Category Archives: bagels

Random Wednesday

It was in the 30s this morning. Too cold for biking, sadly. The season is waning – wahhhh!!! John decided he wanted Coffee Planet today instead of the usual for our bagel breakfast since he didn’t get to go there last weekend when he was out of town (I went, though).

This person was pretty stingy with the cream cheese on the bagel. I would be surprised if there was more than 1/2 an ounce on it, but I didn’t bother saying anything. Not biking, so shaving off a few calories isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

We did get out for a ride in the afternoon when it was around 60 degrees. It was a nice ride until we hit school bus hell. I picked the wrong route, that’s for sure! But, I was happy to get out!

My helmet hair isn’t all that bad here!

Mileage total:

Less than 300 miles to go. If the weather cooperates, maybe 4 more weeks of riding.

I had a good standard day of eating today. I realize all I have been posting lately have been pretty much my treats. Here is a collage of the other meals I had today. Just for something different.

Several more random thoughts:

I’ve been having fun with my nails lately.

This is way too fancy for my jeans and t-shirt, though. 😀 I have orange, white and yellow polish and I might try to do candy corn nails.

Speaking of candy corn… Things that make you go Hmmmmm:

I was this close to buying these for fun thinking of a s’mores party planned for this weekend. Although, most candy corn wannabe things don’t taste really like candy corn (M&Ms – I am looking in your direction!). I’ll just eat the real deal.

Pink item of the day – my nail stamper!

Time for a relaxing evening. I got a new guitar book and can’t wait to poke around in it tonight!

Cold bagel day

Back to work again. I worked most of a full day on NYE and just had yesterday off. I actually forgot what day it was and got up to get a pot of coffee going when I realized that it was Wednesday and that meant Bagel Day! It was really cold out, too.

Here is the view from the coffee shop.

That thermometer reads 14 degrees (and that ain’t Celsius!), which actually was warmer than when we first got up. This snow isn’t melting any time soon.

Bagel for breakfast and calories accounted for

Now that I am back in weight loss mode, it really takes some getting used to and really paying attention to those habits which have become less than stellar. :nutsnacking:

I worked pretty steady to lunch and wasn’t hungry at all. The bagel and coffee really is the most filling breakfast I eat all week, surprisingly. I think it is the fat in the cream cheese that does it because it isn’t really that much more calorie wise than my normal breakfasts.

Anyhoo – I needed protein for lunch, so I just made up a smoothie with almond milk, pumpkin, plain whey, cinnamon and a bit o’ honey.

The clems? I am not really impressed this season with them. Jury still out.

I bought a couple things at the mall yesterday when we ventured out on New Year’s. Bath and Body Works was having their semi annual sale, so I stocked up!

The total for these was only $18.99 with tax. I was proclaiming my bargain skills to John and his reply was “It just shows how overpriced they regularly are”. Good point. That’s why I only buy them for myself on sale. If gift purchasing, I do pay the full price because birthdays and such don’t coincide with sales a lot of times – how inconvenient!

Anyway, I digress from the other purchase I made. I had fun with the gold polish on my nails, so I found another fun color.

This is Mint Sorbet from Sally Hansen. It seems maybe a bit more minty than this picture shows.

This is also my fleece blanket, which I was working with today – which also meant I had something else glued to me as well:

Can I tell you how hard it is to get work done around here? Good thing I have a netbook or the cat wound’t fit. Note the dumbbells on the floor for me to periodically do some lifting moves to take a break from work. That works out really well, I have to say.

I had plans to make a good chicken dish for dinner, but then time got away from me while working and I was just ready to eat. So quick cooking of the chicken (with extra for other meals). The standard chicken and potato:

After all that ham we have been consuming (finally gone), it is really good to eat the chicken again

Snack tonight will be some nuts to round out the serving I was nibbling on. No TV or internet tonight until I get my exercise and guitar practice in – so I had better hop to it!

Bagels and FBB Stage 4!

Bagel day! It was cloudy and wet when we got up this morning, so that nixed biking to breakfast. Boooo… But, the bagel was still good!

Of course, it never rained and the sun peeked out by the time we finished, so we could have ridden. Oh well, it’s all good in the end.

Anyway, I thought I would now post the next workout I did for the Female Body Breakthrough.

This last phase is different in that each week the reps change for some of the exercises, so progress will be harder to monitor and I think I will just go back to my normal posting each week of my workouts. I will also be extending the program to get in all the workouts since there are 6 different ones to do, which means 12 sessions. I am lifting twice a week now, so that means about 6 weeks for this phase instead of 4 (barring rainy weekends).

Exercise	Set/rep/weight
1. Plank with alternate arm/leg reach	3 sets of 10 each side
2. Complex: Deadlift, High Pull, Push Press, Reverse Lunge	4 sets of 8 each exercise with 20# bar
3A. Bulgarian Split Deadlift	4 sets of 5 with 10# DBs
3B. Single Arm Chest Press on ball	4 sets of 5 with 20# DB
3C. Back Squat	4 sets of 5 with 65# bar
3D. Chinups	4 sets of 5 with assistance

Just when you think the plank can’t get any harder and now I have to lift the opposite leg and arm at the same time. So, you are balancing on one toe and 1 forearm and alternating to the other side. Wow.

I like the complexes. You use a lighter weight and do all 4 moves right in a row, so 8 deadlifts, 8 high pulls, 8 pushpress and 8 reverse lunges. It’s more of a metabolic circuit that gets your heart rate up. The last 4 exercises are done as a giant set. Challenging for sure!

Tomorrow is workout B. My legs are a bit stiff today.

Lunch time! Easy peasy today. Greek yogurt with apple topping. It’s fast and I have been liking that lately for lunches.

I took a quick bike ride to the bank and back for pay day! At least I got in a quick ride today. About 2.5 miles. Today is one of those “squeeze it in when you can get it” exercise days. It’s actually windy today and you all know how much I like riding in the wind. 🙄

Got back just in time for lattes. Icy latte, that is:

Very busy day for work today. I had a panic moment when I was just about finished with a 41 minute dictation (takes about 80 minutes to do that long of a file) and my program locked up on me. I thought I lost the last hour and half of work! That would have been very depressing. I walked away from the computer for about 5 minutes and came back and it had unlocked. Phew! You would have heard me yelling if I had lost that. They system doesn’t have a good save function, unfortunately.

Pixie could care less about all the excitement.

Dinner was quick and easy thanks to precooking stuff. I had made up some of the balsamic tomato topping early in the week just to put on stuff (an omelet was great that way, btw). Tonight I had it on some cooked chicken.

Even though it is meal assembly that way, it still seems like a nice dinner.

I am posting this quick. Tonight is mother/daughter night. Either froyo or coffee, but the temps are cooler now and I am thinking it will be coffee!

Biking for breakfast – and a big loser

We woke up this morning and decided *not* to check the weather and just head out on bikes for breakfast. I knew it would be in 40s, and that is warm enough. The plus side is that there was no wind today. Having it a bit warmer and no wind and we were much faster on the way to breakfast. Here was the temp when we arrived.

It was feeling downright balmy!

My bagel:

(Sharon – it’s your cup!!)

It didn’t really get any warmer during breakfast because of cloud cover, but I’ll take it. 12 miles done. It felt great. I love biking for breakfast. When we got back, John mentioned how nice it was to be in shape enough to ride for breakfast easily.

Yes, yes it is. I never take that for granted. Even though I may want to lose 10 pounds, that does not take away from how far I have come and maintained.

Jody asked for a Pixie pic, so here it is. She hasn’t been doing much exciting lately (other than eating my plants). She did manage to open up an eye for you all.

After a busy work morning, I was hungry for lunch! Broccoli and cheese omelet? Yes please.

Today was one of those tiring days of just slogging through work. My brain got tired. I wasn’t working any longer than usual, but it sure felt like forever. I know you all have had days like that. I needed my pick-me-up.

I also nibbled on a granola bar that John made for his poker game tonight. Wouldn’t you like to go to a game where there were homemade treats? He always has a seat available for him at that table 😉

Dinner time was fish time. We got more mahi-mahi since I fairly well liked it last week. Again with an orange ginger sauce, done by John – the official cooker of fish now and forever.

I got in a good amount of veggies today – go me!

Also – a shoutout. Go over to Stephen’s blog (who ate my blog?) and congratulate him. As of today, he has lost 300 pounds! What an amazing achievement! And he did it through diet and exercise. It can be done. No one ever said it was easy, but it is forever worth it.

Chilly riding

I woke up all excited to bike to breakfast this morning. The high today was supposed to be almost 70 degrees! However, that doesn’t mean that it will be 70 degrees at 7:30 am. More like half that, plus fog LOL. It was a coooooold ride to breakfast:

That is 2 degrees warmer than when we left the house, too. I am okay above 40, but this was a bit chilly even for me. I was ready for some coffee and a bagel. They were out of wheat bagels (again), so I got poppyseed.

Not many seeds on this bagel. John called it a Poppy Lite

The temp had warmed up into the low 40s by the time we left, but still somewhat foggy. However, I will take a November bike ride anytime! 12 miles of biking today.

Yesterday’s literacy tutor training was good. It is a little overwhelming and I have to read 4 chapters in this book for tomorrow!

Homework! Normally there would be a week between training sessions, but they are trying to cram all the training in before Thanksgiving. Plus there are 8 people currently waiting for tutors right now! Definitely a need here. I am really realizing how I take for granted being able to read and write with ease.

I got a late start with work, so I was just trying to plow my way through. It was a tiring day. I took my lunch break with some of the chicken I cooked up the other day.

Thank you for precooked stuff and planning ahead.

Both of us were busy today. Wednesday truly was hump day. And snack day. I made up almond milk lattes:

and I had a piece of pumpkin fudge that I made over the weekend. I haven’t had any since Sunday because it has some corn syrup and I was grain free Monday and Tuesday. It’s good stuff, but time consuming to make.

Pixie is always interested in what I am doing – the nut.

I snacked a bit while cooking dinner. Feeling a little tired and that got me snacking on some potato chips and Nut Thins. I should have precooked lentils and it would have avoided that problem. I did have brown rice that I had in the freezer along with some of my caramelized onion stash. I pan sauteed the broccoli, then tossed in a scoop of onions, brown rice and lentils and heated through.

This was good and full of fiber LOL!

Today was just such a gorgeous day. Like September. I took a walk after dinner because it was so nice. Dark, though. I put John’s blinking bike light onto my jacket for safety. I don’t know if that that really works, but I felt safer at any rate – and I rocked out with Journey on my walk!

Someone in our house who is not a music lover is Pixie. She was sitting on the piano tonight when John sat down to play:

You can almost hear her thoughts – “What the hell is that noise?” She didn’t stay long.

Well, I have a date with some candy corn and my homework for tomorrow’s training class.

Fall is here!

Yep – it’s fall around here. The leaves haven’t really changed too much, but the temps sure have! It was a chilly 46 degrees when we headed out for breakfast. I did layer up too much though. I had on a technical turtleneck and 2 jackets. I should have either not worn the turtleneck or ditched a jacket. I was sweaty! We arrived 6 miles later to our destination.

Happy to be on the bike after a week of rain!

I had a gluteny bagel today. The last wheat bagel they had. GF bagels just don’t really cut it.

After a nice brekkie, John headed a different way to get a flu shot and I went home. I took the path back and then stopped in the little park where the mums are blooming.

So pretty! I love mums. Well, really I love all flowers (as if you all didn’t know that…). It was so nice to see the sun, too. It has been too long.

It was hard to get into work today. You know those days. Then I got my paycheck, which I was all excited about until I looked at it and it was missing a zero at the end. They made a mistake with my check and now I have to wait for the new one to come. 🙄 At least they are right on it, though. I do like this company a lot.

Lunch time! I had made some ricotta puffs this weekend, so I had those with blueberry sauce and a bit of coconut butter.

This was warm in my tummy for a cool day. We are supposed to hit 30 degrees tonight! 😯 I might have to cover up a few flowers that don’t do well in the freeze.

More hints of fall – we have a pie pumpkin!

I might try canning some cooked pumpkin and see what happens. If Libby’s can do it, so can I, right?

John wasn’t so busy today, so he got up to fall cooking shenanigans with these little pumpkin cookies:

Most of them are going to his poker game tonight, but at least one ended up in my tummy

Dinner tonight was supposed to be teriyaki chicken thighs, but they were not thawed out. So, clams it is!

Plus the worst.plum.ever. Ever. It was mealy and tasteless. I threw it out, which is really rare for me. I have 2 others and I hope they are better than this one. Booo….

Pink picture of the day – my camera case!

Commence to clicking everyone!

I decided I do need to get out there and cover up some plants – Happy Fall!

More flat tires!

Just a quick miscellaneous post today as I am swamped with stuff to do.

I just had to share Bagel Wednesday, though!

Check out the temperature this morning when we arrived.

It actually popped up a degree while I was getting my camera out. The overnight low was in the upper 40s 😯

I had a delicious wheat bagel with maple walnut cream cheese today. I don’t normally like sweetened cream cheese, but I do love the maple goodness!

We biked home and 2 miles from home, would you know – another flat! WTF?!!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?

What is going on with that! That is 5 flat tires since April, 4 of them occurring in the past couple of weeks. We got that changed with our last tube and finished out the ride, but that put me behind for the day. John spent part of the day with the new ultimate patch kit for our tubes. It is a permanent patch and better than the scabs. I may have to get a thicker tire or something, but it is less than a year old!

Sigh…. My forehead wrinkle has gone from a wrinkle, to a divot, to now a crevasse.

Regarding the run last night. We ran the whole 1.25 miles on the way there. Or jogged, rather. It was okay. A little uncomfortable and I wasn’t really loving it all that much.

We enjoyed our coffee and walked some of the way home, then jogged for the last little over 1/2 mile home. So about 1-3/4 miles of jogging.

Today, my left thigh is tight and stiff, but no knee pain. So that is good. I am not sure where I will take this from here, if anywhere. Just thought I would update you all.

Gotta run! Things to do, people to see, places to go and all that stuff.

Double Dip Ride and ammonites

No long bike rides to report this weekend. It was pretty rainy on both days, but we did manage to sneak in a ride this morning to breakfast. It was sort of misty out, but we decided to just go while it wasn’t actually pouring! We met my mom at the new cafe for breakfast:

The place seems to be doing okay. The prices are pretty low. 3 coffees, 2 bagels, and 1 muffin = $8.43. 😯

We biked a roundabout way home. The paths were too wet to be on, so we stayed on the roads. Such a big difference in speed going on asphalt without having to stop so much. Very little traffic, too. My favorite time to ride is Sunday morning when the roads are clear for the most part (except near churches). Total distance 13.6 miles – average speed 13.8 mph! Awesome!

Lunch time came pretty quick. I had to be careful pulling a can out of the pantry. Hmmmm… which one is mine?

As you see, I made the correct choice (or did I??). Lunch on the porch just as some rain was arriving.

Chilly today, too. Temps only hit the mid 60s. This weekend was the LARAC arts festival. My mom and I decided to go rain or shine. Shopping takes precedence over weather! I made up a latte to go to bring with me.

Have latte, will travel.

It was raining when we first got there.

I wish I could show more pictures of the booths, but most don’t want you to take pictures. This is the biggest art show of the year up here and there are some incredibly talented people.

We did see this little guy, though, who wanted his picture taken. One of the vendors had him. 8 weeks old and exuding cuteness out of every pore!

I managed to avoid the candied nuts – go me! I had a couple samples of things, but didn’t buy any food. No long bike rides to burn off the calories today. I purchased a couple Christmas gifts. Hooray for starting early! Now as long as I don’t misplace them between now and December…

I also got myself a couple items. I am actually pretty frugal (my sister says cheap), but I do buy things when they really strike me. 2 things did that today.

One was a suncatcher type. This picture doesn’t do it justice.

It is made of brass and copper. I am not sure if I am going to hang it outside or inside yet. The thing I love about this picture? We built the pantry so people wouldn’t have to see all our food. Then I go and leave the door open on it.

And then I bought this pendant for myself.

I loved it when I laid eyes on it. It is an ammonite fossil. I have laughingly been calling it my Mennonite because I was having trouble remembering the name.

I love fossils and natural things, and I loved how this was wrapped to have little ‘tentacles’.

I have always read to find a signature piece that you wear, and I think this will be mine.

Yay!

I came home and cooked a quick dinner after having a handful of these:

I ended up having fish at 2 meals. Me, the non-fish lover! This was a breaded fish filet.

These strawberries were excellent, too.

The weather radar had cleared some, and I decided to go out for a quick solo spin to bump my miles up to 20. Total miles biked today – 20.5! Not the big rides as of late, but better than none at all.

Yep, addicted.

The green, green trails of home

Would you like to come along on 2 rides? The weather was a little hit or miss this weekend. At first, we were going to go for a longer ride on Saturday, but there was rain coming on radar. Then we decided to go for a shorter ride and get it in before the rain came. We chose to go through the streets to Crandall Park.

John is watching the kids across the street. They were driving/pedaling a big pink jeep, which was cute.

Crandall Park is about 8 miles from home. It is next door to the Y, where I used to go when I was training for the triathlon.

It’s actually right next to the main road, but you wouldn’t know it. It looks very secluded.

You can just make out the road in the background

The water is full of fish, bluegills and something else that is much bigger. Bass maybe?

Funny, you can fish here if you are a senior citizen or under 15, but not in between. I am thinking a Memorial Weekend picnic here is in order (Mom, Dad?)

We got home 17 miles round trip. And it started to rain just as we got home!

Sunday we decided to bike farther to breakfast and try a new bagel place. I fueled up with a protein drink before heading out the door. It was cloudy and really humid today. We decided not to stray too far from home today as rain was forecast for the mid afternoon.

The path to Lake George was exploding in green. Here is where the path leaves Glens Falls and enters the Adirondaks. This is about 7.5 miles in.

That building to the left is an ice cream shop. One of the many. We actually don’t go here often because they serve Edy’s ice cream, which we can buy in the store, plus no yogurt. They do have jazz concerts on Sundays in the summer, though.

I stopped a few times to take pictures because it was so crazy green! Almost like the Emerald Forest. This is the top of a hill before going down and curving around.

Time for a quick sugar snack at mile 11. I was getting hungry by this time and super sweaty from the humidity.

I love ginger! Note the thread on my gloves. They are already falling apart. I am so hard on my stuff.

We had a bit more of a climb and then a 2 mile free for all down hill. I hit 28 mph! The nice thing about early Sunday mornings is that only dweebs are out that early, so John and I had the path pretty much to ourselves.

We arrived to Lake George at 16 miles. We both decided that is too far for breakfast. The new place that opened in Lake George?

An interesting concept. This place was really long and narrow. A little odd. Not much seating, but in an Adirondack style.

I had a cheddar bagel with cream cheese.

They ran out of coffee before we each got a cup, though! Had to wait for it to be brewed. Nice fresh coffee, but having to wait after biking 16 miles was hard. The bagel had a nice flavor to it, and they made them there, which is nice. I would have liked a chewier crust, though. Not sure if they boil these bagels or just bake them.

The Lake is about ready for tourists.

All the cheesy t-shirt shops are open now. Lake George is an odd mix.

They do have an awesome bakery – the Lake George Baking Company.

We each got something to go to have later.

We headed back, this time climbing up for 2 miles. Powered by bagel!

Wouldn’t be surprised if the city of Oz showed up at the end of the path.

At mile 30, we stopped at a garden center that I have been dying to go into every time we bike by.

I drank some coconut water:

I then proceeded to almost hyperventilate at all the flowers. This is one of those nurseries that is just a joy to go to because their displays are wonderful. And they had 11 greenhouses. 11!!! We only looked at 3:

John reminded me that it could rain, so I made a plan to come back later on my own by car

We then headed home and reached there at mile 38.8.

Ride stats:

Total miles : 38.8

Ride time: 3 hours 6 minutes

Average speed: 12.4 mph

Top speed: 28 mph!

Calories burned: 1164.

I was really hoping for a longer ride today, but the weather was iffy, although it turned out to be okay – so we could have gone further. I did enjoy going back to the garden center, though.

Oh, and my item bought at the bakery?

An almond horn! One of my favorite cookies. We had lattes at home with our snacks.

Question: Is your area green or dry right now?

Blooms and bagels

What a nice day today! It was cloudy, but not raining, so we biked on to Orange Cat cafe for breakfast.

I had a blueberry bagel with fluffy cream cheese. I think they switched over to whipped or something. Pretty generous with it as well…

It was really humid today, though. I was dripping sweat during today’s ride. For the last mile and a half of the ride, I really pushed it, keeping the speed at an average 16 mph for that time. Phew! I need to do more of that. 12 miles down today and full tummy.

Work was spotty for the first part of the day, so I got some work done on the renovation. Just about done painting and the tile is just about grouted. We might even install the toilet and sink this weekend! We do still need to buy the door to the bathroom and the pantry, but we were waiting for a day with no rain as the doors will be sticking out of the car some. Good luck with that, right? April showers and all that.

Lunch time:

I also snagged a granola bar that John made for his Wednesday poker game:

This warm weather has caused some blooms! My early tulips came up.

It’s amazing how one day nothing and the next – blooms!

Latte snack with almond milk:

Almond milk makes a lot of foam, but I don’t care for that so much because it is a dry foam. I like silky milk foam better.

Plus, I had a couple bowls of peanuts and chocolate chips.

Sigh. It’s almost enough to make me give up the wheat for good, but not quite.

I thought long and hard about some canned salmon for dinner, as John bought a can a while ago and it has been sitting there in the pantry for a while. I just couldn’t do it, though. Instead – I had popcorn fish!

Tonight, I am going to swear off the snacking. I just need to hydrate right now with this warm weather

Pixie wore herself out today. We had windows open and she was all ADHD going from window to window to check them out. She needed a nap:

Now she is sleeping.

Question: Do you take naps?

Finding Radiance

Trying to live a fit life loving food, cycling, gardening and everything in between!