Two Walks on a Sunny Day

It was sunny and warm today – a perfect day to spend some time outside!

I made sure to take a walking break this afternoon. There were two cruise ships in. I never cease to be amazed at the size of these ships – and the ones that were in today weren’t even big ones.

Not a great shot, but here you can see the nose of the first one, and the second ship off in the distance.

I walked down to the boardwalk and had a close up view of the second one. I tried to take a photo but I couldn’t get the camera button on my iPhone to respond. It was sunny, but breezy by the water – maybe my fingers were too cold?

We left work shortly after 5 pm. We thought someone was coming out to the house to talk about some yard work, so we held off on supper. I took Fred out for a walk – it was beautiful out.

 

We had a good ramble, then I came back to the house and did some more cleaning, still working on catching up on things.

I decided I should get things going for supper, so I started defrosting pasta sauce, and cut up the head of cauliflower that we got at the Farmer’s Market on Saturday. My favorite way to eat cauliflower is raw, so I usually cut it up, wash it and bag it so it’s easy to grab. I may have munched on a few pieces as I was cutting it up.

By this time it was after 7 pm, and we hadn’t heard from the person who we were supposed to be meeting with. I decided to go ahead and plate up some veggies for Husband and I to munch on.

Then around 8 I finally gave up and started cooking pasta. It was dark by this time, so there was no way we’d be going out and looking at things in the yard.

And the last of the pie for dessert (I had too many apples to fit in the pie plate so I stuck them in another dish with the extra crust – that’s why it’s kinda funny looking).

I had a little couch potato time tonight since we were waiting around. I watched Christian Slater’s new show, The Forgotten. Not bad, though I thought it was a little overly dramatic at the end. I was disappointed his show last year – My Own Worst Enemy -  didn’t last – I thought it was really getting good, and then they cancelled it.

And then I watched Castle. I love that show. And Nathan Fillion. I may have mentioned that last week.

Then I did the dishes, grabbed my iPhone to get the photos off of and came downstairs to blog. And realized that there are two missed calls on my phone from the person we were supposed to meet. So, I guess the missed meeting is pretty much my fault. Thing was, Husband had arranged the meeting. I don’t like talking on the phone much, and I rarely give out my cell #. I basically have the cell for emergencies. However, Husband and I traded phone numbers a while back (because he wanted to upgrade his phone and mine was the one eligible for upgrade), so our guy would have had my phone number – Husband’s former number – saved. It just didn’t occur to me that he would call my cell, especially since we were home. So now I feel bad. I’ll have to call tomorrow morning – too late now.

And again, I had thought to get in a short yoga routine tonight, but it got late on me. Now I just want to go to bed.

Oh yes – my [West Coast] sister has started a blog – I’m sure she’d love it if you stopped by to say hello! Check it out at: Confessions of a Canadian Housewife

Lunch

Thus starts the season of repetitive lunches...I will eat the same thing every day until this batch of soup is gone. Then I will freeze another batch of soup and eat that every day until it is gone

Good-bye peaches, hello honeycrisps

My cereal this morning was a little sad without peaches to liven it up. Wish I liked bananas. On the bright side, I have a honeycrisp apple to take to work with me. I will enjoy it as a mid-morning snack.

My knight in shining armor….

Or not.

Just had a minor incident with my computer & computer desk that culminated in the keyboard tray falling off it’s tracks and crashing to the floor. I’m thinking Husband had to have heard that and yet there was no sign of him coming down to find out what happened. I decided to carry on with putting my desk back together and figuring out what was wrong with my computer. He did eventually call down from the top of the stairs so I asked him to come down and help me.

I said it was a good thing I didn’t hurt myself or anything, I could have been lying down here unconscious for all he knew. He said “Well I yelled down, but you didn’t hear me…” at which point he trailed off because that basically amounts to he called down, I didn’t answer and he waited 15 minutes to actually come find out if there was something wrong. Granted, I do have a history of being clumsy, but you’d think that would make him more concerned, not less. Hmph.

So much for my knight in shining armor.

Anyway, on to the rest of my day…

The sun did make a brief appearance as we were coming home from work. Fred and I went for a ramble.

I was in the mood for a bit of exercise today, so when we came in from our walk, I hit the treadmill. I had been thinking of doing running intervals, but once I got walking I decided I wasn’t feeling like running so I did walking intervals instead, alternating higher/lower speeds every two minutes for 20 minutes, then a 10 minute cool down.

Then it was time to make supper. I wanted to finish off the loaf of bread we had before it was too far gone, and we have an excess of eggs in the fridge, so toast & omelets were on the menu. I sauteed some onion and yellow bell pepper first, then added eggs. We also steamed a bag of frozen broccoli & cauliflower – I really prefer fresh, but Husband likes the convenience of frozen, so we’ve been sort of trading off.

I added some Japanese Sesame dressing to the steamed veggies, and served the omelets on toast with sliced tomato and dill pickle.

I was thinking of this as an easy meal to use up some ingredients, but I have to admit – once I got it plated it looked pretty good to me.

And of course, apple pie for dessert.

I had been thinking I’d do a short yoga routine before bed, but this took me a lot longer than I thought – what with my desk falling apart and my computer freezing up –so now it’s pretty much bed time.

I actually had a hard time falling asleep last night. Does that ever happen to you – you are so exhausted but when you go to bed you suddenly feel awake and can’t sleep? Hoping tonight goes better.

Sniffle soup for lunch

Around mid-morning I noticed it was pouring down rain and it's still coming down! It's really dark out, so gloomy. That plus the sniffles I seem to have at the moment made it a perfect day for today's lunch...

During my cooking extravaganza on Sunday, I whipped up a pot of Sniffle Soup (my version of Mellow Lentil Sniffle Soup from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan). This time I also added some Red Rice to get some whole grains in there.

Breakfast

Probably my last peach of the season with Liberte Mediterranee Mocha Yogurt. So sad to see peach season end; my yogurt just won't be the same without the fresh peaches. :(

Check out the Amazing Grass giveaway at Angie All The Way!

Priorities

Last night I wrote my review of the Fat Blasting Boot Camp program I’ve been doing since the beginning of June. And I said that I planned on starting over again at the beginning of the Boot Camp program. Did I say today? I know I was thinking today.

Truth is though, I overdid things yesterday. The past couple of weekends have been busy, and after spending so much of yesterday in the kitchen I was wiped out. Today I could tell that I was still worn out – my ears were/still are buzzing in that way they do when I am over tired.

On top of that, my house is a disaster. With things being so busy, I haven’t been keeping up with things. Every weekend I say I’m going to get to it, and every weekend ends with the disaster still in place. I got home from work today, looked around and thought: I can’t take this anymore.

So I took today off. In the time that I normally would have been working out, I made a start on getting my house back in order. I’m nowhere near done, but I feel better. I’m not sure what I will do tomorrow – more cleaning or back to the workout routine. I just know that at the moment, I don’t have the time/energy for both. This week I’m just going to take it day by day and see how I feel.

I did take Fred for a little walk though, it was nice to get some fresh air. Soon it’s going to be getting dark early, and then we probably won’t do walks any more until spring.

The good thing about the crazy weekend of cooking – dinner was all made for us today. Saturday we got a giant bag of red bell peppers at the farmer’s market (8 red peppers for $5). As soon as I walked into the market and saw that bag I knew what would be perfect – Stuffed Peppers. Then yesterday we made an apple pie, since we had a bunch of apples that were needing to be used.

So today we had leftovers – before they went into the oven:

Even better the second time around! We also have a loaf of multigrain bread that needs to be used up, so we had a couple of slices on the side.

Had my bread with hummus. They were out of my favorite Chipotle topped hummus on the weekend, so I picked this up to try; good, but I still prefer the Chipotle one.

And dessert.

Now, I am off to get the sheets out of the dryer so I can make the bed and crawl in. Here’s hoping that I’ll have a good night’s rest and feel better tomorrow!

Lunch

The rain tapered off and left us with fog. It's almost looking like the sun wants to break through...

For lunch - the last container of mystery soup from the freezer and a slice of pizza - it was offered and I have a hard time saying no to pizza! Made for a satisfying lunch, I have to say.

I cannot tell a lie - the pizza was the best part!

Breakfast

What a gloomy rainy day! I had Husband drop me off in front of my office this morning, rather that slog up the hill in the rain and get soaked. Right now the forecast is for rain right through til the end of the week. Hope that changes!

I must be sleeping in a weird position lately, I keep waking up in the middle of the night with an achy back. Of course, it probably didn't help that early this morning when I woke up, there was a cat where my feet should be and I was all twisted into a pretzel trying to sleep around him...

Anyway, breakfast - Mediterranee Mocha yogurt with a peach. Savoring the last couple of peaches, because I have a feeling that they are pretty much done for the year...

Fat Blasting Boot Camp Review

Back in the spring MizFit gave away a Fat Blasting Boot Camp eBook, courtesy of Angie Schumacher. I was fortunate enough to be the recipient and I started the program at the beginning of June.

The program has 4 parts - an intro phase and then three different workout routines. Each one of these parts consists of 3 workouts per week; the intro phase last two weeks, then each of the other phases is 4 weeks. Each workout includes strength, cardio and abdominal circuits. Altogether, the program should take 14 weeks. As I had a couple of busy weeks during the summer, with lots of traveling, I took a three week hiatus after the first 6 weeks. But once I started up again, I kept going right through to the end.

I want to say up front that I am a person who normally has a hard time sticking to a set workout schedule. I can do it for a little while, but not usually for a prolonged period. So, first off, I am a little bit impressed with myself for completing the entire program - albeit with a break part way through. Editing for clarity - It's not that I don't work out regularly, more that I do not tend to stick with a regimented schedule or routine; I like to go with the flow. I try to get in a good mix of strength, cardio and flexibility, but I do tend to choose workouts based on mood or how I feel energy-wise.

I liked that the routines were short and sweet - I ranged from 25 - 40 minutes, depending on the workout. I felt like I worked hard during that 25 - 40 minutes, and it was great to feel like I could get in a good workout in that short amount of time - easy to fit into my schedule.

I found that the workouts definitely had a progression - particularly with the strength circuits. I felt like I was building up to harder moves. There were some things that I was impressed with myself for being able to do, some things that remained difficult all the way through. There is also room to adjust and make things easier or harder, depending on your fitness level.

It does require some equipment - mat, stability ball, bench or step, chair and either a medicine ball, dumbbells or kettlebell. I would say that the kettlebell is optional, but you really do need the medicine ball and dumbbells. I actually don't have a medicine ball, but I have a 5 lb weighted ball that I used in the cases where I could not substitute a dumbbell. I do have kettlebells, so I used those for some moves.

If you had asked me a month ago, I would have said that I was enjoying the Boot Camp program, but looking forward to finishing so that I could get back to doing some of my other workouts that I was missing. But I have to say, the past couple of weeks I've been thinking that I don't want to be finished with the Boot Camp. I feel that I've got a good routine going at the moment. The Fat Blasting Boot Camp works well with my schedule - Mondays & Wednesdays I can come home from work and get in my Boot Camp workout right away, then get the third one in on Saturday; I try for some additional cardio at least two more days during the week. I guess I'm liking not having to stop and think about what my workout is going to be, and the fact that I can get it done fast. On the days when I think I'm not in the mood, or I'm feeling too tired, I can remind myself that it won't take long. So, at this point I am seriously thinking that I am going to start over again at the beginning. I can't say for sure that I will make it all the way through a second time, but right now this is working for me and I feel like I want to keep going with it.

Thanks again MizFit & Angie!

Catching Up...

You know you read to many food blogs when...

I actually woke from a dream this morning where I was hanging out with a bunch of people I haven't even met - people whose food blogs I read. Yes really. The only two that I definitely remember were Kath and Jaime because that was who I was talking to right before I woke up, but I had there were others there.

Maybe guilt over the fact that I have been meaning to post all weekend and just not getting to it?

It's been busy and I'm tired to be honest. I don't even have pictures from today. I was just feeling too far behind today I couldn't be bothered. I'm not even quite sure where yesterday went - it was just gone. I relaxed a bit this morning, then made a pot of soup to freeze for lunches, walked both cats, did laundry, canned a batch of salsa. Then Husband and I made an apple pie and a roast chicken dinner. Truth be told, I have not entirely dealt with the mess in my kitchen because I just can't be bothered at the moment.

I hope that next weekend I can sit on my butt and do nothing. That is my great ambition. But I really should clean the house one of these days.

Saturday – Sept 26

 

Friday – Sept 25

Thursday

Today started out gloomy, but by afternoon it was hot and sunny. With the chilly weather we’d been having, all our windows were closed so when we got home the house was pretty warm. Still, not going to complain about a warm sunny day – I’d be happy to have more.

Husband was tired and wanted to make supper right away. We’re getting to the end of the week’s groceries so there was not a lot to work with, but we were able to throw together a pasta.

We got a sauce going with chicken breasts, onion, garlic, red bell peppers & tomatoes, seasoned with crushed chilies & rosemary. The I put a pot of water on to boil and took Fred out for a short walk. He would have preferred longer, but I figured a short walk was better than nothing!

When Fred & I came in, the water was boiling so I threw in the pasta, added some sliced olives to the sauce, and tidied the kitchen.

Turned out pretty good.

Of course, I wanted cheese on mine (Husband doesn’t really care). I didn’t have a lot to choose from – basically Havarti or Cheddar, so I went with Cheddar.

 

I watched Eastwick while eating my supper.

I used up the rest of our salad veggies to make my lunch for tomorrow, washed the dishes, and had a walk on the treadmill.

I did have a little snack – finished off a container of hummus (there wasn’t a whole lot left).

Now I think it’s time to crawl in bed and read for a bit. I’m getting sleepy.