Hodge Podge

Hi all!  I hope everyone has had a good start to the week!  I have and it’s looking like another busy one, but that’s OK.  You know what they say about keeping idle hands busy and all…LOL  I just wish I had a little more free time to enable me to get back to blogging with a little more frequency.  In time, in time, right?

I started back to Pilate’s last Tuesday which was pretty much awesome.  They had a mini session over the holidays which I was unable to sign up for and I didn’t realize how much I missed it.  Now I’m good to go until mid May.  Wednesday DS had a hockey game which they won 1-0……with 2.6 seconds left in the game.  What a rush!  Us parents were all freaking out and the boys were so excited that they nearly jumped out of their skates!  :)

Something not so fun happened to me on Thursday at the gym.  Since July a group of us have been knocking out Jillian Michael DVD’s on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  We made our way through levels 1, 2 & 3 of the 30 Day Shred (10 times at each level) and through level 1 of Shred It With Weights (again, 10x). 
Last Thursday we moved on to level 2 of SIWW which is significantly harder than level one.  Lots of swinging through the legs with the kettle bells and such.  Within the first 5 minutes I smashed my knee with the weight doing “figure 8’s”.  Grr…but the worst was that by the end I knew I‘d screwed my back up.  Right across my lower back was numb for a few hours and when I woke up Friday morning I could barely walk.  Exercise FAIL!  I’ve been nursing it with heat and A535 and it’s feeling much better today, but still too tender to consider hitting the gym.
 
Wednesday was my hubby’s birthday and we had planned for the 4 of us to do a nice dinner out Saturday night to celebrate.  DD ended up getting invited to a sleepover birthday party so I asked my parents if DS could spend the night at their place and they agreed.  So for the first time in at least 12 years my hubby and I had a night completely to ourselves.  Heck ya! We continued on with dinner plans at Einstein’s Café (yes, we love it there, plus my friend owns it with her husband and we like to support them!!)  First, we enjoyed some bruschetta which is made using their signature homemade bread:
For our mains hubby had the portabello brie stuffed chicken breast,
And I enjoyed snapper with a light sun dried tomato cream sauce:
For dessert we shared a piece of Southern Bourbon pecan pie:
The food was outstanding, the atmosphere cozy, but the best part was that we didn’t feel at all rushed to get home to the babes.  After dinner we went to see The Fighter.  GREAT movie.  If you’ve seen it too, let me know what you thought, K?!  After the show we bumped into another couple and decided to go out for a few drinks.  I felt 20 years younger rolling (not literally!) through the front door at 2am.  LOL  Usually I’ve been asleep for at least 3hrs at that point.
I’ve been busy in the kitchen, too!  After soccer Thursday night I made a batch of blueberry bran muffins: Friday night was homemade turkey soup: Tonight was homemade macaroni and cheese: My hubby and I had Thai again for lunch last Friday:
I didn’t eat it all so the rest turned into Saturday’s lunch: We decided yesterday to make our own Pad Thai at home.  So with the help of this recipe we got to it!
DS liked it so much that he declared tofu his new favourite food.  LOL It did turn out pretty amazing…
I also made a quick stir fry for lunch today seeing as I was home instead of the gym.  I cooked some chicken breast, mixed veg and bean sprouts then added some Caribbean stir fry sauce.  Delicioso!! 
Oats have made their regular morning appearance:
And some, but not enough, fruit:
So I’ve been drinking lots of water…
And getting my greens in the form of juice!
And I can’t forget about this lovely sandwich, Something that made me very excited on Saturday was finding these gems while browsing through the grocery store! Cocoa roast almonds have made it to Canada!!!  They’re dear, though, at $6.99 a container.  Ugh…we bought them anyways!!  :)

Time to wrap this post up because we’re heading out to price new living room furniture and I want to check out some modern dining room furniture.  This is the year that we rid ourselves of the “garage sale” type furniture we have and invest in some new pieces.  After all, most of our furniture is pushing 15yrs old.  YIKES! 
Bye for now!!

Bummed Out

Hi all!  Just popping in for a quick post mid week.  I’ve been feeling strangely uninspired and bummed out this week.  My appetite has even suffered.  Very unlike me for sure!  I did do a few fun things regardless.  The kids had their annual Christmas concert with the school Monday night.  I just love going to this!  I tried to get some decent photos of the kids before hand, but this was the best I could do with them not cooperating: 
Rolling eyes!  LOL  There was so much potential for a great photo there, too!   Tuesday night was our yearly Christmas dinner at my supervisors house.  I LOVE going there for many reasons.  She’s a superb cook and it’s a great chance for us 5 payroll gals to leave work behind and have some fun.  I opted not to take photos this year.  I just really wanted to enjoy myself and the company without having to worry about a photo shoot. 
Here are some of my eats from the past few days.  I’ll let you know now that it’s all pretty boring.  :(  Hopefully I’ll be back to myself soon, huh? 
The main reason for posting tonight was to remind everyone about the Tetley Colour Therapy Tea giveaway!  Wouldn’t you LOVE to win this prize?
Thought so!!!  You have until this Sunday to enter; click on the link above for the deets. **Originally the contest was open to Canadians only.  That has CHANGED!  It is now open to Canadian AND American entries!!!**  Until then…..
Bye for now!!

Tried A Few Things

Ola!  HAPPY THANKSGIVING to my American friends!  I hope your bellies are full and you’re surrounding by loved ones.  Maybe you’re resting up for some shopping tomorrow???  *wink wink*
I’ve bought and tried a few new (to me) products over the past few weeks and now that I’ve had a chance to try them all I wanted to post my thoughts on them.  First up is Bellagio Holiday Spice hot chocolate: I’ve had Bellagio hot chocolate before in Orange pecan and and white chocolate and loved them both.  When I saw that Winners had brought some flavours back I had some trouble deciding which to try but reasoned that seeing as it’s coming close to holiday time that should be the one to buy.    And it’s really good!  It’s got a nice hint of clove and cinnamon which works well with the richness of the chocolate.   The same trip to Winners also “gifted” me some gingerbread syrup: They also had vanilla, toasted marshmallow and hazelnut.  I’m glad I went with the gingerbread because now I can make my own, much cheaper, gingerbread misto’s!  And I have been doing so all week.  YUM!  I’ve also been dumping it in my oats which has been pretty much awesome.  :)    The third item I tried I was not very fond of: Soybutter.  These samples were up for grabs at Market Fresh and seeing as I’ve always been curious if this really tasted like PB, but didn’t ever want to commit to a whole jar, I grabbed one.  The kids would love to take PB&J sandwiches in their lunches again so I had high hopes.  I scooped that little bugger in my oats this morning and dug in:
At first I was pretty impressed so I had DD (who LOVES PB) clean out the little tub it came in.  She gave it a thumbs down right away.  Huh?  But the further I got into my oats, the more yucky it started to taste.  By the time I was nearing the end I had to stop eating.  YUCKY aftertaste!!!  BLAH!  I am super glad that I didn’t shell out the cash for a whole jar. Have you ever tried this?  Thoughts? And last, but not least, I found some Fig & Date Greek yogurt which I’ve seen on a few blogs. Now this was good!  I know there are those that prefer unsweetened yogurt so that toppings/sweeteners of choice can be added, but I’ve never had an issue with it.  I can do both to be honest.  Bottom line is that I really enjoyed this!  I had some for lunch yesterday with granola; And there you have it.  Four more food items to add to my repertoire!  LOL
In other eats…..I bought Taste of Nature and Lara Bars at Costco and have been eating my way through them before hitting the gym at lunch (which I haven’t posted about in some time, but I still go 4 times a week) Waffles have been eaten and thoroughly enjoyed!
I have been eating my veggies! And tonight I made a big pot of chilli.
I just threw a bunch of random ingredients in the pot.  Love that about stews and chilli’s.  This one had carrots, parsnips, celery, onion, corn, pork tenderloin, tomatoes, loads of spice.  It was delish!  I topped my bowl with crumbled blue cheese and extra Frank’s hot sauce.  NOM NOM!
This weekend DS is in a hockey tourney which is thankfully in town.  He has 2 games tomorrow at 8am and 1:20pm.  It’s also a PD Day so no school will be missed.   Saturday brings 2 more games at 8am and 2pm.  Should be a good time!  I’m going to the first game tomorrow for sure and the goal is to have all my work done so I can get to game 2 as well.  I’ll be back Sunday with food item #8!
Bye for now!!