was actually a 7pm start time so we were a little rushed to get downtown for decent parking. You see, I am a wimp when it comes to the cold weather so I like to get a covered space in the parkade, but it fills up so fast!!

I was feeling a little hungry when we arrived home so I broke into my box of these treasures....

A Quaker True Delight bar in Toasted Coconut Banana Macadamia Nut. Just look at the size of the nuts on this thing!

I didn't get a strong coconut taste from the bar, but the banana flavour shone through quite nicely! Can't wait until these make it up to Canada!

When I got up Saturday morning, I made a batch of my green tea latte oats for breakfast.

I know it doesn’t look particularly appetizing, but it is awesome! DS had his last day of Storm Camp this morning. He got some autographs before they hit the ice and a few photos with the players…



The last half of their ice time was spent playing some pick up hockey with the Storm players. Let me tell you, he was in awe. It was a great experience for him and he wants to do it again next year. My hubby and I thought it was a great program, as well. Totally worth every cent!

We trekked up to the mall after hockey to buy the Outdoor Challenge game for the Wii. Can’t wait to tear into it later on tonight! Because it was pushing 1pm, we grabbed some Subway at the food court.

This is a 6”on WW with turkey, ham, lettuce, tomato, green pepper, cucumber, black olives and sweet onion sauce. OH, YEAH! Love this sandwich! After eating, I went to the sports store armed with my mall gift certificates and bought this for myself!!!


A POLAR F4 HEART RATE MONITOR!!!! I am SO psyched to finally get one of these guys! My hubby is going to help me set it up later because I’m really dense when it comes to electronics. I’d appreciate hearing any comments/advice/tips or tricks anybody out there has on this model. Please drop me a comment or email! Thanks!

On our way out, I picked up an eggnog misto at Starbuck’s…

Super good! When we got home I watched a bit of Oprah and then got started on a simple dinner of BBQ’d chicken with mango chutney and steamed veggies.

Dessert was a blueberry “Cravings” cheesecake. At 70 calories, these little cups pack a wallop of flavour!

We went to the park last night to see the annual light display the city puts every Christmas. It was darn cold outside….minus12* Celsius….but it was the last night for the display and we promised the kids. So, off we went, bundled up in about 500 layers!! :) It only took us 15 minutes max to see everything so we got home pretty quickly. We played Outdoor Challenge on the Wii for awhile and then popped some popcorn and settled in to watch Kung Fu Panda. I'm not a popcorn kinda girl, so my last snack of 2008 was cottage cheese with a scoop of apricot preserves.

I <3> this combo!!

Once I was done eating, I got to work baking a chocolate cake to take to Mom's place for dessert tonight (we're eating dinner there). I can't share the recipe, though, because it's from my Eat Shrink and be Merry cookbook. It's smells wicked good and I can't wait to try it!!

While that was cooling, I hit the treadmill. Thankfully, my knee was OK today and I ran 5.5 miles. I busted out the Polar F4 HRM and strapped it on. I had a few issues with it, though. Maybe I could get some help from anyone who has experienced the same thing. Three times during my run, it stopped "recording" on me. I was running away and it told me my heart rate was zero. Then, all of a sudden, it came back to life. What's up with that? Here's my readings, but I''m sure they're not 100% accurate with the pauses I got. OH! Another thing! The last time it stopped and came back on, it said my heart rate was 221 for a couple of seconds before it went back to a more "normal" rate....and I didn't change a thing about what i was doing. HUH???

Time:58:44 (I didn't turn it on right away...I was on the 'mill for 62 minutes)
Avg HR: 173
Max HR: 221 (HUH???)
Calories: 574

Anyways, I'm going to end this post here because I think it's long enough already! I'll post lunch and dinner tomorrow along with the rest of the day. I'm going to go get showered now and then I have some serious blog reading to catch up on!!

Bye for now!!

Computer Issues

Sorry I didn’t post last night! Our computer is having some issues! First, it wouldn’t allow me to download my pictures. I decided to leave that alone and start on the actual post and the keyboard was dead…..ugh! Anyways, my hubby is working on it today. I’m hoping it’ll be an easy fix!

I’ll do a short recap of yesterday before I get on to today. I should also mention that the computer ate some of my photos last night, too! Bugger! The day started off early because DS had his first day of the hockey camp that “Santa” brought for him! That started at 8am. I slept until the last possible minute then had no time to make my oats! Luckily, I had one last bowl of Kozy Shack porridge in my fridge.


This held me over until 12:30! AMAZING!!! I also had a café latte with a shot of pumpkin spice syrup from Choco Latte while at the rink.

DS had a BLAST on the ice. One of his buddies from school was there, too so that was an extra bonus. They all got Guelph Storm jersey’s with their last names written on the back. Too cool!

I got creative with the turkey for lunch by making a turkey salad. I didn’t keep track of any measurements, but here’s what went in the mix:

-turkey, chopped up into small pieces (about 1 cup)
-about 4 chunks of artichoke hearts (the ones that are packed in water)
-maybe 8-10 green olives chopped up
-a tbsp of honey mustard
-1/4 cup-ish of plain Greek yogurt (I used Oikos)
-S & P

I lined a Flatout wrap with lettuce and plopped about a 1/3 cup of turkey salad on top. Rolled it all up and voila!

I also ate the rest of the container of Oikos with some fig preserves mixed in. Terrific lunch!! DD ate one, too and she gave it the kid stamp of approval! :)


We went out to the farm for a visit in the afternoon seeing as we didn’t make it out there on Sunday like usual. My MIL bought this great new game set for the Wii called “Active Life: Outdoor Challenge”. Holy moly, what a blast! I’m going to go buy it for the family sometime this week. It has canoeing, log jumping, cart racing, hurdles just to name a few of the activities. Does anyone else have this game? What do you think about it? I’d be interested to hear any comments, good or bad!

I had some tofu in the fridge that was quickly approaching its expiry date so that’s what I made for my dinner.

It was very good! I browned up a ¼ of the block with some leftover brussel sprouts and when all was toasty and brown, I added a tablespoon of pomegranate chutney. YUM! I added some steamed veggies to the side for bulk. My sweet end was 3 clementines.

Another lost picture was my snackie! Pretty simple, really. I toasted up a 100 cal English muffin and spread one half with mighty maple PB, the other with dark chocolate PB. I just sat around watching TV all evening. Vacation is making me lazy!!

No on to today! So, I had to work. BOO!! There were only 3 of us in and it went surprisingly quick. Thank goodness! I made my eggnog oats again because I really need to use up the carton before it spoils.


Lunch was very similar to what I ate yesterday…the rest of the turkey salad. Today’s was served up in a toasted Arnold Thin.

It was better today than yesterday! I guess all the flavours enjoyed each others company over night! :)

I’m just getting ready to leave work now. It’s a little later than I’d hoped….3:30pm, which is only an hour earlier than usual. Oh, well….I’m a bit more ahead of the game for next week when we have to jump right back in feet first! We’re going to a hockey game tonight and seeing as we’ll be late and I don’t know if the computer at home is up and running yet, I’m going to post now. If you don’t see me for a few days, you’ll know that I’m still computer-less. I highly doubt that’ll be the case….my hubby is vary apt at solving technical issues….but just in case…..have a HAPPY and SAFE NEW YEAR!!

Bye for now!!

Family Day

I woke up today to the strongest gusts of wind I think I have ever heard! I told my hubby that if it had been summer, we'd be getting hit by a tornado! We saw many a tree and signs knocked over on our travels today. Yikes!!

We met my family for lunch today so I kept my breakfast on the small side to compensate for the bigger mid day meal i knew I'd be having.

-1/4 cup unsweetened chocolate almond breeze
-1/2 cup water
-1/4 cup Bob's Red Mill 10 grain cereal
-some crumbled macaroon

Mom brought over some of her magnificent tiramisu last night for dessert. This is my all time favourite dessert to eat. Mom only makes it at Christmas and sometimes for Easter so it's extra special when we get some. Please excuse the pie plate i was eating off of! I was so excited that I didn't even bother with a real plate! :)

One thing I was certain of when I got up this morning was that I had to fit a run in before we left for the restaurant or it wasn't going to happen so once my breakfast had a chance to digest, I hopped on the treadmill. The first mile was a killer. My muscles we complaining, my tummy was threatening to rebel and my head was aching. I seriously almost quit right there. I pushed on and all the yuckiness passed and I got into a real nice grove. I planned on another hour long run, but at the 29 minute mark, my left knee bummed out on me! I tried to walk it off for a few minutes, but when I tired to run again, it was very obvious that it was over. :( Walking seemed to be fine so I did that for another 10 minutes before calling it quits. I'm still not sure what happened. It feels fine just walking, but even going up & down the stairs is painful. *SIGH* I'll rest it tomorrow and hope for the best on Tuesday.

On to happier thing---LUNCH! We went to the Mandarin which is basically really good Chinese food. Their buffet has an amazing selection so i knew I was in for some good eats. My hubby and I had been there once before, but this was a good year ago. I was glad to see that it was still the same. My strategy for all you can eat buffets are to only take things that I wouldn't regularly eat, so here are my plates. I do not remember the names of everything that I tried, but most of it was delicious. I don't think any of the plates were completely consumed...if it wasn't at least an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10, I left it there.

Round #1-salads

My favorite thing on this plate was the mango salad. Least fave was the seaweed salad at the top of the plate.

Round #2-main course

I liked everything on this plate. It's mostly chicken and pork. My favourite here was the sushi. Most of the sauces were left on this plate...everything else I ate. You might notice that there's no fried or battered stuff. That's because I say YUCK to battered and fried anything! Always have...

Round #3-Dessert (X2)

My fave on this plate was most definitely the piece of Belgian waffle. I left the crust of the tart and the piece of honeydew melon. This next plate was a cruller type donut and a small slice of cranberry walnut bread. Both were awesome!

I will admit to being a little too full after all this food, but I'm happy with the choices I made. We made a few stops before we got home and then I just sat down and watched some TV with my kitten. Next thing I knew, it was 45 minutes later! I had fallen asleep! I guess a big lunch will do that to you.

DS had a hockey game at 4pm today and my whole family came...even my sister in law and niece & nephew who live 2 hours away! It was so much fun! My nephew loved watching DS on the ice. He wants to play so bad but he has to wait until next year when he'll be 4. After the game, my crew and my sister in law's crew went out to Swiss Chalet for dinner. All the kids enjoy going there to eat. I was still content from lunch so I just ordered a bowl of soup with a bun.

I also nibbled on a few of baby G's (my nephew) fries. If DD was writing this post, she'd probably tell you that when we got back to the house, I devoured a small bag of Kahlua filled chocolate's that my SIL gave me as part of my Christmas present. I won't confirm that, though! :~)

They hit the road by 9pm and now here I am, in my fuzzy PJ's at last about to hit the sack. DS is on the ice at 8am tomorrow for his first day of hockey camp and I will be going to watch....with a BIG coffee! I'll leave you with a few picture's of the kids at dinner tonight. One is of DD and baby G, the other of DS and Callie cat my niece)...


Catch y'all tomorrow!!

Bye for now!

Is It Already Saturday??

I woke up at a more decent hour of 7:30 this morning. While there’s nothing wrong with getting out of bed at 9am every now and again, I always feel like I’ve lost half the day when I do! When I looked out the window, I couldn’t see past my nose for the fog. And it was pouring. And then there was thunder and lightening….on the 27^th of December. What the heck is with that???

I made a bowl of my eggnog oats for breakfast.

This ingredient combo never fails to tickle my taste buds! I’m going to be making a special stop at the grocery store where I found it to stock up on some more Vitasoy cartons before the seasonal flavours are gone!

I spent the rest of the morning organizing the presents under the tree. I like to leave everything under there for a few days before it get put away. This is what Pepper spent the morning doing…

Yes, that’s DD’s butt! I told him he’d better hope she didn’t toot!

Once the boys were home from hockey and showered, we made a trip to the mall to buy DS a new hockey stick because his broke at practice today. I stopped by a little booth called Kitchen Connaisseur when I noticed that all the merchandise was 50% off! I picked up some mango chutney, pomegranate chutney, Israeli couscous, maple cappuccino sauce, sun dried cherry sauce and a jar of chocolate mocha sauce and 2 bowls!


All these goodies only cost me $30.00! Can't wait to try everything!!

By the time we got home it was pushing 1:30 and I was a starvin Marvin! I made a sandwich with an Arnold Thin, cranberry sauce, turkey, artichoke and lettuce.


Delish!! I also finished off the jello, but didn't photograph it because I've eaten it for the past 2 days! Finally, 2 clementines found their way to my mouth! No pic of them, either...

The afternoon was fairly uneventful. I caught up on some blog reading and cleaned up the house some. We have company coming over tonight so I more or less cleaned the rooms I know people will be in. I'm a cheater, I know! I really hate cleaning, though!

I made turkey vegetable soup for din din tonight. Are ya sick of seeing turkey yet??
I sauteed an onion, 2 cubed carrots, 3 ribs of celery, diced in some broth until they were soft. Next, I added about 5-6 cups of homemade turkey stock and brought everything up to a boil. In went a half cup of orzo and a can of lentils. That simmered for another 10 minutes or so and presto! Supper is served!


I sprinkled about a Tbsp of grated Parmesan cheese on top. Because i know there will probably be sweets floating around later, I ate 2 more clementines for my sweet end.

I was thinking today that when I have to get back into my normal routine, I'm going to pay for all this relaxing business that I've been enjoying! I had full intentions of getting a run in today, but it never did happen. Tomorrow we have brunch with my family on the agenda plus a 4pm hockey game and possibly dinner out with my sister in law. Let's see if I squeeze a workout in!!

Bye for now!!

Boxing Day Part 2

Hello again!

Okay! Let's get on with today's eats! Pepper woke me up at 6:05am, but luckily for me, he woke DD up, too. She decided to take him downstairs which allowed me 3 more hours of sleep. That's right, boys and girls, I got out of bed at 9am! That late rising set the tone for a VERY leisurely day!

My MIL brought me some International Delight coffee creamers last night....

YUMMY! I decided to drizzle some of the buttered pecan on my oats for breakfast.


-1 cup water
-1/2 flax seed porridge
-cinnamon
-scant tbsp butter pecan coffee creamer


This bowl was so, so good! The creamer was just enough to give a nice sweetness to the oats without being to powerful. I could get use to that!

After breakfast I set to the task of taking all the meat off the turkey carcass to free the bones up for a pot of broth. I told my hubby that I should really roast a turkey more often because you get so much bang for your buck. Just look at all the meat still left...


This was a 12.5lb turkey that fed 6 of us last night and there was still this much left! Here's the soup pot cooking away.


I ended up getting 13 cups of broth from the bones. I refrigerate it over night and tomorrow I will remove all the hardened fat from the top so it's healthier for us. This is how my Mom has always done her broth (or "brodo" as I grew up calling it!)

I didn't really get hungry for lunch at all, but after a quick trip to the grocery store for cat litter, I figured I'd better eat something. I decided to eat a bowl of jello salad and 2 clementine's. I ate this at 2pm!


I should mention that I snacked on about 4-5 homemade haystacks throughout the morning and afternoon, too. That probably contributed to my lack of appetite! I scavenged around the house for the jello recipe and haven't been able to find it. I will look around again tomorrow to see if I can find it!

I lazed around until 5pm watching Food Network. They were airing a bunch of challenges. Kinda cool to watch. Supper, as I'm sure you can guess, was heated up leftovers. I swear most food tastes better the next day!!


And we polished off the cheesecake, too.


There was about a 1/3 cup of the sauce leftover so I told my hubby, who is a cool whip freak, to mix the sauce with whatever amount of ice cream he would normally eat, only using Cool Whip and pop it in the freezer for his dessert tomorrow. He must not have thought me too crazy because he did it!

After dinner we watched Wall-E. What a cute movie! The kids really enjoyed it and we all had a few good laughs. Very entertaining!

Well, that was my day! Very relaxing and laid back! I think we all need one of those every now and again! I hop everyone is able to kick back over the holiday's and do some relaxing, too!

Bye for now!!

Boxing Day Part One

Hello, all!

I apologize for yesterday's disjointed post! I started it in the afternoon thinking that I could finish it off later in the evening, but I was just too beat out to get it done!! So, I decided that I would do 2 posts today...one to recap last night and later on, one for today's business!

I mentioned yesterday that I had a plain yogurt with cranberry sauce after my run, but I never did post the photo! Here it is....

For my bridal shower (which was many moons ago!) I received this wonder set of dishes from a cousin of my Mom's. I only pull them out for Christmas, Easter and other special occasions because I am terrified of wrecking them! This is one of the dinner plates...

Isn't it gorgeous? It's a 4 place setting set and I just adore it! Here's our Christmas table almost ready to go! It's still missing the mashed potato, turkey and jello salad at this point. The picture is courtesy of DD.

Because my dish set is for 4, the kiddies got the every day stuff. Next up we have my Christmas dinner. I was so pleased that every thing turned out marvelous! No dry turkey at my house!

Starting at the top and moving clockwise, you will see stuffing, hubby's bread maker bread, turkey, mashed potatoes, veggies (I made roasted brussel sprouts and carrots) and a few olives. Next I had a generous scoop of my MIL's wicked good jello salad. I always save this for the end for 2 reason's. 1)I'm not a big fan of sweet stuff with my savory (unless it's "meant" to be this way) and 2)I always save what I enjoy the most for the end so that it's the last flavour in my mouth. I'm weird, I know! I even gave up eating most of my warm, buttered bread to save enough room for this treat!

It's a mixture of jello, cheese, crushed pineapple and cool whip. I'll dig the recipe up for tonight's post. It's so light and fresh that it goes down like air. *SIGH* Love it! :)

Dessert was fantabulous! I can't post the cheesecake recipe because I got it out of my Looney Spoons cookbook. It's an easy, light cheesecake that I've made many times. I've also put many a topping on it! If you've been reading along the past few days, you'll know that I made a Caramel Pecan sauce to go along with it. I also whipped up a 1/2 cup of heavy cream with a Tbsp of sugar for the finishing touch!

Isn't that a thing of beauty?! I ate all but the last 2 bites. I. Was. Just. Too. Full. My hubby called me a whimp, but I was truly ready to blow the button on my jeans!

How about I talk presents, now?! Everything I opened was on my list and I couldn't be more thrilled! Here's the low down...a digital food scale, a new hair dryer (mine was ancient!), a gray sweater from Old Navy, hat/scarf combo in the softest wool ever, a milk frother, fuzzy PJ's, 3, yes 3! Starbuck's gift cards! YEAH! a few gift cards for the mall, one from Chapter's (very similar to Barnes & Noble), a travel mug, a new work out outfit, a blender (mine blew up), a throw from DD and I'm sure I'm missing a few things, but I was properly spoiled, wouldn't you agree?!

Well, that about covers the rest of my stellar Christmas Day! I'll be back tonight with a recap of today's going on's!

Bye for now!!