Dance Open House

I had such a relaxing day yesterday that I had trouble falling asleep last night! It was past 12:30am the last time I looked at the clock. Needless to say, I had a rough time getting out of bed. So did my poor kids. We did manage to get out the door on time, though! Breakfast was a quick one!


-1 cup water
-1/2 Flax Seed Porridge
-a scoop of blueberry sauce
-a pinch of pumpkin granola
-cinnamon


This bowl was so delish that I’m at a loss for words, which is extremely odd for me! There was a ridiculous amount of chew and crunch going on. That combo equals perfection for me!

The morning flew by. I find that Monday’s tend to be the quickest day of the work week for me. And with this being pay week, it’s especially busy! Also, it’s my early lunch week so 11:30am comes quick!

I went home and ran my 3 miles. Since the weather has turned cold and gloomy, I’ve been finding it very hard to stay motivated where my runs are concerned. I still get on and hammer out a nice run, but the enthusiasm just hasn’t been there! Anyone have any ideas to help perk me up? One thing I’m going to do is declare Wednesday’s to be my Wii Fit lunch hour. Just to shake things up a bit!

I made some extra egg white omlette last night in anticipation of today’s lunch. I ate a WW bagel with the egg whites, 1 slice of pea meal bacon and steamed asparagus on the side.


This bagel was tasty, filling and a pleasure to nosh on! I also had this gorgeous pear a little later on in the day…


One of the girls I work with plays Wii, too and we had a great conversation today on tip trading, strategies, etc. I NEVER imagined that I would be a “gamer”, but after our talk I just wanted to go home and Wii away! I woke up with stiff shoulders from all the boxing I did yesterday. Don’t feel sorry for me, though! I actually look forward to feeling some stiffness after I try something new. That way, I know I worked hard at it!

It was a little chilly in the office today so I made myself some diet Swiss Miss hot chocolate.


This did a good job of warming me up!

DD’s dance studio had its Christmas open house tonight. That means that the parents get to sit in on the classes to see what the kids have learned thus far. I was super jazzed because this is the first year that she’s done hip hop and I was eager to see her new “moves”! I can’t believe she’s in her 7th year of dancing! Year 1 & 2 she did ballet, then that got too slow for her so year 3 she tried tap. While she liked the dancing, she wasn’t fond of the music they used. Enter years 4 & 5 for jazz, which she adores! She’s always wanted to do hip hop so here we are now at year 7 with jazz and hip hop. I think this is the combo she’ll stick to for a bit. This here is a shot of one of her hip hop moves that they're learning!!



Dinner was a little harried due to dance running between the hours of 5-6:30pm. Thankfully, the kid’s cab it after school Mondays to my parents house and they eat dinner there so they were fed! I grabbed a Gingersnap Lara Bar to tide me over.



I LOVED this flavor! I think it's now a tie between cinnamon roll and gingersnap. I guess I just really enjoy the bars with an intense spice punch! The bar also did a fantastic job of holding me over for another 3 hours until I was able to get some dinner into me!

Unfortunately, dinner left much to be desired. A while back I had tried one of the new Campbell's Select Harvest soups and it was so bad that I don't even remember what kind it was. I had one more can to try...the Maryland Style Crab.....BLAH!



Although this one had nice big chunks of carrot and potato in it, there was no taste and I swear to God that there was not one single piece of crab in the can! Honestly! I won't be spending my hard earned money on these soup's anymore! Anyways, enough griping....I did eat a cup of it with 2 pieces of toasted WW bread.



My sweet end was a chocolate curves bar. I love those little snack bars! They're the answer to my chocolate cravings!!

Now it's time for me to organize for the morning. It's snowing like a bugger out there now so I think it'll be best for me to plan to leave the house a little earlier than usual in the morning. I just hope there's not too much snow to clear off the van! Oh, well...cést la vie!

Bye for now!!

100 Posts and Still Going Strong!

Holy Smokes! Today marks post numero 100! I seriously can’t believe that I’ve been blogging for one hundred days! Craziness! I am still having a ball doing it because not only have I “met” so many great people, but I’ve learned a lot about myself, too! I’m thrilled to have become part of this community!

I decided to stray from my typical oats today to finally try Caitlin’s french toast using English muffins.



Wow! These were amazing! I used an egg white/almond breeze/cinnamon mixture and let them hang out at a low temp until they were beautifully browned on each side. While they were in the pan, I made some blueberry sauce. I just combined 1 cup of water, ¼ cup of agave and 2 cups frozen blueberries. I brought it up to a boil and then it simmer for a wee bit. At the end I made a slurry (equal parts corn starch & water) to thicken the mixture up. Here’s the finished product. What a wonderful treat!

After breakfast we went to the farm for our Sunday morning visit. My MIL bought Mario Cart for the Wii and we had fun trying that out! We also brought Wii Music out for them to try. Time sure flies when you’re having fun, I tell you! Before I knew it, it was noon and time to hit the road. Here’s a picture of the 3 puppies (not so) patiently waiting for a treat!



I wasn’t really in the mood for anything for lunch, but I had some stuff in the fridge that needed to be used up so I nuked a turkey burger that was topped with some brie and left over veggies from last night.



This did not hit the spot and I ended up tossing the veggies. Very weird for me, but I just wasn’t feeling this lunch AT ALL. Even the burger went down my throat like a rock. Ugh. I ended up munching on a Kashi Honey Almond bar. Strangely enough, that kept me full for 4.5 hours!



I spent a little over an hour on my Wii Fit this afternoon. I did a little of each yoga, strength, balance and aerobic activities. I managed to unlock a few more moves under each heading, too! One on my favorites that I unlocked today was a boxing one. It really got my heart rate up and had me in a sweat! After that I cuddled up with a pear and a chai tea…



And read my book for an hour, which made me sleepy so I had a half hour snooze. What a relaxing afternoon!

Dinner tonight was pea meal bacon, egg whites and toast. My hubby had a hockey game over the dinner hour and the kids decided they wanted eggs (they had a 2-egg omelette each). After spending such a lazy afternoon, I was happy to oblige!



We went to my parents afterwards for a visit. While there, I noshed on 3 chocolate chip cookies and a mug of tea. I made sure to be home in time to watch The Amazing Race and made another snack during the show.



Plain yogurt, pumpkin granola and blueberry sauce from this morning. This was definitely a bowl of yum. Once I ate it, I stuck a minty piece of gum in my mouth to ward off another snack attack! That trick always works for me! Once I’m done on the computer, I plan to head to bed and get an early night in. Back to the grind tomorrow!

Bye for now!!

Pillows of Love

As I was browsing around the Internet last night I came across a waffle recipe over at Fat Free Vegan. It looked delicious, easy enough to make and I had all the ingredients on hand. So I printed it off and that's how this out of this world breakfast came about.

Now, I don't have a waffle iron but I do have this old sandwich maker thing. What you would normally do with it is put a piece of bread down then add your toppings of choice then another slice of bread. Close it up and when the light turns green you have little sandwich "pockets". I figured it would double as a type of waffle iron.

First things first! I can't for the life of me figure out how to make a link work on this blog so I will post the recipe instead. Again, you can find it as well at Fat Free Vegan as it is her recipe.

Fat-free Vanilla or Blueberry Waffles

1 1/4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon potato starch
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/3 cups soy milk (or other non-dairy milk)
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
2 tablespoons agave nectar
1/2 vanilla bean (or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract)
3/4 cup blueberries (optional)
canola oil spray

Combine the dry ingredients in a medium-sized bowl. Combine the soy milk, cider vinegar, and agave in a smaller bowl. Split the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape the seeds into the liquid ingredients (or add vanilla extract). Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir just until all flour is moistened. If blueberry waffles, fold in blueberries. Set batter aside while you heat your waffle iron.

Spray your waffle iron with canola oil, if necessary, and follow your iron's instructions for making the waffles, cooking until golden brown. Makes approximately 12 waffles.

Makes about 6 servings. Per serving, without blueberries: 138 Calories (kcal); 1g Total Fat; (8% calories from fat); 4g Protein; 27g Carbohydrate; 0mg Cholesterol; 541mg Sodium; 1g Fiber. 3 Weight Watchers Points.

With blueberries: 148 Calories (kcal); 1g Total Fat; (8% calories from fat); 4g Protein; 30g Carbohydrate; 0mg Cholesterol; 542mg Sodium; 2g Fiber. 3 Weight Watchers Points.

My daughter doesn't like blueberries, so I left them out. These would also be good with chocolate chips!

The only changes I made were 1) I used corn starch 2) I used 1 cup unsweetened Almond Breeze & 1/3 vanilla hemp milk 3) I used regular vinegar. Here are the pillows of love before being cooked...



At this point we waited anxiously to see whether or not our "waffle iron" would be a success......and it was!!! PHEW! Here are these heavenly babies cooked and ready to be devoured!



Words can not describe how good these were! They were light and fluffy, yet filling and oh so satisfying. My daughter loved them so much she ate 6 pillows!! I highly recommend trying this recipe.

I decided rather late last to make my last package of Vita Muffins. These were blueberry.



I love Vita Muffins but they are hard to find. I usually order a combo pack online. They are great treats and only 100 calories each. Here they are emerging from my oven at 11pm last night!



While I was waiting for the muffins, I snacked on a peanut butter chewy Kashi bar.



After breakfast we went down to the market. I didn't get as much this time because I had both the kids with me and my son doesn't really like to go so I made it a quick trip.



-strawberries
-blueberries
-peaches
-in the back are 2 pkgs of cold cuts and the green one is pea meal bacon for tonight's dinner

We also stopped at the Vegan vendor for their delicious cookies!



Clockwise from the left we have ginger, double chocolate, cherry pistachio, chocolate chunk and chocolate chip. These cookies are the best ever!

When we got home I managed to get 2 loads of laundry on the clothes line and vacuum the house before lunch.I really wasn't very hungry so I had a Vita Muffin and 1/2 cup fat free plain yogurt with some agave, a chopped up peach, blueberries, raspberries & strawberries and a sprinkle of Smart Bran for crunch. It ended up being pretty big!



The peach was a disappointment. It had no flavor and the texture was off. Kinda mealy. I scooped it out first so the good stuff was left for the end! I hope the whole batch isn't like that.

My daughter was off to her birthday party this afternoon so my son and I went for a walk and then chilled out on the deck. Around three I was getting hungry so I ate two of the vegan cookies....cherry pistachio and ginger. Fantastic as usual! I'm gonna have to start watching the treats, though. For some reason I seem to be slipping into old habits lately. Nothing to harp over....just something to think about.

For dinner I made sure to get some protein in because as I reflected on the days food consumption, I realized that I really hadn't had any. I microwaved 3 egg whites and cooked up the pea meal (Canadian) bacon that I bought at the market today and made it all into a sandwich with 2 pieces of Weight Watchers whole wheat bread. Here it is open faced with some ketchup for dipping.



Once together it made a pretty thick sandwich!



I also made an iced green tea latte. I love having the matcha powder on hand! This is how I mixed it together.

-1 tsp matcha powder and 2 tsp sugar free vanilla powdered coffee mate dissolved in 1/4 cup warm water
-combined that with 3/4 cup unsweetened Almond Breeze, half a cup of cold water & 1 tsp of agave
-dropped in about 7-8 ice cubes



Perfection! Well, for me anyways! I realize it might not appeal to everyone....especially in my tacky plastic cup! My parents stopped by for a visit tonight. Mom and I have a day trip planned to go shopping in Buffalo in 2 weeks so we spent some time online scoping out the stores we want to go to. I want to get a start on my Christmas shopping. Eeek! That's kinda scary to think about! I haven't snacked yet tonight and I'm going to try not to. As a back up plan, I promised myself that if I do eat, it will be some type of fruit. I'll post about that tomorrow if I cave!

Bye for now!!