Camera Randomness

Good morning!  Is everyone enjoying the weekend thus far?  This is a 3 day weekend for us thanks to Monday being family day!  Looking forward to NO alarm tomorrow morning.  LOL  Anyways, the kids are busy watching movies this morning so I decided it was high time to clean up the pictures that have been lingering on my camera.  Thought I’d share a few with you!
First, last Friday we went to Casey’s for dinner and I was (happily) surprised to see that they now have a gluten free menu!  I haven’t had pasta in a restaurant for ages so I dove right into a bowl of Jambalaya with corn penne.  The flash went off when I took the picture so I took another of the leftovers that I ate for lunch yesterday:  Nicely done!  I also enjoyed a PB ice cream/brownie “mini” dessert. I’m not a fan of whipped cream so that went to Jason’s dessert, but I was all over the brownies!!  YUM!
Speaking of pasta, I’ve collected a few noodle-y meals on the ole camera: The above was from a bit ago, but I remember it because I had made a wicked seafood sauce!
^^^Pad Thai; also from Casey’s back in the summer…^^^
^^^Rice noodles with homemade clam sauce^^^
  ^^^Rice pasta bakes with ground turkey, spinach and provolone cheese.
I’ve also seem to have collected many breakfast pictures over the last few months: And eggs!  I seem to eat more eggs than I thought!  I’m a little quirky with my eggs in that I really don’t like them for breakfast.  I mainly eat them for lunch or, on occasion, for a quick dinner.  
Here’s a coupla kitten pictures! What a face!!   :)  I think I’ll leave the photos at that.  There’s plenty more, but I’d like to get them in some sort of order for a proper post!  :)
Before I go I wan tot remind you to check out the House of Tsang giveaway I’m hosting.  There’s still time to enter!!
Bye for now!!

Alarm Free

Happy Sunday, all!  Has everyone been enjoying a great weekend?  Mine’s been more low key than usual which is just fine by me.  Yesterday and today I actually got to wake up naturally, read; NO ALARM!  I seriously can’t remember the last time I was able to go to bed without setting my alarm.  It’s not even that I sleep late, it’s just SO nice wake up on my own, ya know?? 
It’s definitely been a lot cooler lately, this weekend in particular.  Only 6*C right now!  I was hoping to go another few weeks before starting the furnace up, but we cracked yesterday and started it up.  I’ve also been using the oven as a heat source.  Yesterday after groceries but before Noah’s hockey game I baked another batch of granola from Quinoa 365:
I love that this makes such a massive amount (7 cups) of granola!  And we all like it, so it never goes to waste.   Sarah helped me out with another recipe from the book: She seems to be developing a real interest in the kitchen, so I let her do most of it for me.  I only had strawberry jam so we used that instead and the bars turned out GREAT! The quinoa flour *almost* makes it taste like there’s peanut butter in the crust.  Noah actually thought this and I didn’t try to change his mind.  ;)
Breakfast yesterday was a big stack of pumpkin pancakes topped with blueberries; How absolutely delicious does that look?  I could go for another stack right now!  HAHA  I had one rice tortilla left in the fridge so I decided to fill it with some eggs.  I cooked a big handful of spinach, added some turkey deli meat (GF) then poured in about a 1/2 cup of Egg Beaters. When it was just about set I added some goat gouda w/ chilles: Then wrapped it up!
I don’t know that I’m too fond of the rice wraps.  They taste fine, but tend to get awful hard which in turn makes them crack.  Hmm….For dinner I made a BIG batch of homemade butternut squash soup which was served with plain Greek yogurt and grated mozzarella: Soup just never photographs well, does it?  I had some toasted rice bread on the side for dipping.  YUM! 
Sarah is trying out for a volleyball team here in town so a few tryouts have been taking place. 
I know; just what we need right?  Another competitive sport in the house!  But I firmly believe in giving my kids every opportunity out there that they show an interest in.  This may make for a busy life right now, but when you think of it, at 12, I really don’t have many more years left with her before she leaves for school and what such so it’s a small price to pay. 
Let’s see….not much more to report.  The gluten free thang is still going well.  Like I’ve said before; I’m sure there is still some gluten in my diet, but the bulk of it has been removed and I’ve been feeling better.  It’s really only been 7ish weeks and I was told to give it at least 4 months to *really* see results, so I’m gonna stick with it for the time being.  On that note, I have a delicious salad waiting for me to eat for lunch!  Talk soon!
Bye for now!!!

Way Back Play Back

Huge THANKS to all for the positive feedback on the vlog I did the other day!  That’s something I would definitely like to do more of.  :)  I decided to get retro with this post by going back to my original format of daily eats and activities.  It’s been a really long time since I’ve done that and felt like switching it up.  Not that I’ll be going that route permanently…just here and there.  Let’s begin;
It’s been really tough getting out of bed this week!  I’m thinking the dreary weather has quite a bit to do with that.  Never the less, my hubby prepared the kids sandwiches so I had time to make some stovetop oats.  Due to the cold temps my coconut butter is solid and won’t “melt” properly.  One way I’ve gotten around this is by “digging” at it with a butter knife then dumping the scrapings into the boiling water just before adding my oats.  Works like a charm to distribute the coconutty goodness!  I added my (frozen) blueberries right at the end to warm through then topped the loveliness off with some granola that I whipped up last night.
-1 cup water
-1/2 cup Quaker oats
-1-ish tbsp coconut butter
-cinnamon
-1/2 cup frozen blueberries & 2 tbsp granola My morning snack has typically been a Lara Bar; varied flavours.  Today was a PB Chocolate chip:

This one is a fave along with key lime pie and chocolate chip.  I’d love to get my grubby paws on the new blueberry muffin & carrot cake flavours!
In the gym I’ve been rocking either the elliptical or treadmill.  I’m slowly getting back into running.  I find at this point that any more than once a week and my joints start to ache so I’m being mindful there.  Today I felt like zoning out so I jumped on the elliptical with my headphones and watched some home reno shows.

Time: 45 minutes
Avg HR: 141
Max Hr: 156
Calories Torched: 372
Distance: 4.6 miles
Lunch was a massive salad!  I used these Jalapeno pretzel sticks that I received as a free sample as “croutons”   In the salad was spring mix, cherry tomatoes, blackberries and baked tofu.  I topped it off with mango chipotle dressing: My afternoon snack was a pint of raspberries:
YUM!!
Dinner was a quick pasta dish which included grilled yellow bell peppers and zucchini.  I simply added some EVOO and freshly grated parmesan. 
As soon as dinner was done we were out the door.  Imagine that, eh?  LOL!  Noah had a soccer practice that we had to be at.
When we got home I couldn’t resist this bag of cinnamon sugar kettle corn:

At only 140 calories for 2 cups I dug right in!
SO GOOD!!
As I mentioned in the vlog, I had some ripe bananas that I wanted to use in some baking.  I did manage to find the time; first thing…even before breakfast….Sunday morning.  All the following photos were taken with the Rebel.  I was just shooting away from different angels and distances.     
The recipe is from my Eat, Shrink & Be Merry cookbook and includes walnuts and dark chocolate chips.  They’ve made for great snacks this week so far!!
Welp!  That’s all for now.  I’m off to watch some Vampire Dairies!!!  :)
Bye for now!!