Back to Work

Yesterday was the most fabulously relaxing day I’ve enjoyed in a long time.  I was up and at her bright and early because even though I didn’t have to go into work, the kids started camp and had to be there between 8-8:30.  DS is in a hockey camp.  I know, shocking, right?  They’re on the ice twice a day, but also play soccer and swim each day.  DD is enrolled in a camp called “Girls, Inc” which is a confidence boosting camp for pre teens (ages 11-13).  They’ll be doing a variety of activities throughout the week.  They both enjoyed the first day and crashed earlier than usual.  SCORE!
Before hitting the road I had some oats:
-2/3 cup water
-1/3 cup Quaker oats
-cinnamon
-zucchini jam
-pecan pieces
The jam worked really well in the oats! 
Once the kids were organized and signed in, I made my way over to the “health” food store for some Almond Breeze.  I also picked this up while there:
 
As soon as I saw it I thought of a BLT which I haven’t made myself in ages.  Yes, please!  From there I went to my final Pilates class of the summer!  Sheesh…5 weeks went by super fast!  The next session (for me) starts in September.  I was home by 10:30 with coffee in hand finally catching up on all my blog reading!  YAY!  Perfect day for it, too as it was overcast and rainy on and off.  As it was nearing lunch time I wandered down to the garden to see if any of my tomatoes were ready to go as some were turning pink over the weekend.  Low and behold my first tomato of the season!
You can’t get fresher than that, boys and girls.  Garden to belly in 10 minutes flat!  I cooked up 4 slices of the tempeh bacon, cut a thick slice of tomato, toasted a bagel then and put them all together with some lettuce and mayo.  I chopped the rest of the mater and sprinkled it with some S&P for a quick side.
This was awesome.  I have to admit that I’m not a huge fan of the tempeh bacon on its own, but it mimicked bacon perfectly in the sandwich.  I’m sure I had a small slice of peach/nectarine pie…must’ve forgot to take a picture, though!  I read my Operation Beautiful book from 1-3:30, with a sprinkling of laundry getting done in between.  All in complete silence.  Pure bliss!  I had the kids picked up and was back home by 5pm.  My hubby put some chicken thighs on the BBQ for supper.  I also ate more “potato” salad and used some salsa as a chicken dipper:
I always take the skin off the chicken.  Been doing that since I was a kidlet!  Dessert was a Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich.
This was much tastier than the individual ice cream cup I tried last week!  It rained all night so we all just chilled in front of the TV.  It was a great way to end a 2 week vacation.
Thankfully getting out of bed earlier for work this morning wasn’t as tough as I thought it would be.  I made sure to prepare lunches and necessities for the kids day at camp and get all my gym stuff together last night so all I had to worry about was a shower and breakfast.  I went with another packet of Nature’s Path porridge; Maple Nut with added pecan pieces:   
Now, I likely confused my taste buds by adding extra nuts, but I didn’t find any in my bowl that were already there.  The maple flavour was distinct, though which means more to me anyways.
Work was also less painful than I anticipated and the day moved along quickly which is always great.  We had a meeting that took up most of the morning but I still had time for a pre gym snack, 
I got right back into the 30 Day Shred of things at the gym.  Another lady joined the crew while I was on holiday’s which brings us to 6 of us!  YAY!  It’s SO MUCH fun sweating with others.  Is that weird???

• Time: 30 minutes
• Avg Hr: 144
• Max Hr: 178
• Calories Torched: 231

Lunch was a container of leftover quinoa salad from the BBQ on Saturday:
And I had 2 chopped peaches with some raspberries, too:
The fam ate sausages for dinner so I steamed some broccoli and nuked this Kashi meal.
I love the new packaging that Kashi is using!  It’s smaller and cardboard which makes it easier to recycle.  Who needs a huge box anyways???  I know my freezer appreciates the smaller containers.  A view of my meal, which was divine!
Well, one thing I’ve noticed about being back to work is that it makes for a boring-ish blog post!  LOL!!  There’s not much exciting to write about when you’re a payroll clerk.  I do have a few reviews and a giveaway coming shortly (for my 2 year blogiversary!!) so I’ll hopefully be able to inject some excitement into the blog.  That being said, I’m open for reader’s requests.  If there’s anything you want me to write/discuss email me at kristaskravings@gmail.com and I can get that done for you.
I’ll likely not be back until Thursday night because we have some friends coming over tomorrow night to watch the SYTYCD season finale.  Can’t wait!!
Bye for now!!

Just Enjoying Life

Happy Thursday!  How is everybody doing?  I could get used to not working.  Too bad I would miss the dinero, too!  HA  The past 2 days have been fairly low key as we wind down the last few precious days of vacation.  We stayed out on the deck until the wee hours of Wednesday morning, then I was awake by 8.  Needless to say, I drank a boatload of coffee.  But breakfast came first. This is a packet of Nature’s Path flax oatmeal jazzed up with some coconut butter and carob chips.  DELISH!  Nature’s Path was kind enough to send me a few items to review, so I’ll be getting to that just as soon as I try everything out.  One review I can share now is for their newly revamped line of granola bars: These were in the box that was sent (YAY!!) and you can read all about what we thought about them by clicking right here.
I pretty much spent ALL morning reading blogs.  Time really flies when you’re having fun!  I know I haven’t been commenting as much, but I’ve been reading each post.  Once I’m 100% caught up I’ll be back to full fledged commenting!
I eventually got hungry for lunch and whipped out my smuggled turkey artichoke sandwich half from Panera.
I opted to eat it cold and liked it lots better!  I’m not a big re-heater of things like pizza, sandwiches, etc.  I much prefer those kind of leftovers cold.  My hubby, on the other hand, likes everything to be steamy hot.  He was kinda grossed out that I ate this cold.  LOL  And the last few deck photos, I promise.  Just wanted to show the completed projects that I’ve been babbling on about so much!  :)
And here are how the deck lights from Target look, both with and without the flash(taken last night at dusk):
And here are some shots of the gardens I’ve been working on.  Ya know, in case any of you thought I was slacking the past few days!  HEHE
In both the above photos I turned all the dirt by hand with a shovel.   I also did the edging and extended them a wee bit.  The picture underneath is still a blank slate.  That patch is under a huge maple tree and doesn’t get much light so the grass never really grew properly.  I finally decided to clear out all the weeds and roots and in the fall I will be transplanting some of my perennials there so it will look gorgeous in the spring.  This one was a back breaker and my hands are still sore from clearing the space!  DOH!

We had a great summer dinner last night.  I made bison burgers with my smuggled ground bison and there was also fresh corn on the cob the my neighbour gave us.  I served my burger on a bagel thin with pickle, roasted red pepper, tomato and lettuce.  For dessert I cubed a ripe, sweet pineapple for us all to share:
My kids have been helping the neighbour with some yard work so she took them to DQ last night and treated them to Blizzards.  While they were gone my hubby and took our adopted doggie for a walk:
 
When we got back I tried this Skinny Cow ice cream cup:
This was not very good.  Wegman’s was selling them as singles so we bought 4, but I wasn’t hungry for mine after my salad so I threw it in the cooler and popped it in the freezer when we got home.  It didn’t have a lot of taste to it except for the bitter aftertaste.  Good trial run, though.  I know now not to fork over the cash for them here!
We were late going to bed again last night and early to rise.  I spent another morning on the computer entertaining myself.  LOL  While at that I downed a bowl of my favourite Kashi cereal ever; Kashi U:
Crunchy flakes, walnuts, blueberries….Mmmm!  I won’t say where I enjoyed my morning activities, but I’m sure you can guess!  ;)  Before I knew it lunch time had rolled around.  I wasn’t terribly hungry, but knew that eating lunch where we were heading would be a challenge so I took one for the team and used all the burger topping leftovers and a few extras to make a light salad. 
A little bit of lettuce, tomato, corn from the last cob, cuke, tuna and pear & blue cheese dressing.   I also enjoyed half a Panera chocolate chip cookie. So!  We took the kids to a water park that’s one city over from us.  Can’t believe I haven’t been since I was a teenager.  DS had never been down a “big” waterslide so I wasn’t sure if he’d like them or not, but he had a blast.  And I knew without a doubt that DD would be jazzed.  Here she is hitting the bottom of one slide. Unfortunately, everyone one I took of DS shows just a big splash!  But here is is at the bottom of a tamer slide: DD went down some “cyclone” slide that dumps you into a cylinder and spins you before you get dropped in the water.  No thanks! And lastly, the 2 of them happy as clams! Before we left they each got a “fake” tattoo… The fun and sun made us all peckish and the fam got soft serve cones at Mc Donald’s.  I wasn’t feeling one so I waited until we got home then had a piece of Stonemill pumpkin seed cranberry bready with a touch of butter,
I tended to the veggie garden a bit and picked myself some kale for dinner.  It’s so pretty! We did a beer butt chicken on the BBQ so I decided to turn my dinner into a big salad.  I tossed the kale with some cucumber, yellow tomato, green pepper and a dressing made with some olive oil, white balsamic vinegar, chili powder, honey, salt & pepper.  Then I topped the whole beast with some chicken breast! My sweet end was a chocolate Oikos yogurt.
Last time I bought the caramel and I like them both very much.  A  great healthy treat!!  After dinner we hauled butt over to DS’s soccer game.  He’s got one friend from school on his team as well as one of his All Star teammates and on the opposing team were 2 classmates as well.  I had the camera so I annoyed them all taking pictures!  Here’s the 5 of them;
DS is in the centre.  The little rascals….but they’re all great kids! 
Well, my hubby just came outside from having a shower and his back is BURNT.  Guess he didn’t do such a good job with the sunscreen.  I’m off to lather him in aloe…..  ;)
Bye for now!!

Puppy Love

Today was a much better day than yesterday was! I drank loads of water last night, put my feet up and had a solid sleep. Although I was sad to miss Pilates, looking back on it today I know it was absolutely the right decision. It was steamy here again today which is the type of weather I thrive on. Give me a fire anytime! I get cranky when I’m cold! I had a refreshing breakfast of goat’s milk yogurt, Crofters blueberry superfruit jam, wheatberries (which I cooked up last night) and fresh blueberries:
My eyes were definitely bigger than my stomach because I couldn’t finish it all!

My hubby is on vacation this week so it’s extra hard to come into work. On the flip side, he did finish painting the bathroom yesterday! I just have to buy a new window covering, shower curtain and some art work this weekend and then I’ll post a picture. Let’s just say that I totally LOVE the shade of blue that I picked! YAY!

I deliberately ate my chocolate raspberry Luna bar slowly today so I could savour eat bite. This flavour is second only to chocolate peppermint stick! ;)

I had a nice elliptical workout today. Young Pup was in there again so we chatted it up for a good half hour which helped pass the time. I don’t know how that boy can run at a good clip and talk at the same time. Must be his youth!! ;)

Time: 45 minutes
Avg Hr: 159
Max Hr: 180
Calories Torched: 459
Distance: 5 miles

I’m a very visual person so I always keep track of time spent being active….be it in the gym or the garden. Having my activity on paper makes it seem more “real” somehow. Yes, I’m a dork. Here’s an example of how I track:
It’s basically the same as what I post on the blog. Do you track your workouts? If so, why?

Lunch was a great little salad I whipped up last night:
Wheatberries, red bell pepper, avocado, Yves Veggie dog, white balsamic vinegar, S&P. This had great flavour, great textures…an all around winner!

I also snacked on some chocolate covered powerberries throughout the day:
I’m pretty sure the bag won’t last long. They’re just like Welch’s fruit snacks covered in chocolate. YUM! I also ate some grapes.

Dinner was a massive salad with spinach, yellow bell pepper, tomato, cucumber, goat cheese and falafels(which were cut in half).

This is the dressing I used.

There was also some grilled asparagus, fresh from the organic farm just outside of town,

The fam had tacos and when all the shells were gone DS decided to make himself a “taco” salad that he wanted me to take a picture of.

After dinner DD and I went to the nursery to buy my veggie plants and some potting soil. While we were there we had the pleasure of playing with this lovely lady!

She’s a precious 4 weeks old and we could’ve stayed with her for hours! Here she is with DD:

Wonder if I can talk my hubby into one? LOL! When we got back I had a little bit of dessert. My hubby bought me some Skinny Cow fudge bars which ended up being the perfect treat on a hot day. What did I do while I ate this? Observed DS watering the plants for me!

Child labour right there!!! :)

Bye for now!!