After a treadmill warm up:

Did you see that? I full squatted 100 pounds! 95 is tough, and I added 5 more pounds. You wouldn’t think it is that much heavier, but it sure is. I did 2 and then a 3rd. I got to the bottom of the 3rd and said “Uh-oh, I have to get back up!” I had to really power it back up, so I did not attempt any more. I re-racked, pumped my fist and said “Yes!!” LOL. Goober.  Hopefully I can do 3 more by the end of the month. I have to say that I already feel the squats setting in. My quads are toast. Tomorrow ought to feel pretty good…

Then it was home for a well-deserved brekkie! Pumpkin custard cream of wheat topped with honey fluff, cranberry sauce, and toasted almonds.

Does that not look good? It was.

Slow start to work, so I actually went upstairs and got on the bike trainer for 30 minutes for my cardio.  I usually will do that at night, but I will have to work tonight since the morning was slow.   Love my trainer

Lunchtime and we are using up the food in preparation for a trip this weekend.  I made a yummy BBQ chicken sammie with laughing cow on a pita.  And some rare applesauce.

This was a really good sandwich (pitawich?).

I have gotten a question or 2 on the lattes.  Here is what we do.  We have a cheapie machine – It’s a Mr. Coffee.  It does a great job on the milk steaming, but the espresso could be better.  Until we buy a new one, this will have to do:

First, the coffee filter gets filled and packed with coffee.

Then inserted into the machine.

The reservoir is filled with water and then you turn the machine to the brew portion.  Espresso with crema coming out.

There is a mark on the coffee container that tells you when to start steaming the milk.  Each mug has 8 oz of milk in it (and mine has 7 g of protein powder as well, those squats, you know).  Place the mug with the tip of the steam wand just below the surface and turn to ‘steam’.

The steam will heat and froth the milk.  You don’t want lots of big bubbles, so keep the tip below the surface of the milk.  This isn’t like blowing bathwater bubbles.

Note how the steaming will aerate the milk and make it seem like more!

I love having my own personal barista.

Once the espresso is done, pour it into the steamed milk.  If we got better crema, I would try latte art, but again – cheap machine.

Time for the ‘drizz’ as we call it.  This is raw honey on mine.

That’s my usual afternoon snack!

With some of these:

If I could have one expensive kitchen gadget – it would be a really nice espresso machine.  Best start playing Power Ball!

I actually ate fish for dinner tonight – this is Gorton’s Fish cake.  It doesn’t taste very fishy, so I am okay with eating it (with hot sauce).

Even though I am eating more today, I seem to be doing well with keeping snacking in check.  Yay!  Now it is back to work with said snack and hopefully some football watching when I am finished.

Question:  If you drink coffee, what is your favorite drink?

Banana custard cream of wheat!  Topped with honey fluff. I promise the recipe will be posted on Tuesday.

I biked off to the gym in some chilly weather today. Full tummy, which was a little weird, too.

I went for a massive (for me) lifting session since it is the last one until after my Charity Ride (6 days!!)

** Note to self. Do not do push ups at the end of the workout.**

I was. wiped. out. after this workout.  I came home and had some cafe au lait, showered, and got to work!

Other people laboring on the holiday are window people.  They did not quite finish up the capping on the outside of our house, and they arrived bright and early this holiday morning to get it done!  Now that is dedication to the job, don’t you think?

Lunch time was some of my yogurt/berry/cereal mash.  I keep wondering if I will tire of this, but I never do.

The strawberries taste excellent as well.

Work ran out for a while, so I was able to do some garden work.  Removed a couple plants I decided I didn’t want anymore and figured it was a good place for my new rose bush!  (I also need to divide sedum later this fall).

This bush is going to do a late bloom, too, and I am pretty excited about that.  I can’t wait until it appears in the Friday What’s Blooming!

I have been toying with the idea of going through the Master Gardener program for the county.   I just need to make sure I have time to do the volunteer work the position requires (like being at the county fair, community gardens, schools, etc).  Not to mention sitting through the training courses.

Time for snacks!

Check this out.  The rumor is that we are going to have early fall color around here and it will be super bright.  The tree across the street has already flipped over!

No other tree is like that around here.  Isn’t that weird?

Dinner time arrived.  I have been super hungry the last couple days.  Not sure what is up with that.  Annoying, though.  I did eat an apple while waiting for dinner to cook.  I mixed up some ground turkey with minced onion and seasoning.   Then put it in muffin cups and topped with BBQ sauce.  Baked for about 30 minutes and I had little turkey muffins!

Tasty.  I wanted to go the whole meatloaf route with bread crumbs and egg, but I got going on it too late because of work.

After dinner was some coffee roasting (Guatemalan):

Now we are going to do some coffee drinking!  Hope you are having (had) a relaxing holiday!

I was debating whether to jog the 2 miles to the gym or drive, but I wasn’t sure I wanted a total of 4 miles with a weight workout, plus it was kind of rainy, so driving it was.

I hopped on the stationary bike when I got there for 10 minutes, which actually just pissed me off, so probably not a good idea in hindsight LOL! Then I did weights:

I thought about more biking or treadmilling, but I just wasn’t into it at all. So I went home and had a comforting breakfast.

Pumpkin cream of wheat sweetened with a bit of molasses and topped with pecans and crystallized ginger.   I do believe my pumpkin stash is going to make it!

I took a vacation day from job #1 today, but still worked job #2. I am going to have to stick with both for a while longer to pay for the new bike, so good thing I didn’t quit job #1 yet!

After doing the work available, I had some lunch.  We need to grocery shop!  I did find a cucumber in the veggie drawer, so paired that with tuna and crackers.

I have narrowed down my choices on bikes. After discussion with the bike people about how we ride, the type of bike I am looking for is a performance hybrid.  Because we do some riding on gravel surfaces and some rough road sides, a true road bike is out.  A commuter/comfort hybrid is out because of the distances that we ride. That puts our needs at a performance hybrid designed for longer rides where you sit more forward and not so upright.

The brands we are considering right now are Giant, Fuji, and Cannondale and a few others. I have looked at the Giant, which I liked, and today after lunch I went  to test “drive” the Fuji, a Raleigh and a Haro.  Have a lot of decisions to make!  I did go ahead and get my pedals.  I still have the bike shoes (obviously), but the clip pedals went bye-bye.  $80 down the drain there and only 3 months old.   I’ll put a post together about choosing a bike and hopefully get that done tomorrow.  A lot goes into a decision like this.

Came back from bike testing to have a latte and a piece of yummy pain de bluets that we purchased at a market before we left Montreal yesterday.

It came from this market – how delicious!

I’ve been working on the cookbook, and I hope to have it finished up over the weekend?  Eeep!

Dinner time was a round up.  I had baked some rye bread and threw a sweet potato in the oven while that was going.  I paired that with an omelet with laughing cow and sauteed broccoli.

I usually microwave my sweet potatoes for time reasons, but the taste of an oven baked sweet is sooooo good.

Tired kitty today:

Not sure from what because she really doesn’t do anything….

Stocked up on groceries tonight!  I bought some canning jars as I am participating in a jam swap next month.   Should be fun as I have never preserved jam before.   I just make it and eat it LOL!

After getting back I tested out the new rye bread:

It came out really good!  I am not sure I would have ever thought to pair peanut butter on rye, but it was good.

Tonight is more working and polishing up the cookbook.  Oh – and Football!!!!!

Question: How do you cook your sweet potatoes?

This is pumpkin custard cream of wheat topped with pecans and some cream cheese with powdered sugar mixed up (yes, we can call that cream cheese frosting   ).  My trick when I want something really decadent on top is to have the cream of wheat instead of oats.  That saves me 50 calories, so the topping can be more indulgent and I still stay within my preferred calorie range for breakfast.

Ate on the porch with some coffee!  This was soooo good.  I then browsed catalogs online and ordered some fall bulbs.  I need to double check where all my others are planted.  Good thing I take a lot of pictures of my garden.

Speaking of – here is what is really the crowning jewel of the garden.  My butterfly bush.

This is 5 feet tall.  I would have taken a picture of me standing by it if I wasn’t in my jammies and unshowered.  I was so afraid this one got killed by frost because it had started leafing out really early with the warm spring and then the hard freeze, but it survived.  It normally is more arch shaped, but I think the frost kill made it grow a little different this year.

The butterflies just love this plant. These flower cones are about 8 inches long and smell like honey.

The globe thistle also started blooming.  Actually a bit late on the photo of this one. I’ll try another one this week on the other blooms.

My first successful attempt at this plant.  2 other times they never grew for me.

Another potted geranium and allysum:

The purple trillium (??) keeps blooming, too.  This one wandered into my garden bed, and I think I will take it out.

One thing I like about perennials is that they come into their own all summer and fall, so there is always something new.  I still have plants that won’t bloom for another month or so!

I cleared out all the volunteer black-eyes Susan’s on the left side of the path, so you can actually walk through it now.  Hopefully the other plants will get sun and get bigger on that side.

Lunch time!  I made more tuna/hummus on toast for lunch.  I almost tried the tuna and cottage cheese, but I just couldn’t make myself do it LOL!

Delicious plum on the side.  Plums are awesome right now!

I had to go out and run errands, including picking up food for Pixie (and some hairball stuff….).  There was the sweetest dog at the pet supply shop today.  Meet Buddy:

Is that the cutest face or what??  He only has 3 legs and is their mascot.  So sweet.

I then convinced John to play hooky for a while and go out for a treat.  We are buying his birthday cake from Baker’s Dream in a couple of weeks, so we went to go see what flavors they had to choose from, and had to have a little treat to go with!  I had a vanilla cupcake.  Perfect size.

Plus some coffee.  I actually brought a jar of 1% milk with me to add to it, as Baker’s Dream only has half and half, which I just don’t like in my coffee.  It coats my mouth or something, but I just don’t like it.  I am not above bringing things I want when going out to eat.

It poured all afternoon.  Good thing it was a rest day for me and I wasn’t planning on a bike ride or anything….

Dinner time:

Chicken curry salad – minus the bed of lettuce.  It was cold enough today that a salad was unappealing to me.

The blog was down for a bit this evening.  I have to say that I actually like my webhost.  I use justhost.com and they knew about the problem and got back to me right away about how they were working on it.   Customer service really goes a long way to stand out in a crowded arena.

I had a few extra things to eat today, some blueberries and one of these:

I’ve been very hungry, which seems to happen on my rest days.  I don’t mind a few extra carbs for tomorrow’s race.   Going to bed early tonight as the race starts at 8 am, and it is 15 miles away!

Question: Do you ever bring your own food out to an eatery?

Nice non stressful workout today. I rest 1 minute between sets for the most part unless I am supersetting any of the exercises. The above workout took about 35-40 minutes.  Then I biked home for some brekkie!

It was a cooler morning, so warmth was in order.  Pumpkin cream of wheat – custard style.  Cooked with molasses as the sweetener and topped with a bit of crystalized ginger and toasted pecans.

Yum.  I spent a good chunk of the morning puttering around in the garden.  A few new things today:

Potted painted daisy

Allysum:

Gazania:

Clematis:

This thing is a monster, too.  The twine broke that it climbs onto the porch along and it is just drooping in a big mass:

Lunch break!

More sweet potato with laughing cow and sauteed broccoli.  I was trying to find a good protein source and didn’t feel like eggs and chicken was set for dinner.  So I mixed some strawberry protein powder with greek yogurt.  I think I would try freezing this mixture.

More miscellaneous outside work today.  We are working on the southeast side of the house which is kind of overgrown with vegetation.  It is really a nice day outside today!

Straight up latte snack:

plus a granola bar.

Think the warranty on a PlayStation would cover cat butt?

It’s off the floor so it doesn’t get stepped on, but Pixie thinks it is her personal seat.  This is why we can’t have nice things….

Classic Lori salad for dinner:

Those bagged salads are so handy.  We get either Dole brand or Fresh Express (I like spring mix).  One bag makes 2 salads for me    That’s a lot of greens.  I am totally vegging out in a good way today.

I didn’t bike today (other than to the gym) so that I could get in one last run before Sunday’s race.  I wanted to do 3 miles one last time.  I did pretty well.  Completely pain free.  I finished up in 33:33.  A little bit faster than last time.  Tack on 0.1 miles and I hope to finish up under 35 minutes on Sunday.

Treat afterwards:

Banana soft serve.  I put cinnamon in it and topped with a bit of chocolate sauce.  What a great post run treat!

I am in a really good spot with food lately.   It feels good.

Question:  Do you do bagged salad mixes?