I’m Okay With a Little Stray

Posted on January 7, 2010 | 9 comments

Good morning blog world! Happy Thursday – yay it’s almost Friday. What fun things do you have planned for the weekend?

I have a few things going on this weekend. Friday night I’ll be laying low because I have a 5-mile race bright and early on Saturday morning in Central Park! Then Saturday evening the Hubby and I are having our first 2010 date night (sticking to those resolutions). We’re going out to dinner and then going to see God of Carnage on Broadway. It’s supposed to be really funny – don’t mind the name. I bought these tickets for Hubby’s birthday and when I originally bought them months ago James Gandolfini (Tony Soprano) was the lead male. Bill loved the Sopranos, so I was kind of disappointed when they changed the cast. But I still happen to recognize two of the actors in this cast: Jimmy Smits and Christine Lahti. Sunday we are contemplating going to see Avatar. Everyone is raving about it, but neither one of us is too pumped to go see it. Have you seen it – feedback? 

Before I get into yesterday’s eats, I wanted to share this link with you from Foodfit.com – it’s their Winter Guide to Fruits and Vegetables. I get their newsletter and thought this list was pretty useful. There were definitely some fruits on the fruit list that I’d never heard of before, but sounded tasty.

Now onto eats:  I remembered to photograph my breakfast yesterday – it was oatmeal with banana and pumpkin butter. I hadn’t used my pumpkin butter in a while and it’s starting to get low. I also had a side of light cranberry juice.

For lunch I might have had a piece of pizza during our Marketing and Communications celebratory lunch. Some of our publications recently won awards, so we were celebrating. I can’t pass up celebratory pizza! Sorry – no pic. And then a little later I got my fill of veggies with cucumbers, carrots and grape tomatoes drizzled with balsamic vinegar.

A little later I had a few chippers…

And even later in afternoon I had two clementines for a snack.

I left work right at 5 p.m. because I was soo excited to go have dinner with my friend Katie! I looked for a restaurant near Union Square, but didn’t want to go to big place or a chain place – I wanted something smaller and cozy. I found some good reviews about Vintage Irving on the NY Magazine website, so I decided we should give it a try. It did not disappoint. Our food was so good. Here’s the rundown – I had to use flash because it was very dark and my photos were not coming out at all:

Truffle Chicken Mini Meatballs, thyme-scented sherry wine sauce

This was a Spinach and Artichoke dip, which is not shown on their online menu:

We also had an amazing cheese and meat place from the Chef’s plate portion of the menu. The Manchego cheese was amazing – if you ever make it to this place, that is a must. We both loved this plate a lot (half of it has already been eaten – we dove in before I could get the camera out).

We had a lovely mesclun salad as well, but it definitely fell behind the Chef’s plate.

And finally, we topped the meal off with some cheesecake. It was amazing!!

We also had a few glasses of wine with our many mini meals, of course 🙂 As you can see, I did not limit myself on this outing at all. But I agree with Katherine and Meg’s recent posts that healthy does not have to equal perfect and we should learn to live a little! Plus, I don’t see Katie all the time, so when we are able to get together we kind of go all out. Here we are (I turned it black and white to hide the our wine-stained red lips and mouths):

Don’t you hate when that happens? Or does it only happen to me? Katie’s red stains were not nearly as bad as mine.

So it was a delightful dinner and then I headed right to bed when I got home. How about you – are there times when you stray a bit from your healthy ways? I certainly did last night, but I am proud to say I don’t feel guilty about it at all! 🙂

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Over the Hump and Through the Week…

Posted on January 6, 2010 | 9 comments

…Toward the weekend we go! Get it – like the song: “Over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house we go..” Yeah, I don’t know why that’s in my head.

Anyway – happy hump day! First full week in a while – how’s everyone doing? I’m going to jump right into Tuesday’s eats.

I completely forgot to photograph breakfast yesterday – I was busy reading blogs and doing a few other things while eating and it slipped my mind. I had a honey wheat English muffin with peanut butter and topped with banana and side of light cranberry juice.

My late morning snack yesterday was a nice big apple.

For lunch I ventured out and grabbed a salad. It was filled with romaine lettuce, cheddar cheese, walnuts, carrots, chic peas and raisins – topped with balsamic vinaigrette.

My late afternoon snack was Chobani yogurt with granola and it hit the spot.

I didn’t make it to the gym last night – very bad I know. So I came home and had dinner – leftover Quiche from the previous night.

After dinner, I had a spot of tea – a new kind: Candy Cane Lane.

This tea was delicious – way better than the Sugar Plum Spice. I don’t think I’m a fruity tea drinker. This tea was softer with vanilla and peppermint flavors. It was yummy. I also had my last piece of Coffee-Nut Scone for dessert.

Speaking of tea, my Examiner.com article for this week happens to be about top tea trends. Check it out!

I was on the Celestial Seasonings website yesterday and searched for a store in my area selling Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride. It directed me to Food Emporium on 86th street. I went, I searched, it was not there. Sadness. Candy Cane Lane served as a delicious replacement though. And it happens to be green tea – one of the most popular healthy teas I talk about in my article.

What is your favorite kind of tea? Or what kind of tea have you been sipping on a lot lately?

I’m not sure I have a favorite tea really. I’ve been drinking Echinacea tea at work a lot. It’s very aromatic and soothing. At home I’ve been trying a variety of flavors. I also went through a black tea a while back kick when I was first cutting down on coffee.

As the Hubby and I settled in to watch The Biggest Loser last night, I also ended up making us a bag of popcorn to share (no photograph).

Did you watch it? Thoughts?

I was utterly amazed at the size of this group of people. Like they said over and over, the contestants just keep getting bigger and bigger and it’s not a good thing. I was sad that the one brother had to go home because they both really needed to be there.

It’s too bad they couldn’t keep everyone on there for at least a month just to give them a basic start and healthy principles to follow. But I guess one week is better than nothing and losing 23 pounds during that time definitely showed him he can do it.

I have to say I think Mike will be my favorite (the biggest person on the show: 526 pounds). He was really funny and I loved him after his weigh-in with the comment, “Can you see my abs?” I hope he sticks around for a while, but his team is going to need to drop some serious weight to stay competitive.

If you watched, who did you like from the first episode?

Happy Hump Day Everyone – have a good one!

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The First Tuesday of 2010

Posted on January 5, 2010 | 11 comments

It’s the first Tuesday of 2010, which means we made it through the first Monday of 2010!! Hopefully this week will fly right by. But that means my first race of 2010 will be here before I know it. Eeeks!

I’m running the NYRR Fred Lebow Classic 5-miler in Central Park this Saturday and am a bit nervous because of the frigid temperatures predicated and my lack of recent good runs. Is anyone else out there running it as well?

I’m going to try not to think about it or worry about it too much till Saturday. So let’s recap yesterday’s eats:

Breakfast was boring old Kashi Heart to Heart cereal with almond milk and a side of light cranberry juice.

I was pretty busy at work on Monday considering the amount of vacay time we’ve had lately, so I squeezed in a mid-morning snack of a Coffee-Nut Scone around 11 a.m.

I got pretty busy and then all of a sudden at 1:35 I remembered that I had a phone interview scheduled for 2:00. That wasn’t going to leave me much time for lunch, so I decided to eat my snacks first.

I had a strawberry Chobani yogurt with granola and some carrots.

Then around 2:45 I was finally able to have lunch and I had leftover venison chili.

After work I hurried over to the gym to try to beat the after New Year’s rush of people. Surprisingly, it wasn’t too bad. However, they were giving a lot of tours, which tells me the onslaught is coming soon. I hopped on the  treadmill and ran the following:

4 miles in 35:05

Definitely not my fastest, but I was still a little stuffy in my nose and congested in my chest.

Then I did some abs: 75 crunches; 50 twist crunches; 15 leg lowers

I stopped at the store quickly on the way home to pick up a few things for dinner and was overwhelmed by how busy it was. Note to self, Monday is not a good grocery-shopping day.

For dinner I adapted this recipe for a Crustless Spinach Quiche. The red text and cross-outs show where I added or made changes:

Crustless Spinach and Mushroom Quiche

3 ounces reduced fat free cream cheese, softened
1 cup fat-free milk
1 cup egg substitute
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 ½ cups shredded reduced-fat Cheddar cheese
1 (10 ounce) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
½ cup of frozen broccoli, thawed and well-drained
½ cup of grape tomatoes, halved
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 cup of fresh mushrooms, sliced

Directions

In a small mixing bowl, beat cream cheese. Add milk, egg substitute and pepper; beat until smooth. Stir in remaining ingredients. Transfer to a 10-in. quiche pan coated with nonstick cooking spray. Bake at 350 degrees F for 45-50 minutes or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean.

The result:

My first piece – I had two pieces in total.

The recipe was very good, but I used a smaller dish than recommended, so it took longer to cook, which was annoying because I was hungry. But all in all, a good dinner.

And then dessert was another Coffee-Nut Scone, but Hubby suggested maybe adding some frosting to the remaining scones. I gave in and it wasn’t too bad actually.

The rest of my night was very quiet, I read a bit, watched part of a football game Hubby was interested in and I’m ashamed to admit I also watched part of The Bachelor. I had to turn it off at one point because it was so awkward and the girls were terrible. It was kind of funny at the same time though.

Health in the news…

Sleep loss may affect health by curbing exercise – Better get that rest to keep up your workout schedule.

Five ‘eating better’ foods to slip into your diet in ’10 –  A lot of this is common sense stuff, but it does remind me that I need to drink more green tea.
 
Study Says Women With Mate Get Heavier – Essentially the study found that women living with a man (married or not) gained weight after co-habitating, and if they had a child, their weight went up even more. I’ve heard from people that they gained weight once they got married (although I don’t think you can state this is the norm), but this sentence made me laugh out loud:

“This does not explain the still larger weight gain in women who became pregnant.”
 
Did they not get the memo that a woman’s body changes after she has a baby?
 
I don’t put much stock in these kinds of studies, but it does raise some interesting questions:
 
Has your eating changed at all since living with a significant other (either currently or in the past)? What about after marriage?
 
I can tell you that I weigh less now than I did when I met my husband. I think I’ve actually started to eat healthier foods and exercise more since we’ve been together. It helps, of course, that he is an active person who also eats well. I wonder if things would be any different if he weren’t that kind of person. Food for thought…
 
Have a great Tuesday everyone!

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What’s Better Than Breakfast for Dinner?

Posted on January 4, 2010 | 11 comments

Weekend Recaps – In Case You Missed It:

Friday: Great Start to 2010
Saturday: I Love My Garmin!!
Sunday: Slowly Recovering…

Happy Monday – I’m pretty sure it’s not too happy for anyone. Back to the grind. At least the next day off isn’t too far away. And I’m excited because I have a bunch of fun things happening in January: 5 mile race, broadway show, bachelorette party, half marathon and a wedding! This month is going to fly by.

Ok – let me recap Sunday’s eats before I get any further: I woke up feeling much better on Sunday morning – 10.5 hours of solid sleep really helped with that. I was feeling less congested and my throat wasn’t sore. I started off with a nice warm breakfast of oatmeal with apples and agave. I had a side of Emergen-C, my norm as of late.

Then the cleaning fury commenced. Hubby and I did a bit of cleaning throughout the weekend (packing up Christmas decorations and vacuuming), but Sunday was all out cleaning mayhem. We cleaned the place from top to bottom.

Around 1:00 I was feeling hungry so I had a light lunch of Chobani vanilla yogurt with a crushed granola bar and choco chips:

And I also had the rest of my breakfast apple with some cheddar cheese, and carrots and grape tomatoes with garlic organic hummus.

At 4:00 we hosted a board meeting in our newly-cleaned apartment – Hubby is the co-op president. It was a good meeting and we made plans to take care of a bunch of building “must-dos.” It was almost like our co-op resolutions. Hopefully we can stick to our plans.

After the meeting I had the urge to bake. I had some sort of bread stuck in my mind – thinking maybe banana bread or something with apple. But upon asking Hubby what he would like, he reminded me that he basically doesn’t like any fruit in his bread – not even raisins! After scouring http://www.cookinglight.com, I settled on this recipe for Coffee-Nut Scones.

Recent baking experiments have revealed that our oven is essentially a super oven and cooks everything twice as fast as a recipe states. So I ended up cooking the scones for only 10 minutes to be safe. They turned out pretty good (of course I had to try one when they were still warm)…but would have been better with some fruit!

For dinner we did the “breakfast for dinner” thing. I love doing this. I am such a breakfast lover that I could probably eat it for every meal. The Hubby whipped up the remaining venison sausage and I paired it with some organic waffles. I topped the waffles with a homemade blackberry spread. I used the remaining blackberries, added a bit of water and heated them in the microwave for 1 minute 15 seconds. Then I smushed them up and added 2 packets of truvia. It was the perfect topping. Lastly, I had one clementine with my breakfast dinner.


What about you? Are you a fan of breakfast for dinner? What’s your favorite (eggs, pancakes, french toast, waffles, etc.)?

Finally, I had a nice cup of Sugar Plum Spice tea while I read before bed.

I am feeling much much better today. It’s funny, a blog friend said yesterday that she feels like I’m always sick. The truth is, I rarely actually get full-on sick. Even this weekend, I felt pretty awful, but I still didn’t feel like I was totally sick. I wasn’t bed-ridden and could still kind of function. A lot of time I think I start to get the beginnings of a cold and I just medicate the heck out of myself and that makes me very tired. I may have had a full-blown cold this past weekend, but what was very clear was that I needed a lot of rest. I also tend to take it easy even if I think a cold or illness might be coming on. That’s probably what I should have done on Friday, rather than going for a run. Live and learn.

What about you – how do you cope with an impending cold? Do you let it hit you and take its course or do you fight it with all you’ve got like I do, or somewhere in between?

Have a nice Monday everyone!

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Slowly Recovering…

Posted on January 3, 2010 | 6 comments

Good morning. I woke up today at about 9 a.m. after sleeping for about 10.5 hours. I was optimistic about my state of health yesterday morning, but it slowly declined. I was coughing, my chest was congested, I had a bad headache and then later in the day I became nauseous. It was a rough one.

And because I felt so awful yesterday, my eats were kind of bad. Here they are.

For breakfast I had Kashi Heart to Heart with almond milk and a side of Emergen-C.

I started to help with some of the household chore – we desperately needed to do two loads of laundry. I managed to get most of it done, but then felt really sick by the time the last load was ready, so Hubby had to go down to get it.

Here are my snacks for the day – they were all over the place.

This Larabar (coconut cream pie) is officially my favorite bar. It was so good. Unpictured snacks include triscuits and ginger ale, and some cashews.

I basically stuck to the couch most of the day and watched a lot of t.v. I hate that feeling soo much.

For dinner, Hubby made some delicious venison chili:

It was warm and a little spicy and very good. So here’s the deal with the venison eats this weekend – I haven’t mentioned this little fact on the blog yet. My Hubby is a hunter. As in, put on the camo gear, go sit in a tree stand for hours and hunt deer. Now, I know this may be something many of you are against (and you have every right to feel that way), and at first I kind of was too, but then I thought about a few things and changed my mind.

Why I Support Hubby’s Hunting

1. The deer he hunts are not brought up on factory farms, caged or raised simply for their meat. They live a full and happy life in the wilderness.

2. Deer are overpopulated in the area he hunts and end up coming into more residential areas and being hit by cars, so hunting them actually helps keep their numbers in check.

3. Hunters are only allowed a certain number of deer per year – so they can’t go out there and hunt as many deer as they want.

4. The meat he brings home has no chemicals, antibiotics or hormones added to it – it is organic and completely natural.

5. Venison is very high in protein and very low in fat, especially saturated fat. It is also chock-full of minerals.

So these are all the reasons why I support the Hubby in his “hobby.” If he didn’t use the meat and was simply hunting for the sake of saying he killed a deer, then I would have a huge problem. But he uses the meat all the time. A lot of nights when I am making something he doesn’t particularly care for or if I’m too tired to cook he makes venison.

I’ve only eaten the meat in a few forms: chili, stew and breakfast sausage. But I did buy him a “gourmet” venison cookbook for Christmas, so if he makes any of those dishes, I may try some of those as well. I’ve mentioned venison a few times in my blog, so I felt like I needed to provide an explanation. I go back and forth with not wanting to eat any meat, but if I’m going to eat meat, I’d rather it be venison.

Have you ever tried venison? Would you? Have you ever tried any other “different” kinds of meat?

Anyway – the venison chili he made last night was great. And then afterwards I had this for dessert.

A while after dinner (and dessert), the Hubby went into the kitchen to clean up a bit and came out to find me completely asleep on the couch. He basically told me it was time to go to bed – it was 10:30 p.m. I went into bed and was sound asleep within minutes. I hate being sick!!

This morning I feel much better. We still have a little cleaning to do and a board meeting at our apartment at 4:00 p.m., so time to get moving. I’m hoping now I am almost completely recovered or quickly on my way.

Have a great Sunday everyone – who else doesn’t feel like going back to work tomorrow?

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I Love My Garmin!!

Posted on January 2, 2010 | 13 comments

Happy Saturday! I’m not feeling too great today. But first let me recap the rest of yesterday.

After breakfast yesterday, we cleaned up a bit and then I headed out for a run along the East River to test out my new Garmin. It was 42 degrees outside which sounded absolutely warm to me. I have a few “usual routes” that I run along the river, each with a different distance. I set out to run what I thought was my 4.7 mile run: from the apartment down to about 64 street near the dog park and then up to the big dock that juts out, probably around 100-110 street.

I started out my run and immediately  was looking at my watch. Then I decided to just let things go for a bit and see what happened. At 1 mile it beeped at me and I looked down to see my speed. I love the little mile alerts. Here are my run stats:

Mile 1: 8:29
Mile 2: 8:24
Mile 3: 8:50 (oops – darn stairs)
Mile 4: 8:28
Mile 5: 8:33
.2 miles: 2:05
Total mileage: 5.2 in 44:52

I feel like I ran this much faster than I normally do because I had the Garmin. To be fair, I did run faster at one point when this boy passed me acting all cool with his keys jangling annoyingly (I ran sans iPod for some reason) and then shortly after he stopped to walk, so I passed him and turned around and then he turned around too and was jingly right behind me again, obviously trying to pass me for the second time. Didn’t happen. Wow – I think this Garmin and my sense of competitiveness could be a dangerous combination.

It actually felt like a tough run – I think because I wasn’t 100% and because of the large breakfast I ate – I was burping sausage for the first half of the run. After my run, I proceeded to cough incessantly for a while. Maybe I pushed it.

When I got home from my run I snacked on some Chobani yogurt with granola and some tea to calm my raging throat.

A little while later, before we started our cleaning, I also had a Larabar.

Oh my – look at my awful nails. This flavor was okay. It wasn’t as bad as Ginger Snap, but Pecan Pie is still my favorite of the ones I’ve tried to date.

For the remainder of the afternoon the Hubby and I cleaned the apartment and put away all the Christmas decorations. There is still more cleaning and laundry to do today. Boo.

For dinner, I decided I needed some veggies after my pizza dinner the night before. I made a giant salad with Mediterranean lettuce, carrots, cheddar cheese, walnuts, raisins, and cucumber. I covered it with some balsamic vinegar. I also had a side of blackberries.

Up close

And then I finished the night with a nice glass of Cabernet.

I am definitely a red wine girl – I used to be white, but in the past few years I’ve switched.

If you drink wine, do you like red or white? What’s your favorite kind? I’ve been liking Pino Noir lately.

I’m hoping that maybe by later this afternoon I’ll start to feel better, but my throat is killing me right now and I’m feeling exhausted. Have a good Saturday all.

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Great Start to 2010!

Posted on January 1, 2010 | 5 comments

Good morning – happy 2010! This is going to be a quick post, I just felt the need to write my first 2010 post. Our New Year’s Eve was very low-key, per my choice. The Hubby claims he wanted to go out and party in the city, but secretly I think he enjoyed chilling at home.

I had planned to make risotto, but then Hubby told me he doesn’t like risotto and actually really just wanted to order pizza. I said okay to that because it meant much less work for me and I could just hang out and relax.

I didn’t take any pics last night – I just wanted to unwind and not worry about it. We ended up watching a slew of movies, both good and bad: Stepbrothers (very funny), District 9 (weird), and Body of Lies (a bit disappointing). And then of course we watched the ball drop and had some champagne to celebrate the New Year. It was quiet and relaxing and I was very happy with it.

This morning when we woke up, Hubby decided to make breakfast. What a great start to 2010!! Before breakfast I took another Zicam and made a glass of Emergen-C.

And then came the Hubby-made breakfast:

Scrambled eggs (with my requisite side of ketchup), venison sausage (yes, you read that right – more to come on that in a few days), honey double fiber English muffins with white chocolate wonderful peanut butter and banana, with a coffee and side of Emergen-C.

It was delicious and a great start to 2010! Today our plans are to do a big clean of the apartment (it really needs it), and I plan to go for a run along river because it’s a balmy 40 degrees outside! Hubby will be hitting the gym instead. I don’t feel entirely 100% yet, but I think my self-medicating has been helping. I’m going to continue with my methods.

I hope you had a wonderful New Year’s Eve and that your 2010 has started off great as well – I have to say it was pretty nice not to start the new year off with a hangover. 🙂

Have a great day!

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Happy Snowy New Year’s Eve!

Posted on December 31, 2009 | 14 comments

Happy NYE everyone! Guess what – I have to work on this day too and everyone else seems to have it off. Oh well, such is life. I’m sure the office will be very quiet. And it looks super wintery outside with lots of snow.

The good news is that today is a short work day – I’m out at 3:00 p.m.; the bad news is that I fear I may be getting a cold. But, I am taking all the necessary preventative measures, here is my arsenal of weapons:

Not pictured is the chewable Zycam (gross) and vitamin c tablet I took this morning. There is nothing I hate more than being sick. So, as soon as my throat started feeling scratchy last night I was on high alert.

Speaking of last night, here are yesterday’s eats:

Breakfast was boring old Kashi Heart to Heart cereal with skim milk – not almond milk in the house. I originally had apple cider when I took this photo and then I tried it and realized it had gone bad, so I switched to orange juice.  

When packing my lunch yesterday, things were looking bleak. No leftovers and not too much to choose from. So I ended up making some tunafish and bringing it in to put on Reduced Fat Triscuit crackers. I had two clementines as well.

Afternoon snacks were walnuts and raisins and a strawberry Yoplait yogurt with granola. I was really missing my Greek yogurt. Darn you bad Oikos yogurt!

Toward late afternoon I started to notice the scratchiness in my throat, as well as some congestion in my nose. Thoughts of hitting the gym started to fade fast, although in retrospect it might have been good for me to sweat out some of those bad germs.

Around 4:00 p.m. my boss told me to go home – not because I was sick or anything – just because it was soo dead. On the way home I picked up a few things to make dinner. I was in the mood for some comfort food. So here’s what I made:

I adapted this recipe  (Rotini and Cheese with Broccoli and Ham) from Cooking Light, to be:

Penne and Cheese with Broccoli and Sausage
Yields 3 servings

Ingredients
2  quarts water
1  cups  uncooked penne (about 8 ounces corkscrew pasta)
1/2  (10-ounce) package frozen chopped broccoli
1/8  cup  all-purpose flour
1  cups  fat-free milk
3/4 cup cubed cheese (cheddar)
1  teaspoon  Dijon mustard
1/2  teaspoon  salt
1/4  teaspoon  garlic powder
1/4  teaspoon  black pepper
1/2  cup  chopped vegetarian sausage

Preparation
Bring water to a boil in a large pot. Add pasta; cook 5 minutes. Add broccoli; cook an additional 5 minutes or until pasta is done; drain.

While pasta cooks, lightly spoon flour into a dry measuring cup; level with a knife. Place flour in a medium saucepan; gradually add milk, stirring with a whisk until blended. Cook over medium heat 8 minutes or until mixture is thick, stirring frequently. At the same time, microwave vegetarian sausage and cut up into bite size pieces.

Remove from heat; stir in cheese and next 4 ingredients (cheese through pepper). Combine pasta mixture, cheese sauce, and sausage.

I really liked this dish and the sauce, even though it’s not the healthiest of choices. Hubby liked it as well. I will definitely make this one again.

After dinner, I made some tea to calm my throat a bit.

This flavor was decent, but what I really wish I had was this:

I can’t find this flavor anywhere! I’ve gone to about 5-6 stores in the city and it’s never there. Sadness. I’ve also tried to win this flavor on several blog give-a-ways (but I never win anything) to no avail. But I’ve built this flavor up in my head so much, I’m sure I’ll be disappointed. I just can’t give in and order it online. I won’t.

P.S. – Hubby thinks I have a tea problem. I am always bringing home new flavors and he claims I am bombarding the cupboards with tea. But it’s tea and I love it! (And he secretly does too).

Other evening happenings. Murphy tried on his sweater again…yup it’s definitely still too tight.

He looks like a fat cat in a little sweater. We’re going with dog clothes next year. Bill weighed him last night and he actually weighs less than his norm. He’s usually around 16 pounds, but now he is a svelte 14 pounds.

Hubby and I also watched one of our Netflix movies – UP! I never feel excited to watch Disney kids’ movies, but then he convinces me and I love them. And I loved this movie so much! If you haven’t seen it, you must.

It is stinking adorable and there were definitely moments when I was teary-eyed.

Have you seen UP? What did you think?

Our plans for NYE tonight are going to be very low-key. I don’t feel like fighting city crowds or traffic and not feeling 100% is also adding to my desire to chill. I plan on making us some risotto for dinner (I’ve never made it before), drinking some champagne and maybe some wine, getting a fire going (ok, Hubby will be handling that), and cozying up with my two boys to watch the ball drop on t.v. from our apt.

What are your NYE plans? Has anyone ever done Times Square? Would you ever?

I have no desire. The whole being trapped and not having any bathrooms thing sounds scary. One of Bill’s friends (who shall remain nameless), actually wore a diaper to Times Square once because he wanted to drink. And yes, I think he used it. Gross, right?

Well, wherever you are tonight – I hope you have a very Happy New Years and a great start to 2010! Talk to you next year! 🙂

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Reflections on 2009

Posted on December 30, 2009 | 10 comments

Happy Wednesday morning. Thanks so much to everyone for supporting my 2010 resolutions! It means a lot to me. I think 2010 is going to be an exciting, challenging and fun year. I hope you’ll keep reading and join me for everything.  

As promised, today’s post will be a quick look back at some events from 2009. I started Eat, Read, Run in October 2009, so there’s a lot of stuff that happened earlier in the year that didn’t make it into the blog.  I have to thank Meg for inspiring this “looking back” post. I really loved her Revisit 2009 post and it made me start thinking about my past year. It went a little something like this:

January

  • We rang in the New Year with a party at our friend Chris’s house. It was such a blast and the night even led to a new romance among our friends! Here’s me, Steph and Kelly pre-midnight (so technically last year, I guess – whoops).

  • I also went skiing with my Hubby for the first time in January. Unfortunately, we went to Jiminy Peak during a holiday weekend and it was packed with kids. It was a bit trying at times, but we sure had fun in the lodge! Becky, Dan, Chrissie, Bill and me.

February

  • We put together a fun group bowling outing in upstate New York. Nothing says winter like musty-smelling bowling shoes and beer.

March

  • Our wedding season began in March this past year with Kate Carr’s (now Lee) wedding in Utica, N.Y. Here’s a bunch of us girls with the bride.

  • The wedding festivities continued later that month with Becky’s Bridal Shower at the Franklin Plaza (where Hubby and I got married) in Troy. And look at this, even pre-blogger days I was snapping pictures of my food! My fate was written.

April

  • In April a bunch of girls got together for Becky’s bachelorette party in NYC!!

May

  • And finally in May, Becky and Josh got married!! It was such a great wedding. And I LOVED the food, obviously (more food pictures – hint, hint of what’s to come).

June

  • In June, the wedding theme continued with Chrissie’s Bachelorette Party in Oneonta, N.Y.
  • Toward the end of the month, we also threw my Dad a Surprise Birthday party! This is some of my family digging into the clams. It was a feeding frenzy. I tried a clam for the first time – not bad, but I wasn’t in love like all the rest of them. Look at the crowd!

July

  • We threw a Surprise Graduation Party for Jenny in early July. She was totally surprised – here are some of the girls at the party.

  • Later that weekend, we drove up to Cape Vincent, N.Y. for my Godson Evan’s baptism. Here we are “on stage” – me, Schuyler (Godfather), Stan, Jr. , Kristen and Evan. He is the cutest and he was very good.

  • We also ran the Boilermaker in July. We had a very nice BBQ at Hubby’s parent’s house after the race. It was great. And I got my PR in that race.  

  • Finally, to round out July, we went island camping in Lake George and then stuck around for Log Bay Day! The first photo below is of my giant swollen ankle. I tripped and fell while camping and was nervous my marathon training would be over. Thankfully, it got better quickly (I rested for a while) and got back to training. For Log Bay Day, we essentially hang out all day in log bay in Lake George lounging in the sun…and err, some drinking may be involved. The second photo is our group shot.


August

  • In August we got back to wedding stuff with Chrissie’s Bridal Shower! It was a very hot day in upstate, N.Y., but it was a great time.

September

  • Chrissie and Dan’s Wedding reception followed soon after in September. Here’s a bunch of the girls with the bride!

October

  • Next up, Hubby and I celebrated our 1 Year Anniversary with a trip to a quaint B&B in Connecticut. It was a great weekend away!

  • Toward the end of October, I finally started my blog! I kind of just jumped right in.
  • And at the very end of October, Katie and I went to see John Irving at a Times Talk in New York. It was so much fun!!

November

And since you were around for these months, here’s just a quick recap of November and December.

December

December was busy and fun as well.

And there’s the year in a short review! There are so many other great things and events that happened throughout the year, but I only had so much room and people only deal with rambling for so long. 🙂

What are some of your best 2009 memories! Any special plans for 2010?

In 2010, we already have three weddings lined up. So my 2010 recap may look much like this one! 😉

So now on to the normal stuff – Tuesday’s eats:

Breakfast yesterday was a honey wheat double fiber English muffin. I am loving this flavor. It was covered with peanut butter (a special kind) and banana. Side of light cranberry juice.

This was the special peanut butter. Not exactly healthy, but in moderation I think it’s okay.

Lunch was cucumber and carrots with balsamic vinegar and reduced fat triscuits with Laughing Cow Light Original Swiss flavor cheese.

Snacks for the afternoon were Yoplait strawberry yogurt with granola and a KIND Almond and Coconut bar.

I really enjoyed this bar and will definitely be buying this brand again.

I hit the gym after work and took the Urban Rebounding class again. It’s been a while and my body felt it. The first time I took this class, it seemed much easier. Could the holidays have caught up with me… um yeah.

Hubby decided to take over dinner duties last night and made baked Haddock with spices and I added a side salad to the mix.

Dessert was a little of this:

And lastly, an embarrassing note. I commented on my friend Becky’s blog yesterday about her cat attacking her Christmas tree and claimed that Murphy had never done such a thing. His worst offense was pulling a few ornaments down. Well, Hubby came home to this last night.

What a bad Mr. Murphy!! Do your pets get into the holiday decorations?

Hopefully all the decorations will be put away by the end of this weekend anyway. Have a lovely Wednesday everyone – it’s almost 2010!!

P.S. – Sorry for the massive post.

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Tuesday’s 10 in 2010!

Posted on December 29, 2009 | 14 comments

Happy Tuesday everyone. Ok, it’s about time that I outlined my 2010 goals and/or resolutions. I tend to make half-hearted resolutions, but this year I’ve essentially made my “To-Do List.” The Hubby will tell you how much I love making lists, so here goes:

My 10 To-Do’s in 2010!

1. Stop Biting My Nails: This is a terrible habit I’ve had for years. Just when I think I’ve got the problem kicked, I start biting again. 2010 is the year for it to end.  

2. Become a Real Winter Runner: Usually, my outdoor running days become few and far between from about Dec – March. This year, I want to run continuously throughout the winter. I’ve signed up for a few races to help me with this goal.

3. Eat Cleaner: In 2010, I want to try even harder to eat fewer processed foods. I can certainly tell a difference in how I feel when I eat cleaner foods, but I also think it’s a great way to support greener initiatives and clean food producers.

4. Read More: I go through ups and downs with my reading. When I really love a book, I fly right through it. I need to be more consistent by reading at least 1 book a month. Stay tuned – I’ll be posting more on my long-distance book club idea soon. 😉

5. Be Grateful: The Hubby and I have soo much to be thankful for, but sometimes I forget that. I vow to stop pestering the Hubby about moving upstate and be grateful that we are both healthy, employed and have wonderful families and friends who try to include us in their lives as much as possible even though we’re far away.

6. Shop Less, Save More: This one seems to roll over just about every year, but this year I am going to set a budget for myself for each month.

7. Keep in Touch: We do live kind of far (2.5-4 hours) from most of our family and friends, so you would think I’m on the phone all the time catching up. The truth is – I hate the phone. But I am going to try very hard to get better at returning phone calls and calling friends and family each month (or week) to check-in and see what’s new.

8. Expand My Horizons: Blogging has pushed me to do some pretty fun and different things – attend an interesting book reading, participate in a blogger dinner, try quinoa for the first time, go on a run with this fun lady, and more! In 2010, I want to continue to broaden my mind with new experiences.

9. QT with Hubby: I think I’ve started incorporating more quality time with him already with our movie dates. But in 2010, I want to start an official date night once a month with the Hubby where we go out and do something – not just watching movies together in the apartment.

10. Qualify for Boston! The Hubby is groaning for sure (although he did buy me a Garmin – what did he think I’d be using it for?) as he reads this one. This is a huge goal. My first marathon time was 3:54:57 and I’d need to get down to 3 hours and 40 minutes to qualify for Boston. My Garmin will be put to good use in 2010 – that I’m sure of.

For more on resolutions, check out my latest Examiner.com article on “How to Set Realistic Resolutions.” I am hoping I can follow my own advice (minus the whole “don’t shoot for the moon” one – because I am certainly doing that with my Boston goal)!

And without further ado, here’s my food recap for Monday!

Breakfast yesterday was oatmeal with raisins and agave, and as always a side if light cranberry juice.

I really wanted veggies and didn’t have time to prepare anything this morning, so I grabbed my usual salad: romaine lettuce, cheddar cheese, carrots, walnuts, dried cranberries and chic peas.

For my first afternoon snack, I pulled out my Greek Oikos blueberry yogurt. It seemed like there was an unusual amount of air inside the container. When I opened it up, it looked like this – all bubbly.

I don’t know why I even bothered, but I tried it. It was horrendous! Yuck, yuck, yuck. If you ever get a yogurt looking like this, throw it out immediately! Bleck. I checked and the whole 4-pack is like this. I think I might write Stonyfield about it.

Fear not, I had snack reserves on hand – including two clementines and an apple.

After work I forced myself to go to the gym. Seriously – when is it going to get light out again? This was my workout:

4 miles in 34:14
75 crunches
50 twist crunches (25 on each side)
20 leg lowers

When I got home I threw together this dinner.

Close up

Here’s what it is:

2 free-range organic chicken breasts pounded thin (only 1 shown, but hubby ate the same), stuffed with spinach (frozen – thawed and pressed), cheddar cheese, roasted red pepper and onion. Rolled up and pinned with two wood toothpicks – salt, pepper and spices on top. Baked for 20 minutes at 350 degrees. And a side salad with romaine lettuce, cheese, carrots and then topped with Newman’s Light Balsamic vinaigrette (not shown).

It got the Hubby seal of approval. Nuff said.

And dessert was:

Lastly, some interesting health stuff in the news…

Resolution: Get a Deal on a Gym Membership

Omega-3s Help Stave Off Age-related Vision Loss

Stay tuned for my Reflections on 2009 post coming tomorrow! 🙂 Have a great Tuesday!

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