School's Out For Summer!

Today started out beautiful but by noon we had some seriously loud thunder boomers! My co worker and I were in the gym, on the treadmills, ipod on and we still heard the thunder like we were standing out in the middle of the storm! Not very nice weather for the kids to have on the last day of school. Humpf!

Breakie was much the same as yesterday. What can I say, I was good!
-1 cup water
-1/3 cup PC 5 Grain cereal
-pumpkin puree
-cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, nutmeg, vanilla, salt
-blueberries
-hemp seeds
I used more pumpkin today which made the bowl deliciously creamy.

I was feeling snacky last night so I munched a small amount of dry dorset cereal and drank a mix of a ¼ cup POM Wonderful with blueberries and 1.5 cups of tonic water while watching SYTYCD.
To all the fans out there….any favourite dancers yet? I really like Brandon and Kayla and Vitolio. Not so fond of Kupono or the ballerina girl…I can’t think of her name right now. Evan and Randi are the cutest by far.

Work trickled along. All our payrolls were transferred yesterday so today was just a “clean up” day. I ate some dried apricots and a few pretzels over the course of the morning;

A fellow gym goer showed me how to fiddle with the air conditioning in the gym so I went in around 11 to turn it down some. Good thing because it was at 78! I put it down to 69 and did I ever feel a positive difference in my run today. I felt like a powerhouse the whole run!

Time: 50 minutes
Avg Hr: 161
Max Hr: 172
Calories Burned: 472
Distance: 5.11 miles

I was starting to worry that running at lunch was going to make me feel sick everyday, but I felt great after today’s run. Now I just need to remember to make sure that temp is brought down before I go in.

I had brought a packed lunch today but there were some sandwiches in the kitchen that I just could not pass up. If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile you will know that it’s very rare for me to not eat a homemade lunch. But look at this beautiful creation…

Dense, grainy bread, feta, roasted vegetables, crisp lettuce….this tasted of the charts and I’m very glad I decided to nab a half! There was also a fruit tray which I can never resist. I love my fruit, especially when someone else has done all the work on prepping it!

Here we have watermelon, grapes, pineapple and strawberries. Heaven in a bowl for this girl! I munched on this for about an hour before I polished it off.

I left work at 3 today to grab the kids from school and then to the dentist for our check ups. I HATE going to the dentist. For real. But I have to put my game face on so the kiddies don’t get freaked out. BLAH!

I ended up eating my lunch for dinner with a few additions. I warmed up this tuna steak…
And served it over couscous and steamed vegetables;The steamed veggies were the part that I hadn’t packed for lunch. Dessert was more fruit. Berries this time....

DD and I are off to the mall now to see if I can't find me some new summer clothes. I don't know what I wore last year because my drawers seem pretty empty!

Hope the sun is shining where you are!

Bye for now!!

Amazing Grass and My Garden

It’s been another hot one in the neighbourhood and I’m loving it! This is my kinda weather. DD and I took a walk down to the grocery store last night to get treats for their class parties today. You bet I came home with a few goodies! But first....when we got home I whipped out my unsweetened almond breeze and mixed 1 cup of it with a package of kids chocolate flavoured Amazing Grass mix;

This was so good! A definite chocolate taste without being too sweet. I'm not sure that I could sell my kids on it, though....

I’ve been wanting to try the Dorset cereal for a while but it is expensive so when I saw a bunch of boxes at 50% off, I grabbed one ASAP! I was also psyched to find that PC now makes 5 grain oats….just like Old Wessex!

Finding this couldn’t have come at a better time as I just ran out of Old Wessex last week. You bet I used it this morning! I also cracked open a can of pure pumpkin which I haven’t done in a long while. I didn’t realize how I missed that pumpkiny flavour!

-1 cup water
-1/3 cup PC 5 grain oats
-cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, nutmeg
-vanilla, salt
-1/2 cup pure pumpkin
-raisins
-hemp seeds and a splash of vanilla flavoured coffee creamer

Oh, how delicious this was!

It was busy, busy at work today! I ate the last of the Parnoosh dates throughout the morning;

So, yesterday’s walk on the treadmill with a 10% incline did not play nice with my right ankle. It definitely spoke up this morning. Between that and the heat that has been the gym recently, I opted to go home a lunch today to play with my laptop out on the deck. While there I enjoyed another sample of Amazing Grass with a good 1.5 cups of water. There was also a Suzie’s spelt breadstick on the side.

This was the berry flavour and after reading how Angela’s sometimes turns to swamp water, I decided to whip it up in the magic bullet to make sure it was good and combined. This did a pretty good job and I like the overall flavour of it. I didn’t notice any afternoon energy bursts, but I’m sure it’s doing my body good.

After being back to work about an hour I heated up what I had brought for lunch. Hold your hats because this was an exciting one (Insert SARCASM here);

Leftover broccoli and turkey sausage. I know, how could I get more creative? I did snack on some green grapes...

and managed to avoid the tray a massive sized cookies that appeared in our department mid afternoon. I did snag these 2 for my kids. Pinky swear! After work I snacked on one of Angela's chocolate on the glo bars..

This one beat out the PB one hands down in my opinion! I love it. After that I changed into my grubbies and went out to give my plants some much needed water. All the rain we've gotten has dried up already in this heat and my veggies and flowers were looking a little limp. My vegetables are coming along nicely. I took some pictures to show you...

Red leaf lettuce. This is ready to start using if I wanted, but I'd like for the plants to get a bit bigger yet. Cherry tomato plant;

Yellow & green zucchini....

Aren't they the cutest?? And here's my pot of nasturtiums.

They will be gorgeous when they bloom. I can't wait!

Dinner was quick and easy.....and light! We bbq'd a small pork tenderloin and paired it up with a shrimp ring and some salad.

My salad also has some cucumbers and pomegranate blueberry acai dressing in it. Dessert was the very last Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich,
Mucho refreshing. Seeing as I didn't hit the gym today, I joined my parents on their nightly 3 mile walk. I popped my HRM on;

Time: 50 minutes

Avg Hr: 117

Max Hr: 141

Calories Burned: 282

Distance: 3 miles

I plan on passing another enjoyable evening out on the deck before I settle in to watch SYTYCD. Ahhh...I love long summer nights!

Bye for now!

Successful Pep Talk

Happy Tuesday, everybody! Hope that the day has been treating you well. I’ve enjoyed another beautiful sun filled day and the rest of the week looks just as promising. Breakfast looked like this this morning;

-1 cup water
-1/3 cup Quaker oats
-banana
-vanilla, cinnamon, salt
-blueberries
-Sahale walnut mix

I love this nut mix on my oats. It’s such a pleasant addition. I’ll have to shake my b-fast up one more time in order to complete June’s challenge of eating something other than oats one day a week. I’ve got to get thinking about what I might make!

I spent the morning key punching time sheets. Oh, the fun…not. I snacked on some dried apricots and Parnoosh dates mid morning to keep my mouth busy;

Due to the positioning of the windows at work, I get the sun in my face for a good 2 hours each morning. While I am a true sun worshiper, the glare on my screen does not produce optimum working conditions. Long story short, I get a crap headache. Today was no exception an put a real damper on my gym going spirit. I finally had a good pep talk with myself. It went something like this;

“So your head hurts. You know you’ll feel better after some cardio so just go on down to the gym and give yourself 30 minutes on the elliptical. You can close your eyes on the machine. If you still feel poorly after that, you can leave the gym and go home for 20 minutes of rest on the couch. If you feel better, you can just do some core work. Hey! Maybe you’ll feel great and hit up another cardio machine!”

That was a great little conversation I had because I ended up feeling great after 30 minutes on the elliptical so I did another 15 on the treadmill at a speed of 3.5 and incline of 10%. That was tougher than I expected! My HRM pooped out on me with 5 minutes left (actually, I think I hit the button) so my stats are approximates!

Time: 45 minutes
Calories Burned: 379
Distance: 4.27 miles (3.4miles (elliptical) .87miles (treadmill))

I just had a simple lunch today. I had my hubby grill me up an extra Sun Dried Tomato Basil Gardenburger for me last night so I had that in an Ezekiel English muffin. I toasted up the muffin but didn't use any toppings because I really wanted to taste just the burger this time. I also had the rest of my asparagus on the side; I'm glad to report that the burger was terrific on its own. There was a big retirement lunch at work today so you can imagine the food that was leftover. I grabbed a plateful of honeydew, pineapple and cantaloupe chunks….
But am so proud of myself for walking away from all the treats, chocolate almonds included! It’s always tempting to me to grab leftover yummies.

When I got home I found this in my mailbox;
I ordered the sample pack from Amazing Grass so that I could try it out before I purchased a bigger container. This only cost me $2.50. It suggests drinking it in the morning, but I think I'm gonna have to give one of the chocolate ones a go later on tonight! :) Wonder if it'll keep me up?

Dinner tonight was grilled turkey sausages, steamed broccoli and couscous. There were some slivers of raw cow's milk Swiss on top of the broc.
I cooled off with a Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich for dessert,
Both the kids are having year end parties at school tomorrow and want to bring cookies. There's no way I'm putting the oven on in this heat so DD and I are going to take a walk to the grocery store to buy some. After that, the night is up in the air. Hope you all enjoy your evening!

Bye now!

Chirp, Chirp, Chirp!

We left our bedroom window open last night which made for a great sleep. That was, until the birds began chirping at 4am! Do bird’s ever sleep I wonder? HA! Here’s my morning eats;

-1 cup water
-1/3 cup Red River cereal
-cinnamon, salt, vanilla
-banana
-chocolate PB2
-hemp seeds
-carob chips

This bowl had some serious staying power! I ate my figs around 11:15, but that was more to curb my sweet tooth that anything else!

The morning whipped right along which is always appreciated. I hit up the gym today for a nice run. I made sure to have that fan pointing at me again because it was still 77*F in there! BLETCH. If the air continues to be problematic, I’m going to really have to commit to later in the evening runs because the heat makes me feel sick. No motivation in that!

Time: 45 minutes
Avg Hr: 161
Max Hr: 178
Calories Burned: 451
Distance: 4.26 miles

I enjoyed a fabulous salad again today. After the indulgences of the weekend (which were TOTALLY worth it, by the way) it’s nice to get back into my regular eating routine.

In here we have baby spinach, asparagus, steamed broccoli, chicken and Sabra hummus as dressing.

I didn’t realize how green this salad was until I went to eat it! Terrific!

My afternoon pick me up was one of Angela’s On The Glo PB bars…
In the words of Marianne…HOLY BATMAN was this ever tasty! I meant to just eat half and save the rest for later on, but I couldn’t resist eating it all. There was also some honeydew melon and watermelon slices leftover from a meeting. I wanted something cold and this fit the bill!
It was wonderfully HOT outside today so instead of putting the oven on we grilled up some burgers. I had a Sun Dried Tomato Basil Garden burger on an Ezekiel English muffin with some LC & avocado smash and a wee bit of BBQ sauce. Some berries rounded out my plate quite nicely,
Here's the gardenburger box so you can see exactly what kind these were.
I really like the taste and would buy them again in a heartbeat. My sweet end was the very last mini burger cupcake....
I ate this on the way to DS's soccer game. For me the best part of these little guys was the "patty"! I loved the peppermintiness (is that even a word?).

I'm off to gather the necessities for the morning. Then I plan on sitting outside with a magazine until it's too dark to read anymore. Gotta take full advantage of these warmer nights.


Bye for now!!

Pull Up A Chair

Hey, everybody! Miss me? What a whirl wind this weekend has been. This will be a long post so make sure you're comfy cozy! Let me pick up where I left off Friday night. After I posted I enjoyed a Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich while getting to know my laptop a bit better. It was awesome that I was able to sit out on the deck until 9pm online. Yes, I know I’m behind the times, but I’m getting there. By 9pm I started feeling antsy and really felt like a run so that’s exactly what I did. I chose a 2.6 mile loop around my neighbourhood cuz it was a little darker than I would’ve liked and I wanted to be close to home.

Time: 24 minutes
Avg Hr: 172
Max Hr: 188
Calories Burned: 281
Distance: 2.6 miles

I was surprised at how much higher my average & max HR was running outside. Granted, ¾ of the route I took was either uphill or on a bit of an incline. Can’t get around that where I live! I felt super satisfied when I got home and was glad I gave into the urge to get out.

I set my alarm for 8am Saturday morning but needn’t have worried because Mother Nature called at 6:30 and I just stayed up. I made a bowl of oats about an hour later when my tummy decided it wanted food.
-2/3 cup water
-1/3 cup Quaker oats
-cinnamon, vanilla, salt
-banana
-PB2
-carob chips
-peanuts
You all know this is my favourite way to eat my oats!

After breakfast I got some chores out of the way and then went for my mani/pedi. Can’t have crap looking nails at a wedding! It’s such a relaxing way to spend an hour. I was a little munchy when I got home so I snacked on 2 of these bread sticks to tie me over until lunch;
Then the fun events of the day got started! DD and I went to visit Angela & Eric at the market where they were selling her baked goods. But before heading out we stopped at Subway for some eats. I got a 6" turkey and Swiss on WW with everything but pickles and onions…
I had a bit of an anxious moment when we got there because everything had been moved indoors due to the rain and I realized that I didn’t know where to find them! After asking a few people we knew exactly where to go. Angela had a great display of all her baked goods set up. DD was in charge of taking some photos for me while we chatted;






Doesn't everything look great? I bought a ½ dozen of the cupcakes and 2 burger cupcakes. DD bought herself some treats, too and had them all eaten by the time we got home! Here are 2 action shots of us enjoying some treats!
HEHE! Ange put together an awesome sample baggie of goodies for me for placing in the BBBC. Check it out;
The Glo nuts didn’t stand a chance at my place. I did manage to salvage one for myself!
It was AWESOME! I can’t wait to try the rest but I have to stagger myself so I can really enjoy each piece. Angela & Eric are super nice people and I’m thrilled to have met them both. Here’s a shot of Ange and I;
We made our way back home only to leave again for DS’s very last ball hockey game which was held in a neighbouring city, about a ½ hour away. We were told the game started at 3, but it was actually 3:30. As if this didn’t put us in a tight enough situation for making the 6pm wedding, the fire alarm went off and we all had to leave the building and wait for it to be cleared by the fire department. YIKES! Apparently some dorky kid pulled the alarm as a gag. Very funny. Anywho, they won the game and placed first in the league so all the boys (and coaches, my hubby included) were just tickled pink…errr…maybe blue. :) Here's DS after the game....
We made a mad dash back home where my hubby dropped me off at home so I could shower while he dropped the kids off at my parents place. I’ve never gotten ready so fast in my life! I managed to do it all in a ½ hour and we were only 15 minutes late. Luckily, dinner hadn’t started to be served yet! I didn’t take any pictures at dinner because I didn’t know anybody there (it was a co worker of my hubby’s wedding) and felt a bit uncomfortable whipping the camera out. Here’s a shot of the menu, though…
The meal was absolutely fabulous and I didn’t overdo it on anything. In fact, I didn’t clean off any of my plates. I’m always nervous eating full, rich meals because my stomach reacts very negatively a few hours later and I don’t need to be hit in the head twice when it comes to eating foods that have the potential to make me ill! They also had gorgeous centre pieces that I did take a picture of…
Just beautiful! It was a beautiful wedding and a nice time out. Here's the man and myself all dolled up...
Finally on to today. I woke up early again at 7:30. I didn't fall asleep until almost 1am so that was a bit earlier than I wanted for sure. I wasn't sure what I wanted to eat so I finally settled on some green oat bran.
-1 cup water
-1/3 cup oat bran
-cinnamon
-1 tsp matcha powder
-Silk
-slivered almonds
This was really good! I loved the colour of it. Matcha is so expensive so I use it sparingly, but I'm glad I pulled it out this morning. I also enjoyed a mango apple tea.
DD made breakfast for "Dad", too. With a little help from me she whipped up French toast, eggs, strawberries and a burger muffin for his feast. DS was in charge of coffee. The kids served in his meal in bed and he happily gobbled it up!
We made our way out to the farm and had a surprise waiting for us when we got there. The baby that was born last week came early and her mom "abandoned" her. There's plenty of horses to keep her company, but my in laws are bottle feeding her. Lacey is her name and she is SO friendly. She loves to be pet and rubbed and will follow you around like a dog.
DD had the opportunity to feed her while we were there....
I loved her company and could gladly have spent all day playing with her. Alas, as babies will, she got tired and passed out on us so my MIL carried her into her pen for a nap. She's so cute and she made my day!

I wasn't super hungry when we got home as I snacked on a smores cookie out at the farm but knew we were eating an early dinner so I made myself a small grilled cheese using the raw cow's milk Swiss from Whole Foods.
Right after finishing this we headed out to friends of ours to visit with them and their new baby that was born last Friday. He's the CUTEST little guy and I truly enjoyed all the snuggle time I had with him. They have every reason to be as proud as they are. He's a gem. I sure got my fill of baby snuggles today.
From their place we drove to the next city over to enjoy a Father's Day dinner at Red Lobster. This is my hubby's fave place to eat. It gets busy really fast because it's the only one in the area so we were sure to be there by 4pm. By the time we left shortly after 5, the place was packed. I started off with one of their famous cheese biscuits;
Proud to say I only ate one. I've been known to eat more than that! Then I had a garden salad with balsamic vinaigrette on the side;
For the main course I chose the scallops, shrimp and chicken with a side of steamed broccoli,
The broc and half the chicken came home with me for tomorrow's lunch and I left all the rice on the plate. I was like eating salt. Nastiness. Instead of getting a heavy, over priced dessert there, we grabbed sundae`s at McDonald`s on our way home. I had raspberry and blueberry sauce on mine;
Delish! Last stop for the day was my parents place. We hung out there for a few hours before finally making our way home to RELAX. I am so behind on many different things that I`m kinda sticking my head in the sand right now. We only have soccer this week so I know I have plenty of time to catch up. I hope everyone enjoyed some time with their Dad`s today where possible. It was a gorgeous one out there! I`m off to make lunches and then plan on doing some blog reading to end the night off. Congrats to you if you`ve managed to read this far along. You`re a champ!!! Have a great evening...

Bye for now!!