Yep! That’s My Core!!

Hi, lovelies! How has your Tuesday been treating you? Hump day already tomorrow…WOW! Where ever does the time go?

I pulled some banana bread crock pot oats out of the freezer before bed last night for a quick breakfast this morning;

I added some USAB to bring it back to life along with raisins and some Dorset cereal. Oh la la!

Check out Sarah’s wonderful blog for the recipe. Like the new fall bowl???

One of the girl’s in the office is getting married this weekend so we had a small gathering for her at break time. One of the ladies make a super moist zucchini cake and a Skor dip + apples. There was another gathering for some else last week with chocolate & carrot cake and I passed that time. Not today! And the splurge was well worth it!

Here’s a close up of the dip;

I hit the elliptical at the gym today. My cold is still raging and I knew I didn’t have it in me for a run. Soon, I hope!

• Time: 40 minutes
• Avg Hr: 158
• Max Hr: 173
• Calories Burned: 392
• Distance: 4.3 miles

I brought a lazy lunch to work again today. I feel like I’m in a lunch rut lately. I’m over the salads of the summer, but not feeling the soups of winter yet. I ended up with a container of 0% Fage and a 1/2 cup of TJ’s blueberry muesli;

I knew this would be tasty and filling and it did not disappoint. I also chowed down on some cocoa almonds!

Once the clock hit 4pm, I was out the door. DS was on the ice from 5-5:50 with team track suit fittings afterwards. I couldn’t stay for the whole thing but I did take on responsibility for one of the major fund raisers for the team so I had to gather some info for that.

Thankfully they were at the rink around the corner from our place so I was home by 5:15 to make myself supper. On the menu was a grilled wrap filled with pepper jack cheese, grilled tomatoes and zucchini and some honey mustard. A Ginger Gold apple adorned the side of the plate.

Mucho tasty! And the reason I had to rush around like this? I started up Pilate’s classes again tonight after a summer hiatus! The class I’m in from now until December is called Core Dynamics and boy oh boy, do they mean business!! We worked on 100’s for almost a half hour! I think I’ll be feeling that in the morning! Seriously, though…it was a good class.

I’m settled on the couch now watching SYTYCD Canada. I miss a half hour watching it this early, but The Biggest Loser is on at 9 and I can’t miss that! The next few Tuesday’s for me will be just like tonight…Pilates –> couch potato! :D

Bye for now!!

Speedy Gonzales

I’m taken aback a little each morning when I get up and make my way to the shower only to realize that it’s still dark out. WTF!! When did that happen? I’m so not ready for the shorter days.

• 2/3 cup water
• 1/3 cup Quaker oats
• cinnamon
• dried cherries
• almond butter
• hemp seeds

At least my oats are a consistent part of the day! :D

Time at work went like the speed of light today! Hence the post title. I was super busy and before I knew it, it was home time. Gotta love those kinds of days. I broke about 11:30 to down half a Clif Mojo Bar;

Love me some mountain mix! I took care of the other half later in the afternoon. I did go to the gym today, but only for a fast paced walk on the treadmill. The darn cold is being quite persistent and I didn’t want to push my luck. I popped the incline to 4.5% and motored along.

• Time: 45 minutes
• Avg Hr: 133
• Max Hr: 152
• Calories Burned: 327
• Distance: 3 miles

Lunch was a salad of sorts today. I just tossed a few things into a bowl and called it a day! Rice, cherry tomatoes, feta and fig balsamic dressing. C’est tout!

It was actually pretty decent!

I got dinner going a little earlier tonight because DD started her dance class tonight and had to be there for 6pm. This will continue on Monday’s until the end of May. I can’t believe this is her 7th year of dance! WOW!

I burnt grilled chicken legs on the BBQ along with some tomatoes and zucchini. The kids were having a bit of a brawl and the bird caught fire while I was playing referee! I did manage to scrape most of the char off! :/

I got sneaky and did a real close up tonight! That stuff on the ‘maters is some Parm cheese. I really enjoyed the tomatoes off the grill. They ended up with a nice smoky flavour to them. I dug into a piece of strawberry/rhubarb/peach pie for dessert…..literally!

The bugger fell apart on me while in transit to my plate. I whined about it for a bit and when I downloaded my picture’s, I found an intact piece there!

Must be my hub’s. :D Broken or not, this was one stellar piece of pie!

I cruised around Winner while DD was off to class and found a cute black sweater, a fall bowl (could NOT resist!) and this here tea;

I’m sipping on it while I type this out and it is SO good! I’ve never seen this brand before. There was a chamomile one as well that I think I might go back for. I think the # of bowls I have may match the # of tea flavours I have. They each have their own space in the kitchen!! Those are 2 things I can’t seem to resist while out and about. Different nut butters are catching up rather quickly. Ooops! :D What do you have trouble passing up while out shopping?

Bye for now!!

Mellow Sunday

Hi all! Hope you’ve all had a great Sunday. Can’t believe the weekend is already over, though. Nuts! I enjoyed a pretty low key day….just what the doctor ordered. It all started out with a great breakfast;

• 1/2 cup water/USAB
• 1/3 cup sunrise blend with quinoa
• cinnamon
• dried blueberries
• banana
• carob chips

Delicious! We spent some time out at the farm this morning. I visited with the baby horses for a bit while my hubby helped my in laws with some settings on their computer. On the way home we stopped at Knapps Country Market for a strawberry/rhubarb/peach pie;

I haven’t had a piece yet, but I’m sure it’s going to be wonderful! I also bought some cashew butter which I used in my lunch. I toasted a WW bagel and spread some on top. On the side was some watermelon chunks;

I didn’t want too heavy a lunch because we had dinner plans at Mom’s place for Lisa’s b-day. After I ate I went down to the garden to pick some veggies. I have SO MANY tomatoes coming! I think I’ll have to bring some to work for people to take home with them because I’m sure I’ll never get through them all. Check out what I picked!

There’s probably triple this still on the plants that aren’t quite ripe yet. And I do believe that this will be the last zucchini of the year. The plants are starting to yellow and look generally unwell. Typical for when the season is done.

The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing and blowing my nose. I swear it’s like a tap today but I’ll take it as a sign that this cold is starting to break up. *relief*

At 4 we made our way to the ‘rents place. I was teasing Lisa that her birthday has turned into “Lisa-Fest: A 3 Day Event”! :D She had a good laugh over that! Mom put out a fantastic spread. Here’s my plate;

Grilled zucchini, flank steak, pork tenderloin, potato salad, bulgur & bean salad, roasted cherry tomatoes. All super tasty. I never even got to the buns and garden salad….had to save room for dessert. Drumstick Cheesecake!!!

A scrumptious mix of cream cheese, Cool Whip. chocolate sauce, PB, Crispy Crunch Bar, crushed chocolate chip cookies to name a few! This beauty makes an appearance at all b-day’s around our family. After dinner my Dad pulled out my uncles old accordion from when he was a kid so he could bring it home with him. The kids were very intrigued by the strange instrument and both had a go at it!

You can see by DD’s face that she was supremely confused!!

I spent some time talking to my bestie when we got home. She became a third time Auntie this morning and is quite pleased about it! I was happy to hear the good news. Left to do tonight is lunches and preparing school bags for the morning. DD has cross country in the morning so we’ll need to leave the house a little earlier. Also, she starts dance class tomorrow night at 6:15. Oh, Mondays…..the joy!

Bye for now!!

LIVE Take Two…

Before I get into the fun and food of the past few days, I wanted to share a photo that I took of Pepper. This cat eats the weirdest things, melon included. When I took this picture I had been chopping up a honeydew melon and had the (full) garbage open beside me so that when I was done I could change the bag. Mr. Pepper decided to treat himself to some of the melon while he thought I wasn’t paying attention! Check it out…

Have you ever seen anything like it? What a dork! :D

OK! So yesterday (Friday) my cold wasn't any better. I made myself some oats to power me through the morning;

• 1 cup water
• PC 5 Grain cereal
• cinnamon
• raisins
• almond butter
• cinnamon honey

Worked dragged as I knew it would. Mid morning I ate a Kashi trail mix bar for a snack.

This is one of my favourites! I went home at lunch as there was no way I was going to over extend my energy in the gym. I needed all of it for our dinner plans! I took advantage of the stove and made myself an Egg Beater/Sabra hummus/whipped cottage cheese sandwich on WW toast;

Then I ate a Ginger Gold apple. Later in the afternoon I snacked on half a cubed up honeydew melon;

Had to make sure to get my fruit into me! 4pm finally rolled around and I shot outta work like a rocket! I whipped home, picked up DD, headed over to the grocery store to pick up some dinner for the kids and the babysitter, picked up said babysitter and bolted home. Once in the door I did a 45 second wardrobe change and my hubby and I were out the door again to pick my sister up for 5pm. See today (the 12th) is her 24th birthday and I decided that we would take her back to LIVE Food Bar in Toronto to celebrate the day. My arm really had to be twisted to go back there (insert sarcasm!).

The drive into the city took longer than we expected so we were good and hungry by the time we arrived. Please keep in mind that my hubby is a full on meat & potato eater so he was feeling a little anxious to be dining at a mostly raw, 100% vegan restaurant! We eased him in gently by ordering a plate of polenta fries as a starter;

I can’t express how amazing these are! (I apologize for the flash in the following pictures, but the restaurant was on the dark side and I had no choice.) Hub started to relax once he tasted these golden nuggets! That’s Lisa’s fork…she couldn’t wait! For her main, Lisa ordered the Pecan Tempura Rolls; She had one gone before I whipped my camera out! :D After much indecisiveness, My hubby ordered the “Veggie Pounder” with a side salad. This thing was massive! Look!! He actually had to push it down just to get his mouth around it and, he couldn’t finish the last 2 bites! His thoughts? He said that while it certainly wasn’t meat, he quite enjoyed it! YAY! I went with a wrap that was stuffed with black bean paste, avocado, brown rice, red onions and a few other tasty, yet unidentifiable ingredients! The wrap was an Ezekiel one. I also had a side salad. I think the dressing was a cashew based one.

I was very happy with my choice. I ate most of the salad and half the wrap. The other half came home with me. I needed to save room for dessert! I opted to go with the key lime pie;

Last time we went to Live, Erin ordered this and gave us a taste. It was so good I knew I needed my own piece this time. I did share, though! ;) My hubby and Lisa both went with the Tiramisu;

I snagged a bite and it was heavenly. Very similar in texture to a cheesecake. And finally, here is a pic of the birthday girl and me;

So again today, this cold still has me in its grip. *sigh*. Alas, there were things to do and people to see so I got on with it.

• 1 cup water
• 1/3 cup oat bran
• banana
• crunchy almond butter
• raisins
• hemp seeds

This was almost too much for me. Almost. My appetite is definitely off! I ate this while watching DD play some Wii, then I hopped on the computer for a bit. Before long, I had to beautify myself (hard to do with a Rudolph nose!) and drive DD up to the mall to buy a b-day present for a party she attended today. The whole time we were there I felt like I was walking around with my head in a fish bowl. I babied myself a little by treating myself to a grande NF pumpkin spice misto…..

Thanks for the idea, Erica!! Going home wasn’t in the cards for me yet, though. Before we left the house (while I still had some oomph in me) I graciously offered to bring my hubby a coffee to DS’s hockey practice. So I went and stood in a cold rink for half an hour. When I found out that practice was going until 1:30pm, I hauled ass out of there and booted it home.

Lunch was the second half of my wrap from last night:

That was plenty to fill me up and revive me enough to have the crazy idea to take KC and DD for a walk to my parents place. I know. BUT, my niece and nephew, who live 2hrs away, were there and I wanted to see them. The walk there was not too bad, but I didn’t relish the walk home. After an hour of procrastinating, we set off for home. Even KC was beat!

I sat and stared at the computer for a half hour before I had to leave again to take DD to the party. I came home and crashed in front of the TV with a blanket and Pepper and watched Food TV for almost 2 hours.

My next dilemma was what to have for dinner that I could actually taste. Spicy vegan chilli….YES! I topped it off with some Fage and dove in;

An empty bowl and several Kleenex’s later, I ate the rest of the container of Fage (it was one of the small ones) with some agave on top,

One more trip to pick DD up and now I am home for the night. *relief*

Now that you’ve put up with all my complaining in the second half of this post, I’ll sign off. I think I’m gonna medicate myself with Neocitron, halls, hot tea and maybe even stick my head over a bowl of steaming water! :D Take care!

Bye for now!!

Just A Quick Note

Hi all!  It’s past 10pm and I just got home from a great dinner out!  It’s too late now for me to write up a proper post about it, so I’ll fill you all in tomorrow.  Have a great night!

Bye for now!!

I’m Just A Little Unwell

Oh, fellow bloggies. I have had better days for sure. I developed a head cold/sore throat late yesterday and was up most of the night because of it. A cold I can handle, but I made a doctor’s appointment to check out my throat because I’m prone to infections. She took a swab to send to the lab so keep your fingers crossed that nothing is there.

Here’s my breakfast;

• 1 cup water
• 1/3 cup PC 5 grain cereal
• cinnamon
• PB2
• banana
• carob chips
• coconut

I haven’t had this combo in a while and I missed it!

My morning snack was 3 Mini Maple Chocolate Chip Pancake Muffins.

Let me just ay that these were marvellous!!! I made quite a few changes so I’ll post my version, but please check the link ^^^above for the original recipe.

• 1 cup WW flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 2/3 cup unsweetened almond breeze mixed with a dash of vinegar
• 1/4 cup egg beaters
• 2 tbsp pure maple syrup
• 1 tbsp oil
• 1/3 cup carob chips

1. preheat oven to 350*
2. combine first 5 ingredients in large bowl
3. combine next 4 ingredients in a small bowl
4. add wet to dry….combine
5. stir in carob chips
6. divide batter into a 24 cup mini muffin pan
7. bake for 10 minutes

I ended up adding 2 carob chips to the top of each muffin. YUM!

In light of my stuffed up head I did not go to the gym today. No way, ma’am! I came home and vegged out with the cats for an hour.

I packed a can of Smart Ones soup that I bought the other day;

Thai Coconut Curry. Sounds good, right?

Looks pretty good, too. WRONG! I don’t say this very often at all, but this was GROSS. Yuck. I only ate the rice and veggies and left all the broth there, which was about 3/4 of the can. Ugh… I ended up munching on a pack of dark roast cocoa almonds.

I left work at 2:30 for the doctor’s and ate some honeydew chunks on the way.

DS had hockey practice from 5:15 to 7pm so when I got home from work I made a big pot of pasta sauce so it was ready to go when we got home. Before we left I ate a peach Chobani with some Nature’s Path pumpkin granola;

Now THAT was good!! :D

Supper for me consisted of a toasted Stonemill English muffin with sunflower seed butter, ginger gold apple, whipped cottage cheese and cinnamon. The left over apple landed on my plate as well.

It’s after 8pm here and I’m going to prepare lunches, sign school papers and make a Neocitron to hopefully knock me out for the night. (I just looked up from typing this and DS is eating again. In the hour that we’ve been home he’s inhaled 2 plates of pasta, an orange and now a big bowl of Special K Satisfaction. Before his practice he ate a PB & nutella sandwich and 2 granola bars!! Pretty soon we won’t be able to afford to keep him!!!)

Bye for now!!