Salad Mania

Hey, everyone! I had planned on posting last night but then I started gardening/weeding and time got away from me. I kept thinking it was going to rain because it was getting darker and darker, but it was just getting late! HA! Joke’s on me. So I’ll recap yesterday and today right now.

Breakfast yesterday was a simple bowl of oats because I stayed in bed a little too long and didn’t have time for anything fancy.
-2/3 cup water
-1/3 cup Quaker oats
-cinnamon
-2 tbsp Enjoy Life Foods beach bash trail mix
As usual, my Monday workday went by pretty quickly. I snacked on one of my top favourite LUNA bars before going to the gym:
Yesterday was an incline walk day (4mph, 7.5% incline). I also chatted it up with a co worker so the time flew right on by. Love that!

Time: 45 minutes
Avg Hr: 165
Max Hr: 183
Calories Torched: 501
Distance: 3 miles

Lunch was a wonderful salad packed with spring mix, cucumber, tomato, hard boiled egg and mozzarella. I forgot my dressing, but found some balsamic in the staff fridge which worked out well!
While in the kitchen searching for dressing a tray of sweets was brought in from a morning meeting so I helped myself to a mini butter tart.
Love butter tarts!!! Some ripe, sweet strawberries were enjoyed later in the day;
I’m pretty excited that strawberry season is upon us because nothing beats a ripe berry, IMO.

We did pork chops on the BBQ tonight and I knew I wanted more salad so I just decided to fill my plate with greens and use the rest of the meals as toppers. So on went my chop, asparagus and quinoa, as well as some honey Dijon salad dressing.
The perfect meal for a warm day! Dessert was an almond quinoa muffin.
As mentioned at the beginning of the post, I spent the evening out in my gardens. I got it into my head to make another flower bed at the back of our property and if not for getting eaten by the mosquitoes, I’d have been out there much longer. When I came in I dove into the last strip of Camino coconut dark chocolate bar.

Today started off with a great bowl of over night oats. A success after the last bowl turned out not so good!

This was a combo of Greek yogurt, Quaker oats, ginger pear jam, strawberries and dorset cereal that had HUGE chunks of Brazil nuts in it. This was great.

My pre gym snack was something completely different than what I usually eat;

Check it out! Pretzels with Sabra roasted garlic dip. I’ve never seen these in Canada before but found them at Wal-Mart on the weekend.

I hit the elliptical today at the gym. Young Pup was there so we chatted for a bit. I really enjoy talking to others while working out. Even if I am gasping for breath. :) It helps take my mind of the task at hand, ya know? Are you a chatter when you workout? I’m mindful that some people don’t like to chat and pretty much know who to “leave alone” while huffing it. ;)

• Time: 45 minutes
• Avg Hr: 164
• Max Hr: 179
• Calories Torched: 469
• Distance: 4.8 miles

Lunch was another salad! This one had spring mix, coleslaw mix, cucumber, tomato, hard boiled egg, blue cheese, carrots, the last bit of the hummus from snack and some Japanese ginger dressing.

After work I had to take DS to the dentist to get some silicone coating on his molars. They’re still his baby teeth and this will prevent cavities from forming in them. The appointment didn’t leave much time for dinner. My hubby rushed to get some pizzas in the oven using WW dough that I bought on the weekend. He did his best with mine by adding red peppers and that’s it. HA! He knew I wouldn’t want bacon or sausage and didn’t know what else to add besides the cheese. That’s a hardcore meat eater for ya. :) I ate these 2 pieces + one more;

I hit the road for Pilates with some dark chilli chocolate in hand!

Pilates was hardcore tonight. I’ll be hurting in the morn. Eeek! Some friends of ours stopped by shortly after I got home. It was nice to see them. With our boys so busily involved in sports, it’s been hard to meet up! Once they left I inhaled an almond quinoa muffin and got to typing this post!!

And now hump day is coming to a close and I plan on spending the rest of it watching some TV. Sounds relaxing enough to me!

Bye For now!!

Bathroom Before & After and Garden Tour

It was a soggy, but good day today.We saw both sets of parents, made some muffins and took DS to soccer try outs so no complaints from the peanut gallery! I made a big bowl of hungry girl oatmeal for breakfast:

• 1 cup water, 1 cup USAB
• 1/2 cup Quaker oats
• chocolate raspberry mocha latte powder
• mocha hazelnut sprinkles

I had plenty of time to eat this today so none went to waste! We spent the morning at the farm visiting. I thought there might be a new foal, but not yet. Maybe by next Sunday. When we got back I took some pictures of the bathroom to show you. Here are some before & afters.

And this is the other picture I bought which is just to the right of the doorway:

My hubby also installed the fan because there wasn’t one and that was part of the reason that the paint started to peel. I’m really happy with the end result!! What do you think??

Lunch was my go-to quick meal; toasted Ezekiel English muffin, egg beaters, salsa and skim mozzarella.

Soccer tryouts went well. We won’t know if DS made the team for a few weeks yet. Regardless, he’ll still play house league on Thursday nights, but if he does make it, it means 8 practices and one away tournament the weekend of Sept 23. Fingers crossed! I read some blogs when we got home and then decided to make some muffins from Veganomicon.

The only things I changed were almond breeze in place of soy milk and dark chocolate chips instead of apricots (DD doesn’t like dried fruit). These babies came out sweeet, but you’ll have to read on to see a picture!

Soon after we got dinner going. On the menu was chilli lime turkey sausages, grilled asparagus from the farmers market and quinoa with Parmesan Caesar dressing:

Renee’s has come out with some great dressings!! I currently have 3 sitting in my fridge; sweet onion, Japanese ginger and now this one! GREAT product! Next up? Muffin time!!

GLORIOUS!!! (sung in an opera voice!!) :) My hubby inhaled one of these and didn’t even notice the quinoa! HA!!! He thought they were pretty amazing, too. *Side bar-----I ate 3 Vrootman cookies at my in laws this morning and 3 chocolate chip cookies at Mom’s place after dinner!! Sunday seems to be cookie day in my world! *blush*----*

So yes, my parents place. Mom and I went down to the garden to harvest some lettuce for the both of us…

My parents have a large property by city standards and are Italian so they’ve always had a big garden. I never appreciated the produce until we bought our first house and I started planting my own. Then I realized how lucky I was to have grown up with fresh veg and fruit my whole life! I took some pictures of their plants. This is the garden:

Their zucchini already have flowers!!

Massive bush of sage. They also have oregano, basil & parsley.

About half of the tomato plants…

Dad also has grape vines all over the place. They’re loaded with grapes this year!

And that’s the end of the little garden tour! LOL! We’re chilling back at home now and I almost don’t want to post this but I just ate 2 squares of this delight.

Yes, I am a chocolate fanatic, but I have graduated from candy bar chocolate to the good stuff. Whatever makes me feel better, right? HAHA!! Before you leave, please consider sponsoring us as we raise money for paediatric brain tumour research at Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto. You can also access the donation page by clicking on the link in the top right side of the blog. THANK YOU!!! Have a good night, everyone!

Bye for now!!