Category Archives: weekend.

Cooking and piano playing!

A weekend with no biking, what’s a girl to do?  I guess all of those things that you don’t do when riding 40 or 50 miles 😀

There was some shopping at craft shows.  Although, I have to say I came away empty-handed.  I bargained with John – he had to come to a craft show and we would then go out to lunch where he wanted.  #8 in “how to make your marriage last”  Feels a little like Christmas!

This was in a church and I have never been to this show before.  Or in this church, either, for that matter.  I love the stained glass:

Lots of good stuff, but as I said to John, it can be hard to part me from my money sometimes.  I also found this sign very funny (not sure why) – and actually very true.

This church also has a school inside of it and this was by the classrooms.

Lunch was the Village Cafe in Greenwich. John had been hankering to go there for a football meal, but since I have won the last 3 weeks, we haven’t gone.  Good stuff.  I had an omelet that had ham, cheddar and granny smith apple slices.  Usually I have that combo as a sandwich, but never an omelet.  That would be a nice grain-free meal, other than my toast  :mrgreen:

Their bread is so good! John also got a slice of coconut cream pie to go.  They make the most amazing pies there.

We also did some thrifting and again, I came away empty-handed.  Bust of a shopping day, I must say.

Did some food prep for the week.  Lemon curd:

John made bread:

And he did lattes today.  Acting as barista!

<3

I also made some grain-free almond meal crackers and will post the recipe this week.

These are tasty!

A nice day watching football.  I did a little running.  I am up to just about 2.7 miles now.  Slower pace.  I have found if I try to push it at all my thigh screams at me the next day.  I like it to be quiet, so I will just do the slower pace.  No poking the dragon anymore.

Here is a little bit of John playing piano today – he is practicing Peanuts for the holidays.  He didn’t know I recorded this  :mrgreen:

Thankful thought of the day – thankful for my sister and how we are friends as adults (which we really weren’t growing up).

Me and my sister

I’m the younger one  😈

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Tour de paths

This weekend was really hot and sunny!  I needed this:

The traffic has been bothering me on the bikes, particularly out in the afternoon, so John planned a ride that took advantage of the paths as much as possible.  Plus I wanted a more relaxing ride since it is a holiday weekend.

We decided on a ride to the lake because the crowds will really be coming soon.  Next week is the Elvis festival, which is kind of surreal if you are not a big Elvis fan.  Then the weekend after that is Americade where 10,000 motorcycles descend on Lake George – double no thank you!  The traffic gets horrendous then.  So, this weekend will be the last lake visit for a while.

We headed out after lunch.  We took the usual paths and then crossed over into Glens Falls to get back on the western canal trail (as John dubbed it).  It is part of the logging route.

None of this goes down the canal anymore, but it used to.

This was about 8 miles in.

We didn’t snack here, but just stopped in the shade for a bit.  It was really hot!

We wound around and back onto the path that goes to Lake George.  I was starting to get hungry at this point and we stopped around mile 18 so I could have a pear.

There is a little picnic area here, which we never stop at because  it is only a couple miles left to the lake, but I was afraid I was going to bonk after doing all those hills in the heat.

Another biker came and asked to join us in the shade and we got talking different bike routes in the area.  It was nice to chat with another cyclist!

After that nice rest, we headed the rest of the way to the lake.  Mile 21.  Gorgeous day.  A bit breeze, but full of people!  Eeeek!

It’s tourist season! We didn’t stay long, just enough to fill the water bottles and take a pit stop.  Too many people for us.  Hope everyone enjoys the beautiful Adirondack region.

The path began to fill up with all kinds of people as well, many of which did not know path etiquette.

We booked out of town. What was on our minds?  Ice cream!  One of our favorite stops.  Coopers Cave.   This was mile 30 and I decided I wanted a sundae!

I got a Mexican sundae, which has peanut butter sauce and chocolate fudge.  Way overloaded with whipped topping!  It made it look huge!

Nomph!!

It tasted so good after 30 miles.  We had a nice shady table to relax at.  We sat a little too long and I got a bit stiff.  Oops.

Then we only had 10 more miles to do.  Our goal was a 40 mile ride on the day.  Back on the paths!  It  was so nice not to deal with traffic on this part of the paths.  Usually, the paths closer to home are much less crowded than those by the lake.

Look who we found, too!

The babies are getting bigger.  Almost past the cute stage.The parents hissed at us as we rode by, so I stopped past them and used the zoom because I didn’t want to upset the parents.  Although, they were sitting on the edge of the path.

 

5 more miles of riding and we arrived home.

Ride stats:

Total miles:  40.3

Average speed 12 mph

Top speed 26.7 mph

Calories burned 1183 (although this is low, when you ride slow, the computer says less calories burned even if it is the same distance).

All in all a wonderful ride and no sunburn! As greasy as that sunscreen is, it really works very well.  I just don’t like that every bit of dirt and bug sticks to me  :mrgreen:

Wet Weekend

Busy weekend!  Here I was thinking I wouldn’t get to bike and did my 30 mile ride on Friday.  The rain was supposed to move in, but looked like it was going to hold off a bit so we decided to head out for a morning ride on Saturday.

No destination, just out for a ride.  We were shooting for somewhere around 15 miles as a maintenance ride.  That is my favorite distance to keep the bike legs and get a good workout without getting tired.

After about 9 miles, we stopped for some dried fruit by the library.  It was pretty windy as well.  I don’t even think I have gone for a ride this spring that hasn’t been windy.

We ended up with a 17 mile ride before the rains came in and I got down to brass tacks to make up work from yesterday.

Lots of rain.

I dabbled in a little Indian cooking for dinner.

Chickpeas cooked with tea and some tomatoes and onions.  I will have to post the recipe.  It was quite good!

The rain stopped in the wee hours of the morning and we decided to bike to breakfast.  Well, it was a lot like Wednesday! 37 degrees and windy.  Ugh.  Not sure why we decided to bike, but there you go.  :mrgreen:  We were a hair’s width from nixing the bike ride and driving. Maybe not really h*rdcore bikers, but more medium core.  We met my mother there after she got out of church.

Wheat bagel with cranberry walnut cream cheese.  Yum!  12 miles under our belt for the day.  That was likely the last ride for at least the next 5 days.  Windy, rainy and possibly some snow this week!

I did start prepping some stuff for the week.  I made up some coconut flour biscuits.

I also headed to the gym and did a workout today, which felt pretty awesome. I am definitely making strength gains.

It is for sure a stay inside, warm, toasty and bundled up with tea kind of evening.

In honor of Earth Day, I will leave you with a photo from sunny Friday of my garden:

John and I decided we are going to get a compost tumbler to put on the side of the house.  We don’t have room for an official pile without it being right next to our neighbor’s driveway (which I am sure they would love), so we think a tumbler will solve that problem.  Something like this:

I want to see how much we can compost and reduce the garbage that goes out in the can.

Now to get ready for another winter like blast!

No snacking weekend!

I was up early on a Saturday morning to do my strength workout.  I wasn’t intending on getting up early, but I just woke up, so I was at the gym at 7 a.m. on a Saturday.  No life, I tell you…

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
SupersetSeated Lat Row

Incline Dumbbell Press

 3 sets of 15 at 40#
3 sets of 15 with 10# DBs		 BackChest
SupersetStraight Arm Cable Pulldown

Lying Chest Press

 3 sets of 15 at 40#3 sets of 15 with 15# DBs BackChest
SupersetClose Grip Lat Pulldown

Push Ups

 3 sets of 15 at 30#3 sets of 12 BackChest
SupersetRope Crunch

Reverse Crunch

 3 sets of 153 sets of 15 Core

I was supposed to do the push ups and lat pulldowns first, but someone was on the cable machine, so I moved those to the last of the chest/back exercises.  Big mistake!  Doing the push ups at the end was almost impossible.  I had to change the last 2 sets to incline push ups to get through them.  I have to say, though, after 2 weeks with this program, I definitely am feeling stronger again.

John still owed me one last football meal (for superbowl weekend) and I just hadn’t claimed it.  So, we went out for lunch on Saturday at Rockhill Bakehouse.   There were fresh flowers at the table:

Plus a bonus of a guitar player.

That was fun!

I had one of my favorite sandwiches, which is the grown-up grilled cheese with pesto and smoked cheese.

So good.  I ate every bite, too! My morning workout gave me a good lunch appetite.

I did really, really well on my goal of not snacking this weekend.  As in no snacking!  My hardest time was really on Sunday because that is grocery shopping day and I tend to nibble on things that we buy, but I managed not to do that, with the help of some ginger mints and cleaning the kitchen!  We have a flylady cleaning list hanging up, but I don’t think either of us has looked at it in probably 6 months or more  😳

So, I just started to deep clean the kitchen.  Funny how you miss all those crumbs, drips and spills when you aren’t really looking for them.

All sparkly clean!

So Shelley has the Sit and Knit diet, and I have the Scrub and No Chub diet going on  😀

My meals were good and balanced.  I do eat more calories on the weekend because – well – it is the weekend, but, it made a big difference with not nibbling on stuff.  I stuck to my planned snacks.

My goal this week is to keep going with no extra nibbling.  If I can go for 21 days, maybe I can really break that habit.

I am also going to do some seed starting.  I didn’t have a lot of luck with my seedlings last year, so hopefully I can have more success this year.  I won’t plant these yet, but I have been looking for this flower for a while and finally found it!

These are dwarf sunflowers and only grow about 2-3 feet tall.  Now to figure out exactly where I am going to put them!  :mrgreen:

Question: What fun did you get up to this weekend?

Weekend and Google keyword fun!

December really feels like it is here now.  It has been cold!!  Biking season officially over and that means this:

Inside trainers – pointed at the TV we moved from our bedroom.  We swapped out the tires on our bikes to prevent all the flat tires that we had this last season.  Apparently the trainer will cause the tires to become misshapen, which will create more problems with the tubes.  Solution? Replace our good tires with the old ones during the winter.

I also had to pay for John’s football meal.  For some reason, he chose 99, which is at the mall.  Going to the mall on a Saturday in December is not something we *ever* do, but there you go.

Soup and salad for me.  It was really good.  The Jammin’ Crab soup.

We also scored some good bargains.  I can see why people go to the mall at this time of year.  I needed some new luggage for our trip to Disney in January.  This was on sale at TJ Maxx.  It’s a Samsonite!

Marked down to $49 from the TJ Maxx price of $69, which was also marked down from the regular retail.  Go me! It’s the year of the bargain for us.

I have been working on my lesson plan for my literacy learner.  We have started reading The Giver.

Sort of a Utopian society kind of book.   The story of Jonas and his realization that the perfect society isn’t.

Time also spent at the library.  I think these 2 books show why I am a Gemini.

Spent some time laughing at the Google Analytics of my blog.  Some of my favorite keyword searches:

– Addicted to oats: This came up a lot!

– food for happiness : yay!

– overeat at Golden Corral.  I don’t go there very often.

– beautiful bowl for feet.  Ummm… okay?

– Candy corn –  :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

– he won’t remember what I said anyway:  LOL!  Right, John?

– I love thanksgiving it’s the one day that big thighs are good.  I guess…

– lifting is fun:  Yes, yes it is!

– moldy waffle.  Ewwww.  Nasty!

– too much cream cheese on the bagel:  Is that even possible??

If you have a google account, you can get the analytics code to put into your blog to track this stuff.  It’s fun!

We did get some good football time in.  Pixie also loves football time and John’s lap.

I also did a little too much eating.  I did great eating  all last week, but this weekend – not so great.  The food was all tasty, though.  I made these meatless/grain free meatballs, which I will post the recipe for.

Now it’s time for guitar practice and more relaxing!

Have you ever read The Giver?

Weekend wrap up and new axe!

Weekend fly by!  I haven’t checked in for a few days here.  Goodness.  Friday was quite busy.  I went to lunch with the garden club and that was nice.  A nice group of women.  Of course, they don’t meet again until April!  It was nice to meet everyone in a more casual environment rather than at a meeting.  We were at the Log Jam, which I am eager to go back to.

I didn’t take pictures inside so as not to have the women think I am really weird – at least yet, anyway.

On Saturday, John took me out to breakfast for my winning football meal.

Winner, winner!!  This was the Thyme Cafe, a new place that opened up.  It’s feeling all festive around here:

I had a gingerbread waffle with *real* maple syrup.  I pooh-pooh the Log Cabin, and since John was paying, I upgraded my syrup!  😈

My mother and I then went on a Country Christmas spree.  This is an annual event where many artisans open their homes up to sell their goods and you drive from place to place using a very lame map.

It’s fun and everyone has refreshments. I had my share of cookies on Saturday!

We saw a loom shop:

Plus a farm where I got some yummy smoked cheese and a maple scone.  Here were some babies resting.

That one cow was licking the other one’s ear.  So cute (even if stinky).

Everything was all holiday decorated:

I also have been practicing up a storm this weekend.  With the soap order I got, I now have a new axe to grind!  I got a great deal on this guitar, too. With the Black Friday deal and sale price, I paid $189.  Saved about $400, which put it into my budget.   I tell you, this year has been great for me and finding deals.

Axe is  a guitar in musician speak, BTW  :mrgreen:  This is a Manuel Rodriguez guitar and has a cedar top with a beautiful inlay rosette:

The back and sides are bubinga wood and gorgeous:

My original guitar was a cheap student model and let me tell you, the difference is stunning between the 2.  I didn’t realize how much a quality guitar would make a difference in my playing.  The sound is gorgeous and it is so easy to play. I am in loooooooooove with the new guitar and I can’t stop playing it.  In fact, my fingers are sore LOL!

Happy lady:

I actually kissed the guitar, too.  I know John really is concerned about my sanity now.

I am wearing my Broncos jersey, too, since it is Sunday.  I am not on the Tebow band wagon at all, but I certainly am happy my Broncos have been winning!

 

Man, life is so good right now.

Running for me and beer?

Thanks for you comments on my musings earlier LOL! Back to regularly scheduled programming…..

Woke up too early again today.  It was a little after 6:00 and I went to bed  after 11:30.  I really do better with 7 hours of sleep, so why does my body persist in waking up early?  Anyway, I just got up and had an early start to my day.  Cooked up some protein pancakes.  Since I can’t be tall, I thought I would stack my breakfast high!

cakes1029

Again, dark for breakfast!  Weird….

Worked for an hour and it warmed up to about 45, so it was time to get in a run.  I decided on a ‘me’ run today.  I went out without a watch, and just put on the Sweeney Todd soundtrack and let my body tell me how fast it wanted to go.   I sped up when I felt like it and slowed down when I wanted to.  I did 3.2 miles and felt very refreshed afterwards (and super sweaty).  I spent so much time basically since March having  fairly regimented fitness routines to train for all my events, so it feels good now to relax a little and just enjoy flexing my fitness, so to speak.

In my effort to get the cereal out of the house, I incorporated it into lunch 😀  Yum.  There is cereal under there, I promise!

lunch1029

Kat asked for a macro of my ring – and here it is:

ring1029

This is actually now my wedding band.  John and I had channel set diamond bands that matched.  Both of us have had problems with rings being too loose, especially in colder weather.  John had taken to wearing his ring on his pinky, and low and behold, one day it wasn’t there and we couldn’t find it anywhere.  We retraced as many steps as we could think of in the previous day, but to no avail.  John was actually more upset about it than I was.  I would rather lose a ring than lose him, know what I mean?  Anyway, we had been contemplating new bands, and really wanted one with a celtic knot design.  Couldn’t afford the ones we really liked, though.  On a trip to Colorado to visit John’s folks in early 2008, we shopped at ArtMart in Boulder (which is a cool place) and we saw these rings there.  $20 each!  We both loved them and figured they would be good bands in the interim until we can get some gold ones (maybe for our 15th anniversary).  It’s so funny because we both get so many compliments on these rings than we ever got on our other bands. Go figure.

It’s my weekend starting tonight, so John and I had a little celebration:

beer1029

We split this beer – cheers!

weekend

I look so tired in this picture.  Guess that is because I am LOL!  The beer is good.  Hints of pumpkin and spice.  Dinner was a stirfry made with a batata, which is a Mexican sweet potato.  I’ll do a GVE on it tomorrow in detail.  It tastes kind of like a chestnut, but has the texture of a potato.  Kicked it up with some chopped seranno peppers, too.  Bring on the heat! Fun!

stirfry1029

In true weekend decadence fashion, we ate in the living room on the couch with the TV on.  Sometimes it just feels good to be really casual.

I am so happy it’s the weekend!  It feels so great to be free for a couple days.  I am just about done with that soap order.  I’ll finish up the last 2 batches tomorrow.  Then I need to get a couple pumpkins to carve if I can still find some around.

pink1028

Pink item of the day!  Only a couple more days in October for this.

I am going to have a relaxing night with my 10 candy corn kernels, some tea, and Project Runway (if I can stay awake for it….).

I am shaking things up with the football dinner and am having John take me out for breakfast instead!  Hopefully we can bike there in the a.m.

Question:  Do you ever eat in front of the TV?

It's the weekend!

Yay! Another Friday is here!
We are going for a long bike ride tomorrow, probably to Lake George. So, I took it easy on my run today. Did 2.25 miles. I managed to shave some more time off, did 1 mile in 14:40. Yay me! Kind of had to grind it out today. I did not get enough sleep last night and I am tired.

Ate pescitarian today. Are clams considered fish??
Made the protein pancakes for breakfast today, only used a whole egg, since I was low on egg substitute. They came out a little fluffier. I am really liking these!

Hoping to get my tax stimulus check soon so that I can go to Goodwill and get some new clothes! I will spend about $50 on clothes, and then upload the rest to my IRA. I am running out of bottoms that fit! I have one pair of pants and one pair of shorts that I can wear now, everything else is getting baggy. It’s amazing how just a few pounds makes such a difference on me now than when I was 250.

Today’s stats:
Calorie goal: 1,400 • Consumed: 1,469 • Burned: 466
Net calories: 1,003
C/P/F ratio: 51/25/24 (woohoo!!)

It's the weekend!

Yay! Friday! Glad to have the weekend with no construction going on outside the house! Most of our front yard was dug up this week. I was getting ready to yell holy hell at them, thought they had their machinery on my garden bed, but they were just right along side it. It’s a nice sight to see a back hoe sitting in your front lawn.

Anyway – started C25K Week 5 today. That was three 5 minute runs. I could do it with no problem! Probably by the end of May I will be able to do pretty close to the whole 5K, I think.
I am a bit worried about the 20 minute run, which will take place Tuesday or Wednesday.

Today’s Menu
Calorie goal: 1,350 • Consumed: 1,297 • Burned: 284
Net calories: 1,013
C/P/F ratio: 42/31/27

Brekkie:
Fage yogurt
granola
strawberries
honey
coffee with milk

Lunch:
Boca burger
Zone Double dark chocolate bar

Snack:
1/3 oz cashews
1% latte

Dinner
London broil
steamed broccoli
applesauce
soy chips

Snack
coffee with milk

Cake today

I did well on eating, but I did plan for some chocolate birthday cake. Had cake for my sister (which I made). It was quite good, and I enjoyed it.

After watching my nieces for almost 12 hours (!!!!), I hadn’t gotten in much cardio. So at 9pm, right after they left I did the Leslie Sansone 4 Fast miles dvd. I am glad I did. That should have taken care of the cake at any rate LOL! They left too late for me to do day 2 of Couch to 5K, so I will pick that up on Monday and do MWF for those workouts.