The Chic Life

All Day Meetings Make Me a Hungry Girl

I woke up extra early this morning to get ready for the first day of some on-site meetings I'm having with my team this week. They flew in from all over the country to be here so it's a pretty important couple of days.

To get going, I started with some nice, hot coffee. Yum-O!

We had breakfast coming to us for our meetings, but I decided a light snack was in order to give me energy to prep for the meetings. I had a smaller piece of one of my homemade granola bars. Still so good! I NEED to make more of these soon!

I had just finished my granola bar and was sipping on coffee...checking my email when I realized...it was 7:30am! I was supposed to BE THERE...NOW! I quick finished getting ready and raced to work speed walking down halls and passing people left and right. I was on a mission! I got there pretty early, but not what I had PLANNED to do, so I was kind of disappointed for that. Guess clocks are another key item we need to invest it.

I spent the day racing around trying to make sure everyone had what they needed to do their work and be comfortable in addition to trying to participate in said meetings. I had a second breakfast once things were settled - a half sesame bagel (the half with the seeds!) with a very light smear of plain schmear and a half pumpkin muffin - oh and some autumn roast coffee (went perfect with that pumpkin muffin!)

Did I mention I was in charge of food again?! Oh yes! I was so I picked out some good stuff. For lunch, I ordered catering from a restaurant - sandwich lunch boxes that not only came in under budget but were made with Great Harvest bread! Gotta love that!

I got chicken salad sandwich with chips and a wee bit of sweet tea...

...and a brownie.

I don't know why but I was starting to get hungry around 4pm! Guess all day meetings make me a hungry girl!

We had a team building event after work - dinner and bowling! My business boss is a foodie like me and we always split stuff, which I love. She's my food-splitting buddy!

We shared 1/2 a Caeser salad...(I didn't eat the croutons)

...and 1/2 of this BBQ chicken personal size (10") pizza.

I traded one of my slices of pizza in for a slider and handful of fries from another business client. It was like a bar food festival!

Total I had the 1/2 caesar salad, 1 slider (mini hamburger), handful of fries, and 1 mini piece of BBQ chicken pizza. Not the healthiest options, but I think I did ok on portion sizes. I do like to eat fast food once in awhile, but I'm at least usually pretty good on how much of it I eat.

My business boss and I spilt dessert while the others bowled. My stupid wrist has been flaring up lately and I knew bowling would be a bad idea, so I figured dessert was in order. The brownie was more like cake than brownie, but it was good either way.

Guess dinner was pretty decadent, but I had a good time. Day 2 of all day meetings kicks off tomorrow. This time we're getting a hot lunch! Yay...I love sandwiches, but hot lunches will, hopefully, be a nice change of pace! I hope my team likes the food I picked out!

Breakfast, Dessert, Dinner, Lunch, Snack

Saturday (Rug) Shopping Spree

The funny thing about having a nearly empty house is that it's sometimes terribly difficult to figure out where to start. Do you get furniture and then curtains to match that? Or buy curtains first and get furniture to match that? We've decided to start with rugs.

For Flaunt It Week, I wore a top that sometimes falls just off my shoulders to show them off. There are many parts of my body that I am extremely critical about but my shoulders are one thing that seem to always be the same size and shape and I love them!

Hubby and I got some water together - 1 smart water bottle leftover from the previous day and a plastic water bottle filled with Brita-filtered water.

We've looked at rugs at furniture stores and random rug shops, but today's first stop had a lot of options we liked.

We even found this carpet remnant on sale that we may have converted into rugs. I like how the color is neutral but there's some personality in the mix with the pattern.

We decided to check out a couple more stores before making a decision, but needed food first. We hit up Earthfare.

I got a random assortment from the cold salad bar: tabbouleh, chicken spinach salad, and a stuffed grapeleaf, plus lentil soup and a whole wheat chocolate chip cookie.

I couldn't resist an iced lemon yerba mate tea.

Hubby got another Earthfare burger - this time the Sante Fe with guacamole, pepper jack cheese, and chipotle BBQ sauce.

We ate outside to enjoy the beautiful weather - I found a nice spot in direct sunlight. I normally don't like direct sunlight, but it felt GREAT on Saturday!

Hubby and I checked out another rug store. I thought the gigantic racks would swallow me! Luckily they didn't and I escaped safely.

After rug shopping, hubby and I swung by Great Harvest to get bread for the week. We picked up the LAST Oat Bran (yes!) and a Cinnamon Swirl (made with whole wheat, I think).

After completing our shopping for the day, we went home to measure a couple rooms. We think we've made some decisions to at least get enough rugs for 2 rooms...yippee! It will be so nice to finally start putting things together in our house! Can't wait!

Next up, wedding fun...

Dessert, Life, Lunch, Shopping

Rainy Day Organic Chicken + White Wheat Dumplings

Well, this week has been pretty crazy at work with every day full of 6 hours of conference calls and a big deliverable due tomorrow. Oh and I have to present said deliverable in front of 25 of our project's stakeholders. Yippee!

Anywho, I'm currently sipping a nice glass of Orvieto white wine, which I picked up on my way home from work at Trader Joe's. *sip, sip sip* time to blog!

Due to my blogastrophe last night with my publisher deleting my hours worth of posting last night, I woke up running a bit late. Seems to be the norm lately!

I toasted up some Great Harvest Honey Whole Wheat bread in our broiler (still haven't gotten a new toaster!) and topped it with some Barney Butter. My chia seeds are, unfortunately, packed away soooomewhere, so I couldn't add them as per normal. I also enjoyed the last of our Dunkin Donuts coffee. I liked it ok, but MUCH prefer my fave - Fresh Market coffees. That Larry's coffee stuff is pretty good, too!

Early morning snack - Trader Joe's Chocolate Soy Milk...oh so good!

Lunch: toasted turkey sammie and edamame. SOOO GLAD that I made extra edamame yesterday so I had a veggie to take to work.

Moi sans makeup with an afternoon snack - Raw Organic Food Bar in Chocolate Coconut (won free on Twitter).

These bars are addicting!

I FINALLY took a nice re-stocking trip at Trader Joe's. I got all kinds of good stuff:

• frozen edamame, peas, green beans, mixed soybeans/red pepper/corn
• mozzarella cheese
• dark chocolate triangles
• truffle brownie mix
• rolled oats
• yogurt
• Orvieto white wine
• free range organic chicken broth
• organic free range boneless skinless chicken
• maple syrup
• organic celery
• organic baby carrots
• spaghetti squash
• gluten free marinara sauce
• organic butter
• parsley

So glad to have some veggies and food back in the house! I got almost all the ingredients I needed to cook dinner: Rachael Ray's Chicken & Dumplings - perfect for the icky rainy weather we've been having lately.

Trader Joe's didn't have any biscuit mix, so I swung by Harris Teeter but I couldn't find ANY biscuit mix that didn't have TRANS FATS. wth!

I was going to cave and grab one of the trans-fatty boxes when I decided NO! I will not give in! I will make my OWN biscuits FROM SCRATCH. Take THAT trans fats!

I used this recipe (click) to make from scratch biscuits using the white-wheat flour I had from a previous Trader Joe's trip.

Pictures from cooking:

I put my recipe on my phone so I wouldnt have to print it out. Go green!

While my dumplings simmered away, I got started on dessert...

Trader Joe's Truffle Brownies!

I made a bit of a mess when the bag of mix EXPLODED all over the counter!

I placed the brownies in the oven just before sitting down to enjoy dinner.

You likey my new bowls!? I do!

Candle lit dinner

Orvieto - VINO! Yum!

Up close and personal. Just before my first bite. I think this is my favorite photo from the post!

Seconds.

Hubby brought me a brownie while I was catching up on last week's Flash Forward on my computer. What a DOWNER last week's episode was! So sad! He didn't have to do that! (FF watchers, you know what I'm talking about - the Celia episode). This show is really getting good...I think I'm addicted! Oh and that last scene! Wow. I can't wait to see this week's episode!

Randomness

In other randomness, I got an email saying a friend had tagged a photo of me on Facebook. I went to check it out and was pretty shocked by what I saw. It was a photo from when I was in college and I barely recognized myself. This is me back when I still had my Freshman-20...or was it 30? I can't remember, but here it is:

Then (college):

Now (Flaunting it for Flaunt It Week):

Thank goodness for zumba! So weird to see old pictures of yourself sometimes, no?

Flaunt It Week

Speaking of Flaunt It Week, we had some more most-awesome submissions on Twitter (use #flauntitwk):

• @serendipity85 Today for #flauntitwk, I taught my girls at work the importence of self-esteem. In a sense, girl power!
• @FlyinRedMermaid #flauntitwk dark dreary coldwindy day, countered with purple jacket, bitch boots, bright red and blue silk scarf, gold glitter eyeshadow.
• @JJsVinBlanc @FlyinRedMermaid #flauntitwk dreary day countered by stopping to enjoy the sound of my wind chimes & warm pizza for lunch.
• @JJsVinBlanc #flauntitwk scheduled apts for myself - yoga, massage, acupuncture, and hair cut next week!
• @serendipity85 For #flauntitwk, today I wil be working on my criminal justice homework. We need more strong females to kick criminal butt!
  

G'night!

(Please, ecto, I beg you...please don't delete my post tonight!)

Breakfast, Dessert, Dinner, Groceries, Life, Life, Lunch, Snack

More Window Shopping, Less Buying

So, I kind of want to cry right now because I'm EXTREMELY sleepy and just want to go to bed and just poured an HOUR into a fabulous blog post, only to have this stupid publishing tool delete the WHOLE THING! Waah...ok, I'll try to re-create...ugh!

This may be an abbreviated version of what was an awesome post.

Woke up at 1am to nausea and had to yak. Not sure why, but hoping it was just something not sitting right on my tummy. Woke up again at 9a to dog walking all over me trying to wake me up without being loud. Silly guy.

Made fried eggs for me and hubs for bfast.

I had mine candlelit with some GReat Harvest Honey Whole Wheat toast with Earthfare organic pomegranate jelly and coffee.

Post breakfast, I worked on my other bathroom to give it a mini makeover.

I washed out the cabinets and applied more of that pretty decorate paper.

Bailey inspected my work and gave me the A-ok. Not sure what to do about that stain in the back of the cabinet, though. I couldn't scrub it away!

With my cabinets ready to use, I decided to organize my beauty products.

I got all my beauty products out and was SHOCKED at how much I have. Granted some were free samples from when I wrote reviews for a popular online review web site, but still!

I'd really like to work on simplifying my life overall and I see a lot of room for improvement here.

I sorted out products that were expired or almost empty and tossed them.

I grouped what was left, organized them into caddies and placed them in my newly made over cabinets.

AFter the bathroom/beauty product prjoect, I broke for lunch: toasted turkey sammie and edamame with water and OJ.

I met our new neighbors during lunch:

Mr. and Mrs. Squirrel! Aren't they cute?

Not as cute as this guy, though!

Since I had today off, I wanted to spend the ENTIRE day cleaning and organizing but hubby had other plans, so after lunch, hubby and I headed out for some more shopping for the house.

On the way to the stores, we stopped by a local bakery to pick up a snack - I had 6 donut holes and a bite of hubby's cinnamon swirl roll. They were delish, but didn't sit quite well on my stomach.

We hit up the Habitat ReStore, but didn't find anything. :( While we shopped around, I started feeling dizzy and icky, so decided hot tea sounded good. Luckily there was a coffee shop next door.

Check out their mug chandelier.

I got some lovely Moroccan Mint with honey. yum!

Next up, we hit up Bed Bath and Beyond.

We liked these curtains but weren't ready to buy them.

I thought this candle had a great message: "Everyday holds the possibility of a miracle."

Hubby and I found some stuff we liked but decided to get them when we were ready to make a big trip of it (we have a 20% off our entire purchase coupon - not easy to find).

Since it was almost 9 pm by the time we were done shopping, we had to do another dinner out. Man, all this shopping is taking all my organizing and cooking time away! Grr...

It seems we're doing more window shopping and less buying, but I'm starting to get tired of all the window shopping! lol

Ok, guys, ecto is really not playing nice with me tonight, so I'm going to complete this post with a separate post momentarily. Hopefully, my posts don't get deleted this time!

Breakfast, Dessert, Doggie, Doggie, Life, Life, Lunch, Shopping

Flaunt It Week Continues

What a day it's been today!

Things seemed to start out ok - yummy breakfast: coffee, oatmeal, Morningstar "sausage"

Oatmeal pre-cooking ingredients:

• 1/4 cup oatmeal
• 1/2 cup skim milk
• pinch flaxseed

Microwaved 1 minute, stir, 1 minute

Post-cooking:

• 1 sliced organic banana (stirred in)
• sliced almonds, on top
• sprinkling of unsweetened organic coconut flakes

Check out Bailey's ears floating around in the background like shark fins! lol

I was thoroughly enjoying my breakfast when I realized that I was running late!

I threw the rest of my oatmeal in a plastic cup and downed it on the way to work (carefully, of course!)

I had 6 hours of meetings today. Only 1 of them was an in-person meeting and luckily, we managed to turn our meeting into a working lunch (since we didn't need computers) so we could both eat. Good thing we did that or I may not have eaten at ALL!

I had a 1/2 chicken salad sammie on pumpernickel with lettuce and tomato.

I also picked up this Oatmeal Chocolate bar thing as an impulse buy when they told me I had to charge a minimum of $5 (and my half sandwich was well under). Guess that's what I get for not keeping cash on me!

I ate about 1/2 of this over lunch and another 1/4 as an afternoon snack. The last piece I gave to hubby.

Kashi crackers for an afternoon snack.

After work, I looked at cabinets with hubby...yes...AGAIN. One day we'll actually order some.

After cabinet shopping, we got Mexican for dinner!

Tortilla Chips and 2 salsas. Hubby and I have decided to not get refills on our chips because every time we do, we overeat. We declined a refill tonight and I think it was a wise decision (even though I kind of wanted more). I knew we'd have plenty of food coming later.

The cheese dip made that decision hard, but we stuck with it.

Hubby and I split a chicken chimichanga, chicken enchilada, and beef burrito.

My portion - it was just the right size!

I stayed up too late blogging last night and I am feeling pretty exhausted right now. I burned a candle tonight to help relax.

Bailey looks like how I feel. Sleep...that's what I need right now!

Flaunt It Week Continues

But first...let's take a look at our ladies who are helping spread the positive word with Flaunt It Week!

Flaunt It Week participants today:

• via twitter: @thenheathersaid Wearing my hair loose & curly today for #flauntitwk
• via twitter: @serendipity85 For Flaunt It Week, I will acknowledge my height today and stand up nice and straight with my head held high. #flauntitwk
  
• Rebeca from All Vegged Out flaunts her...well, check out her blog post to see (click here) ;)

Thank you ladies for participating and inspiring others!

Remember, Flaunt It Week (click for details) is not about arrogance - rather it's everything to do with allowing yourself to feel confident. So, instead of finding something to nitpick about yourself, find something to love and flaunt it!

Breakfast, Dinner, Doggie, Life, Lunch, Restaurant

Flaunt It Week Kick Off!

I woke up wanting a great breakfast, and oatmeal was calling my name.

I had pumpkin oatmeal with a Morningstar "sausage" and Dunkin Donuts (home-brewed) coffee with vanilla sugar and skim milk.

In my oats - organic canned pumpkin, pepitas, vanilla sugar, organic unsweetened coconut, skim milk. Delish!

Sun-splashed coffee. Sunlit things make me happy.

I decided to do a couple things for Flaunt It Week (#flauntitwk in twitter), starting with my hair. When I was a kid, my hair was stick straight. When I was a teenager, my straight car started to get really frizzy. I had no clue what was going on, until I let my hair air dry without brushing after a trip to the pool. To my surprise, it started to curl. I didn't know what to do with it. I had only ever styled it "straight" up to that point.

For a long time, I hated my curly hair. I didn't know how to style curly hair so I just ended up with frizzy "straight" hair I was constantly trying to make stick straight (and not doing such a hot job at it either!). Over the years, I took tips from hair stylists and fashion/beauty mags and I've learned how to style my hair both curly and straight. I've learned to work whichever look works best for a particular event or day or type of weather. Over the years, I've learned...dare I say it...to LOVE my hair!

So, today, for Flaunt It Week, I rocked my curly hair out! I didn't spend 10 hours styling my hair and I'm sure it won't be making any magazines any time soon, but it's my hair and today I owned it.

Do you have something like this that you want to flaunt this week?

Lunch - turkey sammie on rye with leftover steamed broccolini and kashi crackers.

Pre-zumba snack - more kashi crackers and almonds (along with an unphotographed Raw Organic Food Bar - won for free on twitter).

I headed to zumba after work.

Before my injury, I was doing zumba 3 to 5 times a week. Post injury, I go once or twice a week. As a result, I've gained a couple of those pounds back that I lost earlier in the year, but I'm not stressing it too much since I feel like I'm at a pretty good weight/size regardless.

Nonetheless, whether or not you're considered "skinny" doesn't mean that you don't feel self-conscious about stuff. For example, I LOVE to dance in my sports bra at zumba. Firstly, it's freakin hot in zumba and secondly, it's pretty comfy and free-feeling. However, there are days when I want to dance in my sports bra but I leave my tank top on because I start to feel self-conscious about myself when I think about dancing in my sports bra, especially when you've just gained a couple pounds. But you know what, no one will remember that girl who danced in her sports bra at zumba in 10 years and besides that, life is too short to worry about what a room full of people you don't know think about you!

(not sure what kind of look that is...I think Kat was asking me about my flash or something...lol)

So, my second thing I did this week for Flaunt It Week was unapologetically dance in my sports bra tonight.

I had a blast! It's an awesome feeling to free your mind of worry and just LIVE. Thanks to Kat for the action shots and to Kat and Megan being my photographers!

At the end of class, I showed our main head instructor the choreography I did to Britney's I'm a Slave 4 U. I wasn't sure what she'd think, but she liked it! Yay yay yay! We did end up modifying a couple moves with some of the other instructors, but overall I'm thrilled because the core of my choreography is still there. So pumped! We may even get to do the dance in class soon!

I was so busy working on choreography that I totally forgot to stretch (beyond what we do in our cool-down song). I hope I don't feel that tomorrow!

Post zumba, I went with the girls to get sushi. Check out the fancy straw-wrapping on Stacy's drink!

Celebratory drink for my successful choreography - pomegranate sakitini.

Dinner starter - miso soup and salad w/ ginger dressing. Yum and yum.

Sushi dinner - california roll with masago, tempura asparagus roll, and one ebi. I ended up taking 4 pieces of the asparagus roll home to hubby who promptly downed my leftovers.

Flaunt It Week

I want to make sure people understand where I'm coming from on Flaunt It Week. Like I've said before, this isn't about being arrogant but about allowing yourself to be confident.

We are so hard on ourselves all the time (at least I am and a lot of my friends are, so I'm guessing we're not the only ones). I think we deserve to allow ourselves to be happy with ourselves. This week, I challenge you to free yourself from worry and to focus on the good in you and the things you love about yourself and own it!

If you've got it, flaunt It!

What/how will you flaunt this week?

Breakfast, Dinner, Life, Lunch

Sunday House-Stuff Shopping

I woke up today suuuuper achy from all the exercise yesterday. Although I tried to drink a lot of water since I basically exercised for a few hours yesterday, I don't think I quite had enough. I decided to immediately down a small glass of water before moving on to breakfast.

I also woke up rather ravenous and wanting to eat...a LOT! Luckily for me, I had just picked up some Cage-free brown eggs from Earthfare the day before.

I am getting sooooooo much better at making fried eggs! Bout time! I used non-stick spray in my non-stick pan and lightly seasoned the eggs with salt and pepper.

I served the fried egg with more water, coffee, and TWO pieces of Great Harvest Tara's Dark Rye bread toasted under the broiler and topped with real butter. Hubby donated our toaster (we needed a new one anyways), but luckily I remembered I could use the broiler to make toast.

Mmm...cooooffffffeeeee.

I decided Bailey needed another turn with the FURminator and got another mini-doggie off of him. He almost looks embarrassed in this photo...lol.

After breakfast, furminating, and blogging, hubby and I headed out to Lowes to do some shopping for stuff for our house.

The weather outside was just perfect! Blue skies and lots of sun and warm temps, but not too hot. As we were getting into our car, I couldn't help but notice how beautiful our backyard looked all sunlit. I know it may not look like much to most people, and I certainly haven't put any work into it myself, but I LOVE it!

I brought a coconut water in hopes it would help re-hydrate me.

We got a TON of stuff at Lowes, including a new efficient toilet, some light switch covers, a new doormat, and some other randomness.

We also got a new shower head by Moen - Nurture - it's supposed to conserve 30% water. Not sure how you measure that, but I'll have to hope it's true.

Oddly enough, one of the things I was most excited to find at Lowes was this car freshener - elemental organic & earth friendly fragrance jar in crisp apple. I first discovered these when my friend had one of these in her car and I noticed that it smelled sooo gooood! I had to have one! I couldn't find one, so she bought me one a couple years ago, but I've had a hard time finding them since. I was so happy to find another today and I love that this product is organic & earth friendly.

After Lowes shopping, we came home to drop off our purchases and make a quick lunch. I made sandwiches using Earthfare Basil turkey and co-jack cheese on Great Harvest Tara's Dark Rye toasted under the broiler.

I served my sammie with Kashi TLC crackers in Toasted Asiago with the rest of the Earthfare Live Green s alad that I didn't finish at the zumba workshop yesterday.

Nom...

...nom...

...NOM! Great lunch!

I even got to watch some figure skating while I was noshing on lunch. I watched Brian Joubert win the gold medal - he had a great performance!

After our late lunch, hubby and I headed to the mall to do some more house-stuff shopping. I was still feeling pretty groggy, so hubby got me a pumpkin spice latte to help me wake up.

We found some interesting things, including some curtains (finally!) we are thinking are a good possibility, but didn't buy anything major.

I did manage to get myself a little something-something I've been waiting for a house to buy.

Measuring spoons a la Giada DeLaurentis from Anthropologie. They are so cute! I've loved seeing them on Giada's cooking shows and now I will love using them when I am doing my own cooking! Now I just need to find some prettier measuring cups. Any suggestions on measuring cups (guess I should check out the options at Anthropologie, huh)?

Next up: Project Bathroom Cabinet Mini-Makeover

Breakfast, Doggie, Lunch, Shopping, Snack

Zumba Basic 1 Workshop - Official Zumba Instructor

My Saturday secret project is revealed! I spent all day Saturday doing my Zumba Basic 1 Workshop, which means that I'm now an official zumba instructor!

So here's how my "secret (zumba) project" went...

On Friday, I made sure to have a nice, healthy meal in preparation for my all-day certification.

I also laid out everything I thought I'd need for Saturday on Friday night so I'd be ready to go Saturday morning.

I packed:

• an extra pair of Zumba pants
• a couple extra sports bras
• a tank top
• a T-shirt
• a sweatshirt
• a long-sleeve T-shirt
• my Zumba bracelet
• and of course my Zumba shoes

I had plans to wake up extra early and have a leisurely breakfast and possibly do some warming up, but who are we kidding...leisurely doesn't usually happen with me when it comes to mornings.

I made coffee and banana oatmeal for breakfast. I used 1/3 cup of dry oatmeal, which is more than I normally eat and turned out to be too much to down before the workshop. I didn't quite get to finish it, but I did enjoy it! I think oatmeal is a great pre-workout meal.

I ended up eating breakfast while I was doing my make-up and then prepped my lunch and snacks for the day. Though I didn't leave as early as I wanted to, I still left about when I hoped to.

I got to the YMCA plenty early and signed in at the AFAA table where my friend Kat was helping out.

The Y had reserved an aerobics room for us.

There was zumbawear for sale (but with all the new house expenses, I held back on buying anything).

For attire, I wore my zumba pants, a sports bra, and one of my fave workout tops - a Margarita sportwear top in hot pink. Oh yea!

Booty shaking!

The day started with a welcome and then a 1 hour Master Class led by Koh Herlong, our training instructor. I made sure to get a spot in the front so I could see the instructor. It's SOO much easier to do zumba classes when you can actually see the instructor.

Koh had a couple of her regulars and fellow instructors stand in the front to help us all see what was going on, which was really helpful since the room was so wiiiiiiiiiide.

Kat helped me out by taking some pictures with my camera - Thanks Kat for being my photographer! ;)

My friend Kat led one song, which meant I knew one of the dances! Woot-woot!

I actually knew one of the other workshop participants: Cara, Kat, moi. It was so neat to know someone else there - I was glad to have a friend at the workshop. Kat had to go after the master class.

As soon as the Master Class was over, I downed an Aria protein shake...

...and a Greens+ Chocolate Energy Bar. Both snacks were AWESOME and just what I needed to help get me through this long, but extremely fun day.

After a short break, we got started with our lectures and dug into our training material: agenda, manual, ZIN pamphlet, and DVD/CD set. Mostly we used the agenda and manual.

We alternated lectures and information sessions with hands-on sessions where we learned and practiced the four rhythms of Basic 1: merengue, salsa, cumbia, and reggaeton. I thought both the lectures and hands-on sections were helpful - it was good to have a mix of the two. We learned a lot of useful information during the lectures and in the hands-on parts, we learned how to do the basic moves of each rhythm along with some variations for arms, legs, and how to make each move more fitness-y. We also got to share our own takes on the different moves and variations in small broken out groups and then with the whole group. There 58 of us there!

We got through merengue and salsa before breaking for lunch.

I packed a LOT of food, but didn't end up needing all of it. I was glad to have more food than less, though, for sure!

I brought plenty of eats:

• a turkey/co-jack cheese sammie on Great Harvest Tara's Dark Rye
• some Earthfare Live Green salad
• Kashi crackers
• a banana
• a Raw Organic Food Bar
• and 2 containers of Smart Water (need those electrolytes for long workouts!)

I downed the sandwich and most of the salad and the banana but not the crackers or the bar - I saved those in case I needed a snack later.

We finished the day with cumbia and reggaeton and some additional lectures and by the end, I was TOTALLY ZONKED! My body was aching, but I was so excited and happy to have participated in the workshop - it rocked my world!

Me and Koh! I thought Koh did a GREAT job with the workshop. I totally loved her fun, upbeat, and positive energy - she really made the workshop a party!

I decided a celebratory trip to Barnes & Nobles was in order, but first I stopped by Earthfare to pick up stuff for dinner and a little treat for myself:

I Whole Wheat Chocolate Oatmeal Walnut cookie. I wanted a WW Chocolate Chip cookie, but they didn't have any, so I figured this was the next best thing.

I took my snack to Barnes & Noble where I tried to order a Pumpkin Spice Latte, but they told me they discontinued that flavor for the year already! As if! I got a decaf Gingerbread Latte instead. I associate the Gingerbread, Egg Nog, and Peppermint Mocha flavors with Christmas, so the flavor didn't quite seem right for the time of year, but I enjoyed it nonetheless! Especially with my treat!

I found a slew of magazines to browse - a little bit of everything for my many interests: home mags, health mags, and fashion mags. I was in heaven with my yummy treats and fun magazines!

After my QT at Barnes & Nobles, I headed home to relax with hubby and make dinner. More on dinner next time, but for now, check out my official certification.

I'm an official zumba instructor! Now I just have to find somewhere to teach!

I'm so glad I did the zumba workshop today! I thought the workshop was really informative and very encouraging. I met some cool zumba-holics and learned a LOT. I feel like there's so much positive energy flowing through me from my zumba experiences and I can't wait to see where my love of zumba takes me. Here we go!

Breakfast, Life, Lunch, Snack

Pre-Secret-Project-Eats

Friday was the day before my super "top secret" project, and I enjoyed some good eats.

I FINALLY got a lunch break at work and met up with a friend who works in my building (but I never see) to grab some food. I got a turkey reuben with fresh-cut fries and a sweet tea. The food was good, but I was mostly glad to be able to catch up with my friend. It's been a couple months since we've gotten lunch together and we only sit 1 floor apart!

For dinner, I had a yummy home-cooked meal planned, but hubby wanted to do some shopping for the house, so we decided to eat while we were out. We hit up Crate + Barrel just before heading to Earthfare for groceries and dinner.

I got my usual Earthfare eats - soup + salad.

I got the veggie 3 bean chili...

...and a big mess of a salad:

• baby spinach
• mixed baby greens
• romaine
• purple cabbage
• carrots
• celery
• sprouts
• feta
• wheatberry salad (I liked it mixed in so much last time, I just sprinkled the top of my salad with the stuff this time)
• sunflower seeds
• balsamic dressing

Hubby got the Earthfare bacon burger with 1/3 pound grass-fed beef burger.

We were both really impressed with the burger and t he fries. I may have to try this next time we do an Earthfare dinner.

I couldn't quite finish my chili, but luckily, hubby was happy to help me out. That stuff started out pretty mild but got more and more spicy as I ate it!

Anywho, I was just glad to get a nice, nutritious meal in before my big project. I would need all the good food I could get to prepare for the next day's events!

Dinner, Lunch

Work Meeting Eats + FURminator

Today was my last day of on-site meetings. The good part was twofold

1. since everyone visited my hometown, I didn't have to worry about catching a plane home
2. I was in charge of food again today!

I wanted to get an oatmeal bar, but as much as I think everyone likes oatmeal, thanks to all the health food blogs I read, I think the oatmeal lovers are more scarce than I would like.

Instead, I stuck with my business client's recommendation of bagels and sweets from Einstein. We also got fruit salad, coffee, and OJ.

THey actually arrived to the office 10 minutes before me (I was running a tad late), but they were able to just drop our order off and come back for the receipt later. Phew!

I had some coffee and 1/2 grain bagel with cream cheese, 1/2 cinnamon-pastry-thing, and 1/2 pumpkin muffin. I was glad I got a sampling - they were all so good!

I braved some iPhone photos during my meeting to sneakily capture lunch:

I ordered catered sandwich and salad boxes from Dean & Deluca. The boxes were so cute! They had everything we needed - napkins, fork/knife, mint, cookie, and main event.

I got a spinach salad with feta vinaigrette and bacon, chicken, red onion, croutons and mushrooms. I didn't eat the croutons and only tried a couple bites of mushroom, but the salad overall was really tasty - especially that dressing!

After work, I ran some errands at Target and then hubby and I hit up Rooms To Go - The Outlet to furniture shop. I hardly found anything I liked. We tried negotiating on a buffet, but they didn't want to come down a BIT! As if! So, we decided to take off.

I made hubby stop by Pier 1 and they actually had some cute stuff. I found some pretty red bowls that I may have to go back and get and I found some nice dining room tables, a pretty headboard and an AWESOME winged chair (the style I'm going for in my formal living room). We didn't find any curtains unfortunately, but I did buy two new placemats!

After shopping, hubby made a surprising recommendation - a Vietnamese restaurant I've been asking him to go to for the last month or so. He finally caved! haha

We started with some steamed dumplings. I guess they make these from scratch here because when I asked what the filling was, he mentioned being able to customize it. That's a first!

For our entree, we split the Lemongrass Chicken with added tendergreens.

My plate. It was awesome! I added a couple more bites of chicken and veggies. The chef came out to ask how we liked our food and mentioned that it was "home-cooked" and "healthy." Good thing since I've been a bit indulgent over the last couple days!

After dinner, I decided to show Bailey his new "toy".

He knew it was something for him, but I don't think he was sure just what.

Besides a couple other things, I picked up a new Yankee Candle in "Santa's Treats" and the "FURminator".

My house is not smelling "home-like" enough for me with the wimpy candles we've gotten so far, so tonight, I decided to bring in the "big guns" - Yankee Candle. I'm enjoying the smell of fresh-baked cookies as I type!

Bailey was very curious about the FURminator. So was I! I couldn't wait to open it and experiment. A friend told me recently that the brush worked really, really well, so I wanted to see just how good it was.

It turns out the FURminator really does work well. The brush really seemed to pull a lot of Bailey's under-hair. I'm hoping this brush will help us keep our house clean by preventing his hair from getting everywhere.

The brush wasn't cheap, so I'm hoping it's a worthwhile investment. So far, so good! I think I pulled a mini-Bailey off him tonight in hair alone!

Does any one have fun plans for the weekend?

Breakfast, Dessert, Dinner, Doggie, Lunch, Restaurant

Back in the Swing of Things

Today felt like the first day of getting back into the swing of things for me.

Food Stuff

I enjoyed my first home-cooked breakfast - something I've been craving with this colder weather - OATMEAL!

Thanks to the sale over at Earthfare on organic canned pumpkin (3 for $5!), I had plenty in my pantry to cook up a nice bowl of Pumpkin Spice Oatmeal.

Pre-cooking ingredients:

• 1/4 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
• 1/2 cup skim milk
• 1 heaping tbsp canned organic pumpkin (probably more like 1/4 cups worth)
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon (yea, it came out kind of fast...I didn't mean to put so much in)

Microwaved 1 minute, stirred, 1 minute again

On top:

• flaxseed (because I forgot this was easily accessible in my freezer)
• pepitas (pumpkin seeds - also in the freezer)

The oatmeal was very enjoyable and welcomed after eating out so much day after day. It's amazing how much you missed home-cooked food when you can't have it!

I had a lovely lunch packed for work today, but realized when I checked my work calendar that I had a one-on-one lunch with my co-worker. Doh! I decided to enjoy my "lunch" for "dinner" so I wouldn't waste the food.

We had a lovely Thai lunch, but I didn't want to take a photo of my food in front of him, so no food photos...sorry! I got the Pud See-Ew with chicken and it was awesome! I also couldn't resist a Thai tea...LOVE that stuff!

I carbed up for my workout with some Kashi Toasted Asiago TLC crackers and also had some hot green tea with sugar (I need to get some honey to keep at work!)

An hour later, I had an Organic Food Bar (won on Twitter) in Chocolate Coconut...they are SO-SO GOOD! I will be sad when my box is gone, but at least I know where to get more!

I changed into my workout clothes for Zumba when I was done with work. I changed in the restrooms at the office just before taking off for class. I totally forgot I had my neon green pants packed in my zumba tote. As I changed, I realized I probably should have planned to change into them somewhere else. The black ones are not nearly as noticeable and one doesn't really want to be seen in GREEN NEON PANTS at the office! I was there sort of late so I figured chances were good I wouldn't see too many people.

As I left the restroom, I hoped if I walked fast enough that no one at all would see me. Guess who happened to walk by just as I walked down the hall? Yeaaaaa...the main big boss who manages the program I work under. I was mortified! I didn't want to see anyone and of course it would be our client-boss that I ran into! He said he liked my pants and asked if I was a skier. Said they looked like ski pants. I looked down at the embroidery and meekly explained that they were "zumba" pants before scurrying away. I'm not sure he knows what zumba. Either way, I hope my flashy green pants were too much for the office...even after "work hours" and off the clock.

I did two back to back workout classes tonight. I even got some flourescent bracelets to wear during class from one of the class participants daughters (the daughter is also a participant and oh-so-cute). They matched my outfit - neon pink and green...oh yea!

Once I got home from zumba, I downed an Aria mini-protein shake (a half serving - just one scoop mixed with water) and did some stretching.

After a quick shower, it was time for "dinner" (the "lunch" I packed but couldn't eat because of a previously scheduled lunch meeting).

I had some Earthfare rotisserie chicken salad on extra fiber Arnold's bread...

...and some Live Green Salad also from Earthfare.

The sammie was pretty good, though I did miss my Great Harvest bread this week. I thought this Arnold's bread was a pretty good substitute though. The chicken salad was definitely tasty and the chicken was nice and tender.

I was really impressed with the Live Green salad. I didn't know what to expect, but the flavors were nice and simple yet tasty and the ingredients seemed nice and healthy.

Dinner overall seemed pretty healthy, which is good because I feel like I need a cleansing after the last couple days straight of eating out.

I did manage to make some room for dessert - the last third of my Earthfare Ginger Molasses cookie and some skim milk.

The cookie was good...I still like my Earthfare whole wheat chocolate chip cookies the best, though!

House Stuff

Oh and check out my Glade candle in the background. Yep, that's Glah-day! Hubby and I picked up a couple of their seasonal candles to try to get rid of the new paint and refinished hardwoods smell floating around the house.

We're trying a couple things to try to get rid of the new paint/polyurethane smell in the house:

• opening the windows, weather permitting (and the windows that aren't shut, that is)
• turning the fan on the AC/heat system
• burning candles
• and lastly, I read about this online - putting mugs of vinegar out in some of the rooms.

I'm trying the vinegar trick in 3 rooms to start, so we'll see how this works. I'm thinking the windows and fan will be the most effective solutions, but we'll see.

We still have TONS of work to do in the house, but we're just taking things one day and one project at a time. As the saying goes: "Life's a journey, not a destination." Right? :)

Quote Time!

I do have an inspirational quote (make that a couple) for you guys today. I found this shared on a blog post in my Google Reader. Do you ever have days when you feel like for all the hard work you're putting into something, you're not seeing the results you want? Then, you watch as others seem to have success fall into their laps or at least come to fruition? You're happy for them but sometimes their success can make you feel like somewhat of a...failure. I'm here to say that you're not a failure.

You're just on a different path and you will have your own successes on your own journey...

"Never compare your journey with someone else’s. It’s a marathon with no finish line. Someone else may start out faster than you, may seem to progress more quickly than you, but every runner has his own pace. Your journey is your journey, not a competition. You will never “arrive”. No one ever does." ~PhotoDino

Afterall...

"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." ~Thomas Alva Edison

Remember... (this is one of my faves)

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined." ~Henry David Thoreau

Breakfast, Dinner, Lunch

House Update #2 - Project Cabinet Clean-Up

Hubby and I decided to sleep in a bit but try to hit up some garage sales. We found a couple random things to buy, but no furniture.

We broke around 11am for a late lunch. I had a Bruegger's spinach omelet on rosemary olive oil and a pumpkin spice coffee.

I used to always order either a bagel and cream cheese or a bacon, egg, and cheese at bagel places, but the bacon has been weirding me out lately if it's not crispy enough. I far more enjoyed my spinach omelet sans meat and may be making a switch to a new savory bagel favorite.

After brunch, we hit up a couple furniture stores. We found little in the furniture department, but we did like a couple rugs.

I thought this one would look great in the formal living room.

And I liked this one for the sunroom.

It's the Sealy sheep!

We ended up hitting a couple furniture stores, one rug shop, a couple appliance stores, and Target.

After shopping, hubby and I had a light-ish lunch. We started by sharing a PLT Bruschetta with mozzarella, tomato, lettuce, and crispy pancetta with a balsamic glaze. It was DIVINE!

Next, we shared a Caesar salad.

Hubby and I split the Braised Beef fettucini for our lunch. I had about half of this, so 1/4 portion. I wish restaurants would offer smaller sizes...the "regular" portions are always HUGE!

Lunch was awesome, but afterwards, we were ready to be home.

We made sure to pick up Halloween candy while we were at Target and we got the good stuff - Snickers and M&Ms.

Project Cabinet Clean-Up

Almost as soon as we got home, I was ready to kick-off Project Cabinet Clean-Up. Our kitchen got quite dusty during all the renovations, so it needed quite the cleaning.

I pulled on my pretty pink rubber gloves and got to work. I used a mix of Castille soap and water to clean my cabinets.

Once the cabinets were clean, I started lining them with some non-adhesive lining (from Target).

I ran out of the lining material pretty quickly even though I had 3 rolls. I guess I forget how short they are!

I think the end result looks pretty darn good though.

We worked on the cabinets while the trick or treaters stopped by. We only had TWO groups swing by! Maybe they thought we didn't have candy since we didn't have decorations? I think less people went out this year also because it was raining...poor kiddos!

Speaking of Halloween, how bummed am I at missing out on the festivities this year! We were too busy with the house to do any Halloween decorations or go to any parties (and we got invited to TWO!) or even buy/make costumes. The worst part was not being able to do my annual Halloween-themed party. This would have been our third year, but we just couldn't pull things together between Wednesday and Saturday. So sad!

Click here to see photos from last year's Halloween party dessert. I'll make up for this year with next year's party!

Brunch, Dinner, Lunch, Shopping

Pre-Moving Day Eats

It's been a long last couple days, but hubby and I are finally in the house and 100% out of the apartment.

But, before we get to the move, let's talk about the day before eats. Actually, why don't I just show you with photos?

I had toasted turkey sammies with more sweet potato salad from Earthfare and Odwalla Pink Poetry.

I was down to the ends of my bread, so I turned the tiny pieces into 2 small open-face-toasted sammies. Yum!

Hubby and I found out about a great deal at a local fave (which is actually a chain but feels like a local spot) Village Tavern - Dinner for Two for $39.95.

I got the homemade sangria. It was delicioso!

Hubby and I talked about photos and how he thought it would be better with flash. I said I could take good photos by just holding the camera reeeeeeeeeeally still.

After seeing the photo with flash, hubby agreed it looked pretty washed out.

Too bad the non-flash photos all came out blurry when he was behind the camera.

Hubby and I started by splitting the crab dip with toasted garlic bread. We weren't sure if we'd like the lemon squeezed on top so we tried half the dip with and half without. Turns out we preferred with.

Next course...

Hubby got the clam chowder

I got the french onion soup which was DIVINE! I could have made a meal out of just this soup.

So deliciously cheesy...yum!

Delicious onions (don't look Kath!)

Oh yea!

Entree round...

Hubby got the pork chops.

I got the sirloin.

The baked potato was for hubby. I just had a bite. I actually traded the potato for some of hubby's garlic mashed potatoes and mixed veggies. Kind of weird but you know how those pre-selected menus can be.

We ended up taking a lot of our entrees home...we were stuffed we didn't have any room for dessert! So sad!

Dinner was fab and I needed some good eats for extra energy for the next couple days of moving madness!

Dinner, Lunch

Yummy Earthfare Sides + Forest of Boxes

I'm still recovering from my long weekend and this morning was a slow-moving one for sure.

Luckily, I started with a big, healthy breakfast to give me plenty of energy.

I'm loving the Larry's Beans coffee I picked up yesterday at Earthfare.

The main attraction: cinna-choco-oats. I'm loving chocolate-cinnamon combos lately.

Monday wouldn't be complete without a pumpkin spice soy latte for Starbucks Monday. The coffee and my Patagonia helped keep my warm in the frigid office.

See the boxes stacked in the background? The upside of working in an office - leftover boxes, which = free moving boxes. Cost-effective and green!

Lunch was pretty fab. I had a toasted turkey sammie and adora. Also, this past weekend, I picked up a couple sides at Earthfare so I didn't have to fill my fridge full of veggies I'd just have to move in a day or so anyways: Sweet Potato Salad and Raw Asian Slaw. I think I'm becoming addicted to Earthfare's sides - they're so tasty and they have so many healthy options.

The Asian Slaw was SO GOOD I couldn't stop eating it! Literally...I intended to eat half of each over the next two days but downed the ENTIRE slaw! I only had room for a few bites of the Sweet Potato Salad.

I had a Raw Organic Bar in Chocolate Coconut at the end of the day to give me energy for a late afternoon meeting.

After a longer than normal day, I got to return to more packing. Luckily, hubby picked up some yummy take-out.

Miso soup

I had some of hubby's crispy calamari

Hubby and I split some Chicken Teriyaki. I jazzed mine up with some sesame seeds from the pantry.

I enjoyed dinner while breaking to catch SYTYCD - this season is going to be a GREAT one!

For dessert I had a Mott's plus with pomegranate. It was quite tasty...like an amped up applesauce.

After eating, it was time to get packing again. I got to multi-task it and pack up while catching up on Gossip Girl. There were some great outfits on the show tonight!

Poor Bailey looks like he's lost in the forest of boxes. This place is a WRECK! I can't wait for this whole moving process to be OVER! I'm ready to be settled in already. We have one more day in the apartment and then...it's MOVING TIME!

Happy Birthday to Kath!!!

Breakfast, Dinner, Groceries, Life, Lunch, Snack

Quarterly and Zumba Charity Event

Friday was one of the busiest I've had in awhile.

I woke up Friday in a bit of a rush (shocking, I know!), so I made a quick breakfast: Great Harvest Honey Whole Wheat Toast - 1/2 with Barney Butter and 1/2 with Dark Chocolate Dreams. I topped both slices with a sprinkling of chia seeds. Coffee was a must.

Lunch was a toasty turkey sammie with muenster cheese. Have you tried toasting your sandwiches? I think they taste so much better that way...it's an easy way to jazz up the every day sandwich.

I ate light to save room for snacking later...

I left work in the afternoon to head to my company's quarterly meeting at...oh yes...a bowling alley!

We had a banquet table of snacks, which ended up becoming my dinner...and dessert! Check out that ice cream bar!

Food close-ups.

Round #1

Round #2

Drink of choice: Firefly + Lemonade

I actually ended up not being able to bowl. I tried for a couple of my turns, but my wrist was really bothering me. So much so I couldn't hardly hold on to the ball. It was pretty embarrassing to watch nearly all of my tosses winding up in the gutter, especially since I went bowling a couple months ago and did really well. Stupid hurt wrist!

For dessert, I made a chocolate-y bowl of ice cream: chocolate ice cream, chocolate sprinkles, mini M&Ms, cookie crumbles, chocolate syrup and candy corn added since it's October and close to Halloween.

After my company's quarterly meeting, I headed out to a charity event my zumba girls were putting on.

We took over a local club and danced the night away!

I got up on the stage for a good 8-ish songs...it was so much fun! I had a blast dancing with my zumba girls and being on the stage was pretty neat, too.

After the charity event ended, we went out to a local bar to meet up with some of hubby's friends. We didn't stay long, but late-night munchies ensued!

I shared this spicy chicken wrap with hubby...

...and we each got our own french fries.

Oi! What a long, but fun night!

Ok, I'm off to get ready for Saturday...it's gonna be a doozy, too! A good one, though, hopefully. :)

Breakfast, Dessert, Dinner, Life, Lunch

Just Another Manic Monday

I went to bed late all weekend and thusly went to bed late last night. I woke up quite groggy, but headed to work at a decent hour.

Mostly, I was looking forward to lunch. I got a new turkey flavor over the weekend from Earthfare - hickory-smoked. I toasted this with some muenster cheese on Great Harvest Honey Whole Wheat.

I was really excited about my side dishes: Balela bean salad from Trader Joe's - yummy chick peas, tomatoes, and fresh herbs.

I also decided to try out the beet salad from Earthfare. I've never really not liked beets, but I've never really cared for them either. I keep hearing how good they are supposed to be for you, so these have been added to the list of foods I'd like to like (along with olives and mushrooms).

I thought the beet salad was actually pretty good today. I really liked the combination of flavors Earthfare used and the beets were nice, tender, and sweet.

I have leftovers of both sides for tomorrow.

All together with my adora for vitamins and dessert.

I forgot to tell you guys yesterday about the Larabar deal I got. Earthfare had Larabars 4 for $5! I got 4 flavors: Pistachio, Coconut Cream Pie, Banana Bread, and Pecan Pie. Can't wait to eat these!

No, really! I couldn't wait. In the afternoon, I downed this pistachio Larabar for pre-zumba workout fuel.

I thought the pistachio bar was pretty good. Pistachios, in general, I think have a light flavor. As with all Larabars, I loved the chewy texture. Not to mention the fact that this bar had a mere 3 ingredients! Nice!

After work, I met up with my zumba friends to do a freelance photography shoot! Ok, so I'm not sure I can call it a "freelance photography shoot" since I did it for free, but still! I did take their photos for their zumba stuff.

Isn't Megan a Betty?! (Kat, I wasn't sure if I could post photos of you on the blog)

After our brief photography session, I did two back to back zumba classes. I managed to skip a couple to a few songs in each class (can't push too hard till I'm 100% better) and tried to stay low intensity. I probably went more like medium to high during the classes, but I'm feeling pretty good right now. Hopefully, my leg doesn't complain too much after work.

After class I showed my zumba friends a new song choreography I'm working on - Britney Spears - I'm a Slave 4 U. They liked it, but my head instructors will be the true test and will give us a thumbs up or down on doing it in class. I still haven't showed them the Shakira song!

By the time I got home, hubby was cooking dinner. I prepped salads for us with organic mache, organic cherry tomatoes, organic baby carrots, pine nuts and balsamic-based salad dressing.

Hubby's dinner = Freschetta supreme pizza. I had 2 small slices sans sausage.

For dessert, I had an organic kiwi (1/2 with skin and 1/2 without) - I forgot to take a photo till I was almost done eating, but there was a whole kiwi here at some point.

I also had a praline for a second dessert. Check out you-know-who waiting for me to drop something. I didn't drop a crumb! I enjoyed the whole thing!

How was your Monday? Did you do anything special?

PS We're hopefully moving to our house this weekend (if everything goes ok with the contractor/hardwoods this week) Yay! :)

Dessert, Dinner, Lunch

Becoming a Modern Hippie

Breakfast yesterday was so good, I decided to make it again today.

I'm getting much better at fried eggs...yay!

Coffee (with fresh-ground coffee beans) in my inspirational mug (featuring one of my all-time fave quotes: "What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?")

Instead of kiwi, I opted for an organic banana today. The rest was the same as yesterday: 1 fried cage-free egg, and Great Harvest Honey Whole Wheat toast, 1/2 with real butter and 1/2 with TJ's pumpkin butter.

I swung by our house a couple hours after breakfast. We opted for a greenish color for the master bedroom.

Light gray graces our 2nd bedroom aka my closet/changing room.

For our 3rd bedroom aka guest room, we chose a light blue.

Our kitchen is a bit of a disaster zone. Thank goodness we decided to do all this work BEFORE we moved in!

I found some yucky mushrooms growing outside...ick!

My Bay Laurel plant seems to be doing ok. Please grow strong little one!

I can't tell if these yellow and purple flowers are good flowers or just weeds with flowers. Anyone know?

I was feeling a bit blah today, so I decided some retail therapy was in order. I went to Barnes & Noble. Magazine shopping always makes me happy. I heart magazines...perhaps too much? I managed to only buy two: Natural Health and Body + Soul. I've been waiting to close on the house to start subscriptions on these two, so hopefully, I can sign up soon. I LOVE these mags!

I brought my magazines to Earthfare to have a quiet little lunch solo.

Since the weather outside was so cold, I decided a cup of soup sounded wonderful. I tried the Butternut Squash + Apple, which was nice and sweet.

My main dish: a salad with romaine, baby spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, tomato, cucumber, bell pepper, purple cabbage, celery, sprouts, wheatberry salad with sesame goddess dressing.

I tried to eat the wheatberry salad separately, but ended up stirring everything together. They gave the salad nice texture.

I got more of that yummy iced Mate tea - the lemon version this time. Oh-so-good!

I had a whole wheat chocolate chip cookie for dessert. It was the PERFECT ending to this yummy lunch. The texture was awesome - slightly crunchy on the edges and tender on the inside. I loved the pieces of oats. This cookie reminded me a lot of the Clean Food version I made awhile back.

I noticed a quote from Sara Snow, one of my fave TV personalities, in my Natural Health magazine. Just another reason I love that mag!

I read an article in the NM magazine about a woman who beat breast cancer the natural way. The woman in the article was healthy and active but still got breast cancer. When she found out, she threw out all her products and foods with hormones, antibiotics, and toxins. She started using only organic and all natural products. She totally revamped her lifestyle and beat cancer! The article was very inspiring, but also was one of those things you read that makes you afraid of conventional products. It's stories like this one that remind me to try to eat and use as much organic and all-natural as possible. If you can, check out the magazine - the article was really good.

Anywho, I've been eating a lot more organic and all-natural food products, but I've been wanting to switch over with other products I use: lotions, soaps, etc.

After I wrapped up lunch, since I was already at Earthfare, I decided to go ahead and do some grocery shopping. I picked up some organic veggies for the week, but I also headed over to their beauty section. I checked out some of the organic and all-natural lines of shampoos and conditions, but there were a TON!

I was going to try to google reviews etc. once I got home, but when I spotted the travel sized products, I couldn't resist picking one out to try.

I decided to try the BWC (Beauty Without Cruelty) conditioner in Rosemary Mint Tea Tree.

On the bottle:

• paraben free
• 100% vegetarian
• organic ingredients
• 100% pure organic essential oils
• pH balanced

I also picked up a an Earth Therapeutics all-natural bamboo cleansing sponge. It's uber-soft!

With all this tofu eating and organic/all-natural product preferring, I'm starting to wonder if I'm becoming a modern hippie?! Did I mention I used to be in the Earth Love Club in high school? Oh yea! lol

Does any one have any suggestions for organic and/or all-natural beauty products (shampoo, lotion, makeup, etc)?

Breakfast, Dessert, Lunch, Magazine

Lucky Pistachio!

Freshly Ground Coffee - Oh Yea!

I woke up extra groggy this AM to a pantry without my beloved Fresh Market coffee. We finished the last of our Breakfast Blend yesterday.

Luckily, my neighbor gave us a bag of coffee beans awhile back because he said were too light for him. Light coffee = good to me.

The only downside - I had to grind the beans. I know this doesn't take long, but being someone who typically sleeps as late as possible and then rushes to get ready, every second counts.

Following an idea from their web site/marketing, I threw in a couple Cacao Power Sweet Raw Chocolate Bites (from my free sample stash from Navitas Naturals)

I also decided to throw most of my cacao nibs into my oatmeal pre-cooking. I like them MUCH better this way! They have a better texture IMO, though I did toss a couple extra on top for fun, along with some sliced almonds.

Unsweetened Hershey's cocoa powder helped make my bowl extra chocolate-y. Though the oats look decadent, I really only added a light drizzle of agave to sweeten this bad boy.

I added a Morningstar "sausage link" for extra protein.

And the coffee - wow, it was awesome! I have no idea what kind of coffee it is, though! Guess I need to ask my neighbor. I don't know if it was the fresh-ground beans or the cacao, but my coffee this morning was especially delicious.

Get Toasty

Get toasty! Want to jazz up your lunch sammie? If you are lucky enough to have a toaster oven at your office/home, why not try toasting your sandwich? It's practically the only way I eat my brown-bagged sandwiches these days.

Today I had some Black Forest turkey, muenster cheese, on Great Harvest Honey Whole Wheat bread. I also had some raw broccoli and an adora.

My friend who works near me had a sweet surprise for me around lunchtime - a pistachio cupcake! She told me she was baking some pistachio cupcakes for a fundraiser awhile back. I wanted to buy some to support her, but I was out of town. Since then, I've been bugging her to make more so I can try one. Today was my lucky day! The cupcake was awesome! Yum!!

I intended to leave work at 4:30pm today to pack and clean my apartment for some friends who were crashing at our place to catch a flight early tomorrow morning. Unfortunately, I got a last minute meeting invite for a 3-5pm meeting and after the meeting, I got an assignment with a due date of tomorrow at 11am! Eek! I ended up staying till 6pm to get my deliverable done, but I lucked out when my friend said she had to cancel. As much as I wanted to see her and her hubby, my apartment in its mid-move state is in NO way ready for guests. Hopefully, next time we have potential houseguests, we'll have a comfy bedroom for them to use!

House Update

Speaking of house, we stopped by today after work to check it out. It's really coming along! Every time I see the progress of our kitchen reno, I get so excited! I LOVE watching projects in process and seeing how they morph into their final state.

Pizza Parlor

Hubby and I decided to get pizza at our fave pizza spot in town for dinner. We started by splitting this bruschetta appetizer. Their tomatoes are perfectly seasoned and the bread is, I think, made with their pizza dough. It's nice and chewy with a slightly crispy outside.

We had a 1/2 cheese, 1/2 pepperoni pizza to share.

I had 1 piece of pepperoni and a skinny piece of cheese.

I also had Coke to drink, but this is about all I could drink. I don't drink a lot of soda in one sitting. The above photo is AFTER I was done. Hubby helped me finish.

Hubby got me a treat today while I was at work - a glazed donut from our fave local bakery. After the cupcake and pizza, I probably shouldn't have had this donut, but I like to think things balance out, so I didn't sweat it too much (read at all).

Home-Cozy

I washed our throws/blankets tonight for our (almost) houseguests and tossed them on the couch. Bailey LOVED them!

He looked so cozy, I couldn't possibly ask him to move.

I watched So You Think You Can Dance (so glad Molly felt better mid-show - that girl can dance!), Glee, and Real World Road Rules Challenge whilst packing boxes and blogging. Oh yes...the big move is ahead and our home-owner-ness is starting to set in. Yippee!

Tidbits:

• Enter to win some free Nature's Path goodies at Eat Clean, Live Green
• Organic Food Bar is now produced with 100% solar energy - just another reason I love them
• Do you drink chocolate milk after your workouts? Check out the article over at CBS - Chocolate Milk: The New Sports Drink?

Breakfast, Dessert, Dinner, Doggie, Lunch

Quick Mt Pleasant Brunch - Charleston Cafe

There were a lot of things I wanted to do in Charleston, but like I said, we were more there for the wedding than to make a weekend of it. Saturday flew by with no free time and hubby was anxious to get back home to work on the house and was practically rushing me out the door.

There were 2 things I wanted to do before we left Charleston on Sunday:

1. eat breakfast/brunch (seems fair, right?)
2. get Charleston pralines

I really wanted to call up some of my friends to see if they wanted to have brunch with us, but we were in such a rush, I didn't want to dine and dash on them (leave quickly, not leave without paying).

I researched a couple places for brunch on the way down to Charleston and the night before and decided that the Charleston Cafe seemed like a quick, casual, and affordable option - perfect for us out-of-towners on the go, wanting some great food.

I was glad I had read the Yelp reviews telling how popular this place was because we actually found it by the large number of cars in the parking lot. The place didn't have a sign! Well, they had one on the window, but I was looking to the roof area just above it.

The humidity started fogging up my camera.

I took the lens off to see what was up and then the humidity went in for the kill. Egads! Total rookie mistake, I'm sure.

Though we got there before 11am (the suggested arrival time to avoid a wait per a yelper), we still had about a 15-20 minute wait. The restaurant offered coffee and water outside.

Luckily once we were inside, things cleared up.

We sat at a wall table with some local art.

Hubby seemed happy to have some yummy food.

Hubby got the French Toast and let me have a couple bites. It was awesome! Perfect texture and just delish with a little syrup.

I was considering getting the breakfast mac and cheese special or the deep fried cinnamon roll but, in the end I got...

...and Island Potato Casserole - Wadmalaw. I think this is Charleston for "veggie" (jk) because the casserole featured: bed of chippers, onions, peppers & mushrooms, broccoli, tomato, zucchini, yellow squash, cheddar, topped with eggs, served with a biscuit

I requested the sweet potato biscuit for my dish since I heard a lot about it on yelp.

I was curious what the "crispers" were when I read the menu online before heading to the cafe. Turns out they are like thin potato slices...almost like homemade chips.

Brunch was awesome! Hubby liked his French toast and I really enjoyed my hashbrown casserole. The sweet potato biscuit may have been my fave part of the meal. The flavor was delicate and the biscuit was nice and tender. I didn't even have to put anything on it to enjoy it - I just ate it straight up!

After brunch, hubby talked me out of the pralines saying we really needed to get home. I told him I'd order some online then. haha.

So, sans pralines, we hit the road homeward bound.

I looked at paint colors during the car ride. The ride was pretty long so I had plenty of time to think and re-think different color options. I think we've picked out all our paint colors now!

Bailey was a sleepy little guy during the trip.

When we were close to town, we made a pit stop for lunch. I got a Big Zack Snack meal with honey mustard and a coke from Zaxby's . I totally spilled some of my food in the car whilst trying to take this photo. I only lost my Texas toast (which I usually try to only eat 1/2 of anyways) and a few fries. I only managed to finish about 2/3 of my plate anyways with or without the help of my goof-up.

Before we knew it, we were home sweet home. Bailey was so happy and hubby was just ready to watch some sports. I was ready for some relaxation, we would end up doing some work in the house later.

Breakfast, Brunch, Doggie, Lunch, Restaurant

Sunday Birthday Lunch + Falls Park on the Reedy

My parents wanted to take me out to lunch for my birthday, so we headed to the Historic West End of town.

I wanted to go to this place called Pomegranate - a Persian cuisine restaurant. Unfortunately, they were closed on Sundays, though. :(

We wandered around the downtown area and finally settled on trying Smoke.

Smoke is located in the Shoeless Joe Jackson Plaza. I used to hang out in this area before it got all trendy.

The menu was really good - a Southern fusion.

Sweet tea

Corn bread with whipped butter

I split this Caesar salad w/ hubby.

My dad got Brunswick stew to start.

Four sauces to choose from!

I got the Beer-Butt Chicken with Bowl of Greens and cole slaw. I've always wanted to try beer butt chicken. It didn't really taste that different to me than regular roasted chicken, but I was still glad to try it. The collards were my FAVE part of the plate.

Dad got grilled salmon, squash casserole, and cole slaw.

Hubby got a beer brisket sandwich and baked beans.

Hubby split a mac and cheese with me. It was sooooo good!

Mom and sis took off to go home.

The Army & Navy Store - a landmark.

Trolley!

We headed over to the Falls Park on the Reedy.

We made a stop on the now-famous Liberty Bridge.

Dan and I took a photo on the bridge.

Chatting it up on the bridge.

Reedy River Falls.

The Reedy River park area has come a long way. I used to clean the river out in this park when I was part of the Earth Love Club in high school

The park is a great area for picnics, walks, and playing with your dog (see the dog swimming out to get a toy?)

Though I had fun in this area before it got its makeover, I'm glad to see how far it's come along. Besides, I still get to enjoy it when I visit home.

Life, Life, Lunch

Boiled Peanuts for Lunch + High School Reunion

It seems in life some people are beach-people and some are mountain-people. My dad prefers the mountains. Growing up, we took many-a day trip up to the mountains to explore creeks and trails and what not. We almost always stopped for a fave mountain-snack: boiled peanuts.

If you've never had boiled peanuts before, you are missing out. Chances are that if you tried them, you would either love them or hate them.

I for one am a big fan. They remind me of all the fun mountain trips I took with my family back in the day. Not to mention I think they are delicious.

So, when I spotted boiled peanuts for sale at the Farmer's Market last weekend, I knew I had to pick up a bag.

I made sure to get a bag big enough for my sister and I to share.

I couldn't wait for lunch, so I just started munching on my boiled peanuts.

I did manage to save some room for lunch: Chicken Salad on GHBC WW with lettuce, Farmer's Market tomato, potato salad, and a pickle.

I spent the rest of the day taking a useless trip to Home Depot and Lowes (their selection was horrible today for some reason - must be the different store) and I was overall tired and wanting to rest up for my reunion later in the night.

I attempted to go to a nail salon to get my nails done. I actually did go, but I sat in a chair in the pedi section for 30 minutes before I decided I no longer had time to wait or get my nails done. I ended up painting my toenails at home by myself, but I'm not so great at painting nails. They turned out ok, but I didn't have time to attempt my fingernails.

I was running a bit late for the reunion, but my sister wanted to show me the beautiful cake she decorated for me.

She asked me what my favorite flower was...I don't think I have a favorite, but I really like peonies so I said that peonies were my fave. I also added I really liked dahlias.

Dahlias it was for the cake decoration! It looked great!

I only wish I had time to dig into the cake before heading off to the reunion.

For some people, high school was their glory days. For me, it was more of a low point. I didn't have the best time in high school. I was shy and quiet and a bit socially awkward. People now tell me they couldn't imagine me as an introvert, but back then I was.

I vegged it out for dinner: green beans, mac and cheese, and pasta salad (I picked extra veggies out).

They had some yummy cupcakes, too.

I got a red one for hubby and a white one for me.

Can't get enough sweets!

Drink of choice for the evening: cranberry vodka sans lime

The reunion was really interesting. We had a pretty good turn out. I think about 1/3-1/2 of our class showed up. I saw a lot of people - some I wanted to see and some I didn't, but overall I had a great time. The thing I found the most interesting was that the idea of cliques seemed to have faded away quite a bit. People who didn't speak to each other in high school were chatting it up at the reunion, and I thought that was great. Nice that we can all get along. :)

I'm wondering if we'll end up having a 20 year reunion? That could be really interesting!

Dinner, Life, Lunch

Tofu-Avocado Sammie + Avocado Dessert

Tofu Avocado Sammie

For my third Tofu Smorgashborg dish, I decided to take my tofu to another form - sammie form!

I bought this beautiful avocado at Trader Joe's in an attempt to continue to diversify my diet. I tend to eat the same things a lot, so I'm always trying to aware of the variety of foods I eat. For some reason, avocados aren't on my frequently-eaten-foods list.

I only needed half for my sandwich, so I saved the rest for later. I read in my Everyday Food that the best way to store unused avocado is by leaving the pit in and wrapping the avocado seconds in plastic wrap.

I made another berry-tea-fizz drink with more Trader Joe's Berry Bonanza juice, Pellegrino, Yogi Ginger tea, and agave.

I did a play on Ellie's Marinated Tofu, but I left the tofu in slice form.

I just put the tofu and avocado slices on some nice, hearty Great Harvest Honey Whole Wheat toast. The tofu had enough flavor in it, so I went sans sauce.

Avocado Dessert

I wasn't sure what to do with the last couple slices of avocado since I had already wrapped the rest up so neatly, but I quickly remembered this crazy Avocado dessert my mom used to eat all the time.

Basically, you just take some avocado...

...mash it up...

...add milk and sugar to taste.

It's surprisingly simple and surprisingly tasty. I should do this more often!

Dessert, Lunch

Phoenix, AZ - Day #3 - Part #1 (dim sum + houses)

Day #3 of my AZ excursion brought the best eats yet. Day #3, Part #1 started bright and early...

I was super hungry when I woke up and grabbed breakfast at Starbucks: oatmeal (with raw sugar, dried fruit, and nuts) and a tall non-fat vanilla latte.

I was disappointed to see that the oatmeal was just a packet of instant oatmeal. I had high hopes that they had a big pot of steamy oats somewhere in the back, but I guess that was pretty unrealistic. Anyone know what kind of oats Jamba Juice serves?

Day #2 of meetings went well - long but productive. They were stressful and hopeful and helpful and overall good, but I was ready to break for lunch when we did. I talked two other co-workers to go with me to get dim sum (you guys know this is a personal fave of mine).

We hit up a dim sum spot I'd researched on Yelp - China King Restaurant.

I was a little disappointed that a lot of the food we had had been sitting on carts and was served cold or room temperature, but the flavors were really good and my co-workers ended up really enjoying everything, so it worked out ok.

We got bombarded by two waitresses who quickly loaded us up on some great eats. I've never had dim sum served so quickly, which I thought was awesome - especially since we had to get back to work quickly.

Chinese Broccoli

Baked BBQ Pork Buns

Curry beef, shui mei, sticky rice, har gow (shrimp dumplings + one of my faves)

Steamed BBQ Pork Buns

Pork dumplings

My plate - a little bit of everything (except the shui mei - it's good, but not my fave and I can only eat so much dim sum)

Dim sum + hot tea + nice co-workers = happy me

Coconut buns (read online these were a must-try - they were right!)

Sesame bals (another personal fave)

Inside the coconut buns - deliciousness!

After lunch, we rushed back to finish up our last day of meetings with an afternoon session. The day finished out quite smoothly and overall, I think our meetings were successful.

After work, Y and I decided to tour around a bit and headed over to the Biltmore Fashion Park. We started by touring some houses near the Arizona Biltmore. I loved their architecture:

After driving around the Arizona Biltmore, we decided to stop by the resort to check out the Frank Lloyd Wright work.

More on that in Part #2 of my Day #3 in AZ... (ecto doesn't like me putting lots of photos in my posts, so I'm splitting this into 2 parts)...

Breakfast, Life, Lunch, Restaurant

Phoenix, AZ - Day #2 + Le Petit Prince

Day #2 of my AZ trip last week brought more good eats.

I started my day bright and early around 5:30 am PT and in the fitness center. My doctor said I can work my way back into zumba (yay!) but also that I should do the bike and elliptical to help strengthen my hip and leg muscles. The elliptical was taken, so I got on the bike, but only for a little bit. Then, it was back to my room to get ready for the day.

We headed straight to work and kicked off the first of 2 days of some intense meetings. They were busy, but good and definitely productive.

We broke for lunch around 11:45am PT and headed over to a teammate's suggested restaurant - Daphne's Greek Cafe.

The restaurant was located in a cute little shopping center. I thought the misters in the outdoor eating area was fascinating - haven't seen these since the themeparks in Orlando, FL!

Daphne's is my kind of "fast food" restaurant. I thought the menu was simple but had some great options. I had a tough time deciding what to get, but ended up ordering the Veggie Plate.

I like to think of the Veggie Plates as "parties on a plate." I just love all the flavors you get - it's like a sampling platter! You know me and my love of many flavors.

On the plate: hummus, falafel, spanakopita, dolmas (stuffed grape leaves), grilled pita, rice pilaf, Greek salad, and tzatziki sauce. The plate was HUGE! I knew I wouldn't finish all this food, but luckily, we had a newbie (to Greek food) at the table, so I shared a few bites of my food with him so he could experience some new tastes.

After lunch, we were back to work for another intense afternoon session. Things were busy, hectic, sometimes crazy, but overall great.

I couldn't help but snap a few shots of the scenery on the way to the hotel. So pretty! We thought the palm trees were pretty unusual. Guess I always thought of them as a beachy thing...but I suppose they're more of a warm weather kind of plant?

The sun was still very strong by the time the work day was over, but it set quite quickly.

The sun was so bright, right in our eyes, on the drive to the restaurant, but we literally watched the sun set behind the mountains in the distance. Luckily, we both had our sunglasses (bring those if you go to AZ!!).

After the afternoon session, we headed over to Abuelo's for a team dinner.

The inside of the restaurant was super cute. The middle area looked sunlit, but totally wasn't.

The germiphobe in me loved how we each got our own mini bowl of salsa - no need to worry about double-dipping!!

For drinks, I was torn between the sangria and the mojito, but ended up going with the sangria. Nice and fruity! This version had a bit of a fizzy-buzz to it.

I got the fajitas for my dinner. I was slightly sad that the chicken was cooked into the veggies on the hot plate - it was grilled, sliced, and put on top of the hot plate, but it still tasted good.

Toppings plate: cheese, guacamole, pico de gallo, sour cream, slice of lime.

The fajitas came with a lovely side of beans. I thought the bean dish was quite tasty.

I managed to scarf down about 1 1/2 fajitas some about 1/2 the beans, but boy was there a lot of food there!

Dinner wouldn't be complete without dessert, of course. I ordered the sopapillas.

Little pillows of fried dough with a cinnamon-sugar topping...

...and a side of a honey sauce.

Dinner mint.

After dinner, I headed to the hotel room and got out my trip reading material to wind down: body + soul (sent my card in for this months ago and haven't gotten 1 magazine yet...wth? Will send a new card in once we're homeowners.) and Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

Le Petit Prince

Le Petit Prince is a book I once studied in a high school French class. The book is fascinating and has a much deeper meaning than the surface stories tell. Stories that sound like simple children's tales speak more to life than to kings, snakes, and roses. Some of the lines in the book are downright beautiful and some can bring you to tears. I once told my college French professor about my love of this book and how I wanted to buy it and would you know...one day, she just handed the book to me in class. It was one of the most thoughtful teacher-student moments I've had. The book pictured is the one she gave me. I don't know what happened to the copy I once studied in high school. I read the book throughout my AZ trip sans dictionary and it was an interesting experience. Normally, I have a dictionary on hand to look up the words I don't know (since I'm not fluent), but without the dictionary, I had to use common sense to figure out some words. I was surprised at how well I was able to read the book without the dictionary, though I'm sure it helped to be so familiar with the story.

Big thanks to both the teacher to intro'ed me to the book and my college professor who helped encourage my French studies.

I leave you with my favorite quote from the book and what I consider to be one of my all-time favorite quotes: "On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur; l'essential est invisible pour les yeux." Translated: "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; the essential is invisible to the eyes." So beautiful!

Books, Dessert, Dinner, Life, Lunch, Magazine

Red's BBQ - Amazing BBQ Street Vendor

There's a BBQ Truck that I like to frequent when I'm working in the uptown area. It's called Red's BBQ Express and it's amazing.

Red's serves its famous BBQ out of this truck parked near the Bank of America building and Omni on Wednesday and Friday. They've even been featured on Food Network! (See web site for video)

One of my favorite features about Red's, besides its delicious BBQ, is the fact that they use local hams for their BBQ and make (I believe) all their food from scratch.

Their sweet tea is pretty darn good, too!

Yummy BBQ with the sweet and mild sauce.

I got some mustard on the side to sample and that was delish, too! The sauce is a family secret recipe.

Cole slaw and pickle slice

Baked beans

Place meat on bun and enjoy. So-so good! :)

I only hope Red's updates their web site because the site indicates that by eating at Red's, you're supporting local farmers. However, it wasn't until I stopped by the rig myself and spoke with the lady behind the counter (I think her name is Charlotte and she's the owner/owner's wife) that I found out that their pork and some other ingredients come from local farms.

Thanks Reds!

Lunch, Restaurant

Greek Festival + Sweet Summer Sunday (Part 1)

Today was one sweet summer Sunday. I had a lot of fun today.

I couldn't wait to dig into the Cinnamon Swirl bread we picked up at Great Harvest yesterday. I heated a slice up in the microwave and had it with a cage-free fried egg and some farmers market tomatoes.

Greek Festival

Hubby slept in but shortly after he woke up, we headed over to the Greek festival. We thought it opened at 11am and got there at roughly 11:15am. Turns out it opens at noon, but our strategy worked out well because we were at the front of the line and didn't have to wait for food.

Here are some photos from the festival:

Waiting in line...we came prepared with water from home. Budget and eco-friendly. :)

We said hi to a man who owns a local restaurant we frequent and he gave us two free tickets. Score! So nice of him.

Check out that line! We were literally the 7th and 8th people in for the day.

Empty inside! We beat the crowd! Last year, we went midday and you couldn't see through the crowd of people.

Food tent...no lines... woot-woot!

Spanakopita! I want to try to make this some time soon. Barefoot Contessa featured the recipe one time and it looked so delish.

Hubby ordering a gyro...no lines!

Spanakopita

Gyro - split with hubby

Greek fries

My favorite part of the festival - the dessert!

Sweets everywhere... *swoon*

To be continued since my publisher is not playing nice at the moment...look for Part 2.

Breakfast, Dessert, Life, Lunch

BBQ Festival + Risky Mac and Cheese

On Saturday, Hubby and I decided to make a quick stop at Blues, Brews, and BBQs .

As much as we wanted to stay and enjoy the food and music, I was pretty exhausted from Friday's AFAA certification, so we were hoping to make a quick trip.

We found a decent parking space and headed over to the event.

After briefly scouting the food vendors, we decided to give Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q a try since they apparently have won a couple of the festivals contests.

We split a pulled pork sandwich with some of Bob's famous red sauce. The meat was really tender and the sauce was just the way I like it...nice and sweet.

Next, we searched for a good side. I wanted to try a roasted ear of corn, but hubby wanted the blooming onion, which I like, too, so we went for that.

The vendor who sold the blooming onions was grilling up all kinds of good-looking things.

I snapped a photo of this guy's giant turkey leg.

But we stuck with our selection of the blooming onion with ranch dressing. We also got a lemonade from the same vendor - fresh-squeezed!

There were people sitting on walls everywhere because the festival was so packed.

Luckily, I'm familiar with the area and found a nice, quiet spot for us to enjoy our food.

Pretty flowers behind us. Gotta love my macro lens!

I do want some new camera goodies, though:

• Wide angle lens
• Special DSLR Flash

After the festival, hubby and I headed to Best Buy where he almost got his baby - a new flat screen TV. I got cozy in the "sample TV room". We had a hard time getting attention from anyone since it was so busy, so we just left. We took it a sign that he'll find a better deal soon.

After Best Buy, I went home to prep a side for a cook out with friends later. We had the option to bring sides or drinks, so I picked sides. Hubby chose Mac and Cheese.

(Note mini mac and cheese in white dish - dad suggested this little trick so we'd have more for later. It's sitting in my fridge right now and will probably be baked for dinner tonight!)

My sister was kind enough to send me a copy of Dad's famous Mac and Cheese recipe, so I went ahead and did something I don't like to do - tried a recipe for the first time for something I planned to serve to a large group of people. I normally like to test my recipes out before serving them to friends, but this seemed foolproof.

I prepped everything at home and baked it off at my friend's place, so it would be nice and hot and ooey and gooey when it was served. I'm not sure it's PC to finish things at people's houses, but I really think the quality of food, especially for something that is supposed to be served hot weighs out in my book. :)

I stressed all night that it wouldn't turn out ok, this being my first attempt at making it.

I was so relieved when people at the party I didn't know made sure to let me know how much they liked it. Phew! Big phew! Actually, the mac and cheese was a HUGE hit! I was so happy.

Here are some photos of the other food goodness at the party:

I found this veggie tray hidden under a bag of hamburger buns and promptly opened it. Guess I'm the only dork who wanted fresh veggies...haha.

Charlie's new grill.

My plate - split the burger with hubby. Not pictured - seconds on mac and cheese (I have to make this stuff again!) and a frosted sugar cookie with sprinkles for dessert. It was too dark to take pictures after round #1 of eats.

I tried taking a photo and this is what happened...the shutter stayed open for forever! And, I didn't want to use my flash...not till I get my new flash at least!

Here's another weird picture...I took a photo of hubby walking and shutter stayed open so long, all you see is a slight blur where hubby is walking...bizarro!

Oh, and here's our casserole after the party...that mac and cheese is DONE-ZO! I love it! Seriously...so relieved the mac and cheese was such a hit. Remind me to test things out next time first!

Dinner, Life, Lunch

Labor Day Eats: Pumpkin Oats + Bison Spaghetti!

Phew! Just got home...it's a been a long night of studying, but one of our zumba head instructors was kind enough to have us over for dinner and to have a group AFAA study session (Thanks Sara!).

I was hoping to do a post on yesterday, but instead, I'll just share the pretty food pics I took:

Monday Breakfast - First Pumpkin Oats of the Season!

First PUMPKIN OATS of the season! First Pumpkin Lattes and now Pumpkin Oats...fall is here! I made my bowl with chia seed, flax seed, maple syrup and pecans.

Monday Lunch - Leftover Peas + Greens

I served my leftover Peas + Greens over Kashi 7 Grain Rice Pilaf. Yum!

Snack

Stonyfield Plain Oikos yogurt parfait with sliced strawberries, banana, almonds, and agave syrup

Monday Dinner - Bison Spaghetti!

Hubby requested spaghetti so I did a healthy play on the dish using local ground bison from Earthfare. We normally get around 1 lb of ground beef for our spaghetti, but I'd rather have more quality over quantity, so we got just under a pound of the local ground bison instead.

Roasted Garlic Italian Demi-Loaf

2 tbsp butter + 2 tblsp extra virgin olive oil + 2 cloves smashed garlic. Heat over low heat while cooking evthing else. Brush over toasted bread (this is a Rachel Ray recipe...abbreviated form) PS I like to add a dash of salt to my mixture.

Salad

Dinner is served!

Bison Spaghetti = Deliciousness

Bison Meat Sauce tastes just like the kind we make with ground beef, but is much more healthy. I'd google health stats, but I am about to fall asleep. You would too if you'd just worked all day in a cubicle and then spent 3 hours studying for the AFAA!

Delicious toasted butter/olive-oil-drenched bread...sooo good!

We had some good eats for Labor Day. Not the tradition grill out party you typically see in the South, but it worked.

Did you eat anything special for Labor Day?

Breakfast, Dinner, Lunch, Snack

Greens + Peas + Texas Donuts

I was very inspired by my farmers market goodies today...so much so that I dug right into them for lunch today. I knew I had leftovers from last night's dinner that I wanted to finish up, but I wanted to make something delicious to enjoy with my market goodies.

I tried looking up recipes for the Tendergreens, but couldn't find anything! I finally figured out that tendergreens are also known as mustard greens and a search for mustard greens yielded much better results.

I found a few recipes that looked ok, but decided to wing it and create something on the fly.

I gathered my ingredients and got to cooking.

Sautéing the onions

Rinsing the peas

Cooking down the greens

Putting it all together

With red pepper flakes for some heat

All together with my leftovers....another yummy veggie combo.

I was really impressed with my Greens + Peas concoction...so tasty and so simple! This side was ready in about 25 minutes.

Greens + Peas
A simple, healthy side dish by moi
NOTE: This is a good recipe to use any frozen, chopped onion you may have in your freezer. I also think that with the addition of a few more ingredients and more broth, this could easily turn into a yummy soup.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups shelled field peas, rinsed
• 3-4 cups mustard greens, extra-rinsed, prepped (remove thick stems), ripped into smaller pieces
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 1 14-ounce chicken broth
• garlic powder
• oregano
• salt and pepper
• extra virgin olive oil

Directions:

1. Heat about 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil in a medium pot. Add onion. Cook till translucent, about 4-5 minutes.
2. Add prepped mustard greens and saute till wilted, about 2-3 minutes.
3. Add chicken broth and rinsed peas. Season with dash garlic powder, oregano, salt, and pepper. Bring to boil
4. Once at boil, cover, lower heat, and simmer for 15-20 minutes, till peas are to desired tenderness.
5. Serve and enjoy!

Lunch was fab, but I did manage to save room for dessert:

My mini "Texas donut". A glazed donut and donut hole.


And since some of you may be wondering...here's a shot of the real "Texas donut" from the bakery - Suarez Bakery .

Decorated Texas donuts with my hand for measurement...these guys are HUGE! I want to try one of these Texas donuts one day...and one day, I'm sure I will. :)

Dessert, Lunch, Recipe

Making Lemonade + Udon Stir-Fry Dinner

"When life hands you lemons, make lemonade."

~ popular quote - source unknown

This morning I couldn't find much at all to put together to take to work for lunch. I almost didn't take anything at all, but I've been working hard on eating in as much as possible, especially during lunch (when it's so convenient to just pick something up). Slightly frustrated and irritated that we didn't have much else, I slapped some turkey with some baby spinach on the 2 end-nubs of FOB bread we had left and called it "lunch." I also managed to rinse off some cherry tomatoes.

I noticed that at the office, someone was using the toaster oven again (which someone had ruined recently by spilling something inside), and toasted sandwiches are so much better than cold fridge-sammies. Hoorah for a working toaster oven again!

My lunch came together pretty nicely: I toasted the sandwich, found some Laughing Cow cheese in the fridge to spread on the sandwich and on some Kashia crackers, and also found some almonds. I was actually quite happy with lunch today.

Those cherry tomatoes hubby picked up from the Farmers Market this past weekend were pretty great with lunch, too. An Adora made for a great dessert.

Wore my hair curly today. I wasn't sure how it would turn out styled curly since I got a few inches chopped off last week, but it ended up not-too-shabby. Don't ya just love a good hair day?

Dinner turned out pretty fab also. I made one of my faves - an Asian-inspired noodle stir fry, like the asparagus version I've made before - click here for recipe . I love this meal because it's very quick and easy to put together.

Tonight I made a broccoli, green bean, chicken udon stir fry, except I subbed farmers market green beans and broccoli for the asparagus.

To save pans (since I used a separate one for the asparagus in the original recipe), I boiled enough water for the pasta and then used the same water to cook the veggies. In first - the green beans for 10 minutes.

Then, I added the pasta and broccoli and cooked for 3 minutes.

Black and red pepper for heat.

Mix up and cook for a minute or so for flavors to combine, top with sesame seeds, and dinner is served!

Anyone have any tips for "making lemonade" out of a sport injury? This non-zumbaing is driving me crazy!

Dinner, Life, Lunch

Vicki's Bridal Shower

I went to my husband's good friend's fiance's bridal shower earlier today. Vicki, the bride-to-be, is an awesome girl, and I'm so glad that one of hubby's guy friends found such a sweet girl to marry.

I had to miss another Farmers Market trip to get ready for the bridal shower and wrap up Vicki's gift, but hubby solo'ed it and picked up some great things on his own. I'm so proud! He even went out of his way to hit up the local farmer's market to get some of my fave mixed cherry tomatoes.

I used some simple silver wrapping paper and dressed up the package using some pink ribbon to coordinate with the bridal shower colors - pink and orange.

The mother of the bride found out about my food blog and being a fan of food photography herself, asked me to take lots of photos of the event's food. I was, of course, happy to oblige.

Here are some of my favorite photos:

Great eats, no? Most, if not all, was home-cooked. I know the sister of the bride made and decorated the cupcakes herself...how Martha Stewart? I love it! I have a cupcake decorating kit, but haven't had the chance to use it yet. Maybe once we have the house I will?!

I won the Bridal Shower Bingo!

The beautiful bride-to-be opening her huge pile of gifts...lucky!

The "bow-quet"

Favors - frosted sugar cookies...mmm...one of my fave kinds of cookies! So festive...so tasty! I've already downed half of this and have tried to hide the other half from hubby to enjoy tomorrow. Heehee. :)

Dessert, Life, Lunch

Impromptu Trip to the Rents' House

I've been working hard on downsizing and de-cluttering in preparation for our (hopefully) big move in a month or so. I've filled about 10 Trader Joe's paper bags full of stuff to donate or move to my parent's house over the last several weeks.

Yesterday, as I enjoyed some leftover Smoky Tomato soup and a smoked gouda panini, I was remarking to hubby about how I wished we could take all those bags of stuff to my parent's house (a day trip away). He said, "Let's go now."

So we did.

I took a couple bags of craft supplies and randomness that I thought my crafty sister may enjoy.

I also took several bags of clothes, which are the clothes that I wasn't quite ready to donate but didn't really LOVE. I purge my closet (and apartment) on a regular basis, and I've donated a ton of stuff so far this year. My goal is to have a smaller closet of clothes I LOVE instead of a larger closet of clothes I just like.

Thoughts of the clothing I dropped off:

• The clothes I dropped off I just "liked"
• They will help me out in the event I go to my parents' house and forget to pack something
• If within a year, I haven't worn these clothes, haven't missed them, and haven't thought about them, I will consider consigning or donating them.

As usual at my rents' house, we ate a ton of food. Here are some photos of our weekend eating adventure:

Dinner

Breakfast

Lunch

So nice to clear out some stuff from our apt...so nice to have such good eats...so nice to see my family. The next time we see them, we will, hopefully, be HOMEOWNERS!!!

Breakfast, Dessert, Dinner, Life, Lunch

Simple Sunday Lunch: Annie's Creamy Shells & Cheese

Hubby and I enjoyed a simple Sunday lunch today using stuff from the pantry and fridge.

Farmer's Market veggies (green beans, mung bean sprouts) and leftover veggies (TJ's organic broccoli florets and baby carrots)

I decided to try a box of Annie's Creamy Deluxe Shells & Extra Cheesy Cheddar Sauce when I saw it on sale at the grocery store.

I cooked the mac and cheese following the box instructions and steamed the veggies.

The veggies got a light drizzle of melted, real butter.

I thought the mac and cheese was really good - definitely better than the boxed version with the dry mix. I kind of still prefer the other mainstream cheesy-mac-and-cheese brands, but I know that Annie's is better for me. Annie's is also a bit more expensive, so I'll probably have to try to buy it in bulk or wait for sales. Annie's creamy shells & cheese still made for a great, convenient lunch.

Lunch

Tomato, Mozzarella, Basil, Balsamic Salad, Etc.

After our farmers market outing, we decided to use some of our new goodies for lunch, including a no-measure tomato, mozzarella, basil, balsamic salad.

Here's our mixture of locally, organically grown tomatoes.

Now, you need basil, too.

Slice tomatoes

Slice fresh basil

Slice fresh mozzarella

Top with drizzle olive oil, salt, pepper

Top with drizzle balsamic.

Stir, let flavors mesh, then enjoy!

I had my salad with a turkey panini using some of our new jalapenos

Jalapenos!

Smoked gouda

Into the panini press

Beautiful!

Look at all those lovely seeds on the Great Harvest Bread Company Dakota bread!

Altogether now. I only ate half the sammie to save room for dessert.

Got a new Better Homes decorating magazine last night - it has some good tips - can't wait to get reading!

Hubby and I love stopping by a local bakery on Saturdays.

I find their glazed donuts irresistible.

They were out today, so I got a pretzel twist instead. The twist proved to be a little too much for me...think I'll stick with the donuts next time (if they're available), but I love their doughy-ness with that yummy glaze. Yum! Pair this with a little milk and you've got a nice afternoon!

What did you do on your Saturday?

Dessert, Lunch

Pepper Stuffing Leftovers Turn Into a Simple Soup

Remember all those leftovers we had from the Stuffed Turkey Peppers from last night's dinner?

We had a small tupperware full of cooked ground turkey, cherry tomatoes, wild rice, and other goodies. I didn't have to wonder long what to do with my pepper stuffing leftovers.

I decided to turn my pepper stuffing leftovers into a simple soup for lunch today. I gathered up the leftovers with some swiss chard from yesterday's Farmer's Market visit along with some low sodium chicken broth.

I brought the broth to a boil and added the turkey stuffing, which promptly disappeared into the broth. I knew I needed to add something else...

...so, I rinsed up a can of kidney beans and added those to the pot.

While the broth had been heating up, I triple-washed my swiss chard and tore the leaves into smaller pieces. After adding the beans, I added the swiss chard and cooked it down for about 4 minutes.

Lunch was as simple as that!

I love finding a good way to morph good leftovers into delicious, new eats!

Have you ever made stuffed peppers and had leftover stuffing? What did you do with yours?

Lunch

Farmer's Market on a Sunday

I don't know about the farmers markets around you, but the ones here are typically not open on Sundays.

We didn't get a chance to hit up the market yesterday, so we decided to venture out to the one market open today.

There were far less vendors, but we still found some good stuff.

We ended up buying mostly veggies.

We got good use out of the reuseable tote I recently received from Stonyfield recently. I also used the one I made awhile back (haven't had time to make more yet!)

For right around $12, we got: 2 heads of romaine, a bag of baby spinach, a vine-ripened tomato, 6 limes, 1 plum, 2 kiwis, 1 red onion, 1 bag of cherry tomatoes, some green beans, 2 green peppers, a bag of banana peppers (6-7), a bunch of cilantro, a bag of fresh mint, a sweet potato and a small piece of ginger. Good deal! I'm not sure how much of the food was local, but at least we got some good deals if nothing else. We'll have to remember to hit up the Saturday farmers markets next time.

Some stuff, like the baby spinach, I prepped immediately upon returning home. I triple washed it, dried it in my salad spinner, and stored it in tupperware with a couple pieces of paper towel to keep the spinach nice and dry.

I also got a gorgeous bouquet of pink flowers for a mere $5. They were so pretty I couldn't stop taking pictures of them!

We kept lunch simple with some Trader Joe's frozen beef burritos (or were they enchilads...hmm). I'm not a fan of frozen food, but I sampled this at the store and it tasted about as good today as I remember it being before.

I topped the burritos (or enchiladas...whichever they were) with some of the cilantro we picked up earlier...to freshen up the food.

Not too shabby, TJ's.

After lunch, I planned to finally try that chia fizz drink I mentioned awhile back, but hubby found some open houses, so we rushed out to see them. We didn't end up finding much of anything, but it's always worth trying.

Still, we had an awesome weekend so far and now I just have some errands to take care of (laundry) and some dinner to make.

Groceries, Lunch

Productive Sunday - Heirloom Tomato Goodness

I had a most-awesome, productive day today! Hope you had a wonderful Sunday, too.

I was trying to sleep in this morning, but to no avail. I was up at 9am. I decided to go ahead and cook up a nice, big breakfast.

On the breakfast menu: fried egg, Morningstar "sausage", strawberries and grapes from the farmers market, and a piece of cinnamon apple bread also from the farmers market. I also had a nice mug of 1/2 Breakfast Blend and 1/2 Summer Breeze from the Fresh Market.

After breakfast, I was feeling extra-productive, so I de-cluttered around the apartment and took care of some other errands. I cleaned up around the apartment, went out to do some shopping errands, got groceries, made lunch, and took care of some other to-dos.

Check out my hot, new zumba-gear! I love this Margarita wear...it's turning into an obsession...I can't get enough of this sportswear brand.

After my shopping fun, I picked up some groceries for the week and a couple things to make a quick lunch with my heirloom tomato from Saturday's farmers market trip.

Aren't heirloom tomatoes beautiful!?

All in all, I got a lot accomplished today:

• Breakfast
• Laundry
• Groomed the dog
• Filled 4 TJ's paper bags of stuff (2 to donate; 2 to take to my parents) after organizing in the apt
• Shopping Errands
• Grocery Shopping
• Compiled a list of jewelry vendors so I could get rid of all my bulky catalogs
• Lunch

If only every day could be this productive.

Have a great week everyone!

Breakfast, Lunch, Shopping

Good Eats to End the Weekend

With one day left of our three day weekend, my family made sure hubby and I got some good eats.

My sister, the baker of the family, decided to utilize more of those blueberries the fam had picked the day before.

Ellie's blueberry coffee cake . We actually liked this better than the cobbler!

We enjoyed our light breakfast (light for most of us at least...hubby downed 4 pieces!) and relaxed a bit before diving into lunch.

My mom marinated and grilled some boneless chicken breasts and we also had saffron rice, steamed mixed veggies, and beans. Lunch was simple, but delicious. I liked that we had 2 sides of veggies!

After lunch, we gave my dad his Father's Day/Birthday Card and present, which I think he liked. The blueberry picking and quality family time were also part of our celebration. I hope he had a great time!

With full bellies and a huge tupperware full of fresh blueberries, hubby and I headed home. Ahh...I love a good family visit.

Breakfast, Lunch

Bloggies Do Lunch: Henry's BBQ

There are a couple kinds of food when I think of the Fourth and two are hamburgers and BBQ. Lucky me...I got to eat BOTH for this year's Fourth of July celebration.

After going blueberry picking with my family, we met up with bloggy buddy April (of the Art Chics) and her fam for some serious BBQ eats.

We hit up my fave-ever BBQ spot - Henry's Smokehouse.

I got my usual - the Regular Sandwich plate with a pulled pork sandwich (cole slaw on the side - yea, they put it on the sandwich sometimes), fries, cole slaw, and pickles. This plate is BBQ perfection IMO.

A closer look.

Turns out April gets the exact same thing I get! Great minds, A...great minds...

A Southern BBQ lunch wouldn't be complete without some delicious, ice-cold sweet tea!

I had a great time catching up with April and meeting the rest of her family...next time, we'll have to plan for more bloggy adventure time....perhaps a yarn store visit for us girls and local bar for the boys? ;) Ooh, and we even got a present! More on that next time!

Lunch

Zumba-licious + Jam-Packed Weekend

Wow, this weekend has been crazy!

I knew Friday night that I had a full day ahead of me, so I tried to keep dinner healthy.

I tried to keep dinner light with some TJ's Wild Blue Shrimp and some veggies - organic squash and organic red onion from our organic produce delivery service.

For our carb, I heated up this cool new Kashi product I found - 7 Whole Grain Pilaf. It took a mere 60-90 seconds and was ready like that!

Yum!

First, I went to a boot camp class with a couple zumba instructors to assist with an 8-9am Saturday class.

I didn't want to have a full stomach whilst zumba-ing the morning away, so I just had a Clif Energy bar in Chocolate Chip Peanut Crunch.

It was pretty cool because I got to test out my cueing and mirroring skills and move around in the audience to try to help those who couldn't see the lead instructor.

Then, we rushed over to Southpark for the Asana Zumbathon! I downed a protein bar and lots of water. Water so was KEY today because of all the exercising - especially the outdoor part. I found these awesome and affordable gigantic bottles of electrolyte enhanced water at Trader Joe's the other day and got 2 for Saturday's events.

The Zumbathon went from 9:00 - 10:30am, but we got there right at 9:30 for the last hour. Better late, than never, right? :)

I wish I had pictures, but alas, I left my camera in the car, so I found this one from Asana Activewear. The event was a blast! We'll have to have one of those again soon. *crossing fingers*

After the zumbathon, it was time to gear up for my zumba instructor auditions. I got some hummus from a local restaurant because I simply love it and it's pretty healthy.

I also got some fresh ingredients to make a delicious deli-style sandwich with a side of fresh, red pepper.

I used Great Harvest Dakota bread, smoked turkey, tomato, organic baby spinach, and muenster cheese. It was so awesome! Filling, nutritious, and energy-providing.

An hour before my audition, I made hubby and me a not-so-green smoothie with frozen, mixed berries, a banana, organic baby spinach, and skim milk.

Although I put spinach in there, I think the berries won out as far as colors go. Hubby didn't even know there was spinach in the smoothie till I told him...teehee. :)

I wore a top I got especially for auditions, my zumba pants and used a black, leather cuff as my statement piece. I thought it added to the whole zumba look. :) As for auditions, they went really well. I was nervous, but I am just pleased that I did about as well as I think I could have. I had to do 3 songs with mirroring and cueing and then some interview-type questions. Mostly, I was proud of my dancing...I was worried about messing up the routines, but they went very smoothly. No word yet on the results, but I'll let you know.

Later that night (yea, we're still on Saturday...lol), we grilled out with friends.

Hot!

We did grilled onions on top of our burgers.

Then, I topped my burger with a tomato slice, spinach, dab of mayo, mustard, and ketchup.

I had a real Coke in a bottle (tastes so much better, I think) to drink.

Trader Joe's chocolate chip cookies were dessert.

After dinner, we headed out to the marina...

...for some night fishing....just as the sun was setting.

We didn't catch anything...

...but we did have fun out on the water.

After night-fishing, we were ready to head home. I was sooo ready for bed after my extra long, but fun-filled day.

Breakfast, Dessert, Dinner, Life, Lunch

Hubby's Lunch Delivery Surprise

I didn't have anything at the house to make for lunch today, but hubby was sweet enough to offer to drop something off for me.

He brought me 2 different bags of lunchtime goodness.

In the brown bag, I got a half Cafe Wrap sandwich from Jason's Deli with fresh fruit, dipping sauce (which I don't use), and some mints.

A closer look at the wrap - inside: turkey, bacon, lettuce, tomato, and some sort of sauce.

I brought out some Kashi Honey Sesame TLC Crackers I've been saving at my desk for a simple side.

In the white bag, I had a super special surprise - a vanilla cupcake with chocolate icing from my favorite cupcake bakery, Polka Dot Bake Shop. I just love these little things and this is my favorite flavor combo.

After work, I headed over to Zumba!! I was a little on the fence about whether I should go or not because I have my instructor training tomorrow, but I figured if the instructors could do the class and training, why couldn't I? I pushed through and even got to dance on the stay to one of the songs! So fun!

I was going to pour myself a nice big post-workout glass of milk, but decided to do a play on this post-workout beverage by turning my skim milk into hot chocolate using some Hershey's unsweetened cocoa powder and sugar. Following this recipe by Ellie Krieger, I started by making a paste.

I just added some skim milk, which I heated up in the microwave and I had a love post-workout snack.

Yum!

Want some?

In keeping with the bad habits of eating out too much this week, we got take-out for dinner from a local Mediterranean restaurant. I'd like to work on not making excuses for eating out (like I'm too busy). We were actually planning on cooking chicken tonight, but hubby suggested one of my fave take-out places I just caved. In my defense, I have been craving food from this restaurant for awhile now. :)

While I've got you, this is a little off topic, but hubby picked up a new flavor of bread for sandwiches this week:

Oregon Herb ! I haven't had the chance to try this yet, but it sure smells great. My only beef is I'm not thinking this would taste good in one of my fave snacks - Almond Butter Toast. Doh!

Hubby also brought home something deliciously different - another new bread - Pecan Swirl . omg...this stuff is ridiculously good!

Look at those layers!

Yum! I did get to have one slice of this but hubby ate the rest of it! Guess we'll have to try to get more next time. Either way, this stuff was delish and didn't even taste like it was made with wheat bread.

Ok, I have to get some rest before instructor training tomorrow. G'night!

Dinner, Life, Lunch

Full Day, Fun Day

I tend to find myself stuck at home a lot on the weekends with that overwhelming feeling of having so much to do around the apartment, but I'm working on this:

1. I'm going to start downsizing - less stuff, less to manage, less to worry about

2. I'm going to start forcing myself to prioritize FUN higher...you have to balance things, right?

Saturday was spent forcing myself to have fun:

Firstly, I went to a fabulous zumba class for a beautiful, yet really tough hour. This meant I successfully completed going to zumba 5 out of the last 7 days! I'm so proud of myself. I was so tired Saturday, but I just pushed myself through class. Phew! All in all, I burned about 2,500-5,000 calories over the last week (based on the estimate of 500-1000 calories per class).

After class, I went with one of my zumba friends to hang out by their pool and work on my tan. Saturday was the first day I've been to the pool this summer!

Amazing blue skies!

Our pool is closed, so I'm lucky my friend had me over to hers. We also met up with another zumba friend at the pool - so fun, but I had to leave around 3:15pm to pick up my car from the shop. Ugh!

My pool/beach towel. I love these oversized Vera Bradley beach towels . Not that I have many, but I usually try to find them when they go on sale. I do think they're worth full price because of the size, softness, and pretty patterns.

After picking up the car, hubby and I went by Jason's Deli . I haven't been a huge fan of Jason's Deli until recently now that they've ramped up their menu and moved their focus to organic foods and "real food". Apparently, Health magazine has also taken notice.

Hubby and I split the (I think it's called) Cafe Wrap. The restaurant was actually thoughtful enough to go ahead and split our plates for us. I love little touches like that.

Yum!

After lunch, I was really craving ice cream! Probably because of all that zumba and the hot sun from the pool. I'm not sure where the craving came from because ice cream isn't typically something I crave...in fact, I rarely want it. Anywho, I got the Oatmeal Cookie flavor, which was really delish.

For dinner, hubby and I hit up our fave Mexican spot in town, 1900 Mexican Grill. We started with 2 salsas and some hot cheese dip.

I got a margarita - the Orange Pineapple Crush, with muddled pineapple. Yum!

For dinner, we got the chicken fajitas...so good! Our plate was really loaded up.

Not sure I was much help by eating only 1 fajita and a wee bit of rice and beans.

I was stuffed, but everything was so tasty.

After dinner, hubby and I stopped by a friend's place where we met up with a bunch of people and headed to a local bar for some evening drinks. Make that "drink". Hubby and I only had 1 more drink and called it an evening.

I have big plans for Sunday, but I'm taking a risky approach to the day's events - will explain later. Promise. Wish me luck!

Dinner, Life, Lunch, Restaurant

The Icebox Conference Room

The Icebox

Today I had to dial in to an all-day meeting conference call, so I set-up in one of the conference rooms in our office. Little did I know, the conference room was more prepped to store frozen food than be used for meeting. It was freezing in there!

This may look like a normal outfit to some of you, but...

...the jacket I'm wearing is by The North Face...as in the gear people wear when they're climbing snow-capped mountains...yea, that one.

But wait, it gets better...

Remember those leg warmers I bought for that 80's party?

I wore them today because I was THAT cold in that conference room...seriously!

A closer look. Good thing I was wearing pants today so I could at least hide those leg warmers a bit.

My Patagonia Synchilla Blanket also helped me stay somewhat warm today. Boy, was I glad when that meeting was over so I could thaw out!

Hodge Podge Lunch + Snacks

Lunch was a bit of a hodge podge. We didn't have any lunch meat so I couldn't make a sandwich, like usual. The risotto I made for dinner last night made a TON so I brought some leftovers in along with a Morningstar Soysage for good measure.

I also brought in a half orange pepper and some baby carrots - lots of good orange veggies in there.

"Dessert" was a TJ's fruit leather...

...and the snacking didn't stop there. I also had some Kashi Crackers in Fire Roasted Veggie .

Later, I had a lovely Pure Bar in ChocolateBrownie - these things are just amazing, no?

This bar made a great pre-workout snack.

Foodie Explores

After work, hubby and I ran some errands. We got some new scallops to replace the funky-looking ones we did not eat yesterday and I also picked up some new foodie things to try:

Did you know that the makers of the oh-so-good Yogi Teas is now making cereal? Yuppers! Yogi is now offering cereal, and I got some Goji Berry Fake & Cluster (Essential Antioxidant) to try.

We also got the coffee The Fresh Market had on sample because it was so nice, light, and smooth. This is the Fair Trade Certified & Organic Guatemalan coffee. I love supporting fair trade whenever possible and this is organic and was on sale to boot!

I can't wait to dig into my new goodies!

Groceries, Life, Lunch

A Long Time Coming Shopping

Today's been a good day with good eats and even better news.

I went with some co-workers to take lunch at a local organic eatery, blynk . It may sound crazy, but taking lunch is a bit of a luxury for us - we usually end up eating at our desks during phone conferences, so to actually get out of the office is a really good thing.

I got a duo with a half simply turkey sandwich and onion/roasted garlic soup. It was super yummy.

A lovely Peanut Toffee Buzz Clif Energy bar gave me some ammo for my zumba class! I have to admit, I actually felt pretty tired throughout the class, but I pushed through and really tried to give it my all anyways. Mind over matter...it really works sometimes...or at least having a good willpower does.

I stayed late after class chatting with a zumba girlfriend, but managed to make it to Best Buy minutes before the doors locked to buy The Matrix soundtrack. I used to love listening to this CD a few years ago and it popped into my head recently. My CD became unusable a couple years ago due to scratching or whatever, so I had to buy a new one. I couldn't find it on iTunes (along with some other oldies but goodies) so Best Buy came to my rescue.

By the time I made it to the grocery store, I was feeling pretty tired and hungry, so I just grabbed some thin-sliced chicken (cooks nice and fast), some cheddar cheese, and a roma tomato. Throw it all together, and you get this: sauteed spiced chicken, spinach salad (with tomatoes, feta, sunflower seeds, Rosemary Balsamic dressing), and flaxseed-wheat crackers with white cheddar cheese.

I even had a special treat that my zumba buddy gave me - a piece of her wedding cake, which they de-frosted for their 1year anniversary. How cool is that? It's especially cool for me because hubby and I didn't get to do the cake-top tradition since we couldn't bring food in from the Bahamas.

This cake is also extra special because it's a traditional Puerto Rican cake...nifty, no?! The cake tasted like it had

Hubby indicated interest in the cake, so I halved it with him and enjoyed my half with a mini mug of skim milk...Yum! Thanks K!! :)

See this? This is hubby's iPhone. He bought his iPhone when the first round of iPhones were released. I wanted to get a matching phone, but alas, couldn't at the time. I've had cell phone envy for the last 2 years...on top of that, I've been dealing with a phone that no longer holds a charge and cuts out on me in the middle of my phone conversations. I put up with my phone longer than I should have because hubby told me that rumor was that a new iPhone was coming out.

I almost went ahead and bought an iPhone when I was in San Francisco simply because my phone wasn't getting the job done. It almost died on me the night I met up with my friends at Millenium, which would have been extra bad because I would have been 100% lost in a city on the other side of the country away from everyone I knew and with my friend's cell phone # lost on my dead phone and no where else to stay. Luckily, the battery held out juuuust long enough for us to meet up, but I've through with my phone. It's been a long wait since March, and I've almost caved and purchased the iPhone anyways a couple times, but I held out hoping the rumors were true - that there would be a new iPhone. Well, guess what...the rumors were true! There will be a new iPhone and it will be mine! The wait is almost over...phew!

Kate, pencil me in for the 19th. ;)

Dessert, Dinner, Life, Lunch

Charlotte Food Festival

Hubby and I decided to hit up the Taste of Charlotte for lunch today.

As we expected, the place was rather packed.

We picked up some tokens and a pamphlet and started to wander around.

We got a free bagel-ful sample, which really did taste just like a bagel with cream cheese - I mean same texture and everything.

Note water bottle in the background - this baby saved us some tokens to spend on food instead of water...woohoo! More eats for us!

There was a booth that was playing a song we do in Zumba class - I thought about jumping up on the stage and busting out our zumba routine...but there were little kids dancing around the stage and I have stage fright anyways...haha. I think they were recruiting for some new dance TV show - looks interesting but I'm not auditioning.

There were plenty of random things, too, like this pig car.

We meandered all the way to the end before making final decisions on eats. We got a lot of stuff, though:

Crab cake from Village Tavern.

BBQ Pork Slider from Outlaw BBQ.

Jerk chicken and peas and rice from Caribbean Hut.

BBQ Shrimp from Flat Rock Grille.

Hubby and I kept scooting out to the sides of the event behind the tents for shade and quiet to eat.

Dessert - Chocolate Cinnamon Macaroon from Amelie's French Bakery.

Dessert - best part of any meal!

Hubby picked a chocolate chip slider (chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich) from Black Finn's for another dessert option - it was sooo good and the ice cream really helped us cool off from the hot-hot weather outside.

Look at that crowd!

By the time we were done eating, we were ready to go. We walked back to our car and pumped up the AC. Then, we headed out to check out some open houses. Hubby is trying to expand our search area and we looked at 2 houses in the neighborhoods he likes and 1 in the area I prefer. They were all pretty nice, but I dunno...we're just not finding "the one." Hopefully, soon we will.

Dessert, Life, Lunch

Zumba Morning + Farmer's Goodies

I normally try to pace out my zumba workouts during the week so I don't totally exhaust myself, but since I've signed up for the instructor workshop, I've decided to really step my game up and go to as many classes as I can possibly do. Just talking about the instructor workshop and cueing and mirroring and all the fun instructor stuff makes me realize that I'm really not ready at the moment to become an instructor, but there's no better time than the present to focus in on a goal, no? The funny thing is that even if becoming an instructor isn't in my cards, I'll become a better zumba-er which will mean I'll get a better workout, too, so it's really win-win if you ask me. :)

In light of my new motivation to push myself harder than ever, I decided to hit up a new zumba class I've never visited before since it's a fairly long drive for me. I scouted out the schedules last night and targeted in on a late morning class on woke up ready for some dancing.

I decided to carb up for breakfast with oatmeal, plus coffee...

...and strawberries (from yesterday) for extra vitamin C.

My oats were rather boring today since I didn't feel like mixing my strawberries in and didn't have anything else to add. I just did a regular ole bowl of rolled oats cooked in the microwave with some skim milk stirred in. I topped the bowl with sliced almonds, ground blueberry-flaxseed, and a drizzle of vanilla-maple syrup for my sweetener.

After breakfast, I headed to zumba class. I wasn't sure how it would go since I already did zumba last night and was pretty tired at last night's workout, but surprisingly , I pushed my way through the class and had a blast. I could feel the burn in my muscles afterwards, but I wasn't nearly as tired as I thought I'd be.

By the time I left zumba, it was nice and hot outside...the perfect day for an iced latte. I decided to grab a quick Starbucks on my way home and got a tall white nonfat mocha with whip. It was so good!

After some time on the computer catching up on blogs and what not, I decided to make lunch with my goodies from the farmer's market from yesterday. I started by making some red potatoes a la Rachael Ray's Parsley Dill Potatoes (click)

While the potatoes cooked, I got started on the second farmer's market item - squash.

I chopped the squash up.

Then, some fresh dill got some chopping attention.

I found some pre-chopped onions in my freezer to saute with the squash.

I love sauteed veggies! I usually just keep sauteed veggies simple with extra virgin olive oil, salt, and pepper.

When the potatoes were done, I drained them and added them back to the pot with some butter and the chopped dill.

All together now.

Lunch was light and simple and enjoyed with simply water. The pantry was running low so we weren't really able to round out the meal quite like I normally prefer, but it worked. I'll probably get a snacky-snack later before dinner.

Post lunch, I enjoyed a lovely cup of Yogi Tea Ginger tea whilst cuddling on the couch with Bails and catching up on my DVR...I swear that thing fills up faster than I can watch!

I have to admit, I haven't worked out on a weekend in awhile and now remember how great and energized I feel the rest of the day. Between the amped up zumba and the relaxation on the couch with Bailey, I think I'm ready for a serious night of karaoke!

Breakfast, Doggie, Lunch

Farmer Fresh + Friday Date Night

Yesterday, they had a small farmer's market set-up in a common area near where I work, so I headed over with a co-worker to check out the goods. The stand was quite popular, as you can tell from the photo. I love hitting up farmer's markets and stands for the fresh veggies and to support the local farmers. It's one small way to go green.

I left with 2 small bags of goodies for Saturday's lunch and a carton of strawberries.

While heating my sandwich up in the toaster oven at work, I decided to rinse off some of the strawberries I had just purchased. I figured the extra vitamin C just might give me some more energy for zumba after work.

Look at those vibrant berries!

Yum!

After work, it was zumba time! We hit the floor hard for a most-awesome hour...such a great workout. I can't wait for instructor training to learn more about the other side of zumba.

After work, hubby took me out for a little date night to PF Changs (one of my personal faves). I started with a cocktail that may now be my PF Changs go-to cocktail - the Asian Pear Mojito...it was delish!

I didn't have my big camera with me, so these photos aren't quite as clear as normal, but better than none, I suppose.

The PF Changs special sauce concoction - I used to rarely use this, but I find myself using it more and more each time I go.

Lettuce wraps - these are so addictive!

We totally got upsold by our waitress who suggested a few of her favorites when we asked about specials. We ended up going with the Mongolian Trio, which is really just the Mongolian Beef dish with shrimp and chicken added. We didn't really mind being upsold, though, because we absolutely loved our dish. The Mongolian sauce reminded me of a light teriyaki - a bit sweet. Teriyaki is one of my fave Asian-themed sauces. We also really liked the combination the different meats - I had a little of each. I really liked the way the beef was prepared - a bit crispy and tender at the same time.

Brown rice rounded out the meal, which was fab-u-lous! We were so happy with dinner.

After dinner, we hit up the movie theaters to see Hangover . It was HILARIOUS! The movie was a bit vulgar, but there were many scenes that were just laugh-out-loud funny. Hubby had a special treat for us at the theater - he picked up some cupcakes from a local bakery earlier in the day and we ate them during the movie for dessert...they were so yum. I had vanilla (with real vanilla bean seeds) with uber-rich chocolate icing cupcake. It's my fave combo from this particular bakery.

What a wonderful date night we had...maybe I'll take hubby out to see Bruno ...I can't wait till that one comes out! I'm probably more likely to take him to Up first, though...I do love my cartoons!

Dinner, Groceries, Lunch, Restaurant

Donuts + Dogs

I know...the title sounds like a bizarre combo, but that's how Saturday started out...

Donuts

Hubby and I headed out to a local bakery that makes my fave-ever donuts to pick up some breakfast. I ate 2 of these amazing glazed donuts...they are just so good.

Dogs

We walked around the shopping center where the bakery is located and tried to go into the pet boutique in the center but they were closed for Petapalooza . We had totally forgotten about Petapalooza! We went home to look up the info for the event and realized since it was 11:30 am, we had already missed most of the event. We decided to make a last-minute effort to attend the last couple events and to get Bailey some fresh air and headed over.

Petapalooza was set up at a local park. There were dogs of all sizes everywhere.

There were also tons of booths set up with vendors selling dog treats and pet-related business pimping out their businesses.

We wandered around the booths with Bailey and picked up some information.

By the time we got to the end of the booths, it was time for the last event - an agility demonstration.

We headed over to the demonstration area.

There was a guy running a demonstration with dogs and frisbees flying everywhere.

Look how high up that dog jumped!

Aww...

The demo went on, but my camera battery died, so I couldn't take any more pictures. We didn't stay out too much longer because it was soooo hot outside! We stayed through the end of the demo and then walked Bailey around a bit longer before heading home.

Bailey got a special frozen dog treat before we left the park. Lucky little guy!

Light Lunch

Since breakfast had been so decadent, I decided to balance my eats out with a healthier lunch - edamame and Barney Butter toast on Great Harvest Flax Oat Bran bread.

I love having edamame around for snacking because it's so convenient - you just leave it in the freezer till you're ready - boil water, added beans, cook, drain, sprinkle with salt...done and done.

I enjoyed lunch whilst catching up on my DVR'ed Food TV shows. Ina Garten made a lovely zinger tea on one of the episodes, which reminded me that I had some zinger tea in my pantry.

Celestial Seasonings Lemon Zinger Green Tea proved to be a nice post-lunch beverage to enjoy with my Food TV shows. I just wish I had some of the standard zinger teas on hand...hmm...mental note - pick up zinger tea at the grocery store.

Breakfast, Doggie, Life, Lunch

First Anniversary - Hubby Style

Normally, we head to Charleston, SC for Memorial Day weekend. Now that our anniversary falls on Memorial Day weekend, we have plans for many future tropical vacations back to the Bahamas where we got married, but we also know that we won't always be able to make that trip. This weekend proved to be one of them. Some of our best friends were getting married on our exact anniversary and I wouldn't have missed it for the world. Since we had plans already for Sunday, hubby planned a special surprise for Saturday.

First thing Saturday morning, we headed over to Ballantyne Hotel (previously Ballantyne Resort).

We went directly to Gallery to enjoy a slow-paced breakfast.

After ordering our meals, breakfast started with a mini homemade-granola parfait...

...and, of course, coffee.

We also got some whipped butter and homemade jams.

Food was out before we knew it. I ordered an omelet with bell pepper, spinach, onion, and lump crab meat, bacon, roasted asparagus and tomato...

...and biscuits and gravy. The latter were so-so, but omg, who knew crab meat tasted so good in an omelet!? It was delish and perhaps the start of something great.

We also got toast to eat with that butter and fresh jam - the blueberry was my fave...I couldn't stop eating it.

Hubby's meal was pretty fab, too. He got an eggs benedict dish with a roasted red pepper hollandaise and potatoes. He LOVED it.

We were both pretty happy with our dish selections.

After breakfast, we killed time before our appointments. Yup, hubby made appointments for us at the spa! Woot-woot! To let our food digest before our appointments, we walked around a bit and watched some people at the driving range.

There was also a wedding setting up below us. They all looked so adorable with their huge hats.

Oh, and look what I saw in the parking lot. I can't get away from this place...it followed me home! haha

Soon enough, it was spa time!

Hubby and I checked in and then we were off to our separate locker room areas. I love how quiet and peaceful spas are...from the soothing music to the aromatics...I love being there.

After changing into my robe and slippers, I left the women's locker room and wandered around a bit with my camera. I felt a bit like a spy, but I wasn't shopping them...I just wanted to share the trip with you guys. :)

The pool area was pretty awesome.

I wanted to jump in, but hubby forgot to tell me to bring a bathing suit. Apparently, with the purchase of your spa treatment, you can hang out anywhere in the spa/resort area - the indoor pool, the hot tub, the lap pools, the outdoor pool, the steam room, the sauna, and you can even use their exercise room. They also serve food! We're seriously going to have to come back to the Ballantyne Hotel to spend an entire day!

Loved the towels.

My fave room of the women's locker room - just beyond this doorway.

Ahh...I want a Florida room just.like.this one day.

There were snacks...

...and fruit-flavored waters.

Magazines to browse.

One of these nifty things. Don't know what it's called, but it really was relaxing to drag the mini-rake through the sand.

I spent a glorious 15 minutes in the steam room. I love steam rooms - they really help my muscles relax. After the steam room, it was time for our couple's massage - a spectacular 60 minutes of Swedish massage bliss. I was in heaven. I wish I could get massages on a monthly basis.

After the massage, they gave me a long-stem red rose and an "I am at Peace" card. Think I'll put that card in my cubicle at work to remind me of this happy-place.

After the massage, I headed back to the peaceful, sunlit waiting area to enjoy my newly relaxed self. I felt like a million bucks!

After our relaxing spa morning, hubby and I headed home to shower and change and then it was time for our afternoon date. We headed over to the Epicentre in uptown.

We went to MEZ where hubby had late-lunch reservations.

I started with a pomegranate cocktail (it was strong!).

Then, we had the shrimp cakes for our appetizer. They were quite tasty...I'm really on a seafood-cake-kick lately, no?

I had the broiled mahi-mahi for my lunch entree, which had a lovely brothy sauce, sauteed spinach, and yummy capers.

Hubby's pan roasted pork tenderloin dish was "wow", too. I loved tasting bites of the pork with bites of apple on the same fork.

We got the small oreo cheesecake. I was a little disappointed there was no crust, but the cheesecake itself was quite tasty - shockingly light for a cheesecake and I mean that in a good way. The dessert was especially tasty with a swipe of the sauce - I alternated chocolate, raspberry, repeat.

After dessert, it was time to see a movie. Hubby picked Terminator Salvation. He apologized for the movie not being romantic, but we both wanted to see it, so it worked out just fine.

The anniversary celebration hubby planned was totally amazing! I had such a great time, some delish eats, and now I have to plan something pretty awesome to keep up! My plans are, unfortunately, going to have to be in a couple weeks , but hopefully, hubby still enjoys them.

Thanks so much, hubby, for the thoughtful anniversary day! I love you!

Breakfast, Dessert, Life, Lunch, Restaurant

Minneapolis - Day 3 (Friday)

By Friday of the trip, I was really looking forward to seeing both hubby and Bailey and getting ready to home. Also, after having hung out with the co-workers for most of the trip and having a blast getting to know them better, my inner foodie was happy to venture out on a food-alicious journey for Friday's breakfast.

I decided to hit up Hell's Kitchen , a restaurant I read about on yelp.com whilst researching Minneapolis eats.

The knife chandelier greeting you at the entrance was a nice touch to the theme.

Inside, the restaurant continued the "dark" theme, which I kind of liked...something off the beaten path.

I started with coffee, which is locally roasted.

The menu had many amazing-sounding options - it was a tough choice. I heard really good things about the lemon ricotta pancakes and will have to try those next time? I wanted to try their Mahnomin Porridge, too, but my stomach is only so big. I also wanted to get some of their homemade peanut butter but didn't want to have to check my bag at the airport. I need to see if they ship and if so, if it's affordable.

For breakfast, I got the Bread Pudding with Black Currants and Creme Anglaise - it was fab but more like dessert than breakfast. Life's short...eat dessert first, no? :)

I also had to try the Maple-Glazed Bison Sausage, which helped balance out the sweetness of the bread pudding - I loved the maple glaze on it!

After breakfast, it was on to work for the day.

Instead of working through lunch, we broke to hit up a local fave - Key's Cafe.

The menu had all the usual suspects - omelets, sandwiches, burgers, but in an effort to try something different, I decided to try something that's not unique, but something I'd never had before - the Rachel - a turkey reuben.

omg...it was delish! This place has really set the bar high for any future Rachels I order. The plate also came with a pickle spear, cole slaw, and french fries. I only managed to finish about half the plate.

I hit up a place that piqued my interest earlier in the trip - Sola to see what the OatsCreme was all about.

I figured if I like oatmeal, I'd probably like this stuff...turns out I do! It reminds me a lot of how people use soy to make "creamy" things like milk, ice cream, etc. I thought the sample of vanilla OatsCreme I had tasted a lot like the nutty flavor of soy milk.

I went ahead and got the Healthy Blend - Vanilla OatsCreme, banana, strawberry, and granola. Although I enjoyed this yummy concoction, my timing stunk. Since we were on our way out of town, I had to carry the thing all the way to the light rail and then into the airport...not fun. Not to mention the thing was HUGE! I was glad to try it but will have to work on my timing next time.

We left for the airport in plenty of time and did a wee bit of shopping in the airport. I managed to get a treat for hubby even though we have the shop in Charlotte...it's the thought that counts, right?

Our plane landed safely and smoothly right on time and I was thankful to be picked up by hubby and go home.

Since it was already after 9 pm by the time we headed home, we stopped by Chick Fil A to get dinner. I just got a bowl of Chicken Noodle Soup because I wasn't that hungry.

Not to mention, I had some treats to enjoy with hubby. I brought back this "famous Caramel Roll" back from the Key's Cafe spot from lunch.

I got about 1/3 and hubby had the rest. We both had a wee bit of 1% milk to go with dessert.

I had one more trick up my sleeve - goodies from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.

Inside - 2 hand-selected pieces of chocolate to enjoy.

Milk Chocolate Caramel and Ancho Chile Truffle.

The caramel was awesome...

...the truffle was indeed spicy. Don't think hubby has tasted this one yet, but I saved some for him, in case he wanted it.

All in all...a fun trip. We met, we brainstormed, we conquered. I also had some good eats along the way, which is always a plus. Wonder where they'll send me next? Hmm...

Breakfast, Dessert, Dinner, Lunch, Restaurant