Category Archives: latte

I love good customer service!

Wednesdays = long days.  Not all of it bad, though.  John and I have our usual breakfast out.  We went to North Country Cafe and I saw that they had eggnog scones.  Would *I* pass up the nog? I think not.  Nice thing is, the scones here are not overly sweet.  Since I detoxed sugar yesterday, I didn’t want to go overboard today.


The scone was good, but not quite what I was hoping for.  It was moist (probably thanks to the nog), but need a rum or nutmeg flavor to it.  Like a glaze! 😀

This cafe is by the library, where I got a call that this book I had reserved came in.

Debby – I finally got it!  Now I need to find the time to read it. Although, I already am annoyed at a few pages that I flipped through as John drove home! LOL

Wednesdays are also the days I meet with my literacy learner.  I can walk to the meeting place.  We have to meet in public places, and the county building offers a room for use a couple times a week, which actually is kind of nice.  It’s a touch over half a mile to get there, which gives me a nice 1 mile walk in the morning.

Tutoring is hard, I have to say.  The thing with adult learners is that there are just holes in the learning and you don’t know where those holes are until you fall into them.  I am finding my lesson plans aren’t good for doody once I get into the lesson, so some improvising has to take place.  Tutoring is also tiring – surprisingly so.  For both me and the learner!

All of this, of course, shoots my work day all to hell and I have to pretty much start at the beginning right after lunch.

Italian sausage. How is that for different?  We were going to make some jambalaya this week with chicken and sausage, but have been too busy to make it.  So, we are eating the components separately 😀  So much for actually trying to plan meals.

Dinner time came around and John cooked a sweet potato and we made chicken.  Again, a component of the non-existent jambalaya!  My potato had laughing cow spread on it and BBQ chicken.

Johns potato had butter and cinnamon on it with some sugar, I think.  He thinks the way I make my potato is wrong.  I decided I am not into the ‘sweet’ sweet potatoes.

 

Awesome news on the latte machine front – the frother works again!

This is an almond milk latte and my second of the day 😀  (although decaf).

One thing that makes me loyal is good customer service.  I bought this machine from Seattle Coffee Gear after reading great reviews about them and their service.  First off, it is way the heck across the country from me and they shipped super fast when I first got my machine.

Then I called today and got right with a support person, told them my machine and my problem and they walked me through the steps to take over the phone.  Super, super knowledgeable people there. Turns out a little pinhole on the steamer wand was clogged and I just needed to clean it out.  I was sooooo happy!

If you ever need anything espresso or coffee related, I highly recommend them!

Now I sit here happily drinking my almond milk latte and need to sign off and get back to work.  Long night ahead of me 😀  – and I managed not to have any fudge today, either!  Go Lori!!  yes, it is decaf I am drinking…

 

Espresso machine is here!

Woo Hoo!  The espresso machine arrived 2 days early!  Yay!  I guess the shipping was caffeinated or something.  I was going to do posting like usual, but this is most exciting 😀

This is the Saeco Sirenza.  They used to be sold at Starbucks as the home barista machine.  In fact, the pressure dial says Starbucks on it!

 

We played with it a bit with just the water, then made drinks!

First latte out of the box:

 

It was really good, too!  I am sipping this while posting. We still need to play around with the grind of the coffee to get better crema, but I am just happy to have my lattes back!

The cool thing is that you can just steam milk by itself any time, so we can do steamed cider or steamed chai lattes.  I know you can actually scramble an egg with a steam wand, but I may wait a bit on that  :mrgreen:

I have also become uber busy all of the sudden. What was going to be a normal week has become very busy. I  may be a little sporadic with the posting.  I will, however, be caffeinated!!

Bye, bye espresso machine

Last night we finished the workshops for literacy tutor training! It ended up as a family affair. My mother and I went the full sessions, and then the last session last night,  John came for the math tutoring (he didn’t need all the reading stuff). He has to go for one more training class on GED preparation, but I decided to work with basic literacy and not GED. I will go next week and get matched with a learner and we should have our first meeting after Thanksgiving!  This is a long commitment.  It is meeting weekly for a year.

Anyway, I am glad all that training is done and that it is Fridaaaaaaay! Back to lifting! I have not gone in a week in order to really rest my foot and my wrist. I missed my lifting.

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Barbell Split Squats 3 sets of 10 with 65# bar Lower Body
Dumbbell Pullover 3 sets of 10 with 25# DB Back
Dumbbell Chest Fly 3 sets of 10 with 15# DBs Chest
Good Mornings 3 sets of 10 with 60# bar (increased) Hammies, low back
 Captain Chair 3 sets of 10 Core
Triceps Kickbacks 3 sets of 10 with 15# DBs  (30# total) Triceps
Arnold Press 3 sets of 10 with 10# DBs (20# total) Shoulders
Lower Back Extension 3 sets of 10 at 80# Low back

Then I treadmill walked before heading home for brekkie.  I decided to toast up the last of the grain-free bread I made, and paired it with the apple cranberry topping for something different.

This was surprisingly filling because the bread has a higher fat content.

Then it was off to the races for work.  So busy right now.  I think some people have gone on vacation early, or are just slacking on Friday.

It was a cold day today, so soup was in order for lunch.  I ate up the last of my roasted red pepper tomato soup.  I added a bunch of chili powder, then added in some chopped cooked chicken breast and topped with 1/2 ounce of shredded cheddar and some light sour cream.

Tasty! Dessert was some of these:

Both John and I were quite busy in the afternoon.  I took a break to make lattes.  Latte time is actually a pretty specific time of day.  2:30 pretty much.  Today it was a little late because we were both caught up in work.

Alas, there is a sad moment here.  Our espresso machine died today.

Just as I finished up the lattes, the machine sort of blew up.  It blew out the seal and all this steam came out.  Then it smelled kind of funny. I imagine that could have been something really bad if it had happened when the most pressure was in there instead of the end.  Occasionally luck does go my way.  Let’s all have a moment of silence…

Here is its last latte:

We salute you Mr. Coffee with a little pumpkin liqueur.  Cause it is Friday, after all!

Now to shop for a new one.  We have been thinking about upgrading for a while, and probably will be getting one of those little hand press ones that are supposed to be for coffee snobs.  Not that I am a coffee snob…Or much of one… Okay, I’m a coffee snob.  But nothing wrong with that!

After a walk, it was time for dinner.  John decided he wanted pizza, but I was no grain today.  So he walked down the street and I made up some yummy dinner!

I sauteed up some broccoli, then added chopped cooked chicken thighs to heat up.  I remove that from the pan, then added a tablespoon of butter to the pan, 1 ounce of light cream cheese and a tablespoon of milk to the pan.  I heated that up until the cream cheese melted, added salt and pepper and then tossed with the chicken and  broccoli.

Served over top of a potato, which you can barely see.  I try to buy potatoes that are a proper portion size of 5 ounces and that actually is a pretty small potato.  This was a very good dinner!

I have a pan of grain free pumpkin pie bars in the oven right now.  I revamped a recipe to make it grain free and subbed out a few things and I really hope these turn out so I can share the recipe.

The batter looks good at any rate!

Looks like we might get in one last bike ride for the season this weekend.  I really hope so.  I know I am just reaaallllly glad it is the weekend.

Question:  Any fun weekend plans?

New biking kicks!

Woke up to a rainy, dreary day.  I slept until 7, which is pretty late for me!  Felt like a nice warm bowl of oats.  Gingerbread oats, to be exact!

With a wee bit of fluff 😀

Then we packed up some old computer stuff to recycle at Best Buy.  Then it was off to get me some clipless pedals for my bike!  I really would like a new bike all together, but budget wise for now I am just upgrading piece by piece my current one.  We stopped at Blue Sky Bicycles in Saratoga.  There were a lot of drool worthy bikes there, and some affordable ones, as well.  But, I was on a mission for shoes and clips.  The staff was incredibly friendly and helpful today.  Surprisingly, the best shoe for me is a mountain bike shoe.

The cleat is sunken below the bottom of the shoe, which makes walking off bike easier.

It also is not as stiff soled as a road bike shoe, which would fit more of the type of biking we do from a comfort perspective.

The pedals that I got to go with are a dual pedal, with the clips on one side:

and a regular pedal on the other.

This way I can hop on the bike to go to the gym without having to wear the clip shoes.  Yay!

I would rather have a different color shoe, but these fit the best.  I cannot believe how comfy they are.  I was expecting something super tight and rigid, but these feel great!

After this, we went on to Chipotle for lunch.  I had a chicken salad.  Skipped the rice so I could get sour cream and cheese (love those 2 items).

I also needed bike shorts.  I am confessing to you all that I do not have padded bike shorts.  I have biked 50 miles with no padding and it doesn’t bother me!  It’s either my bike seat or my personal padding, I don’t know.  However, with a 100-mile ride planned, I think I  had better pad it up.

Hello loose skin 😀  I tried on this bike jersey, too.  Not real crazy about this, but I liked the color.  Didn’t get the shirt. I did get the shorts.  It’s like wearing a diaper.

Latte break!

Plus these cool larabar-type nuggets made by a local company.

Got home and put the clips on the bike (as seen in above pictures).

My and the new shoes!

Work it, baby!  They do give me a stubby leg look (okay, I had that look before…. never mind…).  Short test run followed.  I did good getting in and out of them.  You just need to twist your foot a little to the side and it pops right out.  The hardest part is getting the 2nd foot in the clip while going.  That will just take practice.  It forced me much more to the front of my foot than I normally ride, so that will take getting used to.  The other thing?  I am going to have to raise the seat on my bike!  The height of the clip combined with the extra height of the shoe and being more on the forefoot and I probably need an inch raise or more.  I thought I was going to eat my knee.  It felt so weird.

I really like these shoes.  It is supposed to improve your efficiency by 30% and I believe it.  Even with not having full strength in my leg, I could tell how much more power I had and an evenness to my pedal stroke.

Dinner time!  Small baker with ground beef and BBQ sauce and laughing cow.  It was quite good!

Too bad the weather is so bad today, or I would go back out and try the pedals again.

I will be having a cookie tonight:

With a cup of tea.

Have a happy Mother’s day tomorrow!  I am taking my mom out for a bagel 😀

Status quo?

It’s a beautiful morning!  Sing it!  Actually, it is very nice today.  Still a little cool, but the sunshine is out!  It feels good to be done (pretty much) with the real estate deal.  It’s funny, but whenever a firetruck would go blaring by in the direction of my old property, I always had a thought it could be going there.  Today a firetruck went by and I realized that I don’t have to worry about that anymore!

I slept really well last night.  Fell asleep around 11 and woke up at 7, which is a *lot* of sleep for me.  😀   Decided that I wanted some banana pecan custard oats for brekkie today.  I put 5 pecans in the microwave for about a minute to toast them up.

Topped with marshmallow fluff.  This was a very tasty bowl indeed.

Got right to work.  It’s funny how work gets slow and busy, and you just never know when that will be.  I need to decide whether to stay with this job or not.  The main reason I took this job was because of the investment property and needing extra money to cover it while I waited (spinning wheels, so to speak).   John and I were talking about what I should do next.  I always feel like I have to be doing something, but I think it is okay to tread water for a little bit (which is pretty much what I did the last year).  There is nothing wrong with the status quo, at least for a while.

Lunch time!

Tuna salad and FSTG sweet potato chips.  These are good, but most of the bag was all busted up.  Boooooo – these are too pricey for that to happen.

I wanted to share a super cute picture of Pixie.  Even though she is several years old, she will suckle on her own toe (guess I would call it a thumb if she actually had one).  I don’t know why she does it, and she only does it when she is on one of our laps.  I think it was because she got weaned too early as a kitten, but we will never know.  So, here she is doing that:

She kneads with the other paw while she is doing this.  Everyone say “awww….”

Latte time!  Plus an Attune bar.

We won’t mention the cookie dough ball I snuck in there as well.

Note how I balance the latte on my laptop which is balanced on my lap.  One of my less endearing traits is the risks I take with my electronics.

Dinner time is a fast one.  Baked crabcake topped with hot sauce!  I am almost out of my hot sauce, too. These are called Smart Option crab cakes (I wrote carb cake LOL) and are 170 calories each.  The smart is because they are inexpensive, I think.

Posting early tonight, as John and I are going to a symphony concert and it is a bit of a drive.  Haven’t been to one in so long because they are pretty pricey, and not all orchestras are worth the $$.   ( I am a former musician who played in orchestras, so I can say that 😛  )

Have a great night!

Question:  Do you feel the need to always be “doing”?

Bloggy run day

It’s Sunday and back to work for me… sigh… The weekend goes all too fast.  We headed on down to Saratoga for a different bagel today.

It has such a nice atmosphere inside:

John and I both got the same banana nut bagel today with honey walnut cream cheese!

Got home and worked, worked, worked!  Really busy today (which is good).  Stopped for a quick lunch of a scrambled egg wrap with Laughing Cow and a plum.  These are starting to make a comeback in stores now!

Then I had a little dessert:

Worked a little more and then participated in the blogger run day by doing 3 miles!  It was so beautiful outside – 50 degrees and sunny.  The track was dry, so John came with to walk while I ran and take some action shots.  Still big snow piles everywhere, though:

Nice shot of me running away – don’t I look speedy?

Leave it to my husband to take a picture of my butt.  At least he didn’t zoom in….

Just passin’ by:

I have to admit that I just was not feeling this run at all.  I almost never run in the afternoon anymore, and my calves were complaining, which is really weird, but I think that was probably from biking yesterday.  It was a real slog getting through this.  But I finished!

I needed a pick-me-up after we got back, and this hit the spot!

Mmmmm…. lattelicious.

So an update.  The scale isn’t budging for me on my desire to go for 140, but my snacking has gotten bad again.  I really need to get serious and quit dinking around.  I am actually going to reduce my cardio a little bit, too, which will help with the snacking, I think.  I will have a running FAQ post up this week (I promise!).

Dinner was an old friend I haven’t had for a while – clam strips!  With some brussel sprouts and strawberries.  Tasty.

Done with work for the day and need to make a strength training workout for this week.  Back to lifting – yay! :mrgreen:

I don’t watch the Oscars, but I guess those are on tonight.  The only movie I have seen in theaters in at least a year was The Princess and The Frog.  Can you believe that?  And the movie before that was Batman with Heath Ledger.

Question: Do you watch the Oscars?

Red Beans and Rice

Thanks for the comments on me and my sis!  She is the older one, btw :mrgreen: , but only by 14 months.  Regarding yesterday’s run.  I had planned on 6 miles, so that is why I went to the gym to finish up the run.  I tend to be quite disciplined with my exercise (unlike my food), so I knew that if I wasn’t going to finish outside, I needed to go the gym.  I would have been disappointed if I had stopped at 2 miles.  That’s just me, though.  The gym is only a couple miles from my house, and it was just opening up when I came back home, so it’s pretty easy to pop over there.

Sunday bagel day!  We were up a little early (like that is new…) and headed out to Panera.  The gingerbread bagel is gone, but one of my favorites is back!  The trail mix bagel!

WooHoo.  Full of nuts and bits of dried fruit.  So tasty.

Since we were early, we could sit and chat for a while over 3 cups of coffee.  Then we did a quick grocery trip for things we couldn’t get at BJs yesterday.  Fastest shopping ever!   And strawberries were in stock – although $3.99 a pound (still got some 😀 )

Lots of work to do today.  I think some MTs are on vacation or sick, because there has been a backup of work, which is unusual for this time of year, so my workday started fast and furious.  Lunch was some fresh cut pineapple and an open-face egg sammie!

That was the last of the corporate waffles, which we will never buy again (unless the wafflemaker breaks!).

Afternoon break of a latte!

No snack with it.  I went waaaay overboard on chocolate last night while watching football, so today is definitely a lower calorie day.  It wasn’t even the chocolate from the giant bag of chips, either.  I go along so well, and then have a backslide from time to time.  Sigh……..  Good thing I did 6 miles.

Our house smells so fabulous.  We watched Good Eats last week and AB made some red beans and rice. They looked so, so good!  So, we decided to make them today.  Actually, John made because of me working.  He followed the recipe except for using a smoked pork hock (from the smokehouse) instead of pickled pork and left out the celery, as it was bad.  He also used less garlic 😀

It was very good!  I didn’t want kidney beans, so we found a bag of small red beans.  I was pretty okay with their texture.  Served with brown rice and hot sauce, of course!  We have enough of this to feed an army!  Anyone want to stop by?  🙂 Hope it freezes well.

Dessert was strawberries drizzled with a bit of chocolate sauce (that John also made today.

Perfectly simple and fresh.

We’ve got snow a comin’ tonight!  I like snow for the most part, but I have to say with the snow on the way and the red beans and rice for dinner, I am so looking forward to New Orleans in 2 weeks!  Eeeeeeeeeeeee!!! :mrgreen:

Question:  Do you like snow?

Giant protein and sweet potato yum.

Had a great treadmill run today.  5 miles of increasing speed up to 7.0!  I was sweating like crazy and loving every minute.  Exercise is such a great stress buster, don’t you think?

I spoke with the gym owner this morning, as I hadn’t seen him since last Monday and offered my condolences on his friend and co-owner.  I asked him if there was anything I could do and he  said, “Just keep coming in between 7 and 8 in the mornings like you usually do so I won’t be staring at the walls, since you are usually the only one here.”  That about broke my heart.  It does seem that at least for that first 1/2 hour or so,  I am alone – which I actually like.

I was so ready for breakfast when I got home.  My Luna bar was good for the run, but I was ready to eat!

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I pan sauteed a pear in a tsp of coconut oil, cinnamon and a tsp of brown sugar and topped it onto steel cut oats.  Nummmmmm…….

Regarding the refinance I was speaking of, this is a rental house we own, not the house we live in.  We were refinancing to get a better interest rate because as an investment property, it is quite high.  We are probably just going to put it on the market in January, as there is one tenant in there now who can’t afford the rent by himself (his roommate moved out).  I like the tenant.  It’s just annoying to deal with at this point.  The house was originally a fix-and-sell, but it didn’t sell.

Lunch was some greek yogurt, protein powder, strawberries and my chai granola.

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Yum, but it’s too cold for this now!  I am done with yogurt for a while, I think.

Then it was off to get stuff for Christmas dinner and to use my BJ’s wholesale gift certificate:

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I have a 2-month free membership, so we had to check it out before the end of the year.  Have any of you been to this place?  Everything is giant size!  I died when I saw a 5-pound bag of protein powder:

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Too bad it is artificially sweetened, or I would have gotten it :mrgreen:  We did get some great deals on almonds ($3.99 a pound!) and milk, so we had no problem using up the gift certificate.  The fresh produce wasn’t such a great deal and the bulk buying is too much for just 2 of us.  I don’t think we will get a membership.

After fighting the crowds there, we went to relax at Virgil’s.  A cool thing about Virgil’s is that they ask that you turn off your cell phones and have no laptops there.  The place is full of books and games.

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The atmosphere is cozy and what I would like in a cafe if I had one 😀

Had a delicious skim latte.

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Then we had to hit up the other grocery store to get things we couldn’t find at BJ’s.  I was ready to get home and away from the crowds, that’s for sure!

Dinner was a bit of a mish mash that turned out quite good!  We cooked up a sweet potato and split it in half.  I topped mine with some sauteed broccoli, chicken, and cheese.  I had a lot of broccoli on the side, too.

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John had his half with butter and brown sugar LOL!  Sweet and savory from the same potato.  Warm and yummy in the tummy!

Ornament of the day:

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Cardinals are one of my favorite birds.  We have a pair that had a baby last year and they were so fun to watch!  Debby, I know you will appreciate this ornament. 😀

Off to wrap presents and have a bunch of tea and a snack to keep warm!

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!

Breakfast with mom and my carbs

John and I met my mother for breakfast this morning.  No workout today.  I am taking it easy for my back.  We met at Cafe on The Park:

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Tiny place with a maximum occupancy of 27, but I don’t know where that many people would fit!  The prices are so low here, it’s crazy.  I would have loved french toast or a big omelet, but I saw that oatmeal was on the menu, so I went with that.  I also ordered a side of peanut butter and put a jam packet on it 😀

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It was just missing the banana!  Not sure why toast is served with oatmeal, but I managed just to eat 1 slice (I do love toast).  The 3 of us ate breakfast here for less than $12 – can you believe it?

This shirt was on the wall, and I got the biggest kick out of it.

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Lunchtime included a mango that I got this weekend.  They were on sale, so I had to get one.  Plus some kiwi.  Boca burger with laughing cow.  Num.

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It’s funny when you write a post, you never know what is going to stick out with the readers.  Yesterday I was focused on my strength workout, and it seemed everyone noticed all the carbs I ate!  I normally do not have that many carbs every day, but once in a while is not a problem.  Most regular readers know that I don’t eat a lot of actual bread or pasta (except for my bagels).  My carbs usually come in the form of grains (oats) or wraps.  Because I usually work out in the morning, I do the majority of my daily carbs for breakfast and only have fruit and veggies with my dinner protein.  And yes, I do eat bagels twice a week.  I love them and I don’t find food to be scary any more.  I think a lot of people are scared of breads.  Again, everything in moderation!  (I do have to say that phrase annoys me a little 😉  )

The main reason I don’t eat a lot of bread is because I am a volume eater and 1 slice of good whole grain bread can easily be 140 calories.  Sure, I could get the reduced calorie bread, but it either has splenda in it, or is too soft for me.  I loves me some hearty bread.  That is where the waffles come in.  Nutrigrain waffles are 140 calories for 2, so it makes for a perfect sandwich option!

My new buddy hung out by the window today.  Look how brazen he is!

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He says, “You want a piece of me??”

John made lattes today.  He almost always does them with a little something extra.  This has his homemade dulce de leche drizzled on top:

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I’m spoiled 😳

He also cooked dinner tonight as I made a dessert.  He did a stir fry of chicken and pineapple with teriyaki sauce.  Of course, you know what I had to add to that bowl!

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I really wish I could get John to eat broccoli.  He will sometimes try a piece, but he doesn’t like it that much.  He is eating more veggies in general, though – so that makes me happy.  He is almost at his goal weight, too (stinker….).

I will show a picture of what I made for dessert, but the recipe is being submitted for a contest so I can’t share just yet.  Be known that it is very good and a bit decadent:

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Gonna need to do some running tomorrow LOL!

It’s officially my weekend!  I have decided to goof around tonight and relax.  Watch Project Runway and have some couch time.

Question:  Project Runway viewer?