Ugly Christmas Sweater??

Ohhh….I’ve got lots to talk about today!! I’ll start with our “ugly Christmas sweater” day at work today. Apparently I was not the only person that was unable to find something truly ugly. Not many people showed up in the dress code for the day! :( Being a good sport, I wore my “not my style” sweater all day long. Here’s what it looked like;

Not only is it not me, but it also makes me look about 50lbs heavier than I am!!! HA! And in true tacky form, I kept the tags on and returned the damn thing to the store tonight. My bad. Hehe!

Breakfast ended up being a bit rushed because I took long than expected to get dinner in the crock pot. Silly me!
-1 cup water
-1/3 cup Quaker oats
-cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice
-pumpkin puree
-crunchy, natural PB
To be honest, some raisins woulda made this bowl better. Ah, well!

I partook in some sweets again today. I’ll show you the photos now because I ate the stuff in the a.m.;
Brownie cookie, shortbread cookie
Mint chocolate, peanut brittle. I only ate one bite of the brittle because I almost broke another tooth on it so it got chucked. I did have a healthy snack, too!!

Silly orange! Why you gotta be so tasty yet messy???

Gym time! I really need to get something of my chest about running…..lately I’ve been hating it! **GASP!!!** I know, right? I don’t know what’s up but the last few times I’ve had a “scheduled” run, I’ve dreaded it. And I don’t want to dread it. To try to combat this I’ve decided to lay off running for a bit. I know that I’ll wake up one morning (soon, I think) and really have the desire to run. Then it will be “right” to go at it again….with enthusiasm! That being said, when I went to the gym today someone was already on our lone elliptical so I trudged over to one of the treadmills with the attitude to just do whatever. I ended up having a great, stress free work out! Here’s what I did;

35 minutes at 6.25 mph with a 0.5% incline
10 minutes at 4 mph with an 8% incline

Time: 45 minutes
Avg Hr: 169
Max Hr: 185
Calories Torched: 522
Distance: 4.4 miles

Not too shabby, eh? I was really impressed with the calories I shed because usually I burn about 470 on a 45 minute run. Seeing as I walked for 10 minutes I figured the calorie burn would be less. Goes to show what I know!! ;)

I brought a portable lunch today because we were running payrolls so I knew I’d need something hands free. I brought an Oceans tuna salad in a can which I’ve had before and enjoyed. I believe the other one I tried was an Italian salad. This one was a Spanish salad;
Here are the stats for the whole 170g can;
This was SUPER yummy! Check out all the veggie goodness packed inside;
Isn’t that colourful? There’s tuna (obv), corn, kidney beans, red pepper, onions and a dressing made up of vinegar, sunflower oil, salt, sugar, paprika, white pepper, chilli and cumin. That pretty much the ingredient list. The only 2 “bad” items are citric acid & xanthan gum. This mix in particular would be fantastic mixed with pasta for a super fast and easy pasta salad. I bet rice would work, too! The only place I’ve been able to find these handy lunches is at Walmart, though.

I gulped back a few of these as the afternoon went on;
There’s some pumpkin pie “creamer” in there…

As I mentioned earlier in this post, dinner tonight was courtesy of my crock pot. I was watching Rach Ray yesterday and she did up a one pot chicken dish with a sauce that I though sounded unique so I borrowed the recipe for my roast! It’s a 3 ingredient sauce to boot! Into a bowl pour a ¼ cup each molasses and grainy mustard. Stir to combine then add 1 cup of stock (I used chicken) and stir, stir, stir until it’s one happy family. Done. How easy is that? I poured it over a roast and set the crock to low. This was 8am. Around noonish I had my hubby add some potatoes and baby carrots to the pot. Here’s the finished dish with a bit of spinach, too.

I’ve had a serious baking bug in my drawers for a few days now, but I’ve been refraining from making anything because there’s already SO much stuff around this time of year. It’s really driving me nuts, though! Just a random thought!

DD and I just got back from a few stores. I bought some neat things I but I think this post has gone on long enough! I’ll show you tomorrow. Right now I have a cozy fur baby on my lap and I think I’m going to take full advantage of his heat!!

Bye for now!!