Category Archives: broccoli

January wrap up

I can’t believe it is the last day of January!  Funny how the first part of the month seemed to go by slow, and then the last week zipped by.  I think it happened, I just don’t remember the specifics 😀

Mondays are now the new run days for me.  No lifting.  I headed out this morning and it was noticeably lighter out – yay!  I hopped on the treadmill and did 3 quick (relatively) miles.  Then it was time for breakfast (my very favorite part of the day).

Banana custard oats with peanut flour and jam.

Delicious!

Look how beautiful and sunny it was out today.


Guess that is to appease for the 2 snow storms that will be here the next couple of days.  More than a foot total by the end of Wednesday.  Yay….  Of course, you know that means moving Bagel Wednesday dammit!

I had a very yummy lunch today.  I mixed up some Vanilla Greek yogurt with pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice, then topped with toasted pecans.

With a pear.  This time anjou instead of red pears (they were on sale).

So the month of January is done.  I didn’t really set any goals for myself because I had done my to-do list for the entire year. But, here is the progress towards some of those goals.

1.  Weight. I am in weight loss mode right now.  I lost 2.5 pounds for the month of January.  I am a little ambivalent about that, as it wasn’t even all that I gained in the week of Christmas.  Love how what comes on in a week takes 2 months to get off.   Of course, I wasn’t strictly adherent and had cupcakes, and soft pretzels, and a weekend chocolate binge 😀 .  I would probably have done better had I not enjoyed those so much (but I don’t care).

2.  Practice guitar 3 times a week.  I have been doing awesome on this.  I have been doing 5 days a week, and have progressed my time to at least 20 minutes per session.  It’s building up the fingers as they get sore from playing.  I broke a string yesterday and even went right out to get a new one so that my zone wouldn’t get interrupted (which was also an excuse for the library and coffee yesterday  – bonus!).  Gotta keep it up.

3. Learn basic plumbing.  I have been reading books and John made up plans for our half bath we are going to install ourselves in the laundry room.  Most of you probably don’t know that I rehabbed 2 houses myself, so I can do a lot of home maintenance/rennovation, but plumbing other than seating a new toilet or sink was not something I did.  Now I will do that.  We are taking the plans to get the permit this week.  I am excited about that!

4. Make more money this year.  Well, I lost one of my jobs, so strike out on that one so far LOL!

So, some progress made already.  Now I need some specific smaller goals for February to talk about tomorrow.

I forgot to take a picture of my latte today, which I had with half of a protein bar, but you can imagine that.

I did, however, get a shot of dinner!

John made up some tomato sauce the other day and I decided to put in on the chicken.  I am so adventurous!  Winter blend on the side.  It was more like cauliflower florets and chunks of broccoli stems.   Lame! I am a broccoli snob.  I like Bird’s Eye baby broccoli florets – and that is what you pretty much always see  on my blog.  I am brand loyal on certain things and my florets are one of them.

Evening snack tonight?

Pistachios all portioned out and waiting for me to get hungry.  Stay safe and warm all snow bound peeps!  Think spring really hard 😀

Question: How was your January?

Fly by day.

Where did the day go?  Ever have days like that?  Woke up to a drizzly, gray day today.    I even had trouble deciding what to have for breakfast, so I pretty much had the same banana custard oats I had yesterday!

We then hit the farmers market so I could pick up some more parsnips and I am going to try beets this week!  White ones, though – not red.

Then we went and did work at my rental house.  The tenant left, so we are doing the little fixups before closing in about 9 day (fingers crossed!).  I still need to get it cleaner.  People are just dirty….

Came home to lunch of baked clam strips and a granny smith apple!

Then we went back to the house for  a little bit and did more work before deciding we needed some coffee!  It seems like we go out for coffee a lot, but we really don’t spend much money on other things.  We never go to the movies or other entertainment stuff, so coffee it is!

Yum:

John and I split this cookie, too.

And lookie what is in the background.  Might be the May edition of Shape magazine…..  (separate post coming up!)

By the time we got back home, it was about dinner time.  I reheated some coconut curry that John made, although I put broccoli in it while John had his with rice.  Need to work on getting that boy to eat broccoli!

He just sauteed chicken with curry powder, and then added some lite coconut milk and cashews.  Easy and tasty!

2 presents arrived by mail today.  One was for me:

The other was a present I bought John for taking such good care of me while I  recover from my herniated disk.

He’s been really wanting to bake good bread and home and has been going hit or miss, so I got him this book.

Movie night tonight from Netflix.  And probably some chocolate.  All this moving around today has exhausted me, which is a weird feeling.  I cannot wait to be back to normal (or what passes as normal around here, anyway!)

Guess I will end the randomness of today’s post. It’s kind of like how the day went 😀

Question:  Are you a bread baker?

Lifting and destressing.

Maple Syrup Giveaway!!

Seems like about half of you like tofu and half don’t!  It seems either all or nothing as well.  One of those polarizing foods.

Killer work out today.  No biking, because it was still rainy and breezy when I got up 🙁   Tomorrow, though!  I had a protein snack before leaving the house.

After a treadmill warm up, I did the following:

  • Chin ups:  3 sets of 2
  • Barbell squats:  Warm up of 10 at 45#,  set of 10 at 75#, set of 8 at 95#, set of 6 at 105#, set of 4 at 115#!

Superset:

  • Incline barbell chest press:  3 sets of 8 at 55#
  • Reverse lunge/forward reach:  3 sets of 10 with 8# DBs

Superset:

  • Walking lunges:  3 sets of 8 (each leg) with 15# DBs
  • Push ups:  3 sets of 10

Superset:

  • Front raise:  3 sets of 10 with 8# DBs
  • Triceps kickback:  3 sets of 10 with 15# DBs

Superset:

  • Reverse crunches:  3 sets of 15
  • Lower back extension (machine): 3 sets of 10 at 100#

Then I got on the treadmill again, thinking I would do some HIIT or a little jogging, but I was completely wiped from that workout.   It took about 45 minutes to get through that routine.  I felt really weak, too.   Lifting can do that to you! After 10 minutes, I got off and picked up John for bagels.

I did not try this coffee, but I found the name intriguing.

It’s probably 1/2 caff, which is never on my morning agenda.

I was so hungry that I snarfed my bagel before a picture:

After I ate this, my stomach felt like nothing had even gone in, not even the large coffee!  One of those bottomless pit days, I guess.

Got to work right away with another web conference.  They have been conferencing us out this week!

Kashi cereal sample arrived in the mail (I heart Kashi):

I incorporated it into lunch with greek yogurt, vanilla protein powder and strawberries.

I used half of this sample.  I really, really liked this cereal – which is a problem for me, as I am sure you all know how I have a cereal snack problem.  I don’t know if I would dare have a whole box of this in the house.  The little sample came with a $1 coupon, too! 😯

The sun has been trying to peek out a little today, with little showers.  It’s definitely spring!  I was looking at my garden bed today and more and more things are showing their heads.  Yay!

Snack time!

Plus the last of the 100 calorie organic cookies:

These were also good.

Finished up work early today.  I have scaled back my schedule a little bit.  I was trying to hit a certain $ amount each day with lines and because we get paid more for certain lines than others (speech recognition versus straight transcription), I would never know when I would finish for the day, which was getting annoying.  Plus, you just burn out after too many lines.  I was giving myself some undue stress about it.  With selling the rental house, it is not so imperative to have every line count.  So, I have just been hitting the company minimum and it has made me much, much happier.

Dinner time!  I was still feeling like a bottomless pit, so I sauteed up 2 cups of broccoli to make a stir fry with.  Gotta bulk it up!

Yum!!!  I hope I never get tired of broccoli.

Relaxing evening on tap tonight.  We have an MST3K movie from Netflix to watch.  I just love that show – it cracks me up.  Which really cements my geekdom, I’ll tell you.  😳   This is one of the reasons I will have to keep John around forever.  All of our shorthand jokes based on this show and The Simpsons would be too hard to train  a new husband in. :mrgreen:

Question:  Is your job stressful, and if so, how do you relieve that?

Comfort zone challenges and big broccoli

Happy Thursday and the start of my weekend!  I managed to consume a fair amount of dark chocolate chips last night.   🙄 It was one of those evenings where I couldn’t seem to make myself stop.  So, I got up for a treadmill run today.  I ate a toasted waffle with a bit of jam on it before heading to the gym.  Then it was 5 miles!  I decided to have a little fun (??)  and push out of my comfort zone a bit.

Mile 1:  Gradual increase from 4 to 5 mph.

Mile 2: Upped to 5.5 mph.

Mile 3:  At 3.5 miles, I started increasing the speed on the treadmill by .1 after each minute, so that I was up to 6 mph by mile 4.

Mile 4:  Spent 1/2 a mile at 6 mph and then did the same trick to increase by .1 after each minute to get to 6.5 mph by mile 5.

Mile 5:  Here was my challenge.  I stayed at 6.5 for a couple minutes to get comfortable, then increased by .1 each minute to 7mph!  I stayed at 7 mph for 1 minute and then backed down to 6 mph and finished out the mile.  Then cool down.

Funny how when you go at 7 mph and back down to 6, it seems so much easier.  This made the time go by really fast, too.

Since we got cheated out of bagels yesterday (thanks mother nature!), we decided to go this morning!  I picked John up and had my multigrain.  Sure makes it feel like Wednesday to me.

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Had a hard time staying focused at work.  Ever have days like that?  Just kind of blah and knowing it’s my last work day of the week.  Plus, my sister’s elderly cat passed away today and I feel very bad for her.

Wanted something comforting for lunch, so I decided on protein pancakes.  Topped with mashed banana and a tablespoon of maple syrup.

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Sure was good….  I love nice filling lunches.  Lunch always seems to be the meal that doesn’t stick with my very long.  Not sure why that is.

John won football picks *again* this week (stupid Ravens!!! 👿  ) and he decided on Chinese.  We went to an inexpensive little takeout place that has brown rice.  What else do you do when waiting for your food?  Take pictures!

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Love the neon lighting :mrgreen:

Now this is a bowl of broccoli I could get seriously into!

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My meal was teryaki chicken.  Hello sodium bloat! It was actually a little m’eh.

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My stirfry last night was much better.  Sometimes I love eating out and other times I am very disappointed.

Ornament of the day:

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Mr Grinch! I love this ornament.  Of course, it is my favorite Christmas special, too 😀

I am so glad it is my weekend!

Question:  When was the last time you stepped out of your comfort zone?

NROLW, bagels, and books!

New Rules workout this morning.  Just one more workout after this one!

  • Incline barbell bench press:  2 sets of 8 at 65 pounds
  • Seat row:  2 sets of 8 at 70 pounds
  • Static lunge with rear foot elevated:  4 sets of 15 with 25# plate
  • Push ups:  4 sets of 15
  • Romanian barbell deadlift: 4 sets of 15 at 65 pounds
  • Dumbbell bent over row:  4 sets of 15 with 20 pound dumbbells

I felt weak today.  Although I did increase the weights on the first 2 exercises.  I think it was the 6-mile run yesterday that made me fatigued today for such a difficult workout.  The pushups were so hard today, but I did them.   I did a little treadmill walking and then went for my reward!

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I liked this little bookmark thingie.

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Worked fast today.  I was in a real rhythm and plowed through my lines.  Lunch break for a really boring lunch LOL!

I got tired of tuna, but still had a packet left.  I really wanted more protein for lunch for recovery, so I had that mixed with some lemon pepper and light mayo.  Served with Wheat Thins and carrots.  Does this not look like a ‘diet’ plate?

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Mid afternoon yum!

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Sitting on top of the paperwork for my Olympus.  It was sent out today.  God speed little camera……

Ready for another load of broccoli?  I opened a new bag and accidentally poured too much into the pan.

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This was the most delicious red pear, too.  It almost tasted appley.

So what does a hip woman do when she is done with work and ready to paint the town red?

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When John goes to the library, he will get 1 or maybe 2 books out.  I have a problem and usually end up with at least 6, and today was no exception.  3 Christmas CDs and 6 books!

This one seems quite interesting.  I already try to practice this, but maybe I’ll learn something new.

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To solidify my dorkdum, I love to sit on the couch after getting home from the library and surround myself with all my books.  It’s like Christmas morning and I switch from book to book because I can’t settle on one 😀

Question:  Do you read more fact or fiction?  (I am in a nonfiction mode lately)

Will be productive for soup!

You know how yesterday I was saying how I didn’t get anything done? Today was a whole nuther ballgame!  I was raining when I got up (Hello Ida remnants), so I had to wait a bit until my gym opened up at 8am.  I had a Zone bar for a preworkout snackie.  Then off to the gym and hit the treadmill for 5 miles.  It felt good to really break a sweat.  You know you are on the treadmill a long time when you see people come in, watch them work out and then they leave, all while you are doing the same thing 😛

I arrived home ready to devour my arm and commenced to cooking some Banana, cashew butter, and apple butter oats.

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These were fantastic!  John was laughing at me because I kept saying “yum” while I was eating them.  Extra hunger = extra good taste.

Off to shop, passed by Great Escape on our way.

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Hit the outlet malls – serious sales going on today.

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And found a coffee mug that’s just right for me!

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We were hungry at this point and headed to Samantha’s where one of the soups of the day was Squash and apple bisque!  I just had to have a bowl with some fresh made wheat bread.

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Soooooo good.  It was a soupy kind of day.  Then it was off to the mall for more shopping.  We actually got a nice start on the Christmas stuff that we are buying.  We will make other things for people as well.

Took a break for this!

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I had a skim latte. John got an eggnog latte.   I am trying to wait until Thanksgiving before I have one, but I had a couple sips of his.  Eggnog is like crack to me.  I could bathe in its creamy goodness 😯

More productivity with grocery shopping and then a stop at the smokehouse to stock up on meat.  We got chicken breast, ground beef, turkey breast, boneless pork chops, and bacon. There are some great benefits to shopping locally if you can.  Boneless chicken breasts at $2.09 per pound!  I love that we can support local farmers and the local processor all in one fell swoop.

All of this happened by 4 pm!  We were on a roll.

Obviously had some fresh meat for dinner – chicken with a slice of bacon and laughing cow!  Yum!!!  It’s amazing how just 1 slice of bacon can add so much flavor.

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And a mondo amount of broccoli!

I am going to relax tonight with the hubby and watch movies.  One of those rainy nights just perfect for that!

Have a great night!

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!

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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!

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

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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:

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We split this beer – cheers!

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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!

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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.

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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?

Blood donation and chilly run.

Woke up this morning and it was again 32 degrees!  I was going to run outside as I don’t like to drive to the gym just to run unless it is precipitating horribly outside.  So, I made some fantabulous oats for breakfast and got right to work:

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40 grams of oats, 1 medium banana (part cooked in, a few slices for garnish), blueberry jam, peanut butter.  (Note  it was dark out when I made these, too early).  So freaking good!  Some days food tastes even more amazing, and this was one of them.  Maybe because I was hungry, but not starving like after a workout.

Worked until 10:30 and saw the temp was getting close to 40.  I knew it probably wouldn’t get much warmer, plus we had afternoon stuff scheduled, so here I was contemplating the thought of being cold!

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….. nice camera……

I am just a wuss, because the cold only lasts about 10 minutes, then I get hot and sweaty when running, even in almost freezing weather!  3.2 miles of sweaty goodness, although I should have snacked before I went out.

Had a fun lunch of Total Blueberry Pomegranate (love this stuff!), lowfat vanilla yogurt and a chopped kiwi.  I have never had kiwi on my yogurt cereal mash before, and I liked it.  😀

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After more work, we took a break to donate blood.  It was lickety split because no one was in line, and my veins were really fast today.  I don’t even think it took 1/2 hour from start to finish at the snack table.

My iron was at 15.4  – Broccoli and chicken rock!!  My iron was higher than John’s LOL.

Afterwards,  I had a bottled water and 1 Lorna Doone (my favorite post donation cookie).

dooneDidn’t want the whole pack because we went out for a latte at Cool Beans, where I spotted my pink item:

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I chose a skim latte and it was tasty.

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Not too hot, either.  Most times, coffee shops make the lattes hotter than the sun and I burn myself.

Did more work before dinner and then wanted more fall-themed goodness:

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Chicken on wheat bread with Cabot reduced fat cheddar topped with cranberry sauce (toasted).  Plus more broccoli – go iron!!

I’ll be working late tonight since I flexed time to donate blood and have coffee.  Plus I have to make more soap.  Busy!  Sitting here snacking on some unpictured cashews while busting out this post.  I admitted them back into the house after being banned for a while and maybe it was too soon.  I’ve eaten too many today.  Think I will put them in the freezer.

PSA:  Don’t forget to donate blood if you are eligible!  It’s a little inconvenient, but you can save up to 3 lives with each donation.  I hope that whomever gets my blood will get a little bit of radiance. 😀

I also found out that it takes 5 days for your body to replace the red blood cells that you donate.  Ooopsss… I have a race on Saturday (weather permitting).  Might be a little slow – or at least that is my excuse and I am sticking with it!

Tomorrow is biking to bagel day, hopefully.  Catch you on the flip side!