Cheating, Hockey and Homework

I cheated on my oats and it was wonderful!
Toasted Silver Hills bread, Italian ham and a poached egg….I’m in love!  It’s been *years* since I’ve made this for breakfast and I enjoyed each forkful. 
Work was uneventful.  No complaints there.  I noshed on a Mojo Bar before making my way over to the gym:
Sweet chocolate….salty pretzels….a pleasure on my taste buds! 
The elliptical was my machine of choice yesterday while watching home improvement shows.  I’m still miffed that Rachael Ray isn’t on over the lunch hours anymore.  Humpf!
Time: 45 minutes
Avg Hr: 158
Max Hr: 173
Calories Torched: 431
Distance: 4.6 miles
I still had a half can of salmon in the fridge from Tuesday’s kale salad so I mixed it up with a bit of mayo, salt & pepper and served it on a toasted WW English muffin that had a wedge of LC cheese spread over it:
Salmon is great for keeping you full and I love it, but boy does the taste ever stay with you!  I sucked on mints all afternoon!  LOL
We went out to the farm for dinner to celebrate my FIL’s birthday.  Because of soccer we haven’t been out in awhile so the first thing we did was head out to the barn to see these gorgeous babies!
And the newest addition, Speckled Warrior… What a darling!  We enjoyed a wonderful down home dinner of roast, scalloped potatoes, veg and chewy, dense buns: Dessert was a glistening chocolate mousse cake spotted with freshly picked raspberries from my in laws friends place. I was glad to have worn yoga pants!!
It been a cold week so I decided it was high time I brought the tropics into my life.  I slathered myself with coconut scented lotion after the shower as opposed to my stand by; Eucerin and threw as much “hot weather” type add ins to my oats:

• 1/2 cup each water & pineapple juice
• 1/2 cup Quaker oats
• cinnamon & coconut extract
• 1/4 cup crushed pineapple
• tropical trail mix

It was pretty much perfection!  :)
Before shredding with Jillian and the gals I ate a Back to Nature bar in Brazilian Nut Fiesta:
This one was a bit sweet, but stuffed with nuts and raisins which powered me through the DVD and another 15 minutes of incline walking on the treadmill. 
Lunch was more crushed pineapple, mixed with about 1 cup of cottage cheese,
And some crisp red grapes:
DS had a hockey practice right after work so I ate a Ginger Gold apple as I was leaving work;
Some pictures from practice…
He was pretty excited because not only did they get to pick their number this year, it was sewn on to their new gear.  Here he is with his new team hat:
The kids had asked for tacos for dinner which was a good decision because although not the healthiest, it’s quick to prepare.  I nuked my Kashi Mayan Harvest meal and served it over some brown rice for a filling, super tasty meal!
Dessert was a square of Mama Peas blackberry oat bars (zucchini jam bars in my case).  I drizzled some Smuckers caramel sauce on it for some pizzazz:
DS had some math homework that we just finished.  The joys of homework!!  
In just a few minutes I’ll be tuning into the season premiere of The Vampire Diaries, then CSI.  Yahoo! 
How has your week been???
Bye for now!!

A Tropical Breakfast

I’m happy, and relieved, to say that today went by at a much smoother pace. I also had a better sleep last night so maybe that has something to do with it. And hey! What was up with The Biggest Loser last night? I was annoyed that the first part of it was last weeks show. Then I missed the last ½ hour because I couldn’t keep my eyes open. BOO TV programming!! At least my breakfast photos look much better today…
-1 cup water
-1/3 cup Quaker oats
-coconut extract
-1/4 cup crushed pineapple
-mashed banana
-hemp seeds

-shaved coconut
No need to visit the tropics when I can eat this for breakfast! Well, maybe that’s stretching it a bit! :D

I enjoyed one of my Pineapple Flax Muffins pre gym this morning:

I’m gonna have to pull out my bakers hat in a few days because these babies are almost gone. I also sipped on a Stash tea:
The gym was a little on the warm side today and I’ve learned that running in that type of heat sets me up for an upset belly the rest of the afternoon so I walked some at a speed of 4.1mph with a 6% incline and ran some at 6.1 with a 0.5% incline. This balanced out well.

Time: 45 minutes
Avg Hr: 154
Max Hr: 178
Calories Torched: 416
Distance: 3.8 miles

I brought a serving of quinoa stew with a thin slice of Asiago bread for my lunch today. I’m surprised there’s still some of the bread left! My boys must’ve forgotten about it. And I’m not about to remind them. ;)
Later on in the day I crunched my way through a bag of carrot sticks (which I took the time to cut while making dinner last night) and sugar snap peas:
The peas were amazingly sweet. I could’ve eaten the whole bag if I’d had it with me.

Dinner tonight was roasted pork tenderloin, roasted potatoes and bok choy:

I followed Coco’s tutorial on how to cook the bok choy and it came out great!

I just got back from the kids swimming lessons and am getting ready to watch Criminal Minds. I’m feeling a bit hungry too so I’m thinking a small bowl of cereal is in my near future. Then bed. *sigh* LOL!

Bye for now!!

A Good Deed Done

YAY…it’s the weekend! I started my Saturday off by organizing my loot for the Food Bank. THANK YOU to everybody who commented on my Cans 4 Comments post. Because all of you took the time to leave me a shout out, I ended up donating 36 food items today!!! I bought a variety of eats ranging from canned fruits and veggies, soups and beans, pasta and drinking boxes and even a few jars of baby food. Check it out!!!

And inside the office depot box is the food I collected during Natalie’s 9 week Project Feed Me drive. Here’s a photo of those items;

P.S. I’ll be keeping the kids! :D

I had some crushed pineapple in the fridge so I decided to make a tropical bowl of oats this morning.

• 1 cup pineapple juice
• 1/3 cup oats
• dried fruit
• coconut extract

This was fabulous! After getting home from delivering the food I got started on some housework while the kids burned off some energy outside.

They shovelled our driveway and the neighbours and then partook in some tobogganing adventures in the backyard.

We needed to be on the road for DS’s hockey game by 1pm so I had a quick lunch of Fage, blueberries and Nature’s Path banana almond cereal. There was a drizzle of honey, too;

I chased the yogurt with some praline flavoured almonds.

And because my throat still feels like it’s coated in shards of glass, I sipped on a big mug of chocolate raspberry tea,

This is one awesome flavour of tea!

When we arrived in the city that the hockey game was in, I was amazed to see that they had NO snow! And it was only a 50 minute drive. Very weird!! The boys lost again. **sigh** Their spirits are still high considering that they’ve only won 1 game all season!! Troopers, they are. :D

My hubby thought it would be a good idea to go out for dinner and I agreed. We went to Shoeless Joes because we really enjoyed the food the last time we were there. I ordered a grilled vegetable/goat cheese on naan and nixed the side of fries in favour of a bowl of the soup of the day which was Creole chicken gumbo;

So good. So spicy! I loved it but my throat wasn’t all too impressed. The sandwich was also fabulous and I polished off every bite;

After dinner we went to the mall to walk off our meals. There was nothing too exciting going on there, but it sure was busy!

We’re all finally settled in for the night and I’m drinking a nice hot coffee laced with some Bailey’s as I type this. :D I’m feeling quite content and I’m sure knowing that I donated all the food today has something to do with it. So thanks again for helping me out!

Bye for now!!

Vacation Day One - St. Jacobs

Hey everybody! Happy Friday! We’ve enjoyed a real nice day off. My hubby had to go into work for a few hours this morning so I lingered in bed until 8:30! Pure bliss. I had grilled up some very ripe peaches last night and didn’t end up eating them so I mashed one up and added it to my breakfast this morning;

• 1 cup water
• 1/3 cup sunrise blend w/ quinoa
• cinnamon
• mashed peach
• coconut extract
• coconut shavings and walnut pieces

The peaches worked out awesome! I’ve never had peaches in my oats before….that shall change.

DD’s Italian course finished up today with a play that we went to watch. They did a really good job! I did take a couple photos, but none turned out. :( By the time we got home, my hubby was there so I ran out to do grocery’s kid free. I was pretty darn hungry by the time I got back at 1pm, but luckily I knew just what I wanted!

A toasted WW bagel with chocolate PB2, one half with fig preserves, the other half with strawberry. I purposely made extra PB2 so I could dunk some fresh raspberries in it. Love that combo!

As soon as I was done we took a drive over to the town of St. Jacob’s which is famous for all it’s little shops, boutiques and bakery. They also have a fabulous farmer’s market, but it’s only open Thursday’s and Saturday’s. I bought what I think is a way cool hematite necklace….

I also stopped in to the store that sells my favourite hot cereal…Windy Hill Farms flax seed…..but walked out with a new product of theirs to try called “Creamo Cereal”. There are only 3 ingredients; wheat farina, wheat germ and flax. I can’t wait to try it in the morning. I also found a jar of sunflower seed butter on sale for $1.99. Mine.

Leave it to my hubby to buy the GOOD stuff! The bakery had a sale on their muffins….by 1/2 a dozen, get the next half free. So, we got a dozen muffins for $5.50. There’s all kinds; chocolate chip, chocolate banana, banana, morning glory, blueberry oatmeal, mixed berry, strawberry rhubarb, apple butter bran…and I can’t remember the rest! Here’s 6 of’em;

He also picked up 6 mini mousse cakes; 2 PB & chocolate, 2 Skor, 1 lemon and one chocolate;

As if that wasn’t enough sweetness, we stopped for ice cream, too! I got a kiddie size Oreo…

I have to admit that I was so very disappointed with my treat. It just didn’t taste of anything. I kept putting spoonfuls on top of DD’s cone and she was laughing that we’d bought her a never ending cone! :) I only ended up eating maybe a third of this. Everyone else enjoyed theirs so I told my hubby that maybe I just don’t like ice cream anymore seeing as I usually opt for fro-yo.

We realized we were just in time to catch a local soap making place make some soap so we headed over to watch the demo. Very cool, indeed! The store is called Olivier's and they only use natural ingredients….so much so that we actually tasted some of one of the creams they make there! The one they made really only had olive oil, cocoa butter, beeswax, water and sea salt in it! After that, they add all natural scents and extracts. You bet I bought some! I picked a cranberry soap and…here’s a shocker….a chocolate one!

We finally made it home just after 6pm after a very fun afternoon. I had pulled salmon out for dinner which was a Godsend because it bakes up so fast. I paired mine with the last of the red leaf lettuce (only one head left in the garden!) topped off with carrot, cucumber and cottage cheese…

Yum! And I’m sure you can guess that I had a mini mousse cake for my sweet end, right!?

It was a tough choice, but I went with PB & chocolate! Heavenly! And now my friends, I’m going to go kidnap my neighbours dog and go for a walk! Hope you all have a great Friday night!!

Bye for now!!